Kaman-Kalehöyük is a multi-period archaeological site in Kırşehir Province, Turkey, around 100 km south east of Ankara 6 km east of the town center of Kaman. It is a tell or mound site that was occupied during the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Ottoman periods. Since 1986 it has been investigated by archaeologists from the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan.

In 2005, metallurgical analysis by Hideo Akanuma of iron fragments found at Kaman-Kalehöyük in 1994 and dating to c. 1800 BCE revealed that some of these fragments were composed of carbon steel; these currently form the world’s earliest known evidence for steel manufacture.

Ancient iron production

Iron

Astronomy/Astrology-Mythology/Religion – The base of our understanding of the universe – straight from the cradle – the omphalo – the meeting place between the two worlds – our mother’s navel :-)

How religion spread across the world

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If we turn everything around we are not bodies with a soul, but souls using our bodies – your body is like your temple – treat it good!

It might look like we are single enteties, but in reality we are all connected – the most important is not the individual brain cells, but how the brain cells interact with each other. Each of us share the same circle of life, and all of us are physically linked together as a larger spiritual entity.

We are all inseparable from our mother, the Earth. Our ancient mythologies tells us about who we are and the different forces which define our lives. It is a cycical and ecological world that functions like every other organism. As with all other living beings we take part in the cycle of death and rebirth.

Some people says magic have disappeared with the beginning of science, but maybe it is just the way we have looked at science which have made the magic disappear. Men have come to rule the world, not just as men, but as men – first we suppressed the women, than the rest of the world.

Science is not just science – there is a lot of different ways to look at science. Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Later it has been argued that materialism has been disproven by certain scientific findings in physics, such as quantum mechanics and chaos theory.

Portasar – Gobekli Tepe

Ancient megalithic monuments seen in the Balearic Islands, Spain

This taula (T-shaped stone setting) is housed within a temple complex and a Late Bronze Age village on Menorca, the Balearic Islands, Spain. It dates to around 1300 BC.

The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in Europe is associated with demographic changes that may have shifted the human gene pool of the region as a result of an influx of Neolithic farmers from the Near East. However, the genetic composition of populations after the earliest Neolithic, when a diverse mosaic of societies that had been fully engaged in agriculture for some time appeared in central Europe, is poorly known.

At this period during the Late Neolithic (ca. 2,800–2,000 BC), regionally distinctive burial patterns associated with two different cultural groups emerge, Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, and may reflect differences in how these societies were organized.

Ancient DNA analyses of human remains from the Late Neolithic Bell Beaker site of Kromsdorf, Germany showed distinct mitochondrial haplotypes for six individuals, which were classified under the haplogroups I1, K1, T1, U2, U5, and W5, and two males were identified as belonging to the Y haplogroup R1b.

In contrast to other Late Neolithic societies in Europe emphasizing maintenance of biological relatedness in mortuary contexts, the diversity of maternal haplotypes evident at Kromsdorf suggests that burial practices of Bell Beaker communities operated outside of social norms based on shared maternal lineages. Studies indicate that modern U5-lineages may have received little, if any, contribution from the Mesolithic or Neolithic mitochondrial gene pool.

Balkan

The Balkan region was the first area in Europe to experience the arrival of farming cultures in the Neolithic era. The practices of growing grain and raising livestock arrived in the Balkans from the Fertile Crescent by way of Anatolia and spread west and north into Pannonia and Central Europe.

Archaeologists have identified several early culture-complexes in the region, including the Starčevo culture (6500 to 4000 BC) the Linear pottery culture (5500 to 4500 BC), the Lengyel culture (5000-3400 BC), the Butmir culture (5100–4500 BC), the Vinča culture (5000 to 3000 BC), the Varna culture (4600-4200 BC), the Stroke-ornamented ware culture or Stroked Pottery culture, known as Danubian Ib culture by V. Gordon Childe, or Middle Danubian culture (4600-4400 BC), the Rössen Culture (4,600–4,300 BC), the Cucuteni culture (4500 to 3500 BC), the Baden culture (ca 3600-2800 BC) and the Ezero culture (3300—2700 BC).

The Rössen culture is important as it marks the transition from a broad and widely distributed tradition going back to Central Europe’s earliest Neolithic LBK towards the more diversified Middle and Late Neolithic situation characterised by the appearance of complexes like Michelsberg and Funnel Beaker Culture.

Vinča culture developed a form of proto-writing before the Sumerians and Minoans, known as the Old European script, while the bulk of the symbols had been created in the period between 4500 and 4000 BC, with the ones on the Tărtăria clay tablets even dating back to around 5300 BC. The Varna culture produced the world’s earliest known gold treasure, communicated with the Mediterranean and had sophisticated beliefs about afterlife.

Old Europe is a term coined by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceived as a relatively homogeneous pre-Indo-European Neolithic culture in southeastern Europe located in the Danube River valley. Archaeologists and ethnographers working within her framework believe that the evidence points to later migrations and invasions of the peoples who spoke Indo-European languages at the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Old Europe, or Neolithic Europe, refers to the time between the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe, roughly from 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) to ca. 1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age in northwest Europe). The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4000 years (i. e., 7000–3000 BCE); in North-West Europe it is just under 3000 years (ca. 4500–1700 BCE).

Haplogroup R1b

Haplogroup R* originated in North Asia just before the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500-19,000 years ago). This haplogroup has been identified in the remains of a 24,000 year-old boy from the Altai region, in south-central Siberia. This individual belonged to a tribe of mammoth hunters that may have roamed across Siberia and parts of Europe during the Paleolithic.

Autosomally this Paleolithic population appears to have contributed mostly to the ancestry of modern Europeans and South Asians, the two regions where haplogroup R also happens to be the most common nowadays (R1b in Western Europe, R1a in Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia, and R2 in South Asia).

The oldest forms of R1b (M343, P25, L389) are found dispersed at very low frequencies from Western Europe to India, a vast region where could have roamed the nomadic R1b hunter-gatherers during the Ice Age. The three main branches of R1b1 (R1b1a, R1b1b, R1b1c) all seem to have stemmed from the Middle East.

The southern branch, R1b1c (V88), is found mostly in the Levant and Africa. The northern branch, R1b1a (P297), seems to have originated around the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia or northern Mesopotamia, then to have crossed over the Caucasus, from where they would have invaded Europe and Central Asia. R1b1b (M335) has only been found in Anatolia.

It has been hypothetised that R1b people (perhaps alongside neighbouring J2 tribes) were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 10,500 years ago. R1b tribes descended from mammoth hunters, and when mammoths went extinct, they started hunting other large game such as bisons and aurochs.

With the increase of the human population in the Fertile Crescent from the beginning of the Neolithic (starting 12,000 years ago), selective hunting and culling of herds started replacing indiscriminate killing of wild animals. The increased involvement of humans in the life of aurochs, wild boars and goats led to their progressive taming.

Cattle herders probably maintained a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence, while other people in the Fertile Crescent (presumably represented by haplogroups E1b1b, G and T) settled down to cultivate the land or keep smaller domesticates.

The analysis of bovine DNA has revealed that all the taurine cattle (Bos taurus) alive today descend from a population of only 80 aurochs. The earliest evidence of cattle domestication dates from circa 8,500 BCE in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Taurus Mountains.

The two oldest archaeological sites showing signs of cattle domestication are the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja’de el-Mughara in northern Iraq, two sites only 250 km away from each others. This is presumably the area from which R1b lineages started expanding – or in other words the “original homeland” of R1b.

The early R1b cattle herders would have split in at least three groups. One branch (M335) remained in Anatolia, but judging from its extreme rarity today wasn’t very successful, perhaps due to the heavy competition with other Neolithic populations in Anatolia, or to the scarcity of pastures in this mountainous environment.

A second branch migrated south to the Levant, where it became the V88 branch. Some of them searched for new lands south in Africa, first in Egypt, then colonising most of northern Africa, from the Mediterranean coast to the Sahel.

The third branch (P297), crossed the Caucasus into the vast Pontic-Caspian Steppe, which provided ideal grazing grounds for cattle. They split into two factions: R1b1a1 (M73), which went east along the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, and R1b1a2 (M269), which at first remained in the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe between the Dnieper and the Volga.

It is not yet clear whether M73 actually migrated across the Caucasus and reached Central Asia via Kazakhstan, or if it went south through Iran and Turkmenistan. In the latter case, M73 might not be an Indo-European branch of R1b, just like V88 and M335.

R1b-M269 (the most common form in Europe) is closely associated with the diffusion of Indo-European languages, as attested by its presence in all regions of the world where Indo-European languages were spoken in ancient times from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Indian subcontinent. The history of R1b and R1a are intricately connected to each others.

The R1b conquest of Europe happened in two phases. For nearly two millennia, starting from circa 4200 BCE, steppe people limited their conquest to the rich Chalcolithic civilisations of the Carpathians and the Balkans. These societies possessed the world’s largest towns, notably the tell settlements of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture.

Nothing incited the R1b conquerors to move further into Western Europe at such an early stage, because most of the land north and west of the Alps was still sparsely populated woodland. The Neolithic did not reach the British Isles and Scandinavia before circa 4000 BCE. Even northern France and most of the Alpine region had been farming or herding for less than a millennium and were still quite primitive compared to Southeast Europe and the Middle East.

North-west Europe remained a tribal society of hunter-gatherers practising only limited agriculture for centuries after the conquest of the Balkans by the Indo-Europeans. Why would our R1b “conquistadors” leave the comfort of the wealthy and populous Danubian civilisations for the harsh living conditions that lie beyond Bronze Age people coveted tin, copper, and gold, of which the Balkans had plenty, but that no one had yet discovered in Western Europe.

The first forays of steppe people into the Balkans happened between 4200 BCE and 3900 BCE, when cattle herders equipped with horse-drawn wagons crossed the Dniester and Danube and apparently destroyed the towns of the Gumelnita, Varna and Karanovo VI cultures in Eastern Romania and Bulgaria.

A climatic change resulting in colder winters during this exact period probably pushed steppe herders to seek milder pastures for their stock, while failed crops would have led to famine and internal disturbance within the Danubian and Balkanic communities.

The ensuing Cernavoda culture (Copper Age, 4000-3200 BCE), Coțofeni culture (Copper to Bronze Age, 3500-2500 BCE) and Ezero culture (Bronze Age, 3300-2700 BCE), in modern Romania, seems to have had a mixed population of steppe immigrants and people from the old tell settlements. These steppe immigrants were likely a mixture of both R1a and R1b lineages, with a probably higher percentage of R1a than later Yamna-era invasions.

The steppe invaders would have forced many Danubian farmers to migrate to the Cucuteni-Trypillian towns in the eastern Carpathians, causing a population boom and a north-eastward expansion until the Dnieper valley, bringing Y-haplogroups G2a, I2a1 (probably the dominant lineage of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture), E1b1b, J and T in what is now central Ukraine.

This precocious Indo-European advance westward was fairly limited, due to the absence of Bronze weapons and organised army at the time, and was indeed only possible thanks to climatic catastrophes which reduced the defences of the towns of Old Europe. The Carphatian, Danubian, and Balkanic cultures were too densely populated and technologically advanced to allow for a massive migration.

In comparison the forest-steppe R1a people successfully penetrated into the heart of Europe with little hindrance, due to the absence of developed agrarian societies around Poland and the Baltic. The Corded Ware culture (3200-1800 BCE) was a natural western expansion of the Yamna culture, reaching as far west as Germany and as far north as Sweden and Norway.

DNA analysis from the Corded Ware culture site of Eulau confirms the presence of R1a (but not R1b) in central Germany around 2600 BCE. The Corded Ware tribes expanded from the northern fringe of the Yamna culture where R1a lineages were prevalent over R1b ones.

The expansion of R1b people into Old Europe was slower, but proved inevitable. In 2800 BCE, by the time the Corded Ware had already reached Scandinavia, the Bronze Age R1b cultures had barely moved into the Pannonian steppe. They established major settlements in the Great Hungarian Plain, the most similar habitat to their ancestral Pontic Steppes.

Around 2500 BCE, the western branch of Indo-European R1b were poised for their next major expansion into modern Germany and Western Europe. By that time, the R1b immigrants had blended to a great extent with the indigenous Mesolithic and Neolithic populations of the Danubian basin, where they had now lived for 1,700 years.

The strongly partriarchal Indo-European elite remained almost exclusively R1b on the paternal side, but absorbed a high proportion of non-Indo-European maternal lineages. Hybridised, the new Proto-Indo-European R1b people would have lost most of their remaining Proto-Europoid or Mongolid features inherited from their Caspian origins (which were still clearly visible in numerous individuals from the Yamna period).

Their light hair, eye and skin pigmentation, once interbred with the darker inhabitants of Old Europe, became more like that of modern Southern Europeans. The R1a people of the Corded Ware culture would come across far less populous societies in Northern Europe, mostly descended from the lighter Mesolithic population (haplogroup I1 and I2), and therefore retain more of their original pigmentation (although facial traits evolved considerably in Scandinavia, where the I1 inhabitants were strongly dolicocephalic and long-faced, as opposed to the brachycephalic and broad-faced steppe people).

R1b-L51 is thought to have arrived in Central Europe (Hungary, Austria, Bohemia) around 2500 BCE, approximately two millennia after the shift to the Neolithic in these regions. Agrarian towns had started to develop. Gold and copper had begun to be mined. The prospects of a conquest were now far more appealing.

The archeological and genetic evidence (distribution of R1b subclades) point at several consecutive waves towards eastern and central Germany between 2800 BCE and 2300 BCE. The Unetice culture was probably the first culture in which R1b-L11 lineages played a major role.

It is interesting to note that the Unetice period happen to correspond to the end of the Maykop (2500 BCE) and Kemi Oba (2200 BCE) cultures on the northern shores of the Black Sea, and their replacement by cultures descended from the northern steppes.

It can be envisaged that the (mostly) R1b population from the northern half of the Black Sea migrated westward due to pressure from other Indo-European people (R1a) from the north, for example that of the burgeoning Proto-Indo-Iranian branch, linked to the contemporary Poltavka and Abashevo cultures.

As communities acquired the secrets of alloying brass and arsenic, tin, zinc, or lead, achieving the first items in bronze, the long period during which stone constituted the main raw material for fashioning implements and weapons was coming to an end.

The emergence and development of bronze metallurgy is accompanied by numerous substantial changes in economic and social life, in the spiritual life, and in the arts. The ensemble of these modifications – archeologically identifiable especially midway in the Bronze Age, yet already prefigured early on in the transition period from the Eneolithic to the Bronze Age – indicates a civilization far more sophisticated than we had imagined.

For a long time the Bronze Age was formerly divided into four periods, but the archeological facts have imposed in the last decades the use of a three-part system: Early, Middle and Late Bronze. In absolute chronology this historical period covers most of the period between 3000-2000 BC.

The first stage of the Early Bronze Age is a genuine cultural mosaic, juxtaposing transitory civilizations with those typical of the Bronze Age. For the first, the most typical is the Baden – Coţofeni cultural bloc, which perpetuated in many aspects a transitory lifestyle, but evolved in parallel to the pre-Schneckenberg and Schneckenberg civilisations, which were more active in taking over the products of the Aegean-Anatolian Early Bronze.

One can no longer speak of Eneolithic or neo-Eneolithic cultures, as defined by this historical period, for the changes occurring in the social structure are radical. The rise in status of the chieftains, indicated by the erection of tumulus funeral monuments, the different type of metallurgy, the different type of economy based on greater mobility as evinced by the impressive number of settlements belonging to the Coţofeni culture.

During the second stage, in the center of Transylvania there develops a cultural group bearing the name of the locality of Copăceni (Cluj County), which favored the locations afforded by the elevated sites in the eastern, and probably western, arch of the Western Carpathians and the upper basin of the Someş rivers.

Their main pursuits were agriculture, animal breeding and ore extraction. They had surface dwellings, medium sized (3x4m) with a rectangular layout, and pottery displays mainly high-necked pots with a short bottom portion often decorated with barbotine.

Frequently the pots’ rims are thickened and decorated with rope impressions. The dead are buried in tumuli such as those at Cheile Aiudului, Cheile Turzii or Cheile Turului. The Copăceni group evolved in parallel to the Şoimuş and Jigodin groups, the former in the south-west, and the latter in south-east Transylvania.

Finally, the third stage is the least known, and is characterized by the use of ceramics with brush decorations and textile impressions. Non-ferrous metallurgy in Early Bronze Age, given the substantial fall in production as compared to the Eneolithic, should be regarded as undergoing some sort of realignment, or repositioning, rather than indicating an acute decline.

The causes of this phenomenon are many and diverse (exhaustion of the usual mineral sources, major technological changes, disturbing ethnic reshuffling, etc.). Significantly, the first bronze items (brass alloyed with arsenic and later tin) now emerged.

The archeological sites of this period have uncovered more varied jewelry (hair rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants made in copper, bronze or gold), poniards, flat axes as well as ‘raised margin’ axes. Yet the most important achievement of the age is the single-edged axe. Apparently the majority of these products were manufactured in local workshops.

The proof is the numerous moulds for casting axes discovered at Leliceni (Harghita County) part of the Jigodin group. Hard to ignore is the often evoked ritual hole at Fântânele, part of the Copăceni group, where were found fragments of moulds for casting metal items (little chisels, poniards, massive axes), testifying that the level of the Baniabic/Vâlcele (Cluj County) type of axe had certainly been attained.

Colin Renfrew’s competing Anatolian hypothesis suggests that the Indo-European languages were spread across Europe by the first farmers from Anatolia. In the hypothesis’ original formulation, the languages of Old Europe belonged to the Indo-European family but played no special role in its transmission.

According to Renfrew’s most recent revision of the theory however Old Europe was a “secondary urheimat” where the Greek, Armenian, and Balto-Slavic language families diverged around 5000 BCE.

It is generally proposed that a proto-Thracian people developed from a mixture of indigenous peoples and Indo-Europeans from the time of Proto-Indo-European expansion in the Early Bronze Age when the latter, around 1500 BC, mixed with indigenous peoples. We speak of proto-Thracians from which during the Iron Age (about 1000 BC) Dacians and Thracians begin developing.

Haplogroup J2

Haplogroup J2 is thought to have appeared somewhere in the Middle East towards the end of the last glaciation, between 15,000 and 22,000 years ago. Its present geographic distribution argues in favour of a Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent.

This expansion probably correlated with the diffusion of domesticated of cattle and goats (starting c. 8000-9000 BCE) from the Zagros Mountains and northern Mesopotamia, rather than with the development of cereal agriculture in the Levant (which appears to be linked rather to haplogroups G2 and E1b1b).

A second expansion of J2 could have occured with the advent of metallurgy, notably copper working (from the Lower Danube valley, central Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia), and the rise of some of the oldest civilisations.

Quite a few ancient Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilisations flourished in territories where J2 lineages were preponderant. This is the case of the Hattians, the Hurrians, the Etruscans, the Minoans, the Greeks, the Phoenicians (and their Carthaginian offshoot), the Israelites, and to a lower extent also the Romans, the Assyrians and the Persians. All the great seafaring civilisations from the middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age were dominated by J2 men.

There is a distinct association of ancient J2 civilisations with bull worship. The oldest evidence of a cult of the bull can be traced back to Neolithic central Anatolia, notably at the sites of Çatalhöyük and Alaca Höyük. Bull depictions are omnipresent in Minoan frescos and ceramics in Crete. Bull-masked terracotta figurines and bull-horned stone altars have been found in Cyprus (dating back as far as the Neolithic, the first presumed expansion of J2 from West Asia).

The Hattians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Canaaites, and Carthaginians all had bull deities (in contrast with Indo-European or East Asian religions). The sacred bull of Hinduism, Nandi, present in all temples dedicated to Shiva or Parvati, does not have an Indo-European origin, but can be traced back to Indus Valley civilisation.

Minoan Crete, Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley also shared a tradition of bull leaping, the ritual of dodging the charge of a bull. It survives today in the traditional bullfighting of Andalusia in Spain and Provence in France, two regions with a high percentage of J2 lineages.

Ubaid

The Ubaid period (ca. 6500 to 3800 BCE) is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially by Henry Hall and later by Leonard Woolley.

Ubaid culture originated in the south, but still has clear connections to earlier cultures in the region of middle Iraq. The appearance of the Ubaid folk has sometimes been linked to the so-called Sumerian problem, related to the origins of Sumerian civilisation.

Whatever the ethnic origins of this group this culture saw for the first time a clear tripartite social division between intensive subsistence peasant farmers, with crops and animals coming from the north, tent-dwelling nomadic pastoralists dependent upon their herds, and hunter-fisher folk of the Arabian littoral, living in reed huts.

Ubaid 1, sometimes called Eridu (5300–4700 BCE), a phase limited to the extreme south of Iraq, on what was then the shores of the Persian Gulf. This phase, showing clear connection to the Samarra culture to the north, saw the establishment of the first permanent settlement south of the 5 inch rainfall isohyet. These people pioneered the growing of grains in the extreme conditions of aridity, thanks to the high water tables of Southern Iraq.

The Ubaid period as a whole, based upon the analysis of grave goods, was one of increasingly polarised social stratification and decreasing egalitarianism. Bogucki describes this as a phase of “Trans-egalitarian” competitive households, in which some fall behind as a result of downward social mobility.

Morton Fried and Elman Service have hypothesised that Ubaid culture saw the rise of an elite class of hereditary chieftains, perhaps heads of kin groups linked in some way to the administration of the temple shrines and their granaries, responsible for mediating intra-group conflict and maintaining social order.

It would seem that various collective methods, perhaps instances of what Thorkild Jacobsen called primitive democracy, in which disputes were previously resolved through a council of one’s peers, were no longer sufficient for the needs of the local community.

Stein and Özbal describe the Near East oikumene that resulted from Ubaid expansion, contrasting it to the colonial expansionism of the later Uruk period. “A contextual analysis comparing different regions shows that the Ubaid expansion took place largely through the peaceful spread of an ideology, leading to the formation of numerous new indigenous identities that appropriated and transformed superficial elements of Ubaid material culture into locally distinct expressions”.

In South Mesopotamia the period is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. In the south it has a very long duration between about 6500 and 3800 BCE when it is replaced by the Uruk period.

Ubaid 3/4, sometimes called Ubaid I and Ubaid II — In the period from 4500–4000 BCE saw a period of intense and rapid urbanisation with the Ubaid culture spread into northern Mesopotamia and was adopted by the Halaf culture. Ubaid artifacts spread also all along the Arabian littoral, showing the growth of a trading system that stretched from the Mediterranean coast through to Oman.

The archaeological record shows that Arabian Bifacial/Ubaid period came to an abrupt end in eastern Arabia and the Oman peninsula at 3800 BCE, just after the phase of lake lowering and onset of dune reactivation.

At this time, increased aridity led to an end in semi-desert nomadism, and there is no evidence of human presence in the area for approximately 1000 years, the so-called “Dark Millennium”. This might be due to the 5.9 kiloyear event at the end of the Older Peron, the name for a period identified in 1961 as an episode of a global sea-level (i.e. eustatic) high-stand during the Holocene Epoch.

In North Mesopotamia the period runs only between about 5300 and 4300 BCE. It is preceded by the Halaf period and the Halaf-Ubaid Transitional period and succeeded by the Late Chalcolithic period.

Leyla-Tepe

The Leyla-Tepe culture is a culture of archaeological interest from the Chalcolithic era. Its population was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern Azerbaijan, Agdam District), from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

The Leyla-Tepe culture includes a settlement in the lower layer of the settlements Poilu I, Poilu II, Boyuk-Kesik I and Boyuk-Kesik II. They apparently buried their dead in ceramic vessels. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture.

The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslan-tepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets.

It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture (ca. 3700 BC—3000 BC), a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, whose views are highly controversial, suggest that the Maykop culture (or its ancestor) may have been a way-station for Indo-Europeans migrating from the South Caucasus and/or eastern Anatolia to a secondary Urheimat on the steppe. This would essentially place the Anatolian stock in Anatolia from the beginning, and in this respect only, agrees with Colin Renfrew’s Anatolian hypothesis.

Shulaveri culture

Shulaveri culture, thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures, predates the Kura-Araxes culture and surrounding areas, which is assigned to the period of ca. 4000 – 2200 BC, and had close relation with the middle Bronze Age culture called Trialeti culture (ca. 3000 – 1500 BC). Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.

The Shulaveri-Shomu and other Neolithic/Chalcolithic cultures of the Southern Caucasus use local obsidian for tools, raise animals such as cattle and pigs, and grow crops, including grapes. Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).

Yamna culture

In 2015 researchers reported that, based on the DNA analysis of 98 ancient skeletons from Europe and Russia, there had been a massive migration of Yamna culture (“Pit [Grave] Culture”, dated to the 3600–2300 BC) from the North Pontic steppe into Europe about 4,500 years ago. The name also appears in English as Pit Grave Culture or Ochre Grave Culture.

The Yamna culture, a late copper age/early Bronze Age culture of the Southern Bug/Dniester/Ural region (the Pontic steppe), is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas.

It is a candidate for the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture, now that archaeological evidence of the culture and its migrations has been closely tied to the evidence from linguistics and genetics.

Pavel Dolukhanov argues that the emergence of the Pit-Grave culture represents a social development of various local Bronze Age cultures, representing “an expression of social stratification and the emergence of chiefdom-type nomadic social structures”, which in turn intensified inter-group contacts between essentially heterogeneous social groups.

It originated in the middle Volga based Khvalynsk culture, an Eneolithic (copper age) culture of the first half of the 5th millennium BC, discovered at Khvalynsk on the Volga in Saratov Oblast, Russia, and the middle Dnieper based Sredny Stog culture. In its western range, it is succeeded by the Catacomb culture; in the east, by the Poltavka culture and the Srubna culture.

The Khvalynsk culture, stretching from Saratov in the north to the North Caucasus in the south, from the Sea of Azov in the west to the Ural River in the east, was preceded by the Early Eneolithic or Samara culture, from which it came, and succeeded by the Late Eneolithic, or Early Yamna culture, to which it descended. Some regard Khvalynsk I as Early Eneolithic, contemporary with the Samara culture. Not enough Samara culture dates and sites exist to settle the question.

DNA from the remains of nine individuals associated with the Yamna culture from the border between Samara Oblast and Orenburg Oblast has been analyzed. The remains have been dated to 3339-2700 BCE.

Y-chromosome sequencing revealed that one of the individuals belonged to haplogroup R1b1-P25 (the subclade could not be determined), one individual belonged to haplogroup R1b1a2a-L23 (and to neither the Z2103 nor the L51 subclades), and five individuals belonged to R1b1a2a2-Z2103. The individuals belonged to mtDNA haplogroups U4a1, W6, H13a1a1a, T2c1a2, U5a1a1, H2b, W3a1a and H6a1b.

A 2015 genome wide study of 94 ancient skeletons from Europe and Russia concluded that Yamnaya autosomal characteristics are very close to the Corded Ware culture people with an estimated a 73% ancestral contribution from the Yamnaya DNA in the DNA of Corded Ware skeletons from Germany.

The same study estimated a 40–54% ancestral contribution of the Yamnaya in the DNA of modern Central & Northern Europeans, and a 20–32% contribution in modern Southern Europeans, excluding Sardinians (7.1% or less) and to a lesser extent Sicilians (11.6% or less).

The Catacomb culture, covering several related archaeological cultures, was first to introduce corded pottery decorations into the steppes and showed a profuse use of the polished battle axe, providing a link to the West. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture, including provoked cranial deformations, provide a link to the East. It was preceded by the Yamna culture and succeeded by the western Corded Ware culture. The Catacomb culture in the Pontic steppe was succeeded by the Srubna culture from c. the 17th century BCE.

The Corded Ware Culture

The Bell Beaker period marks a period of unprecedented cultural contact in Atlantic and Western Europe on a scale not seen previously, nor again seen in succeeding periods.

It can be seen initially as the western equivalent of the contemporary Corded Ware Culture, alternatively characterized as the Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture (2900–2450/2350 BC), though from c. 2400 BC Bell Beaker expanded eastwards over parts of Central and Eastern Europe where Corded Ware previously thrived.

The Lengyel culture (5000-3400 BC) is a wide interaction sphere or cultural horizon rather than an archaeological culture in the narrow sense. Its distribution overlaps with the Tisza culture and with Stroke-Ornamented Pottery (STK) as far north as Osłonki, central Poland.

It was associated with the cover-term Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas, though may have been undergone “kurganization” by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and become integrated into the successor Globular Amphora culture (ca. 3400–2800 BC).

The Lengyel culture was preceded by the Linear Pottery culture (5500–4500 BC), a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic. In its northern extent it overlapped the somewhat later but otherwise approximately contemporaneous Funnelbeaker culture (ca 4300 BC–ca 2800 BC), an archaeological culture in north-central Europe. Also closely related are the Stroke-ornamented ware (4600-4400 BC) and Rössen cultures (4,600–4,300 BC), adjacent to the north and west, respectively.

The Funnelbeaker culture developed as a technological merger of local neolithic and Mesolithic techno-complexes between the lower Elbe and middle Vistula rivers, introducing farming and husbandry as a major source of food to the pottery-using hunter-gatherers north of this line.

Preceded by Lengyel-influenced Stroke-ornamented ware culture (STK) groups/Late Lengyel and Baden-Boleráz in the southeast, Rössen groups in the southwest and the Ertebølle-Ellerbek groups in the north, the Funnelbeaker techno-complex is divided into a northern group including modern northern eastalbingian Germany and southern Scandinavia (TRB-N, roughly the area that previously belonged to the Ertebølle-Ellerbek complex), a western group between Zuiderzee and lower Elbe, an eastern group centered on the Vistula catchment, roughly ranging from Oder to Bug, and south-central groups (TRB-MES, Altmark) around the middle and upper Elbe and Saale. Especially in the southern and eastern groups, local sequences of variants emerged.

In the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, the culture is seen as non-Indo-European, representing the culture of what Marija Gimbutas termed Old Europe, the peoples of which were later to be governed by the Indo-European-language-speaking peoples from the Yamna culture intruding in the east. The political relation between the aboriginal and intrusive cultures resulted in quick and smooth cultural morphosis into Corded Ware culture.

Heterodoxically, Dutch publications mention mixed burials and propose a quick and smooth internal change to Corded Ware within two generations occurring about 2900 BC in Dutch and Danish TRB territory, probably precluded by economic, cultural and religious changes in East Germany, and call the migrationist view of steppe intrusions introducing Indo-European languages obsolete (at least in this part of the world).

It has been suggested that the Funnelbeaker culture was the origin of the gene allowing adults of Northern European descent to digest lactose. It was claimed that in the area formerly inhabited by this culture, prevalence of the gene is virtually universal.

A paper published in 2007 by Burger et al. indicated that the genetic variant that causes lactose persistence in most Europeans (-13,910*T) was rare or absent in early farmers from central Europe. A study published by Yuval Itan and colleagues in 2010 clearly shows this.

A study published in 2009, also by Itan et al., suggests that the Linear Pottery culture (also known as Linearbandkeramik or LBK), which preceded the TRB culture by some 1,500 years, was the culture in which this trait started to co-evolve with the culture of dairying.

The Globular Amphora Culture occupied much of the same area as the earlier Funnelbeaker culture. Somewhat to the south and west, it was bordered by the Baden culture. To the northeast was the Narva culture. It is thought to be of Indo-European origin and preceded the central area occupied by the Corded Ware culture, which succeeded it.

The inclusion of animals in the grave is seen as an intrusive cultural element by Marija Gimbutas. The supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis point to these distinctive burial practices and state this may represent one of the earliest migrations of Indo-Europeans into Central Europe. In this context and given its area of occupation, this culture has been claimed as the underlying culture of a Germanic-Baltic-Slavic continuum.

In the late 4th millennium BC, the Globular Amphora culture (KAK) replaced most of the eastern and subsequently also the southern TRB groups, reducing the TRB area to modern northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. The younger TRB in these areas was superseded by the Single Grave culture (EGK) at about 2800 BC. The north-central European megaliths were built primarily during the TRB era.

The Corded Ware Culture was an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic (Stone Age), flourishes through the Copper Age and culminates in the early Bronze Age.

Other terms are corded pottery and corded ceramic, the latter being a calque in translations. It receives its name Corded Ware from the ornamentation of its characteristic pottery, Single Grave from its burial custom, and Battle Axe from its characteristic grave offering to males, a stone battle axe.

Thus in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, as far to the east as Poland, there is a sequence from Corded Ware to Bell Beaker, but this is not the case in Iberia, France or the British Isles, where Corded Ware is unknown.

The Corded Ware culture, reflected primarily by its burials, which consisted of inhumation under tumulus with various artifacts (notably battle-axes), is the major north and central European cultural grouping of the Copper Age, stretching from the Netherlands and Switzerland in the west, across southern Scandinavia and Central Europe as far east as the upper Volga (Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture) and middle Dnieper (Middle Dnieper culture).

Corded Ware coincides considerably with the earlier north-central European Funnelbeaker culture (TRB), with which it shares a similar physical type and several cultural characteristics, suggesting that the Corded Ware originated with the TRB at least in some regions. In other regions the Corded Ware appears to herald a new culture and physical type.

Concerning the origin of the Corded Ware culture, there is broadly a division between archaeologists who see an influence from pastoral societies of the steppes north of the Black Sea and those who think that Corded Ware springs from central Europe.

In places a continuity between Funnelbeaker and Corded Ware can be demonstrated, whereas in other areas Corded Ware heralds a new culture and physical type. On most of the immense, continental expanse that it covered, the culture was clearly intrusive, and therefore represents one of the most impressive and revolutionary cultural changes attested by archeology. The degree to which cultural change generally represents immigration is a matter of debate, and such debate has figured strongly in discussions of Corded Ware.

In summary, Corded Ware does not represent a single monolithic entity, but rather a diffusion of technological and cultural innovations of different, contemporaneous peoples, living in close proximity to each other and leaving different archaeological remains.

Because of their possession of both the horse and wheeled vehicles, apparent warlike propensities, wide area of distribution and rapid intrusive expansion at the assumed time of the dispersal of Indo-European languages, the Corded Ware culture was originally suggested as the Urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Today, a Corded Ware origin of these characteristics has lost currency in favour of an origin in the Black Sea-Caspian region, although this has been criticized. Corded Ware is however still generally considered ancestral to the Celts, Germanic peoples, Balts and Slavs. According to J. P. Mallory the origins and dispersal of Corded Ware culture is one of the pivotal unresolved issues of the Indo-European Urheimat problem.

The contemporary Beaker culture overlapped with the western extremity of this culture, west of the Elbe, and may have contributed to the pan-European spread of that culture. Although a similar social organization and settlement pattern to the Beaker were adopted, the Corded Ware group lacked the new refinements made possible through trade and communication by sea and rivers.

Kurgan hypothesis

The “Kurgan hypothesis” of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins assumes gradual expansion of the “Kurgan culture”, around 5000 BC, until it encompassed the entire pontic steppe. Kurgan IV was identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC.

The role of the invasion of the pastoral tribes coming from the north-Pontic (supposedly Indo-European kinship) in bringing to an end the Eneolithic culture of sedentary farmers represents one of the hotly debated issues among specialists in the prehistory of south-eastern Europe. The archeological data available present the Eneolithic as a period of stability, in which the sedentary populations created some of the most spectacular civilizations within the European area.

According to Gimbutas’ version of the Kurgan hypothesis, Old Europe was invaded and destroyed by horse-riding pastoral nomads from the Pontic-Caspian steppe (the “Kurgan culture”) who brought with them violence, patriarchy, and Indo-European languages.

More recent proponents of the Kurgan hypothesis agree that the cultures of Old Europe spoke pre-Indo-European languages but include a less dramatic transition, with a prolonged migration of Proto-Indo-European speakers after Old Europe’s collapse because of other factors.

What once might have seemed exclusively a migration of nomadic tribes, now may be understood as a socio-economic transformation of the local population—its adaptation to the new environment, to the evolution of society (the increasing role of the animal breeders and shepherds, the development of metallurgy, extended mobility, the increasingly military role of the elites, changes in the belief systems, etc.).

Cucuteni-Trypillian culture

The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture (ca. 4800 to 3000 BC), known as Cucuteni in Romanian and Trypilska in Ukrainian, is a Neolithic–Eneolithic archaeological culture in Eastern Europe. It extends from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, centered on modern-day Moldova and covering substantial parts of western Ukraine and northeastern Romania, encompassing an area of some 350,000 km2 (140,000 sq mi), with a diameter of some 500 km (300 mi; roughly from Kyiv in the northeast to Brasov in the southwest).

The majority of Cucuteni-Trypillian settlements consisted of high-density, small settlements (spaced 3 to 4 kilometers apart), concentrated mainly in the Siret, Prut, and Dniester river valleys. During the Middle Trypillia phase (ca. 4000 to 3500 BC) populations belonging to the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture built the largest settlements in Neolithic Europe, some of which contained as many as 1,600 structures.

The roots of Cucuteni-Trypillian culture can be found in the Starčevo-Körös-Criș (5500-4500 BC ) and Vinča cultures (5700–4500 BC), with additional influence from the Bug-Dniester culture (6500-5000 BC).

During the early period of its existence (in the 5th millennium BC), the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture was also influenced by the Linear Pottery culture (5500–4500 BC) from the north, and by the Boian-Giulesti culture (4300–3500 BC) from the south.

Through colonization and acculturation from these other cultures, the formative Pre-Cucuteni/Trypillia A culture was established. Over the course of the fifth millennium, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture expanded from its ‘homeland’ in the Prut-Siret region along the eastern foothills of the Carpathian Mountains into the basins and plains of the Dnieper and Southern Bug rivers of central Ukraine. Settlements also developed in the southeastern stretches of the Carpathian Mountains, with the materials known locally as the Ariuşd culture.

Characteristics of the Cucuteni-Trypillian pottery included a monochromic spiral design, painted with black paint on a yellow and red base. Large pear-shaped pottery for the storage of grain, dining plates, and other goods, was also prevalent. Additionally, ceramic statues of female “Goddess” figures, as well as figurines of animals and models of houses dating to this period have also been discovered.

Earlier societies of hunter gatherer tribes had no social stratification, and later societies of the Bronze Age had noticeable social stratification, which saw the creation of occupational specialization, the state, and social classes of individuals who were of the elite ruling or religious classes, full-time warriors, and wealthy merchants, contrasted with those individuals on the other end of the economic spectrum who were poor, enslaved, and hungry.

In between these two economic models (the hunter gatherer tribes and Bronze Age civilizations) we find the later Neolithic and Eneolithic societies such as the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, where the first indications of social stratification began to be found.

However, it would be a mistake to overemphasize the impact of social stratification in the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture since it was still very much an egalitarian society. And of course, social stratification was just one of the many aspects of what is regarded as a fully established civilized society, which began to appear in the Bronze Age.

During the late period the Cucuteni-Trypillian territory expanded to include the Volyn region in northwest Ukraine, the Sluch and Horyn Rivers in northern Ukraine, and along both banks of the Dnieper river near Kiev.

Members of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture who lived along the coastal regions near the Black Sea came into contact with other cultures. Animal husbandry increased in importance, as hunting diminished; horses also became more important.

The community transformed into a patriarchal structure. Outlying communities were established on the Don and Volga rivers in present-day Russia. Dwellings were constructed differently from previous periods, and a new rope-like design replaced the older spiral-patterned designs on the pottery.

Different forms of ritual burial were developed where the deceased were interred in the ground with elaborate burial rituals. An increasingly larger number of Bronze Age artifacts originating from other lands were found as the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture drew near.

There is a debate among scholars regarding how the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture took place. Some scholars have used the abundance of the clay female fetish statues to base the theory that this culture was matriarchal in nature. Indeed, it was partially the archeological evidence from Cucuteni-Trypillian culture that inspired Marija Gimbutas, Joseph Campbell, and some latter 20th century feminists to set forth the popular theory of an Old European culture of peaceful, matriarchal, Goddess-centered Neolithic European societies that were wiped out by patriarchal, Sky Father-worshipping, warlike, Bronze-Age Proto-Indo-European tribes that swept out of The Steppes east of the Black Sea. This theory has been mostly discredited in recent years, but there are still some people who adhere to it, at least to some degree.

According to some proponents of the Kurgan Hypothesis of the origin of Proto-Indo-European, for example the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in her book “Notes on the chronology and expansion of the Pit-Grave Culture” (1961, later expanded by her and others), the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture came to a violent end in connection with the territorial expansion of the Kurgan Culture.

Arguing from archaeological and linguistic evidence, Gimbutas concluded that the people of the Kurgan culture (a term grouping the Pit Grave culture and its predecessors) of the Pontic steppe, being most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, effectively destroyed the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in a series of invasions undertaken during their expansion to the west.

Based on this archaeological evidence Gimbutas saw distinct cultural differences between the patriarchal, warlike Kurgan culture and the more peaceful matriarchal Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, which she argued was a significant component of the “Old European cultures” which finally met extinction in a process visible in the progressing appearance of fortified settlements, hillforts, and the graves of warrior-chieftains, as well as in the religious transformation from the matriarchy to patriarchy, in a correlated east-west movement.

In this, “the process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical, transformation and must be understood as a military victory in terms of successfully imposing a new administrative system, language, and religion upon the indigenous groups.

Accordingly these proponents of the Kurgan Hypothesis hold that this violent clash took place during the Third Wave of Kurgan expansion between 3000-2800 BC, permanently ending the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.

In 1989 Irish-American archaeologist J.P. Mallory in his book “In Search of the Indo-Europeans” summarizing the three existing theories concerning the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, mentions that archaeological findings in the region indicate Kurgan (i.e. Yamna culture) settlements in the eastern part of the Cucuteni-Trypillian area, co-existing for some time with those of the Cucuteni-Trypillian.

Artifacts from both cultures found within each of their respective archaeological settlement sites attest to an open trade in goods for a period, though he points out that the archaeological evidence clearly points to what he termed “a dark age,” its population seeking refuge in every direction except east. He cites evidence of the refugees having used caves, islands and hilltops (abandoning in the process 600-700 settlements) to argue for the possibility of a gradual transformation rather than a violent onslaught bringing about cultural extinction.

The obvious issue with that theory is the limited common historical life-time between the Cucuteni-Trypillian (4800-3000 BC) and the Yamna culture (3600-2300BC); given that the earliest archaeological findings of the Yamna culture (3600-3200 BC) are located in the Volga-Don basin, not in the Dniester and Dnieper area where the cultures came in touch, while the Yamna culture came to its full extension in the Pontic steppe at the earliest around 3000 BC, the time the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture ended thus indicating an extremely short survival after coming in contact with the Yamna culture.

Another contradicting indication is that the kurgans that replaced the traditional horizontal graves in the area now contain human remains of a fairly diversified skeletal type approximately ten centimeters taller on average than the previous population.

In the 1990s and 2000s, another theory regarding the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture emerged based on climatic change that took place at the end of their culture’s existence that is known as the Blytt-Sernander Sub-Boreal phase.

Beginning around 3200 BC the earth’s climate became colder and drier than it had ever been since the end of the last Ice age, resulting in the worst drought in the history of Europe since the beginning of agriculture.

The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture relied primarily on farming, which would have collapsed under these climatic conditions in a scenario similar to the Dust Bowl of the American Midwest in the 1930s.

According to The American Geographical Union, “The transition to today’s arid climate was not gradual, but occurred in two specific episodes. The first, which was less severe, occurred between 6,700 and 5,500 years ago. The second, which was brutal, lasted from 4,000 to 3,600 years ago. Summer temperatures increased sharply, and precipitation decreased, according to carbon-14 dating.

According to that theory, the neighboring Yamna culture people were pastoralists, and were able to maintain their survival much more effectively in drought conditions. This has led some scholars to come to the conclusion that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture ended not violently, but as a matter of survival, converting their economy from agriculture to pastoralism, and becoming integrated into the Yamna culture.

However, the Blytt–Sernander approach as a way to identify stages of technology in Europe with specific climate periods is an oversimplification not generally accepted. A conflict with that theoretical possibility is that during the warm Atlantic period, Denmark was occupied by Mesolithic cultures, rather than Neolithic, notwithstanding the climatic evidence.

Moreover, the technology stages varied widely globally. To this must be added that the first period of the climate transformation ended some 500 years before the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture and the second approximately 1,400 years after.

A 2010 study analyzed mtDNA recovered from Cucuteni-Trypillian human osteological remains found in the Verteba Cave (on the bank of the Seret River, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine). It revealed that seven of the individuals whose remains where analysed belonged to the pre-HV branch of the R haplogroup, two to haplogroup HV, two to haplogroup H, one to haplogroup J, and one to T4 haplogroup, the latter also being the oldest sample of the set.

The authors conclude that the population living around Verteba Cave was fairly heterogenous, but that the wide chronological age of the specimens might indicate that the heterogeneity might have been due to natural population flow during this timeframe. The authors also link the pre-HV and HV/V haplogroups with European Paleolithic populations, and consider the T and J haplogroups as hallmarks of Neolithic demic intrusions from the South-East (the North-Pontic region) rather than from the West (i.e. the Linear Pottery culture).

