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Adapa's Treatise
On Sumerian Religion
By Adapa
of the The Twin Rivers Rising
from
GatewayToBabylon Website
IN
PRIMEVAL DAYS...
Creation
mythology is generally divisible into two types: Cosmogony -
relating to the creation of the 'Cosmos', and Anthropogony -
relating to the creation of humanity. The distinction is
important because while specific texts exist relating to
Sumerian anthropogony, no direct texts exist relating to
Cosmogony. Rather, what we do know of their beliefs on the
matter must often be gleaned from wholly unrelated texts. Though
the cosmogonies presented in these texts are subject to some
variation, distinct patterns can be grasped which give important
insight into the Sumerian beliefs regarding the creation of the
cosmos. Two fairly dissimilar approaches can be seen in Sumerian
texts. The first, called the Eridu Model, relates to the beliefs
of those situated in the southern regions of the country. The
realm of the primal divine here is neither heaven, nor earth,
but water. This realm is defined by the term Engur. This term is
synonymous with Abzu, the "sweet waters of the deep," and is
defined as the subterranean source of the waters which emerge
from beneath the ground. This water was believed to be the
source of the fertile marshes which gave life to this region of
the country. The sign used for Engur can also be used for Nammu,
the Mother Goddess prevalent in early Mesopotamian theology.
Texts describe Engur/Nammu as 'the mother, first one, who gave
birth to the gods of the universe.' "She is a goddess without a
spouse, the self-procreating womb, the primal matter, the
inherently female and fertilizing waters of the abzu."{1} The
Northern Model substitutes the primacy of water with the duality
of earth and sky. "Heaven and Earth here are both regarded as
prima materia and generators of life; this is made explicit by
the fact that they are both equated with the symbol Engur"{2}
Sometimes one or the other is considered to have existed first.
In the god-list, for example, An is said to be born of Earth,
i.e. Uras (the masculine earth), and Ninuras (the feminine
earth). A genealogy of Enlil also describes the earth as having
appeared first, but focuses solely on its feminine, agricultural
aspect. The text concerning the origin of the "toothworm"
(thought to be the source of toothaches) lists the sky as being
first, "After Anu{3} had created heaven, heaven had created
earth, Earth had created rivers, rivers created canals, canals
created the marsh, the marsh created the worm."{4} The most
widely-accepted cosmology, however, is to be found in the text
"Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld", wherein we are told:
In primeval days, in distant primeval days, In primeval nights,
in far-off primeval nights, In primeval years, in distant
primeval years - In ancient days when everything vital had been
brought into existence, In ancient days when everything vital
had been nurtured, When bread had been tasted in the shrines of
the land, When bread had been baked in the ovens of the land -
When heaven had been moved away from earth, When earth had been
separated from heaven, When the name of man had been fixed -
When An had carried off heaven, When Enlil had carried off earth
{5}
Cosmic creation was thus born of the separation of the Primal
Unformed mass of Heaven/Earth. This mass, it appears, was given
birth to by Nammu/Engur. What we have no Sumerian source for,
unfortunately, is an explanation of how Nammu/Engur was
engendered, or whether on the contrary she was a preexistent
force. It may well be here that the Babylonian Creation myth was
seen as helpful by the semites, for there the 'Preexisting
Primordial Waters' are said to have first engendered Mummu (Nammu).
In a Tablet which lists the Sumerian Gods, Nammu is described as
"the mother who gave birth to heaven and earth."{6} Thereafter,
It was the Union of An with Ki, 'heaven' with 'earth', which
produced the 'great gods', the Annunaki, as we are told in the
"Myth of Cattle and Grain."{7} Enlil thus engendered, it was He
who separated the two cosmic forces, "The Lord, that which is
appropriate verily caused to appear, the lord whose decisions
are unalterable, Enlil who brings up the seed of the land from
the earth, took care to move away earth from heaven, took care
to move away heaven from earth."{8} This Heaven/Earth mass must
be viewed not as comprised of otherwise separable pieces, but as
being an Essential Unity which encompasses this duad, "For the
Mesopotamian, earth and the heavens above were not separate
domains but were two parts of the one realm. Earth and heaven
were complimentary, one depended upon the other and both were
equally important."{9} In this way, the initial creative force,
as viewed by the Sumerians, was very ³atomic² in nature:
creation issued forth from a perceived whole which,
nevertheless, was comprised of constituent forces; and it was
the separation of these forces - "splitting the atom", so the
speak - which fueled this creation. It is for this reason that
such attention is paid to this act of separation itself in the
creative scheme. This power, which the Ancient Sumerians saw as
inherent in this separation of united forces, would continue to
be important in the religious context; where incantations were
generally grounded in conjuration 'by Heaven and Earth'.
