Adam and Eva – Humans (us)
The serpent – Mercury
Tree – the goddess
Apple – knowledge
–
The Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the Works and Days of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the Golden Race of humanity lived. After the end of the first age was the Silver, then the Bronze, after this the Heroic age, with the fifth and current age being Iron.
By extension, “Golden Age” denotes a period of primordial peace, harmony, stability, and prosperity. During this age, peace and harmony prevailed in that people did not have to work to feed themselves for the earth provided food in abundance. They lived to a very old age with a youthful appearance, eventually dying peacefully, with spirits living on as “guardians”. Plato in Cratylus (397 e) recounts the golden race of humans who came first. He clarifies that Hesiod did not mean literally made of gold, but good and noble.
European pastoral literary tradition often depicted nymphs and shepherds as living a life of rustic innocence and peace, set in Arcadia, a region of Greece that was the abode and center of worship of their tutelary deity, goat-footed Pan, who dwelt among them.
Cronus
Those living in the first Age, the Golden Age, were according to classical Greek mythology ruled by Cronus, the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth.
He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. Cronus was usually depicted with a harpe, scythe or a sickle, which was the instrument he used to castrate and depose Uranus, his father.
According to Plato, however, the deities Phorcys, Cronus, and Rhea were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys, a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of the Titan Oceanus, mother of the river gods and the Oceanids.
In an ancient myth recorded by Hesiod’s Theogony, Cronus envied the power of his father, the ruler of the universe, Uranus. Uranus drew the enmity of Cronus’s mother, Gaia, when he hid the gigantic youngest children of Gaia, the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires and one-eyed Cyclopes, in Tartarus, so that they would not see the light. Gaia created a great stone sickle and gathered together Cronus and his brothers to persuade them to castrate Uranus.
Only Cronus was willing to do the deed, so Gaia gave him the sickle and placed him in ambush. When Uranus met with Gaia, Cronus attacked him with the sickle, castrating him and casting his testicles into the sea.
From the blood that spilled out from Uranus and fell upon the earth, the Gigantes, Erinyes, and Meliae were produced. The testicles produced a white foam from which the goddess Aphrodite emerged. For this, Uranus threatened vengeance and called his sons Titenes for overstepping their boundaries and daring to commit such an act.
After dispatching Uranus, Cronus re-imprisoned the Hecatoncheires, and the Cyclopes and set the dragon Campe to guard them. He and his sister Rhea took the throne of the world as king and queen. The period in which Cronus ruled was called the Golden Age, as the people of the time had no need for laws or rules; everyone did the right thing, and immorality was absent.
Cronus learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own sons, just as he had overthrown his father. As a result, although he sired the gods Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades and Poseidon by Rhea, he devoured them all as soon as they were born to prevent the prophecy. When the sixth child, Zeus, was born Rhea sought Gaia to devise a plan to save them and to eventually get retribution on Cronus for his acts against his father and children.
Rhea secretly gave birth to Zeus in Crete, and handed Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, also known as the Omphalos Stone, which he promptly swallowed, thinking that it was his son. Rhea kept Zeus hidden in a cave on Mount Ida, Crete.
According to some versions of the story, he was then raised by a goat named Amalthea, while a company of Kouretes, armored male dancers, shouted and clapped their hands to make enough noise to mask the baby’s cries from Cronus.
Other versions of the myth have Zeus raised by the nymph Adamanthea, who hid Zeus by dangling him by a rope from a tree so that he was suspended between the earth, the sea, and the sky, all of which were ruled by his father, Cronus. Still other versions of the tale say that Zeus was raised by his grandmother, Gaia.
Once he had grown up, Zeus used an emetic given to him by Gaia to force Cronus to disgorge the contents of his stomach in reverse order: first the stone, which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Mount Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, and then his two brothers and three sisters. In other versions of the tale, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the children.
After freeing his siblings, Zeus released the Hecatoncheires, and the Cyclopes who forged for him his thunderbolts, Poseidon’s trident and Hades’ helmet of darkness. In a vast war called the Titanomachy, Zeus and his brothers and sisters, with the help of the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes, overthrew Cronus and the other Titans.
Afterwards, many of the Titans were confined in Tartarus. However, Oceanus, Helios, Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius were not imprisoned following the Titanomachy. Gaia bore the monster Typhon to claim revenge for the imprisoned Titans.
Accounts of the fate of Cronus after the Titanomachy differ. In Homeric and other texts he is imprisoned with the other Titans in Tartarus. In Orphic poems, he is imprisoned for eternity in the cave of Nyx. Pindar describes his release from Tartarus, where he is made King of Elysium by Zeus.
In another version, the Titans released the Cyclopes from Tartarus, and Cronus was awarded the kingship among them, beginning a Golden Age. In Virgil’s Aeneid, it is Latium to which Saturn (Cronus) escapes and ascends as king and lawgiver, following his defeat by his son Jupiter (Zeus).
One other account referred by Robert Graves, who claims to be following the account of the Byzantine mythographer Tzetzes, it is said that Cronus was castrated by his son Zeus just like he had done with his father Uranus before.
However the subject of a son castrating his own father, or simply castration in general, was so repudiated by the Greek mythographers of that time that they suppressed it from their accounts until the Christian era (when Tzetzes wrote).
In Athens, on the twelfth day of the Attic month of Hekatombaion, a festival called Kronia was held in honour of Cronus to celebrate the harvest, suggesting that, as a result of his association with the virtuous Golden Age, Cronus continued to preside as a patron of the harvest. Cronus was also identified in classical antiquity with the Roman deity Saturn.
Kumarbi is the chief god of the Hurrians. He is the son of Anu (the sky), and father of the storm-god Teshub. He was identified by the Hurrians with Sumerian Enlil, by the Greeks as Kronos and by the Ugaritians with El.
For the Canaanites and the ancient Levantine region as a whole, Ēl or Il was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures. He also fathered many gods, most importantly Hadad, Yam, and Mot, each sharing similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades respectively. As recorded on the clay tablets of Ugarit, El is the husband of the goddess Asherah, a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources.
Kumarbi is known from a number of mythological Hittite texts, sometimes summarized under the term “Kumarbi Cycle”. These texts notably include the myth of The Kingship in Heaven (also known as the Song of Kumarbi, or the “Hittite Theogony”), the Song of Ullikummi, the Kingship of the God KAL, the Myth of the dragon Hedammu, the Song of Silver.
From the first publication of the Kingship in Heaven tablets[4] scholars have pointed out the similarities between the Hurrian creation myth and the story from Greek mythology of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus.
Enlil, later known as Elil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hurrians.
Ekur
Enlil’s primary center of worship was the Ekur (É.KUR; “Mountain House”) temple in the city of Nippur, which was believed to have been built by Enlil himself and was regarded as the “mooring-rope” of heaven and earth. Ekur, also known as Duranki, 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.
The Ekur was seen as a place of judgement and the place from which Enlil’s divine laws are issued. The ethics and moral values of the site are extolled in myths, which Samuel Noah Kramer suggested would have made it the most ethically-oriented in the entire ancient Near East. Its rituals are also described as: “banquets and feasts are celebrated from sunrise to sunset” with “festivals, overflowing with milk and cream, are alluring of plan and full of rejoicing”.
In Sumerian religion, Ninlil (DNIN.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 (a.k.a. An) and Antu (Sumerian Ki). Other sources call her a daughter of Anu and Nammu.
She lived in Dilmun with her family. Impregnated by her husband Enlil, who lie with her by the 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.
The fall of Ekur is described in the Lament for Ur. 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.
Omphalos
An omphalos is a religious stone artifact, or baetylus. Omphalos stones were believed to allow direct communication with the gods. Holland (1933) suggested that the stone was hollow to allow intoxicating vapours breathed by the Oracle to channel through it.
In Ancient Greek, the word omphalós means “navel”. In Greek lore, Zeus sent two eagles across the world to meet at its center, the “navel” of the world. Among the Ancient Greeks, it was a widespread belief that Delphi was the center of the world.
According to the myths 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, and so was the place where Zeus placed the stone.
Omphalos is also the name of the stone which Rhea wrapped in swaddling clothes, pretending it was Zeus, in order to deceive Cronus. In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, it was a powerful religious symbol.
Most accounts locate the Delphi omphalos in the adyton (sacred part of the temple) near the Pythia (oracle). The stone sculpture itself (which may be a copy), has a carving of a knotted net covering its surface, and a hollow center, widening towards the base.
Erwin Rohde wrote that the Python at Delphi was an earth spirit, who was conquered by Apollo and buried under the Omphalos. However, understanding of the use of the omphalos is uncertain due to destruction of the site by Theodosius I and Arcadius in the 4th century CE.
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.
Virgo – Pisces
In some versions of the myth Astraea also ruled in the mythological Golden Age. She lived with men until the end of the Silver Age, when all the other gods fled to Olympus, but in the Bronze Age, when men became violent and greedy, she fled to the stars, where she appears as the constellation Virgo, holding the scales of Justice, or Libra – hence the sign’s association with Earth. The symbol of the maiden is based on Astraea.
Virgo (Greek: Parthenos) is the sixth astrological sign in the Zodiac. It spans the 150–180th degree of the zodiac. Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this area on average between August 23 and September 22, and the Sun transits the constellation of Virgo from approximately September 16 to October 30.
Pisces
Pisces (Ancient Greek: Ikhthyes) is the twelfth astrological sign in the Zodiac. Pisces are the negative mutable water sign of the zodiac. It spans 330° to 360° of celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area between February 19 and March 20. In Sidereal astrology, the Sun currently transits the constellation of Pisces from approximately March 12 to April 18.
