SUMERIAN MYTHS (Part 2)

 

• The myth of Dumuzi and Inanna :

This is the myth where Inanna descends into the underworld (where the dead are). The myth was in fragmentary form then. But it is known now as the myth of 'Dumuzi and Inanna' in its complete form. Dumuzi is the Sumerian form of the more familiar name Tammuz,  and Inanna is the Sumerian equivalent of semitic Ishtar. So, Ishtar is Inanna, the queen of heaven, (in other words she is the queen of the sky). As you know there are vegetation gods. These gods have their roots in the winter-spring cycle of the vegetation. They die in autumn-winter and rise in the spring. Dumuzi is one of them.  He goes down or is taken down by demons to the nether-world, and Inanna resorts to schemes of her own invention to bring him up to the world-of-the-living again. This is clearly a ritual myth. With the Semitic (Akkadian) rule in the country all the names of the gods were changed to Akkadian. Dumuzi became Tammuz, Inanna became Ishtar. In the liturgies Tammuz and Ishtar are frequently represented as the figure of the male and female fir tree. But fir trees do not belong to the Tigris-Euphrates delta, on the contrary they are found in the mountainous region from which the Sumerians came. Evidence shows that Sumerians and Semites were occupying the delta for a long time before the Amorite invasion, and until  the final subjugation of the Sumerians by the Semites. Semites took over from the Sumerians their cuneiform script, much of their religion and myths. Of course Semites have introduced their motifs and understanding to the myths, which may have led to the changes we see in the Tammuz-Ishtar myth of the Assyro-Babylonian period.

• The myth of Creation :

This is the second basic myth. As far as the ancient myths of creation are concerned we do not find the concept of ex nihilo creation. All of these ancient myths have a theme of bringing order out of an original state of chaos. The Assyro-Babylonian myth of creation is in the form of the well known Epic of Creation - Enuma Elish. There is nothing corresponding to this in the Sumerian material. Sumerian cosmogony has to be pieced together from various myths of origin partly because many of the tablets upon which the myths have been preserved are broken and incomplete. So we are in an uncomfortable situation of piecing together a coherent account of Sumerian mythology. To make a difficult task a bit easier we will look into this story of creation under three headings:

a. The Origin of the Universe : The goddess Nammu ('Primeval Ocean' - Sumerian 'Mother of the Gods') whose name is written with the ideogram for 'sea', is the 'mother who gave birth to heaven and earth.' From other material which are also recorded on clay tablets we learn that heaven and earth were originally a mountain. Earth was the base and summit was the heaven. Personification of heaven was the god An, and goddess Ki was the personification of earth. Their union produced the air-god Enlil. Then Enlil had An-Ki (the heaven-earth mountian) separated. This way Universe came into being with heaven, earth and air in between.  Here we have no explanation for the primeval sea, which existed before creation (An identical concept appears in Kuran where it is said that there was only water before creation). This endless primeval ocean was called the Goddess Nammu. Nammu produced a mountain out of water. Her son, God of Air separated this mountain in two. The top became the sky and An (God of Sky and Wisdom) got it. The lower part became the earth, and Nammu and Enlil together took it. An and Enlil furnished the earth with trees and waters. They created animals and brought into being the gods who will be in charge of all that.   The Old Testament in Genesis, has the same primeval ocean, separation of earth and sky, creation of land, furnishing the land with trees, and Kuran in 21:30 asks: 'Don't they know that sky and earth was one and we separated it?' Sumerian and Old Testament stories are very close. Kuran is superficial and undetailed on this subject.

It is written in the Old Testament that creation happened 6000 years ago. Christianity accepts this period. Kuran does not have this kind of a time scale but according to the  Islamic belief creation has happened 5000 years ago. According to the Sumerian list of kings it has happened 241,200 years ago; to the Chinese 49,000 years ago; to the Egyptians 13,000 years ago; to Herodotus 17,000 years ago. None of these periods are in harmony with the evidence and dates shown by the scientific studies in our age. (One has to think and think hard. What is the reason behind these differences between the numbers. If the creator is one, who created everything, then why these believers, who are all 'lowly' humans and 'creatures of the god' don't have a single time span for the creation? If the codebooks are given by this sole creator why didn't he get these 'lowly' humans write the same period for creation? On the other hand science has a specific proposition: For the time being it is between 12 and 16 billion years, and with every discovery this number changes, as it should be.