The creation and propagation of plant life thereafter was seen,
in contrast, to have resulted from the union, rather than the
separation, of the primal Earth and Sky; the same union which
had given birth to the Great Gods:
The Great Earth made herself glorious, her body flourished with
greenery. Wide Earth put on silver metal and lapis lazuli
ornaments, adorned herself with diorite, calcedony, carnelian,
and diamonds. Sky covered the pastures with irresistible sexual
attraction, presented himself in majesty, The pure young woman
showed herself to the pure Sky, the vast Sky copulated with the
wide Earth, the seed of the heroes Wood and Reed he ejaculated
into her womb, the Earth, the good cow, received the good seed
of Sky in her womb. The Earth, for the happy birth of the Plants
of Life, presented herself{10}
Thus we see how the creative energies have been transformed from
atomic (energy from seperation) to sexual (energy from union) as
the process of universal conception proceeded. Movement to this
form of sexual imagery would continue in Sumerian accounts of
the creation of man. The Etana myth gives us some insight into
the shape of this created universe. Therein, the hero Etana was
carried up into the heavens by his companion, the Eagle. Etana
was thereby able to describe the shape of the world from his
lofty perspective. This shape would resemble an overturned boat
adrift upon the sea.{11} The great mountain which constituted
the Earth was thought to be hemispherical in shape. This
hemisphere floated upon the earthly sea, resting above the Deep
Waters of the Apsu which supported it all. At some distance
above the Earth was stretched out the Heavens, which were in the
shape of a hemisphere, as well. Further:
Above the dome of Heaven was another mass of water, a heavenly
ocean, which the solid dome of Heaven supported and kept in its
place, so that it might not break through and flood the Earth.
On the under side of the dome the stars had their courses and
the Moon god his path. In the dome, moreover, were two gates,
one in the east and the other in the west, for the use of...the
Sun god {12}
Utu would thus step out upon the earth from the mountains of
sunset, located at the eastern edge of the Earthly hemisphere;
and step back down to the Great Below from the mountains of
sunset, located at the western edge. Located in this underworld
was the realm of the dead, Arallu. We know from the myth of
Inanna's Descent that this realm was girdled by 'seven walls
pierced by seven gates', the first gate being known as Ganzir.
At the center of these walls stood Egalkurzagin, the "lustrous
mountain palace" which housed the denizens of the Underworld.
Between the heavens and the Earth (though classified as a part
of the "Earth") was a region in which earthly atmospheric
activity took place. The foundation of the Heavens, though,
rested upon the extremities of the Earth.{13} Above this
foundation was the lower zone of Heaven, "Ul-gana", where the
periodical motions of the planets was thought to occur. Above
this region was the e-sara, where the fixed stars resided. The
heavenly firmament, in turn, supported the ocean of the
celestial waters, the Ziku.{14}
The source of a Sumerian Anthropogony is more direct than that
which we have for Cosmogony. It is to be found in the text known
as "The Birth of Man". The lesser gods, we are told, bore the
lot of hard labor to support themselves and the 'great gods'.
When the gods acted like men, they did the work and labored.
Their labor was enormous, the corvée too hard, the work too long
because the great Anunnaki made the Igiggi carry the workload
sevenfold{15}
But this life of toil soon brought dissension, and the lesser
gods threatened revolt. Namma (Nammu), mother of Enki, brings
word of this threat to her son. Enki resolves to create a
substitute for the gods' harsh labors. From Enki came forth the
Foetus of future mankind:
Enki, at his mother Namma's word, rose from his bed, in Halankug,
his room for pondering, he smote the thigh, the ingenious and
wise one, skillful custodian of heaven and earth, creator and
constructor of everything, had Imma-en and Imma-shar come out.