While the astrological sign Pisces per definition runs from ecliptic 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. Nevertheless, the sign of Pisces remain in the 30 degree span of 330°-0°.
There are no prominent stars in the constellation. One star in the constellation, Alpha Piscium, is also known as Alrescha, which comes from the Arabic al-rišā’, meaning “the well rope,” or “the cord.” Ptolemy described Alpha Piscium as the point where the cords joining the two fish are knotted together. 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. They are ruled by the planet Neptune. Although they appear as a pair, the name of the sign in all languages originally referred to only one fish with the exception of Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian, Dutch, Latvian and Italian.
In classical interpretations, the symbol of the fish is derived from the ichthyocentaurs, who aided Aphrodite when she was born from the sea. Divine associations with Pisces include Poseidon/Neptune, Christ, Aphrodite, Eros, Typhon, Vishnu and the Sumerian goddess Inanna in her aspect as Anunītu. While Inanna was associated with the eastern fish of the last of the zodiacal constellations, Pisces. Her consort Dumuzi was associated with the contiguous first constellation, Aries.
Isimud – Ninshubar
According to Macrobius who cites Nigidius Figulus and Cicero, Janus and Jana (Diana) are a pair of divinities, worshipped as Apollo or the sun and moon, whence Janus received sacrifices before all the others, because through him is apparent the way of access to the desired deity. Numa in his regulation of the Roman calendar called the first month Januarius after Janus, according to tradition considered the highest divinity at the time.
A similar solar interpretation has been offered by A. Audin who interprets the god as the issue of a long process of development, starting with the Sumeric cultures, from the two solar pillars located on the eastern side of temples, each of them marking the direction of the rising sun at the dates of the two solstices: the southeastern corresponding to the Winter and the northeastern to the Summer solstice.
These two pillars would be at the origin of the theology of the divine twins, one of whom is mortal (related to the NE pillar, as confining with the region where the sun does not shine) and the other is immortal (related to the SE pillar and the region where the sun always shines).
Later these iconographic models evolved in the Middle East and Egypt into a single column representing two torsos and finally a single body with two heads looking at opposite directions. Janus, the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings, is usually depicted as having two faces.
Isimud (also Isinu; Usmû; Usumu (Akkadian)) is a minor god, the messenger of the god Enki, in Sumerian mythology. In ancient Sumerian artwork, Isimud is easily identifiable because he is always depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions in a way that is similar to the ancient Roman god Janus.
Isimud also appears in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, in which he acts as Enki’s messenger and emissary. He plays a similar role to Ninshubur, the sukkal or second-in-command of the goddess Inanna in Sumerian mythology. Her name means “Queen of the East” in ancient Sumerian. Much like Iris or Hermes in later Greek mythology, Ninshubur served as a messenger to the other gods.
Ouroboros
The ouroboros or uroborus is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Originating in ancient Egyptian iconography, the ouroboros entered western tradition via Greek magical tradition and was adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism and Hermeticism and most notably in alchemy. The term derives from Ancient Greek from oura (“tail”) + bora (“food”), from bibrōskō (“I eat”).
The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death and rebirth. The skin-sloughing process of snakes symbolizes the transmigration of souls, the snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol. The tail of the snake is a phallic symbol, the mouth is a yonic or womb-like symbol.
The first known appearance of the ouroboros motif is in the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld, an ancient Egyptian funerary text in KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, in the 14th century BC. The text concerns the actions of the god Ra and his union with Osiris in the underworld.
The ouroboros is depicted twice on the figure: holding their tails in their mouths, one encircling the head and upper chest, the other surrounding the feet of a large figure, which may represent the unified Ra-Osiris (Osiris born again as Ra).
Both serpents are manifestations of the deity Mehen (mḥn) or the Mehenet (mḥnt), meaning ‘the coiled one’), a protective deity who is depicted as a snake which coils around the sun god Ra during his journey through the night, for instance in the Amduat, who in other funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey. The whole divine figure represents the beginning and the end of time.
The ouroboros appears elsewhere in Egyptian sources, where, like many Egyptian serpent deities, it represents the formless disorder that surrounds the orderly world and is involved in that world’s periodic renewal.
The symbol persisted in Egypt into Roman times, when it frequently appeared on magical talismans, sometimes in combination with other magical emblems. The 4th-century AD Latin commentator Servius was aware of the Egyptian use of the symbol, noting that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature of the year.
In Norse mythology, the ouroboros appears as the serpent Jörmungandr, one of the three children of Loki and Angrboda, which grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth.
In the legends of Ragnar Lodbrok, such as Ragnarssona þáttr, the Geatish king Herraud gives a small lindworm as a gift to his daughter Þóra Town-Hart after which it grows into a large serpent which encircles the girl’s bower and bites itself in the tail.
The serpent is slain by Ragnar Lodbrok who marries Þóra. Ragnar later has a son with another woman named Kráka and this son is born with the image of a white snake in one eye. This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was named Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye.
In the Aitareya Brahmana, a Vedic text of the early 1st millennium BCE, the nature of the Vedic rituals is compared to “a snake biting its own tail.” Ouroboros symbolism has been used to describe the Kundalini.
According to the medieval Yoga-kundalini Upanishad, “The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake, coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the body” (1.82). Storl (2004) also refers to the ouroboros image in reference to the “cycle of samsara”.
Nabu
The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu, the son of Marduk, and the ancient Mesopotamian patron god of literacy, the rational arts, scribes and wisdom, was, in Sumerian times, identified with Enki. Nabu was worshipped by the Babylonians and the Assyrians. Nabu gained prominence among the Babylonians in the 1st millennium BC when he was identified as the son of the god Marduk.
Nabu was worshipped in Babylon’s sister city Borsippa, where his statue was moved to Babylon each New Year so that he could pay his respects to his father. Nabu’s symbol was a stylus resting on a tablet. Clay tablets with especial calligraphic skill were used as offerings at Nabu’s temple.
His wife was the Akkadian goddess Tashmet or Tashmetum (cuneiform: Dur-me-tum, DTashmetu; “the lady who listens”). She is called upon to listen to prayers and to grant requests. Tashmetum and Nabu both shared a temple in the city of Borsippa, in which they were patron deities. She is also known as Tashmit and Tashmetu, and she was known by the epithets “Lady of Hearing” and “Lady of Favor”.
Nabu was the patron god of scribes, literacy, and wisdom. He was also the inventor of writing, a divine scribe, the patron god of the rational arts, and a god of vegetation. As the god of writing, Nabu inscribed the fates assigned to men and he was associated with the scribe god Ninurta. As an oracle he was associated with the Mesopotamian moon god Sin.
In Babylonian astrology, Nabu was identified with the planet Mercury. As the god of wisdom, Nabu was linked by the Romans with Mercury. In the Bible, Nabu is mentioned as Nebo in Isaiah 46:1 and Jeremiah 48:1. In Hellenistic times, Nabu was identified with the Greek god Apollo.
Thoth
Nabu was continuously worshipped until the 2nd century, when cuneiform became a lost art. Nabu’s cult spread to ancient Egypt. Nabu was one of five non-Egyptian deities worshipped in Elephantine. He got associated by the Egyptians with Thoth (the reflex of Ancient Egyptian: ḏḥwtj “[He] is like the Ibis”), the god of wisdom, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art, judgment, and the dead.
Thoth is one of the ancient Egyptian deities. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His chief temple was located in the city of Hermopolis (Ancient Egyptian: ḫmnw /χaˈmaːnaw/, Egyptological pronunciation: “Khemenu”, Coptic: Shmun). Later known as el-Ashmunein in Egyptian Arabic, it was partially destroyed in 1826.
Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma’at) who stood on either side of Ra’s solar barge. In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead.
Thoth’s roles in Egyptian mythology were many. He served as scribe of the gods, credited with the invention of writing and Egyptian hieroglyphs. In the underworld, Duat, he appeared as an ape, Aani, the god of equilibrium, who reported when the scales weighing the deceased’s heart against the feather, representing the principle of Maat, was exactly even.
The ancient Egyptians regarded Thoth as One, self-begotten, and self-produced. He was the master of both physical and moral (i.e. divine) law, making proper use of Ma’at. He is credited with making the calculations for the establishment of the heavens, stars, Earth, and everything in them.
The Egyptians credited him as the author of all works of science, religion, philosophy, and magic. The Greeks further declared him the inventor of astronomy, astrology, the science of numbers, mathematics, geometry, surveying, medicine, botany, theology, civilized government, the alphabet, reading, writing, and oratory. They further claimed he was the true author of every work of every branch of knowledge, human and divine.
Thoth was originally a moon god. The moon not only provides light at night, allowing time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology/astronomy.
The cycles of the moon also organized much of Egyptian society’s rituals and events, both civil and religious. Consequently, Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement and regulation of events and of time. He was thus said to be the secretary and counselor of the sun god Ra, and with Ma’at (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky.
Thoth became credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing (hieroglyphs), and was also considered to have been the scribe of the underworld. For this reason, Thoth was universally worshipped by ancient Egyptian scribes. Many scribes had a painting or a picture of Thoth in their “office”. Likewise, one of the symbols for scribes was that of the ibis.
His feminine counterpart was Seshat, and his wife was Ma’at. Thoth, the reckoner of time and god of writing who was also venerated as a god of wisdom was closely identified with Seshat, with whom he shared some overlapping functions. At times she was identified as his daughter, and at other times as his wife.
Hermes Trismegistus
The Greeks related Thoth to their god Hermes due to his similar attributes and functions. One of Thoth’s titles, “Thrice great”, was translated to the Greek trismégistos, making Hermes Trismegistus (“thrice-greatest Hermes”; Latin: Mercurius ter Maximus), the purported author of the Hermetic Corpus, a series of sacred texts that are the basis of Hermeticism.