• So whose mathematics is right?

• This sole creator purportedly has given mankind an intellect. Wouldn't it be wrong for man to believe in what is written by other man in these books, without any question?

• If your response is 'no' then which time scale is the right one?

• Wouldn't this 'no-questions' attitude constitute a rejection of intellect itself which is supposed to have been  given by the 'sole creator' to provide us with a tool to separate the right from wrong?

b. The Organization of the Universe : A number of myths deal with this subject. One of them is the birth of Moon-god, Nanna, or Sin: Enlil the high god of the Sumerian pantheon fell in love with the goddess Ninlil (A Sumerian Goddess) and raped her. For this act Enlil was banished to the underworld, but Ninlil, who was pregnant, refused to be left behind and insisted on following Enlil to the nether-world. But if Ninlil's child was born while she was in the underworld, the child - the moon god - would have been born in the underworld instead of becoming a light of the sky. So Enlil devised a scheme by which Ninlil became the mother of the three deities of the nether world as substitutes for Nanna. Ninlil was set free and was able to ascend to heaven. Enlil becomes frequently the title of Tammuz in the Tammuz liturgies, and Ninlil is the designation of Ishtar. When Inanna descended into the nether-world there was no explanation. But now we have the reason for Ninlil's descent. So, Nanna/Sin was the chief astral deity. The Sun-god Utu was regarded as the offspring of Nanna and his consort Ningal (Wife of Nanna). Later on when the Hebrew cosmogony was invented, the Sun became the major luminary, the Moon became female, (As seen in the classical mythology). According to the Sumerians Nanna traversed the night sky in a quffah, the circular boat used in the navigation of the Euphrates (these boats are reportedly still in use there and called 'kufe'). But the Sumerians had had no explanation for the origin of stars and planets that accompanied Nanna.

Enlil separated the heaven from the earth. Heaven was illuminated by the Sun-god Utu, Moon-god Nanna, planets and the stars. Now it was time to bring order to the earth. Different elements of the terrestrial order are dealt with in various myths. For example the cities and temples of the gods are thought of as existing before the creation of man (Lu-dingir-ra's account, clearly shows us what they believed then).

" We need servants. Lets create them!". According to what the Sumerians  believed, creation of man was made possible in the end, as a result of the divine activities involved in the creation of the order of the Universe. Enlil is the ultimate source of vegetation, cattle, agricultural implements, and the arts of civilization. Enlil brings into being all these by creating lesser gods who carry out his instructions. To provide cattle and grain for the earth, Enki ( Ea in Babylonia - the god of wisdom) calls on Enlil to do something. Enlil in turn creates two minor deities, Lahar the Cattle God and Ashnan the Grain Goddess. They created an abundance on the earth. But they drank wine, got drunk, began to quarrel and neglected their duties.

Anunnakis still needed food and clothes. They had to find a solution - for their own sake! They found it. They created man, as a loyal servant, and according to the Sumerian myth titled Herd Animals and Grain, "...to look after their (gods') beautiful sheepfolds, life is blown into man"  (This expression, 'life is blown into man' is extremely important because it appears in the Old Testament and Kuran. In the Old Testament; Genesis 2:7 it is written: 'And the Lord God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul. In Kuran; 32:7,9 the story begins with 'He has started creating man with mud' and concludes, 'then gave it a form, and breathed his essence into it.' So now you know where this expression comes form: Sumer!). Furthermore the same myth describes how Enki, beginning with Sumer, journeyed through different parts of the world, 'fixing the destinies' (This is a Sumerian term which refers to the creative activity of the gods in bringing order to the universe. There is an object in the Babylonian myths which is called in Akkadian the 'tablet of destinies'. Possessing such a tablet was one of the attributes of deity. Myths tell us that these tablets were stolen or taken by force on several occasions. Because the god who possessed them had the power to control the order of the universe (here Jews and Muslims may detect the origin of their belief in the destiny-determining-attribute of their god). But let us go back to our story. Enki's itinerary began with Ur, Tigris and Euphrates rivers - which he filled with fish - and progressed with Meluhha (possibly Egypt or lands on the banks of the Gulf of Basra). He appointed over each of these a god or a goddess. He then went on to place the brick-god Kabta in charge of the pickaxe and the brick-mould. Enki laid foundations, built houses and put them under the charge of Mushdamma - the 'great builder of Enlil.' He filled the plain with vegetable and animal life, and placed Sumuqan - 'King of the mountain' in charge. Enki built stables and sheepfolds and placed them under the shepherd-god Dumuzi.