Enki reached out his arm towards them, and a foetus was getting
big there, and for Enki it was awakening to consciousness in the
heart{16}
Enki then calls on Namma (Nammu) to 'drench the core of the Apsu
clay' from whence the Gods were born. Therein Enki places the
Foetus, and thus in Namma was the Embryo of mankind brought to
fruition.{17} This legend is further elaborated on in the
Atrahasis myth. Here again, man's creation is again necessitated
by the toil's the gods are forced to endure. In response, Enki
is called on to bring man forth man with the help of Nintu (Mami).
Enki replies:
On the first, seventh and fifteenth of the month I shall make a
purification by washing.{18} Then one God should be slaughtered.
And the gods can be purified by immersion. Nintu shall mix the
clay with his flesh and blood. Then a god and a man will be
mixed together in clay. Let us hear the drumbeat forever after,
let a ghost come into existence from the God's flesh, let her
proclaim it as her living sign. Let her inform him while alive
of his token. And so that there be no forgetting, the ghost
shall remain{19}
This is one of the most amazing passages, in my mind, in
Sumerian literature. To even begin to pierce its depths is a
difficult task. I first make note of the "ghost" which is born
of Enki's ritual here described. Modern scholars generally hold
this term to be a play on words between etemmu, "ghost"; and
temu, "intelligence". This ignores the fact that "etemmu" is
also the term used to describe the disembodied spirit of a man
which survives after death: the Soul. Thus, it is important to
realize that from the body of the slain god a Soul itself was
engendered, not just some earthly creature born of transformed
apsu-clay. In addition, this Soul was to serve a greater purpose
than that elaborated in "The Birth of Man". While man was still
destined to fulfill the labors once required of the gods in
toiling upon the Earth, the Soul which was created was to serve
as the living sign of the slain god. So that this sacrifice was
never forgotten, the Soul would ever remain, "let us hear the
drumbeat forever after...". Thus man was created as both a
physical creature, born of the fertile clay of the apsu; and a
spiritual creature, endowed with the blood of the gods, and
granted an imperishable soul that he might ever serve as the
living sign of this sacrifice.
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LIFE,
DEATH AND THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE
Thorkild Jacobsen, in his seminal work, Treasures of Darkness,
characterizes Sumerian religion in terms of the concept of
"immanence". The abstraction of deity in early Sumeria, in other
words, was developed from primitive attempts at conceptualizing
the forces which comprised the natural world and the phenomena
therein. It is a naturally pantheistic mindset, subject to
plurality limited only by the extent of intelligible divisions
in nature itself. These early deities took forms which were
intrinsically tied to the phenomena they represented; hence
Ninurta, the ancient Sumerian thunder-god, was conceptualized as
a great winged lion, whose roars thundered across the lands in
times of storm.
As the society developed, these deities
gradually anthropomorphized; slowly taking human form, and
attendant human personas, "The gods were detached gradually
from the phenomena of nature and of culture to which they had
been tied and took a certain distance from them."{20} With these
broadened personalities came broadened roles, as the germ of the
numinal phenomena blossomed to cover a wide range of related
abstractions. Thus, as the concept of the deity Ninurta
progressed, for example, he came to be viewed as possessing a
human form; and his role broadened from that of a primitive
thunder god, to a God of war and of the spring storms which
brought fertility to the land. While society's views of the
divine and their roles in the cosmos were expanding, however,
the strong ties of these gods to the related numina of the deity
would remain a central feature of the Sumerian religion. The
central role of mankind in this cosmic scheme was service to the
gods.{21}
The theocentric liturgy, as we would call it, was entirely
identified with the "support of the gods," in other words with
the provision to these high personalities of all that was needed
or useful to lead an opulent and agreeable life entirely devoted
to the government of the universe, a life even better and more
blessed than that of the kings of the earth{22}
This service generally took two forms : provision and worship.