Sredny Stog

The Sredny Stog culture is a pre-kurgan archaeological culture, named after the Russian term for the Dnieper river islet of Seredny Stih, Ukraine, where it was first located, dating from the 5th millennium BC. It was situated across the Dnieper river on both its shores, with sporadic settlements to the west and east.

One of the best known sites associated with this culture is Dereivka, located on the right bank of the Omelnik, a tributary of the Dnieper, and is the most impressive site within the Sredny Stog culture complex, being about 2,000 square meters in area.

The Sredny Stog culture seems to have had contact with the agricultural Cucuteni-Trypillian culture (ca. 4800 to 3000 BC) in the west and was a contemporary of the Khvalynsk culture.

In its three largest cemeteries, Alexandria (39 individuals), Igren (17) and Dereivka (14), evidence of inhumation in flat graves (ground level pits) has been found. This parallels the practise of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, and is in contrast with the later Yamna culture, which practiced tumuli burials, according to the Kurgan hypothesis.

In Sredny Stog culture, the deceased were laid to rest on their backs with the legs flexed. The use of ochre in the burial was practiced, as with the kurgan cultures. For this and other reasons, Yuri Rassamakin suggests that the Sredny Stog culture should be considered as an areal term, with at least four distinct cultural elements co-existing inside the same geographical area.

The expert Dmytro Telegin has divided the chronology of Sredny Stog into two distinct phases. Phase II (ca. 4000–3500 BC) used corded ware pottery which may have originated there, and stone battle-axes of the type later associated with expanding Indo-European cultures to the West. Most notably, it has perhaps the earliest evidence of horse domestication (in phase II), with finds suggestive of cheek-pieces (psalia).

In the context of the modified Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, this pre-kurgan archaeological culture could represent the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language. The culture ended at around 3500 BC, when Yamna culture expanded westward replacing Sredny Stog, and coming into direct contact with the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the western Ukraine.

Cernavoda culture

The Cernavodă culture (ca. 4000-3200 BC), named after the Romanian town of Cernavodă, was a late Copper Age archaeological culture. It was along the lower Eastern Bug River and Danube and along the coast of the Black Sea and somewhat inland, generally in present-day Romania and Bulgaria. It is characterized by defensive hilltop settlements. The pottery shares traits with that found further east on the southern Russian steppes; burials similarly bear a resemblance to those further east.

It is a successor to and occupies much the same area as the earlier neolithic Karanovo culture, for which a destruction horizon seems to be evident. It is part of the “Balkan-Danubian complex” that stretches up the entire length of the river and into northern Germany via the Elbe and the Baden culture; its northeastern portion is thought to be ancestral to the Usatovo culture.

Baden culture

The Baden culture (ca 3600-2800 BC) was an eneolithic culture found in central Europe and known from Moravia, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Western Romania and Eastern Austria named after Baden near Vienna by the Austrian prehistorian Oswald Menghin. It is also known as the Ossarn group or Pecel culture.

It has been interpreted as part of a much larger archaeological complex encompassing cultures at the mouth of the Danube (Ezero-Cernavoda III) and the Troad. It developed out of the late Lengyel culture, an archaeological culture of the European Neolithic, centered on the Middle Danube in the western Carpathian Basin.

Němejcová-Pavuková proposes a polygenetic origin, including southeastern elements transmitted by the Ezero culture (3300-2700 BC), a Bronze Age archaeological culture occupying most of present-day Bulgaria, and Cernavoda III/Coțofeni, also known as Usatove culture, a Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age archaeological culture that existed for over 700 years in south-eastern Central Europe facing the Black Sea between the mouths of the Bug River and the Danube in present-day Romania, Moldova, and southern Ukraine. Ecsedy parallelises Baden with Early Helladic II in Thessaly, Parzinger with Sitagroi IV.

Baden was approximately contemporaneous with the late Funnelbeaker culture, the Globular Amphora culture and the early Corded Ware culture. The settlements were often located on hilltops and were normally undefended.

In the Kurgan hypothesis espoused by Marija Gimbutas, the Baden culture is seen as being Indo-Europeanized. For proponents of the older theory that seeks the Indo-European homeland in central Europe in the area occupied by the preceding Funnelbeaker culture, it is similarly considered Indo-European.

The linguistic identity and ethnic self-identification of the people associated with this culture is impossible to ascertain. It may be tempting to put the Italic and Celtic stocks together here at some point, at least in that great European mixing bowl, the plains of Hungary, but this is a speculation lacking any archaeological foundation.

Ezero

The Ezero culture (3300—2700 BC), was a Bronze Age archaeological culture occupying most of present-day Bulgaria. It follows the copper age cultures of the area (Karanovo VI culture, Gumelniţa culture, Kodzadjemen culture and Varna culture), after a settlement hiatus in Northern Bulgaria. It bears some relationship to the earlier Cernavodă III culture to the north. Some settlements were fortified.

The Ezero culture is interpreted as part of a larger Balkan-Danubian early Bronze Age complex, a horizon reaching from Troy Id-IIc into Central Europe, encompassing the Baden of the Carpathian Basin and the Coţofeni culture of Romania. According to Parzinger, there are also typological connections to Poliochne IIa-b and Sitagroi IV.

Within the context of the Kurgan hypothesis the Ezero culture would represent a fusion of native “Old European culture” and intrusive “Kurgan culture” elements. It could also represent an Anatolian-influenced culture, either coming from Anatolia (in Renfrew’s hypothesis), or heading to Asia Minor.

Coţofeni

The Coţofeni culture (3500 and 2500 BC), also known as Usatove culture, is a Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age archaeological culture that existed in south-eastern Central Europe facing the Black Sea between the mouths of the Bug River and the Danube in present-day Romania, Moldova, and southern Ukraine.

Unfortunately most of the Coţofeni culture chronology is based on just three samples collected at three different Coţofeni sites. Based on these radiocarbon dates, this culture can be placed between roughly 3500 and 2500 BCE.

Cultural synchronisms have been established based on mutual trade relations (visible as imported items) as well as stratigraphic observations. There is an evident synchronicity between: Coţofeni I – Cernavoda III – Baden A – Spherical Amphorae; Coţofeni II – Baden B-C Kostolac; Coţofeni III – Kostolac-Vučedol A-B.

During the evolution of the Coţofeni culture, there were clearly relationships with other neighbouring cultures. The influence between the Coţofeni and their neighbours the Baden, Kostolac, Vučedol, Globular Amphora culture as well as the Ochre Burial populations was reciprocal.

The areas bordering these cultures show cultural traits that have mixed aspects, for example Coţofeni-Baden and Coţofeni-Kostolac finds. These finds of mixed aspects suggest a cohabitation between related populations. It also supports the idea of well established trade between cultures.

Vučedol

Following the Baden culture, another wave of possible Indo-European speakers came to the banks of the Danube. One of the major places they occupied is present-day Vučedol (“Wolf’s Valley”), located six kilometers downstream from the town of Vukovar, Croatia.

The Vučedol culture (3000 and 2200 BC) was contemporary with the Sumer period in Mesopotamia, the Early Dynastic period in Egypt and the earliest settlements of Troy (Troy I and II). Some authors regard it as an Indo-European culture.

It is estimated that the site had once been home to about 3,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest and most important European centers of its time. According to Bogdan Brukner, proto-Illyrians descended from this wave of Indo-European settlers.

The early stages of the culture occupied locations not far from mountain ranges, where copper deposits were located, because of their main invention: making tools from arsenical copper in series reusing double, two-part moulds.

The Vučedol culture developed from two older eneolithic cultures: the Baden culture, mainly in the Pannonian plain, and the Kostolac culture in northern Serbia and western Romania, so the primary region of Vučedol development is eastern Croatia and the Syrmia region.

The Vučedol culture is the final eneolithic culture of the region, displaying characteristically common use of the war axe in its “Banniabik” form. Cult objects suggest the practice of new cults very different from the Neolithic Magna Mater conception: cult of the Deer, womb-shaped solar motives, figures of women in clothes without sexual or fertility decoration, symbols of double axe. In pottery, new forms and a new and rich decoration are characterized by the spectacular find, the Vučedol dove.

The Vučedol culture exploited native copper ores on a massive scale. The settlement sites destroyed earlier eneolithic settlements, and new Vučedol settlements also developed in regions where none previously existed. The rise of a dominant hunter-warrior class is a preview of the changes that will be characteristic for the east and middle European early Bronze Age.

Compared to earlier and contemporary cultures the Vučedol culture exploited a diversity in food sources: the Vučedol people were hunters, fishermen and agrarians, with some strong indications that they cultivated certain domesticated animals. Thus the culture was more resilient to times of want.

The community chief was the shaman-smith, possessing the arcane knowledge of avoiding poisonous arsenic gas which is connected to the technology of coppersmithing as well as understanding the year cycle.

Still, the whole life of shaman-smith could not pass without biological consequences: slow loss of body movement coordination, and at the same time, stronger sexual potency. “That is why”, according to Aleksandar Durman, “all eneolithic, or later gods of metallurgy are identified with fertility, and also why all gods in almost all early cultures – limp”.

It was a society of deep social changes and stratification that led to the birth of tribal and military aristocracy. Also, Vučedol people had enough time to express their spiritual view of the world.

In modern times, Vučedol ceramics have become famous worldwide. A very characteristic bi-conical shape and typical ornaments evolved, in many cases with typical “handles” which were almost non-functional, but were key to understanding ornaments that had symbolic meanings, representing ideas such as “horizon”, “mountains”, “sky”, “underworld”, “sun”, “constellation of Orion”, “Venus”, et cetera.

One of the most famous pieces of Vučedol is the ritual vessel made between 2800 and 2500 BC, called by the speculative attribution of M. Seper, who found it in 1938, the “Vučedol Dove” (vučedolska golubica).

The latest interpretation, however, is that the vessel is in the shape of the male partridge, a symbol of fertility, whose limping defensive behavior against attack by predators on a partridge nest on the ground linked it to the limping shaman-smith, according to the recent interpretation by Aleksandar Durman of Zagreb. The figure is a remarkable example of artistic creation and religious symbolism associated with a cult of the Great Mother.

The “Vučedol Dove” is a 19,5 cm high ritual vessel made from baked clay. Three symbols of double axes and a necklace were incised on its neck with lines covering its wings and chest, and an unusual crest on the back of the head. If the shape of the crest and carefully delineated wings and chest, prove the figure to be the domesticated dove, then it was being raised in Europe 4500 years ago, much earlier than we commonly think. The “Vučedol Dove” is the oldest dove figure found in Europe so far.

Among the most famous pieces is a vessel bearing inscribed images corresponding to what has been alleged to be the oldest Indo-European calendar, based on an Orion cycle, shown by precise sequence of constellations on a vessel found in an Eneolithic mound in the very center of the modern town of Vinkovci.

The climatic conditions in that latitude bring about four yearly seasons. The simple explanation of the Vučedol Calendar is that each of the four lateral bands on the vessel represent the four seasons, starting with spring on the top. Each band is divided into twelve boxes, making up 12 “weeks” for each season.

Each of the little boxes contains an ideogram of celestial objects that lie at a certain point on the horizon right after twilight. The place of reference on the horizon is the point at which (in those days) the Orion’s Belt disappeared from view at the end of winter, which meant the beginning of a new year.

The pictographs in the boxes represent: Orion, the Sun, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Gemini, Pegasus, and the Pleiades. If the box is empty, it means there was nothing visible at the reference point during the corresponding time.

Some researchers of the Vučedol culture have claimed that there was establisheed trade connection between territorial position of the Vučedol culture and Mycenean civilisation on the south so that some cultural elements found in B2 phase in the Vučedol culture owes their existence to first period for the middle Bronze Age of Helladic culture of mainland Greece.

The excavated settlement of Vučedol provides a base for the cultural stratigraphy of the whole culture. No final conclusions about the Vučedol culture population can be made that they were linguistic Indo-Europeans, or to what extent they mixed with native European population, especially in regions of the eastern Adriatic coast, Dalmatia and Herzegovina with some parts of Bosnia as well.

Beaker culture

The Bell-Beaker culture, sometimes shortened to Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk (ca. 2800 – 1800 BC), is the term for a widely scattered archaeological culture of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic or Chalcolithic and running into the early Bronze Age. The term was coined by John Abercromby, based on the culture’s distinctive pottery drinking vessels.

The Bell Beaker culture is understood not only as a particular pottery type, but as a complete and complex cultural phenomenon involving metalwork in copper, gold and later bronze, archery, specific types of ornamentation and shared ideological, cultural and religious ideas.

It is important to note that underlying the Bell beaker superstratum existed a wide diversity in local burial styles (including incidences of cremation rather than inhumation), housing styles, economic profile and local coarse ceramic wares which continued to persist.

There are two main international Bell Beaker styles: the “All Over Ornamented” (AOO), patterned all over with impressions, of which a sub-set is the “All Over Corded” (AOC), patterned with cord-impressions, and the “Maritime” type, decorated with bands filled with impressions made with a comb or cord. Later, characteristic regional styles developed.

It has been suggested that the beakers were designed for the consumption of alcohol, and that the introduction of the substance to Europe may have fuelled the beakers’ spread. Beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples.

However, not all Beakers were drinking cups. Some were used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores, others have some organic residues associated with food, and still others were employed as funerary urns. They were used as status display amongst disparate elites.

There have been numerous proposals by archaeologists as to the origins of the Bell Beaker culture, and debates continued on for decades. Recent analyses have made significant inroads to understanding the Beaker phenomenon, mostly by analysing each of its components separately.

They have concluded that the Bell Beaker phenomenon was a synthesis of elements, representing “an idea and style uniting different regions with different cultural traditions and background.”

Radiocarbon dating seems to support that the earliest “Maritime” Bell Beaker design style is encountered in Iberia, specifically in the vibrant copper-using communities of the Tagus, the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula, estuary in Portugal around 2800-2700 BC and spread from there to many parts of western Europe.

An overview of all available sources from southern Germany concluded that Bell Beaker was a new and independent culture in that area, contemporary with the Corded Ware culture. The burial ritual which typified Bell Beaker sites was intrusive into Western Europe.

Individual burials, often under tumuli burials, with the inclusion of weapons contrast markedly to the preceding Neolithic traditions of often collective, weaponless burials in Atlantic/Western Europe. Such an arrangement is rather derivative of Corded Ware traditions, although instead of battle-axes, Bell Beaker individuals used copper daggers.

Overall, all these elements (Iberian-derived maritime ceramic styles, AOC and AOO ceramic styles, and ‘eastern’ burial ritual symbolism) appear to have first fused in the Lower Rhine region.

Bell Beaker people took advantage of transport by sea and rivers, creating a cultural spread extending from Ireland to the Carpathian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and along the Rhone valley to Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy.

Its remains have been found in what is now Portugal, Spain, France (excluding the central massif), Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and Germany between the Elbe and Rhine, with an extension along the upper Danube into the Vienna basin (Austria), Hungary and the Czech Republic, with Mediterranean outposts on Sardinia and Sicily; there is less certain evidence for direct penetration in the east.

Beaker-type vessels remained in use longest in the British Isles; late beakers in other areas are classified as early Bronze Age (Barbed Wire Beakers in the Netherlands, Giant Beakers (Riesenbecher)).

The new international trade routes opened by the Beaker people became firmly established and the culture was succeeded by a number of Bronze Age cultures, among them the Únětice culture in Central Europe, the Elp culture and Hilversum culture in the Netherlands, the Atlantic Bronze Age in the British Isles and the Atlantic coast of Europe, and by the Nordic Bronze Age, a culture of Scandinavia and northernmost Germany-Poland.

The initial moves from the Tagus estuary were maritim. A southern move led to the Mediterranean where enclaves were established in south-western Spain and southern France around the Golfe du Lion and into the Po valley in Italy probably via ancient western Alpine trade routes used to distribute Jadeite axes.

A northern move incorporated the southern coast of Armorica, the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul between the Seine and Loire rivers that includes the Brittany peninsula, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic coast.

The enclave established in southern Brittany was linked closely to the riverine and landward route via the Loire and across the Gatinais valley to the Seine valley and thence to the lower Rhine. This was a long-established route reflected in early stone axe distributions and it was via this network that Maritime Bell Beakers first reached the Lower Rhine in about 2600 BC.

Another pulse had brought Bell Beaker to Csepel Island in Hungary by about 2500 BC. In the Carpathian Basin the Bell Beaker culture came in contact with communities such as the Vučedol culture (3000-2200 BC), centered in Syrmia and eastern Slavonia on the right bank of the Danube river, but possibly spreading throughout the Pannonian plain and western Balkans and southward.

The Vučedol culture was contemporary with the Sumer period in Mesopotamia, the Early Dynastic period in Egypt and the earliest settlements of Troy (Troy I and II). Some authors regard it as an Indo-European culture. It had evolved partly from the Yamna culture, and therefore shared the same type of metallurgy practised by Bell Beaker metal-workers.

Marija Gimbutas characterized the Bell Beaker culture complex as an amalgam of Vučedol and Yamna culture traditions formed after the incursion of the Yamna people into the milieu of the Vučedol culture, which evolved in the course of the three or four hundred years after the 30th century BC.

But in contrast to the early Bell Beaker preference for the dagger and bow, the favourite weapon in the Carpathian Basin during the first half of the 3rd millennium was the shaft-hole axe. Here Bell Beaker people assimilated local pottery forms such as the polypod cup. These “common ware” types of pottery then spread in association with the classic bell beaker.

From the Carpathian Basin Bell Beaker spread down the Rhine and eastwards into what is now Germany and Poland. By this time the Rhine was on the western edge of the vast Corded Ware zone.

The Corded Ware Culture shared a number of features with the Bell Beaker Culture, derived from their common ancestor the Yamna culture. These features include pottery decorated with cord impressions, single burial and the shaft-hole axe.

A review in 2014 revealed that single burial, communal burial and reuse of Neolithic burial sites are found throughout the Bell Beaker zone. This overturns a previous conviction that single burial was unknown in the early or southern Bell Beaker zone, and so must have been adopted from Corded Ware in the contact zone of the Lower Rhine, and transmitted westwards along the exchange networks from the Rhine to the Loire, and northwards across the Channel to Britain.

The earliest copper production in Ireland, identified at Ross Island in the period 2400-2200 BC, was associated with early Beaker pottery. Here the local sulpharsenide ores were smelted to produce the first copper axes used in Britain and Ireland. The same technologies were used in the Tagus region and in the west and south of France.

The evidence is sufficient to support the suggestion that the initial spread of Maritime Bell Beakers along the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean, using sea routes that had long been in operation, was directly associated with the quest for copper and other rare raw materials.

The origin of the Beaker people

Bell Beaker has been suggested as a candidate for an early Indo-European culture; more specifically, an ancestral proto-Celtic. However, it has most recently been suggested that the Beaker culture was associated with a European branch of Indo-European dialects, termed “North-west Indo-European”, ancestral to not only Celtic but equally Italic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic. However, it is doubtful that the Bell Beaker culture (2800-1900 BCE) in Western Europe was already Indo-European because its attributes are in perfect continuity with the native Megalithic cultures.

The Beaker phenomenon started during the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic in Portugal and propagated to the north-east towards Germany. During the same period Bronze Age steppe cultures spread from Germany in the opposite direction towards Iberia, France and Britain, progressively bringing R1b lineages into the Bell Beaker territory.

It is more likely that the beakers and horses found across Western Europe during that period were the result of trade with neighbouring Indo-European cultures, including the first wave of R1b into Central Europe. It is equally possible that the Beaker people were R1b merchants or explorers who travelled across Western Europe and brought back tales of riches poorly defended by Stone Age people waiting to be to be conquered. This would have prompted a full-scale Indo-European (R1b) invasion from about 2500 BCE in Germany, reaching the Atlantic (north of the Pyrenees at least) around 2200 BCE.

Ancient DNA tests conducted by Lee et al. (2012), Haak et al. (2015) and Allentoft et al. (2015) have all confirmed the presence of R1b-L51 (and deeper subclades such as P312 and U152) in Germany from the Bell Beaker period onwards, but none in earlier cultures.

German Bell Beaker R1b samples only had about 50% of Yamna autosomal DNA and often possessed Neolithic non-Steppe mtDNA, which confirms that R1b invaders took local wives as they advanced westward.

DNA samples from the Unetice culture (2300-1600 BCE) in Germany, which emerged less than two centuries after the apperance of the first R1b individuals in the late Bell Beaker Germany, had a slightly higher percentage of Yamna ancestry (60~65%) and of Yamna-related mtDNA lineages, which indicates a migration of both steppe men and women.

That would explain why archeological artefacts from the Unetice culture are clearly Yamna-related (i.e. Indo-European), as they abruptly introduced new technologies and a radically different lifestyle, while the Bell Beaker culture was in direct continuity with previous Neolithic or Chalcolithic cultures.

R1b men may simply have conquered the Bell Beaker people and overthrown the local rulers without obliterating the old culture due to their limited numbers.

Taking the analogy of the Germanic migrations in the Late Antiquity, the R1b invasion of the Bell Beaker period was more alike to that of the Goths, Burgunds and Vandals, who all migrated in small numbers, created new kingdoms within the Roman empire, but adopted Latin language and Roman culture.

In contrast, the Corded Ware and Unetice culture involved large-scale migrations of steppe people, who imposed their Indo-European language and culture and conquered people, just like the Anglo-Saxons or the Bavarians did in the 5th century.

The cultures that succeeded to Unetice in Central Europe, chronologically the Tumulus culture (1600-1200 BCE), Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) and Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) cultures remained typically Indo-European.

The Hallstatt culture, centered around the Alps, is considered the first classical Celtic culture in Europe. It quickly expanded to France, Britain, Iberia, northern Italy and the Danube valley, probably spreading for the first time Celtic languages, although not bronze technology nor R1b lineages, which had both already spread over much of western Europe during the Bell Beaker period.

The Bronze Age did not appear in Iberia until 1800 BCE, and was mostly confined to the cultures of El Argar and Los Millares in south-east Spain, with sporadic sites showing up in Castile by 1700 BCE and in Extremadura and southern Portugal by 1500 BCE.

These Early Bronze Age sites typically did not have more than some bronze daggers or axes and cannot be considered proper Bronze Age societies, but rather Copper Age societies with occasional bronze artefacts (perhaps imported).

These cultures might have been founded by small groups of R1b adventurers looking for easy conquests in parts of Europe that did not yet have bronze weapons. They would have become a small ruling elite, would have had children with local women, and within a few generations their Indo-European language would have been lost, absorbed by the indigenous languages.

Iberia did not become a fully-fledged Bronze Age society until the 13th century BCE, when the Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) expanded from Germany to Catalonia via southern France, then the ensuing Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) spread throughout most of the peninsula (especially the western half). This period belongs to the wider Atlantic Bronze Age (1300-700 BCE), when Iberia was connected to the rest of Western Europe through a complex trade network.

It is hard to say when exactly DF27 entered Iberia. Considering its overwhelming presence in the peninsula and in south-west France, it is likely that DF27 arrived early, during the 1800 to 1300 BCE period, and perhaps even earlier, if R1b adventurers penetrated the Bell Beaker culture as they appear to have done all over Western Europe from 2300 BCE to 1800 BCE.

The Atlantic Bronze Age could correspond to the period when DF27 radiated more evenly around Iberia and ended up, following Atlantic trade routes, all the way to the British Isles, the Netherlands and western Norway (where M153 and SRY2728 make up about 1% of the population).

Historical craniometric studies found that the Beaker people appeared to be of a different physical type than those earlier populations in the same geographic areas. They were described as tall, heavy boned and brachycephalic.

The early studies on the Beakers which were based on the analysis of their skeletal remains were craniometric. This apparent evidence of migration was in line with archaeological discoveries linking Beaker culture to new farming techniques, mortuary practices, copper-working skills, and other cultural innovations.

However, such evidence from skeletal remains was brushed aside as a new movement developed in archaeology from the 1960s, which stressed cultural continuity. Anti-migrationist authors either paid little attention to skeletal evidence or argued that differences could be explained by environmental and cultural influences.

Margaret Cox and Simon Mays sum up the position: “Although it can hardly be said that craniometric data provide an unequivocal answer to the problem of the Beaker folk, the balance of the evidence would at present seem to favour a migration hypothesis.”

Non-metrical research concerning the Beaker people in Britain also cautiously pointed in the direction of immigration. Subsequent studies, such as one concerning the Carpathian Basin, and a non-metrical analysis of skeletons in central-southern Germany, have also identified marked typological differences with the pre-Beaker inhabitants.

Jocelyne Desideri examined the teeth in skeletons from Bell Beaker sites in Northern Spain, Southern France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Examining dental characteristics that have been independently shown to correlate with genetic relatedness, she found that only in Northern Spain and the Czech Republic were there demonstrable links between immediately previous populations and Bell Beaker populations. Elsewhere there was a discontinuity.

Early papers publishing results on European-wide Y-DNA marker frequencies, such as those of Semino (2000) and Rosser (2000), correlated haplogroup R1b-M269 with the earliest episodes of European colonization by Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH).

The peak frequencies of M269 in Iberia (especially the Basque region) and the Atlantic façade were postulated to represent signatures of re-colonization of the European West following the Last Glacial Maximum.

However, even prior to recent criticisms and refinements, the idea that Iberian R1b carrying males repopulated most of western Europe was not consistent with findings which revealed that Italian M269 lineages are not derivative of Iberian ones.

More recently, data and calculations from Myres et al. (2011), Cruciani et al. (2011) Arredi et al. (2007), and Balaresque et al. (2010) suggest a Late Neolithic entry of M269 into Europe.

These hypotheses appear to be corroborated by more direct evidence from ancient DNA. R1b was detected in two male skeletons from a German Bell Beaker site dated to 2600-2500 BC at Kromsdorf, one of which tested positive for M269 but negative for its U106 subclade (note that the P312 subclade was not tested for), while for the other skeleton the M269 test was unclear.

A later Bell Beaker male skeleton from Quedlinburg, Germany dated to 2296-2206 BC tested positive for R1b M269 P312 subclade. Ancient Y-DNA results for the remains of Beaker people from Iberia have yet to be obtained.

From a mitochondrial DNA perspective, haplogroup H, which has high (≈40%) throughout Europe, has received similar attention. Early studies by Richards et al (2000) purported that it arose 28–23,000 years ago (kya), spreading into Europe ≈20 kya, before then re-expanding from an Iberian glacial refuge ≈15 kya, calculations subsequently corroborated by Pereira et al. (2005).

However, a larger study by Roostalu et al. (2007), incorporating more data from the Near East, suggested that whilst Hg H did begin to expand c. 20 kya, this was limited to the Near East, Caucasus and Southeastern Europe. Rather its subsequent spread further west occurred later, in the post-glacial period from a postulated South Caucasian refugium.

This hypothesis has been supported by a recent ancient DNA analysis study, which links the expansion of mtDNA Hg H in Western Europe with the Bell Beaker phenomenon.

While such studies are insightful, even if the dates postulated by authors are correct, they do not necessarily imply that the spread of a particular genetic marker represents a distinct population, ‘tribe’ or language group. As such, genetic studies have often drawn criticisms not only from archaeologists and cultural anthropologists, but also from fellow population geneticists.

The Balearic Islands

The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The four largest islands are Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. There are many minor islands and islets in close proximity to the larger islands, including Cabrera, Dragonera and S’Espalmador.

The official name of the Balearic Islands in Catalan is Illes Balears, while in Spanish they are known as the Islas Baleares. The term “Balearic” derives from Greek Gymnesiae and Balliareis (in Latin Baleares). Of the various theories on the origins of the two ancient Greek and Latin names for the islands—Gymnasiae and Baleares—classical sources provide two.

According to the Lycophron’s Alexandra verses, the islands were called Gymnesiae (gymnos, meaning naked in Greek) because its inhabitants were often nude, probably because of the year-round benevolent climate.

The Greek and Roman writers generally derive the name of the people from their skill as slingers (baleareis, from ballo: ancient Greek meaning “to launch”), although Strabo regards the name as of Phoenician origin. He observed it was the Phoenician equivalent for lightly armoured soldiers the Greeks would have called gymnetas.

The root bal does point to a Phoenician origin; perhaps the islands were sacred to the god Baal and the resemblance to the Greek root ballo is accidental. Indeed, it was usual Greek practice to assimilate local names into their own language. But the common Greek name of the islands is not Baleareis, but Gymnesiai. The former was the name used by the natives, as well as by the Carthaginians and Romans, while the latter probably derives from the light equipment of the Balearic troops gymnetae.

Beaker people

Little is recorded on the earliest inhabitants of the islands, though many legends exist. Radiocarbon dating currently indicates that the use of the Beaker pottery on the Balearic Islands, between circa 2475 BC and 1300 BC.

There has been some evidence of all-corded pottery in Mallorca, generally considered the most ancient Bell Beaker pottery, possibly indicating an even earlier Beaker settlement about 2700 BC. However, in several regions this type of pottery persisted long enough to permit other possibilities.

Suárez Otero (1997) postulated this corded Beakers entered the Mediterranean by routes both through the Atlantic coast and through eastern France. Bell Beaker pottery has been found in Mallorca and Formentera but has not been observed in Menorca or Ibiza.

Collective burials in dolmen structures in Ibiza could be contrasted against the individual burials in Mallorca. In its latest phase (circa 1750-1300 cal BC) the local Beaker context became associated with the distinctive ornamented Boquique pottery demonstrating clear maritime links with the (megalithic) coastal regions of Catalonia, also assessed to be directly related to the late Cogotas complex.

In most of the areas of the mainland Boquique pottery falls into the latter stages of the Bell Beaker Complex as well. Along with other evidence during the earlier Beaker period in the Balearics, circa 2400-2000 BC, as shown by the local presence of elephant ivory objects together with significant Beaker pottery and other finds, this maritime interaction can be shown to have a long tradition. The abundance of different cultural elements that persisted towards the end of the Bronze Age, show a clear continuity of different regional and intrusive traditions.

The presence of perforated Beaker pottery traditionally considered to be used for making cheese, at Son Ferrandell-Oleza and at Coval Simó confirms the introduction of production and conservation of dairy. Also, the presence of spindles at sites like Son Ferrandell-Oleza or Es Velar d’Aprop points to knowledge of making thread and textiles from wool. However, more details on the strategies for tending and slaughtering the domestic animals involved are forthcoming.

Being traditionally associated to the introduction of metallurgy, the first traces of copper working on the Baleares was here indeed also clearly associated to the Bell Beakers.

The islands had a very mixed population, of whose habits several strange stories are told. In ancient times, the islanders constructed talayots, and were famous for their skill with the sling. The Phoenicians took possession of the islands in very early times.

As slingers, they served as mercenaries, first under the Carthaginians, and afterwards under the Romans. They went into battle ungirt, with only a small buckler, and a javelin burnt at the end, and in some cases tipped with a small iron point; but their effective weapons were their slings, of which each man carried three, wound round his head (Strabo p. 168; Eustath), or, as seen in other sources, one round the head, one round the body, and one in the hand (Diodorus).

The three slings were of different lengths, for stones of different sizes; the largest they hurled with as much force as if it were flung from a catapult; and they seldom missed their mark. To this exercise they were trained from infancy, in order to earn their livelihood as mercenary soldiers. It is said that the mothers allowed their children to eat bread only when they had struck it off a post with the sling.

Navetas

A naveta (in Minorcan Catalan, naveta, or naueta, a diminutive form of nau, means nave) is a megalithic chamber tomb unique to the Balearic island of Minorca. It dates to the early Bronze Age. It has two vertical and two corbelled walls giving it the form of an upturned boat which is where the name comes from.

The largest example is the Naveta d’Es Tudons (Es Tudons, lit. the woodpigeons, is the name of the place) which is around 4m high, 14m long and 6.4m wide and located in the Western part of the island, on the Ciutadella de Menorca-Mahón road, approximately 3 miles out from Ciutadella, and 200 m south of the road.

Navetas are chronologically pre-Talaiotic (i.e. prior to the Talaiotic age) constructions. They were described in the early 19th century but not excavated until the 20th, notably during the 1960s and 1970s. They were first given their name by the rather imaginative Dr Juan Ramis (1818) from their resemblance to upturned boats. Similar but not necessarily related are the “nuraghes” of Sardinia, the “torri” of Corsica and the “sesi” of Pantelleria.

Pre-Talaiotic constructions are dated using an uncalibrated radiocarbon chronology from 1640 to 1400 BC. The navetas used for communal burial rituals are dated to the late second millennium and early first millennium BC. According to Phil Lee, the author of The Rough Guide to Menorca, folkloric memories of the navetas’ original purpose may have survived into modern times, for the Menorcans were loath to go near these odd-looking and solitary monuments until well into the 19th century.

Taula

A taula (meaning ‘table’ in Catalan) is a T-shaped stone monument found on the Balearic island of Minorca. Taulas can be up to 3.7 metres high and consist of a vertical pillar (a monolith or several smaller stones on top of each other) with a horizontal stone lying on it. A U-shaped wall often encloses the structure. They were built by the Talaiotic Culture between 1000 BC and 300 BC.

Their exact cultural meaning remains unknown, but they probably had religious and/or astronomical purposes. Most of the taulas face south, which seems to suggest some astronomical meaning. Archeologist Michael Hoskin has suggested the taulas may have been part of an ancient healing cult. They are frequently found near talayots. Examples include those at Torre Trencada, Talatí de Dalt, Torrellissá Nou, Trepucó, and the site at Torralba d’en Salord.

Talaiots

The talaiots, or talayots, are Bronze Age megaliths on the islands of Minorca and Majorca forming part of the Talaiotic Culture or Talaiotic Period. They date back to the late second millennium and early first millennium BC.

There are at least 274 of them, in, near, or related to Talaiotic settlements and Talaiotic navetes. While some of the talaiots certainly had a defensive purpose, the use of others is not clearly understood. Some believe them to have served the purpose of lookout or signalling towers, as on Minorca, where they form a network. These monuments pre-date the taulas, which are usually found nearby.

Talayots on Minorca were much less prone to weathering as were the ones found on Majorca. Despite this, very few grave goods have been found in Minorcan talayots, leading historians to believe that the island had a poorer economy than its larger neighbor.

The Talaiotic Culture

The Talaiotic Culture or Talaiotic Period is the name used to describe the society that existed on the Gymnesian Islands (the easternmost Balearic Islands) during the Iron Age, between 1000 BC and 300 BC. Its name is derived from the talaiots, which are the most abundant and emblematic structures from the prehistoric period of the Balearic Islands.

Its origins date from the end of the second millennium BC, when the inaccurately named Pre-Talaiotic Culture underwent a crisis and evolved into the Talaiotic Culture.

Up until the end of the 20th century it was theorized that the Talaiotic Culture arose out of interaction between new peoples from the eastern Mediterranean and local island culture, in the form of an aggressive invasion, or perhaps as a peaceful assimilation. This because the Talaiotic Culture arose at the same time that the crisis caused by the Sea Peoples, which had revolutionized societies in this part of the Mediterranean until the 13th century BC, was occurring.

In addition the talaiots were similar in many respects to the nuraghes of Sardinia, which lends credence to the theory that the Talaiotic people were of Sardinian origin.

These theories were based mainly on architectonic remains that exist in abundance on Majorca and Menorca. The Talaiotic people were considered a warlike race due to the abundance of talaiots or defensive towers and the existence of walled towns.

However, archaeological excavations conducted at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries have established that the talaiots were built much later – at the beginning of the first millennium BC, which means that they were not built during the time of the Sea Peoples and the Sardinian nuraghes.

In addition, there is more and more proof that what was considered a sudden transition from a Pre-Talaiotic Culture during the Bronze Age to the Talaiotic Culture was actually a slow evolution lasting several centuries, and actually caused by a localized crisis on the Balearic Islands.

However, external influences on the Talaiotic Culture cannot be completely discounted, since the existence of bronze alloys on the island (which requires tin, not available on the Balearic Islands) indicates that frequent contacts with the outside world existed.

The first evidence indicating the development of this culture appeared at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, when island society was threatened by population increases, inefficient food production, and limited living space.

Agricultural techniques that the first inhabitants had brought with them a millennium before the Copper Age consisted of planting in newly-broken ground by burning forests and plowing the newly cleared ground. This technique resulted in a rapid deterioration of fertile land, and may be the main cause for the almost completely meat-based diet of the islanders towards the end of the Bronze Age.

The first great monuments on Majorca from this period are the Layered Tumuli (Túmulos Escalonados), which had a funerary purpose. The date of their construction dates from the end of the second millennium BC to the beginnings of the first millennium BC, and many of the Tumuli are associated with hypogea from the Bronze Age.

In sum, the society of this era is called “Proto-Talaiotic,” since many features of the subsequent Talaiotic society begin to appear at this time. These features include the clustering of the population into towns. It has been confirmed that in some of these Talaiotic towns naviform structures were dismantled in order to use the building material to build ordinary dwellings.

The very factors that gave rise to the Talaiotic Period spelled its doom. Construction of talaiots ceased, and many of them were destroyed or converted for different uses. The nearby Punic center of Ebusus, present-day Ibiza, increased its commercial influence to include the Gymnesian Islands; this economic extension in effect transformed itself into an actual Punic colonization of the Gymnesian Islands.

The Mediterranean subsequently became dominated by the Roman and Carthaginian Empires. The Punic Wars would erupt between these two powers, and the islands of Mallorca and Menorca would be forcibly dragged into what is called the Post-Talaiotic Period (also known as the Balearic Culture or Post-Talaiotic Culture).

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily and before Cyprus) and an autonomous region of Italy, which goes by the official name of Regione Autonoma della Sardegna / Regione Autònoma de Sardigna (Autonomous Region of Sardinia).

The nearest land masses are (clockwise from north) the island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia, the Balearic Islands, and Provence. The Tyrrhenian Sea portion of the Mediterranean Sea is directly to the east of Sardinia between the Sardinian east coast and the west coast of the Italian mainland peninsula. The Strait of Bonifacio is directly north of Sardinia and separates Sardinia from the French island of Corsica.

The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard-, romanised as sardus (feminine sarda); that the name had a religious connotation is suggested from its use also as the adjective for the ancient Sardinian mythological hero-god Sardus Pater “Sardinian Father” (in modern times misunderstood as being “Father Sardus”), as well as being the stem of the adjective “sardonic”. Sardinia was called Ichnusa (the Latinised form of the Greek Hyknousa), Sandàlion (in Greek meaning sandal), Sardinia and Sardó by the Romans and the ancient Greeks.

Sardinia is one of the most geologically ancient bodies of land in Europe. Sardinia has been in contact with extra-insular communities in Corsica, Tuscany, Liguria and Provence since the Stone Age. The island was populated in various waves of emigration from prehistory until recent times. As time passed, the different Sardinian populations appear to has become united in customs, yet remained politically divided into various small, tribal groupings, at times banding together, and at others waging war against each other.

The first people to settle in Sardinia during the Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic came from the Iberian and the Italian peninsula; some populations, particularly from the ancient region of Etruria (present-day Tuscany), managed to move to northern Sardinia via Corsica; however, there is some evidence in Oliena’s Corbeddu Cave of a previous Paleolithic colonization of the island. In the mid-Neolithic period, the Ozieri culture, probably of Aegean origin, flourished on the island.

Ozieri culture

In the Stone Age the island was inhabited by people who had arrived there in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic ages from several parts of Europe and the Mediterranean area. The most ancient settlements have been discovered both in central Sardinia and Anglona; later several cultures developed in the island, such as the Ozieri culture or San Michele culture (3200−2700 BC), a prehistoric pre-Nuragic culture that lived in Sardinia.

The archaeological excavation held there in 1914 and 1949 found fine worked vases with geometrical motifs carved in the clay and colored with red ochre. The oldest ones were still rather crude, while the more recent examples were more refined and slender.

Such ceramics were a novelty for prehistoric Sardinia, since up to that point they had been considered typical of the Cyclades and Crete. The development of the Ozieri culture, therefore, probably stemmed from contacts with other eastern Mediterranean civilizations, in particular from the Neolithic Greece area.

The economy was based on agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing and trading with the mainland. During this period copper objects and weapons also appeared in the island. Religion included the adoration of the Neolithic Mother goddess and of a Bull god, perhaps connected to fertility. Female statuettes similar to those of the Ozieri culture have been found in Malta.

Remains from this period include at least 332 menhir, 100 Dolmen and more than 2,400 hypogeum tombs called Domus de Janas, (Sardinian: “House of the Fairies” or of the “Witches”), a type of pre-Nuragic chamber tombs found in Sardinia, the 3rd millennium BC statue menhirs representing warriors or female figures, and the stepped pyramid of Monte d’Accoddi, near Sassari, which has some similarities with the monumental complex of Los Millares (Andalusia) and the later Talaiots in the Balearic Islands.

According to some scholars, the similarity between this structure and Mesopotamian ones is due to cultural influxs coming from the Eastern Mediterranean. The altar of Monte d’Accoddi fell out of use starting from c. 2000 BC, when the Beaker culture, which at the time was widespread in almost all Western Europe, appeared in the island.

Beaker people

During the early Bronze Age the so-called Beaker culture, coming from Continental Europe, appeared in Sardinia ca 2100-1800 BC. These new people predominantly settled on the west coast, where the majority of the sites attributed to them had been found.

From the late third millennium BC on, comb-impressed Beaker ware, as well as other Beaker material in Monte Claro, a Chalcolithic culture that spread throughout the island of Sardinia around the second half of the 3rd millennium BC (2400-2100 BC), contexts, has been found (mostly in burials, suchs as domus de janas), demonstrating continuing relationships with the western Mediterranean.

Archaeologists divide the Monte Claro culture into four facies: Sassari, Nuoro, Campidano Oristanese. Within each facies there are recognizable peculiarities that concern not only the material culture (ceramics, metallurgy and so on) but also the religious sphere and the settlement patterns.

Characteristics of southern Sardinia are a variety of tombs types, including “oven-tombs”, while in northern Sardinia appeared for the first time large megalithic defensive walls, one of which is that of Monte Baranta near Olmedo. Its spread appears to have occurred through a slow expansion, which started from the South to the North of the island.

Elsewhere, Beaker material has been found stratigraphically above Monte Claro and at the end of the Chalcolithic period in association with the related Bronze Age Bonnanaro culture (1800-1600 BC), a protohistoric culture that flourished in Sardinia considered to be the first stage of the Nuragic civilization, for which C-14 dates calibrate to ca. 2250 BC.

The Bonnanaro culture had been described by scholars as the Sardinian regionalization of the pan-European Bell Beaker culture, with some influences from the Polada culture (22nd to 16th centuries BC), the name for a culture of the ancient Bronze Age which spread primarily in the territory of modern-day Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino of northern Italy, characterized by settlements on pile-dwellings.

There is virtually no evidence in Sardinia of external contacts in the early second millennia, apart from late Beakers and close parallels between Bonnannaro pottery and that of the North Italian Polada culture. Polada culture influences, regarding ceramics in particular, are especially strong in the early Bonnanaro phase (or Bonnanaro A1).

Bonnanaro finds have been unearthed in over 70 sites, scattered throughout Sardinian territory, with a higher concentration in the mining regions of Nurra and Sulcis-Iglesiente and in the Campidano. Ceramics were smooth and linear without decorations and characterized by handles. Metal objects increased and the first swords of arsenical bronze appeared.

The Bonnanaro culture brought new religious ideas and funerary rites and a new mode of burial, the so-called “giants’ grave”, a derivative of the Allée couverte or a gallery grave, a form of megalithic tomb where there is no size difference between the burial chamber itself and the entrance passage.

A Gallery grave has two parallel walls of stone slabs were erected to form a corridor and covered with a line of capstones. The rectangular tomb was covered with a barrow or a cairn. Most were built during the fourth millennium BC, though some were still being built in the Bronze Age.

They are distributed across Europe and they are usually subdivided by period, region and also into more generic types of chambered long barrows, chambered round barrows, chambered long cairns and chambered round cairns. Examples are known in Catalonia, France, the Low Countries, Germany, The British Isles, Scandinavia, Sardinia and southern Italy.

Giants’ tomb (Italian: Tomba dei giganti, Sardinian: Tumba de sos zigantes) is the name given by local people and archaeologists to a type of Sardinian megalithic gallery grave built during the Bronze Age by the Nuragic civilization. They can be found throughout Sardinia, with 800 being discovered there.

A stone cairn lies over the burial chambers, with some examples having a cup-shaped entrance similar to the court cairn tombs of Ireland. There are also structures similar to the block-type giants tombs on the island of Malta and in the United Kingdom.

It is still uncertain whether the first “protonuraghi” or “pseudonuraghi”, megalithic edifices which are considered the precursors of the future Nuraghi, were built at this time, or in the successive Sub-Bonnanaro culture (or Bonnanaro B) of the middle bronze age (1600-1330 BC).

The Proto-Nuraghi are horizontal buildings characterized by a long corridor with rooms and cells, and represent an attempt to fortify the more traditional huts in a period where tribal clashes, due to the introduction of the first sophisticated weapons, were becoming increasingly common.

There are some commonalities between the Polada culture and the previous Bell Beaker Culture including the usage of the bow and a certain mastery in metallurgy. According to Barfield the appearance of Polada facies is connected to the movement of populations from from southern Germany and from Switzerland.