Hermes Trismegistus may be associated with the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Greeks in the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt recognized the equivalence of Hermes and Thoth through the interpretatio graeca. Consequently, the two gods were worshiped as one, in what had been the Temple of Thoth in Khemenu, which was known in the Hellenistic period as Hermopolis.
A Mycenaean Greek reference to a deity or semi-deity called ti-ri-se-ro-e (Linear B: Tris Hḗrōs, “thrice or triple hero”) was found on two Linear B clay tablets at Pylos and could be connected to the later epithet “thrice great”, Trismegistos, applied to Hermes/Thoth.
Nehmetawy and Nehebu-kau
In Hermopolis, Thoth led “the Ogdoad”, a pantheon of eight principal deities, and his spouse was Nehmetawy (nḥm.t-ˁw3ỉ; “she who embraces those in need”). She is not very widely known. Her depictions are anthropomorph, with a sistrum-shaped headdress, often with a child in her lap.
Nehmetawy was the wife of snake god Nehebu-kau (also spelled Nehebu-Kau, and Neheb Ka), or in other places of worship, like in Hermopolis, the wife of Thoth. In Egyptian mythology, Nehebkau was originally the explanation of the cause of binding of Ka and Ba after death.
Ka is also the Egyptian word for sustenance, and is associated with spirit. Thus his name, which means (one who) brings together Ka. Since these aspects of the soul were said to bind after death, Nehebkau was said to have guarded the entrance to Duat, the underworld.
One of the more important glyphs in his name was technically a variation on the glyph for two arms raised in prayer, however, it also resembles a two-headed snake, and so Nehebkau became depicted in art as a snake with two heads (occasionally with only one).
As a two-headed snake, he was viewed as fierce, being able to attack from two directions, and not having to fear as much confrontations. Consequently, sometimes it was said that Atum, the chief god in these areas, had to keep his finger on him to prevent Nehebkau from getting out of control. Alternatively, in areas where Ra was the chief god, it was said that Nehebkau was one of the warriors who protected Ra whilst he was in the underworld, during Ra’s nightly travel, as a sun god, under the earth.
When he was seen as a snake, he was also thought to have some power over snake-bites, and by extension, other venomous bites, such as those of scorpions, thus sometimes being identified as the son of Serket, the scorpion-goddess of protection against these things.
Renenutet
Alternatively, as a snake, since Nehebkau was connected to an aspect of the soul, he was sometimes seen as the son of Renenutet (also transliterated Ernūtet and Renenet), a snake-goddess, who distributed the Ren, another aspect of the soul, and of the earth (Geb), on which snakes crawl.
Renenūtet was a goddess of nourishment and the harvest in ancient Egyptian religion. The importance of the harvest caused people to make many offerings to Renenutet during harvest time. She was the mother of the god Nepri.
Initially, her cult was centered in Terenuthis. Renenutet was depicted as a cobra, or as a woman with the head of a cobra. The verbs ‘to fondle, to nurse, or rear’ help explain the name Renenutet. This goddess was a ‘nurse’ who took care of the pharaoh from birth to death.
Sometimes, as the goddess of nourishment, Renenutet was seen as having a husband, Sobek. He was represented as the Nile River, the annual flooding of which deposited the fertile silt that enabled abundant harvests. The temple of Medinet Madi is dedicated to both Sobek and Renenutet. It is a small and decorated building in the Faiyum.
More usually, Renenutet was seen as the mother of Nehebkau, who occasionally was represented as a snake also. When considered the mother of Nehebkau, Renenutet was seen as having a husband, Geb, who represented the Earth.
Later, as a snake-goddess worshiped over the whole of Lower Egypt, Renenutet was increasingly associated with Wadjet, Lower Egypt’s powerful protector and another snake goddess represented as a cobra. Eventually Renenutet was identified as an alternate form of Wadjet, whose gaze was said to slaughter enemies. Wadjet was the cobra shown on the crown of the pharaohs.
Shai
Renenutet was the female counterpart of Shai (also spelt Sai, occasionally Shay, and in Greek, Psais; “destiny”), who represented the positive destiny of the child. Along with this, Renenutet was also the Thermouthis, or Hermouthis in Greek. She embodied the fertility of the fields and was the protecter of the royal office and power.
Shai was the deification of the concept of fate in Egyptian mythology. As a concept, with no particular reason for associating one gender over another, Shai was sometimes considered female, rather than the more usual understanding of being male, in which circumstance Shai was referred to as Shait (simply the feminine form of the name). His name reflects his function, as it means (that which is) ordained.
As the god of fate, it was said that he determined the span of each man’s life, and was present at the judgement of the soul of the deceased in duat. In consequence, he was sometimes identified as the husband of Mesenet, goddess of birth, or, in later years, of Renenutet, who assigned the Ren, and had become considered goddess of fortune.
Because of the power associated in the concept, Akhenaten, in introducing monotheism, said that Shai was an attribute of Aten, whereas Ramses II claimed to be lord of Shai (i.e. lord of fate).
Meshkenet
In Ancient Egyptian mythology, Meskhenet, (also spelt Mesenet, Meskhent, and Meshkent) was the goddess of childbirth, and the creator of each child’s Ka, a part of their soul, which she breathed into them at the moment of birth. She was worshipped from the earliest of times by Egyptians.
In ancient Egypt, women delivered babies while squatting on a pair of bricks, known as birth bricks, and Meskhenet was the goddess associated with this form of delivery. Consequently, in art, she was sometimes depicted as a brick with a woman’s head, wearing a cow’s uterus upon it. At other times she was depicted as a woman with a symbolic cow’s uterus on her headdress.
Meskhenet, an ancient Egyptian deity of birth. Here, she is depicted as a birth-brick with a woman’s head. She could also be depicted as a woman with a symbolic uterus on her head. Since she was responsible for creating the Ka, she was associated with fate. Thus later she was sometimes said to be paired with Shai, who became a god of destiny after the deity evolved out of an abstract concept.
Meskhenet features prominently in the last of the folktales in the Westcar Papyrus. The story tells of the birth of Userkaf, Sahure, and Neferirkare Kakai, the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty, who in the story are said to be triplets. Just after each child is born, Meskhenet appears and prophesies that he will become king of Egypt.
Agathos Daimon
During Ptolemaic Egypt, Shai, as god of fate, was identified with the Greek god Agathodaemon, who was the god of fortune telling. Thus, since Agathodaemon was considered to be a serpent, and the word Shai was also the Egyptian word for pig, in the Hellenic period, Shai was sometimes depicted as a serpent-headed pig, known to Egyptologists as the Shai animal.
An agathodaemon (Ancient Greek: agathodaímōn) or agathos daemon (Greek: agathós daímōn, lit. “noble spirit”) was a spirit (daemon) of the vineyards and grainfields in ancient Greek religion. They were personal companion spirits, comparable to the Roman genii, who ensured good luck, health, and wisdom.
Though little noted in Greek mythology (Pausanias conjectured that the name was merely an epithet of Zeus), he was prominent in Greek folk religion; it was customary to drink or pour out a few drops of unmixed wine to honor him in every symposium or formal banquet.
In Aristophanes’ Peace, when War has trapped Peace (Eirene) in a deep pit, Hermes comes to give aid: “Now, oh Greeks! is the moment when, freed of quarrels and fighting, we should rescue sweet Eirene and draw her out of this pit… This is the moment to drain a cup in honor of the Agathos Daimon.” A temple dedicated to him was situated on the road from Megalopolis to Maenalus in Arcadia.
His numinous presence could be represented in art as a serpent or more concretely as a young man bearing a cornucopia and a bowl in one hand, and a poppy and an ear of grain in the other. The agathodaemon was later adapted into a general daemon of fortuna, particularly of the continued abundance of a family’s good food and drink.
In the syncretic atmosphere of Late Antiquity, agathodaemons could be bound up with Egyptian bringers of security and good fortune: a gem carved with magic emblems bears the images of Serapis with crocodile, sun-lion and Osiris mummy surrounded by the lion-headed snake Cnum–Agathodaemon–Aion, with Harpocrates on the reverse.
Tyche Agathe
Agathos Daimon was the spouse or companion of Tyche Agathe (“Good Fortune”; Latin: Agatha). “Tyche we know at Lebadeia as the wife of the Agathos Daimon, the Good or Rich Spirit”. Tyche (“luck”; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelary deity who governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. In Classical Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes.
In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite, or considered as one of the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus, and Tethys, or of Zeus. She was connected with Nemesis and Agathos Daimon (“good spirit”). The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no cause can be discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts, or even in politics, then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche.
In Greco-Roman and medieval art she was depicted as carrying a cornucopia (horn of plenty), an emblematic gubernaculum (ship’s rudder), and the wheel of fortune, or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate. The constellation of Virgo is sometimes identified as the heavenly figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as Demeter and Astraea.
Erechtheus
Tyche was uniquely venerated at Itanos in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia, linked with the Athenian Protogeneia (“firstborn”), daughter of Erechtheus, in Greek mythology the name of an archaic king of Athens, the founder of the polis and, in his role as god, attached to Poseidon, as “Poseidon Erechtheus”, whose self-sacrifice saved the city.
Athenians thought of themselves as Erechtheidai, the “sons of Erechtheus”. In Homer’s Iliad (2. 547–48) he is the son of “grain-giving Earth”, reared by Athena. The earth-born son was sired by Hephaestus, whose semen Athena wiped from her thigh with a fillet of wool cast to earth, by which Gaia was made pregnant. In the contest for patronage of Athens between Poseidon and Athena, the salt spring on the Acropolis where Poseidon’s trident struck was known as the sea of Erechtheus.