Mankind was charged with providing the daily necessities of the
gods; food, water, beer. Mankind was also bound to the worship
of the gods. This generally took the form of sacrificial
offerings (both in the form of animal sacrifice, and offerings
of incense and such), prayers and hymns, and prescribed cyclical
rituals. Central to both forms of service was the cult statue:
Fundamentally, the deity was considered present in its image if
it showed certain specific features and paraphernalia and was
cared for in the appropriate manner, both established and
sanctified by the tradition of the sanctuary. The god moved with
the image when the latter was carried off - expressing thus his
anger against his city or an entire country. Only on the
mythological level were the deities thought to reside in cosmic
localities{23}
The creation of these 'divine receptacles', as it were, was
painstaking. Careful attention was paid to the ritualistic
metamorphosis which would transform the lifeless statue into the
manifestation of the god it represented, "during these nocturnal
ceremonies they were endowed with 'life', their eyes and mouths
were 'opened' so that the images could see and eat, and they
were subject to the 'washing of the mouth,' a ritual thought to
impart special sanctity."{24} The latter ceremony, sacred to
Enki, was related to the sacred immersion in the blood of a
slain god which was said to purify the divine, "On the first,
seventh and fifteenth of the month I shall make a purification
by washing. Then one God should be slaughtered, and the gods can
be purified by immersion."{25} Central to the maintenance of the
divine figure were its daily meals. This generally consisted of
a morning meal, brought in when the temple opened for the day;
and an evening meal, served immediately before the closing of
the sanctuary doors. These meals appear to have been served in a
very precise manner, likely mirroring the custom of such meals
at the royal households:
First, a table was brought in and placed before the image, then
water for washing was offered in a bowl. A number of liquid and
semi liquid dishes in appropriate serving vessels were placed on
the table in a prescribed arrangement, and containers with
beverages were likewise set out. Next, specific cuts of meat
were served as a main dish. Finally, fruit was brought in in
what one of the texts takes the trouble to describe as a
beautiful arrangement, thus adding an esthetic touch comparable
to the Egyptian use of flowers on such occasions. Musicians
performed, and the cella was fumigated{26}...Eventually, the
table was cleared and removed and water in a bowl again offered
to the image for the cleansing of the fingers{27}
The food ritually partaken of by the deity was thereby thought
to be blessed by such divine contact. As the food was considered
capable of transferring this blessing to the person who was to
eat it, the food was sent on to the king. Similarly, the water
from the bowl which touched the images fingers was sprinkled
upon the king and the priests to confer blessings.
That man was mortal, this the ancient Sumerians knew. They
attempt to explain this mortal state in both the Atrahasis and
Adapa myths. However, that man's Soul was immortal, of this they
were equally certain.{28} The life led by these etemmu was,
however, not an enviable one. The voyage upon this new life
began at after the funerary rites, when the shade would begin
its journey to the netherworld through an aperture which would
open in the tomb allowing access to the Great Below.{29} If the
proper funerary rites were not offered; or even worse, if the
body was not buried; the Etemmu would remain upon the earth,
wandering aimlessly, forced to eat only the gutter scraps and
dirty water it might happen upon.{30} Those fortunate enough to
be buried properly did not fare much better for food, as is
attested by numerous myths, such as the Gilgamesh epic; "Earth
is their food, their nourishment clay; ghosts like birds flutter
their wings there, on the gate-posts the dust lies
undisturbed."{31} As a result, food and water funerary offerings
were of great importance, and as such were an important
obligation of surviving friends and family. Countless grave
sites uncovered in the region include ritual platforms and
containers in which food and water offerings were made,
apparently at prescribed times of the month or year. While such
offerings could make life in the underworld more bearable, in
the end the lot of those below was dreary and monotonous, and
surely to be avoided.{32} "The Sumerians had a very hazy idea
about any other life than this. For them there was no Hell, and
no Paradise; the spirit of man lived after death but at best in
a ghostly and a miserable world"{33} Such a view of the
afterlife would appear to foreclose the possibility of