Most of the sites attributable to this culture were discovered around the Lake Garda, between eastern Lombardy, Trentino and western Veneto and around the Lago di Viverone and the Lake Maggiore in Piedmont. Its influences are also found in the cultures of the Early Bronze Age of Liguria, Romagna, Corsica and Sardinia (Bonnanaro culture).

If the pottery is still coarse, other human activities grow and develop: lithic industry, in bone and horn, wood and metals. The Bronze tools and weapons show similarities with those of the Unetice Culture (2300–1600 BC) and other groups in the north of Alps including the Singen and Straubing groups.

The Únětice culture is considered to be part of a wider pan-European cultural phenomenon, arising gradually between the second half of the third and at the beginning of second millennium.

The role of the Únětice Culture in the formation of Bronze Age Europe cannot be overrated. The rise and the existence of this original, expansive and dynamic populations mark one of the most interesting moments in European prehistory. The influence of this culture covered much larger areas mainly due to intensive exchange. Únětice pottery and bronzes are thus found in Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Italy as well as the Balkans.

Starting from the late Copper Age, the island was settled by people who came probably by sea from Spain, southern France (early Beaker phase) and Central Europe (late Beaker phase) in various small waves.

Like elsewhere in Europe and in the Mediterranean area, the Bell Beaker culture in Sardinia is characterized by the typical ceramics decorated with overlaid horizontal bands and associated finds: brassards, V-pierced buttons etc.; for the first time gold items appeared on the island (collier of the Tomb of Bingia ‘e Monti, Gonnostramatza).

The different styles and decorations of the ceramics which succeed through the time allow to split the Beaker culture in Sardinia into three chronological phases: A1 (2100-2000 BC), A2 (2000-1900 BC), B (1900-1800 BC). In these various phases is observable the succession of two components of different geographical origin: the first “Franco-Iberian” and the second “Central European”.

It appears likely that Sardinia was the intermediary that brought Beaker materials to Sicily. It spread mainly in the north-west and south-west of the island. In the northwest and in the Palermo kept almost intact its cultural and social characteristics, while in the south-west there was a strong integration with local cultures. The only known single bell-shaped glass in eastern Sicily was found in Syracuse.

The nuraghe

The nuraghe (plural Italian nuraghi, Sardinian Logudorese nuraghes / Sardinian Campidanese nuraxis) is the main type of ancient megalithic edifice found in Sardinia, developed during the Nuragic Age between 1900 and 730 BCE. They consist of tower-fortresses, built starting from about 1800 BC. More than 7000 nuraghi have been found, though archeologists believe that originally there were not less than 10,000.

Today it has come to be the symbol of Sardinia and its distinctive culture, the Nuragic civilization, a civilization of Sardinia, lasting from the Bronze Age (18th century BC) to the 2nd century AD. The name derives from its most characteristic monuments, the nuraghes.

Dating to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the nuraghe are megalithic towers with a truncated cone shape, which are widespread in the whole of Sardinia, about one nuraghe every three square kilometers.

There has long been controversy among scholars. Theories about their utilization have included social, military, religious, astronomical role, as furnaces or sepulture places, but the modern agreement is that they were defensible home sites that included barns and silos.

In ancient times, Greek historians and geographers tried to solve the mystery of the nuraghe and their builders. They described the presence of fabulous edifices, called daidaleia, from the name of Daedalus, who, after building his labyrinth in Crete, would have moved to Sicily and then to Sardinia.

Around 1500 BC, archaeological studies have proved the increasing size of the settlements built around these structures, which were often located at the summit of hills. Perhaps for protection reasons, new towers were added to the original ones, connected by walls provided with slits.

The most famous among the numerous existing nuraghe, which have been included in the UNESCO Heritage List, are the Su Nuraxi at Barumini, Santu Antine at Torralba, Nuraghe Losa at Abbasanta, Palmavera (Alghero), Genna Maria at Villanovaforru, Santa Cristina at Paulilatino and Arrubiu at Orroli.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the etymology is “uncertain and disputed”: “The word is perhaps related to the Sardinian place names Nurra, Nurri, Nurru, and to Sardinian nurra ‘heap of stones, cavity in earth’ (although these senses are difficult to reconcile).

A connection with the Semitic base of Arabic nūr ‘light, fire, etc.’ is now generally rejected.” The Latin word murus (‘wall’) may be related to it, as the old Italian word mora (‘tombal rock mound’), as used by Dante in his Comedy. However, the derivation: murus–*muraghe–nuraghe is debated.

An etymological theory suggests a paleo-Basque origin by the term *nur (stone) with the common -ak plural ending; the Paleo-Sardinian suffix -ake it’s also found in some indoeuropean languages such as latin and greek. Another possible explanation is that the word Nuraghe came from the name of the mythological hero Norax, in this case the root *nur would be an adaptation of the indoeuropean root *nor.

It has been suggested that some of the current Sardinian villages trace their origin directly from Nuragic ones, including perhaps those containing the root Nur- in their name (like Nurachi, Nuraminis, Nurri, Nurallao, Noragugume).

Marduk

Marduk (Sumerian spelling in Akkadian: AMAR.UTU “solar calf”) was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade.

According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the name Marduk was probably pronounced Marutuk. “Marduk” is the Babylonian form of his name. The etymology of the name Marduk is conjectured as derived from amar-Utu (“bull calf of the sun god Utu”).

The origin of Marduk’s name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar (whose god was Utu, the sun god), dating back to the third millennium BC. Although the spelling of Marduk’s name (see below) appears to affiliate him with the sun god Utu, there is no evidence that he was ever considered to be the sun god’s son.

When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BC), he slowly started to rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium BC. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila. In the perfected system of astrology, the planet Jupiter was associated with Marduk by the Hammurabi period.

Marduk rose from an obscure deity in the third millennium BCE to become one of the most important gods and the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon in the first millennium. He was the patron god of the city of Babylon, where his temple tower, the ziggurat Etemenanki (“Temple (that is) the foundation of the heavens and the earth”) served as the model for the famous “tower of Babel.”

Marduk’s original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. He was regarded as the son of Ea (Sumerian Enki) and Damkina and the heir of Anu. Whatever special traits Marduk may have had were overshadowed by the political development through which the Euphrates valley passed and which led to people of the time imbuing him with traits belonging to gods who in an earlier period were recognized as the heads of the pantheon.

There are particularly two gods – Ea and Enlil – whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk. In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded pacifically and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, so that Marduk was integrated in the pantheon of Eridu where both Ea and Asarluhi originally came from. Father Ea voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and hands over to him the control of humanity.

Asalluhi is the son of Enki/Ea and a god of incantations and magic, sometimes merged with Marduk. The etymology and meaning of his name are unclear.The syncretism with Asalluhi is mentioned in a Sumerian literary letter to the goddess Ninsinna, in which Asalluhi is described as the “king of Babylon.”

This association of Marduk and Ea, while indicating primarily the passing of the supremacy once enjoyed by Eridu to Babylon as a religious and political centre, may also reflect an early dependence of Babylon upon Eridu, not necessarily of a political character but, in view of the spread of culture in the Euphrates valley from the south to the north, the recognition of Eridu as the older centre on the part of the younger one.

While the relationship between Ea and Marduk is marked by harmony and an amicable abdication on the part of the father in favour of his son, Marduk’s absorption of the power and prerogatives of Enlil of Nippur was at the expense of the latter’s prestige.

Babylon became independent in the early 19th century BC, and was initially a small city state, overshadowed by older and more powerful Mesopotamian states such as Isin, Larsa and Assyria.

However, after Hammurabi forged an empire in the 18th century BC, turning Babylon into the dominant state in the south, the cult of Marduk eclipsed that of Enlil; although Nippur and the cult of Enlil enjoyed a period of renaissance during the over four centuries of Kassite control in Babylonia (c. 1595 BC–1157 BC), the definite and permanent triumph of Marduk over Enlil became felt within Babylonia.

The only serious rival to Marduk after ca. 1750 BC was the god Aššur (Ashur) (who had been the supreme deity in the northern Mesopotamian state of Assyria since the 25th century BC) which was the dominant power in the region between the 14th to the late 7th century BC. In the south, Marduk reigned supreme. He is normally referred to as Bel “Lord”, also bel rabim “great lord”, bêl bêlim “lord of lords”, ab-kal ilâni bêl terêti “leader of the gods”, aklu bêl terieti “the wise, lord of oracles”, muballit mîte “reviver of the dead”, etc.

When Babylon became the principal city of southern Mesopotamia during the reign of Hammurabi in the 18th century BC, the patron deity of Babylon was elevated to the level of supreme god. In order to explain how Marduk seized power, Enûma Elish was written, which tells the story of Marduk’s birth, heroic deeds and becoming the ruler of the gods. This can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are the fifty names of Marduk.

In Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a very young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god.

To prepare for battle, he makes a bow, fletches arrows, grabs a mace, throws lightning before him, fills his body with flame, makes a net to encircle Tiamat within it, gathers the four winds so that no part of her could escape, creates seven nasty new winds such as the whirlwind and tornado, and raises up his mightiest weapon, the rain-flood. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths. In his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison.

First, he challenges the leader of the Anunnaki gods, the dragon of the primordial sea Tiamat, to single combat and defeats her by trapping her with his net, blowing her up with his winds, and piercing her belly with an arrow. Then, he proceeds to defeat Kingu, who Tiamat put in charge of the army and wore the Tablets of Destiny on his breast, and “wrested from him the Tablets of Destiny, wrongfully his” and assumed his new position. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure.

After six generations of gods, in the Babylonian “Enuma Elish”, in the seventh generation, (Akkadian “shapattu” or sabath), the younger Igigi gods, the sons and daughters of Enlil and Ninlil, go on strike and refuse their duties of keeping the creation working.

Abzu, the god of fresh water, co-creator of the cosmos, threatens to destroy the world with his waters, and the Gods gather in terror. Enki promises to help and puts Abzu to sleep, confining him in irrigation canals and places him in the Kur, beneath his city of Eridu.

But the universe is still threatened, as Tiamat, angry at the imprisonment of Abzu and at the prompting of her son and vizier Kingu, decides to take back the creation herself. The gods gather again in terror and turn to Enki for help, but Enki who harnessed Abzu, Tiamat’s consort, for irrigation refuses to get involved.

The gods then seek help elsewhere, and the patriarchal Enlil, their father, God of Nippur, promises to solve the problem if they make him King of the Gods. In the Babylonian tale, Enlil’s role is taken by Marduk, Enki’s son, and in the Assyrian version it is Asshur.

After dispatching Tiamat with the “arrows of his winds” down her throat and constructing the heavens with the arch of her ribs, Enlil places her tail in the sky as the Milky Way, and her crying eyes become the source of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Samuel Noah Kramer believes that behind this myth of Enki’s confinement of Abzu lies an older one of the struggle between Enki and the Dragon Kur (the underworld).

But there is still the problem of “who will keep the cosmos working”. Enki, who might have otherwise come to their aid, is lying in a deep sleep and fails to hear their cries. His mother Nammu (creatrix also of Abzu and Tiamat) “brings the tears of the gods” before Enki and says: “Oh my son, arise from thy bed, from thy (slumber), work what is wise. Fashion servants for the Gods, may they produce their bread.”

Enki then advises that they create a servant of the gods, humankind, out of clay and blood. Against Enki’s wish the Gods decide to slay Kingu, and Enki finally consents to use Kingu’s blood to make the first human, with whom Enki always later has a close relationship, the first of the seven sages, seven wise men or “Abgallu” (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = Man), also known as Adapa. Enki assembles a team of divinities to help him, creating a host of “good and princely fashioners”.

He tells his mother “Oh my mother, the creature whose name thou has uttered, it exists. Bind upon it the will of the Gods; Mix the heart of clay that is over the Abyss, The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay. Thou, do thou bring the limbs into existence; Ninmah (the Earth-mother goddess (Ninhursag, his wife and consort) will work above thee. Ninti (goddess of birth) will stand by thy fashioning; Oh my mother, decree thou its (the new born’s) fate.

Adapa, the first man fashioned, later goes and acts as the advisor to the King of Eridu, when in the Sumerian Kinglist, the “Me” of “kingship descends on Eridu”. Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, “the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods] delight”.

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.

Sarpanit

His consort was the goddess Sarpanit. Her name means “the shining one”, and she is sometimes associated with the planet Venus. By a play on words her name was interpreted as zēr-bānītu, or “creatress of seed”, and is thereby associated with the goddess Aruru, who, according to Babylonian myth, created mankind.

Her marriage with Marduk was celebrated annually at New Year in Babylon. She was worshipped via the rising moon, and was often depicted as being pregnant. She is also known as Erua. She may be the same as Gamsu, Ishtar, and/or Beltis.

Nabu

Nabu was originally a West Semitic god of wisdom from Ebla. His cult was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites after 2000 BCE. He Nabu was assimilated into Marduk’s cult, where he became known as Marduk’s minister, Ea’s grandson and Marduk’s son with Sarpanitum, and co-regent of the Mesopotamian pantheon. He is the Assyrian and Babylonian god of wisdom and writing. His consorts were Tashmetum and Nissaba.

Due to his role as Marduk’s minister and scribe, Nabu became the god of wisdom and writing, (including all works of science, religion and magic) taking over the role from the Sumerian goddess Nisaba. He was also worshipped as a god of fertility, a god of water, and a god of vegetation. He was also the keeper of the Tablets of Destiny, which recorded the fate of mankind and allowed him to increase or diminish the length of human life. He rides on a winged dragon known as Sirrush which originally belonged to his father Marduk.

His symbols are the clay tablet and stylus. In Babylonian astrology, Nabu was identified with the planet Mercury. As the god of wisdom and writing, Nabu was identified by the Greeks with Hermes, by the Romans with Mercury, and by the Egyptians with Thoth.

Sippar

Sippar (Sumerian: Zimbir) was an ancient Near Eastern city on the east bank of the Euphrates river, located at the site of modern Tell Abu Habbah in Iraq’s Babil Governorate, some 60 km north of Babylon and 30 km southwest of Baghdad. As was often the case in Mesopotamia, it was part of a pair of cities, separated by a river. Sippar was on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum (modern Tell ed-Der), was on the west.

Despite the fact that thousands of cuneiform clay tablets have been recovered at the site, relatively little is known about the history of Sippar, which has been suggested as the location of the Biblical Sepharvaim in the Old Testament, i.e., “the two Sipparas,” or “the two booktowns”, which alludes to the two parts of the city in its dual form. The Sippara on the east bank of the Euphrates is now called Abu-Habba; that on the other bank was Akkad, the old capital of Sargon I, where he established a great library.

The chief deity of Sippar-Amnanum was Annunitum (or Anunit), the daughter of Enlil and a warlike aspect of Istar favored by the Akkadians, while Sippar was the centre of the worship of the god Adramelech or Adar-malik, a form of sun god related to Moloch. The melech element means “King” in Hebrew (representing Semitic מלך m-l-k, a Semitic root meaning “king”). Moloch worship was practiced by the Canaanites, Phoenicians, and related cultures in North Africa and the Levant.

Like many pagan gods, Adramelech is considered a demon in some Judeo-Christian traditions. So he appears in Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Adramelech is a fallen angel, vanquished by Uriel and Raphael. According to Collin de Plancy’s book on demonology, Adramelech became the President of the Senate of the demons. He is also the Chancellor of Hell and supervisor of Satan’s wardrobe.

Adramelech is generally depicted with a human torso and head, and the limbs of a mule or peacock. A poet’s description of Adramelech can be found in Robert Silverberg’s short story “Basileus”. Adramelech is described as “The enemy of God, greater in ambition, guile and mischief than Satan. A fiend more curst — a deeper hypocrite”.

They also worshipped the lunar deity Anamelech, meaning “Anu is king.” In Christian demonology, Anamelech is an Assyrian goddess later claimed by Christian sources to be a demon worshipped alongside Adramelech, the sun god. She takes the form of a quail.

Sepharvaim was according to the Old Testament in 2 Kings 17:24; 18:34; 19:13; Isa. 37:13 taken by a king of Assyria, probably Sargon II. According to (II Kings 17:31) the cult was brought by the Sepharvite colonists into Samaria: “the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim”.

The recent discovery of cuneiform inscriptions at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt consisting of official despatches to Pharaoh Amenophis IV and his predecessor from their agents in Palestine leads some Egyptologists to conclude that in the century before the Exodus an active literary intercourse was carried on between these nations, and that the medium of the correspondence was the Babylonian language and script.

However, it has not been conclusively proven which Egyptian Pharaoh the Amarna Letters reference or that the Judean Exodus necessarily occurred after these letters. After the deportation of the Israelite tribes, at least some of the residents of this city were brought to Samaria to repopulate it with other Gentile settlers.

Kura Araxes culture

The Kura–Araxes culture or the early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from 3400 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end, but it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC.

The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread northward in Caucasus by 3000 BC (but never reaching Colchis), and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, and finally down to the borders of present-day Syria.

Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km, and mostly encompassed, on modern-day territories, the Southern Caucasus (except western Georgia), Northwestern Iran, the Northeastern Caucasus, and Eastern Turkey.

The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Its territory corresponds to parts of modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Ingushetia, Iran, North Ossetia, and Turkey. It may have given rise to the later Khirbet Kerak ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.

Their pottery was distinctive; in fact, the spread of their pottery along trade routes into surrounding cultures was much more impressive than any of their achievements domestically. It was painted black and red, using geometric designs for ornamentation. Examples have been found as far south as Syria and Israel, and as far north as Dagestan and Chechnya.

The spread of this pottery, along with archaeological evidence of invasions, suggests that the Kura-Araxes people may have spread outward from their original homes, and most certainly, had extensive trade contacts. Jaimoukha believes that its southern expanse is attributable primarily to Mitanni and the Hurrians.

Trialeti culture

The Trialeti culture, named after Trialeti region of Georgia, is attributed to the first part of the 2nd millennium BC. In the late 3rd millennium BC, settlements of the Kura-Araxes culture began to be replaced by early Trialeti culture sites.

The Trialeti culture was the second culture to appear in Georgia, after the Shulaveri-Shomu culture, a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Armenian Highlands dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC.

The Trialeti culture shows close ties with the highly developed cultures of the ancient world, particularly with the Aegean, but also with cultures to the south, such as probably the Sumerians and their Akkadian conquerors.

The site at Trialeti was originally excavated in 1936–1940 in advance of a hydroelectric scheme, when forty-six barrows were uncovered. A further six barrows were uncovered in 1959–1962.

The Trialeti culture was known for its particular form of burial. The elite were interred in large, very rich burials under earth and stone mounds, which sometimes contained four-wheeled carts. Also there were many gold objects found in the graves. These gold objects were similar to those found in Iran and Iraq. They also worked tin and arsenic.

This form of burial in a tumulus or “kurgan”, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of Proto-Indo-European. In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery.

In a historical context, their impressive accumulation of wealth in burial kurgans, like that of other associated and nearby cultures with similar burial practices, is particularly noteworthy. This practice was probably a result of influence from the older civilizations to the south in the Fertile Crescent.

Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan

Graeco-(Armeno)-Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have become divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid 3rd millennium BC.

Conceivably, Proto-Armenian would have been located between Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with the fact that Armenian shares certain features only with Indo-Iranian (the satem change) but others only with Greek (s > h).

Graeco-Aryan has comparatively wide support among Indo-Europeanists for the Indo-European Homeland to be located in the Armenian Highland. Early and strong evidence was given by Euler’s 1979 examination on shared features in Greek and Sanskrit nominal flection.

Used in tandem with the Graeco-Armenian hypothesis, the Armenian language would also be included under the label Aryano-Greco-Armenic, splitting into proto-Greek/Phrygian and “Armeno-Aryan” (ancestor of Armenian and Indo-Iranian).

Armenian

The loans from Iranian languages initially led linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. The distinctness of Armenian was only recognized when Hübschmann (1875) used the comparative method to distinguish two layers of Iranian loans from the older Armenian vocabulary.

I. M. Austin (1942) concluded that there was an early contact between Armenian and Anatolian languages, based on what he considered common archaisms, such as the lack of a feminine and the absence of inherited long vowels. However, unlike shared innovations (or synapomorphies), the common retention of archaisms (or symplesiomorphy) is not necessarily considered evidence of a period of common isolated development.

Soviet linguist Igor Diakonov (1985) noted the presence in Old Armenian of what he calls a Caucasian substratum, identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages.

Noting that the Hurro-Urartian peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium b.c., Diakonov identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and animal and plant terms such as ałaxin “slave girl” ( ← Hurr. al(l)a(e)ḫḫenne), cov “sea” ( ← Urart. ṣûǝ “(inland) sea”), ułt “camel” ( ← Hurr. uḷtu), and xnjor “apple(tree)” ( ← Hurr. ḫinzuri).

Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartian. Given that these borrowings don’t undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European, he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage.

Decem and Taihun

The Glottalic Theory holds that Proto-Indo-European had ejective stops, *pʼ *tʼ *kʼ, instead of plain voiced ones, *b *d *ɡ, of traditional Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions. In 1981 Hopper proposed to divide all Indo-European languages into Decem and Taihun groups, according to the pronunciation of the numeral ’10’, by analogy with the Centum-Satem isogloss, which is based on the pronunciation of the numeral ‘100’.

The Armenian, Germanic, Anatolian, and Tocharian subfamilies belong to the Taihun group because the numeral ’10’ begins with a voiceless t there. All other Indo-European languages belong to the Decem group because the numeral 10 begins with a voiced d in them. The question then can be framed as which, if either, of these groups reflects the original state of things, and which is an innovation.

The Armenian hypothesis

The Armenian hypothesis of the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat, based on the Glottalic theory, suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken during the 4th millennium BC in the Armenian Highland.

It is an Indo-Hittite model and does not include the Anatolian languages in its scenario. The phonological peculiarities proposed in the Glottalic theory would be best preserved in the Armenian language and the Germanic languages, the former assuming the role of the dialect which remained in situ, implied to be particularly archaic in spite of its late attestation.

The Proto-Greek language would be practically equivalent to Mycenaean Greek and date to the 17th century BC, closely associating Greek migration to Greece with the Indo-Aryan migration to India at about the same time (viz., Indo-European expansion at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, including the possibility of Indo-European Kassites).

The Armenian hypothesis was proposed by Russian linguists T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov in 1985, presenting it first in two articles in Vestnik drevnej istorii and then in a much larger work.

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov argue that IE spread out from Armenia into the Pontic steppe, from which it expanded – as per the Kurgan hypothesis – into Western Europe. The Hittite, Indo-Iranian, Greek and Armenian branches split from the Armenian homeland.

The Armenian hypothesis argues for the latest possible date of Proto-Indo-European (sans Anatolian), roughly a millennium later than the mainstream Kurgan hypothesis. In this, it figures as an opposite to the Anatolian hypothesis, in spite of the geographical proximity of the respective suggested Urheimaten, diverging from the timeframe suggested there by as much as three millennia.

Robert Drews, commenting on the hypothesis, says that “most of the chronological and historical arguments seem fragile at best, and of those that I am able to judge, some are evidently wrong”. However, he argues that it is far more powerful as a linguistic model, providing insights into the relationship between Indo-European and the Semitic and Kartvelian languages.

He continues to say “It is certain that the inhabitants of the forested areas of Armenia very early became accomplished woodworkers, and it now appears that in the second millennium they produced spoked-wheel vehicles that served as models as far away as China. And we have long known that from the second millennium onward, Armenia was important for the breeding of horses. It is thus not surprising to find that what clues we have suggest that chariot warfare was pioneered in eastern Anatolia. Finally, our picture of what the PIE speakers did, and when, owes much to the recently proposed hypothesis that the homeland of the PIE speakers was Armenia.”

I. Grepin, reviewing Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s book, wrote that their model of linguistic relationships is “the most complex, far reaching and fully supported of this century.”

Aratta

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. The name 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.

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 Inanna, who transfers her allegiance from Aratta to Uruk. It is conquered by Enmerkar of Uruk.

Arme-Shupria

There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources. The earliest is from an inscription which mentions Armânum together with Ibla (Ebla) as territories conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad in ca. 2250 BC. It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina and the Greek Armenoi are continuations of an Assyrian toponym Armânum or Armanî.

Shupria (Shubria) or Arme-Shupria (Armenian: Շուպրիա; Akkadian: Armani-Subartu from the 3rd millennium BC) 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. Scholars have linked the district in the area called Arme or Armani, to the name Armenia. It was part of the Urartu confederation.

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.

Asha/Arta

Asha is the Avestan language term (corresponding to Vedic language ṛta) for a concept of cardinal importance to Zoroastrian theology and doctrine. In the moral sphere, aša/arta represents what has been called “the decisive confessional concept of Zoroastrianism.” Its Old Persian equivalent is arta-. In Middle Iranian languages the term appears as ard-.

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 word is also the proper name of the divinity Asha, the Amesha Spenta that is the hypostasis or “genius” of “Truth” or “Righteousness”. In the Younger Avesta, this figure is more commonly referred to as Asha Vahishta (Aša Vahišta, Arta Vahišta), “Best Truth”.

Avestan aša and its Vedic equivalent rta both derive from Proto-Indo-Iranian *ṛtá- “truth”, which in turn continues Proto-Indo-European *h2r-to- “properly joined, right, true”, from the root *h2ar. The word is attested in Old Persian as arta.

It is unclear whether the Avestan variation between aša and arta is merely orthographical. Benveniste suggested š was only a convenient way of writing rt and should not be considered phonetically relevant.

According to Gray, š is a misreading, representing – not /ʃ/ – but /rr/, of uncertain phonetic value but “probably” representing a voiceless r. Miller suggested that rt was restored when a scribe was aware of the morpheme boundary between the /r/ and /t/ (that is, whether the writer maintained the –ta suffix).

Druj

The opposite of Avestan aša is druj, an Avestan feminine noun defining lie. In Avestan druj- also has a secondary derivation, the adjective drəguuaṇt- (Younger Av. druuaṇt-) “partisan of deception, deceiver,” of which the superlative draojišta- and perhaps also the comparative draoj(ii)ah- are attested.

Avestan druj, like its Vedic Sanskrit cousin druh, appears to derive from the PIE root *dhreugh, also continued in Persian دروغ / d[o]rūġ “lie”, German Trug “fraud, deception”. Old Norse draugr and Middle Irish airddrach mean “spectre, spook”. The Sanskrit cognate druh means “affliction, afflicting demon”.

Inanna

Inanna (Old Babylonian or Neo-Assyrian MUŠ; Sumerian: Inanna; Akkadian: Ištar) was the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility, and warfare, and goddess of the E-Anna temple at the city of Uruk, her main centre. She 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/Inanna

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.

Ishara/Ishtar

Ishara (išḫara) is an ancient deity of unknown origin from northern modern Syria. She first appeared in Ebla and was incorporated to the Hurrian pantheon from which she found her way to the Hittite pantheon.

Ishara is the Hittite word for “treaty, binding promise”, also personified as a goddess of the oath. In Hurrian and Semitic traditions, Išḫara is a love goddess, often identified with Ishtar.

Ishara is a pre-Hurrian and perhaps pre-Semitic deities, later incorporated into the Hurrian pantheon. From the Hurrian Pantheon, Ishara entered the Hittite pantheon and had her main shrine in Kizzuwatna, the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the 2nd millennium BC.

Kizuwatna

Kizzuwatna, is the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the 2nd millennium BC. It was situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey. It encircled the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The center of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, situated in the highlands. In a later era, the same region was known as Cilicia.

The country possessed valuable resources, such as silver mines in the Taurus Mountains. The slopes of the mountain range are still partly covered by woods. Annual winter rains made agriculture possible in the area at a very early date. The plains at the lower course of the Ceyhan river provided rich cultivated fields.

Several ethnic groups coexisted in the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna. The Hurrians inhabited this area at least since the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The Hittite expansion in the early Old Kingdom period (under Hattusili I and Mursili I) was likely to bring the Hittites and the Luwians to southeastern Anatolia.

The Luwian language was part of the Indo-European language group, with close ties to the Hittite language. Both the local Hittites and the Luwians were likely to contribute to the formation of independent Kizzuwatna after the weakening of the Hittite Old Kingdom.

The toponym Kizzuwatna is possibly a Luwian adaptation of Hittite *kez-udne ‘country on this side (of the mountains)’, while the name Isputahsu is definitely Hittite and not Luwian (Yakubovich 2010, pp. 273–4). Hurrian culture became more prominent in Kizzuwatna once it entered the sphere of influence of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni.

Kummanni

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.”

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.

Kumme was still considered a holy city in Assyrian times, both in Assyria and in Urartu. Adad-nirari II, after re-conquering the city, made sacrifices to “Adad of Kumme.” The three chief deities in the Urartian pantheon were “the god of Ardini, the god of Kumenu, and the god of Tushpa.”

Ishuwa

Isuwa (transcribed Išuwa and sometimes rendered Ishuwa, meaning “horse-land”) was the ancient Hittite name for one of its neighboring Anatolian kingdoms to the east, in an area which later became the Luwian Neo-Hittite state of Kammanu. The Khabur Valley had a central position in the metal trade, and copper, silver and even tin were accessible from the Hurrian-dominated countries Kizzuwatna and Ishuwa situated in the Anatolian highland.

The land of Isuwa was situated in the upper Euphrates river region. The river valley was here surrounded by the Anti-Taurus Mountains. To the northeast of the river lay a vast plain stretching up to the Black Sea mountain range. The name Isuwa is not known until the literate Hittite period of the second millennium BC. Few literate sources from within Isuwa have been discovered and the primary source material comes from Hittite texts.

The plain had favourable climatic conditions due to the abundance of water from springs and rainfall. Irrigation of fields was possible without the need to build complex canals. The river valley was well suited for intensive agriculture, while livestock could be kept at the higher altitudes. The mountains possessed rich deposits of copper which were mined in antiquity.

The Isuwans left no written record of their own, and it is not clear which of the Anatolian peoples inhabited the land of Isuwa prior to the Luwians. They could have been Indo-Europeans like the Luwians, related to the Hittites to the west, Hattians, Hurrians from the south, or Urartians who lived east of Isuwa in the first millennium BC.

The area was one of the places where agriculture developed very early in the Neolithic period. Urban centres emerged in the upper Euphrates river valley around 3000 BC. The first states may have followed in the third millennium BC.

Ishvara

Ishvara is a concept in Hinduism, with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism. In ancient texts of Indian philosophy, Ishvara means supreme soul, Brahman (Highest Reality), ruler, king or husband depending on the context. In medieval era texts, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal god, or special Self depending on the school of Hinduism.

In Shaivism, Ishvara is synonymous with “Shiva”, as the “Supreme lord over other Gods” in the pluralistic sense, or as an Ishta-deva in pluralistic thought. In Vaishnavism, it is synonymous with Vishnu. In traditional Bhakti movements, Ishvara is one or more deities of an individual’s preference from Hinduism’s polytheistic canon of deities. In modern sectarian movements such as Arya Samaj and Brahmoism, Ishvara takes the form of a monotheistic God.

In Yoga school of Hinduism, it is any “personal deity” or “spiritual inspiration”. In Advaita Vedanta school, Ishvara is a monistic Universal Absolute that connects and is the Oneness in everyone and everything.

Mitanni

Mitanni (Hittite cuneiform Mi-ta-an-ni; Mittani Mi-it-ta-ni), also called Hanigalbat (Hanigalbat, Khanigalbat cuneiform Ḫa-ni-gal-bat) in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC. Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt mention in the 33rd year of his reign (1446 BC) the people of Ermenen, and says in their land “heaven rests upon its four pillars”.

The Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the same kingdom and were used interchangeably, according to Michael C. Astour.

Hittite annals mention a people called Hurri (Ḫu-ur-ri), located in northeastern Syria. A Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a “King of the Hurri”. The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders “Hurri” as Hanigalbat. Tushratta, who styles himself “king of Mitanni” in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat.

Egyptian sources call Mitanni “nhrn”, which is usually pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for “river”, cf. Aram-Naharaim. The name Mitanni is first found in the “memoirs” of the Syrian wars (ca. 1480 BC) of the official astronomer and clockmaker Amememhet, who returned from the “foreign country called Me-ta-ni” at the time of Thutmose I.

The expedition to the Naharina announced by Thutmosis I at the beginning of his reign may have actually taken place during the long previous reign of Amenhotep I. Helck believes that this was the expedition mentioned by Amenhotep II.

As early as Akkadian times, Hurrians are known to have lived east of the river Tigris on the northern rim of Mesopotamia, and in the Khabur Valley. The group which became Mitanni gradually moved south into Mesopotamia before the 17th century BC.

Hurrians are mentioned in the private Nuzi texts, in Ugarit, and the Hittite archives in Hattushsha (Boğazköy). Cuneiform texts from Mari mention rulers of city-states in upper Mesopotamia with both Amurru (Amorite) and Hurrian names. Rulers with Hurrian names are also attested for Urshum and Hashshum, and tablets from Alalakh (layer VII, from the later part of the old-Babylonian period) mention people with Hurrian names at the mouth of the Orontes. There is no evidence for any invasion from the North-east. Generally, these onomastic sources have been taken as evidence for a Hurrian expansion to the South and the West.

A Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a “King of the Hurrians” (LUGAL ERÍN.MEŠ Hurri). This terminology was last used for King Tushratta of Mitanni, in a letter in the Amarna archives. The normal title of the king was ‘King of the Hurri-men’ (without the determinative KUR indicating a country).

It is believed that the warring Hurrian tribes and city states became united under one dynasty after the collapse of Babylon due to the Hittite sack by Mursili I and the Kassite invasion. The Hittite conquest of Aleppo (Yamkhad), the weak middle Assyrian kings, and the internal strifes of the Hittites had created a power vacuum in upper Mesopotamia. This led to the formation of the kingdom of Mitanni. The legendary founder of the Mitannian dynasty was a king called Kirta, who was followed by a king Shuttarna. Nothing is known about these early kings.

The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain. A treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber (1968) suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, but Mayrhofer (1974) has shown that specifically Indo-Aryan features are present.

The names of the Mitanni aristocracy frequently are of Indo-Aryan origin, but it is specifically their deities which show Indo-Aryan roots (Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya), though some think that they are more immediately related to the Kassites, an ancient Near Eastern people who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire ca. 1531 BC and until ca. 1155 BC (short chronology).

The Kassite language has not been classified. What is known is that their language was not related to either the Indo-European language group, nor to Semitic or other Afro-Asiatic languages, and is most likely to have been a language isolate (a stand-alone language unrelated to any other), although some linguists have proposed a link to the Hurro-Urartian languages of Asia Minor. However, several Kassite leaders bore Indo-European names, and they might have had an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni, who ruled over the Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians of Asia Minor.

Maryannu is an ancient word for the caste of chariot-mounted hereditary warrior nobility which existed in many of the societies of the Middle East during the Bronze Age.The term is attested in the Amarna letters written by Haapi.

Robert Drews writes that the name ‘maryannu’ although plural takes the singular ‘marya’, which in Sanskrit means young warrior, and attaches a Hurrian suffix. He suggests that at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age most would have spoken either Hurrian or Aryan but by the end of the 14th century most of the Levant maryannu had Semitic names.

The common people’s language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic. Hurrian is related to Urartian, the language of Urartu, both belonging to the Hurro-Urartian language family. It had been held that nothing more can be deduced from current evidence. A Hurrian passage in the Amarna letters – usually composed in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the day – indicates that the royal family of Mitanni was by then speaking Hurrian as well.

Urartu

Urartian, Vannic, and (in older literature) Chaldean (Khaldian, or Haldian) are conventional names for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu that was located in the region of Lake Van, with its capital near the site of the modern town of Van, in the Armenian Highland, modern-day Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. It was probably spoken by the majority of the population around Lake Van and in the areas along the upper Zab valley.

The name Urartu comes from Assyrian sources: the Assyrian King Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of “Uruatri.” The name used by the local population as a toponym was Biainili (or Biaineli), which forms the root of the Armenian Վան (“Van”), hence the names “Kingdom of Van (Bianili)” or “Vannic Kingdom.”

The Shalmaneser text uses the name Urartu to refer to a geographical region, not a kingdom, and names eight “lands” contained within Urartu ( which at the time of the campaign were still disunited ) . “Urartu” is cognate with the Biblical “Ararat,” Akkadian “Urashtu,” and Armenian “Ayrarat.”

Strictly speaking, Urartu is the Assyrian term for a geographical region, while “kingdom of Urartu” or “Biainili lands” are terms used in modern historiography for the Urartian-speaking Iron Age state that arose in that region. This language appears in inscriptions.

That a distinction should be made between the geographical and the political entity was already pointed out by König (1955). The landscape corresponds to the mountainous plateau between Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, the Iranian Plateau, and the Caucasus mountains, later known as the Armenian Highlands.

The kingdom rose to power in the mid-9th century BC, but was conquered by Media in the early 6th century BC. The heirs of Urartu are the Armenians and their successive kingdoms. Though there is no written evidence of any other language being spoken in this kingdom, it is argued on linguistic evidence that Proto-Armenian came in contact with Urartian at an early date.

Boris Piotrovsky wrote that “the Urartians first appear in history in the 13th century BC as a league of tribes or countries which did not yet constitute a unitary state. In the Assyrian annals the term Uruatri (Urartu) as a name for this league was superseded during a considerable period of years by the term “land of Nairi””.

Scholars believe that Urartu is an Akkadian variation of Ararat of the Old Testament. Indeed, Mount Ararat is located in ancient Urartian territory, approximately 120 km north of its former capital. In addition to referring to the famous Biblical mountain, Ararat also appears as the name of a kingdom in Jeremiah 51:27, mentioned together with Minni and Ashkenaz.

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.

Khaldi/Ardini

Scholars such as Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt (1910) believed that the people of Urartu called themselves Khaldini after their god Khaldi, also known as Ḫaldi, Hayk or Hayg, also known as Haik Nahapet (Hayk the Tribal Chief), the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation.

Khaldi was one of the three chief deities of Ararat (Urartu). The other two chief deities were Theispas of Kumenu, and Shivini of Tushpa. Of all the gods of Ararat (Urartu) pantheon, the most inscriptions are dedicated to him. His wife was the goddess Arubani. He is portrayed as a man with or without a beard, standing on a lion.

His shrine was at the ancient Urartian city of Ardini attested in Assyrian sources of the 9th and 8th centuries BC. The present form of the name is Artin, meaning “sun rising” or to “awake”, and it persists in Armenian names to this day. It was known as Muṣaṣir (Mu-ṣa-ṣir and variants, including Mutsatsir), meaning Exit of the Serpent/Snake in Akkadian. It was acquired by the Urartian King Ishpuini ca. 800 BC.

The mušḫuššu (formerly also read as sirrušu, sirrush) is a creature depicted on the reconstructed Ishtar Gate of the city of Babylon, dating to the 6th century BC. As depicted, it is a mythological hybrid: a scaly dragon with hind legs resembling the talons of an eagle, feline forelegs, a long neck and tail, a horned head, a snake-like tongue, and a crest.

The form mušḫuššu is the Akkadian nominative of the Sumerian MUŠ.ḪUS, lit. “reddish snake” sometimes also translated as “fierce snake”. One author, possibly following others, translates it as “splendor serpent” (MUŠ is the Sumerian term for “serpent”. The reading sir-ruššu is due to a mistransliteration in early Assyriology).

The mušḫuššu is the sacred animal of Marduk and his son Nabu during the Neo-Babylonian Empire. It was taken over by Marduk from the Akkadian god Tishpak, the tutelary deity of the city of Esnumma (Eshnunna), likely identical with the Hurrian god “Teshup”.

The constellation Hydra was known in Babylonian astronomical texts as Bashmu, “the Serpent” (MUŠ). It was depicted as a snake drawn out long with the forepaws of a lion, no hind-legs, with wings, and with a head comparable to the mušḫuššu dragon. This monstrous serpent may have inspired the Greek Hydra.

Hayasa-Azzi

Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, the Hayasa and/or the Azzi, lying around Lake Van. Hayasa-Azzi or Azzi-Hayasa was a Late Bronze Age confederation formed between two kingdoms of Armenian Highlands, Hayasa located South of Trabzon and Azzi, located north of the Euphrates and to the south of Hayasa. The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1190 BC.

Several prominent authorities agree in placing Azzi to the north of Ishuwa, the ancient Hittite name for one of its neighboring Anatolian kingdoms to the east, in an area which later became the Luwian Neo-Hittite state of Kammanu, a Luwian – Proto-Armenian speaking Neo-Hittite state in Armenian Highlands in the late 2nd millennium BC, formed from part of Kizzuwatna after the collapse of the Hittite Empire. Others see Hayasa and Azzi as identical.

The similarity of the name Hayasa to the endonym of the Armenians, Hayk or Hay and the Armenian name for Armenia, Hayastan has prompted the suggestion that the Hayasa-Azzi confereration was involved in the Armenian ethnogenesis.

The term Hayastan bears resemblance to the ancient Mesopotamian god Haya (ha-ià) and another western deity called Ebla Hayya, related to the god Ea (Enki or Enkil in Sumerian, Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian). Thus, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1962 posited that the Armenians derive from a migration of Hayasa into Shupria in the 12th century BC.

The name Armenia enters English via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἀρμενία. The Armenian endonym for the Armenian people and country is hayer and hayk’, respectively. The exact etymology of the name is unknown, and there are various speculative attempts to connect it to older toponyms or ethnonyms.

Haya

Haya is known both as a “door-keeper” and associated with the scribal arts. Haya’s functions are two-fold: he appears to have served as a door-keeper but was also associated with the scribal arts, and may have had an association with grain.

There is a divine name Haia(-)amma in a bilingual Hattic-Hittite text from Anatolia which is used as an equivalent for the Hattic grain-goddess Kait in an invocation to the Hittite grain-god Halki, although it is unclear whether this appellation can be related to Haia.

Attempts have also been made to connect the remote origins of Haia with those of the god Ea (Ebla Ḥayya), although there remain serious doubts concerning this hypothesis. How or whether both are related to a further western deity called Ḥayya is also unclear.

Haya is characterised, beyond being the spouse of the grain-goddess Nidaba/Nissaba, who is also the patroness of the scribal art, as an “agrig”-official of the god Enlil. He is designated as “the Nissaba of wealth”, as opposed to his wife, who is the “Nissaba of Wisdom”.

Ninlil

In some cases Haia was identified as father of the Sumerian goddess Ninlil (NIN.LÍL”lady of the open field” or “Lady of the Wind”), also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mulliltu, the consort goddess of Enlil.

In Sumerian religion, Ninlil is called the daughter of Haia (god of stores) and Nunbarsegunu (or Ninshebargunnu [a goddess of barley] or Nisaba). Another Akkadian source says she is the daughter of Anu (aka An) and Antu (Sumerian Ki). Other sources call her a daughter of Anu and Nammu.

She lived in Dilmun with her family. Raped and ravaged by her husband Enlil, who impregnated her with water, she conceived a boy, Nanna/Suen, the future moon god. As punishment Enlil was dispatched to the underworld kingdom of Ereshkigal, where Ninlil joined him.

Enlil impregnated her disguised as the gatekeeper, where upon she gave birth to their son Nergal, god of death. In a similar manner she conceived the underworld god Ninazu when Enlil impregnated her disguised as the man of the river of the nether world, a man-devouring river.

Later Enlil disguised himself as the man of the boat, impregnating her with a fourth deity Enbilulu, god of rivers and canals. All of these act as substitutes for Nanna/Suen to ascend. In some texts Ninlil is also the mother of Ninurta, the heroic god who slew Asag the demon with his mace, Sharur.

After her death, she became the goddess of the wind, like Enlil. She may be the Goddess of the South Wind referred to in the story of Adapa, as her husband Enlil was associated with northerly winter storms. As “Lady Wind” she may be associated with the figure of the Akkadian demon “Lil-itu”, thought to have been the origin of the Hebrew Lilith legend.

Urartian

First attested in the 9th century BCE, Urartian ceased to be written after the fall of the Urartian state in 585 BCE, and presumably it became extinct due to the fall of Urartu. It must have been replaced by an early form of Armenian, perhaps during the period of Achaemenid Persian rule, although it is only in the fifth century CE that the first written examples of Armenian appear.

Urartian was an ergative, agglutinative language, which belongs to neither the Semitic nor the Indo-European families but to the Hurro-Urartian family (whose only other known member is Hurrian). It survives in many inscriptions found in the area of the Urartu kingdom, written in the Assyrian cuneiform script. There have been claims of a separate autochthonous script of “Urartian hieroglyphs” but these remain unsubstantiated.

Urartian was also rarely written in the “Anatolian hieroglyphs” used for the Luwian language. Evidence for this is restricted to Altıntepe.There are suggestions that besides the Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions, Urartu also had a native hieroglyphic script. The inscription corpus is too sparse to substantiate the hypothesis.

It remains unclear whether the symbols in question form a coherent writing system, or represent just a multiplicity of uncoordinated expressions of proto-writing or ad-hoc drawings. What can be identified with a certain confidence are two symbols or “hieroglyphs” found on vessels, representing certain units of measurement. This is known because some vessels were labelled both in cuneiform and with these symbols.