The mythic Erechtheus and the historical Erechtheus were fused into one character in Euripides’ lost tragedy Erechtheus (423/22 BCE). The name Erichthonius is carried by a son of Erechtheus, but Plutarch conflated the two names in the myth of the begetting of Erechtheus.
The central gods of the Acropolis of Athens were Poseidon Erechtheus and Athena Polias, “Athena patron-guardian of the city”. The Odyssey (VII.81) already records that Athena returned to Athens and “entered the strong-built house of Erechtheus”.
The archaic joint temple built upon the spot that was identified as the Kekropion, the hero-grave of the mythic founder-king Cecrops and the serpent that embodied his spirit was destroyed by the Persian forces in 480 BC, during the Greco-Persian wars, and was replaced between 421 and 407 BCE by the present Erechtheum.
Continuity of the site made sacred by the presence of Cecrops is inherent in the reference in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca to the Erechtheion lamp as “the lamp of Cecrops”. Priests of the Erechtheum and the priestess of Athena jointly took part in the procession to Skiron that inaugurated the Skira festival near the end of the Athenian year. Their object was the temenos at Skiron of the hero-seer Skiros, who had aided Eumolpus in the war between Athens and Eleusis in which Erechtheus II, the hero-king, was both triumphant and died.
That Poseidon and Erechtheus were two names at Athens for the same figure was demonstrated in the cult at the Erechtheum, where there was a single altar, a single priest and sacrifices were dedicated to Poseidon Erechtheus, Walter Burkert observed, adding “An historian would say that a Homeric, pan-Hellenic name has been superimposed on an autochthonous, non-Greek name.”
Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over grains and the fertility of the earth. Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele, and in Rome she was identified as the Latin goddess Ceres.
The earliest recorded worship of a deity possibly equivalent to Demeter is found in Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of c. 1400–1200 BC found at Pylos. The tablets describe worship of the “two queens and the king”, which may be related to Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. Wanax (wa-na-ka) was her male companion (Greek: Paredros) in Mycenaean cult.
The Arcadian cult links her to the god Poseidon, who probably substituted the male companion of the Great Goddess ; Demeter may therefore be related to a Minoan Great Goddess (Cybele). She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympian pantheon, and which may have its roots in the Mycenaean period c. 1400–1200 BC.
The Eleusinian Mysteries are believed to be of considerable antiquity. Some findings in the temple Eleusinion in Attica suggest that their basis was an old agrarian cult. Some practices of the mysteries seem to have been influenced by the religious practices of the Mycenaean period and thus predating the Greek Dark Ages. Excavations showed that, a private building existed under the Telesterion in the Mycenean period, and it seems that originally the cult of Demeter was private.
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. One line of thought by modern scholars has been that the Mysteries were intended “to elevate man above the human sphere into the divine and to assure his redemption by making him a god and so conferring immortality upon him”.
Comparative study shows parallels between these Greek rituals and similar systems—some of them older—in the Near East. Such cults include the mysteries of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, the Adoniac of Syrian cults, the Persian mysteries, and the Phrygian Cabeirian mysteries.
Some scholars argued that the Eleusinian cult was a continuation of a Minoan cult, and that Demeter was a poppy goddess who brought the poppy from Crete to Eleusis. Some useful information from the Mycenean period can be taken from the study of the cult of Despoina, (the precursor goddess of Persephone), and the cult of Eileithyia who was the goddess of childbirth.
The megaron of Despoina at Lycosura is quite similar with the Telesterion of Eleusis,[29] and Demeter is united with the god Poseidon, bearing a daughter, the unnamable Despoina (the mistress).[30] In the cave of Amnisos at Crete, the goddess Eileithyia is related with the annual birth of the divine child, and she is connected with Enesidaon (The Earth Shaker), who is the chthonic aspect of Poseidon.
Cecrops
Cecrops was a mythical king of Attica which derived from him its name Cecropia, having previously borne the name of Acte or Actice (from Actaeus). He was the founder and the first king of Athens itself though preceded in the region by the earth-born king Actaeus of Attica. Cecrops was a culture hero, teaching the Athenians marriage, reading and writing, and ceremonial burial.
The name of Cecrops was not of Greek origin according to Strabo, or it might mean ‘tail-face’ (cerc-ops): it was said that, born from the earth itself (an autochthon) and was accordingly called a gegenes (“native”), and described as having his top half shaped like a man and the bottom half in serpent or fish-tail form.
Hence he was called diphues, or of two natures. Diodorus rationalized that his double form was because of his double citizenship, Greek and barbarian. Some ancients referred the epithet to marriage, of which tradition made him the founder.
Apparently Cecrops married Aglaurus, the daughter of Actaeus, former king of the region of Attica, whom he succeeded to the throne. It is disputed that this woman was the mother of Cecrops’s son Erysichthon. Erysichthon predeceased him, and he was succeeded by Cranaus, who is said to have been one of the wealthiest citizens of Athens at that time.
Cecrops was the father of three daughters: Herse, Pandrosus and Aglaurus. To them was given a box or jar containing the infant Erichthonius to guard unseen. They looked, and terrified by the two serpents Athena had set within to guard the child, they fled in terror and leapt from the Acropolis to their deaths. Some accounts say one of the sisters was turned to stone instead.
Cecrops was represented in the Attic legends as the author of the first elements of civilized life such as marriage, the political division of Attica into twelve communities, and also as the introducer of a new mode of worship. He was said to have been the first who deified Zeus, and ordained sacrifices to be offered to him as the supreme Deity.
Cecrops was likewise affirmed to have been the first who built altars and statues of the gods, offered sacrifices, and instituted marriage among the Athenians, who, before his time, it seems, lived promiscuously. Pausanias tells us that he forbade the sacrificing of any living creatures to the gods, as well as any sort of other offering, only allowing cakes (πέλανοι) formed into the shape of an ox with horns, called by the Athenians Pelanous, which signifies an ox.
He is likewise said to have taught his subjects the art of navigation; and, for the better administration of justice and intercourse among them, to have divided them into the four tribes called Cecropis, Autochthon, Actea, and Paralia. Some likewise make him the founder of the areopagus. The Acropolis was also known as the Cecropia in his honor. The Athenians are said to have called themselves Cecropidæ, during the reigns of the five following kings, in his honor.
The name of Cecrops occurs also in other parts of Greece, especially where there existed a town of the name of Athenae, such as in Boeotia, where he is said to have founded the ancient towns of Athenae and Eleusis on the river Triton, and where he had a heroum at Haliartus. Tradition there called him a son of Pandion. In Euboea, which had likewise a town Athenae, Cecrops was called a son of Erechtheus and Praxithea, and a grandson of Pandion.
From these traditions it appears, that Cecrops must be regarded as a hero of the Pelasgian race; and Müller justly remarks, that the different mythical personages of this name connected with the towns in Boeotia and Euboea are only multiplications of the one original hero, whose name and story were transplanted from Attica to other places.
The later Greek writers describe Cecrops as having immigrated into Greece with a band of colonists from Sais in Egypt. But this account is not only rejected by some of the ancients themselves, but by the ablest critics of modem times.
Maat
Maat or Maʽat refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Maat was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regulated the stars, seasons, and the actions of mortals and the deities who had brought order from chaos at the moment of creation. Her ideological opposite was Isfet (Egyptian jzft), meaning injustice, chaos, violence or to do evil.
Seshat
Seshat, under various spellings, was the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and writing. She was seen as a scribe and record keeper, and her name means she who scrivens (i.e. she who is the scribe), and is credited with inventing writing.
She also became identified as the goddess of accounting, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying. In art, she was depicted as a woman with a seven-pointed emblem above her head.
It is unclear what this emblem represents. This emblem is the origin of an alternate name for Seshat, Sefkhet-Abwy, which means “seven-horned”. Mistress of the House of Books is another title for Seshat, being the deity whose priests oversaw the library in which scrolls of the most important knowledge were assembled and spells were preserved.
Usually, she is shown holding a palm stem, bearing notches to denote the recording of the passage of time, especially for keeping track of the allotment of time for the life of the pharaoh. She was also depicted holding other tools and, often, holding the knotted cords that were stretched to survey land and structures.
She is frequently shown dressed in a cheetah or leopard hide, a symbol of funerary priests. If not shown with the hide over a dress, the pattern of the dress is that of the spotted feline. The pattern on the natural hide was thought to represent the stars, being a symbol of eternity, and to be associated with the night sky.
As the divine measurer and scribe, Seshat was believed to appear to assist the pharaoh in both of these practices. It was she who recorded, by notching her palm, the time allotted to the pharaoh for his stay on earth.
Seshat assisted the pharaoh in the “stretching the cord” ritual. This ritual is related to laying out the foundations of temples and other important structures in order to determine and assure the sacred alignments and the precision of the dimensions.
Her skills were necessary for surveying the land after the annual floods to reestablish boundary lines. The priestess who officiated at these functions in her name also oversaw the staff of others who performed similar duties and were trained in mathematics and the related store of knowledge.
She also was responsible for recording the speeches the pharaoh made during the crowning ceremony and approving the inventory of foreign captives and goods gained in military campaigns. During the New Kingdom, she was involved in the Sed festival held by the pharaohs who could celebrate thirty years of reign.
Sirrush
Nabu wore a horned cap, and stood with his hands clasped in the ancient gesture of priesthood. He rode on a winged dragon known as Sirrush that originally belonged to his father Marduk.