reincarnation as a possible tenant of Sumerian Religion, and
indeed there is little or no explicit reference to this belief in
existing texts. This would indeed be ironic, however, given what
we know of the religion:
The belief in resurrection was so well suited to the
Mesopotamian view of life, that the wonder would be, not that
they should have conceived of it, but rather that they should
not. For to them, more than any other people of antiquity, this
belief lay ready to hand. They saw the sun rise and set from day
to day, and to them it was a mystery requiring explanation. They
pondered over it and found its place in their mythology and
religion. They saw the passage of the sun from the summer to the
winter solstice and back again, year after year; the cycle of
the moon's phases; and venus disappear as the evening star only
to reappear as the morning star. All these changes represented
to them the life and death of the gods, and their restoration to
life. It would be strange indeed if the Mesopotamians, with such
a lively conception of the return to life of the gods above
them, and the animals and plants below, never asked themselves,
"will not man too sometimes come forth from the underworld?{34}
The answer may simply be that they did believe in personal
reincarnation, despite the lack of explicit reference to such
belief. Indeed, in an obscure myth we are told, "After the
Watcher and the Turnkey have greeted a man, the Annunaki, the
Great Gods, assemble; Mammi, the one who fixes the fate, decides
the fates with them. They determine death and life, but the days
of death they do not fix."{35} Here, the gods determine not life
and death , but death and life, i.e that these gods determine
whether a man is to be restored to life after his days in the
underworld are at an end, though the number of these days they
do not determine.{36} Indeed, to speak of the 'days of death'
would seem to imply that they are not without end. Additionally,
we know from several myths of the existence of the Waters of
Life in the Underworld. In the Gilgamesh epic, for example, we
are told how Gilgamesh is brought to a source of water, and
there allowed to wash - returning to him the life he had lost in
his journey below:
Ur-Shanabi took him and brought him to a wash-bowl and he washed
in water his filthy hair, as clean as possible. He threw away
his skins, and the sea carried them off. His body was soaked
until it was fresh. He put a new headband on his head. He wore a
robe as a proud garment until he came to his city, until he
reached his journey's end. The garment would not discolor, and
stayed absolutely new{37}
But why were the waters of life located in the underworld if not
that they bore a direct relationship to it's denizens: the dead?
Accepting this, what other conclusion can be reached but that
the reincarnation of the dead was an actual principal of
Mesopotamian theology? Such an explanation sheds more light on
the Adapa myth. Here, Enki creates his chief priest Adapa, "He
(Ea) made broad understanding perfect in him, to disclose the
design of the land. To him he gave wisdom, but did not give
eternal life."{38} It is Adapa who tends the rites of Enki's
temple; who bakes the daily bread and gathers the fish to feed
the temple-priests. On one such journey upon the sea, seeking
fish, Adapa's boat is overturned by the South Wind. In his
anger, Adapa breaks the South Wind's wings. An, when he
discovers this, sends for Adapa to face his wrath. Enki teaches
Adapa how to avoid An's anger by enlisting the aid of Dumuzi and
Ningiszida, but he instructs Adapa not to eat the food they
offer for it is the bread of death, nor take the drink they
offer for it is the water of death. This Adapa does, "They
fetched him the bread of life, but he would not eat. They
fetched him the water of life, but he would not drink. They
fetched him a garment, and he put it on himself. They fetched
him oil, and he anointed himself. Anu watched him and laughed at
him. 'Come Adapa, why didn't you eat? Why didn't you drink?
Didn't you want to be immortal?"{39} Adapa explains that his
lord, Enki, has instructed him not to take the food or water,
and then takes his leave, "O Anu, I salute thee! The privilege
of godhead I must indeed forego, but never shall I forget the
honor that thou wouldst have conferred upon me. Ever in my heart
shall I keep the words though hast spoken, and the memory of thy
kindness shall I ever retain. Blame me not exceedingly, I pray
thee. My lord Ea awaiteth my return."{40} Scholars generally
explain Enki's denial of immortality to Adapa as being a prank:
Enki is known as the trickster, after all. This 'prank' is thus
supposed to serve as some type of cursory explanation for
mankind's mortality. But I find this explanation difficult to
accept. This is Enki's most trusted priest, his wisest son.