Urartian cuneiform is a standardized simplification of Neo-Assyrian cuneiform. Unlike in Assyrian, each sign only expresses a single sound value. The sign “gi” has the special function of expressing a hiatus, e.g. u-gi-iš-ti for Uīšdi. A variant script with non-overlapping wedges was in use for rock inscriptions.

The oldest delivered texts originate from the reign of Sarduri I, from the late 9th century BCE, and were produced until the fall of the realm of Urartu approximately 200 years later. Approximately two hundred inscriptions written in the Urartian language, which adopted and modified the cuneiform script, have been discovered to date.

Urartian is closely related to Hurrian, a somewhat better documented language attested for an earlier, non-overlapping period, approximately from 2000 BCE to 1200 BCE (written by native speakers until about 1350 BCE). The two languages must have developed quite independently from approximately 2000 BCE onwards. The poorly attested Kassite language may have been related to Hurrian.

Although Urartian is not a direct continuation of any of the attested dialects of Hurrian, many of its features are best explained as innovative developments with respect to Hurrian as we know it from the preceding millennium. The closeness holds especially true of the so-called Old Hurrian dialect, known above all from Hurro-Hittite bilingual texts.

Hurrian was the language of the Hurrians (occasionally called “Hurrites”), and was spoken in the northern parts of Mesopotamia and Syria and the southeastern parts of Anatolia between at least last quarter of the third millennium BC and its extinction towards the end of the second millennium BC.

There have been various Hurrian-speaking states, of which the most prominent one was the kingdom of Mitanni (1450–1270 BC). Furthermore, the Kassite language was possibly related to Hurro-Urartian. There was also a strong Hurrian influence on Hittite culture in ancient times, so many Hurrian texts are preserved from Hittite political centres.

The Mitanni variety is chiefly known from the so-called “Mitanni letter” from Hurrian Tushratta to pharaoh Amenhotep III surviving in the Amarna archives. The “Old Hurrian” variety is known from some early royal inscriptions and from religious and literary texts, especially from Hittite centres.

Urartian is closer to the so-called Old Hurrian variety (mostly attested in Hittite documents) than to the Hurrian of the Mitanni letter. For example, both use -o-/-u- (rather than -i-) as the marker of transitive valency and both display the plural suffix -it-, expressing the number of the ergative subject and occupying a position before the valency marker.

Proponents of linguistic macrofamilies have suggested that Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian form an “Alarodian” family, but this is without support in mainstream linguistics. Cambridge University encyclopedia of ancient languages describes: “A genetic relation between (reconstructed) Proto-Urarto-Hurrian and (reconstructed) Northeast Caucasian has been argued for, but it is not generally accepted. If the connection could be demonstrated, it would be a rather distant one.”

Igor Diakonoff and others have suggested ties between the Hurro-Urartian languages and the Northeastern Caucasian languages. The theory of so called “Urartian” language having affinity with North Caucasian was put forward by Diakonof who in his turn based his theory on Starostin’s propositions.

Soviet propaganda deliberately hid from wide public that Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005), a Russian historical linguist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the controversial Altaic theory, the formulation of the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis, and the proposal of a Borean language of still earlier date, connects everything to North Caucasian languages. From Yeniseian, Altaic, Sino-Tibetan, Japanese, Na-Dene to Austric languages and claimed they altogether form a single, higher-order language family.

The Dené–Caucasian hypothesis proposes that Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dené form a single, higher-order language family. According to Starostin, the Dené–Caucasian and Austric macrofamilies, together with the Nostratic macrofamily (as envisaged by Vladislav Illich-Svitych, with some modifications), can further be linked at an earlier stage, which Starostin called the Borean (i.e. ‘Northern’) languages.

The Yeniseian languages are a language family whose languages are and were spoken in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia. The Sino-Tibetan languages are a family of more than 400 languages spoken in East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia, including the Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages. Na-Dene is a Native American language family. All these languages were connected to North Caucasian according to Starostin, thus to “Urartian”. His theories never enjoyed serious attention in scientific world due to the blatant absurdness.

Very few know that Starostin developed the theory, originated by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan (August 24, 1603 – 1663), a khan of the Khanate of Khiva from 1643 to 1663, in the 17th century, that Japanese is an Altaic language. Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur was of Uzbek origin of Turkic race whose historical work is “Genealogy of the Turkmen” Shajare-i Tarakime finished in 1661 and “Genealogy of the Türks” Shajare-i Türk finished in 1665.

Starostin’s theory of so called “Urartian”- North Caucasian affinity was singled out and propagated by Diakonof because he due to small salary he accepted offer accepted an offer by Azerbaijan to falsify history and to make Azerbaijanis descendants of Medians which although is not specifically mentioned in memoirs implied also falsifying Armenian history and separating Armenians from their heritage.

Diakonof’s memoirs also will be of a great interest to Persians where he tells how Azerbaijanis tried to usurp the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141 to 1209), considered the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature, who brought a colloquial and realistic style to the Persian epic. His heritage is widely appreciated and shared by Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kurdistan region and Tajikistan. His formal name was Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī.

Nezami was orphaned early and was raised by his maternal uncle Khwaja Umar who took responsibility for him and afforded him an excellent education. His mother, named Ra’isa, was of Kurdish background. His father, whose name was Yusuf is mentioned once by Nezami in his poetry.

In the same verse, Nezami mentions his grandfather’s name as Zakki. In part of the same verse, some have taken the word Mu’ayyad as a title for Zakki while others have interpreted it as the name of his great grandfather. Some sources have stated that his father might be possibly from Qom. Nezami is variously mentioned as a Persian and/or Iranian.

In Diakonof’s words he failed to make Azerbaijanis descendants of Medians because it was just so not true. But together with Starostin they falsified both Armenian and thus world heritage. Neither Diakonof, nor Starostin knew Armenian.

Works of Starostin-Diakonov’s criminal tandem was criticized by many scholars but they were never published for wider public and never made known in Soviet Union due to Diakonof being main Orientalist from Moscow. Diakonov got his PhD due to nepotism via Bobojan Gafurov (18 December 1908 – 12 July 1977), a prominent party leader and the former first secretary of the Tajik SSR.

Gafurov was a Tajik historian, academician, and the author of several books published in Russian and Tajik, including History of Tajikistan and The Tajiks. He received his PhD from the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1941 with a dissertation on “History of the Isma’ili Sect”.

Many Soviet Assyriologists headed by Anatoly Kifishin accused Dyakonof in translating Epic of Gilgamesh not from Akkadian but from German. Later Kifishin gave interview saying Diakonov harassed him trying to “kill his career.”

In this controversial work, Kifishin compared the petroglyphs of Kamenna Mohyla (literally: “stone tomb”), an archaeological site in the Molochna River (literally “Milk river”) valley, about a mile from the village of Terpinnya, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine, to those of Çatalhöyük and concluded that both were related to the Sumerian cuneiform script. Shortly before his death, Igor Diakonov lashed out against Kifishin’s hypothesis (the two openly feuded since the 1960s).

In his book Diakonov is said to use works of Vladimir Kazimirovich Shileiko (February 14, 1891 — October 5, 1930), a Russian orientalist (assyriologist, hebraist) poet (acmeist) and translator, without mentioning it. Diakonov himself confessed working with Shileiko. Shileiko’s relatives insisted that only with the help of police they managed to take back Shileiko’s writings from Diakonof.

Vasily Vasilievich Struve (February 2 [O.S. January 21] 1889 in Petersburg – September 15, 1965 in Leningrad), a Soviet orientalist from the Struve family, the founder of the Soviet scientific school of researchers on Ancient Near East history, who in 1950s was the main Soviet Orientalist, also accused Diakonof of using others’ works without credits. Wikipedia says “In the late 1950s controversy between Struve and Diakonov became more personal. It should be noted that Diakonov displayed a glaring violations of scientific etiquette”.

Meanwhile Soviet propaganda never allowed wider public to know that according to the German Orientalist Andreas David Mordtmann (11. Februar 1811 in Hamburg; † 30. Dezember 1879), Vannic language was not only Aryan but specifically Armenian, and that it was only necessary to turn to an Armenian dictionary to discover the meaning of every word in the inscriptions.

Dr. Mordtmann deciphered Vannic (Araratian, Urartian) cuneiform inscriptions which in his words were written in one of early Armenian dialects. He also deciphered some Mesopotamian inscriptions using Armenian.

The Anglo-Irish clergyman Edward Hincks (19 August 1792 – 3 December 1866) M.A., D.D., best remembered as an Assyriologist and one of the decipherers of Mesopotamian cuneiform, perceived that the language of Vannic cuneiform inscriptions was inflectional and that it was Indo-European, or Aryan, as he called it. He read the names of the kings as Niriduris, Skuina, Kinuas, and Arrasnis, but very shortly corrected them into Milidduris, Ishpuinish, Minuas, and Argistis.

According to the Orientalist Rawlinson, sometimes described as the Father of Assyriology, well known, a series of inscriptions found at Van and in the vicinity. He called these inscriptions Armenian. They are written in the same alphabet that was used in Assyria, but are composed in a different language – a language, indeed, which, although it has adopted numerous words from the Assyrian, belong radically to another family. There are six kings of the Armenian line following in a line of direct descent. He named these as: 1. Alti-bari; 2. Ari-mena; 3. Isbuin; 4. Manua; 5. Artsen; 6. Ariduri.”

Edward Hincks called attention to the fact that, though Assyrian was a Semitic tongue, yet was its script totally unlike that used by any of the related languages. He suggested that the script was related to the Egyptian, and put forth the hypothesis that it was invented by an Indo-European people, who had been in contact with Egyptians and had borrowed something from their method of writing.

Of the 230-250 Urartian words identified to date, 156 have their parallels in Armenian, thus comprising 62-68 percent of the established Urartian lexicon. Of the 156 parallel words, 95, almost 61 percent, are native and, therefore, cannot have been borrowed from Urartian (if, indeed, such a separate language ever existed). A large percentage of the parallel words are such that rarely infiltrate from one language to another (for instance, pronouns, basic (ad)verbs, subsidiary words, etc.)

Now days the only book which gives thorough explanation on Vanic language is the book by Sargis Ayvazyan. The book is devoted to the issue of the language of the Van cuneiform inscriptions: Urartian, and its interrelationship with Armenian. The common word roots are thoroughly discussed and the Urartian grammatical and phonetic systems are compared to those of Armenian. An attempt is made to present the historical-comparative grammar of these languages proceeding from the assumption that Urartian has, as its base, the Armenian language.

The typical Armenian of to-day is, on the physical side, what his ancestors were in the age of the Vannic kingdom. Broad-skulled, with black hair and eyes, large and protrusive nose and somewhat retreating chin, he represents that ‘Armenoid ‘ type which extends throughout Asia Minor, embraces a section of the Jews, and is characteristic of the Hittite monuments. It is evident that the invaders who introduced the Armenian language of to-day could have been but a small caste of conquerors who have long since been absorbed by the older population of the country. Languages change readily; racial types are extraordinarily permanent.

The decipherment of Sumerian and of Vannic

Hvor ble det av magien, vesnene vi møtte i eventyrene, sies det. Svaret er at vi sluttet å tro på dem. Eventyrene er lite annet enn vår mytologi, religionen vi hadde før kristendommen kom inn i bildet og vi begynte å tro på den i stedet.

Stedmoren er Hel, som er stygg som høsten og døden, mens Frigg/Frøyja er vakker som våren og livet. Kongen er Odin/Odr. Hel er som Ereshkigal i sumerisk mytologi storesøsteren til Frigg/Frøyja. Mens Hel utgjør helheten, som inkluderer både liv og død, vår og høst, utgjør Frigg/Frøyja den vakre våren, og kan best sammenlignes med Pandora.

Hel kom med andre ord til å dele samme skjebne som Lilith i Bibelen, som ikke ville lystre Adam, og som derfor ble skiftet ut med Eva. Hun ble delt i to mellom Hel, som kom til å herske i underverden, også kjent som Helvete, og Frigg/Frøyja, som kom til å herske over livet her på Jorda.

Det var ikke «helvete» i den forstand uttrykket forstås i dagligtale i dag – man ble ikke straffet for sine tidligere misgjerninger der. Helheimen ligger under jorden, et sted langt mot nord. For å komme dit må en passere Gjallarbroen, som går over den halvt underjordiske elva Gjoll. Helheimen består av i alt ni verdener. Hel hersker ho over de døde som ikke kommer til Åsgard.

De som dør i kamp og ikke på sotteseng, kommer til Valhall, festhallen til Odin der asene og einherjane holder sine gilder, eller til Folkvang, Frøyas bosted i Åsgard.

Til Folkvang kommer halvparten av de krigerne som valkyriene henter når krigerne har dødd i strid. Den andre halvparten kommer til Valhall for å bli einherjer. Frøya har rett til å velge selv hvem som skal komme til henne, og de er som oftest mer ærbare og mindre blodtørstige enn de som blir ført til Valhall.

Odin er den samme som Enki og er tilknyttet Merkur. Han er herre over livet på Jorda. Han ble både regnet som gudenes høvding og høvdingenes gud. Foreldrene hans er Bor og Bestla, og han er bror til Vilje og Ve. Hustruen hans er Frigg, den mektigste gudinnen i Åsgard, og med henne fikk han Balder, Hod og Hermod. Med Jord (Fjorgyn) fikk han Tor. Med Rind fikk han Våle, og med Grid fikk han Vidar.

En teori går ut på at Odin opprinnelig var en nattens gud, som senere ble forfremmet til hovedgud. Samtidig heter det seg at Tyr tidligere var hovedgud, men kom til å bli forbigått av både Odin og Tor. En annen teori går ut på at Odin er en videreføring av en gammel indo-europeisk fars- eller dødsgud, men klare sjamanistiske trekk. Han er senere også sett som krigsgud, samt guden for visdom, trolldom (seid), diktning, m.m.

Odr er i den norrøne mytologien gift med Frøya. Han er en skikkelse som det vites lite om, og han tolkes i mange sammenhenger som Odin selv, eller som hans dobbeltgjenger. Noe av bakgrunnen for usikkerheten rundt Odr er at Frøya og Frigg i noen sammenhenger tolkes som samme gudinne, eller at de har samme opphav. Frigg var gift med Odin, og Frøya med Odr. Noe som taler imot at Frøya og Frigg er samme gudinne er at Frøya er av vane-ætt (Venus/fruktbarhet), mens Frigg er en åsynje (sol/hest).

Det nordiske gudenavnet Tyr stammer kanskje opprinnelig fra det indoeuropeiske ordet *deyewos, som er relatert til den indoeuropeiske himmelguds navn *Dyews, og er det samme ordet som ordet Dyaus i Sanskrit og det greske Zevs. Zevs er det eneste gudenavnet i gresk mytologi vi vet med sikkerhet har en indoeuropeisk rot, nemlig *Dyews, også *Dyews pHter, som kan sammenliknes med Dyaus Pitar på sanskrit, og Jup(p)iter, opprinnelig Deus Pater, «Himmelfaren» eller «Gudefaren» på latin.

Tyr het Týr på norrønt, og navnet kom fra det germanske Tiwaz. Tyr er det eneste norrøne gudenavnet som representerer et opprinnelig indoeuropeisk grunnord som kan bety «gud», «dag» eller «himmel». Tyr er derfor sannsynligvis en yngre variant av indoeuropeisk himmelgud, selv om mange av hans funksjoner og betydning ble overtatt av Tor (Þórr), som tordengud, og Odin, som fryktinngytende krigsgud, i jernalderen.

Når alt kommer til alt så er vi en del av en helhet som har blitt gjort oppmerksom/bevisst på seg selv – vi observerer og har dermed mulighet til å endre – men i stedet for å hele og dyrke ser det ut til at vi vil komme til å utrydde oss selv – og dermed slukke lyset – muligvis kun for en kortere periode da det kan tenkes at andre former for liv kommer til å føre vår misjon videre.

Når det kommer til vår historie så er denne såpass sammenknyttet med vår mytologi at det er ytterst usikkert hva som egentlig har funnet sted – skriftlige kilder må derfor tas med en klype salt. Vår mytologi er myntet på vår forståelse av universet og hvordan dette fungerer noe som har ført til at vår historie og resten av universet har sklidd sammen til noe som kan bli ansett som en verdensvev – vår historie står nedtegnet i stjernene.

Hadde man kun forholdt seg til norsk uten å sammenligne norsk med andre språk ville man ha tenkt at norsk ikke hadde noen forbindelse med andre språk, men ettersom man valgte å studere språk komperativt fant man rimelig raskt ut at det var noe som kan bli ansett som indo-europeisk, og dermed også proto-indoeuropeisk – slik er det også med våre mytologier og religioner.

Timeline: Myth Religion

Portasar (Armenian), also known as Gobekli Tepe (Turkish) in the Armenian Highland is the omphalo of our civilization and represent the place where our civilization was created 12000 years ago. From Portasar our civilization spread in all directions 7000 BC.

The people were Proto-Indoeuropean, and connected to haplogroups like E (Afro-Asiatic), G (NW Caucasian and Georgian), R1b (W European), J1 (Semitic), and J2 (NE Caucasian). The Urartian (Armenian) culture, also known as the Hurrians, is the nuclear of this civilization, but local variations was being created. However, all of them carried with them, the Neolithic package, our civilization.

We left what we knew as the garden of eden and spread our civilization to Mesopotamia in the south, to Canaan and further to North Africa, including Egypt, in the southwest, to Balkan and Europe in the west, to Caucasus and the Pontic stepes in the north, to China and Southeast Asia in the east, to India and South Asia and to Central Asia and Iran in the southeast.

In Greek, the word omphalos means “navel”. In Greek lore, Zeus sent two eagles across the world to meet at its center, the “navel” of the world. In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, it was a powerful religious symbol.

Portasar, meaning umbilical cord in Armenian, is a channel between the worlds. This cord serves as a portal between the two worlds that form a human. It is connected to the gods Haia, Janus and Portunus – the “door-keeper”, the god of beginnings and transitions, and thereby of gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings – the god of oportunities.

Armenia has a rich culture and history and prides itself as one of the oldest civilizations of the world, dating back to Biblical Noah and his Ark. It is the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion in AD 301. Since then, the Armenian people have identified strongly with their Christian faith.

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This animated map shows how religion spread across the world

Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are five of the biggest religions in the world. Over the last few thousand years, these religious groups have shaped the course of history and had a profound influence on the trajectory of the human race. Through countless conflicts, conquests, missions abroad, and simple word of mouth, these religions spread around the globe and forever molded the huge geographic regions in their paths.

Produced by Alex Kuzoian

Gods of Sumeria symbolize Ancient Music of 22 Srutis

Speculations on Sumerian tuning, by Joe Monzo – Tonalsoft

List of Mesopotamian deities

Music and mathematics

Music theorists sometimes use mathematics to understand music, and although music has no axiomatic foundation in modern mathematics, mathematics is “the basis of sound” and sound itself “in its musical aspects… exhibits a remarkable array of number properties”, simply because nature itself “is amazingly mathematical”.

The attempt to structure and communicate new ways of composing and hearing music has led to musical applications of set theory, abstract algebra and number theory. Some composers have incorporated the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers into their work.

Music and mathematics

Today’s physicists enjoy speculating about Theories of Everything, but they really don’t nean everything! They just mean physics and cosmology. Some 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians constructed a remarkable Theory of Everything based upon music, a base-60 number system, and symmetry concepts. These Sumerians didn’t have supercomputers but they were able to incorporate into their theory much more than physics and cosmology. Below, E.G. McClain provides some insight into ancient Sumerian thinking:

“In ancient Mesopotania,music, mathematics, art, science, religion, and poetic fantasy were fused. Around 3000 B.C., the Sumerians simultaneously developed cuneiform writing, in which they recorded their pantheon, and a base-60 number system. Their gods were assigned numbers that encoded the primary ratios of music, with the gods’ functions corresponding to their numbers in acoustical theory. Thus the Sumerians created an extensive tonal/arithmetical model for the cosmos. In this far-reaching allegory, the physical world is known by analogy, and the gods give divinity not only to natural forces but also to a ‘supernatural,’ intuitive understanding of mathematical patterns and psychological forces.”

To understand the role of musical theory in modeling the cosmos, one must realize that it involves: “the definition of intervals, the distance between pitches, by ratios of integers or counting numbers.” For the ancient Sumerians music was a tool that helped them describe the cosmos.

(McClain, Ernest G.; “Musical Theory and Ancient Cosmology,” The World and I, p. 371, February 1994. Cr. L. Ellenberger)

Music And Theories Of Everything

Musical Theory and Ancient Cosmology

A newly emerging perspective

Ernest G. McClain

In ancient Mesopotamia, music, mathematics, art, science, religion, and poetic fantasy were fused. Around 3000 B.C., the Sumerians simultaneously developed cuneiform writing, in which they recorded their pantheon, and a base-60 number system. Their gods were assigned numbers that encoded the primary ratios of music, with the gods’ functions corresponding to their numbers in acoustical theory. Thus the Sumerians created an extensive tonal/arithmetical model for the cosmos. In this far-reaching allegory, the physical world is known by analogy, and the gods give divinity not only to natural forces but also to a “supernatural,” intuitive understanding of mathematical patterns and psychological forces.

The cuneiform mathematical notation, invented by Sumer, was fully exploited by the virtuoso arithmetical calculations of Babylon, politically ascendant in the second millennium. The notation employs few symbols, which are distributed in patterns easily understood by the eye. Thus, few demands are made on memory. In Mesopotamia, mythology took concrete form; for example, important activities of the gods can be read as “events” in a multiplication table notated as a matrix of Sumerian bricks. Classical Greece abstracted all of the rational tonal concepts embedded in this Sumerian/Babylonian allegory for two thousand years, simply waiting to be demythologized. Moreover, because the religious mythologies of India, China, Babylon, Greece, Israel, and Europe use Sumerian sources and numerology, theology needs to be studied from a musicological perspective.

. . .

If science is conceived of as knowledge and philosophy as love of wisdom, then the invention of musical theory clearly is one of the greatest scientific and philosophical achievements of the ancient world. When, where, and how did it happen?

Assuming that Cro-Magnon man processed sound with the same biology we possess, humans have shared some fifty thousand years of similar auditory experiences. Musical theory as an acoustical science begins with the definition of intervals, the distance between pitches, by ratios of integers, or counting numbers, a discovery traditionally credited to Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.

Not until the sixteenth century A.D., when Vincenzo Galilei (Galileo’s father, an accomplished musician) tried to repeat some of the experiments attributed to Pythagoras, was it learned that they were apocryphal, giving either the wrong answers or none at all. Today, as the gift of modem archaeological and linguistic studies, our awareness of cultures much older than that of Greece has been phenomenally increased; this permits us to set aside the tired inventions about Pythagoras and tell a more likely story, involving anonymous heroes in other lands.

My story is centered in Mesopotamia. It demonstrates how every element of Pythagorean tuning theory was implicit in the mathematics and mythology of that land for at least a thousand years, and perhaps two thousand, before Greek rationalists finally abstracted what we are willing to recognize as science from its long incubation within mythology.

What seems most astounding in ancient Mesopotamia is the total fusion of what we separate into subjects: music, mathematics, art, science, religion, and poetic fantasy. Such a fusion has never been equaled except by Plato, who inherited its forms. Socrates’ statement about the general principles of scientific studies in book 7 of Plato’s Republic, with the harmonical allegories that follow directly in books 8 and 9, guides my exposition here. The Mesopotamian prototypes to which they lead us fully justify Socrates’ treatment of his own tale as an “ancient Muses’ jest,” inherited from a glorious, lost civilization. Scholars who have become too unmusical to understand mankind’s share in divinity, as Plato feared might happen, still can lean on him for understanding, for all of his many writings about harmonics and music have survived. (I must suppress here, for reasons of space, the extensive harmonical allegories of the Jews, whose parallel forms infuse the Bible with related musical implication from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation.)

Music was as important in ancient India, Egypt, and China as it was in Mesopotamia and Greece. All these cultures had similar mythic imagery emphasizing the same numbers, which are so important in defining musical intervals; this raises doubts about whether any people ever “invented” acoustical theory. For instance, in any culture that knows the harp as intimately as it was known in Egypt and Mesopotamia, its visible variety of string lengths and economy of materials (strings require careful and often onerous preparation) encourage builders, as a sheer survival strategy, to notice the correlation between a string’s length and its intended pitch.

Similarly, in China, where by 5000 B.C. the leg bones of large birds, equipped with tone holes appropriate for a scale, appear as paired flutes in ritual burials, the importance of suitable materials conditioned pipemakers to be alert to lengths. The basic ratios could have been discovered many times in many places, more likely by loving craftsmen and practitioners than by philosophers. Certainly, the discovery came no later than the fourth millennium B.C., before even the first Egyptian dynasty was founded or the Greeks had reached the Mediterranean shore.

A NEWLY EMERGING PERSPECTIVE

In the fourth millennium B.C., the Sumerians, a non-Semitic people of uncertain origin, developed a high civilization in Mesopotamia, now the southern part of Iraq. For reasons that have been vigorously argued but remain unclear, they developed a base-60 number system. Waiting to be recognized within it–and in ways obvious to any scribal adept, although invisible to the illiterate–were the main patterns of harmonical theory that appear later in India, Babylon, and Greece. Sumerian tombs of this early period yield a harvest of harps, lyres, and pipes, and the literature surviving on clay tablets abounds in elaborate hymns.

In the cuneiform writing of the Sumerians, which was invented concurrently with the base-60 number system, the pantheon of deities is rationalized by assigning to the high gods the base-60 numbers that, as we shall see, encode the primary ratios of music. The glyph, or symbol, for heaven or star, followed by the appropriate number, functions as a “god nickname.” (See fig. 1. The numerical values of the deities are given in Budge 1992.) The numbers reveal their significance in triangular arrays of pebble counters.

Furthermore, in the mythology of their religion, the responsibilities and behavior of the gods correspond with the functions of the god numbers in base-60 acoustics. Sumerian cosmology is grounded in the metaphorical copulation of the male A and female V numerical arrays, from which the Greek “holy tetraktys” is abstracted.

For example, the head of the pantheon and father of the gods is the sky god An (the than Anu), god 60, written in cuneiform as an oversize 1 sign (see fig. 5). Because base-60 numbers enjoy potentially endless place value meanings as multiples or submultiples of 60 (like the unit, 1, in decimal arithmetic), An = 60 (written as 1) functions as the center of the whole field of rational numbers. In mathematical language, An is its geometric mean, being the mean between any number and its reciprocal.

Anu/An, therefore, is essentially a do-nothing deity, as he was later accused of being-, a reference point, perfectly suited to represent simultaneously the middle band of the sky, the center of the number field, and the middle, reference tone (the Greek mese) in a tuning system. He was fated to be deposed by more active leaders among his children, as harmonical logic focused more clearly on structure and sheer virtuosity in computation became subordinated to deeper mathematical insight.

Theology, from its birth as “rational discourse about the gods” and in many later cultures influenced by Sumer, is mathematical allegory with a deeply musical logic. Tuning theory today remains a fossil science with no change at all in its basic parameters–structured by the gods themselves in numerical guise–since it premiered in Sumer about 3300 B.C.

To glimpse this new vision requires that we lay aside our algebra, our computers, and our pride in rational superiority and represent numbers to ourselves as the ancients did: concretely. We must learn to do musical arithmetic with a handful of pebbles in a triangular matrix, as the Pythagoreans teach us, imitating the pattern of bricks in the Sumerian glyph for mountain.

Then, like Socrates, we must show ourselves the harmonical implications of that arithmetic with a circle in the sand, for that circle is the cosmos, viewed as endlessly cyclical, like the tones of the musical scale (fig. 2).

In what follows I am presenting Mesopotamian arithmetic as Plato still practiced it in the fourth century B.C., studying his mathematical allegories for clues to earlier examples. Plato is the last great harmonical mythographer of the European world; never again did a major philosopher so thoroughly ground his thinking in music.

In retrospect, decoding Sumerian-Platonic harmonics proves astonishingly simple. Anyone, even a child, who can count to ten and sing or play the scale can make self-evident the scale constructions that once modeled the cosmos.

Because 60 is integrally divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30, base-60 arithmetic can correlate many subsystems, allowing fluent manipulation of fractions. This very early mastery of fractions ensured adequate arithmetical definition of pitch ratios–presumably as string-length ratios on early harps, approximate length ratios on the flutelike panpipes, or tone-hole ratios on the aulos–no matter how many tones are involved and whether pitch patterns rise or fall.

About 1800 B.C., the Babylonians became politically ascendant and reorganized the Sumerian pantheon, keeping its god numbers and related mathematical terminology. They developed base-60 computation to a level of arithmetical virtuosity not equaled in Europe until about A.D. 1600 and not understood in modern times until the middle of our own century (see Neugebauer 1957). Not until 1945, when Neugebauer and A. Sachs published the translation of cuneiform tablet YBC 7289 from the Yale collection, did the world learn that ancient Babylon (1800-1600 B.C.) possessed a base-60 formula for the square root of 2 accurate to five decimal places (1.41421+), or the formula for generating all Pythagorean triples (a triangle with sides of 3, 4, and 5 units is merely an example) a thousand years before Pythagoras explicated the first one.

The Greeks, still thinking in terms of Egyptian unit fractions (so that a descending whole tone of 8:9, for instance, was constructed by laboriously adding to the reference length 1/8 of itself), would have been astonished to learn that the Egyptians, whom they revered, had like themselves been far surpassed in computational facility by an ancient neighbor.

The paucity of surviving Sumerian mathematical texts requires scholars to make many inferences from later Babylonian survivals, and much Sumerian literature remains untranslated or inaccessible. Thus, as further linguistic evidence becomes available, the story I tell here will require revision, becoming more certain in dating, clearer in meaning, and richer in detail.

To look ahead in history and see the persistence of Sumerian/Babylonian methods, Ptolemy, in the second century A.D., in the Harmonica, recorded all of the some twenty Greek tunings known to him with sexagesimal (base-60) fractions. Between about 500 B.C. and A.D. 150, Babylonian and Greek astronomy thrived on base-60 computation. It was still used by Copernicus in the fifteenth century and endures in modern astronomy The Chinese calendar is still reckoned by 60s. Astronomy, however, as the science of precise measurement that it later became, “was practically unknown in ancient Sumer; at least as of today we have only a list of about twenty-five stars and nothing more” (Kramer 1963).

HOW BASE-60 SURVIVES IN TIME MEASUREMENT

Analog clocks and watches equipped with rotating hands for hours, minutes, and seconds are living fossils of the Sumerian arithmetical mind-set (fig. 3).

a. Numbers have visible and tangible markers on the dial (representing the fixity of the recurring temporal cycle), restricting burdens on memory and permitting operations to be reduced to counting and adding.

b. Sixty can be conceived of, when we please, as a large unit (one rotation of the second or minute hand), conversely giving the small unit the implication of 1/60.

c. The large unit, alternately, can be conceived of as a higher power of 60 (correlating the simultaneous rotations of both second and minute hands), for 602 = 3,600 seconds is also one hour, conversely giving our small unit the implication of 1/3,600.

d. Twelve hours constitutes a still larger unit (one rotation of the hour hand) of 12 x 60 = 720 minutes, and 12 x 3,600 = 43,200 seconds, conversely giving the smallest unit the implication of 1/720 or 1/43,200.

e. We avoid confusion between these alternate arithmetical meanings the same way the Sumerians did, namely, by remembering the context of the questions we are trying to answer.

f. The existence of alternative ways of expressing a unit, as in the examples above, indicates and emphasizes the importance of reciprocals.

Musicians, following Plato, still project their tones into a circle that eliminates cyclic octave repetitions (Plato, in the Timaeus, insists that God makes only one model of anything). Thus today, using our modern, equal-tempered scale, we can identify any musical interval as some multiple of a standard semitone, to the envy of calendarmakers, who, having to deal with the irregularities of days, months, and years, are jealous of our perfect twelve-tone symmetry. But the nearest approximation of our twelve-tone, equal-tempered scale in small integers remains that provided by ancient base-60 arithmetic.

SUMERIAN NUMBERS

Sumerian numbers were impressed on small clay tablets with a stylus, at first round, later triangular, held slanted for some numbers and vertically for others (fig. 4). Numbers from 2 to 9 were built up by repetitions of the unit, made with the edge of the stylus. A 10 was imprinted with the end; a 60 was made as a large 1 by pressing the stylus more firmly into the clay. The equation 602 = 3,600 was scratched in as a circle (see van der Waerden 1963). Only a few symbols were needed, and repetition made them easy to decode, minimizing burdens on memory. The idea of a number was actually embodied in the strokes required to notate it (fig. 5).

Computation was made easy by tables of “reciprocals, multiplications, squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, …exponential functions, coefficients giving numbers for practical computation,…and numerous metrological calculations giving areas of rectangles, circles” (Kramer 1963). Many copies of these tables have come down to us.

The standard multiplication tables pair each number with its reciprocal and give special prominence to the favored subset of “regular” numbers, whose prime factors are limited to 2, 3, and 5 (larger prime factors necessarily lead to approximations in the reciprocals). “Regular numbers” up to 60 are shown (fig. 6) with their reciprocals, transcribed, for instance, so that the reciprocal of 40/60 = 2/3 reads 1,30, meaning 90/60 = 3/2. Notice that only the most important fractions of 60 are deified (1/6, 1/5, 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, and 5/6). The tone names are nearest equivalents in modern notation. Several values require three sexagesimal “places” (indicated by commas); auxiliary tables freely employ six, seven, and even more places.

A telling clue to the psyche–of Sumerians, of Plato, and of ourselves–is affection for the symmetry of opposites. Inverse, or bilateral, symmetry conditions base-60 computation, as it conditioned Platonic dialectics. (“Some things are provocative of thought and some are not…Provocative things…impinge upon the senses together with their opposites.” Republic 524d) When facing a mirror we exhibit to ourselves, with varying degrees of perfection, this symmetry of left/right opposites across an imaginary “plane of reflection.”

The old-fashioned scale, or balance beam, epitomizes this notion (fig. 7). The balance owes its functioning to gravity, but its appeal to us, its attractiveness, is due to our ear, which in addition to being the organ of hearing is also the personal organ of balance. Our empathic human feelings for the balance beam affect the inverse, or bilateral, physical symmetry because of the experience of balancing our own bodies, an activity dependent on the ear, not the eye. All of the computations presented later will be aligned in this basic symmetry, with Anu/An = 60 (meaning 1) on the balance point. Sumerian art greatly elaborates this symmetry of opposites (fig. 8).

The deified Sumerian numbers, taken over by Babylon, are 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 40, and 50, all fractional parts of “father” Anu/An = 60, head of the pantheon. Their fractional values and god names are indicated here with a brief description of their mythological functions.

Anu/An, 60, written as a large 1, “father of the gods” and earliest head of the pantheon, is any reference unit. He is equivalent in our notation to 60/60 = 1, where he functions, according to modern concepts, as “geometric mean in the field of rational numbers.”

Enlil, 50 (5/6), “god on the mountain” possessing fifty names, is mankind’s special guardian and was promoted to head the pantheon circa 2500 B.C. Enlil deities in base 60 what the Greeks knew as the human prime number, 5, in their base-1O harmonics. By generating major thirds of 4:5 and minor thirds of 5:6, he saved Sumerians tremendous arithmetical labor, as we shall note in due course.

Ea/Enki, 40 (2/3), “god of the sweet waters” and perhaps the busiest deity in Sumer, “organizes the earth,” including the musical scale. He deities the divine prime number, 3, in the ratio of the musical fifth 2:3, the most powerful shaping force in music after the octave. (Notice that the trio of highest gods (40, 50, 60) defines the basic musical triad of 4:5:6 (do, mi, sol, rising, and mi, do, la, falling). The ratio 4:5 defines a major third and the ratio 5:6 defines a minor third, taken either upward or downward within the matrix of the musical octave.)

Sin, 30 (1/2), the Moon, establishes the basic Sumerian octave matrix as 1:2 30:60.

Shamash, 20 (1/3), the Sun, judges the gods.

Ishtar, 15 (1/4), is the epitome of the feminine as virgin, wife, and everybody’s mistress.

Nergal, 12 (1/5), is god of the underworld.

Bel/Marduk, 10 (1/6), the biblical Baal, originally was a minor deity but eventually became head of the Babylonian pantheon in the second millennium B.C. He inherited all the powers of the other gods, including Enlil’s fifty names, in a giant step toward a “Pythagorized” monotheism built on the first ten numbers.

GREEK HARMONICAL PRINCIPLES IN SUMERIAN ARITHMETIC

Here are the principal arithmetical symmetries of base-60 Sumerian harmonics, summarized in the inverse “heraldic” symmetry displayed above but expressed as modern fractions. Every tone in the scale will be found to participate in numerous god ratios, and all other ratios are their derivatives via multiplication (which is what Plato means by “marriage” in his elaborate metaphor in the Republic). All of the harmonical concepts in my analysis, however, are Greek. Plato’s formula for this particular construction can be found in the Republic, book 8; his discussion of general harmonical principles is in the Timeus.

All pitch classes generated by the prime numbers 2, 3, and 5, up to the index of 60, are represented here (fig. 9). Remember that all doubles are equivalent, so that 3, 6, 12, and 24 define the same pitch as 48, for example.

a. Tones are defined by numbers.

b. The significance of a number lies only in its ratio with other numbers.

c. Numerosity is governed by strict arithmetic economy. Because Sumerian double meanings were assumed, the numbers 30, 32, 36,… are in smallest integers for this context. This economy is obscured somewhat by writing ratios as fractions; mentally eliminate the superfluous reference 60s.

d. Every number is employed in two senses, as great and small, displayed here as reciprocal fractions.

e. The double meanings of great and small require the basic model octave to be extended across a double octave from 30/60 = 1/2 to 60/30 = 2.

f. Tones are grouped by tetrachords (that is, in groups of fours) whose fixed boundaries always show the musical proportion 6:8 = 9:12, defining the octave (6:12 = 1:2), the fifth (2:3, that is, 6:9 and 8:12), and the fourth (3:4 or 6:8 and 9:12).

Notice how the arithmetic mean 9 and the harmonic mean 8 establish perfect inverse symmetry (see fig. 10) and define the standard whole tone as 8:9. These ratios define the only fixed tones in Pythagorean tuning theory, and they are invariant. Pythagoras reputedly and plausibly brought this proportion home from Babylon in the sixth century B.C. In base 60, these “framing” numbers necessarily are multiplied by 5 into 30:40 = 45:60.

Notice that Ea/Enki, god 40, defines these frames (DA falling and G:D rising) in his double role as 40:60 and 60:40 and thus literally “organizes the earth” (as represented by the string) into do, fa, sol, do, harmonic foundations of the modern scale.

g. The Enlil = 50 tones of pitch classes b and f always belong to the opposite scale, for the god shares these tones with 36 (that is, 30:36 = 50:60 and 30 and 60, “beginning and end,” coincide); thus, Enlil is free to supervise the system by reminding us of the symmetry of opposites.

Enlil’s promotion to head the pantheon possibly symbolizes this insight. He plays a very active role, also generating several intervals that actually reduce numerosity, whereas the primal procreator, Anu/An = 60, a do-nothing deity of little account in Sumer and Babylon, remains purely passive.

Platonic dialectics, however, emphasize anew the importance of an invariant t4 seat in the mean,” thus turning Anu/An’s passiveness as geometric mean into the greatest possible Socratic virtue as “the One Itself.”

h. The falling or descending version of this scale, as notated [in Figure 9], is in our own familiar major mode. It is more commonly notated one tone lower, on the white keys of the C octave. The rising scale on the right, its symmetric opposite, is the basic scale of ancient Greece, India, and Babylon. It is more simply notated one tone higher, on the white keys in the E octave.

My choice of D as reference pitch is dictated by the necessity of showing opposites simultaneously, in the Sumerian normative arithmetical habit that Plato later required of his students in dialectic. Future philosopher-guardians in idealized cities needed to become expert in weighing the merits of contradictory claims, requiring the ability to see opposites simultaneously. Music provided the opportunity to do this, par excellence, and so childhood training began with it.

AN OVERVIEW OF CALENDAR AND SCALE

To coalesce the musical opposites shown above into one Sumerian/Platonic overview, eliminating all octave replication and laying bare the irreducible structure (“God’s only model”), we need only project these tones into the same tone circle.

From Plato’s mythology (in the Critias) come “Poseidon and his five pairs of twin sons” (see fig. 11), aligned in perfect inverse Sumerian symmetry across the central vertical plane of reflection. (Poseidon, at twelve o’clock, Greek successor to the water god Ea/Enki, is self-symmetric, being both beginning and end of the octave no matter whether we traverse it upward or downward.) These eleven tones constitute the only pitch class symmetries up to an index of 60.

But to coalesce opposite fractions so that the numbers–like the tones–show the same ratios when read in either direction, we must expand the numerical double 1:2 into 360:720 (see fig. 12). If we confine ourselves to three-digit numbers, there is, in addition to Poseidon’s ten sons, only one other pair of symmetric numbers, namely, 405 and 640 (since 405:720 = 360:640). These are notated here as C and E to indicate their very slight and melodically insignificant difference from c and e. This microtonal “comma” difference of 80:81, barely perceptible in the laboratory and then only by a good ear, was taken by the Greeks as the smallest theoretically useful unit of pitch measure and is approximately 1/9 of their standard whole tone of 8:9. The whole-tone interval between A and G (in figs. 11 and 12) invites similar subdivision, and symmetry requires a point directly opposite our reference, D. This locus is defined by the square root of 2, lying beyond the ancient concept of number, and so we must search for an approximation.

A musically acceptable candidate (its error is actually less than a comma) now appears at a-flat = 512, or, alternately, g-sharp = 512, only slightly askew our ideal value and with the “god ratio” of 4:5 with C or E.

Plato’s Poseidon and his ten sons are shown again (in fig. 12), together with the new symmetry pair C/E and the alternate a-flat/g-sharp pair (one of which is always missing in the 360:720 octave). My vertical pendulum now swings gently back and forth to either side of six o’clock as the numbers are read alternately in rising and falling scale order (that is, as great and small).

At 512, where a-flat is not quite equivalent to g-sharp, the ancients had little choice but to accept this arithmetical compromise with perfect inverse symmetry.

How did they rationalize such a complicated, inverse symmetry, one ultimately defeated because of the compromise? Remembering the quite ancient correlations of scale and calendar, let us apply imagination to their problem.

This base-60 model can be imagined as an appropriate correlate to the lunar calendar of Sumer and Babylon, as it later became the map of an idealized circular city in Plato’s Laws, calendar and musical scale being assumed to have a similar cosmogony. Notice the following correspondences:

a. The basic seven-tone scale requires the thirty digits in the 30:60 octave, and 30 is deified as Sin, the Moon, and the basic octave limit.

b. The two opposite seven-tone scales and the symmetrically divided tone circle correspond with Sumer’s two agricultural seasons, in which irrigation during the dry summer complemented the rainy winter harvest.

c. In the octave double between 360 and 720, which coalesces opposites, there are 360 units to correspond with the schematic calendar count of 12 x 30 = 360 days. (Eventually, astronomers in India and Babylon defined these units as tithis, meaning 1/360 of a mean lunar year of 354 days, hence slightly less than a solar day. Greek astronomers eventually defined the same 360 units geometrically as degrees. Neither development is relevant to ancient Sumer.)

d. Tonally acceptable but acoustically inaccurate semitones, alternately small (24:25) and large (15:16), correspond with the lunar months embodied in ritual, alternating between 29 and 30 days.

e. Between a-flat = 512 and g-sharp 512 (in the opposite sense), a gap corresponds with the excess of a solar year over 360 and the defect of a lunar year of 354 days from 360. (Five and a quarter extra solar days are about a 1/69 of 360, while the gap in the reduced comma is actually about 1/60 of an octave, a remarkable near-correspondence.)

Because any successful agricultural society must find some way to accommodate lunar, solar, ritual, and schematic cycles with the growing cycle, we need not suppose that Sumerians or anyone else ever really believed the year contained 360 days. Only a musicology dedicated to numerical precision and economy finds 720 days and nights (that is, 360 days and 360 nights) cosmogonically correct.

MATRIX   ARITHMETIC

All of the tonal, arithmetical, and calendrical relations discussed above are coincidences. They exist among base-60 numbers whether or not anyone is aware of them, mainly because 60 is divisible by three prime numbers, 2, 3, and 5, and no others, and 60 is being used in the way we use a floating-point decimal system.

If Sumerian mythology did not offer persuasive evidence that Sumerians were conscious of tonal implications, then their establishment of a base-60 system, which included such perfect models for a lunar-oriented culture and for Pythagorean harmonics two thousand years later, would be pure serendipity, meaning that it resulted from “the gift of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.” But the most interesting evidence for Sumerian harmonical self-consciousness is yet to be shown via Plato’s kind of triangular matrices, functioning as “mothers” in harmonical arithmetic.

In Plato’s Greece, the harmonical wisdom of Babylon and India was transformed into political theory. Men now acted out the roles once assigned to gods. Plato’s four model cities–Callipolis (in the Republic), Ancient Athens and Atlantis (both in the Critias), and Magnesia (in the Laws)–were each associated with a specific musical-mathematical model, all generated from the first ten integers. All are reducible to a study of four primes: 2, 3, 5, and 7.