The mušḫuššu, formerly also read as sirrušu, sirrush or Mushkhushshu, is a creature from ancient Mesopotamian mythology. A mythological hybrid, it is a scaly animal with hind legs resembling the talons of an eagle, lion-like forelimbs, a long neck and tail, a horned head, a snake-like tongue, and a crest. The mušḫuššu most famously appears on the reconstructed Ishtar Gate of the city of Babylon, dating to the sixth century BC.
The form mušḫuššu is the Akkadian nominative of the Sumerian MUŠ.ḪUS, “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 Tishpak, the local god of Eshnunna. Tishpak, a warrior god possibly identical with the Hurrian god Teshub, was an Akkadian god, who had replaced Ninazu as the tutelary deity of the city of Eshnunna.
The constellation Hydra was known in Babylonian astronomical texts as Bašmu, “the Serpent” (MUL.dMUŠ). It was depicted as having the torso of a fish, a tail of a snake, the fore paws of a lion, the hind legs of an eagle, with wings, and with a head comparable to the mušḫuššu.
Nisaba
Nabu was known as Nisaba (Sumerian: DNAGA; later DŠE.NAGA), the Sumerian goddess of writing, learning, and the harvest, in the Sumerian pantheon. She was worshiped in shrines and sanctuaries at Umma and Ereš, and was often praised by Sumerian scribes. She is considered the patroness of mortal scribes as well as the scribe of the gods. In the Babylonian period, her worship was mainly was redirected towards the god Nabu, who took over her functions.
Nisaba’s worship began in the city of Umma, where she was originally a grain goddess during Early Dynastic Period I, c. 2900–2700 BC. As a grain goddess, she was represented by the symbol of a single stalk of grain. A fragment from a stone vase, probably found in Girsu and held in the British Museum, shows a goddess usually identified as Nisaba (though it could depict Baba or Inanna).
She is depicted with four long curled tresses of hair crowned with a horned headdress supporting ears of wheat and a crescent moon, and holds a bunch of dates. After she became recognized as a goddess of writing, she was described on the Gudea cylinders (c. 2125 BC) as holding a gold stylus and a clay tablet carrying the image of starry heaven.
Nisaba’s transition from being strictly a grain goddess to one also worshiped as patroness of writing and accounting probably took place as modes of writing became more and more important for documenting the buying and selling of grain and other staple goods.
Cuneiform writing itself was seen as a gift handed down from the goddess. As writing itself moved from a simple accounting shorthand to documenting contracts, laws, history, and literature, Nisaba’s worship grew to include these functions. Her worship spread to Ereš, which housed a shrine to her and other deities in the temple, though she does not seem to have had any temples dedicated solely to her worship.
Worship seems to have been conducted primarily via the art of writing, and each composition was seen as a gift for the goddess. Many clay-tablets end with the phrase “Nisaba be praised” (Sumerian: AN.NAGA.ZAG.SAL; Dnisaba za3-mi2) to honor her.
A Hymn to Nisaba composed during the Second Dynasty of Ur begins, “Lady colored like the stars of heaven, holding a lapis lazuli tablet! Nisaba, great wild cow born of Uras, wild sheep nourished on good milk among holy alkaline plants, opening the mouth for seven reeds! Perfectly endowed with fifty great divine powers, my lady, most powerful.”
Nisaba’s worship seems to have declined during the Babylonian period and the reign of Hammurabi in the 18th century BC, during which time goddesses were de-emphasized in favor of gods. By end of the Third Dynasty of Ur, her worship seems to have been mostly replaced by that of Nabu, the male god of writing, who in some sources had Nisaba as his wife, though she continued to be revered alongside him in his temples for millennia.
She continued to be counted alongside Nabu in lists of the gods of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and their widespread veneration protected them from some of the religious persecution that came with new regimes.
However, while the cult of Nabu spread as far as the Mediterranean during the first few centuries AD, worship of Nisaba seems to have remained within Mesopotamia, where it seems to have died out following the fall of the Seleucid Empire in 63 BC, the last period during which she is attested in historical records. This saw Nisaba fall into obscurity and lose influence, her remaining forms of worship likely being suppressed as Christianity spread.
Nisaba serves as the scribe of the gods in Sumerian and later Mesopotamian mythology. The god of wisdom, Enki, who organized the world after creation, gave each deity a role in the world order. He named Nisaba the scribe of the gods, and Enki then built her a school of learning so that she could better serve those in need.
She keeps records, chronicles events, and performs various other bookwork-related duties for the gods. She is also in charge of marking regional borders. Some pieces of writing, such as the Kesh Temple Hymn (one of the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the world), were said to have been spoken by the gods and recorded by Nisaba herself.
She is the chief scribe of Nanshe. On the first day of the new year, she and Nanshe work together to settle disputes between mortals and give aid to those in need. Nisaba keeps a record of the visitors seeking aid and then arranges them into a line to stand before Nanshe, who will then judge them. Nisaba is also seen as a caretaker for Ninhursag’s temple at Kesh, where she gives commands and keeps temple records.
As with many Sumerian deities, Nisaba’s exact place in the pantheon and her heritage appears somewhat ambiguous. In the tradition of her original center of worship at Umma, she is held to be the daughter of An and Urash, and the sister of Ninsun, the mother of Gilgamesh. In the Eresh tradition, she is said to be the daughter of Enlil and Ninlil. In still other sources, she is considered the mother of Ninlil, and by extension, the mother-in-law of Enlil.
Sources beginning in the First Babylonian dynasty (c. 1830 BC – c. 1531 BC) assign Nisaba a husband, named Ḫaya, who is described primarily as a god of scribes, though Ḫaya seems to have originally been little more than a masculine “reflection” of Nisaba.
In one of the Mesopotamian god lists, Ḫaya is called “the Nissaba of Wealth”, counterpart to the female “Nissaba of Wisdom”. His rise to prominence following the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur which marked the end of the Sumerian period and the beginning of the Babylonian period, around the same time as Nabu, came during a time period when many goddesses’ roles were being re-ascribed to gods.
Naga
Nisaba’s name was originally written using a combination of the cuneiform sign called NAGA, and the dingir representing divinity. The NAGA sign is a pictogram representing a stalk of wheat, denoting her as the divinity present within grains.
Although the sign NAGA is sometimes read as Nidaba, Jeremy Black points out that “the name Nisaba (or Nissaba) seems more correct than Nidaba”. She is also known by the epithet Nanibgal (Sumerian: DAN.NAGA; later DAN.ŠE.NAGA), and may have been the same goddess as Nunbarsegunu.
In Sanskrit, a nāgá is a cobra, the Indian cobra (Naja naja). A synonym for nāgá is phaṇin. There are several words for “snake” in general, and one of the very commonly used ones is sarpá. Sometimes the word nāgá is also used generically to mean “snake”. The word is cognate with English ‘snake’, Germanic: *snēk-a-, Proto-IE: *(s)nēg-o- (with s-mobile).
In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the nāga or Nagi are divine, semi-divine deities, or a semi-divine race of half-human half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala) and can occasionally take human form.
They are principally depicted in three forms: wholly human with snakes on the heads and necks; common serpents, or as half-human half-snake beings. A female naga is a “nagi”, “nagin”, or “nagini”. Nagaraja is seen as the king of nāgas and nāginis. They are common and hold cultural significance in the mythological traditions of many South Asian and Southeast Asian cultures.
The mythological serpent race that took form as cobras often can be found in Hindu iconography. The nāgas are described as the powerful, splendid, wonderful and proud semidivine race that can assume their physical form either as human, partial human-serpent or the whole serpent.
Their domain is in the enchanted underworld, the underground realm filled with gems, gold and other earthly treasures called Naga-loka or Patala-loka. They are also often associated with bodies of waters — including rivers, lakes, seas, and wells — and are guardians of treasure.
Their power and venom made them potentially dangerous to humans. However, they often took beneficial protagonist role in Hindu mythology, such as in Samudra manthan mythology, Vasuki, a nāgarāja who abides on Shiva’s neck, became the churning rope for churning of the Ocean of Milk. Their eternal mortal enemies are the Garudas, the legendary semidivine birdlike-deities.
Vishnu is originally portrayed in the form sheltered by Śeṣanāga or reclining on Śeṣa, but the iconography has been extended to other deities as well. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms: around the neck, use as a sacred thread (Sanskrit: yajñyopavīta) wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Shiva is often shown garlanded with a snake. Patanjali is thought to be a manifestation of the serpent of eternity.
Atargatis
Atargatis or Ataratheh, whom Lucian calls Hera, was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical antiquity. Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo, Syria. Michael Rostovtzeff called her “the great mistress of the North Syrian lands”. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite.
The etymology of the name Atargatis points to a connection with “Astarte” (Ishtar), “Ata” (Anath), and this in turn suggests that Atargatis was a syncretistic figure which incorporated elements of many Near Eastern fertility divinities.
Asherah, in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu(m) (Ashratum), and in Hittite as Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʾAṯiratu (Athirat).
Asherah is identified as the queen consort of the Sumerian god Anu, and Ugaritic ʾEl, the oldest deities of their respective pantheons, as well as Yahweh, the god of Israel and Judah. This role gave her a similarly high rank in the Ugaritic pantheon.
The name Dione, which like ʾElat means ‘goddess’, is clearly associated with Asherah in the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon, because the same common epithet (ʾElat) of “the Goddess par excellence” was used to describe her at Ugarit. The Book of Jeremiah, written circa 628 BC, possibly refers to Asherah when it uses the title “queen of heaven” in Jeremiah 7:16–18 and Jeremiah 44:17–19, 25.
The picture given us by Lucian is characteristic of the worship not only of Astarte-Ishtar, but also of Aphrodite, Cybele, Ashera, Isis, and Caelestis. The representation of Atargatis as half woman/half fish, the emphasis on water (an essential element in the process of fertilization) and the sea, and their common titles “Urania” (“Heavenly”) and “Queen of Heaven,” points to a theology which was shared by many cults of fertility goddesses.