Playing a joke of this magnitude is out of character. It was
Enki, after all, who saved mankind from the flood in the
Atrahasis myth. Could he not have tricked Atrahasis (the
Sumerian Noah), and thus allowed humanity to die? Even in the
myth of Enki and Ninmah, when he creates a creature Ninmah
cannot control, after tricking her into accepting a bet from
him, he uses the opportunity to teach a lesson - that it takes
Both their efforts to craete a 'whole' being. Further, in that
myth, he takes due care to alleviate the destruction his prank
has wrought. To accept that Enki would not only trick Adapa, but
lie to him by claiming he would be offered the bread and water
of death, when he was to be offered the bread and water of Life
seems implausible. We must therefore take Enki at his word, and
assume that to eat the bread of immortal life is to eat the
bread of death; to drink the water of eternal life is to drink
the water of death. Indeed, Anu offers the bread and water of
life to Adapa only after he discovers the wisdom granted him
(and thus, to mankind) by Enki, "Why did Ea disclose to wretched
mankind the ways of heaven and earth, give them a heavy heart?
It was He who did it! What can we do for him?"{41} Enki, besides
being the trickster, is a god most cunning; and a god who has
gone to much pain and effort to serve and protect mankind. It is
hard to imagine that such an effort was made on behalf of
mankind to preserve for him a sentence of eternal ennui. No,
inherent in the Adapa myth is the belief that there is something
which awaits mankind for which death is a necessary step; and
that denying man 'immortality', the supposed god-like state, he
had preserved mankind's destiny. Death, then, is truly a
beginning in the eyes of the Sumerians; a beginning which the
gods themselves have preserved for us.
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THE SIGNS
OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
The Sumerians, like the Greeks, commenced the counting of each
day ("U-mu"), at sunset ("Kid-da-at u-mu"). Each day, then, was
reckoned as the period from sunset to sunset. The months ("Itu")
were begun in the period of the new moon ("Bu-ub-bu-lum",
literally the 'time of the ravishment of the moon'), literally
commencing at the time of the moons emergence in the heaven's
following it's disappearance at the new moon ("U-na-am",
literally the day of the moons renewal). At the end of each
month, the astrologers of ancient Mesopotamia would man the
parapets of their temples to watch for this 'first appearance',
and in this way they would note the beginning of each new
month.{42} These months were generally about 30 days long, with
the first quarter occurring on the 7th, and the full moon on the
15th. These days, together with the period of the new moon,
formed the sacred cycle of the month. The Sumerians celebrated
these aspects of the moon's phases on the first, seventh, and
fifteenth of each month. These three days formed the monthly "Essesu"
Festival. The importance of these scared days is articulated in
the Atrahasis myth, Tablet I, columns 204-207, as Enki sets
about the creation of man, "Enki opened his mouth and addressed
the great Gods, 'On the first, seventh, and fifteenth day of the
month I will make a purifying bath"{43} The necessity for
observation of these sacred days is reiterated in a number of
collected Mesopotamian letters which refer to the necessity of
'passing the first, seventh, and fifteenth as you have been
taught.' This observance, in the minimum, included a ritual
bath: a sacred immersion in the symbolic 'Waters of Life'.
The first month of the year, Barag-Zag-Gar, began in the period
of the first new moon following the barley harvest (our
March-April). The months would then proceed apace at 30 days
each, spanning 12 months. This wholly lunar cycle, however,
invariably left a gap within the Solar year to be filled. To
cure this problem, and be sure that the first month continued to
follow the barley harvest, the Sumerians placed an intervening
intercalary month known as Itu-diri BEFORE the twelfth month,
Itu-Se-Gur-Kud, the 'month of the harvesting of the barley.'
This intercalary month was used only when, upon examination of
the length of time remaining in the barley season, it was
determined that Barag-Zag-Gar would not fall directly after the
barley harvest. Under the Meton Cycle, such intercalary months
would be utilized at a frequency of roughly seven per nineteen
years.
In the same way they were able to unify their year with the
Circle of Life, so to did the Sumerians operate a system of
time-keeping quite literally within the confines of a circle.