In the Republic and Laws, idealized citizens–represented as number–generate only in the prime of life. For Plato, this means that 2 never really generates anything beyond the model octave 1:2, for this “virgin, female” even number–with all of its higher powers–designates the same pitch class as any reference 1. (Multiplication by 4, 8, 16,… generates only cyclic identities, different octaves of tones we already possess. They are Plato’s “nursemaids,” carrying tone children until they are old enough to “walk” as integers; hence, as he says, his “nurses” require exceptional physical strength.)

The multiplication table for the 3 x 5 male odd numbers, however, generates endless spirals of musical fifths (or fourths) and thirds; within the female octave 1:2, new pitches are generated at the same invariant ratios. The Greek meaning of symmetry is to be in the same proportion. Thus, a “continued geometric proportion” (like 1, 3, 9, 27,…or 1, 5, 25,…) constitutes “the world’s best bonds,” maximizing symmetry, which is obscured by mere appearances when these values are doubled to put them into some preferred scale order. The multiplication table for 3 x 5 graphs multiple sets of geometric tonal symmetries (Plato’s only reality) as far as imagination pleases.

Greece inherited its arithmetical habits from Egypt, including an affection for unit fractions in defining tunings (the ratio 9:8 was thought of as “eight plus one- eighth of itself,” and so on). It awoke to number theory only when it became acquainted with Mesopotamian methods. Thus, the travels of Pythagoras, whether legendary or not, played an important role. Those methods apparently were new enough in Plato’s fourth century B.C. to invite his extensive commentary, yet old enough so any novelty on Plato’s part was absolutely denied by Aristoxenus (fl. circa 330 B.C.) within fifty years.

Plato is responsible for an astonishing musical generalization of the base-60 tuning formula as 4:3 mated with the 5. His 3, 4, and 5 correspond with Sin = 30, Ea = 40, and Enlil = 50 and remind us that all tones are linked by perfect fourths, 4:3, which define possible tetrachord frames, or by perfect thirds, 4:5. The last Pythagorean who really understood Platonic “marriages” may have been Nicomachus in the second century A.D.; he promised an exposition but none survives.

BABYLONIAN REORGANIZATION OF THE PANTHEON

In the second millennium B.C., the Babylonians reorganized the inherited Sumerian pantheon in a way that very strongly points toward its Pythagorean future. To avoid destruction by Enlil, who is disturbed by their confusion and noise, the gods reorganize under the leadership of Marduk, god 10, the biblical Baal, to whom all the other gods cede their powers.

Herein lies a beautiful reduction of Sumerian expertise with reciprocal fractions to a more philosophical overview of harmonics as being generated exclusively by the first ten integers (Socrates’ “children up to ten,” in the Republic, beyond which age he doubted citizens were really fitted for ideal communities).

To celebrate their survival after Marduk defeats the female serpent Tiamat, sent to destroy them, the gods decree him a temple; the bricks require two years (2 x 360 = 720) to fabricate. This mythologizes 720, the Sumerian unit of brick measure, and the smallest tonal index able to correlate seven-tone opposites into a twelve-tone calendrical octave. When Marduk’s tonal/arithmetical bricks are aligned in matrix order, we see that the general shape of his temple (with an index of 720) is an enlarged form of Enlil’s temple (with an index of 60); Enlil now confers his fifty names on Marduk. This temple makes Marduk’s face shine with pleasure, we are told.

Let me conclude our discussion of Marduk’s victory over the dragon, Tiamat.

‘GREAT DRAGON’ TUNING

It is now a normal part of a child’s musical education to learn to view the scale as a spiral of musical fifths and fourths, as they are actually tuned–for the convenience of the ear–and to be shown those tones in a tone circle. That up-and-down, alternating cycle of pitches inspires, I propose, the dragon and great serpent lore of ancient mythology (fig. 13).

Serpentine undulations are visible to any harpist in the lengths of successive strings when taken in tuning order (as they still necessarily are), and the undulations can be seen in any set of pitch pipes when similarly aligned, as in China. Because the same tone numbers function reciprocally as multiples of frequency and of wavelength, they have the same double meanings today that they enjoyed in Sumerian times. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, to represent this spiral both forward and backward, simultaneously, with intertwined serpents.

In the mythological account, Marduk slays the dragon (which is presumably the continuum of possible pitches represented by the undivided string) by first cutting it in half to establish the octave 1:2. Further cutting presumably “sections” the other pitches. No numbers larger than Marduk’s–meaning 10–play any role in geometrical sectioning of the string.

This “serpentine” double meaning–rising and falling musical fifths and fourths–lies at the very heart of our consciousness of musical structure. Sumer did not hesitate to make the double serpent the center of symmetry, as on this steatite vase of Gudea (fig. 14), priest-king of Lagash circa 2450 B.C., where they are flanked symmetrically by gryphons.

Large and unwieldy numbers can be avoided if the 4:5 and 5:6 ratios introduced by Enlil are used to define the seven-tone scale (in which case all the numbers are of two digits). Used for the twelve-tone scale, his numbers need only three digits. Thus, in Sumer, Enlil = 50, base-60 deification of the human, male prime number 5, grossly reduces our computational labors from six-digit Pythagorean numerosity (in which a twelfth tone requires 311 = 177,147) to no more than three, and without noticeably diminishing melodic usefulness (fig. 15). Only the five central tones (CGDAE) from the Great Serpent appear in figure 12, where they are indicated by solid radial lines. All other tones are owed to Enlil.

Historically, European music reintroduced this Just tuning system in the fifteenth century A.D. to secure perfect 4:5:6 triads for its new harmonies without exceeding twelve tones. The ancients probably loved it more for its arithmetical economy than for its triadic purity. Microtonalists today, equipped with a powerful new technology, are again searching for an effective employment of these ancient Sumerian god ratios.

The ultimate origins of music theory, as opposed to the Sumerian codification that I deduce here, remain lost in the far more distant past, like the origin of our sense for number. They are grounded in a common aural biological heritage, some of which we share with other animals, and are by no means dependent, as Aristotle noted, on precise numerical definition. As eminent contemporary musicologist William Thompson explained in our correspondence,

In adapting to our complex environment, our sensory ingestive systems have become…forgiving filters, enabling us to generalize….This, I’m convinced, is a product of very early adaptive behavior, a part of our survival good fortune…in that our neural system has developed myriads of networks which are overachievers when it comes to doing some simple jobs.

Socrates never believed in the possibility of perfect justice. The great aim of Plato’s Republic was to help readers become more “forgiving filters” for alternative cultural norms. There remains a certain fuzziness about a scientific definition of musical intervals, as there is about the Republic’s days and nights and months and years, and art has turned that into something for which we all can be grateful. Sumerian “overachievers”–and these “black-headed people,” as they called themselves, proved historically to be as aggressive as the great heroes they knew or invented–achieved a tremendous synthesis of cultural values. They challenge us to do as well.

The March equinox or Northward equinox is the equinox on the earth when the Sun appears to cross the celestial equator, heading northward. The March equinox is the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere. The equinox can be as early as March 19 or as late as March 21.

The point where the horizon crosses the sun’s disk at the celestial equator northwards is called the first point of Aries (♈) (meaning “ram”). Aries is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ λ <30º).

Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign between March 21 and April 19 each year. Under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits Aries from 15 April to 15 May (approximately). However, due to the precession of the equinoxes, this point is no longer in the constellation Aries, but rather in Pisces (♓), the twelfth astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the Pisces constellation.

Pisces spans the 330° to 360° of the zodiac, between 332.75° and 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac the sun transits this area on average between February 19 and March 20, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun transits this area between approximately March 13 and April 13.

By the year 2600 the first point of Aries will be in Aquarius (some Archeoastronomers and Astrologers believe that will be the start of the approximate 2,150 years of “the Age of Aquarius”, while others think it may have already started, and varying calculations in between).

Taurus, the second sign of the zodiac established among the ancient Mesopotamians—who knew it as the Bull of Heaven—because it was the sign through which the sun rose on the vernal equinox, was the constellation of the Northern Hemisphere’s Spring Equinox from about 3,200 BC. Due to the procession of the equinox, it now follows Aries.

The equinox was considered the Sumerian New Year, Akitu, an important event in their religion. Taurus marked the point of vernal (spring) equinox in the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age, from about 4000 BC to 1700 BC, after which it moved into the neighboring constellation Aries. The Pleiades were closest to the Sun at vernal equinox around the 23rd century BC.

In Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was listed in the MUL.APIN as Gugalanna (Sumerian: GU.GAL.AN.NA, “the Great Bull of Heaven”), better known as the Bull of Heaven (Sumerian: GU.AN.NA), “The Bull of Heaven”. As this constellation marked the vernal equinox, it was also the first constellation in the Babylonian zodiac and they described it as “The Bull in Front”. The Akkadian name was Alu.

Gugalanna was the first husband of the Goddess Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the Realm of the Dead, a gloomy place devoid of light. It was to share the sorrow with her sister that Inanna later descends to the Underworld. In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest works of literature, the goddess Ishtar sends Taurus, the Bull of Heaven, to kill Gilgamesh for spurning her advances.

Some locate Gilgamesh as the neighboring constellation of Orion, facing Taurus as if in combat, while others identify him with the sun whose rising on the equinox vanquishes the constellation. The story of the death of Gugalanna has been considered to represent the sun’s obscuring of the constellation as it rose on the morning of the equinox.

In early Mesopotamian art, the Bull of Heaven was closely associated with Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. One of the oldest depictions shows the bull standing before the goddess’ standard; since it has 3 stars depicted on its back (the cuneiform sign for “star-constellation”), there is good reason to regard this as the constellation later known as Taurus.

“Between the period of the earliest female figurines circa 4500 B.C. … a span of a thousand years elapsed, during which the archaeological signs constantly increase of a cult of the tilled earth fertilised by that noblest and most powerful beast of the recently developed holy barnyard, the bull – who not only sired the milk yielding cows, but also drew the plow, which in that early period simultaneously broke and seeded the earth. Moreover by analogy, the horned moon, lord of the rhythm of the womb and of the rains and dews, was equated with the bull; so that the animal became a cosmological symbol, uniting the fields and the laws of sky and earth.”

The seven most prominent stars in this cluster are at least visual magnitude six, and so the cluster is also named the “Seven Sisters”. The name of the Pleiades comes from Ancient Greek. It probably derives from plein (‘to sail’) because of the cluster’s importance in delimiting the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea: ‘the season of navigation began with their heliacal rising’. However, the name was later mythologised as the name of seven divine sisters, whose name was imagined to derive from that of their mother Pleione, effectively meaning ‘daughters of Pleione’. However, in reality the name of the star-cluster almost certainly came first, and Pleione was invented to explain it.

The Apkallu (Akkadian) or Abgal (Sumerian), are seven Sumerian sages, demigods who are said to have been created by the god Enki (Akkadian: Ea) to establish culture and give civilization to mankind. They served as priests of Enki and as advisors or sages to the earliest kings of Sumer before the flood. They are credited with giving mankind the Me (moral code), the crafts, and the arts. They were seen as fish-like men who emerged from the sweet water Abzu. They are commonly represented as having the lower torso of a fish, or dressed as a fish.

Apkallu reliefs also appear in Assyrian palaces as guardians against evil spirits. They are one of the more prominent supernatural creatures that appear in the art of Ashurnasirpal II of the 9th century BC. They appear in one of three forms, bird-headed, human-headed or dressed in fish-skin cloaks. 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.

Eridu (Cuneiform: NUN.KI; modern Arabic: Tell Abu Shahrain), also transliterated as Eridug, could mean “mighty place” or “guidance place”, is considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia. In the Sumerian king list, Eridu is named as the city of the first kings. The king list continues: “”After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug (Eridu). 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 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. Adapa, a man of Eridu, is depicted as an early culture hero. Identified with U-an, a half-human creature from the sea (Abgallu from ab = water, gal = big, lu = man), he was considered to have brought civilization to the city during the time of King Alulim.

In a chart of antediluvian generations in Babylonian and Biblical traditions, Professor William Wolfgang Hallo associates Alulim with the composite half-man, half-fish counselor or culture hero (Apkallu) Uanna-Adapa (Oannes), and suggests an equivalence between Alulim and Enosh in the Sethite genealogy given in Genesis chapter 5. Hallo notes that Alulim’s name means “Stag”.

Oannes was the name given by the Babylonian writer Berossus in the 3rd century BC 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 name “Oannes” was once conjectured to be derived from that of the ancient Babylonian god Ea, but it is now known that the name is the Greek form of the Babylonian Uanna (or Uan) a name used for Adapa in texts from the Library of Ashurbanipal. The Assyrian texts attempt to connect the word to the Akkadian for a craftsman ummanu but this is merely a pun.

Jonah or Jonas is the name given in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh/Old Testament) to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC. He is the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation. The biblical story of Jonah is repeated, with a few notable differences, in the Qur’an.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes a reference to Jonah when he is asked for a miraculous sign by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Jesus says that the sign will be the sign of Jonah. Jesus implies that Jonah’s restoration after three days inside the great whale prefigures His own resurrection.

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá’í Faith, and Mandaeism. He is described as having the unique practice of baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus. Scholars generally believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John and several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus’ early followers had previously been followers of John. John the Baptist is also mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus.

According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself, and Jesus was the one whose coming John foretold. Christians commonly refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, since John announces Jesus’ coming. John is also identified with the prophet Elijah.

Caelus or Coelus was a primal god of the sky in Roman myth and theology, iconography, and literature (compare caelum, the Latin word for “sky” or “the heavens”, hence English “celestial”).

The deity’s name usually appears in masculine grammatical form when he is conceived of as a male generative force, but the neuter form Caelum is also found as a divine personification.

The name of Caelus indicates that he was the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Uranus (Οὐρανός, Ouranos), who was of major importance in the theogonies of the Greeks.

Varro couples him with Terra (Earth) as pater and mater (father and mother), and says that they are “great deities” (dei magni) in the theology of the mysteries at Samothrace.

Although Caelus is not known to have had a cult at Rome, not all scholars consider him a Greek import given a Latin name; he has been associated with Summanus, the god of nocturnal thunder, as “purely Roman.”

Caelus begins to appear regularly in Augustan art and in connection with the cult of Mithras during the Imperial era.

Vitruvius includes him among celestial gods whose temple-buildings (aedes) should be built open to the sky. As a sky god, he became identified with Jupiter, as indicated by an inscription that reads Optimus Maximus Caelus Aeternus Iup<pi>ter.

Some Roman writers used Caelus or Caelum as a way to express the monotheistic god of Judaism. Juvenal identifies the Jewish god with Caelus as the highest heaven (summum caelum), saying that Jews worship the numen of Caelus; Petronius uses similar language.

Florus has a rather odd passage describing the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem as housing a “sky” (caelum) under a golden vine, which has been taken as an uncomprehending attempt to grasp the presence of the Jewish god.

A golden vine, perhaps the one mentioned, was sent by the Hasmonean king Aristobulus to Pompeius Magnus after his defeat of Jerusalem, and was later displayed in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

Ḫaldi (dḪaldi, also known as Khaldi or Hayk, Հայկ Նահապետ, Hayk the Tribal Chief, the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation) was one of the three chief deities of Ararat (Urartu). His shrine was at Ardini. The other two chief deities were Theispas of Kumenu, and Shivini of Tushpa.

Of all the gods of Ararat (Urartu) pantheon, the most inscriptions are dedicated to him.[citation needed] His wife was the goddess Arubani. He is portrayed as a man with or without a beard, standing on a lion.

Khaldi was a warrior god whom the kings of Urartu would pray to for victories in battle. The temples dedicated to Khaldi were adorned with weapons, such as swords, spears, bow and arrows, and shields hung off the walls and were sometimes known as ‘the house of weapons’.

Sexagesimal (base 60) is a numeral system with sixty as its base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, it was passed down to the ancient Babylonians, and it is still used—in a modified form—for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates.

A hexagram (Greek) or sexagram (Latin) is a six-pointed geometric star figure with the Schläfli symbol {6/2}, 2{3}, or {{3}}. It is the compound of two equilateral triangles. The intersection is a regular hexagon. It is used in historical, religious and cultural contexts, for example in Hanafism, Raelianism, Jewish identity, Hinduism and occultism.

The Shatkona is a symbol used in Hindu yantra that represents the union of both the male and feminine form. More specifically it is supposed to represent Purusha (the supreme being), and Prakriti (mother nature, or causal matter). Often this is represented as Shiva / Shakti. The Shatkona is a hexagram and is associated with the son of Siva-Sakthi, Lord Murugan. Stylistically, it is almost identical to the Jewish Star of David and the Japanese Kagome crest.

6 (number)

Meaning of Number 6

Sexagesimal

Sumerian/Babylonian Mathematics

Sumerian metrological numeration systems

Meaning of the Number 6 in the Bible

Hexagram

Shatkona

Trikona

Anahata

Star of David

An omphalos is a religious stone artifact, or baetylus. In Greek, the word omphalos means “navel”. In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, it was a powerful religious symbol. The omphalos was not only an object of Hellenic religious symbolism and world centrality; it was also considered an object of power. Its symbolic references included the uterus, the phallus, and a cup of red wine representing royal blood lines. The omphalos at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, represents, in Christian mediaeval tradition, the navel of the world (the spiritual and cosmological centre of the world).

Among the Ancient Greeks, it was a widespread belief that Delphi was the center of the world. According to the myth regarding the founding of the Delphic Oracle, Zeus, in his attempt to locate the center of the earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world, and the eagles, starting simultaneously and flying at equal speed, crossed their paths above the area of Delphi. From this point, Zeus threw a stone from the sky to see where it will fall.

The stone fell at Delphi, which since then was considered to be the center of the world, the omphalos – “navel of the earth”. Indeed, the same stone thrown by Zeus took the same name and became the symbol of Apollo, the sacred Oracle and more generally of the region of Delphi.

Ekur (É.KUR) is a Sumerian term meaning “mountain house”. It is the assembly of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to Mount Olympus and was the most revered and sacred building of ancient Sumer. There is a clear association of Ziggurats with mountain houses.

Duranki (Dur.An.Ki) was the Sumerian term for the people who were created by their Gods. Dur translates to Bond, An translates to Heaven or skies, Ki translates to Earth. According to creation myths of the Sumerian people, their Gods used genetic material from life existing on Earth and mixed it with divine genetic material from themselves to create Humans here on Earth.

Mountain houses play a certain role in Mesopotamian mythology and Assyro-Babylonian religion, associated with deities such as Anu (“sky, heaven”), Enlil (EN = Lord + LÍL = Wind, “Lord (of the) Storm”), Enki (EN.KI(G), “Lord of the Earth”) and Ninhursag, a mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess.

Temple hymn sources identify her as the ‘true and great lady of heaven’ (possibly in relation to her standing on the mountain) and kings of Sumer were ‘nourished by Ninhursag’s milk’. Her hair is sometimes depicted in an omega shape, and she at times wears a horned head-dress and tiered skirt, often with bow cases at her shoulders, and not infrequently carries a mace or baton surmounted by an omega motif or a derivation, sometimes accompanied by a lion cub on a leash.

The omega symbol is associated with the Egyptian cow goddess Hathor, and may represent a stylized womb. Hathor is at times depicted on a mountain, so it may be that the two goddesses are connected.

According to legend the name Ninhursag was changed from Ninmah (“Great Queen”) to Ninhursag by her son Ninurta, a Sumerian and the Akkadian god of hunting and war, in order to commemorate his creation of the mountains. As Ninmenna, according to a Babylonian investiture ritual, she placed the golden crown on the king in the E-anna temple.

Ninhursag (“lady of the sacred mountain”) from Sumerian NIN (“lady”) and ḪAR.SAG (“sacred mountain, foothill”) was a reference to the site of her temple, the E-Kur “House of mountain deeps” at Eridu. Her temple, the Esagila (from Sumerian E (“temple”) + SAG (“head”) + ILA (“lofty”) was located on the KUR of Eridu, although she also had a temple at Kish.

Ninhursag had many names including Ninmah (“Great Queen”); Nintu (“Lady of Birth”); Mamma or Mami (mother); Aruru, Belet-Ili (lady of the gods, Akkadian).

Mami is a goddess in the Babylonian epic Atra-Hasis and in other creation legends. She was probably synonymous with Ninhursag. She was involved in the creation of humankind from clay and blood.

As Nintu legends states she pinched off fourteen pieces of primordial clay which she formed into womb deities, seven on the left and seven on the right with a brick between them, who produced the first seven pairs of human embryos.

She may have become Belet Ili (“Mistress of the Gods”) when, at Enki’s suggestion, the gods slew one amongst themselves and used that god’s blood and flesh, mixed with clay, to create humankind.

In the text ‘Creator of the Hoe’, she completed the birth of mankind after the heads had been uncovered by Enki’s hoe. In creation texts, Ninmah (another name for Ninhursag) acts as a midwife whilst the mother goddess Nammu makes different kinds of human individuals from lumps of clay at a feast given by Enki to celebrate the creation of humankind.

As the wife and consort of Enki she was also referred to as Damgulanna (great wife of heaven) or Damkina (faithful wife). She had many epithets including shassuru or ‘womb goddess’, tabsut ili ‘midwife of the gods’, ‘mother of all children’ and ‘mother of the gods’. In this role she is identified with Ki in the Enuma Elish. She had shrines in both Eridu and Kish.

In the legend of Enki and Ninhursag, Ninhursag bore a daughter to Enki called Ninsar (“Lady Greenery”). Through Enki, Ninsar bore a daughter Ninkurra. Ninkurra, in turn, bore Enki a daughter named Uttu, the goddess of weaving and clothing. Uttu in Sumerian means “the woven” and she was illustrated as a spider in a web. In Hurrian mythology, the Hutena are goddesses of fate.

Enki then pursued Uttu, who was upset because he didn’t care for her. Uttu, on her ancestress Ninhursag’s advice buried Enki’s seed in the earth, whereupon eight plants (the very first) sprung up.

Enki, seeing the plants, ate them, and became ill in eight organs of his body. Ninhursag cured him, taking the plants into her body and giving birth to eight deities: Abu, Nintulla (Nintul), Ninsutu, Ninkasi, Nanshe (Nazi), Azimua, Ninti, and Enshag (Enshagag).

The eighth was Ninti or Ti (Lady Rib), a pun on Lady Life (the Tree of “Life”), a title of Ninhursag herself, is the Sumerian goddess of life. 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 goddess Kheba. 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 story thus symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess.

In older transliteration the name Ninurta is rendered Ninib and Ninip, and in early commentary he was sometimes portrayed as a solar deity. In Nippur (Sumerian: Nibru), 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.

Nippur never enjoyed political hegemony in its own right, but its control was crucial, as it was considered capable of conferring the overall “kingship” on monarchs from other city-states. It was distinctively a sacred city, important from the possession of the famous shrine of Enlil.

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 the Hymn to Enlil, known as the inventor of the mattock (a key agricultural pick, hoe, ax or digging tool of the Sumerians) and helped plants to grow, the Ekur is closely linked to Enlil whilst in Enlil and Ninlil it is the abode of the Annanuki, from where Enlil is banished. The fall of Ekur is described in the Lament for Ur or Lamentation over the city of Ur is a Sumerian lament composed around the time of the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city’s third dynasty (c. 2000 BC).

The myth of Enlil and Ninlil discusses when Enlil was a young god, he was banished from Ekur in Nippur, home of the gods, to Kur, the underworld for seducing a goddess named Ninlil. Ninlil followed him to the underworld where she bore his first child, the moon god Sin (Sumerian Nanna/Suen). After fathering three more underworld-deities (substitutes for Sin), Enlil was allowed to return to the Ekur.

Enlil is associated with the ancient city of Nippur, sometimes referred to as the cult city of Enlil. His temple was named Ekur, “House of the Mountain.” Such was the sanctity acquired by this edifice that Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, down to the latest days, vied with one another to embellish and restore Enlil’s seat of worship. Eventually, the name Ekur became the designation of a temple in general.

Grouped around the main sanctuary, there arose temples and chapels to the gods and goddesses who formed his court, so that Ekur became the name for an entire sacred precinct in the city of Nippur. The name “mountain house” suggests a lofty structure and was perhaps the designation originally of the staged tower at Nippur, built in imitation of a mountain, with the sacred shrine of the god on the top.

Enlil was also known as the god of weather. According to the Sumerians, Enlil requested the creation of a slave race, but then got tired of their noise and tried to kill them by sending a flood. A mortal known as Utnapishtim survived the flood through the help of another god, Ea, and he was made immortal by Enlil after Enlil’s initial fury had subsided.

As Enlil was the only god who could reach An, the god of heaven, he held sway over the other gods who were assigned tasks by his agent and would travel to Nippur to draw in his power. He is thus seen as the model for kingship. Enlil was assimilated to the north “Pole of the Ecliptic”. His sacred number name was 50.

At a very early period prior to 3000 BC, Nippur had become the centre of a political district of considerable extent. Inscriptions found at Nippur, where extensive excavations were carried on during 1888–1900 by John P. Peters and John Henry Haynes, under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, show that Enlil was the head of an extensive pantheon. Among the titles accorded to him are “king of lands”, “king of heaven and earth”, and “father of the gods”.

In mythology, the Ekur was the centre of the earth and location where heaven and earth were united. It is also known as Duranki and one of its structures is known as the Kiur (“great place”). Enamtila (É.NAM.TI.LA, “house of life” or possibly “house of creation”), a sanctuary dedicated to Enlil, has also been suggested to have been located within the Ekur at Nippur.

Enamtila was likely another name for Ehursag (É.HUR.SAG, “house of the mountains”), commonly associated with a temple of Enlil. Ehursag is also the name or epithet of Ninhursag’s temple at Hiza and has been suggested to have been an interchangeable word with Enamtila.

A hymn to Nanna illustrates the close relationship between temples, houses and mountains. “In your house on high, in your beloved house, I will come to live, O Nanna, up above in your cedar perfumed mountain”. This was carried-on into later tradition in the Bible by the prophet Micah who envisions “the mountain of the temple of Yahweh”.

This is some of the similarities between Sumerian (Mesopotamian) mythology/religion, comming out of the PIE-culture existing in the Armenian Highland, and Jewish/Christian mythology/religion. But it is just a start cause there is a lot of similarities to be found.

There should be no doubt that Judaism and Christianity have the same root as the other mythologies/religions, as f ex the Greek mythology, Buddhism or Hinduism. In this way Mesopotamian mythology/religion have kept it going until today.

Comperative religion

The Bible was formed over many centuries, by many authors, and reflects shifting patterns of religious belief; consequently, its concepts of cosmology are not always consistent. Nor should the Biblical texts be taken to represent the beliefs of all Jews or Christians at the time they were put into writing.

The majority of those making up Hebrew Bible or Old Testament in particular represent the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community, the members of a late Judean religious tradition centered in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of Yahweh.

Biblical cosmology is the biblical writers’ conception of the Cosmos as an organised, structured entity, including its origin, order, meaning and destiny.

The universe of the ancient Israelites was made up of a flat disc-shaped earth floating on water, heaven above, underworld below. Humans inhabited earth during life and the underworld after death, and the underworld was morally neutral; only in Hellenistic times (after c.330 BCE) did Jews begin to adopt the Greek idea that it would be a place of punishment for misdeeds, and that the righteous would enjoy an afterlife in heaven.

In this period too the older three-level cosmology was widely replaced by the Greek concept of a spherical earth suspended in space at the center of a number of concentric heavens.

The opening words of the Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1:1-26) sum up the authors’ view of how the cosmos originated: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”; Yahweh, the god of Israel, was solely responsible for creation and had no rivals.

Later Jewish thinkers, adopting ideas from Greek philosophy, concluded that God’s Wisdom, Word and Spirit penetrated all things and gave them unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and identified Jesus with the creative word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. It is made up of two parts, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.

In the first part (Genesis 1:1-2:3) Elohim, the Hebrew generic word for God, creates the heaven and the earth in six days, starting with darkness and light on the first day, and ending with the creation of mankind on the sixth day. God then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh day. In the second part (Genesis 2:4-2:24) God, now referred to by the personal name Yahweh, creates the first man from dust and breathes life into him. God then places him in the Garden of Eden and creates the first woman from his side as a companion.

A common hypothesis among modern scholars is that the first major comprehensive draft of the Pentateuch (the series of five books which begins with Genesis and ends with Deuteronomy) was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BC (the Jahwist source) and that this was later expanded by other authors (the Priestly source) into a work very like the one we have today. The two sources can be identified in the creation narrative: Genesis 1:1-2:3 is Priestly and Genesis 2:4-2:24 is Jahwistic.

Borrowing themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapting them to Israel’s belief in one God, the combined narrative is a critique of the Mesopotamian theology of creation: Genesis affirms monotheism and denies polytheism. Robert Alter described the combined narrative as “compelling in its archetypal character, its adaptation of myth to monotheistic ends”.

Biblical cosmology

Creation myths

Genesis creation narrative

Sumerian creation myth

Biblical cosmology

Babylonian cosmology

Christian mythology

Jewish mythology

Mesopotamian mythology

Babylonian mythology

Panbabylonism

Enûma Eliš

Parallels

The Tree of Knowledge/Life

Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament

Syncretism

The Bible’s similarities with Egyptian, Greek and Babylonian mythology are too close to be a coincidence. The writers weren’t isolated from other cultures and they didn’t get their ideas by sitting on some mountaintop meditating with God; they borrowed ideas from their neighbor’s creation myths. The technical term is called called syncretism.

Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for Jewish mythology. Both sources behind the Genesis creation narrative borrowed themes from Mesopotamian mythology, but adapted them to their belief in one God, establishing a monotheistic creation in opposition to the polytheistic creation myth of ancient Israel’s neighbors.

Genesis 1–11 as a whole is imbued with Mesopotamian myths. Genesis 1 bears both striking differences from and striking similarities to Babylon’s national creation myth, the Enuma Elish.

On the side of similarities, both begin from a stage of chaotic waters before anything is created, in both a fixed dome-shaped “firmament” divides these waters from the habitable Earth, and both conclude with the creation of a human called “man” and the building of a temple for the god (in Genesis 1, this temple is the entire cosmos).

On the side of contrasts, Genesis 1 is uncompromisingly monotheistic, it makes no attempt to account for the origins of God, and there is no trace of the resistance to the reduction of chaos to order (Gk. theomachy, lit. “God-fighting”), all of which mark the Mesopotamian creation accounts. It also bears similarities to the Baal Cycle of Israel’s neighbor, Ugarit.

The Enuma Elish has also left traces on Genesis 2. Both begin with a series of statements of what did not exist at the moment when creation began; the Enuma Elish has a spring (in the sea) as the point where creation begins, paralleling the spring (on the land – Genesis 2 is notable for being a “dry” creation story) in Genesis 2:6 that “watered the whole face of the ground”; in both myths, Yahweh/the gods first create a man to serve him/them, then animals and vegetation.

At the same time, and as with Genesis 1, the Jewish version has drastically changed its Babylonian model: Eve, for example, seems to fill the role of a mother goddess when, in Genesis 4:1, she says that she has “created a man with Yahweh”, but she is not a divine being like her Babylonian counterpart.

Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the Flood and its aftermath. The two share numerous plot-details (e.g. the divine garden and the role of the first man in the garden, the creation of the man from a mixture of earth and divine substance, the chance of immortality, etc.), and have a similar overall theme: the gradual clarification of man’s relationship with God(s) and animals.

The narratives in Genesis 1–2 were not the only creation myths in ancient Israel, and the complete biblical evidence suggests two contrasting models. The first is the “logos” (meaning speech) model, where a supreme God “speaks” dormant matter into existence. The second is the “agon” (meaning struggle or combat) model, in which it is God’s victory in battle over the monsters of the sea that mark his sovereignty and might.

Genesis 1 is the supreme example of the “logos” mythology; Isaiah 51:9–10 recalls an ancient Canaanite myth in which God creates the world by vanquishing the water deities: “Awake, awake! … It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces, that pierced the Dragon! It was you that dried up the Sea, the waters of the great Deep, that made the abysses of the Sea a road that the redeemed might walk…”

Monotheism

Monotheism is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as belief in the existence of one god or in the oneness of God. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church gives a more restricted definition: “belief in one personal and transcendent God”, as opposed to polytheism and pantheism.

A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, and both inclusive monotheism and pluriform monotheism which, while recognising many distinct gods, postulate some underlying unity.

Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Babism, the Bahá’í Faith, Cao Dai (Caodaiism), Cheondoism (Cheondogyo), Christianity, Deism, Eckankar, Islam, Judaism, Rastafari, Ravidassia religion, Seicho no Ie, Shaivism, Shaktism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo (Tenriism), Vaishnavism, and Zoroastrianism and elements of the belief are discernible in numerous other religions including Atenism and Ancient Chinese religion.

The word monotheism comes from the Greek monos meaning “single” and theos meaning “god”. The English term was first used by Henry More (1614–1687).

In Zoroastrianism, one of the earliest documented instances of the emergence of monism in an Indo-European religion, Ahura Mazda appears as a supreme and transcendental deity. Depending on the date of Zoroaster, who usually considered to be contemporary with the Vedas.

Monolatrism can be a stage in the development of monotheism from polytheism. Three examples of this are the Aten cult in the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, the rise of Marduk from the tutelary of Babylon to the claim of universal supremacy, and the rise of Yahweh from among the Canaanite gods to the sole God of Judaism.

Ethical monotheism and the associated concept of absolute good and evil emerge in Zoroastrianism and Judaism, later culminating in the doctrines of Christology in early Christianity and later (by the 7th century) in the tawhid in Islam.

In the cities of the Ancient Near East, each city had a local patron deity, such as Shamash at Larsa or Sin at Ur. The first claims of global supremacy of a specific god date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenaten’s Great Hymn to the Aten.

However the historicity of the Exodus is disputed. Furthermore it is not clear to what extent Akhenaten’s Atenism was monotheistic rather than henotheistic with Akhenaten himself identified with the god Aten.

Currents of monism or monotheism emerge in Vedic India earlier, chiefly with worship of Lord Krishna, which is full-fledged monotheism, but also with e.g. the Nasadiya Sukta (after the incipit ná ásat “not the non-existent”), also known as the Hymn of Creation, the 129th hymn of the 10th Mandala of the Rigveda (10:129). It is concerned with cosmology and the origin of the universe.

In the Indo-Iranian tradition, the Rigveda exhibits notions of monism, in particular in the comparatively late tenth book, also dated to the early Iron Age, e.g. in the Nasadiya sukta.

According to Christian tradition, monotheism was the original religion of humanity but was generally lost after the fall of man. This theory was largely abandoned in the 19th century in favour of an evolutionary progression from animism via polytheism to monotheism, but by 1974 this theory was less widely held.

Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt had postulated an Urmonotheismus, “original” or “primitive monotheism” in the 1910s. It was objected that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had grown up in opposition to polytheism as had Greek philosophical monotheism. Furthermore, while belief in a “high god” is not universal, it is found in many parts of Africa and numerous other areas of the world.

Mesopotamian religion

Mesopotamian religion refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Sumerian and East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian and later migrant Arameans and Chaldeans, living in Mesopotamia (a region encompassing modern Iraq, Kuwait, southeast Turkey and northeast Syria) that dominated the region for a period of 4200 years from the fourth millennium BCE throughout Mesopotamia to approximately the 10th century CE in Assyria.

Mesopotamian polytheism was the only religion in ancient Mesopotamia for thousands of years before entering a period of gradual decline beginning between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. This decline happened in the face of the introduction of a distinctive native Eastern Christianity (Syriac Christianity such as the Assyrian Church of the East and Syriac Orthodox Church) as well as Judaism, Manichaeism and Gnosticism, and continued for approximately three to four centuries, until most of the original religious traditions of the area died out, with the final traces existing among some remote Assyrian communities until the 10th century CE.

As with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Fortunately, much of the information and knowledge has survived, and great work has been done by historians and scientists, with the help of religious scholars and translators, to re-construct a working knowledge of the religious history, customs, and the role these beliefs played in everyday life in Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia during this time.

Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been a major influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, ancient Greek, and Phoenician religions, and also monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Mandaeism and Islam.

It is known that the god Ashur, among others, was still worshipped in Assyria as late as the 4th century CE. Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic, worshipping over 2,100 different deities, many of which were associated with a specific city or state within Mesopotamia such as Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Assur, Nineveh, Ur, Uruk, Mari and Babylon.

Historians, such as Jean Bottéro, have made the claim that Mesopotamian religion is the world’s oldest religion, although there are several other claims to that title. However, as writing was invented in Mesopotamia it is certainly the oldest in written history.

What is known about Mesopotamian religion comes from archaeological evidence uncovered in the region, particularly literary sources, which are usually written in cuneiform on clay tablets and which describe both mythology and cultic practices. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion.

As is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. This has prompted one scholar to make the claim that the Mesopotamians’ “entire existence was infused by their religiosity, just about everything they have passed on to us can be used as a source of knowledge about their religion.”

Although, a few isolated pockets in Assyria/Upper Mesopotamia aside, it largely died out by approximately 400 CE, Mesopotamian religion has still had an influence on the modern world, predominantly because many biblical stories that are today found in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mandaeism were possibly originally based upon earlier Mesopotamian myths, in particular that of the creation myth, the Garden of Eden, the flood myth, the Tower of Babel and figures such as Nimrod and Lilith.

In addition, the story of Moses’ origins shares a similarity with that of Sargon of Akkad, and the Ten Commandments mirror Assyrian-Babylonian legal codes to some degree. It has also inspired various contemporary neopagan groups to begin worshipping the Mesopotamian deities once more, albeit in a way often different from that of the Mesopotamian people themselves.

Panbabylonism

In the New Testament book of Revelation, Babylonian religion is associated with religious apostacy of the highest order, the archetype of a political/religious system heavily tied to global commerce, and it is depicted as a system which, according to the author, continued to hold sway in the first century CE, eventually to be utterly annihilated.

According to some interpretations, this is believed to refer to the Roman Empire, but according to other interpretations, this system remains extant in the world until the Second Coming of Christ.

Jowever, according to a theory developed in the late Nineteenth century called Panbabylonism, many of the stories of the Tanakh, the Old Testament and the Qur’an are believed to have been based on, influenced by, or inspired by the earlier legendary mythological past of Mesopotamia, which for centuries dominated the entire region.

The Enuma Elish in particular has been compared to the later Genesis creation narrative. The story of Esther in particular is traced to Assyro-Babylonian roots. Others include The Great Flood and Noah’s Ark which may well have been influenced by the earlier Epic of Gilgamesh narratives.

The story of the biblical hunter-king Nimrod (a ruler not attested in Mesopotamian annals) is believed to have been inspired by the real Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I, or alternatively by the Assyrian war god Ninurta. Others include Lilith, who seems to have been based on the Assyrian demoness Lilitu, and the Tower of Babel inspired by the impressive Ziggurats of Assyria and Babylonia.

Jewish, Christian, and Islamic believers address the assertion that parts of the Bible may derive from pagan texts, apologists point out that the differences between the Bible and Mesopotamian texts far outweigh the similarities, and that there is, at least, nothing about the ancient texts that indicates the biblical stories were directly copied from the older Mesopotamian ones. Instead, they may both draw from even older sources.

For example, the Flood story appears in almost every culture around the world, including cultures that never had contact with Mesopotamia. Other apologists point out that the Mesopotamian texts appear highly embellished compared to the simpler Biblical texts, which bear closer resemblance to the creation account described in tablets discovered at Ebla in 1968.

However, much of the initial media excitement about supposed Eblaite connections with the Bible, based on preliminary guesses and speculations by Pettinato and others, is now widely deplored as generated by “exceptional and unsubstantiated claims” and “great amounts of disinformation that leaked to the public”. The present consensus is that Ebla’s role in biblical archaeology, strictly speaking, is minimal.

The creation

Stories describing creation are prominent in many cultures of the world. Unfortunately, very little survives of Sumerian literature from the third millennium B.C. There are no specific written records explaining Mesopotamian religious cosmology that survive to us today. Nonetheless, modern scholars have examined various accounts, and created what is believed to be an at least partially accurate depiction of Mesopotamian cosmology.

In Mesopotamia, the surviving evidence from the third millennium to the end of the first millennium B.C. indicates that although many of the gods were associated with natural forces, no single myth addressed issues of initial creation. It was simply assumed that the gods existed before the world was formed.

However, several fragmentary tablets contain references to a time before the pantheon of the gods, when only the Earth (Sumerian: ki) and Heavens (Sumerian: an) existed. All was dark, there existed neither sunlight nor moonlight; however, the earth was green and water was in the ground, although there was no vegetation.

More is known from Sumerian poems that date to the beginning centuries of the second millennium BC. A Sumerian myth, known today as Gilgamesh and the Netherworld (also known as “Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld” and variants), opens with a mythological prologue.

It assumes that the gods and the universe already exist and that once a long time ago the heavens and earth were united, only later to be split apart. Later, humankind was created and the great gods divided up the job of managing and keeping control over heavens, earth, and the Netherworld.

Seven debate topics are known from the Sumerian literature, falling in the category of disputations; some examples are: The Debate between sheep and grain; The Debate between bird and fish; the Debate between Winter and Summer; and The Dispute between Silver and Copper, etc.

These topics came some centuries after writing was established in Sumerian Mesopotamia. The debates are philosophical and address humanity’s place in the world. Some of the debates may be from 2100 BC. The Song of the Hoe or the Creation of the Pickax stands alone in its own sub-category as a one-sided debate poem.

The Song of the Hoe

In the Sumerian poem The Song of the Hoe or the Creation of the Pickax, as in many other Sumerian stories, the god Enlil is described as the deity who separates heavens and earth in Duranki, the cosmic Nippur or Garden of the Gods, and creates humankind. Humanity is formed to provide for the gods, a common theme in Mesopotamian literature.

One of the tablets from the Yale Babylonian Collection was published by J.J. Van Dijk which spoke of three cosmic realms; heaven, earth and kur in a time when darkness covered an arid land, when heaven and earth were joined and the Enlil’s universal laws, the me did not function.

The myth continues with a description of Enlil creating daylight with his hoe; he goes on to praise its construction and creation. Enlil’s mighty hoe is said to be made of gold, with the blade made of lapis lazuli and fastened by cord. It is inlaid with lapis lazuli and adorned with silver and gold.

Enlil makes civilized man, from a brick mould with his hoe – and the Annanuki start to praise him. Nisaba, Ninmena, and Nunamnir start organizing things. Enki praises the hoe; they start reproducing and Enlil makes numerous shining hoes, for everyone to begin work.

Two of the major traditions of the Sumerian concept of the creation of man are discussed in the myth. The first is the creation of mankind from brick moulds or clay. This has notable similarities to the creation of man from the dust of the earth in the Book of Genesis in the Bible (Genesis 2:6-7). This activity has also been associated with creating clay figurines.

The second Sumerian tradition which compares men to plants, made to “break through the ground”, an allusion to imagery of the fertility or mother goddess and giving an image of man being “planted” in the ground.

Wayne Horowitz notes that five Sumerian myths recount a creation scene with the separation of heaven and earth. He further notes the figurative imagery relaying the relationship between the creation of agricultural implements making a function for mankind and thereby its creation from the “seed of the land”. The myth was called the “Creation of the Pickax” by Samuel Noah Kramer, a name by which it is referred in older sorurces.

In Sumerian literature, the hoe or pickaxe is used not only in creation of the Ekur but also described as the tool of its destruction in lament hymns such as the Lament for Ur, where it is torn apart with a storm and then pickaxes.

Enlil then founds the Ekur, a Sumerian term meaning “mountain house”, the assembly of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to Mount Olympus, with his hoe whilst a “god-man” called Lord Nudimmud builds the Abzu in Eridug.

Various gods are then described establishing construction projects in other cities, such as Ninhursag in Kesh, and Inanna and Utu in Zabalam; Nisaba and E-ana also set about building. The useful construction and agricultural uses of the hoe are summarized, along with its capabilities for use as a weapon and for burying the dead.

Allusions are made to the scenes of Enkidu’s ghost, and Urshanabi’s ferry over the Hubur, in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ninmena is suggested to create both the priestess and king. The hymn ends with extensive praisings of the hoe, Enlil, and Nisaba.

Modern society may have trouble comprehending the virtue of extolling a tool such as the lowly hoe, for the Sumerians the implement had brought agriculture, irrigation, drainage and the ability to build roads, canals and eventually the first proto-cities.

The Debate between Grain and Sheep

In the Sumerian poem “The Debate between Grain and Sheep,” the earth first appeared barren, without grain, sheep, or goats. People went naked. They ate grass for nourishment and drank water from ditches. Later, the gods created sheep and grain and gave them to humankind as sustenance.

The story opens with a location “the hill of heaven and earth” which is discussed by Chiera as “not a poetical name for the earth, but the dwelling place of the gods, situated at the point where the heavens rest upon the earth. It is there that mankind had their first habitat, and there the Babylonian Garden of Eden is to be placed.”