Atargatis is seen as a continuation of Bronze Age goddesses. At Ugarit, cuneiform tablets attest the three great Canaanite goddesses. These shared many traits with each other and may have been worshipped in conjunction or separately during 1500 years of cultural history.
It was Aṭirat, described as a fecund “Lady Goddess of the Sea” (rabbatu ʾat̪iratu yammi) and is identified with Asherah, Anat, the war-like virgin goddess. and Ațtart, the goddess of love, namesake of the Phoenician goddess Aštart, called Astarte in Greek.
In many cases Atargatis, ‘Ashtart, and other goddesses who once had independent cults and mythologies became fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. This fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of ‘Ashtart at Ashtaroth-Karnaim.
In Akkadian, the form one would expect Anat to take would be Antu, earlier Antum. This would also be the normal feminine form that would be taken by Anu, the Akkadian form of An ‘Sky’, the Sumerian god of heaven. Antu appears in Akkadian texts mostly as a rather colorless consort of Anu, the mother of Ishtar in the Gilgamesh story, but is also identified with the northwest Semitic goddess ‘Anat of essentially the same name.
It is unknown whether this is an equation of two originally separate goddesses whose names happened to fall together or whether Anat’s cult spread to Mesopotamia, where she came to be worshipped as Anu’s spouse because the Mesopotamian form of her name suggested she was a counterpart to Anu.
It has also been suggested that the parallelism between the names of the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, and her West Semitic counterpart, Ishtar, continued in Canaanite tradition as Anath and Astarte, particularly in the poetry of Ugarit.
The two goddesses were invariably linked in Ugaritic scripture and are also known to have formed a triad (known from sculpture) with a third goddess who was given the name/title of Qadesh (meaning “the holy one”).
Ctesias also used the name Derketo for her, and the Romans called her Dea Syria, or in one word Deasura. Primarily she was a goddess of fertility, but, as the baalat (“mistress”) of her city and people, she was also responsible for their protection and well-being.
Her consort is usually Hadad, also known as Adad or Iškur (Sumerian), the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, wearing a mural crown, is the ancestor the royal house, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of generation and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems), and the inventor of useful appliances.
By the conjunction of these many functions, despite originating as a sea deity analogous to Amphitrite, she becomes ultimately a great nature-goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea: In one aspect she typifies the protection of water in producing life; in another, the universal of other-earth; in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldean astrology), the power of Destiny. She was also identified with Hera by Lucian in his De Dea Syria.
Hadad is usually written with the logogram dIM – the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. He was also called Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods.
The bull was his symbolic animal. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. He was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Amun.
As Ataratheh, doves and fish were considered sacred to her: doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, and fish as symbolic of the fertility and life of the waters. She is sometimes described as a mermaid-goddess, due to identification of her with a fish-bodied goddess at Ascalon. However, there is no evidence that Atargatis was worshipped at Ascalon, and all iconographic evidence shows her as anthropomorphic.
The name Atargatis derives from the Aramaic form ʿAtarʿatheh, which comes in several variants. The name ʿAtarʿatheh is widely held to derive from a compound of the Aramaic form ʿAttar, which is a cognate of ʿAțtart minus its feminine suffix -t, plus ʿAttah or ʿAtā, a cognate of ʿAnat.
It has also been proposed that the element -gatis may relate to the Greek gados “fish”. For example, the Greek name for “sea monster” or “whale” is the cognate term ketos). So Atar-Gatis may simply mean “the fish-goddess Atar”.
As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified as ‘Ashtart. The two deities were probably of common origin and have many features in common, but their cults are historically distinct.
In the 1930s, numerous Nabatean bas-relief busts of Atargatis were identified by Nelson Glueck at Khirbet et-Tannûr, Jordan, in temple ruins of the early first century CE; there the lightly veiled goddess’s lips and eyes had once been painted red, and a pair of fish confronted one another above her head. Her wavy hair, suggesting water to Glueck, was parted in the middle.
At her temples at Ascalon, Hierapolis Bambyce, and Edessa, there were fish ponds containing fish only her priests might touch. Glueck noted in 1936 that “to this day there is a sacred fish-pond swarming with untouchable fish at Qubbet el-Baeddwī, a dervish monastery three kilometres east of Tripolis, Lebanon.” The fishpond of fish sacred to Atargatis survives at Şanlıurfa, the ancient Edessa, its mythology transferred to Ibrahim.
The legends are numerous and of an astrological character. A rationale for the Syrian dove-worship and abstinence from fish is seen in the story in Athenaeus 8.37, where Atargatis is naively explained to mean “without Gatis”, the name of a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish.
Thus Diodorus Siculus (2.4.2), quoting Ctesias, tells how Derceto fell in love with a youth and became by him the mother of a child and how in shame Derceto flung herself into a lake near Ascalon and her body was changed into the form of a fish though her head remained human.
Derceto’s child grew up to become Semiramis, the Assyrian queen. In another story, told by Hyginus, an egg fell from the sky into the Euphrates, was rolled onto land by fish, doves settled on it and hatched it, and Venus, known as the Syrian goddess, came forth.
The author of Catasterismi explained the constellation of Piscis Austrinus as the parent of the two fish making up the constellation of Pisces; according to that account, it was placed in the heavens in memory of Derceto’s fall into the lake at Hierapolis Bambyce near the Euphrates in Syria, from which she was saved by a large fish — which again is intended to explain the Syrian abstinence from fish.
Ovid in his Metamorphoses (5.331) relates that Venus took the form of a fish to hide from Typhon. In his Fasti (2.459-.474) Ovid instead relates how Dione, by whom Ovid intends Venus/Aphrodite, fleeing from Typhon with her child Cupid/Eros came to the river Euphrates in Syria.
Hearing the wind suddenly rise and fearing that it was Typhon, the goddess begged aid from the river nymphs and leapt into the river with her son. Two fish bore them up and were rewarded by being transformed into the constellation Pisces — and for that reason the Syrians will eat no fish.
During the Roman era, eunuch priests worshipped Atargatis. Similar to the Galli priests of Cybele. At the shrine in Hieropolis founded by Semiramis, eunuch priests served the image of a fish-tailed woman. Rituals to the goddess were accompanied by flute playing and rattle shaking. In one rite, young males castrated themselves to become cross-dressing priests at the temple and thereafter performed tasks usually done by women.
According to a third-century Syriac source, “In Syria and in Urhâi [Edessa] the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Taratha. But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a hand cut off. And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore.”
Adam
Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible and in the creation story of the Quran. According to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, he was the first man. The word adam is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as “a human” and in a collective sense as “mankind”. Biblical Adam (man, mankind) is created from adamah (earth), and Genesis 1–8 makes considerable play of the bond between them, for Adam is estranged from the earth through his disobedience.
In both Genesis and Quran, Adam and his wife were expelled from a Garden of Eden for eating the fruit of a tree forbidden by Yahweh or Allah, though various names are different, as is the sequence of events, the consequences of this disobedience, and Adam’s later biography.
The majority view among scholars is that the book of Genesis dates from the Persian period (the 5th and 4th centuries BCE), but the absence from the rest of the Hebrew Bible of all the other characters and incidents mentioned in chapters 1–11 of Genesis, (Adam appears only in chapters 1–5, with the exception of a mention at the beginning of the Books of Chronicles where, as in Genesis, he heads the list of Israel’s ancestors) has led a sizable minority to the conclusion that Genesis 1–11 was composed much later, possibly in the 3rd century BCE.
The Bible uses the word אָדָם ( ‘adam ) in all of its senses: collectively (“mankind”, Genesis 1:27), individually (a “man”, Genesis 2:7), gender nonspecific (“man and woman”, Genesis 5:1-2), and male (Genesis 2:23-24).
In Genesis 1:27 “adam” is used in the collective sense, and the interplay between the individual “Adam” and the collective “humankind” is a main literary component to the events that occur in the Garden of Eden, the ambiguous meanings embedded throughout the moral, sexual, and spiritual terms of the narrative reflecting the complexity of the human condition.
Genesis 2:7 is the first verse where “Adam” takes on the sense of an individual man (the first man), and the context of sex is absent; the gender distinction of “adam” is then reiterated in Genesis 5:1–2 by defining “male and female”.
A recurring literary motif is the bond between Adam and the earth (adamah): God creates Adam by molding him out of clay in the final stages of the creation narrative. After the loss of innocence, God curses Adam and the earth as punishment for his disobedience. Adam and humanity are cursed to die and return to the earth (or ground) from which he was formed.
This “earthly” aspect is a component of Adam’s identity, and Adam’s curse of estrangement from the earth seems to describe humankind’s divided nature of being earthly yet separated from nature. God himself, who took of the dust from all four corners of the earth with each color (red, black, white, and green), then created Adam therewith, where the soul of Adam is the image of God.
Genesis 1 tells of God’s creation of the world and its creatures, with humankind as the last of his creatures: “Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam …” (Genesis 5:2). God blesses mankind, commands them to “be fruitful and multiply”, and gives them “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Genesis 1.26-27).
In Genesis 2, God forms “Adam”, this time meaning a single male human, out of “the dust of the ground” and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). God then places this first man in the Garden of Eden, telling him that “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
God notes that “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18) and brings the animals to Adam, who gives them their names, but among all the animals there was not found a companion for him (Genesis 2:20). God causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and forms a woman (Genesis 2:21-22), and Adam awakes and greets her as his helpmate.