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At this point let us consult again the tablets written by our friend Lu-dingir-ra the Sumerian. Here it is:

• "..According to our belief, our gods have made ready these cities with roads and institutions in them. Then created us and said to us 'take your cities.' Between you and me, I don't really believe this. But I have no doubt that we are a chosen people by the gods. According to a saying coming from our forefathers we the Sumerians are the 'salt' of the earth. Why didn't they say 'taste' and 'salt' instead, I could not solve."

 

The Creation of Man: I have mentioned the myth of Lahar the Cattle God, and Ashnan the Grain Goddess which resulted in the creation of man. But this is not the only myth which resulted in the creation of mankind (Like we see in the Old Testament, man could be created in various ways under different conditions. Don't forget that since only the imagination of the mankind is involved there are lots and lots of possibilities!). Here I must point out that the Sumerian myth and and the Babylonian Epic of Creation differ considerably. But the object for which man was created is identical in both accounts: Yes! Just to serve the gods. In the Sumerian myth, the gods complain that they cannot get their food. And they appeal to Enki, as they usually do in times of need, who, unfortunately, is asleep. Nammu, the primeval ocean, the mother of the gods, wakes him up. Enki instructs Nammu and Ninmah (Sumerian 'Goddess of Birth').  According to Samuel Noah Kramer (Tablets of Sumer) Nammu and Ninmah, assisted by deities who are the 'good and princely fashioners', mixed clay which was 'over the abyss' and brought man into existence (you may find a possible echo of these 'fashioners' in the page on Zoroastrianism in the form of Amesha Spentas - 'Benevolent-Beneficient Immortals').

 

 WHO WERE THERE AT THE CREATION OF MAN?

In another story, this time Enki makes figures out of soft clay and addresses goddess Nammu: "O mother! the creature you are going to name has come into being/Give it the image (appearance) of gods/Mix the mud of the bottomless pit/Make his arms and legs/O mother! announce the newborn's destiny/That is man!' (As it is clear from this quotation, Sumerian gods have created man in their image. Which is the proof that Sumerians visualized their gods as human-like figures. This act of gods creating man in their image' appears in the Old Testament, Genesis 1:27. While this act of creating was in progress Goddess Nammu, the mother of all gods; Ki, the God of Earth; Goddess of Birth Ninmah; and the God of Wisdom Enki were together.

 

 PALAVER, PALAVER

This is not all! How about another creation story? Enki gives a banquet to the gods to celebrate the creation of man. Enki and Ninmah drink much wine, and become drunk. Ninmah takes some clay which is 'over the abyss,' creates six different kinds of human beings. Two of these are a barren woman and a eunuch. The same myth goes on to describe a further act of creation by Enki. Where he creates a human being who is weak in mind and body, then asks Ninmah to do something to improve this creature. But Ninmah was unable to cure the creature. (One of the words which denote man in Hebrew is enosh which means 'weak' or 'sick.' Those who are familiar with Hebrew poetry know that this aspect of humanity - weakness, and lowliness - is emphasised. This Sumerian myth may have been another source for the Hebrew presentation of man as a failure vis a vis the place the 'divine purpose' had intended for him). In Sumer there were four 'creator' gods in the creation of man, and in Islam four archangels help the supreme being in the creation of man. The parallels are interesting. Are they not?