Jeremy Black suggests this area was restricted for gods, noting that field plans from the Third dynasty of Ur use the term hursag (“hill”) to describe the hilly parts of fields that are hard to cultivate due to the presence of prehistoric tell mounds (ruined habitations).

Kramer discusses the story of the god An creating the cattle-goddess, Lahar, and the grain goddess, Ashnan, to feed and clothe the Annunaki, who in turn made man. Lahar and Ashnan are created in the “duku” or “pure place” and the story further describes how the Annunaki create a sheepfold with plants and herbs for Lahar and a house, plough and yoke for Ashnan, describing the introduction of animal husbandry and agriculture.

The story continues with a quarrel between the two goddesses over their gifts which eventually resolves with Enki and Enlil intervening to declare Ashnan the victor.

Samuel Noah Kramer has noted the parallels and variations between the story and the later one of Cain and Abel , according to the Book of Genesis, two sons of Adam and Eve, in the Bible Book of Genesis (Genesis 4:1-16).

Cain is described as a crop farmer and his younger brother Abel as a shepherd. Cain was the first human born and Abel was the first human to die. Cain committed the first murder by killing his brother. Interpretations of Genesis 4 by ancient and modern commentators have typically assumed that the motives were jealousy and anger. Abel, the first murder victim, is sometimes seen as the first martyr; while Cain, the first murderer, is sometimes seen as an ancestor of evil.

Cain and Abel are traditional English renderings of the Hebrew names Qayin and Hevel. The original text did not provide vowels. It has been proposed that the etymology of their names may be a direct pun on the roles they take in the Genesis narrative.

Abel is thought to derive from a reconstructed word meaning “herdsman”, with the modern Arabic cognate ibil now specifically referring only to “camels”. Cain is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word qyn, meaning “metalsmith”.

This theory would make the names descriptive of their roles, where Abel works with livestock, and Cain with agriculture—and would parallel the names Adam (“man,” אדם) and Eve (“life-giver,” חוה Chavah).

Modern scholars typically view the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel to be about the development of civilization during the age of agriculture; not the beginnings of man, but when people first learned agriculture, replacing the ways of the hunter-gatherer.

Emesh and Enten, Cain and Abel

Many scholars have pointed to the similarities between the Sumerian tale of Emesh and Enten and the biblical tale of Cain and Abel. Samuel Noah Kramer called the Emesh and Enten tale “the closest extant Sumerian parallel to the Biblical Cain and Abel story”.

The Emesh and Enten tale is found on clay tablets from the 3rd millennium BCE while the oldest source of the Hebrew Bible is thought to have been written during the 6th century BCE.

In the Sumerian tale, the god Enlil has sex with the Earth, which gives birth to two boys named Emesh and Enten. Emesh is a personification of summer and Enten a personification of winter. Each brother brings an offering to Enlil, but Enten becomes angry with Emesh and the two begin an argument.

In Genesis, Adam has sex with Eve, who gives birth to two boys named Cain and Abel. Cain worked the soil and Abel kept flocks. Each brother brings an offering to Yahweh. Yahweh looks favorably on Abel’s offering but not on Cain’s, so Cain becomes angry.[Genesis 4:1-5]

At this point, however, the similarities end. In the Sumerian tale, Enlil intervenes and declares Enten the winner of the debate. Emesh accepts Enlil’s judgment and the brothers reconcile. In Genesis, Cain murders his brother Abel.[Genesis 4:8]

The Debate between Bird and Fish

The bird and fish debate is a 190-line text of cuneiform script. It begins with a discussion of the gods having given Mesopotamia and dwelling places for humans; for water for the fields, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and the marshes, marshland, grazing lands for humans, and the birds of the marshes, and fish are all given.

According to The Debate between Bird and Fish, water for human consumption did not exist until Enki, lord of wisdom, created the Tigris and Euphrates and caused water to flow into them from the mountains.

He also created the smaller streams and watercourses, established sheepfolds, marshes, and reedbeds, and filled them with fish and birds. He founded cities and established kingship and rule over foreign countries.

The Debate between Winter and Summer

In The Debate between Winter and Summer or Myth of Emesh and Enten, an unknown Sumerian author explains that summer and winter, abundance, spring floods, and fertility are the result of Enlil’s copulation with the hills of the earth.

The story takes the form of a contest poem between two cultural entities first identified by Kramer as vegetation gods, Emesh and Enten. These were later identified with the natural phenomena of Winter and Summer. The location and occasion of the story is described in the introduction with the usual creation sequence of day and night, food and fertility, weather and seasons and sluice gates for irrigation.

Samuel Noah Kramer has noted this myth “is the closest extant Sumerian parallel to the Biblical Cain and Abel story” in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 4:1-16). This connection has been made by other scholars. The disputation form has also been suggested to have similar elements to the discussions between Job and his friends in the Book of Job.

Ekur

Ekur was the most revered and sacred building of ancient Sumer. The splendour of the designs and decorations led Age Westenholz to suggest the anaology of this spiritual sanctuary to the Sumerian empire with that of the Vatican to the Roman Catholic world. The chief administrator of the Ekur or “sanga” of Enlil was appointed by the king and held special status in Nippur and votive inscriptions of the kings indicate that it had held this position since early dynastic times.

There is a clear association of Ziggurats with mountain houses. Mountain houses play a certain role in Mesopotamian mythology and Assyro-Babylonian religion, associated with deities such as Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursag. In the Hymn to Enlil, the Ekur is closely linked to Enlil whilst in Enlil and Ninlil it is the abode of the Annanuki, from where Enlil is banished.

In mythology, the Ekur was the centre of the earth and location where heaven and earth were united. It is also known as Duranki and one of its structures is known as the Kiur (“great place”). Enamtila has also been suggested by Piotr Michalowski to be a part of the Ekur.

A hymn to Nanna illustrates the close relationship between temples, houses and mountains. “In your house on high, in your beloved house, I will come to live, O Nanna, up above in your cedar perfumed mountain“. This was carried-on into later tradition in the Bible by the prophet Micah who envisions “the mountain of the temple of Yahweh”.

The Tummal Inscription records the first king to build a temple to Enlil as Enmebaragesi, the predecessor of Gilgamesh, around 2500 BC. Ekur is generally associated with the temple at Nippur restored by Naram-Sin of Akkad and Shar-Kali-Sharri during the Akkadian Empire. It is also the later name of the temple of Assur rebuilt by Shalmaneser I.

The word can also refer to the chapel of Enlil in the temple of Ninimma at Nippur. It is also mentioned in the Inscription of Gaddas as a temple of Enlil built “outside Babylon”, possibly referring to the Enamtila in western Babylon.

A hymn to Urninurta mentions the prominence of a tree in the courtyard of the Ekur, reminiscent of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden: “O, chosen cedar, adornment of the yard of Ekur, Urinurta, for thy shadow the country may feel awe!”. This is suggested by G. Windgren to reflect the concept of the tree as a mythical and ritual symbol of both king and god.

Hymn to Enlil

The Hymn to Enlil, Enlil and the Ekur (Enlil A), Hymn to the Ekur, Hymn and incantation to Enlil, Hymn to Enlil the all beneficent or Excerpt from an exorcism is a Sumerian myth, written on clay tablets in the late third millennium BC. Andrew R. George suggested that the hymn to Enlil “can be incorporated into longer compositions” as with the Kesh temple hymn and “the hymn to temples in Ur that introduces a Shulgi hymn.”

The hymn, noted by Kramer as one of the most important of its type, starts with praise for Enlil in his awe-inspiring dais. The hymn develops by relating Enlil founding and creating the origin of the city of Nippur and his organization of the earth.

In contrast to the myth of Enlil and Ninlil where the city exists before creation, here Enlil is shown to be responsible for its planning and construction, suggesting he surveyed and drew the plans before its creation.

The hymn moves on from the physical construction of the city and gives a description and veneration of its ethics and moral code. The last sentence has been compared by R. P. Gordon to the description of Jerusalem in the Book of Isiah (Isiah 1:21), “the city of justice, righteousness dwelled in her” and in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:23), “O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.”

A similar passage to the last lines above has been noted in the Biblical Psalms (Psalms 29:9) “The voice of the Lord makes hinds to calve and makes goats to give birth (too) quickly”. The hymn concludes with further reference to Enlil as a farmer and praise for his wife, Ninlil.

The poetic form and laudatory content of the hymn have shown similarities to the Book of Psalms in the Bible, particularly Psalm 23 (Psalms 23:1-2) “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”

Line eighty four mentions: ”Enlil, if you look upon the shepherd favourably, if you elevate the one truly called in the Land, then the foreign countries are in his hands, the foreign countries are at his feet! Even the most distant foreign countries submit to him.”

In line ninety one, Enlil is referred to as a shepherd: “Enlil, faithful shepherd of the teeming multitudes, herdsman, leader of all living creatures.” The shepherd motif originating in this myth is also found describing Jesus in the Book of John (John 10:11-13).

The foundations of Enlil’s temple are made of lapis lazuli, which has been linked to the “soham” stone used in the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 28:13) describing the materials used in the building of “Eden, the Garden of god” perched on “the mountain of the lord”, Zion, and in the Book of Job (Job 28:6-16) “The stones of it are the place of sapphires and it hath dust of gold”.

Moses also saw God’s feet standing on a “paved work of a sapphire stone” in (Exodus 24:10). Precious stones are also later repeated in a similar context describing decoration of the walls of New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse (Revelation 21:21).

Lament of Ur

The fall of Ekur is described in the Lament for Ur or Lamentation over the city of Ur, a Sumerian lament composed around the time of the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city’s third dynasty (c. 2000 BC). It contains one of five known Mesopotamian “city laments”—dirges for ruined cities in the voice of the city’s tutelary goddess. The other city laments are The Lament for Sumer and Ur, The Lament for Nippur, The Lament for Eridu, and The Lament for Uruk.

The Book of Lamentations of the Old Testament, which bewails the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon in the sixth century BC., is similar in style and theme to these earlier Mesopotamian laments. Similar laments can be found in the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Psalms, Psalm 137 (Psalms 137:1-9), a song covered by Boney M in 1978 as Rivers of Babylon.

Enlil

The ancient Sumerian chief deity was Enlil, the Lord of the Wind. Enlil owed nominal loyalty to his father Anu/Heaven but outside of southern Mesopotamia he gradually became more important evolving to the status of king of the gods. In Canaan Enlil was known as El, the father of an entire pantheon of gods.

In the second verse of Genesis God, who is called Elohim (literally the plural “Gods”) in the Hebrew, is said to hover over the waters. This description of God and the use of the name Elohim further reveals this Mesopotamian god’s influence.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2). This image of God moving over the waters compares directly with the mythology of Enlil who was made visible by traces of his passing such as ripples on the water.

Chaos

Tiamat is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation, depicted as a woman she represents the beauty of the feminine, depicted as the glistening one. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon. She 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”.

Thorkild Jacobsen and Walter Burkert both argue for a connection with the Akkadian word for sea, tâmtu, following an early form, ti’amtum. Tiamat also has been claimed to be cognate with Northwest Semitic tehom (תהום) (the deeps, abyss), in the Book of Genesis 1:2.

Greek χάος (Chaos) means “emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss”, from the verb χαίνω, “gape, be wide open, etc.”, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵhehn, cognate to Old English geanian, “to gape”, whence English yawn. It may also mean space, the expanse of air, and the nether abyss, infinite darkness. It refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, or to the initial “gap” created by the original separation of heaven and earth.

Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BC) interpretes chaos as water, like something formless which can be differentiated. Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod’s “chaos” has been interpreted as a moving, formless mass from which the cosmos and the gods originated.

In Hesiod’s opinion the origin should be indefinite and indeterminate, and it represents disorder and darkness. Chaos has been linked with the term tohu wa-bohu of Genesis 1:2. The term may refer to a state of non-being prior to creation or to a formless state.

In the Book of Genesis, the spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters, and the earliest state of the universe is like a “watery chaos”. The Septuagint makes no use of χάος in the context of creation, instead using the term for גיא, “chasm, cleft”, in Micha 1:6 and Zacharia 14:4.

In one interpretation, Genesis 1:1-3 can be taken as describing the state of chaos immediately before God’s act of creation: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

Of the certain uses of the word chaos in Theogony, in the creation the word is referring to a “gaping void” which gives birth to the sky, but later the word is referring to the gap between the earth and the sky, after their separation.

A parallel can be found in the Genesis. In the beginning God creates the earth and the sky. The earth is “formless and void” (tohu wa-bohu), and later God divides the waters under the firmament from the waters over the firmament, and calls the firmament “heaven”.

Nevertheless, the term chaos has been adopted in religious studies as referring to the primordial state before creation, strictly combining two separate notions of primordial waters or a primordial darkness from which a new order emerges and a primordial state as a merging of opposites, such as heaven and earth, which must be separated by a creator deity in an act of cosmogony. In both cases, chaos referring to a notion of a primordial state contains the cosmos in potentia but needs to be formed by a demiurge before the world can begin its existence.

This model of a primordial state of matter has been opposed by the Church Fathers from the 2nd century, who posited a creation ex nihilo by an omnipotent God.

In modern biblical studies, the term chaos is commonly used in the context of the Torah and their cognate narratives in Ancient Near Eastern mythology more generally. Parallels between the Hebrew Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma Elish were established by Hermann Gunkel in 1910. Besides Genesis, other books of the Old Testament, especially a number of Psalms, some passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Book of Job are relevant.

Use of chaos in the derived sense of “complete disorder or confusion” first appears in Elizabethan Early Modern English, originally implying satirical exaggeration.

Hubur

Hubur (ḪU.BUR, Hu-bur) is a Sumerian term meaning “river”, “watercourse” or “netherworld”. It is usually the “river of the netherworld”. A connection to Tiamat has been suggested with parallels to her description as “Ummu-Hubur”. Hubur is also referred to in the Enuma Elish as “mother sea Hubur, who fashions all things”.

The river Euphrates has been identified with Hubur as the source of fertility in Sumer. The Khabur or Khaboor River is the largest perennial tributary to the Euphrates in Syrian territory. Several important wadis join the Khabur north of Al-Hasakah, together creating what is known as the Khabur Triangle, or Upper Khabur area.

This Babylonian “river of creation” has been linked to the Hebrew “river of paradise”. Gunkel and Zimmern suggested resemblance in expressions and a possible connection between the Sumerian river and that found in later literary tradition in the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 47) likely influencing imagery of the “River of Water of Life” in the Apocalypse (Revelation 22).

They also noted a connection between the “Water of Life” in the legend of Adapa and a myth translated by A.H. Sayce called “An address to the river of creation”. Delitzch has suggested the similar Sumerian word Habur probably meant “mighty water source”, “source of fertility” or the like. This has suggested the meaning of Hubur to be “river of fertility in the underworld”.

Linda Foubister has suggested the river of creation was linked with the importance of rivers and rain in the Fertile Crescent and suggested it was related to the underworld as rivers resemble snakes.

Samuel Eugene Balentine suggested that the “pit” (sahar) and “river” or “channel” (salah) in the Book of Job (Job 33:18) were referencing the Hubur. The god Marduk was praised for restoration or saving individuals from death when he drew them out of the waters of the Hubur, a later reference to this theme is made in Psalm 18 (Psalms 18).

Chaoskampf

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 motif of Chaoskampf (German for “struggle against chaos”) is ubiquitous in myth and legend, depicting a battle of a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the shape of a serpent or dragon. The same term has also been extended to parallel concepts in the religions of the Ancient Near East, such as the abstract conflict of ideas in the Egyptian duality of Maat and Isfet.

Indo-European examples of this mythic trope include Thor vs. Jörmungandr (Norse), Tarhunt vs. Illuyanka (Hittite), Indra vs. Vritra (Vedic), Θraētaona vs. Aži Dahāka (Avestan), and Zeus vs. Typhon (Greek) among others. Examples of the storm god vs. sea serpent trope in the Ancient Near East can be seen with Baʿal vs. Yam (Canaanite), Marduk vs. Tiamat (Babylonian), Ra vs. Apep (Egyptian Mythology), and Yahweh vs. Leviathan (Jewish) among others.

The Chaoskampf would eventually be inherited by descendants of these ancient religions, perhaps most notably by Christianity. Examples include the story of Saint George and the Dragon (most probably descended from the Slavic branch of Indo-European and stories such as Dobrynya Nikitich vs. Zmey Gorynych).

Some scholars argue that this extends to Christ and/or Saint Michael vs. the Devil (as seen in the Book of Revelation among other places and probably related to the Yahweh vs. Leviathan and later Gabriel vs. Rahab stories of Jewish mythology), but this is hotly contested.

Even more controversial is the view that the narrative appears in the crucifixion story of Jesus found in the gospels, a view debated by scholars such as Walter Wink, who indicates that the gospel accounts of Christ’s death present the diametric opposite thematic viewpoint presented in the Chaoskampf myths.

Lôtān, Litan, or Litānu (Ugaritic: Ltn, lit. “Coiled”) was a sea monster in Canaanite mithology, better known as Leviathan in Hebrew mythology. Lotan seems to have been prefigured by Têmtum, the serpent killed by the benevolent storm god Hadad in Syrian seals of the 18th–16th century BC.

In the Baal Cycle discovered in the ruins of Ugarit, Lotan is a servant of the sea god Yammu and is defeated by the benevolent storm god Baʿal, possibly with the help or by the hand of his sister ʿAnat. Lotan or Litanu was his proper name.

The account has gaps, making it unclear whether some phrases describe him or other monsters at Yammu’s disposal. Most scholars agree on describing him as “the fugitive serpent” (bṯn brḥ) but he may or may not be “the wriggling serpent” (bṯn ʿqltn) or “the mighty one with seven heads” (šlyṭ d.šbʿt rašm).

The Baal Cycle’s description of Lotan is directly paralleled by a passage in the later Apocalypse of Isaiah, where scholars are likewise uncertain as to whether two leviathans and a tannin are slain or whether all three figures refer to a single Leviathan.

Leviathan, in the Bible, one of the names of the primeval dragon subdued by Yahweh at the outset of creation: “You crushed Leviathan’s heads, gave him as food to the wild animals” (Psalm 74:14; see also Isaiah 27:1; Job 3:8; Amos 9:3). Biblical writers also refer to the dragon as Rahab (Job 9:13; Psalm 89:10) or simply as the Abyss (Habakkuk 3:10).

The biblical references to the battle between Yahweh and Leviathan reflect the Syro-Palestinian version of a myth found throughout the ancient Near East. In this myth, creation is represented as the victory of the creator-god over a monster of chaos.

The closest parallel to the biblical versions of the story appears in the Canaanite texts from Ra’s Shamrah (14^th century BC), in which Baal defeats a dragonlike monster: “You will crush Leviathan the fleeing serpent; you will consume the twisting serpent, the mighty one with seven heads.” (The wording of Isaiah 27:1 draws directly on this text.)

A more ancient version of the myth occurs in the Babylonian Creation Epic, in which the storm god Marduk defeats the sea monster Tiamat and creates the earth and sky by cleaving her corpse in two.

The latter motif is reflected in a few biblical passages that extol Yahweh’s military valor: “Was it not you who split Rahab in half, who pierced the dragon through?” (Isaiah 51:9; see also Job 26:12; Psalm 74:13, 89:10).

Enuma Elish

Babylonian poets, like their Sumerian counterparts, had no single explanation for creation. Diverse stories regarding creation were incorporated into other types of texts. Most prominently, the Babylonian myth “Enuma Elish”, the Babylonian creation mythos (named after its opening words) dated to 1200 BCE, is a theological legitimization of the rise of Marduk as the supreme god in Babylon, replacing Enlil, the former head of the pantheon.

One of the best-known literary texts from ancient Mesopotamia describes Marduk’s dramatic rise to power: Assyriologists refer to this composition by its ancient title Enūma eliš, Akkadian for “When on high”. It is often called “The Babylonian Epic of Creation,” which is rather a misnomer as the main focus of the story is the elevation of Marduk to the head of the pantheon, for which the creation story is only a vehicle.

The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. Most of Tablet V has never been recovered but, aside from this lacuna, the text is almost complete. A duplicate copy of Tablet V has been found in Sultantepe, ancient Huzirina, near the modern town of Şanlıurfa in Turkey.

The poem was most likely compiled during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in the later twelfth century B.C., or possibly a short time afterward. At this time, Babylon, after many centuries of rule by the foreign Kassite dynasty, achieved political and cultural independence. The poem celebrates the ascendancy of the city and acts as a political tractate explaining how Babylon came to succeed the older city of Nippur as the center of religious festivals.

This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the creation of humankind for the service of the gods. Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology or theogony but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods.

The Enûma Eliš was recognized as being related to the Jewish Genesis creation account from its first publication (Smith 1876), and it was an important step in the recognition of the roots of the account found in the Bible and in other Ancient Near Eastern (Canaanite and Mesopotamian) myths.

Creation of man

After six generations of gods, in the Babylonian “Enuma Elish”, in the seventh generation, (Akkadian “shapattu” or sabath), the younger Igigi gods, the sons and daughters of Enlil and Ninlil, go on strike and refuse their duties of keeping the creation working.

Abzu, the god of fresh water, co-creator of the cosmos, threatens to destroy the world with his waters, and the Gods gather in terror. Enki promises to help and puts Abzu to sleep, confining him in irrigation canals and places him in the Kur, beneath his city of Eridu.

But the universe is still threatened, as Tiamat, angry at the imprisonment of Abzu and at the prompting of her son and vizier Kingu, decides to take back the creation herself. The gods gather again in terror and turn to Enki for help, but Enki who harnessed Abzu, Tiamat’s consort, for irrigation refuses to get involved.

The gods then seek help elsewhere, and the patriarchal Enlil, their father, God of Nippur, promises to solve the problem if they make him King of the Gods. In the Babylonian tale, Enlil’s role is taken by Marduk, Enki’s son, and in the Assyrian version it is Asshur.

After dispatching Tiamat with the “arrows of his winds” down her throat and constructing the heavens with the arch of her ribs, Enlil places her tail in the sky as the Milky Way, and her crying eyes become the source of the Tigris and Euphrates.

But there is still the problem of “who will keep the cosmos working”. Enki, who might have otherwise come to their aid, is lying in a deep sleep and fails to hear their cries. His mother Nammu (creatrix also of Abzu and Tiamat) “brings the tears of the gods” before Enki and says: “Oh my son, arise from thy bed, from thy (slumber), work what is wise. Fashion servants for the Gods, may they produce their bread.”

Enki then advises that they create a servant of the gods, humankind, out of clay and blood. Against Enki’s wish the Gods decide to slay Kingu, and Enki finally consents to use Kingu’s blood to make the first human, with whom Enki always later has a close relationship, the first of the seven sages, seven wise men or “Abgallu” (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = Man), also known as Adapa. Enki assembles a team of divinities to help him, creating a host of “good and princely fashioners”.

He tells his mother “Oh my mother, the creature whose name thou has uttered, it exists. Bind upon it the will of the Gods; Mix the heart of clay that is over the Abyss, The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay. Thou, do thou bring the limbs into existence; Ninmah (the Earth-mother goddess (Ninhursag, his wife and consort) will work above thee. Ninti (goddess of birth) will stand by thy fashioning; Oh my mother, decree thou its (the new born’s) fate.

Adapa, the first man fashioned, later goes and acts as the advisor to the King of Eridu, when in the Sumerian Kinglist, the “Me” of “kingship descends on Eridu”. Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, “the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods] delight”.

Samuel Noah Kramer believes that behind this myth of Enki’s confinement of Abzu lies an older one of the struggle between Enki and the Dragon Kur (the underworld).

Elevation of Marduk

In Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a very young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god.

To prepare for battle, he makes a bow, fletches arrows, grabs a mace, throws lightning before him, fills his body with flame, makes a net to encircle Tiamat within it, gathers the four winds so that no part of her could escape, creates seven nasty new winds such as the whirlwind and tornado, and raises up his mightiest weapon, the rain-flood. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths. In his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison.

First, he challenges the leader of the Anunnaki gods, the dragon of the primordial sea Tiamat, the deified ocean, often seen to represent a female principle, whereas Marduk stands for the male principle, to single combat and defeats her by trapping her with his net, blowing her up with his winds, and piercing her belly with an arrow.

Marduk is victorious, kills the mother goddess Tiamat, a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû (the god of fresh water) to produce younger gods, and creates the world from her body.

He use half her body to create the earth, and the other half to create both the paradise of šamû and the netherworld of irṣitu. A document from a similar period stated that the universe was a spheroid, with three levels of šamû, where the gods dwelt, and where the stars existed, above the three levels of earth below it.

Then, he proceeds to defeat Kingu, who Tiamat put in charge of the army and wore the Tablets of Destiny on his breast, and “wrested from him the Tablets of Destiny, wrongfully his” and assumed his new position. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure.

In gratitude the other gods then bestow 50 names upon Marduk and select him to be their head. The number 50 is significant, because it was previously associated with the god Enlil, the former head of the pantheon, who was now replaced by Marduk.

This replacement of Enlil is already foreshadowed in the prologue to the famous Code of Hammurabi, a collection of “laws,” issued by Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BCE), the most famous king of the first dynasty of Babylon.

In the prologue, Hammurabi mentions that the gods Anu and Enlil determined for Marduk to receive the “Enlil-ship” (stewardship) of all the people, and with this elevated him into the highest echelons of the Mesopotamian pantheon.

It is interesting to note that Marduk had to get the consent of the assembly of gods to take on Tiamat.  This is a reflection of how the people of Babylon governed themselves. The government of the gods was arranged in the same way as the government of the people. All the gods reported to Marduk just as all the nobles reported to the king. And Marduk had to listen to the assembly of gods just as the king had to listen to the assembly of people.

Though most scholarly work on the Enûma Eliš regard its primary original purpose to be the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods, researchers seeking to remove Babylonian influence onto Judaism assert counter arguments.

To address the similarities between the accounts, Christian apologist Conrad Hyers of the Princeton Theological Seminary, stated that the Genesis account polemically addressed earlier Babylonian and other pagan creation myths to “repudiate the divinization of nature and the attendant myths of divine origins, divine conflict, and divine ascent,” thus rejecting the idea that Genesis borrowed from or appropriated the form of the Enûma Eliš.

According to this theory, the Enûma Eliš was comfortable using connections between the divine and inert matter, while the aim of Genesis was supposedly to state the superiority of the Israelite god Elohim over all creation (and subsequent deities).

Biblical story of Job

Another important literary text offers a different perspective on Marduk. The composition, one of the most intricate literary texts from ancient Mesopotamia, is often classified as “wisdom literature,” and ill-defined and problematic category of Akkadian literature. Assyriologists refer to this poem as Ludlul bēl nēmeqi “Let me praise the Lord of Wisdom,” after its first line, or alternatively as “The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer”.

The literary composition, which consists of four tablets of 120 lines each, begins with a 40-line hymnic praise of Marduk, in which his dual nature is described in complex poetic wording: Marduk is powerful, both good and evil, just as he can help humanity, he can also destroy people.

The story then launches into a first-person narrative, in which the hero tells us of his continued misfortunes. It is this element that has often been compared to the Biblical story of Job.

In the end the sufferer is saved by Marduk and ends the poem by praising the god once more. In contrast to Enūma eliš the “Poem of the Righteous Sufferer” offers insights into personal relationships with Marduk. The highly complicated structure and unusual poetic language make this poem part of an elite and learned discourse.

Shabbat

Shabbat (“rest” or “cessation”) or Shabbos is Judaism’s day of rest and seventh day of the week, on which religious Jews remember the Biblical creation of the heavens and the earth in six days and the Exodus of the Hebrews, and look forward to a future Messianic Age. Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor the day.

Judaism’s traditional position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution, though some suggest other origins. Variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions.

Reconstruction of the broken Enûma Eliš tablet seems, however, to define the rarely attested Sapattum or Sabattum as the full moon. This word is cognate or merged with Hebrew Shabbat (cf. Genesis 2:2-3), but is monthly rather than weekly; it is regarded as a form of Sumerian sa-bat (“mid-rest”), attested in Akkadian as um nuh libbi (“day of mid-repose”). This conclusion is a contextual restoration of the damaged tablet, which is read as “[Sa]bbath shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly.”

Venus

Morning star is a name for the star Sirius, which appears in the sky just before sunrise during the Dog Days, refering to the hot, sultry days of summer, originally in areas around the Mediterranean Sea, and as the expression fit, to other areas, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is also a less common name for the planet Mercury when it appears in the east before sunrise or to the planet Mercury when it appears in the west (evening sky) after sunset.

Morning star is most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise. Venus is also the Evening Star when it appears in the west (evening sky), after sunset. The ancients first thought the two were separate stars and later realized it was the same star appearing as the harbinger of the Sun in the east and marking the end of the day in the west.

The morning star is an appearance of the planet Venus, an inferior planet, meaning that its orbit lies between that of the Earth and the Sun. Depending on the orbital locations of both Venus and Earth, it can be seen in the eastern morning sky for an hour or so before the Sun rises and dims it, or in the western evening sky for an hour or so after the Sun sets, when Venus itself then sets.

It is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon, outshining the planets Saturn and Jupiter but, while these rise high in the sky, Venus never does. This may lie behind myths about deities associated with the morning star proudly striving for the highest place among the gods and being cast down.

Inanna was associated with the planet Venus. There are hymns to Inanna as her astral manifestation. It also is believed that in many myths about Inanna, including Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld and Inanna and Shukaletuda, her movements correspond with the movements of Venus in the sky.

Because of its positioning so close to Earth, Venus is not visible across the dome of the sky as most celestial bodies are; because its proximity to the sun renders it invisible during the day. Instead, Venus is visible only when it rises in the East before sunrise, or when it sets in the West after sunset.

Because the movements of Venus appear to be discontinuous (it disappears due to its proximity to the sun, for many days at a time, and then reappears on the other horizon), some cultures did not recognize Venus as single entity, but rather regarded the planet as two separate stars on each horizon as the morning and evening star. The Mesopotamians, however, most likely understood that the planet was one entity.

The discontinuous movements of Venus relate to both mythology as well as Inanna’s dual nature. Inanna is related like Venus to the principle of connectedness, but this has a dual nature and could seem unpredictable. Yet as both the goddess of love and war, with both masculine and feminine qualities, Inanna is poised to respond, and occasionally to respond with outbursts of temper. Mesopotamian literature takes this one step further, explaining Inanna’s physical movements in mythology as corresponding to the astronomical movements of Venus in the sky.

Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld explains how Inanna is able to, unlike any other deity, descend into the netherworld and return to the heavens. The planet Venus appears to make a similar descent, setting in the West and then rising again in the East.

In Inanna and Shukaletuda, in search of her attacker, Inanna makes several movements throughout the myth that correspond with the movements of Venus in the sky. An introductory hymn explains Inanna leaving the heavens and heading for Kur, what could be presumed to be, the mountains, replicating the rising and setting of Inanna to the West. Shukaletuda also is described as scanning the heavens in search of Inanna, possibly to the eastern and western horizons.

In Greek mythology, Hesperus is the Evening Star, the planet Venus in the evening. He is the son of the dawn goddess Eos (Roman Aurora) and is the half-brother of her other son, Phosphorus (also called Eosphorus; the “Morning Star”). Hesperus’ Roman equivalent is Vesper (cf. “evening”, “supper”, “evening star”, “west”). Hesperus’ father was Cephalus, a mortal, while Phosphorus’ was the star god Astraios.

Hesperus is the personification of the “evening star”, the planet Venus in the evening. His name is sometimes conflated with the names for his brother, the personification of the planet as the “morning star” Eosphorus (Greek Ἐωσφόρος, “bearer of dawn”) or Phosphorus (Ancient Greek: Φωσφόρος, “bearer of light”, often translated as “Lucifer” in Latin), since they are all personifications of the same planet Venus.

“Heosphoros” in the Greek Septuagint and “Lucifer” in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate were used to translate the Hebrew “Helel” (Venus as the brilliant, bright or shining one), “son of Shahar (god) (Dawn)” in the Hebrew version of Isaiah 14:12.

When named thus by the ancient Greeks, it was thought that Eosphorus (Venus in the morning) and Hesperos (Venus in the evening) were two different celestial objects. The Greeks later accepted the Babylonian view that the two were the same, and the Babylonian identification of the planets with the great gods, and dedicated the “wandering star” (planet) to Aphrodite (Roman Venus), as the equivalent of Ishtar.

While at an early stage the Morning Star (called Phosphorus and other names) and the Evening Star (referred to by names such as Hesperus) were thought of as two celestial objects, the Greeks accepted that the two were the same, but they seem to have continued to treat the two mythological entities as distinct.

In Greek mythology, Hesiod calls Phosphorus a son of Astraeus and Eos, but other say of Cephalus and Eos, or of Atlas. The Latin poet Ovid, speaking of Phosphorus and Hesperus (the Evening Star, the evening appearance of the planet Venus) as identical, makes him the father of Daedalion. Ovid also makes him the father of Ceyx, while the Latin grammarian Servius makes him the father of the Hesperides or of Hesperis.

Aurvandil

The names Aurvandil or Earendel are cognate Germanic personal names, continuing a Proto-Germanic reconstructed compound *auzi-wandilaz “luminous wanderer”, in origin probably the name of a star or planet, potentially the morning star (Eosphoros).

As a Germanic name, Auriwandalo is attested as a historical Lombardic prince. A Latinized version, Horvandillus, is given as the name of the father of Amleth in Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum. German Orentil (Erentil) is the hero of a medieval poem of the same name. He is son of a certain Eigel of Trier and has numerous adventures in the Holy Land.

The Old Norse variant appears in purely mythological context, linking the name to a star. The only known attestation of the Old English Earendel refers to a star exclusively.

The name is a compound whose first part goes back to *auzi- ‘dawn’, a combining form related to *austaz ‘east’, cognate with Ancient Greek ēṓs ‘dawn’, Sanskrit uṣā́s, Latin aurōra, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éuso-s ‘dawn’.

The second part comes from *wanđilaz, a derivative of *wanđaz (cf. Old Norse vandr ‘difficult’, Old Saxon wand ‘fluctuating, variable’, English wander), from *wenđanan which gave in English wend.

Jacob Grimm (1835) emphasizes the great age of the tradition reflected in the mythological material surrounding this name, without being able to reconstruct the characteristics of the Common Germanic myth. Viktor Rydberg in his Teutonic Mythology also assumes Common Germanic age for the figure.

In the Old English poem Crist I name is taken to refer to John the Baptist, addressed as the morning star heralding the coming of Christ, the “sun of righteousness”.

Phosphorus

Phosphorus (Greek Φωσφόρος Phōsphoros), a name meaning “Light-Bringer”, is the Morning Star, the planet Venus in its morning appearance. Φαοσφόρος (Phaosphoros) and Φαεσφόρος (Phaesphoros) are forms of the same name in some Greek dialects.

The Latin word corresponding to Greek “Phosphorus” is “Lucifer”. It is used in its astronomical sense both in prose and poetry. Poets sometimes personify the star, placing it in a mythological context.

Another Greek name for the Morning Star is Heosphoros (Greek Ἑωσφόρος Heōsphoros), which means “Dawn-Bringer”. The form Eosphorus is sometimes met in English, as if from Ἠωσφόρος (Ēōsphoros), which is not actually found in Greek literature, but would be the form that Ἑωσφόρος would have in some dialects.

As an adjective, the Greek word φωσφόρος is applied in the sense of “light-bringing” to, for instance, the dawn, the god Dionysos, pine torches, the day; and in the sense of “torch-bearing” as an epithet of several god and goddesses, especially Hecate but also of Artemis/Diana and Hephaestus.

The Latin word lucifer, corresponding to Greek φωσφόρος, was used as a name for the morning star and thus appeared in the Vulgate translation of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל (helel) — meaning Venus as the brilliant, bright or shining one — in Isaiah 14:12, where the Septuagint Greek version uses, not φωσφόρος, but ἑωσφόρος. As a translation of the same Hebrew word the King James Version gave “Lucifer”, a name often understood as a reference to Satan.

Modern translations of the same passage render the Hebrew word instead as “morning star”, “daystar”, “shining one” or “shining star”. In Revelation 22:16, Jesus is referred to as the morning star, but not as lucifer in Latin, nor as φωσφόρος in the original Greek text, which instead has ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ πρωϊνός (ho astēr ho lampros ho prōinos), literally: the star the bright of the morning.

In the Vulgate Latin text of 2 Peter 1:19 the word lucifer is used of the morning star in the phrase “until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts”, the corresponding Greek word being φωσφόρος.

Lucifer

Lucifer is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12. This word, transliterated hêlêl or heylel, occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible and according to the KJV based Strong’s Concordance means “shining one, morning star”.

The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate, which translates הֵילֵל as lucifer,[Isa 14:12] meaning “the morning star, the planet Venus”, or, as an adjective, “light-bringing”. The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros), a name, literally “bringer of dawn”, for the morning star.

Later Christian tradition came to use the Latin word for morning star, lucifer, as a proper name (“Lucifer”) for the devil; as he was before his fall. As a result Lucifer has become a by-word for Satan/the Devil in the church and in popular literature, as in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

However, the Latin word never came to be used almost exclusively, as in English, in this way, and was applied to others also, including Jesus. The image of a morning star fallen from the sky is generally believed among scholars to have a parallel in Canaanite mythology.

In Latin, the word is applied to John the Baptist and is used as a title of Jesus himself in several early Christian hymns. The morning hymn Lucis largitor splendide of Hilary contains the line: “Tu verus mundi lucifer” (you are the true light bringer of the world).

The Latin word lucifer is also used of Jesus in the Easter Proclamation prayer to God regarding the paschal candle: “May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever”.

The Latin word lucifer, corresponding to Greek φωσφόρος, was used as a name for the morning star and thus appeared in the Vulgate translation of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל (helel) — meaning Venus as the brilliant, bright or shining one — in Isaiah 14:12, where the Septuagint Greek version uses, not φωσφόρος, but ἑωσφόρος.

As a translation of the same Hebrew word the King James Version gave “Lucifer”, a name often understood as a reference to Satan. Modern translations of the same passage render the Hebrew word instead as “morning star”, “daystar”, “shining one” or “shining star”.

In Revelation 22:16 Jesus is refered to as the morning star, but not as lucifer in Latin, nor as φωσφόρος in the original Greek text, which instead has ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ λαμπρὸς ὁ πρωϊνός (ho astēr ho lampros ho prōinos), literally: the star the bright of the morning. In the Vulgate Latin text of 2 Peter 1:19 the word lucifer is used of the morning star in the phrase “until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts”, the corresponding Greek word being φωσφόρος.

Creation of man

“The Creation of Humankind” is a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian story also referred to in scholarly literature as KAR4. This account begins after heaven was separated from earth, and features of the earth such as the Tigris, Euphrates, and canals established.

At that time, the god Enlil addressed the gods asking what should next be accomplished. The answer was to create humans by killing Alla-gods and creating humans from their blood. Their purpose will be to labor for the gods, maintaining the fields and irrigation works in order to create bountiful harvests, celebrate the gods’ rites, and attain wisdom through study.

Another early second-millennium Sumerian myth, “Enki and the World Order,” provides an explanation as to why the world appears organized. Enki decided that the world had to be well managed to avoid chaos.

Various gods were thus assigned management responsibilities that included overseeing the waters, crops, building activities, control of wildlife, and herding of domestic animals, as well as oversight of the heavens and earth and the activities of women.

According to the Sumerian story “Enki and Ninmah,” the lesser gods, burdened with the toil of creating the earth, complained to Namma, the primeval mother, about their hard work. She in turn roused her son Enki, the god of wisdom, and urged him to create a substitute to free the gods from their toil. Namma then kneaded some clay, placed it in her womb, and gave birth to the first humans.

According to the Neo-Sumerian mythological text Enki and Ninmah, Enki is the son of An and Nammu (also Namma, spelled ideographically NAMMA = ENGUR), 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. Reay Tannahill in Sex in History (1980) singled out Nammu as the “only female prime mover” in the cosmogonic myths of antiquity.

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.

Adam and Eva

Ninti is the Sumerian goddess of life. She is also one of the eight goddesses of healing who was created by Ninhursag to heal Enki’s body. Her specific healing area was the rib. Enki had eaten forbidden flowers and was then cursed by Ninhursag, who was later persuaded by the other gods to heal him. 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 goddess Kheba. 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.

Hebat, also transcribed, Kheba or Khepat, was the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as “the mother of all living”. She is also a Queen of the deities. During Aramaean times Hebat also appears to have become identified with the goddess Hawwah, or Eve.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a long Akkadian poem on the theme of human beings’ futile quest for immortality. A number of earlier Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh, the quasi-historical hero of the epic, seem to have been used as sources, but the Akkadian work was composed about 2000 BC. It exists in several different rescissions, none of them complete.

The goddess Aruru, the goddess of creation, makes Enkidu of clay from the river.  God made Adam from clay from the soil. Both were made to do the will of the god(s), nothing more. They were both made from the same material, in the same way, for the same basic purpose.

However, there’s one huge difference. Adam was made by a god, while Enkidu was made by a goddess.  So, in the 1500 years separating these two books, women went from being respected while working as prostitutes in the temple to being the first sinners ever.

Lilith

Lilith is a Hebrew name for a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be in part derived from a historically far earlier class of female demons (līlīṯu) in Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia.

In Jewish folklore, from Alphabet of Ben Sira onwards, Lilith becomes Adam’s first wife, who was created at the same time (Rosh Hashanah) and from the same earth as Adam. This contrasts with Eve, who was created from one of Adam’s ribs.

The legend was greatly developed during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism. For example, in the 13th century writings of Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she coupled with the archangel Samael.

In Sumerian religion, Ninlil (NIN.LÍL”lady of the open field” or “Lady of the Wind”), also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mulliltu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia (god of stores) and Nunbarsegunu (or Ninshebargunnu [a goddess of barley] or Nisaba). Another Akkadian source says she is the daughter of Anu (aka An) and Antu (Sumerian Ki). Other sources call her a daughter of Anu and Nammu.

She lived in Dilmun with her family. Raped and ravaged by her husband Enlil, who impregnated her with water, she conceived a boy, Nanna/Suen, the future moon god. As punishment Enlil was dispatched to the underworld kingdom of Ereshkigal, where Ninlil joined him.

Enlil impregnated her disguised as the gatekeeper, where upon she gave birth to their son Nergal, god of death. In a similar manner she conceived the underworld god Ninazu when Enlil impregnated her disguised as the man of the river of the nether world, a man-devouring river.

Later Enlil disguised himself as the man of the boat, impregnating her with a fourth deity Enbilulu, god of rivers and canals. All of these act as substitutes for Nanna/Suen to ascend.

After her death, she became the goddess of the wind, like Enlil. She may be the Goddess of the South Wind referred to in the story of Adapa, as her husband Enlil was associated with northerly winter storms. As “Lady Wind” she may be associated with the figure of the Akkadian demon “Lil-itu”, thought to have been the origin of the Hebrew Lilith legend.

Eden

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.

In the Bible: “…Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold…”

One gets the notion from Genesis’s narrator that by “eating a fruit” one can “obtain knowledge.” This concept appears in Sumerian myths. Kramer has noted that Enki, the god of Wisdom, desires “to know” about several plants in his wife’s garden. Enki’s youngest son, Ningizzida, was Lord of the Tree of Truth, in Mesopotamia and had obtained the secret knowledge of creation.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one of two trees in the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2-3, along with the tree of life. A cylinder seal, known as the temptation seal, from post-Akkadian periods in Mesopotamia (c. 23rd-22nd century BCE), has been linked to the Adam and Eve story.

Assyriologist George Smith (1840-1876) describes the seal as having two facing figures (male and female) seated on each side of a tree, holding out their hands to the fruit, while between their backs is a serpent, giving evidence that the fall of man account was known in early times of Babylonia.

Edin

Edin (É.DIN, E2.DIN, E-din) is a Sumerian term meaning “steppe” or “plain”. It is featured on the Gudea cylinders as the name of a watercourse from which plaster is taken to build a temple for Ningirsu.

“Clay plaster, harmoniously blended clay taken from the Edin canal, has been chosen by Lord Ningirsu with his holy heart, and was painted by Gudea with the splendors of heaven, as if kohl were being poured all over it.”

Thorkild Jacobsen called it the “Idedin” canal, suggesting it was an as yet unidentified “Desert Canal”, which he considered “probably refers to an abandoned canal bed that had filled with the characteristic purplish dune sand still seen in southern Iraq.”

Friedrich Delitzsch was the first amongst numerous scholars to suggest the Jewish and Christian term Eden traced back to this term. It has also been connected with the later Babylonian term “Edinu”.

Holy water

In Sumerian mythology, Enki was the keeper of the divine powers called Me, the gifts of civilization. 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.

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. His kingdom was the sweet waters that lay below earth.

The urban nucleus of Eridu was Enki’s temple, called House of the Aquifer or E-abzu (Cuneiform: E.ZU.AB, meaning E = temple; ab = water; zu = far), which in later history was called House of the Subterranean Waters or E-engur (Cuneiform: E.LAGAB×HAL), a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu. His consort Ninhursag had a nearby temple at Ubaid.

Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki, the Sumerian counterpart of the Akkadian water-god 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 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 also associated with the planet Mercury in the Sumerian astrological system.