Genesis 3, the story of the Fall: A serpent persuades the woman to disobey God’s command and eat of the tree of knowledge, which gives wisdom. Woman convinces Adam to do likewise, whereupon they become conscious of their nakedness, cover themselves, and hide from the sight of God.
God questions Adam, who blames the woman. God passes judgment, first upon the serpent, condemned to go on his belly, then the woman, condemned to pain in childbirth and subordination to her husband, and finally Adam, who is condemned to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death. God then expels the man and woman from the garden, lest they eat of the Tree of Life and become immortal.
The chiastic structure of the death oracle given to Adam in Genesis 3:19 forms a link between man’s creation from “dust” (Genesis 2:7) to the “return” of his beginnings.
Genesis 4 deals with the birth of Adam’s sons Cain and Abel and the story of the first murder, followed by the birth of a third son, Seth. Genesis 5, the Book of the Generations of Adam, lists the descendants of Adam from Seth to Noah with their ages at the birth of their first sons (except Adam himself, for whom his age at the birth of Seth, his third son, is given) and their ages at death (Adam lives 930 years). The chapter notes that Adam had other sons and daughters after Seth, but does not name them.
Tree of the knowledge
Various trees of life are recounted in folklore, culture and fiction, often relating to immortality or fertility. They had their origin in religious symbolism. The tree of life is a widespread myth (mytheme) or archetype in the world’s mythologies, related to the concept of sacred tree more generally, and hence in religious and philosophical tradition.
In the Avestan literature and Iranian mythology, there are several sacred vegetal icons related to life, eternality and cure, like: Amesha Spenta Amordad (guardian of plants, goddess of trees and immortality), Gaokerena (or white Haoma, a tree that its vivacity would certify continuance of life in universe), Bas tokhmak (a tree with remedial attribute, retentive of all herbal seeds, and destroyer of sorrow), Mashyа and Mashyane (parents of the human race in Iranian myths), Barsom (copped offshoots of pomegranate, gaz or Haoma that Zoroastrians use in their rituals), Haoma (a plant, unknown today, that was source of sacred potable), etc.
Gaokerena is a large, sacred Haoma planted by Ahura Mazda. Ahriman (Ahreman, Angremainyu) created a frog to invade the tree and destroy it, aiming to prevent all trees from growing on the earth. As a reaction, Ahura Mazda created two kar fish staring at the frog to guard the tree. The two fish are always staring at the frog and stay ready to react to it. Because Ahriman is responsible for all evil including death, while Ahura Mazda is responsible for all good (including life).
Haoma is another sacred plant due to the drink made from it. The preparation of the drink from the plant by pounding and the drinking of it are central features of Zoroastrian ritual. Haoma also personified Frick Gilliam as a divinity. It bestows essential vital qualities—health, fertility, husbands for maidens, even immortality.
The source of the earthly haoma plant is a shining white tree that grows on a paradisiacal mountain. Sprigs of this white haoma were brought to earth by divine birds. The tree is considerably diverse. Haoma is the Avestan form of the Sanskrit soma. The near identity of the two in ritual significance is considered by scholars to point to a salient feature of an Indo-Iranian religion antedating Zoroastrianism.
Another related issue in ancient mythology of Iran is the myth of Mashyа and Mashyane, two trees who were the ancestors of all living beings. This myth can be considered as a prototype for the creation myth where living beings are created by Gods (who have a human form).
The Assyrian tree of life was represented by a series of nodes and criss-crossing lines. It was apparently an important religious symbol, often attended to in Assyrian palace reliefs by human or eagle-headed winged genies, or the King, and blessed or fertilized with bucket and cone.
Assyriologists have not reached consensus as to the meaning of this symbol. The name “Tree of Life” has been attributed to it by modern scholarship; it is not used in the Assyrian sources. In fact, no textual evidence pertaining to the symbol is known to exist.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a similar quest for immortality. In Mesopotamian mythology, Etana searches for a ‘plant of birth’ to provide him with a son. This has a solid provenance of antiquity, being found in cylinder seals from Akkad (2390–2249 BCE).
In ancient Urartu, the tree of life was a religious symbol and was drawn on walls of fortresses and carved on the armor of warriors. The branches of the tree were equally divided on the right and left sides of the stem, with each branch having one leaf, and one leaf on the apex of the tree. Servants stood on each side of the tree with one of their hands up as if they are taking care of the tree.
The tree of knowledge
The tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation, are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, and are portrayed in various religions and philosophies as the same tree.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one of two specific trees in the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2–3, along with the tree of life. Genesis 2 narrates that God places the first man and woman in a garden with trees of whose fruits they may eat, but forbids them to eat from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” When, in Genesis 3, a serpent persuades the woman to eat from its forbidden fruit and she also lets the man taste it, God expels them from the garden and thereby from eternal life.
The phrase in Hebrew: tov wa-raʿ, literally translates as good and evil. This may be an example of the type of figure of speech known as merism, a literary device that pairs opposite terms together in order to create a general meaning, so that the phrase “good and evil” would simply imply “everything.”
This is seen in the Egyptian expression evil-good, which is normally employed to mean “everything.” In Greek literature, Homer also uses the device when he lets Telemachus say, “I know all things, the good and the evil” (Od.20:309-10).
However, if tree of the knowledge of good and evil is to be understood to mean a tree whose fruit imparts knowledge of everything, this phrase does not necessarily denote a moral concept. This view is held by several scholars.
Given the context of disobedience to God, other interpretations of the implications of this phrase also demand consideration. Robert Alter emphasizes the point that when God forbids the man to eat from that particular tree, he says that if he does so, he is “doomed to die.” The Hebrew behind this is in a form regularly used in the Hebrew Bible for issuing death sentences.
A cylinder seal, known as the Adam and Eve cylinder 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.
The British Museum disputes this interpretation and holds that it is a common image from the period depicting a male deity being worshipped by a woman, with no reason to connect the scene with the Book of Genesis.
In Jewish tradition, the Tree of Knowledge and the eating of its fruit represents the beginning of the mixture of good and evil together. Before that time, the two were separate, and evil had only a nebulous existence in potential.
While free choice did exist before eating the fruit, evil existed as an entity separate from the human psyche, and it was not in human nature to desire it. Eating and internalizing the forbidden fruit changed this and thus was born the yeitzer hara, the Evil Inclination.
In Rashi’s notes on Genesis 3:3, the first sin came about because Eve added an additional clause to the Divine command: Neither shall you touch it. By saying this, Eve added to YHWH’s command and thereby came to detract from it, as it is written: Do not add to His Words (Proverbs 30:6).
In Kabbalah, the sin of the Tree of Knowledge (called Cheit Eitz HaDa’at) brought about the great task of beirurim, sifting through the mixture of good and evil in the world to extract and liberate the sparks of holiness trapped therein.
Since evil has no independent existence, it depends on holiness to draw down the Divine life-force, on whose “leftovers” it then feeds and derives existence. Once evil is separated from holiness through beirurim, its source of life is cut off, causing the evil to disappear.
This is accomplished through observance of the 613 commandments in the Torah, which deal primarily with physical objects wherein good and evil are mixed together. Thus, the task of beirurim rectifies the sin of the Tree and draws the Shechinah back down to earth, where the sin of the Tree had caused Her to depart.
In Christian tradition, consuming the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the sin committed by Adam and Eve that led to the fall of man in Genesis 3. In Catholicism, Augustine of Hippo taught that the tree should be understood both symbolically and as a real tree – similarly to Jerusalem being both a real city and a figure of Heavenly Jerusalem.
Augustine underlined that the fruits of that tree were not evil by themselves, because everything that God created was good (Gen 1:12). It was disobedience of Adam and Eve, who had been told by God not to eat of the tree (Gen 2:17), that caused disorder in the creation, thus humanity inherited sin and guilt from Adam and Eve’s sin.
In Western Christian art, the fruit of the tree is commonly depicted as the apple, which originated in central Asia. This depiction may have originated as a Latin pun: by eating the mālum (apple), Eve contracted malum (evil).
The Quran never refers to the tree as the “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil” but rather typically refers to it as “the tree” or (in the words of Iblis) as the “tree of immortality.” The tree in Quran is used as an example for a concept, idea, way of life or code of life. A good concept/idea is represented as a good tree and a bad idea/concept is represented as a bad tree.
Muslims believe that when God created Adam and Eve, he told them that they could enjoy everything in the Garden except this tree(idea, concept, way of life), and so, Satan appeared to them and told them that the only reason God forbade them to eat from that tree is that they would become Angels or they start using the idea/concept of Ownership in conjunction with inheritance generations after generations which Iblis convinced Adam to accept.
When they ate from this tree their nakedness appeared to them and they began to sew together, for their covering, leaves from the Garden. The Arabic word used is ورق which also means currency/notes. Which means they started to use currency due to ownership.
As Allah already mentioned that everything in Heaven is free(so eat from where you desire) so using currency to uphold the idea of ownership became the reason for the slip. The Quran mentions the sin as being a ‘slip’, and after this ‘slip’ they were sent to the destination they were intended to be on – Earth.
Consequently, they repented to God and asked for his forgiveness and were forgiven. It was decided that those who obey God and follow his path shall be rewarded with everlasting life in Jannah, and those who disobey God and stray away from his path shall be punished in Jahannam.
God in Quran (Al-A’raf 27) states: “[O] Children of Adam! Let not Satan tempt you as he brought your parents out of the Garden, stripping them of their garments to show them their shameful parts. Surely he [Satan] sees you, he and his tribe, from where you see them not. We have made the Satans the friends of those who do not believe.”
Adapa
Adapa was a Mesopotamian mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality. Adapa was a mortal man, a sage or priest of the temple of Ea in the city of Eridu. Ea (sometimes considered his father) had given Adapa the gift of great wisdom but not eternal life.