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.

Apkallu

Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the god Enki, the god of wisdom and of the ancient city of Eridu, who brought the arts of civilization to that city (from Dilmun, according to some versions).

Mesopotamian myth tells of seven antediluvian sages known as Abgallu (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = man), who were sent by Enki, the wise god of Eridu, to bring the arts of civilisation to humankind. They introduced the practice of the correct rites of religious observance as priest of the E-apsu temple, at Eridu. Enki, the god of Eridu, is said to have brought civilization to Sumer at this point, or just shortly before.

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.

The word Abgallu survived into Nabatean times, around the 1st century, as apkallum, used to describe the profession of a certain kind of priest. 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.

Stephanie Dalley writes “From Erra and Ishum we know that all the sages were banished … because they angered the gods, and went back to the Apsu, where Ea lived, and … the story … ended with Adapa’s banishment.”

Adapa

The first of the Mesopotamian seven sages, Adapa, also known as Uan (Poseidon – Wanax), the name given as Oannes (Johannes) by Berossus, was a man of Eridu, was a mortal man from a godly lineage, a son of Enki, and was iconographically portrayed as a fish-man composite.

Identified with U-an, a half-human creature from the sea, he was considered to have brought civilization to the city during the time of King Alulim, according to the mythological antediluvian section of the Sumerian King List the mythical first (antediluvian) king of Eridu, and the first king of Sumer.

Gift of immortality

Adapa unknowingly refused the gift of immortality, a story first attested in fragmentary tablets from Tell el-Amarna and from Assur in the Kassite period of the late second millennium BC (14th century BC).

Adapa broke the wings of Ninlil the South Wind, who had overturned his fishing boat, and was called to account before Anu. Ea, his patron god, warned him to apologize humbly for his actions, but not to partake of food or drink while he was in heaven, as it would be the food of death.

Anu, impressed by Adapa’s sincerity, offered instead the food of immortality, but Adapa heeded Ea’s advice, refused, and thus missed the chance for immortality that would have been his.

Parallels are apparent with the story of Persephone visiting Hades, who was warned to take nothing from that kingdom. 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.

Adam

The word “Adam”, as the proper name for the first man, can be misleading. It comes from ha-adam in Hebrew, which translates to “the man”—Hebrew has no capital letters. The word adam is extracted from adamah, meaning country, earth, ground, husband, earth, or land. This suggests the context in Genesis 3:19, when God says “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The name represents the material from which he was made. He wasn’t an actual person. Adapa means father/Water, apa/ada.

Jonah

Jonah, Jonas or Younis (Hebrew: יוֹנָה, Modern Yona, Tiberian Yônā ; dove; Arabic: يونس‎ Yūnus, Yūnis or يونان Yūnān ; Latin: Ionas) is the name given in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh/Old Testament) to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC.

He is the eponymous central character in the Book of Jonah, famous for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation. The Biblical story of Jonah is repeated, with a few notable differences, in the Qur’an.

The book of Jonah is one of the twelve minor prophets included in the Tanakh. According to tradition, Jonah was the boy brought back to life by Elijah the prophet, and hence shares many of his characteristics (particularly his desire for ‘strict judgment’). The book of Jonah is read every year, in its original Hebrew and in its entirety, on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement, as the Haftarah at the afternoon mincha prayer.

Teshuva – the ability to repent and be forgiven by God – is a prominent idea in Jewish thought. This concept is developed in the book of Jonah: Jonah, the son of truth, (The name of his father “Amitai” in Hebrew means truth,) refuses to ask the people of Nineveh to repent.

He seeks the truth only, and not forgiveness. When forced to go, his call is heard loud and clear. The people of Nineveh repent ecstatically, “fasting, including the sheep”, and the Jewish scripts are critical of this.

The story of Jonah and the fish in the Old Testament offers an example of typology. In the Old Testament Book of Jonah, Jonah told his shipmates to sacrifice him by throwing him overboard. Jonah explained that due to his own death, God’s wrath would pass and that the sea would become calm. Subsequently Jonah then spent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish before it spat him up onto dry land.

Typological interpretation of this story holds that it prefigures Christ’s burial, the stomach of the fish representing Christ’s tomb: as Jonah exited from the fish after three days and three nights, so did Christ rise from His tomb on the third day.

In the New Testament, Jesus invokes Jonah in the manner of a type: “As the crowds increased, Jesus said, ‘This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.’” Luke 11:29–32 (see also Matthew 12:38–42, 16:1–4). Jonah called the belly of the fish “She’ol”, the land of the dead (translated as “the grave” in the NIV Bible).

Thus whenever one finds an allusion to Jonah in Medieval art or in Medieval literature, it usually represents an allegory for the burial and resurrection of Christ.

In the New Testament, Jonah is mentioned in Matthew 12:38–41, 16:4 and Luke 11:29–32. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes a reference to Jonah when he is asked for a miraculous sign by the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Jesus says that the sign will be the sign of Jonah. Jesus implies that Jonah’s restoration after three days inside the great whale prefigures his own resurrection.

“But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” — Gospel of Matthew, chapter 12 verses 39–41.

Jonah is regarded as a saint by a number of Christian denominations. He is commemorated as a prophet in the Calendar of Saints of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church on September 22.

On the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar his feast day is also September 22 (for those churches which follow the traditional Julian calendar; September 22 currently falls in October on the modern Gregorian calendar).

He is commemorated as one of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Calendar of saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on July 31. Jonah’s mission to the Ninevites is commemorated by the Fast of Nineveh in Syriac and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

The apocryphal Lives of the Prophets, which may be Jewish or Christian in origin, offer further biographical details about Jonah.

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá’í Faith, and Mandaeism. He is described as having the unique practice of baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus. Scholars generally believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John and several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus’ early followers had previously been followers of John. John the Baptist is also mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus.

Although Midsummer is originally a pagan holiday, in Christianity it is associated with the nativity of John the Baptist, which is observed on the same day, June 24, in the Catholic, Orthodox and some Protestant churches.

Sumerian King List

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.

In the Sumerian King List, it relies on the flood motif to divide its history into preflood (antediluvian) and postflood periods. The preflood kings had enormous lifespans, whereas postflood lifespans were much reduced.

Some scholars (e.g. Wood, 2003) have drawn attention to the fact that there are remarkable similarities between the Sumerian King List and accounts in Genesis.  For example, Genesis tells the story of ‘the great flood’ and Noah’s efforts to save all the species of animals on Earth from destruction.  Likewise, in the Sumerian King List, there is discussion of a great deluge: “the flood swept over the earth.”

The Sumerian King List provides a list of eight kings (some versions have 10) who reigned for long periods of time before the flood, ranging from 18,600 to 43,200 years.  This is similar to Genesis 5, where the generations from Creation to the Flood are recorded. Interestingly, between Adam and Noah there are eight generations, just as there are eight kings between the beginning of kingship and the flood in the Sumerian King List.

After the flood, the King List records kings who ruled for much shorter periods of time. Thus, the Sumerian King List not only documents a great flood early in man’s history, but it also reflects the same pattern of decreasing longevity as found in the Bible – men had extremely long life spans before the flood and much shorter life spans following the flood (Wood, 2003).

Tiara/Mitre

A tiara (from Latin: tiara, from Ancient Greek: τιάρα) is a form of crown. There are two possible types of crown that this word can refer to. Traditionally, the word “tiara” refers to a high crown, often with the shape of a cylinder narrowed at its top, made of fabric or leather, and richly ornamented. It was used by the kings and emperors of some ancient peoples in Anatolia and Mesopotamia, notably the Hittites.

The Assyrians and the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization used to include a pair of bull horns as a decoration and symbol of authority and a circle of short feathers surrounding the tiara’s top. The Iranian tiara (Tarok) was more similar to a truncated cone, without the horns and feathers but more jewels, and a conic-shaped tip at its top.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the Papal tiara is a high cap surrounded by three crowns and bearing a globe surmounted by a cross worn by the Pope during certain ceremonies, being the symbol of his authority. Since Pope Paul VI set aside his tiara after the Second Vatican Council, the Papal Tiara has not been worn.

Pope Benedict XVI even removed the tiara from his coat of arms, replacing it with a mitre (but with some symbolic reference to the symbolism of the tiara, still in use in the Holy See’s coat of arms).

Mit mens mind in Armenian. The fish-god of the Philistines and Babylonians wore a fish hat that is still seen today with Roman Catholic Church’s pope and bishops. The miter is derived directly from the miters of the ancient pagan fish-god. The papal miter represents the head of Dagon with an open mouth, which is the reason for the pointed shape and split top.

Pisces

Pisces is the twelfth sign of the zodiac, and it is also the final sign in the zodiacal cycle. Hence, this sign brings together many of the characteristics of the eleven signs that have come before it.

It spans the 330° to 360° of the zodiac, between 332.75° and 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac the sun transits this area on average between February 19 and March 20, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun transits this area between approximately March 13 and April 13.

While the astrological sign Pisces per definition runs from elliptical longitude 330° to 0°, this position is now mostly covered by the constellation of Aquarius, due to the precession from when the constellation and the sign coincided. Today, the First Point of Aries, or the vernal equinox is in the Pisces constellation.

The symbol of the fish is derived from the ichthyocentaurs, who aided Aphrodite when she was born from the sea. The dawn goddess was also the goddess of spring, involved in the mythology of the Indo-European new year, where the dawn goddess is liberated from imprisonment by a god (reflected in the Rigveda as Indra, in Greek mythology as Dionysus and Cronus).

The astrological symbol shows the two fishes captured by a string, typically by the mouth or the tails. The fish are usually portrayed swimming in opposite directions; this represents the duality within the Piscean nature. Divine associations with Pisces include Poseidon/Neptune, Vishnu, Christ, Aphrodite, Eros, and Typhon.

Purim, a Jewish holiday, falls at the full moon preceding the Passover, which was set by the full moon in Aries, which follows Pisces. The story of the birth of Christ is said to be a result of the spring equinox entering into the Pisces, as the “Savior of the World” appeared as the Fisher of Men. This parallels the entering into the Age of Pisces.

An astrological age is a time period in astrology that parallels major changes in the development of Earth’s inhabitants, particularly relating to culture, society and politics, and there are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs. Astrological ages occur because of a phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes, and one complete period of this precession is called a Great Year or Platonic Year of about 25,920 years.

The age of Pisces began c. 1 AD and will end c. 2150 AD. With the story of the birth of Christ coinciding with this date, many Christian symbols for Christ use the astrological symbol for Pisces, the fishes.

The figure Christ himself bears many of the temperaments and personality traits of a Pisces, and is thus considered an archetype of the Piscean. Moreover, the twelve apostles were called the “fishers of men,” early Christians called themselves “little fishes,” and a code word for Jesus was the Greek word for fish, “Ikhthus.”

With this, the start of the age, or the “Great Month of Pisces” is regarded as the beginning of the Christian religion. Saint Peter is recognized as the apostle of the Piscean sign.

Pisces has been called the “dying god,” where its sign opposite in the night sky is Virgo, or, the Virgin Mary. When Jesus was asked by his disciples where the next Passover would be, he replied to them: Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water… follow him into the house where he entereth in. — Jesus, Luke 22:10

This coincides with the changing of the ages, into the Age of Aquarius, as the personification of the constellation of Aquarius is a man carrying pitchers of water.

A planet’s domicile is the zodiac sign over which it has rulership, and the rulers of Pisces, or those associated with Pisceans, are Jupiter, Neptune, and the moon. In esoteric astrology, Venus was considered the ruler of Pisces, and prior to the discovery of Neptune in 1846, Jupiter was said to rule Pisces.

Neptune is mostly considered the ruling planet of Pisces today because of the association with the Roman god of water and the sea, Neptune. The detriment, or the sign “opposite” to that which is deemed the ruling planet, is Mercury. Venus is exalted in Pisces, while both Pluto and Mercury fall in Pisces.

According to British astrologer Alan Leo, Pisces, along with Scorpio and Cancer, compose the triplicity for water signs. The mutability is key to the ever-changing element of water, found in several different forms, much like the transformative aspects found in Christ and Piscean nature. Additionally, these three water signs are considered to be the most fruitful signs, who serve a fertilizing function in nature.

He also groups Pisces under the “negative pole;” naturally adept to the astral and psychic worlds. This is resembled in the sign for Pisces (♓), which is composed of two half-circles and a band, signifying the dual nature of man in both the physical world and the unseen realm.

According to 20th century astrologer Robert Hand, the fish facing upwards away from the ecliptic is swimming towards the heavens, or is seeking spiritual illumination. The other fish swims along the ecliptic, concerning itself with material matters. The sign modality for Pisces is mutable. It is part of the group of signs, with Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius known as the “mutable signs.”

The last sign of the Zodiac, the Pisces symbol has been said to be a representation of the difficulty in extracting the good from that which appears bad. The moral of the symbol for Pisces is said to be that “the severe season has passed; though your flocks, as yet, do not yield their store, the ocean and rivers are open to you, their inhabitants are placed within your power.”

It is generally considered a feminine sign, and colors that have been used to represent the Pisces sign are gray or blue gray. The body parts associated with Pisces are the feet, or the toes. Likewise, astrologists also associate various diseases of the body with the zodiac, and Pisces’ diseases are those of the feet. This includes gout, lameness, distempers, and sores. Excess of eating and drinking, as well as poisoning related to the consumption of fish and medicines are also shown in Pisces.

Pisces is classified as a short ascension sign; one which takes a shorter amount of time to ascend over the horizon than the other signs. It is also one of the six southern signs, because it is south of the celestial equator when the sun is in it. This results in it being seen in the winter sky in the northern hemisphere. Pisces is also considered a bicorporeal or double-bodied sign, as the astrological sign is composed of two fishes.

Gestinanna

Belet-Seri (also spelled Beletseri, Belit-Sheri, Belit-Tseri) in Babylonian and Akkadian mythology is an underworld goddess.As the recorder of the dead entering the underworld she is known as the “Scribe of the Earth”. It is Belet-seri who keeps the records of human activities so she can advise the queen of the dead, Erishkigal, on their final judgement. Married to Amurru, the God of Nomads, she’s known as “Queen of the Desert”.

Beginning in the Old Babylonian Period, Belet-Seri was identified with the goddess Gestinanna, the sister of Tammuz, the name of a Sumerian god of food and vegetation, and a minor goddess in Sumerian mythology, the so-called “heavenly grape-vine”.

As the sister of Dumuzi and consort of Ningisida she is involved in the account of Dumuzi trying to escape his fate at the hands of Inana and Ereshkigal. In her house he is changed into a gazelle before being caught and transported to the underworld.

In Sumerian mythology she is the daughter of Enki and Ninhursag. When Dumuzi died Geshtinanna lamentated days and nights. After her death, she became the goddess of wine and cold seasons. She is a divine poet and interpreter of dreams.

Gethsemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, most famous as the place where Jesus prayed and his disciples slept the night before Jesus’ crucifixion. The name is derived from the Aramaic ܓܕܣܡܢ (Gaṯ-Šmānê), meaning “oil press”.

Gethsemane appears in the Greek of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark as Γεθσημανή (Gethsēmanē). Matthew (26:36) and Mark (14:32) call it χωρἰον (18:1), a place or estate. The Gospel of John says Jesus entered a garden (κῆπος) with his disciples.

Tammuz

Tammuz (Akkadian: Duʾzu, Dūzu; Sumerian: Dumuzid (DUMU.ZI(D), “faithful or true son”) was the name of a Sumerian god of food and vegetation, also worshiped in the later Mesopotamian states of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia.

In Babylonia, the month Tammuz was established in honor of the eponymous god Tammuz, who originated as a Sumerian shepherd-god, Dumuzid or Dumuzi, the consort of Inanna and, in his Akkadian form, the parallel consort of Ishtar. The Levantine Adonis (“lord”), who was drawn into the Greek pantheon, was considered by Joseph Campbell among others to be another counterpart of Tammuz, son and consort.

The Aramaic name “Tammuz” seems to have been derived from the Akkadian form Tammuzi, based on early Sumerian Damu-zid. The later standard Sumerian form, Dumu-zid, in turn became Dumuzi in Akkadian. Tamuzi also is Dumuzid or Dumuzi.

Beginning with the summer solstice came a time of mourning in the Ancient Near East, as in the Aegean: the Babylonians marked the decline in daylight hours and the onset of killing summer heat and drought with a six-day “funeral” for the god.

Recent discoveries reconfirm him as an annual life-death-rebirth deity: tablets discovered in 1963 show that Dumuzi was in fact consigned to the Underworld himself, in order to secure Inanna’s release, though the recovered final line reveals that he is to revive for six months of each year.

A dying-and-rising death-rebirth, or resurrection deity is a related motif where the god dies and is also resurrected. “Death or departure of the gods” is motif A192 in Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, while “resurrection of gods” is motif A193.

Examples of gods who die and later return to life are most often cited from the religions of the Ancient Near East, and traditions influenced by them including Biblical and Greco-Roman mythology and by extension Christianity.

The concept of resurrection is found in the writings of some ancient non-Abrahamic religions in the Middle East. A few extant Egyptian and Canaanite writings allude to dying and rising gods such as Osiris and Baal.

The concept of dying-and-rising god was first proposed in comparative mythology by James Frazer’s seminal The Golden Bough. Frazer associated the motif with fertility rites surrounding the yearly cycle of vegetation. Frazer cited the examples of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, Dionysus and Jesus Christ.

A main criticism charges the group of analogies with reductionism, insofar as it subsumes a range of disparate myths under a single category and ignores important distinctions. Marcel Detienne argues that it risks making Christianity the standard by which all religion is judged, since death and resurrection are more central to Christianity than many other faiths.

Dag Øistein Endsjø, a scholar of religion, points out how a number of those often defined as dying-and-rising-deities, like Jesus and a number of figures in ancient Greek religion, actually died as ordinary mortals, only to become gods of various stature after they were resurrected from the dead. Not dying as gods, they thus defy the definition of “dying-and-rising-gods”.

One of the leading scholars in the deconstruction of Frazer’s “dying-and-rising god” category was Jonathan Z. Smith, whose 1969 dissertation discusses Frazer’s Golden Bough, and who in Mircea Eliade’s 1987 Encyclopedia of religion wrote the “Dying and rising gods” entry, where he dismisses the category as “largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceeding late or highly ambiguous texts”, suggesting a more detailed categorisation into “dying gods” and “disappearing gods”, arguing that before Christianity, the two categories were distinct and gods who “died” did not return, and those who returned never truly “died”.

Since the 1990s, Smith’s scholarly rejection of the category has been widely embraced by Christian apologists wishing to defend the historicity of Jesus, while scholarly defenses of the concept (or its applicability to mystery religion) have been embraced by the “new atheism” movement wishing to argue the “Christ myth theory”.

Taking a more positive position, Tryggve Mettinger argues in his recent book that the category of rise and return to life is significant for the following deities: Ugaritic Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Osiris and Dumuzi.

Church of the Nativity

According to some scholars, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is built over a cave that was originally a shrine to Adonis-Tammuz. The Church Father Jerome, who died in Bethlehem in 420, reports in addition that the holy cave was at one point consecrated by the heathen to the worship of Adonis, and a pleasant sacred grove planted before it, to wipe out the memory of Jesus.

Some modern mythologists, however, reverse the supposition, insisting that the cult of Adonis-Tammuz originated the shrine and that it was the Christians who took it over, substituting the worship of their own God.

Hieros gamos

The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos.

In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun. Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its Goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-God Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun.

The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats the story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land. Enki, the Water-Lord then “caused to flow the ‘water of the heart” and having fertilised his consort Ninhursag, also known as Ki or Earth, after “Nine days being her nine months, the months of ‘womanhood’… like good butter, Nintu, the mother of the land, …like good butter, gave birth to Ninsar, (Lady Greenery)”.

When Ninhursag left him, as Water-Lord he came upon Ninsar (Lady Greenery). Not knowing her to be his daughter, and because she reminds him of his absent consort, Enki then seduces and has intercourse with her. Ninsar then gave birth to Ninkurra (Lady Fruitfulness or Lady Pasture), and leaves Enki alone again. A second time, Enki, in his loneliness finds and seduces Ninkurra, and from the union Ninkurra gave birth to Uttu (weaver or spider, the weaver of the web of life).

A third time Enki succumbs to temptation, and attempts seduction of Uttu. Upset about Enki’s reputation, Uttu consults Ninhursag, who, upset at the promiscuous wayward nature of her spouse, advises Uttu to avoid the riverbanks, the places likely to be affected by flooding, the home of Enki.

In another version of this myth Ninhursag takes Enki’s semen from Uttu’s womb and plants it in the earth where eight plants rapidly germinate. Enki, in the swampland, eats it. And so, despite warnings, Enki consumes the other seven fruit.

Consuming his own semen, he falls pregnant (ill with swellings) in his jaw, his teeth, his mouth, his hip, his throat, his limbs, his side and his rib. The gods are at a loss to know what to do, chagrinned they “sit in the dust”.

As Enki lacks a womb with which to give birth, he seems to be dying with swellings. The fox then asks Enlil King of the Gods, “If i bring Ninhursag before thee, what shall be my reward?” Ninhursag’s sacred fox then fetches the goddess.

Ninhursag relents and takes Enki’s Ab (water, or semen) into her body, and gives birth to gods of healing of each part of the body; Abu for the Jaw, Nintul for the Hip, Ninsutu for the tooth, Ninkasi for the mouth, Dazimua for the side and Enshagag for the Limbs.

The last one, Ninti (Lady Rib), is also a pun on Lady Life, a title of Ninhursag herself. The story thus symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess.

The Great Flood

The Mesopotamian flood stories concern the epics of Ziusudra, Gilgamesh, and Atrahasis. The Sumerian flood myth found in the Deluge tablet was the epic of Ziusudra, who heard the Divine Counsel of Anunaki to destroy humanity, in which he constructed a vessel that delivered him from great waters. In the Atrahasis version the flood is a river flood.

Atra-Hasis (“exceedingly wise”) is the protagonist of an 18th-century BCE Akkadian epic recorded in various versions on clay tablets. The Atra-Hasis tablets include both a creation myth and a flood account, which is one of three surviving Babylonian deluge stories. The name “Atra-Hasis” also appears on one of the Sumerian king lists as king of Shuruppak in the times before a flood.

In the Atra-Hasis (“exceedingly wise”), the chief of the gods, Enlil (known as Ellil in Akkadian) had been confronted by a revolt of the lesser gods, which caused him to create humans as servants. However, after some centuries pass the humans became a nuisance. Finally, Enlil released a devastating flood to eliminate humanity, whose noise is disturbing his rest.

Enlil successively sends drought, famine and plague to eliminate humanity, but Enki thwarts his half-brother’s plans by teaching Atrahasis how to counter these threats. Each time, Atrahasis asks the population to abandon worship of all gods, except the one responsible for the calamity and this seems to shame them into relenting. Humans, however, proliferate a fourth time.

Enraged, Enlil convenes a Council of Deities and gets them to promise not to tell humankind that he plans their total annihilation. Enki does not tell Atrahasis directly, but speaks to him in secret via a reed wall. He instructs Atrahasis to build a boat in order to rescue his family and other living creatures from the coming deluge.

After the seven-day Deluge, the flood hero frees a swallow, a raven and a dove in an effort to find if the flood waters have receded. Upon landing, a sacrifice is made to the gods. Enlil is angry his will has been thwarted yet again, and Enki is named as the culprit. Enki explains that Enlil is unfair to punish the guiltless, and the gods institute measures to ensure that humanity does not become too populous in the future.

Assyriologist George Smith translated the Babylonian account of the Great Flood in the 19th century. Further discoveries produced several versions of the Mesopotamian flood myth, with the account closest to that in Genesis 6–9 found in a 700 BCE Babylonian copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

In this work, the hero, Gilgamesh, meets the immortal man Utnapishtim, and the latter describes how the god Ea instructed him to build a huge vessel in anticipation of a deity-created flood that would destroy the world. The vessel would save Utnapishtim, his family, his friends, and the animals.

Utnapishtim was tasked by Enki (Ea) to abandon his worldly possessions and create a giant ship to be called The Preserver of Life. He was also tasked with bringing his wife, family, and relatives along with the craftsmen of his village, baby animals and grains. The oncoming flood would wipe out all animals and humans that were not on the ship, a concept similar to the biblical story of Noah’s Ark.

After twelve days on the water, Utnapishtim opened the hatch of his ship to look around and saw the slopes of Mount Nisir, where he rested his ship for seven days. On the seventh day, he sent a dove out to see if the water had receded, and the dove could find nothing but water, so it returned. Then he sent out a swallow, and just as before, it returned, having found nothing.

Finally, Utnapishtim sent out a raven, and the raven saw that the waters had receded, so it circled around, but did not return. Utnapishtim then set all the animals free, and made a sacrifice to the gods. The gods came, and because he had preserved the seed of man while remaining loyal and trusting of his gods, Utnapishtim and his wife were given immortality, as well as a place among the heavenly gods.

In the epic, overcome with the death of his friend Enkidu, the hero Gilgamesh sets out on a series of journeys to search for his ancestor Utnapishtim (Xisouthros) who lives at the mouth of the rivers and has been given eternal life.

Utnapishtim counsels Gilgamesh to abandon his search for immortality but tells him about a plant that can make him young again. Gilgamesh obtains the plant from the bottom of a river but a serpent steals it, and Gilgamesh returns home to the city of Uruk having abandoned hope of either immortality or renewed youth.

In Plato’s Timaeus, Timaeus says that because the Bronze race of Humans had been making wars constantly Zeus was angered and decided to punish humanity by a flood. Prometheus the Titan knew of this and told the secret to Deucalion, advising him to build an ark in order to be saved. After 9 nights and days the water started receding and the ark was landed at Mount Parnassus.

In the Genesis flood narrative, of the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh decides to flood the earth because of the depth of the sinful state of mankind. Righteous Noah is given instructions to build an ark. When the ark is completed, Noah, his family, and representatives of all the animals of the earth are called upon to enter the ark.

When the destructive flood begins, all life outside of the ark perishes. After the waters recede, all those aboard the ark disembark and have God’s promise that He will never judge the earth with a flood again. He gives the rainbow as the sign of this promise.

Confusion of languages

The building of the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Tongues (languages) in ancient Babylon is mentioned rather briefly in Genesis Chapters 10 and 11. Genesis 10 is the so-called “Table of Nations”–a list of 70 names of Noah’s descendants through Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

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.

Underworld

The ancient Mesopotamians believed in an afterlife that was a land below our world. It was this land, known alternately as Arallû, Ganzer or Irkallu, the latter of which meant “Great Below”, that it was believed everyone went to after death, irrespective of social status or the actions performed during life. The Babylonians had a similar underworld called Aralu, and the Greeks had one known as Hades.

Unlike Christian Hell, the Mesopotamians considered the underworld neither a punishment nor a reward. Nevertheless, the condition of the dead was hardly considered the same as the life previously enjoyed on earth: they were considered merely weak and powerless ghosts.

The myth of Ishtar’s descent into the underworld relates that “dust is their food and clay their nourishment, they see no light, where they dwell in darkness.” Stories such as the Adapa myth resignedly relate that, due to a blunder, all men must die and that true everlasting life is the sole property of the gods.

In Mesopotamian mythology, Kur (Sumerian) or Ersetu (Akkadian) is the underworld from which there is no return. It was also called earth of no return, Kurnugia in Sumerian and Erset la tari in Akkadian. Kur is ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and her consort, the death god Nergal.

Irkalla was originally another name for Ereshkigal, who ruled the underworld alone until Nergal was sent to the underworld and seduced Ereshkigal (in Babylonian mythology). Both the deity and the location were called Irkalla, much like how Hades in Greek mythology is both the name of the underworld and the god who ruled it, or Hel and Hell.

The Sumerian netherworld was a place for the bodies of the dead to exist after death. One passed through the seven gates on their journey through the portal to the netherworld leaving articles of clothing and adornment at each gate, not necessarily by choice as there was a guardian at each gate to extract a toll for one’s passage and to keep one from going the wrong way.

The living spirits of the dead are only spoken of in connection with this netherworld when someone has been placed here before they are dead or wrongly killed and can be saved. The bodies of the dead decompose in this afterlife, as they would in the world above.

According to Herbert C. Brichto, writing in Hebrew Union College Annual, the family tomb is the central concept in understanding biblical views of the afterlife. Brichto states that it is “not mere sentimental respect for the physical remains that is…the motivation for the practice, but rather an assumed connection between proper sepulture and the condition of happiness of the deceased in the afterlife”.

According to Brichto, the early Israelites apparently believed that the graves of family, or tribe, united into one, and that this unified collectivity is to what the Biblical Hebrew term Sheol refers, the common Grave of humans. Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the dead went after the body died.

For biblical references to Sheol see Genesis 42:38, Isaiah 14:11, Psalm 141:7, Daniel 12:2, Proverbs 7:27 and Job 10:21,22, and 17:16, among others. According to Brichto, other Biblical names for Sheol were: Abaddon (ruin), found in Psalm 88:11, Job 28:22 and Proverbs 15:11; Bor (the pit), found in Isaiah 14:15, 24:22, Ezekiel 26:20; and Shakhat (corruption), found in Isaiah 38:17, Ezekiel 28:8.

The Hebrew Scriptures themselves have few references to existence after death. The notion of resurrection appears in two late biblical sources, Daniel 12 and Isaiah 25-26.

As the subterranean destination for all who die, Irkalla is similar to Sheol of the Hebrew Bible or Hades of classic Greek mythology. It is different from more hopeful versions of the afterlife, such as those envisioned by the contemporaneous Egyptians and the later in Platonic philosophy, Judaism, and Christianity.

However, Irkalla also differs from the Greek Tartarus and the Christian perspective of hell. Irkalla had no punishment or reward, being seen as a more dreary version of life above, with Erishkigal being seen as both warden and guardian of the dead rather than a sinister ruler like Satan or death gods of other religions.

Humans inhabited earth during life and the underworld after death, and the underworld was morally neutral; only in Hellenistic times (after c.330 BCE) did Jews begin to adopt the Greek idea that it would be a place of punishment for misdeeds, and that the righteous would enjoy an afterlife in heaven. In this period too the older three-level cosmology was widely replaced by the Greek concept of a spherical earth suspended in space at the center of a number of concentric heavens.

The traditional biblical interpretations explain that Sheol is a grim and desolated land below, occupied by the dead who continue their colorless existence irrespective of their earthly conduct. Contrary to this exposition however, the Hebrew Bible supports the descriptions of Sheol which suggest that it is something more than just a place. In terms of sheer numbers the amount of anthropomorphic descriptions is significant.

Sheol is either portrayed by means of human qualities (ערום, Job 26:6;קשה , Canticles 8:6) or attributed with the elements of human anatomy: womb (בטן, Jonah 2:3), hand (יד, Psalms 49:15; 89:48; Hosea 13:14) or throat (נפש, Isaiah 5:14) and mouth (פה, Psalms 141:7; Isaiah 5:14). In addition, Psalm 49:15 praises the Elohim, who are said to ransom one’s soul from the hand of Sheol, Proverbs 27:20 acknowledges Sheol’s insatiability, whereas Isaiah 5:14 depicts Sheol as a gargantuan monster.

Some additional support for this hypothesis comes from the ancient Near Eastern literary materials. For example, the Akkadian plates mention the name shuwalu or suwala in reference to a deity responsible for ruling the abode of the dead. As such it might have been borrowed by the Hebrews and incorporated into their early belief system.

What is more, some scholars argue that Sheol understood anthropomorphically fits the semantic complex of the other ancient Near Eastern death deities such as Nergal, Ereshkigal or Mot.

Sargon

Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great “the Great King” (Akkadian Šarru-kīnu, meaning “the true king” or “the king is legitimate”), was a Semitic Akkadian emperor famous for his conquest of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th and 23rd centuries BC.

The founder of the Dynasty of Akkad, Sargon reigned during the penultimate quarter of the third millennium BC. After coming to power in Kish, Sargon killed the king of Kish. After having the army of Kish follow him, Sargon soon attacked Uruk, which was ruled by Lugal-Zage-Si of Umma. He captured Uruk and dismantled its famous walls. The defenders seem to have fled the city, joining an army led by fifty ensis from the provinces. This Sumerian force fought two pitched battles against the Akkadians, as a result of which the remaining forces of Lugal-Zage-Si were routed.

Lugal-Zage-Si himself was captured and brought to Nippur; Sargon inscribed on the pedestal of a statue (preserved in a later tablet) that he brought Lugal-Zage-Si “in a dog collar to the gate of Enlil.” Sargon pursued his enemies to Ur before moving eastwards to Lagash, to the Persian Gulf, and thence to Umma. He made a symbolic gesture of washing his weapons in the “lower sea” (Persian Gulf) to show that he had conquered Sumer in its entirety.

Cuneiform sources agree that he was cup-bearer (official in charge of wine) of king Ur-Zababa of Kish, and some later historians have speculated that he killed the king and usurped his throne before embarking on the quest to conquer Mesopotamia.

The story of Sargon’s birth and childhood is given in the “Sargon legend”, a Sumerian text purporting to be Sargon’s biography. The extant versions are incomplete, but the surviving fragments name Sargon’s father as La’ibum.

After a lacuna, the text skips to Ur-Zababa, king of Kish, who awakens after a dream, the contents of which are not revealed on the surviving portion of the tablet. For unknown reasons, Ur-Zababa appoints Sargon as his cup-bearer.

Soon after this, Ur-Zababa invites Sargon to his chambers to discuss a dream of Sargon’s, involving the favor of the goddess Inanna and the drowning of Ur-Zababa by the goddess. Deeply frightened, Ur-Zababa orders Sargon murdered by the hands of Beliš-tikal, the chief smith, but Inanna prevents it, demanding that Sargon stop at the gates because of his being “polluted with blood.”

When Sargon returns to Ur-Zababa, the king becomes frightened again, and decides to send Sargon to king Lugal-zage-si of Uruk with a message on a clay tablet asking him to slay Sargon. The legend breaks off at this point; presumably, the missing sections described how Sargon becomes king.

The Sumerian king list relates: “In Agade [Akkad], Sargon, whose father was a gardener, the cup-bearer of Ur-Zababa, became king, the king of Agade, who built Agade; he ruled for 56 years.”

There are several problems with this entry in the king list. Thorkild Jacobsen marked the clause about Sargon’s father being a gardener as a lacuna, indicating his uncertainty about its meaning.

Sargon survives as a legendary figure into the Neo-Assyrian literature of the Early Iron Age. The earliest legend story we have is tablets with fragments of a Sargon Birth Legend were found in the Library of Ashurbanipal from the 7th century BC.

According to this legend, Sargon was born as the illegitimate son of a priestess or low class woman, a priestess. In shame she brought him forth in secret and placed him in a basket of reeds on the river and floated him down a river where baby Sargon was found by Akki the irrigator and raised as his own son — only later to become a great King and leader.

Similarities between the Neo-Assyrian Sargon Birth Legend and other infant birth exposures in ancient literature, including Moses, Karna, and Oedipus, were noted by Otto Rank in 1909.

The legend was also studied in detail by Brian Lewis, and compared with a number of different examples of the infant birth exposure motif found in European and Asian folk tales. He discusses a possible archetype form, giving particular attention to the Sargon legend and the account of the birth of Moses. Joseph Campbell has also made such comparisons.

The whole biblical Exodus story of the Jews exiled to Egypt where a leader Moses finally led them out of captivity is a myth. Part of that myth is that Moses was born to a Jewish woman (Levite) in Egypt at a time that the Pharaoh commanded all Jewish male babies be killed. So that Jewish woman, hid her child then at 3 months old, when she could no longer hide him, put him in a basket and sent him down a river. Then ironically the daughter of the Pharaoh saw the child and adopted it as her own. Only later would that child help his people escape from the Pharaoh (Exodus 2).

Nimrod

Son of Cush and grandson of Ham; his name has become proverbial as that of a mighty hunter. His “kingdom” comprised Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Sinar, otherwise known as the land of Nimrod (Gen. x. 8-10; I Chron. i. 10; Micah v. 5 [A. V. 6]).

Nimrod was slain by Esau, between whom and himself jealousy existed owing to the fact that they were both hunters (Targ. pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. xxv. 27; “Sefer ha-Yashar,” section “Toledot,” p. 40b; Pirḳe R. El. l.c.; comp. Gen. R. lxv. 12).

After the Flood, Noah had a talented, but evil, great-grandson named Nimrod (Genesis 10:6-10) who rebelled greatly against God. The Bible says that he was “a mighty one” Jewish tradition indicates that Nimrod was a tyrant “who made all of the people rebellious against God.” It is evident from history that Nimrod was not only a political leader, but also the lead priest of a form of occultic worship.

Two prominent theories are now held in regard to Nimrod’s identity: one, adopted by G. Smith and Jeremias, is that Nimrod is to be identified with the Babylonian hero Izdubar or Gishdubar (Gilgamesh); the second, that of Sayce,Pinches, and others, identifies Nimrod with Marduk, the Babylonian Mercury.

The former identification is based on the fact that Izdubar is represented in the Babylonian epos as a mighty hunter, always accompanied by four dogs, and as the founder of the first great kingdom in Asia. Moreover, instead of “Izdubar”—the correct reading of which had not yet been determined—Jeremias saw the possibility of reading “Namra Udu” (shining light), a reading which would have made the identification with Nimrod almost certain.

Those who identify Nimrod with Marduk, however, object that the name of Izdubar must be read, as is now generally conceded, “Gilgamesh,” and that the signs which constitute the name of Marduk, who also is represented as a hunter, are read phonetically “Amar Ud”; and ideographically they may be read “Namr Ud”—in Hebrew “Nimrod.”

The difficulty of reconciling the Biblical Nimrod, the son of Cush, with Marduk, the son of Ea, may be overcome by interpreting the Biblical words as meaning that Nimrod was a descendant of Cush.

Although, a few isolated pockets in Assyria/Upper Mesopotamia aside, it largely died out by approximately 400 CE, Mesopotamian religion has still had an influence on the modern world, predominantly because many biblical stories that are today found in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mandaeism were possibly originally based upon earlier Mesopotamian myths, in particular that of the creation myth, the Garden of Eden, the flood myth, the Tower of Babel and figures such as Nimrod and Lilith, who seems to have been based on the Assyrian demoness Lilitu.

Creatures resembling Lilith are first mentioned in the Mesopotamian mythology, however they do not take the shape of the characters from subsequent Jewish legends yet. According to one of the Sumerian texts, Lilitu is Inanna’s handmaiden, a beautiful prostitute whom the goddess sends to the streets so that she seduce men there.

Inanna (Sumerian: Inanna; Akkadian: Ištar; Neo-Assyrian: MUŠ) was 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.

Her symbol is an eight-pointed star or a rosette. She was associated with lions – even then a symbol of power – and was frequently depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. Her cuneiform ideogram was a hook-shaped twisted knot of reeds, representing the doorpost of the storehouse (and thus fertility and plenty).

The Hittite sun goddess Arinniti was later assimilated with Hebat. A prayer of Queen Puduhepa makes this explicit: “To the Sun-goddess of Arinna, my lady, the mistress of the Hatti lands, the queen of Heaven and Earth. Sun-goddess of Arinna, thou art Queen of all countries! In the Hatti country thou bearest the name of the Sun-goddess of Arinna; but in the land which thou madest the cedar land thou bearest the name Hebat.”

Arinna, perceived to be a paramount chthonic or earth goddess, was considered to be the chief deity in some source, in place of her husband. Her consort was the weather god, Teshub; they and their children were all derived from the former Hattic pantheon.

Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar, according to the Sumerian king list the builder of Uruk, 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 and home to the goddess Inanna, who transfers her allegiance from Aratta to Uruk after Aratta have been conquered by Enmerkar of Uruk.

Ḫaldi, also known as Khaldi or Hayk or Hayg, also known as Haik Nahapet (Հայկ Նահապետ, Hayk the Tribal Chief), the legendary patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation, was one of the three chief deities of Ararat (Urartu). The other two chief deities were the weather-god, notably the god of storms and thunder, Theispas (Teshub) of Kumenu, and the sun god Shivini or Artinis (Shiva) of Tushpa.

His wife was the goddess Arubani, the Urartian’s goddess of fertility and art. He is portrayed as a man with or without a beard, standing on a lion. Of all the gods of Ararat (Urartu) pantheon, the most inscriptions are dedicated to him. His shrine was at Ardini (the present form of the name is Artin, meaning “sun rising” or to “awake”), also known as Muṣaṣir (Akkadian for Exit of the Serpent/Snake ).

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) and sky (Sumerian: an), something that 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.

Hannahannah (from Hittite hanna- “grandmother”) is a Hurrian Mother Goddess related to or influenced by the pre-Sumerian goddess Inanna. Christopher Siren reports that Hannahannah is associated the Hutena, goddesses of fate similar to the Norns of Norse mythology, the Moirai of ancient Greece or the Gul Ses in Hittite mythology.

Uttu in Sumerian mythology is the goddess of weaving and clothing. She is both the child of Enki and Ninkur, and she bears seven new child/trees from Enki, the eighth being the Ti (Tree of “Life”, associated with the “Rib”). When Enki then ate Uttu’s children, Ninhursag cursed him with eight wounds and disappears. Uttu in Sumerian means “the woven” and she was illustrated as a spider in a web. She is a goddess in the pantheon.

Hannahannah was also identified with the Hurrian goddess Hebat, the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as “the mother of all living” or “Queen of the deities”. Hebat is married to Teshub and is the mother of Sarruma and Alanzu, as well mother-in-law of the daughter of the dragon Illuyanka. During Aramaean times Hebat also appears to have become identified with the goddess Hawwah, or Eve. The mother goddess is likely to have had a later counterpart in the Phrygian goddess Cybele.

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, one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Artemis was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. The deer and the cypress were sacred to her.

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.

Ishara (išḫara) is an ancient deity of unknown origin from northern modern Syria. The goddess appears from as early as the mid 3rd millennium as one of the chief goddesses of Ebla and was incorporated to the Hurrian pantheon from which she found her way to the Hittite pantheon. In Hurrian and Semitic traditions, Išḫara is a love goddess, often identified with Ishtar.

The etymology of Ishara is unknown. Ishara is the Hittite word for “treaty, binding promise”, also personified as a goddess of the oath. Variants of the name appear as Ašḫara (in a treaty of Naram-Sin of Akkad with Hita of Elam) and Ušḫara (in Ugarite texts). In Ebla, there were various logographic spellings involving the sign AMA “mother”. In Alalah, her name was written with the Akkadogram IŠTAR plus a phonetic complement -ra, as IŠTAR-ra.

Ushas (Sanskrit for “dawn”) is a Vedic deity, and consequently a Hindu deity as well. She is portrayed as warding off evil spirits of the night, and as a beautifully adorned young woman riding in a golden chariot on her path across the sky. Sanskrit uṣas is an s-stem, i.e. the genitive case is uṣásas. It is from PIE *hausos-, cognate to Greek Eos and Latin Aurora.

One of the most important goddesses of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion is the personification of dawn as a beautiful young woman. Her name is reconstructed as Hausōs (PIE *hewsṓs- or *hausōs-, an s-stem), besides numerous epithets.

Ishara is a pre-Hurrian and perhaps pre-Semitic deities, later incorporated into the Hurrian pantheon. From the Hurrian Pantheon, Ishara entered the Hittite pantheon and had her main shrine in Kizzuwatna, the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the 2nd millennium BC. Several ethnic groups coexisted in the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna. The Hurrians inhabited this area at least since the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

Ishara first appears in the pre-Sargonic texts from Ebla and then as a goddess of love in Old Akkadian potency-incantations. Her main epithet was belet rame, lady of love, which was also applied to Ishtar. In the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet II, col. v.28) it says: ‘For Ishara the bed is made’ and in Atra-hasis (I 301-304) she is called upon to bless the couple on the honeymoon. In the Hurrian pantheon she was associated with the underworld. Her astrological embodiment is the constellation Scorpio and she is called the mother of the Sebitti (the Seven Stars).

As a goddess, Ishara could inflict severe bodily penalties to oathbreakers, in particular ascites. In this context, she came to be seen as a “goddess of medicine” whose pity was invoked in case of illness. There was even a verb, isharis- “to be afflicted by the illness of Ishara”.

Asceticism (from the Greek: askesis, “exercise” or “training”) describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. The adjective “ascetic” derives from the ancient Greek term askēsis, which means training or exercise. The original usage did not refer to self-denial, but to the physical training required for athletic events. Its usage later extended to rigorous practices that are used in all major religious traditions, in varying degrees to attain redemption and higher spirituality.

Ishvara is a concept in Hinduism, with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism. In ancient texts of Indian philosophy, Ishvara means supreme soul, Brahman (Highest Reality), ruler, king or husband depending on the context. In medieval era texts, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal god, or special Self depending on the school of Hinduism.

In Shaivism, Ishvara is synonymous with “Shiva”, as the “Supreme lord over other Gods” in the pluralistic sense, or as an Ishta-deva in pluralistic thought. In Vaishnavism, it is synonymous with Vishnu. In traditional Bhakti movements, Ishvara is one or more deities of an individual’s preference from Hinduism’s polytheistic canon of deities.

In modern sectarian movements such as Arya Samaj and Brahmoism, Ishvara takes the form of a monotheistic God. In Yoga school of Hinduism, it is any “personal deity” or “spiritual inspiration”. In Advaita Vedanta school, Ishvara is a monistic Universal Absolute that connects and is the Oneness in everyone and everything.

While researching the Epic of Gilgamesh Samuel Noah Kramer (1932, published 1938) studied the text of the Twelfth Tablet which was not originally included in the poem, but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian poem of Gilgamesh and the Netherworld.

He translated ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith in “. The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is associated with a serpent and a zu bird. In Gilgamesh and the Netherworld, a huluppu tree grows in Inanna’s garden in Uruk, whose wood she plans to use to build a new throne. After ten years of growth, she comes to harvest it and finds a serpent living at its base, a Zu bird raising young in its crown, and that a ki-sikil-lil-la-ke made a house in its trunk.

According to the tablet Gilgamesh, asked by Inanna, has smitten the serpent, made the Zu bird fly away to the mountains with its young while ki-sikil-lil-la-ke fearfully destroy her house and fly to the forest.

There is not enough evidence to identify Lilith with ki-sikil-lil-la-ke. The only thing that can be determined with high probability is the analysis of the tree spirit’s name: ki-sikil means ‘sacred place’, lil is ‘spirit’ and il-la-ke can be either ‘water spirit’ or an owl.

A virgin body has the freshness of secret springs, the morning sheen of an unopened flower, the orient luster of a pearl on which the sun has never shone. Grotto, temple, sanctuary, secret garden – man, like the child, is fascinated by enclosed and shadowy places not yet animated by any consciousness, which wait to be given a soul: what he alone is to take and to penetrate seems to be in truth created by him.”

What a pity that neither Sumerian nor Akkadian has a proper word for a young woman whose flesh is capable of inspiring such marvel! At least since the foundational articles of Finkelstein and Landsberger, Assyriologists have recognized that Sumerian ki-sikil-tur and ki-sikil, Akkadian batultu and ardatu, are age-grades, covering the period between the onset of puberty and marriage.

Both Finkelstein and Landsberger, influenced, no doubt, by the Sumerian, considered the batultu to be the younger of the two, ki- sikil- tur, the barely nubile to young adolescent, whereas ardatu would be an older adolescent girl. But in actual Akkadian usage, ardatu is confined to literary texts, whereas batultu, attested only after the Old Babylonian period, is the word that would be used for adolescent girls in royal enumerations of booty, and in personnel lists and legal texts.

The Sumerian terms are restricted entirely to literary texts; the only case where a girl seems to progress from ki-sikil-tur to ki-sikil is in Enlil and Ninlil, where Ninlil first appears as ki-sikil-tur alongside Enlil as guruš-tur, but subsequently is called ki-sikil.

Identification of ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith is stated in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999). According to a new source from Late Antiquity, Lilith appears in a Mandaic magic story where she is considered to represent the branches of a tree with other demonic figures that form other parts of the tree, though this may also include multiple “Liliths”.

Lilith is a Hebrew name for a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud, who is generally thought to be in part derived from a historically far earlier class of female demons (līlīṯu) in Mesopotamian religion, found in cuneiform texts of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia.

Goddess of the night, Adam’s first wife who according to Jewish beliefs was created together with him, she, however, rebelled against his need to dominate and fled from Eden. The meaning of her name varies from Night Creature, Night Monster, Demon, Screech Owl, Lady Air, Wind or Spirit. In Jewish folklore, from Alphabet of Ben Sira onwards, Lilith becomes Adam’s first wife, who was created at the same time (Rosh Hashanah) and from the same earth as Adam. This contrasts with Eve, who was created from one of Adam’s ribs.

Adam wanted Lilith to have sex with him but when it turned out that she was expected to lie below him, she refused firmly. She could not accept such a position because she was created from the same clay as Adam therefore she was equal to a man, not subjected to him. Enfuriated she spoke the Ineffable Name and flew to the Red Sea.

Adam complained to his Creator and Yahwe sent three angels, Sanvi, Sansanvi and Semangelaf, to Lilith to convince her to return. But this made Lilith even more enraged so she refused to come back and began relationship with Samael, an angel rebelled against Yahwe. Angels warned her that if she would not return to Adam, she would have to bear one hundred little demons every day but they would all die. Despite this threat Lilith did not surrender and did not return to Eden.

This is why Yahwe created an obedient and subordinate Eve from Adam’s rib and Lilith, out of revenge that her own children die, captures the newly born descendants of Adam. Other legends say that Lilith incarnated as a vengeful serpent who convinced Eve to pluck the apple. It is also said that having been expelled from the Paradise Adam separated from his second wife and lived as a hermit, at that time Lilith returned to him as a demon in his dreams.

The legend was greatly developed during the Middle Ages, in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim, the Zohar, and Jewish mysticism. For example, in the 13th century writings of Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she coupled with the archangel Samael.

In Sumerian religion, Ninlil (NIN.LÍL”lady of the open field” or “Lady of the Wind”), also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mulliltu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. After her death, she became the goddess of the wind, like Enlil. She may be the Goddess of the South Wind referred to in the story of Adapa, as her husband Enlil was associated with northerly winter storms. As “Lady Wind” she may be associated with the figure of the Akkadian demon “Lil-itu”, thought to have been the origin of the Hebrew Lilith legend.

Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia (god of stores) and Nunbarsegunu (or Ninshebargunnu [a goddess of barley] or Nisaba). Another Akkadian source says she is the daughter of Anu (aka An) and Antu (Sumerian Ki). Other sources call her a daughter of Anu and Nammu.

She lived in Dilmun with her family. Raped and ravaged by her husband Enlil, who impregnated her with water, she conceived a boy, Nanna/Suen, the future moon god. As punishment Enlil was dispatched to the underworld kingdom of Ereshkigal, where Ninlil joined him.

Enlil impregnated her disguised as the gatekeeper, where upon she gave birth to their son Nergal, god of death. In a similar manner she conceived the underworld god Ninazu when Enlil impregnated her disguised as the man of the river of the nether world, a man-devouring river. Later Enlil disguised himself as the man of the boat, impregnating her with a fourth deity Enbilulu, god of rivers and canals. All of these act as substitutes for Nanna/Suen to ascend.

Enki (Sumerian: EN.KI(G)) is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians.

A large number of myths about Enki have been collected from many sites, stretching from Southern Iraq to the Levantine coast. He figures in the earliest extant cuneiform inscriptions throughout the region and was prominent from the third millennium down to Hellenistic times.

The exact meaning of his name is uncertain: the common translation is “Lord of the Earth”: the Sumerian en is translated as a title equivalent to “lord”; it was originally a title given to the High Priest; ki means “earth”; but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, or kur meaning “mound”.

Enki was the keeper of the divine powers called Me, the gifts of civilization. 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. Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40,” occasionally referred to as his “sacred number.” The planet Mercury was associated with him.

Considered the master shaper of the world, god of wisdom and of all magic, Enki was characterized as the lord of the Abzu, the freshwater sea or groundwater located within the earth. His 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.

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.

The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos.

In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun, where the gods where living. Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its Goddess, Ninsikil, meaning used for (un- married) “adolescent girl”, and orders the sun-God Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun.

The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats the story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land. Enki, the Water-Lord then “caused to flow the ‘water of the heart” and having fertilised his consort Ninhursag, also known as Ki or Earth, after “Nine days being her nine months, the months of ‘womanhood’… like good butter, Nintu, the mother of the land, …like good butter, gave birth to Ninsar, (Lady Greenery)”.

When Ninhursag left him, as Water-Lord he came upon Ninsar (Lady Greenery). Not knowing her to be his daughter, and because she reminds him of his absent consort, Enki then seduces and has intercourse with her. Ninsar then gave birth to Ninkurra (Lady Fruitfulness or Lady Pasture), and leaves Enki alone again. A second time, Enki, in his loneliness finds and seduces Ninkurra, and from the union Ninkurra gave birth to Uttu (weaver or spider, the weaver of the web of life).

A third time Enki succumbs to temptation, and attempts seduction of Uttu. Upset about Enki’s reputation, Uttu consults Ninhursag, who, upset at the promiscuous wayward nature of her spouse, advises Uttu to avoid the riverbanks, the places likely to be affected by flooding, the home of Enki.

In another version of this myth Ninhursag takes Enki’s semen from Uttu’s womb and plants it in the earth where eight plants rapidly germinate. Enki, in the swampland, eats it. And so, despite warnings, Enki consumes the other seven fruit.

Consuming his own semen, he falls pregnant (ill with swellings) in his jaw, his teeth, his mouth, his hip, his throat, his limbs, his side and his rib. The gods are at a loss to know what to do, chagrinned they “sit in the dust”.

As Enki lacks a womb with which to give birth, he seems to be dying with swellings. The fox then asks Enlil King of the Gods, “If i bring Ninhursag before thee, what shall be my reward?” Ninhursag’s sacred fox then fetches the goddess.

Ninhursag relents and takes Enki’s Ab (water, or semen) into her body, and gives birth to gods of healing of each part of the body; Abu for the Jaw, Nintul for the Hip, Ninsutu for the tooth, Ninkasi for the mouth, Dazimua for the side and Enshagag for the Limbs.

The last one, Ninti (Lady Rib), is also a pun on Lady Life, a title of Ninhursag herself. The story thus symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess.

Ninti is the Sumerian goddess of life. She is also one of the eight goddesses of healing who was created by Ninhursag to heal Enki’s body. Her specific healing area was the rib. Enki had eaten forbidden flowers and was then cursed by Ninhursag, who was later persuaded by the other gods to heal him. 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 goddess Kheba. 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.

Hebat, also transcribed, Kheba or Khepat, was the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as “the mother of all living”. She is also a Queen of the deities. During Aramaean times Hebat also appears to have become identified with the goddess Hawwah, or Eve.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a long Akkadian poem on the theme of human beings’ futile quest for immortality. A number of earlier Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh, the quasi-historical hero of the epic, seem to have been used as sources, but the Akkadian work was composed about 2000 BC. It exists in several different rescissions, none of them complete.

The goddess Aruru, the goddess of creation, makes Enkidu of clay from the river.  God made Adam from clay from the soil. Both were made to do the will of the god(s), nothing more. They were both made from the same material, in the same way, for the same basic purpose.

However, there’s one huge difference. Adam was made by a god, while Enkidu was made by a goddess.  So, in the 1500 years separating these two books, women went from being respected while working as prostitutes in the temple to being the first sinners ever.

In the Bible: “…Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold…”

One gets the notion from Genesis’s narrator that by “eating a fruit” one can “obtain knowledge.” This concept appears in Sumerian myths. Kramer has noted that Enki, the god of Wisdom, desires “to know” about several plants in his wife’s garden. Enki’s youngest son, Ningizzida, was Lord of the Tree of Truth, in Mesopotamia and had obtained the secret knowledge of creation.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one of two trees in the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2-3, along with the tree of life. A cylinder seal, known as the temptation seal, from post-Akkadian periods in Mesopotamia (c. 23rd-22nd century BCE), has been linked to the Adam and Eve story.

Assyriologist George Smith (1840-1876) describes the seal as having two facing figures (male and female) seated on each side of a tree, holding out their hands to the fruit, while between their backs is a serpent, giving evidence that the fall of man account was known in early times of Babylonia.

Adapa unknowingly refused the gift of immortality, a story first attested in fragmentary tablets from Tell el-Amarna and from Assur in the Kassite period of the late second millennium BC (14th century BC).

Adapa broke the wings of Ninlil the South Wind, who had overturned his fishing boat, and was called to account before Anu. Ea, his patron god, warned him to apologize humbly for his actions, but not to partake of food or drink while he was in heaven, as it would be the food of death.

Anu, impressed by Adapa’s sincerity, offered instead the food of immortality, but Adapa heeded Ea’s advice, refused, and thus missed the chance for immortality that would have been his.

Parallels are apparent with the story of Persephone visiting Hades, who was warned to take nothing from that kingdom. 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.

The word “Adam”, as the proper name for the first man, can be misleading. It comes from ha-adam in Hebrew, which translates to “the man”—Hebrew has no capital letters. The word adam is extracted from adamah, meaning country, earth, ground, husband, earth, or land. This suggests the context in Genesis 3:19, when God says “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The name represents the material from which he was made. He wasn’t an actual person. Adapa means father/Water, apa/ada.

Lilith

Lilith

The Lilith Library

Virginity in Ancient Mesopotamia

Odin

Loki

Enki – Hermes – Mercury – Odin – Lugus – Loke

Enki

Enki (Sumerian: EN.KI(G)) is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians.

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. He is often shown with the horned crown of divinity dressed in the skin of a carp.

Enki was the deity of crafts (gašam); mischief; water, seawater, lakewater (a, aba, ab), intelligence (gestú, literally “ear”) and creation (Nudimmud: nu, likeness, dim mud, make beer). His image is a double-helix snake, or the Caduceus, sometimes confused with the Rod of Asclepius used to symbolize medicine.

Enki was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field (Square of Pegasus). Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40,” occasionally referred to as his “sacred number.”

The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was in Sumerian times, identified with Enki. His symbols included a goat and a fish, which later combined into a single beast, the goat Capricorn, recognised as the Zodiacal constellation Capricornus.

Ningishzida

Ningishzida (sum: nin-g̃iš-zid-da), a Mesopotamian deity of the underworld, is the earliest known symbol of snakes twining around an axial rod. His name in Sumerian is translated as “lord of the good tree” by Thorkild Jacobsen.

It predates the Caduceus of Hermes, the Rod of Asclepius and the biblical Nehushtan of Moses, a bronze serpent on a pole which God told Moses to erect to protect the Israelites who saw it from dying from the bites of the “fiery serpents” which God had sent to punish them for speaking against God and Moses, by more than a millennium. One Greek myth on origin of the caduceus is part of the story of Tieresias, who found two snakes copulating and killed the female with his staff.

Although Wadjet, “the Green One”, the serpent goddess of Lower Egypt from the Pre-dynastic period demonstrates the earliest known representation of a single serpent entwined around a pole – in this case a papyrus reed (refer to first glyph): Wadjet Hieroglyph.

In Sumerian mythology, he appears in Adapa’s myth as one of the two guardians of Anu’s celestial palace, alongside Dumuzi. He was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a human head. The Adapa myth mentions Ningizzida and Tammuz (or Dumuzi) and refers to the serpent god as male.

Lagash had a temple dedicated to Ningishzida, and Gudea, patesi of Lagash in the 21st century BC (short chronology), was one of his devotees. In the Louvre, there is a famous green steatite vase carved for King Gudea of Lagash, dedicated by its inscription: “To the god Ningiszida, his god Gudea, Ensi (governor) of Lagash, for the prolongation of his life, has dedicated this”.

Ningishzida is sometimes the son of Ninazu, a god of the underworld, and of healing, and Ningiridda, even though the myth Ningishzidda’s journey to the netherworld suggests he is the son of Ereshkigal. Following an inscription found at Lagash, he was the son of Anu, the heavens.

His wife is Azimua, one of the eight deities born to relieve the illness of Enki, and also Geshtinanna, the sister of Dumuzi, while his sister is Amashilama. In some texts Ningishzida is said to be female, which means “Nin” would then refer to Lady, which is mostly how the word is used by the Sumerians. He or she was one of the ancestors of Gilgamesh.

Odin

In Germanic mythology, Odin (from Old Norse Óðinn) is a widely attested god. In Norse mythology, whence most surviving information about the god stems, Odin is associated with healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, battle, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet, and is the husband of the goddess Frigg.

Several plants were named after Freyja, such as Freyja’s tears and Freyja’s hair (Polygala vulgaris), but during the process of Christianization, the name of the goddess was replaced with that of the Virgin Mary. Several plants were named after Freyja, such as Freyja’s tears and Freyja’s hair (Polygala vulgaris), but during the process of Christianization, the name of the goddess was replaced with that of the Virgin Mary.

In wider Germanic mythology and paganism, Odin was known in Old English as Wóden, in Old Saxon as Wōden, and in Old High German as Wuotan or Wodan, all stemming from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic theonym *wōđanaz.

Odin has been a frequent subject of study in Germanic studies and numerous theories surround the god. Some of these focus on Odin’s particular relation to other figures, such as that Freyja’s husband Óðr appears to be something of an etymological doublet of the god, whereas the goddess Frigg, Odin’s wife, is in many ways similar to Freyja, and that Odin has a particular relation to the figure of Loki.

The weekday name Wednesday derives from Old English. Cognate terms are found in other Germanic languages, such as Old High German wōdnesdæg, Middle Low German wōdensdach (Dutch Woensdag), and Old Norse Óðinsdagr (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish Onsdag).

All of these terms derive from Proto-Germanic *Wodensdag, itself a Germanic interpretation of Latin Dies Mercurii (“Day of Mercury”). However, in Old High German, the name derived from Odin’s was replaced by a translation of Church Latin media hebdomas (‘middle of the week’) hence modern German Mittwoch.

Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by interpretatio Romana; 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus identifies him as the chief god of the Germanic peoples.

Interpretatio Romana

When they described the gods of Celtic and Germanic tribes, rather than considering them separate deities, the Romans interpreted them as local manifestations or aspects of their own gods, a cultural trait called the interpretatio Romana.

Mercury in particular was reported as becoming extremely popular among the nations the Roman Empire conquered; Julius Caesar wrote of Mercury being the most popular god in Britain and Gaul, regarded as the inventor of all the arts.

This is probably because in the Roman syncretism, Mercury was equated with the Celtic god Lugus, and in this aspect was commonly accompanied by the Celtic goddess Rosmerta.

The earliest records of the Germanic peoples were recorded by the Romans, and in these works Odin is frequently referred to as the Roman god Mercury. The first clear example of this occurs in the Roman historian Tacitus’s late 1st-century work Germania, where, writing about the religion of the Suebi (a confederation of Germanic peoples), he comments that “among the gods Mercury is the one they principally worship.

They regard it as a religious duty to offer to him, on fixed days, human as well as other sacrificial victims. Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind” and adds that a portion of the Suebi also venerate “Isis”. In this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as “Mercury”, Thor as “Hercules”, and Týr as “Mars”, and the identity of the “Isis” of the Suebi has been debated.

Lugus

Lugus was a deity of the Celtic pantheon. His name is rarely directly attested in inscriptions, but his importance can be inferred from place names and ethnonyms, and his nature and attributes are deduced from the distinctive iconography of Gallo-Roman inscriptions to Mercury, who is widely believed to have been identified with Lugus, and from the quasi-mythological narratives involving his later cognates, Irish Lugh Lámhfhada (Lugh of the Long Arm) and Welsh Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Lleu of the Skillful Hand).

Although Lugus may originally have been a deity of light or the sun (though this is disputed), similar to the Roman Apollo, his importance as a god of trade made him more comparable to Mercury, and Apollo was instead equated with the Celtic deity Belenus.

Rübekeil suggests that Lugus was a triune god, comprising Esus, Toutatis and Taranis, the three chief deities mentioned by Lucan (who, at the same time, makes no mention of Lugus), and that pre-Proto-Germanic tribes in contact with the Celts (possibly the Chatti) moulded aspects of Lugus into the Germanic god Wōdanaz i.e. that Gaulish Mercury gave rise to Germanic Mercury.

Gaulish Mercury is associated with triplism: sometimes he has three faces, sometimes three phalluses, which may explain the plural dedications. In Celtic areas, Mercury was sometimes portrayed with three heads or faces, and at Tongeren, Belgium, a statuette of Mercury with three phalli was found, with the extra two protruding from his head and replacing his nose; this was probably because the number 3 was considered magical, making such statues good luck and fertility charms.

Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico identified six gods worshipped in Gaul, by the usual conventions of interpretatio romana giving the names of their nearest Roman equivalents rather than their Gaulish names. He said that “Mercury” was the god most revered in Gaul, describing him as patron of trade and commerce, protector of travellers, and the inventor of all the arts.

The iconography of Gaulish Mercury includes birds, particularly ravens and the cock, now the emblem of France; horses; the tree of life; dogs or wolves; a pair of snakes (cf Hermes’s Caduceus); mistletoe; shoes (one of the dedications to the Lugoves was made by a shoemakers’ guild; Lugus’s Welsh counterpart Lleu (or Llew) Llaw Gyffes is described in the Welsh Triads as one of the “three golden shoemakers of the island of Britain”); and bags of money. He is often armed with a spear.

He is frequently accompanied by his consort Rosmerta (“great provider”), who bears the ritual drink with which kingship was conferred (in Roman mythology). Unlike the Roman Mercury, who is always a youth, Gaulish Mercury is occasionally also represented as an old man.

The exact etymology of Lugus is unknown and contested. The Proto-Celtic root of the name, *lug-, is generally believed to have been derived from one of several different Proto-Indo-European roots, such as *leug- “black”, *leuǵ- “to break”, and *leugʰ- “to swear an oath”, It was once thought that the root may be derived from Proto-Indo-European *leuk- “to shine”, but there are difficulties with this etymology and few modern scholars accept it as being possible (notably because Proto-Indo-European *-k- never produced Proto-Celtic *-g-).

Mercury

Mercury is a major Roman god, being one of the Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the patron god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence (and thus poetry), messages/communication (including divination), travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves; he is also the guide of souls to the underworld. He was considered the son of Maia and Jupiter in Roman mythology.

His name is possibly related to the Latin word merx (“merchandise”; compare merchant, commerce, etc.), mercari (to trade), and merces (wages); another possible connection is the Proto-Indo-European root merĝ- for “boundary, border” (cf. Old English “mearc”, Old Norse “mark” and Latin “margō”) and Greek οὖρος (by analogy of Arctūrus/Ἀρκτοῦρος), as the “keeper of boundaries,” referring to his role as bridge between the upper and lower worlds.

Mercury has influenced the name of many things in a variety of scientific fields, such as the planet Mercury, and the element mercury. The word mercurial is commonly used to refer to something or someone erratic, volatile or unstable, derived from Mercury’s swift flights from place to place. He is often depicted holding the caduceus in his left hand.

In his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms, both of which share characteristics with the Greek god Hermes.

Hermes

Hermes is an Olympian god in Greek religion and mythology, the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia. He is the second youngest of the Olympian gods. He is the protector and patron of herdsmen, thieves, oratory and wit, literature and poetry, athletics and sports, invention and trade, roads, boundaries and travellers.

He is a god of transitions and boundaries. He is quick and cunning, and moves freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as an emissary and messenger of the gods, intercessor between mortals and the divine, and conductor of souls into the afterlife.

In some myths, he is a trickster and outwits other gods for his own satisfaction or for the sake of humankind. His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster, the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals and winged cap. His main symbol is the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff.

In the Roman adaptation of the Greek pantheon (interpretatio romana), Hermes is identified with the Roman god Mercury, who, though inherited from the Etruscans, developed many similar characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.

Sarama

It is suggested that Hermes is cognate of the Vedic Sarama, a mythological being referred to as the dog of the gods, or Deva-shuni. Early Rig-Vedic works do not depict Sarama as canine, but later Vedic mythologies and interpretations usually do. She is described as the mother of all dogs, and in particular of the two four-eyed brindle dogs of the god Yama, a god of death, and dogs are given the matronymic Sarameya (“offspring of Sarama”). One scripture further describes Sarama as the mother of all wild animals.

Orientalist Max Müller suggests that the word Sarama may mean “the runner”, with the stem originating from the Sanskrit root sar (“to go”), but he is unable to account for the second part of the name, ama. Professor Monier-Williams translates Sarama as “the fleet one”.

The etymological treatise Nirukta by Yaska mentions that Sarama derives her name from her quick movement. Mahidhara, a commentator of the Vajasaneyi Samhita, states that Sarama is “she who entertains (remante) the gods”. More broadly, Sarama has also come to mean any female dog.

There are two epithets for Sarama in the original Rig Veda. Firstly, she is described as supadi, which means “having good feet”, “fair-footed” or “quick”, an epithet only used for Sarama in the text. Her other epithet is subhaga – “the fortunate one”, or “the beloved one” – a common epithet of the Ushas, the Dawn. Sarama’s other name Deva-shuni means “divine bitch” or “bitch of the gods”.

Sirius

Sirius is the brightest star (in fact, a star system) in the Earth’s night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The most commonly used proper name of this star comes from the Latin Sīrius, from the Ancient Greek Σείριος (Seirios, “glowing” or “scorcher”), although the Greek word itself may have been imported from elsewhere before the Archaic period, one authority suggesting a link with the Egyptian god Osiris.

The name’s earliest recorded use dates from the 7th century BC in Hesiod’s poetic work Works and Days. Sirius has over 50 other designations and names attached to it. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s essay Treatise on the Astrolabe, it bears the name Alhabor, and is depicted by a hound’s head. This name is widely used on medieval astrolabes from Western Europe.

In Sanskrit it is known as Mrgavyadha “deer hunter”, or Lubdhaka “hunter”. As Mrgavyadha, the star represents Rudra (Shiva). The star is referred as Makarajyoti in Malayalam and has religious significance to the pilgrim center Sabarimala.

In Scandinavia, the star has been known as Lokabrenna (“burning done by Loki”, or “Loki’s torch”). In the astrology of the Middle Ages Sirius was a Behenian fixed star, associated with beryl and juniper.

Many cultures have historically attached special significance to Sirius, particularly in relation to dogs. Indeed, Sirius is also known colloquially as the “Dog Star”, reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (“Greater Dog”). The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the “dog days” of summer for the ancient Greeks.

It was classically depicted as Orion’s dog. The Ancient Greeks thought that Sirius’s emanations could affect dogs adversely, making them behave abnormally during the “dog days,” the hottest days of the summer. The Romans knew these days as dies caniculares, and the star Sirius was called Canicula, “little dog.” The excessive panting of dogs in hot weather was thought to place them at risk of desiccation and disease. In extreme cases, a foaming dog might have rabies, which could infect and kill humans whom they had bitten.

Sirius, known in ancient Egypt as Sopdet (Greek: Σῶθις Sothis), the deification of Sothis, a star considered by almost all Egyptologists to be Sirius, is recorded in the earliest astronomical records.

During the era of the Middle Kingdom, Egyptians based their calendar on the heliacal rising of Sirius, namely the day it becomes visible just before sunrise after moving far enough away from the glare of the Sun. This occurred just before the annual flooding of the Nile and the summer solstice, after a 70-day absence from the skies.

The name Sopdet means (she who is) sharp in Egyptian, a reference to the brightness of Sirius, which is the brightest star in the night sky. The hieroglyph for Sothis features a star and a triangle. In art she is depicted as a woman with a five-pointed star upon her head.

Just after Sirius has a heliacal rising in the July sky, the Nile River begins its annual flood, and so the ancient Egyptians connected the two. Consequently, Sopdet was identified as a goddess of the fertility of the soil, which was brought to it by the Nile’s flooding. This significance led the Egyptians to base their calendar on the heliacal rising of Sirius.

Sopdet is the consort of Sah, the personification of the constellation Orion, near which Sirius appears, and the god Sopdu, a god of the sky and of eastern border regions in ancient Egyptian religion, was said to be their child. According to the Pyramid Texts, Horus-Sopdu, a combination of Sopdu and the greater sky god Horus, is the offspring of Osiris-Sah and Isis-Sopdet.

These relationships parallel those of the god Osiris and his family, and Sah was linked with Osiris, Sopdet was identified with the great goddess Isis, and Sopdu with Horus, while the 70-day period symbolised the passing of Isis and Osiris through the duat (Egyptian underworld). Sopdet is in the Pyramid Texts said to be the daughter of Osiris.

In Iranian mythology, especially in Persian mythology and in Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, Sirius appears as Tishtrya and is revered as the rain-maker divinity (Tishtar of New Persian poetry).

Beside passages in the sacred texts of the Avesta, the Avestan language Tishtrya followed by the version Tir in Middle and New Persian is also depicted in the Persian epic Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. Due to the concept of the yazatas, powers which are “worthy of worship”, Tishtrya is a divinity of rain and fertility and an antagonist of apaosha, the demon of drought. In this struggle, Tishtrya is beautifully depicted as a white horse.

In Chinese astronomy the star is known as the star of the “celestial wolf”. Farther afield, many nations among the indigenous peoples of North America also associated Sirius with canines. Several cultures also associated the star with a bow and arrows. The ancient Chinese visualized a large bow and arrow across the southern sky, formed by the constellations of Puppis and Canis Major. In this, the arrow tip is pointed at the wolf Sirius. A similar association is depicted at the Temple of Hathor in Dendera, where the goddess Satet has drawn her arrow at Hathor (Sirius). Known as “Tir”, the star was portrayed as the arrow itself in later Persian culture.

Sirius is mentioned in Surah, An-Najm (“The Star”), of the Qur’an, where it is given the name الشِّعْرَى (transliteration: aš-ši‘rā or ash-shira; the leader). The verse is: “وأنَّهُ هُوَ رَبُّ الشِّعْرَى”, “That He is the Lord of Sirius (the Mighty Star).” (An-Najm:49) Ibn Kathir said in his commentary “Ibn ‘Abbas, Mujahid, Qatada and Ibn Zayd said about Ash-Shi`ra that it is the bright star, named Mirzam Al-Jawza’ (Sirius), which a group of Arabs used to worship.” The alternate name Aschere, used by Johann Bayer, is derived from this.

In Theosophy, it is believed the Seven Stars of the Pleiades transmit the spiritual energy of the Seven Rays from the Galactic Logos to the Seven Stars of the Great Bear, then to Sirius. From there is it sent via the Sun to the god of Earth (Sanat Kumara), and finally through the seven Masters of the Seven Rays to the human race.

Orion’s Belt

There is the legend of the ‘Three Kings of the Orient’ who came on Christmas to adorn the new-born God? from days of old the Three Kings were the three conspicuous stars in the belt of Orion that so easily distinguishes this notable constellation and their title was for long the Three Kings of Orion. They point almost in a direct line to the following Sirius (which) was made in the type of Christ-soul in mankind. (Sirius) is preceded by the Three Kings who anticipate its coming (rising).

The wise men are represented by the three stars at the waistline of the constellation Orion. They came from the east because they saw his star in the east. They were coming from the east, and saw the star in the east since the star of Bethlehem is to the east of Orion. As they drift westerly, the star of Bethlehem remains to the east.

Orion’s Belt or the Belt of Orion, also known as the Three Kings or Three Sisters, is an asterism in the constellation Orion. It consists of the three bright stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. In Scandinavian tradition, “Orion’s belt” was known as Frigg’s Distaff (friggerock) or Freyja’s distaff, a tool used in spinning.

Orion

Orion is mentioned in the oldest surviving works of Greek literature, which probably date back to the 7th or 8th century BC, but which are the products of an oral tradition with origins several centuries earlier.

In Homer’s Iliad Orion is described as a constellation and the star Sirius is mentioned as his dog. In the Odyssey, Odysseus sees him hunting in the underworld with a bronze club, a great slayer of animals; he is also mentioned as a constellation, as the lover of the Goddess Dawn, as slain by Artemis, and as the most handsome of the earthborn. In the Works and Days of Hesiod, Orion is also a constellation that rises and sets with the sun and is used to reckon the year.

The Babylonian star catalogues of the Late Bronze Age name Orion MULSIPA.ZI.AN.NA, “The Heavenly Shepherd” or “True Shepherd of Anu” – Anu being the chief god of the heavenly realms. The Babylonian constellation was sacred to Papshukal and Ninshubur, both minor gods fulfilling the role of ‘messenger to the gods’.

Papshukal was closely associated with the figure of a walking bird on Babylonian boundary stones, and on the star map the figure of the Rooster was located below and behind the figure of the True Shepherd—both constellations represent the herald of the gods, in his bird and human forms respectively.

In ancient Egypt, the stars of Orion were regarded as a god, called Sah. Because Orion rises before Sirius, the star whose heliacal rising was the basis for the Solar Egyptian calendar, Sah was closely linked with Sopdet, the goddess who personified Sirius.

The Armenians identified their legendary patriarch and founder Hayk with Orion. Hayk is also the name of the Orion constellation in the Armenian translation of the Bible. In ancient Aram, the constellation was known as Nephîlā′, the Nephilim may have been Orion’s descendants.

The Bible mentions Orion three times, naming it “Kesil” (כסיל, literally – fool). Though, this name perhaps is etymologically connected with “Kislev”, the name for the ninth month of the Hebrew calendar (i.e. November–December), which, in turn, may derive from the Hebrew root K-S-L as in the words “kesel, kisla” (כֵּסֶל, כִּסְלָה, hope, positiveness), i.e. hope for winter rains.): Job 9:9 (“He is the maker of the Bear and Orion”), Job 38:31 (“Can you loosen Orion’s belt?”), and Amos 5:8 (“He who made the Pleiades and Orion”).

Orion’s current name derives from Greek mythology, in which Orion was a gigantic, supernaturally strong hunter of ancient times, born to Euryale, a Gorgon, and Poseidon (Neptune), god of the sea in the Graeco-Roman tradition.

One myth recounts Gaia’s rage at Orion, who dared to say that he would kill every animal on the planet. The angry goddess tried to dispatch Orion with a scorpion. This is given as the reason that the constellations of Scorpius and Orion are never in the sky at the same time.

However, Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, revived Orion with an antidote. This is said to be the reason that the constellation of Ophiuchus stands midway between the Scorpion and the Hunter in the sky.

Joseph Fontenrose wrote Orion : the Myth of the Hunter and the Huntress (1981) to show Orion as the type specimen of a variety of grotesque hero. Fontenrose views him as similar to Cúchulainn, that is, stronger, larger, and more potent than ordinary men and the violent lover of the Divine Huntress; other heroes of the same type are Actaeon, Leucippus (son of Oenomaus), Cephalus, Teiresias, and Zeus as the lover of Callisto. Fontenrose also sees Eastern parallels in the figures of Aqhat, Attis, Dumuzi, Gilgamesh, Dushyanta, and Prajapati (as pursuer of Ushas).

Loki

The Celts were amongst the earliest European tribes to smelt iron, and their culture thus heavily influenced those tribes around them, particularly the Norse, Northern or Germanic tribes. Loki, Loptr, or Hveðrungr, who is a god or jötunn (or both), provides the echo of that Celtic influence on early Northern culture within the Norse mythology.

As Lugh or Lugus was one of the primary Celtic deities. Loki can be identified as the Norse view of Lugh. Loki and Lugh both have a close association with mistletoe and provide gifts to their friends. They are lightning Gods rather than Sun, Earth or Water gods and can both be associated with killing, via a thrown spear, a Sun god.

In Norse mythology, Loki is the son of Fárbauti (Old Norse: “cruel striker”) and Laufey (“full of leaves”) or Nál (“needle”). There is a possible nature mythological interpretation with lightning hitting the leaves or needles of a tree to give rise to fire. He is the brother of Helblindi (“Hel-blinder” or “All-blind”) and Býleistr (“bee-lightning”).

By the jötunn Angrboða (Old Norse “the one who brings grief” or “she-who-offers-sorrow”), Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn (Old Norse “victorious girl-friend”), Loki is the father of Narfi and/or Nari.

The picture is confused, making it uncertain whether Nari and Narfi are the same, and how he or they relate to the father of Nótt, the personification of night, who is also sometimes called Narfi.

The name has been interpreted as meaning “narrow”, but Rudolf Simek suggests that the association with Hel and the use of the same name for Nótt’s father indicate that Narfi may have “originally [been] a demon of the dead” and that his name could be related to the Old Norse word nár, “corpse”, which gave rise to Náströnd, a place in Hel where Níðhöggr lives and chews on corpses, and Naglfar (Old Norse “nail ship”), a boat made entirely from the fingernails and toenails of the dead that during the events of Ragnarök is foretold to sail to Vígríðr, ferrying hordes that will do battle with the gods.

By the stallion Svaðilfari (Old Norse “unlucky traveler”), Loki is the mother—giving birth in the form of a mare—to the eight-legged horse Sleipnir (Old Norse “slippy” or “the slipper”). In addition, Loki is referred to as the father of Váli in the Prose Edda.

Loki’s origins and role in Norse mythology have been much debated by scholars. In 1835, Jacob Grimm was first to produce a major theory about Loki, in which he advanced the notion of Loki as a “god of fire”. In 1889, Sophus Bugge theorized Loki to be variant of Lucifer of Christian mythology, an element of Bugge’s larger effort to find a basis of Christianity in Norse mythology.

Trickster god

It is theorized that Loki is a typical example of a trickster figure, in mythology and in the study of folklore and religion a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphisation which exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge, and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and conventional behaviour.

Tricksters are archetypal characters who appear in the myths of many different cultures. Lewis Hyde describes the Trickster as a “boundary-crosser”. The Trickster crosses both physical and often breaks societal rules. Tricksters “…violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis.”

Often, the bending/breaking of rules takes the form of tricks or thievery. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both. The Trickster openly questions and mocks authority. They are usually male characters, and are fond of breaking rules, boasting, and playing tricks on both humans and gods.

All cultures have tales of the Trickster, a crafty creature who uses cunning to get food, steal precious possessions, or simply cause mischief. In some Greek myths Hermes plays the Trickster. He is the patron of thieves and the inventor of lying, a gift he passed on to Autolycus, who in turn passed it on to Odysseus. In Slavic folktales, the trickster and the culture hero are often combined.

Frequently the Trickster figure exhibits gender and form variability. In Norse mythology the mischief-maker is Loki, who is also a shape shifter. Loki also exhibits gender variability, in one case even becoming pregnant. He becomes a mare who later gives birth to Odin’s eight-legged horse Sleipnir. In The Trickster and the Paranormal, G.P. Hansen lists Mercury in Roman mythology, and Eshu in Yoruba mythology as examples of the Trickster archetype.

Norse Loki and Celtic Lugh

Tricksters

Dagens herskere er blant de verste forbrytere. Det er et vell av informasjon og man kan kan oppspore de kriminelle handlingene som finner sted og se hvem som står bak – uansett er systemet kompakt og nærmest uovervinnelig.

Saken er at vi nærmer oss enden på visa – enten skifter vi system eller vi dør ut som menneskeart. Kampen, enten man vil eller ikke, har allerede begynt, men resultatet lar vente på seg.

Spørsmålet er om menneskene kan klare oppgaven de har fått eller om de vil tape. Taper de vil uansett nye dyrearter, som kanskje til og med er langt smartere og mer tilpasset enn menneskene, overta. Spørsmålet er om du elsker menneskene eller ikke – man kjemper for det man har kjært.

Gobekli tepe and lingam/yoni 

Nippur (E-kur/Duranki) : The omphalo of the Sumerians

The tree of life, omphalos and Nimrud

Axis mundi

How religion spread across the world

Yoni

Shivaling

I have both my legs standing in Portasar, in a cup of red wine representing the royal blood lines, and I tell you: Don’t fuck with my mother!

An omphalos is a religious stone artifact, or baetylus. In Greek, the word omphalos means “navel”. Gobekli Tepe, or more precisely Portasar (meaning navel in Armenian), is the omphalo of the Armenian, hence the Semitic and the Indo-European, civilization.

In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, it was a powerful religious symbol. The omphalos was not only an object of Hellenic religious symbolism and world centrality; it was also considered an object of power.

Its symbolic references included the uterus, the phallus, and a cup of red wine representing the royal blood lines. The omphalos at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, represents in Christian mediaeval tradition, the navel of the world (the spiritual and cosmological centre of the world).

Delphi

Among the Ancient Greeks, it was a widespread belief that Delphi was the center of the world. According to the myth regarding the founding of the Delphic Oracle, Zeus, in his attempt to locate the center of the earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world, and the eagles, starting simultaneously and flying at equal speed, crossed their paths above the area of Delphi.

From this point, Zeus threw a stone from the sky to see where it will fall. The stone fell at Delphi, which since then was considered to be the center of the world, the omphalos – “navel of the earth”. Indeed, the same stone thrown by Zeus took the same name and became the symbol of Apollo, the sacred Oracle and more generally of the region of Delphi.

Yoni and Shivaling – Shakti and Shiva

Yoni (Sanskrit: योनि yoni, literally “origin”, “source”, “vagina” or “womb) is the symbol of the Goddess (Shakti or Devi), the Hindu Divine Mother. Within Shaivism, the sect dedicated to the god Shiva, the yoni symbolizes his consort. The male counterpart of the yoni is Shivaling.

The lingam is often represented alongside the yoni, a symbol of the goddess or of Shakti, female creative energy. The union of lingam and yoni represents the eternal process of creation and regeneration and represents the “indivisible two-in-oneness of male and female, the passive space and active time from which all life originates”.

Since the late 19th century, some have interpreted the yoni and the lingam (also linga, ling, Shiva linga, Shiv ling, Sanskrit: लिङ्गं,liṅgaṃ, meaning “mark”, “sign”, or “inference”) as aniconic representations of the vulva and a phallus respectively.

The yoni is considered to be an abstract representation of Shakti and Devi, the creative force that moves through the entire universe. Yoni is often misunderstood/misinterpreted as a female organ. The Sanskrit word for that is yonideśa (योनिदेश). In Hindu philosophy, according to Tantra, yoni is the origin of life.

In Sanskrit, Yoni means place of birth, source, origin. Lingam means symbol of Shiva. As Shiva is represented as an endless fire, Lingam-yoni denotes origin of an endless fire which created the universe. The lingam is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples. In traditional Indian society, the linga is rather seen as a symbol of the energy and potential of God, Shiva himself.

The yoni is the creative power of nature and represents the goddess Shakti. The lingam stone represents Shiva, and is usually placed on the yoni. The lingam is the transcendental source of all that exists. The lingam united with the yoni represents the nonduality of immanent reality and transcendental potentiality.

Lingam-yonis have been recovered from the archeological sites at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, part of the Indus Valley Civilization. There is strong evidence to support cultural continuation from the Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan; Indus-Sarasvati) to Vedic and modern Hindu practices.

Enlil

Ekur (É.KUR) is a Sumerian term meaning “mountain house”. It is the assembly of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to Mount Olympus and was the most revered and sacred building of ancient Sumer. There is a clear association of Ziggurats with mountain houses.

Duranki (Dur.An.Ki) was the Sumerian term for the people who were created by their Gods. Dur translates to Bond, An translates to Heaven or skies, Ki translates to Earth. According to creation myths of the Sumerian people, their Gods used genetic material from life existing on Earth and mixed it with divine genetic material from themselves to create Humans here on Earth.

Mountain houses play a certain role in Mesopotamian mythology and Assyro-Babylonian religion, associated with deities such as Anu (“sky, heaven”), Enlil (EN = Lord + LÍL = Wind, “Lord (of the) Storm”), Enki (EN.KI(G), “Lord of the Earth”) and Ninhursag, a mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess.

Tiamat and Abzu

In Mesopotamian Religion (Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian), Tiamat is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation, depicted as a woman, she represents the beauty of the feminine, depicted as the glistening one. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.

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.

Tiamat, the goddess of salt water, is a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû (Cuneiform: ZU.AB; Sumerian: abzu; Akkadian: apsû, literally, ab=’ocean’ zu=’deep’) also called engur, (Cuneiform: LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: engur; Akkadian: engurru), the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods.

This resulted in the birth of the younger gods, who latter murder Apsu in order to usurp his lordship of the universe. Enraged, Tiamat gives birth to the first dragons, filling their bodies with “venom instead of blood”, and made war upon her treacherous children, only to be slain by Marduk, the god of Storms, who then forms the heavens and earth from her corpse.

The Abzu 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.

Enki and Nammu/Ninmah/Ninhursag

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.

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. 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.

He was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field (Square of Pegasus). Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40,” occasionally referred to as his “sacred number.” The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was in Sumerian times, identified with Enki.

His symbols included a goat and a fish, which later combined into a single beast, the goat Capricorn, recognised as the Zodiacal constellation Capricornus.[citation needed] He was accompanied by an attendant Isimud. He was also associated with the planet Mercury in the Sumerian astrological system.

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. 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.

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.

The exact meaning of his name is uncertain: the common translation is “Lord of the Earth”: the Sumerian en is translated as a title equivalent to “lord”; it was originally a title given to the High Priest; ki means “earth”; but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, or kur meaning “mound”.

The name Ea is allegedly Hurrian in origin while others claim that his name ‘Ea’ is possibly of Semitic origin and may be a derivation from the West-Semitic root *hyy meaning “life” in this case used for “spring”, “running water.” In Sumerian E-A means “the house of water”, and it has been suggested that this was originally the name for the shrine to the god at Eridu.

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 (the Earth).

The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos. In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun.

Despite being a place where “the raven uttered no cries” and “the lion killed not, the wolf snatched not the lamb, unknown was the kid-killing dog, unknown was the grain devouring boar”, Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its Goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-God Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun.

The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats the story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land. Enki, the Water-Lord then “caused to flow the ‘water of the heart” and having fertilised his consort Ninhursag, also known as Ki or Earth, after “Nine days being her nine months, the months of ‘womanhood’… like good butter, Nintu, the mother of the land, …like good butter, gave birth to Ninsar, (Lady Greenery)”.

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. Typical in religious washing, these tanks were similar to Judaism’s mikvot, the washing pools of Islamic mosques, or the baptismal font in Christian churches.