The story, commonly known as “Adapa and the South Wind”, is known from fragmentary tablets from Tell el-Amarna in Egypt (around 14th century BC) and from finds from the Library of Ashurbanipal, Assyria (around 7th century BC).
While carrying out his duties, he was fishing the Persian Gulf. The sea became rough by the strong wind, and his boat was capsized. Angry, Adapa “broke the wings of the south wind” preventing it from blowing for seven days.
The god Anu called Adapa to account for his action, but Ea aided him by instructing Adapa to gain the sympathy of Tammuz and Gishzida, who guard the gates of heaven and not to eat or drink there, as such food might kill him. When offered garments and oil, he should put the clothes on and anoint himself.
Adapa puts on mourning garments, tells Tammuz and Gishzida to be in mourning because they have disappeared from the land. Adapa is then offered the “food of life” and “water of life” but will not eat or drink. Then garments and oil are offered, and he does what he had been told. He is brought before Anu, who asks why he will not eat or drink. Adapa replies that Ea told him not to.
Anu laughs at Ea’s actions, and passes judgment on Adapa by asking rhetorically, “What ill has he [Adapa] brought on mankind?” He adds that men will suffer disease as a consequence, which Ninkarrak (Nintinugga) may allay. Adapa is then sent back down to earth. The ending of the text is missing.
When the story of Adapa was first rediscovered some scholars saw a resemblance with the story of the biblical Adam, such as Albert Tobias Clay. Later scholars such as Alexander Heidel (“The Adapa legend and the Biblical story (of Adam) are fundamentally as far apart as antipodes”) rejected this connection.
However, potential connections are still (1981) considered worthy of analysis. Possible parallels and connections include similarity in names, including the possible connection of both the same word root; both myths include a test involving the eating of purportedly deadly food; and both are summoned before god to answer for their transgressions.
Adapa was an important figure in Mesopotamian religion. His name would be used to invoke power in exorcism rituals. He also became an archetype for a wise ruler. In that context, his name would be invoked to evoke favorable comparisons.
Some scholars conflate Adapa and the Apkallu known as Uanna. Apkallu (Akkadian) and Abgal (Sumerian) are terms found in cuneiform inscriptions that in general mean either “wise” or “sage.” There is some evidence for that connection, but the name “adapa” may have also been used as an epithet, meaning “wise”.
In several contexts the Apkallu are seven demi-gods, sometimes described as part man and part fish, associated with human wisdom; these creatures are often referred to in scholarly literature as the Seven Sages. The terms Apkallu (as well as Abgal) is also used as an epithet for kings and gods as a mark of wisdom or knowledge.
A further use of the term Apkallu is when referring to figurines used in apotropaic rituals; these figurines include fish-man hybrids representing the seven sages, but also include bird-headed and other figures.
Caduceus
The caduceus (from Greek: kērū́keion “herald’s wand, or staff”) is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera.
It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography, it was often depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury, the messenger of the gods, guide of the dead, and protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars, and thieves.
Some accounts suggest that the oldest known imagery of the caduceus has its roots in a Mesopotamian origin with the Sumerian god Ningishzida; whose symbol, a staff with two snakes intertwined around it, dates back to 4000 BC to 3000 BC.
As a symbolic object, it represents Hermes (or the Roman Mercury), and by extension trades, occupations, or undertakings associated with the god. In later Antiquity, the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury.
Thus, through its use in astrology, alchemy, and astronomy it has come to denote the planet and elemental metal of the same name. It is said the wand would wake the sleeping and send the awake to sleep. If applied to the dying, their death was gentle; if applied to the dead, they returned to life.
By extension of its association with Mercury and Hermes, the caduceus is also a recognized symbol of commerce and negotiation, two realms in which balanced exchange and reciprocity are recognized as ideals.
This association is ancient, and consistent from the Classical period to modern times. The caduceus is also used as a symbol representing printing, again by extension of the attributes of Mercury (in this case associated with writing and eloquence).
The caduceus is often incorrectly used as a symbol of healthcare organizations and medical practice, particularly in the United States of America, due to confusion with the traditional medical symbol, the Rod of Asclepius, which has only one snake and is never depicted with wings.
Snake god
The behaviour of snakes and their facial features (e.g. the unblinking, lidless eyes) seemed to imply that they were intelligent, that they lived by reason and not instinct, and yet their thought-processes were as alien to humans as their ways of movement.
In most cultures snakes were symbolic and symbols of healing and transformation, but in some cultures snakes were fertility symbols, for example the Hopi people of North America performed an annual snake dance to celebrate the union of Snake Youth (a Sky spirit) and Snake Girl (an Underworld spirit) and to renew fertility of Nature.
During the dance, live snakes were handled and at the end of the dance the snakes were released into the fields to guarantee good crops. “The snake dance is a prayer to the spirits of the clouds, the thunder and the lightning, that the rain may fall on the growing crops..”
In other cultures snakes symbolised the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The Great Goddess often had snakes as her familiars—sometimes twining around her sacred staff, as in ancient Crete—and they were worshipped as guardians of her mysteries of birth and regeneration.
Ištaran (also Gusilim) was the local deity of the city of Der, a Sumerian city state positioned east of the Tigris on the border between Sumer and Elam. His cult flourished from the Early Dynastic III Period until the Middle Babylonian Period, after which his name is no longer attested in the personal names of individuals.
The beast and symbol of Ištaran, as frequently represented on kudurrus, is a snake (presumably representing Nirah, the snake god who acted as Ištaran’s minister). The consort of Ištaran was known simply as Šarrat-Deri: “the queen of Der”. As early as the Early Dynastic period, Ištaran was being called upon as a god who might abjudicate in an inter-city border dispute between Umma and Lagaš.
In Sumerian religion, Nirah is the sukkal, or personal attendant, of Ištaran, the local god of the Sumerian city-state of Der. He was identified with snakes and may appear in the form of a snake on kudurrus (boundary stones).
Representations of two intertwined serpents are common in Sumerian art and Neo-Sumerian artwork and still appear sporadically on cylinder seals and amulets until as late as the thirteenth century BC. The horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) appears in Kassite and Neo-Assyrian kudurrus and is invoked in Assyrian texts as a magical protective entity.
A dragon-like creature with horns, the body and neck of a snake, the forelegs of a lion, and the hind-legs of a bird appears in Mesopotamian art from the Akkadian Period until the Hellenistic Period (323 BC–31 BC). This creature, known in Akkadian as the mušḫuššu, meaning “furious serpent”, was used as a symbol for particular deities and also as a general protective emblem.
It seems to have originally been the attendant of the Underworld god Ninazu, but later became the attendant to the Hurrian storm-god Tishpak, as well as, later, Ninazu’s son Ningishzida, the Babylonian national god Marduk, the scribal god Nabu, and the Assyrian national god Ashur.
Ningishzida (sum: dnin-g̃iš-zid-da) is a Mesopotamian deity of vegetation and the underworld. Thorkild Jacobsen translates Ningishzida as Sumerian for “lord of the good tree”. 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.
In Mesopotamian mythology Ningishzida, is sometimes depicted as a serpent with horns. In other depictions, he is shown as human but is accompanied by bashmu, horned serpents. Ningishzida shares the epithet ushumgal, “great serpent”, with several other Mesopotamian gods.
The ram-horned serpent is a well-attested cult image of north-west Europe before and during the Roman period. It appears three times on the Gundestrup cauldron, and in Romano-Celtic Gaul was closely associated with the horned or antlered god Cernunnos, in whose company it is regularly depicted.
A bronze image at Étang-sur-Arroux and a stone sculpture at Sommerécourt depict Cernunnos’ body encircled by two horned snakes that feed from bowls of fruit and corn-mash in the god’s lap. Also at Sommerécourt is a sculpture of a goddess holding a cornucopia and a pomegranate, with a horned serpent eating from a bowl of food. According to Miranda Green, the snakes reflect the peaceful nature of the god, associated with nature and fruitfulness, and perhaps accentuate his association with regeneration.
At Yzeures-sur-Creuse a carved youth has a ram-horned snake twined around his legs, with its head at his stomach. At Cirencester, Gloucestershire, Cernunnos’ legs are two snakes which rear up on each side of his head and are eating fruit or corn.
Other deities occasionally accompanied by ram-horned serpents include “Celtic Mars” and “Celtic Mercury”. The horned snake, and also conventional snakes, appear together with the solar wheel, apparently as attributes of the sun or sky god.
Enki
On the Adda Seal, Enki is depicted with two streams of water flowing into each of his shoulders: one the Tigris, the other the Euphrates. Alongside him are two trees, symbolizing the male and female aspects of nature. He is shown wearing a flounced skirt and a cone-shaped hat. An eagle descends from above to land upon his outstretched right arm. This portrayal reflects Enki’s role as the god of water, life, and replenishment.
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.
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. 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'”.
In the Garden of Paradise
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.
Enki heard the cries of its goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-god Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun. Dilmun was identified with Bahrain, whose name in Arabic means “two seas”, where the fresh waters of the Arabian aquifer mingle with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf.
This mingling of waters was known in Sumerian as Nammu, and was identified as the mother of Enki. 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. With his two-faced servant and steward Isimud, “Enki, in the swampland, in the swampland lies stretched out, ‘What is this (plant), what is this (plant).’
His messenger Isimud, answers him; ‘My king, this is the tree-plant’, he says to him. He cuts it off for him and he (Enki) 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; chagrined they “sit in the dust”. As Enki lacks a birth canal through 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, 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, the title of Ninhursag, also means “the mother of all living”, and was a title later given to the 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.