Time was related to the degree of apparent motion of the sun,
Samas, as it traveled across the heavens each day. Each degree
of motion was calculated as 4 minutes, called one "Us." The
entire circle was said to comprise 12 'temporal hours', or "Beru,"
which were literally double-hours of 30 Us each (see Fig. 3).
The Sumerians had no concept of daylight savings, though they
were well aware of the variances in the length of daylight and
nighttime hours during the year. Thus, throughout the year the
Day was held to be composed of 6 Beru of daytime and 6 Beru of
nighttime, though the actual, or real hour, lengths varied. To
correct for these differences, adjustments to the real hours, as
opposed to temporal hours, were made. To this end, a series of
associations was expounded. For example, a temporal hour of
daylight plus a temporal hour of nighttime always equals 2 REAL
hours. Thus, a measurement of the length in real hours of either
daylight or nighttime will yield the solution to the length of
the inverse. In addition, there were specific relations observed
between and among the months of the year. Specifically, in the
month of the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, the length of daylight
and nighttime real hours was assumed equal. Conversely, in the
month of the Summer Solstice daylight was held to be twice the
length of nighttime real hours, and in the month of the Winter
Solstice, Nighttime was held to be twice the length of the
daylight real hours. In addition, the months preceding the
equinoxes were held to have the same ratio of daylight to
nighttime real hours as the month following the Equinoxes, and
the month preceding the solstices were similarly held to possess
the same ratio of daylight to nighttime real hours' ratio as the
month following the Solstices. With this complex system of
relations, the calculation of the length of real daylight and
nighttime hours was extremely simplified
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FOOTNOTES
{1} Gwendolyn
Leick, Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature, p.
13-14
{2} Id at 16
{3} the term "Anu" here should not be confused with the
deity An (or Anu). The term, rather, refers generically to
the heavens or 'sky', much the same way as Enki is used to
denote the deity of the earth in the Enlil genealogy though
this Enki is differentiated from the Deity "Enki".
{4} A. Heidel, A Babylonian Genesis, p. 51
{5} S.N. Kramer, From the Poetry of Sumer: Creation,
Glorification, Adoration, p. 23
{6} S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, p. 39
{7} Ibid
{8} Id at 40
{9} Michael Baigent, From The Omens of Babylon: Astrology
and Ancient Mesopotamia, p. 41
{10} J. Van Dijk, "The Birth of Wood and Reed", Acta
Orientaliia 28 I, p.45
{11} L.W. King, Babylonian Religion and Mythology, p.28
{12} Id at 31
{13} François Lenerment, Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, p. 153
{14} Ibid.
{15} Jean Bottéro, Mesopotamia: Witing, Reasoning, and The
Gods, p. 222
{16} T. Jacobsen, The Harps That Once...Sumerian poetry in
Translation, p. 155-156
{17} Id at p.156-157
{18} for an explanation of the significance of the 1st, 7th,
and 15th of the month, see the section entitled 'The Signs
of Heaven and Earth'
{19} Stephanie Dalley, Myths From Mesopotamia, p.15, note
however that I have altered the last three lines,
substituting the 1970 Moran translation , as I feel it
protects the integrity of the meaning of this portion of the
passage to a greater extent. {20} Jean Bottéro, Mesopotamia
: Writing, Reasoning, and The Gods, p. 217
{21} see preceding section
{22} Bottéro, Supra note 12, at 225
{23} Leo Oppenheim, Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead
Civilization, p. 184
{24} Id at 186
{25} Supra note 16; see also previous and proceeding
sections, generally
{26} this fumigation was not a religious act, but was done
to control the odors of the foods.
{27} Oppenhiem, Supra note 19, at 188
{28} see previous section
{29} Bottéro, Supra note 12, at 230
{30} A. Jeremias, The Babylonian Conception of Heaven and
Hell, p. 14-15
{31} Leonard Wooley, The Sumerians, p. 120
{32} Bottéro, Supra note 12, at 277
{33} Ibid.
{34} J. Morgenstern, "The Use of Water in The Asipu Ritual",
Volume I of The Doctrine of Sin in The Babylonian Religion,
p.32
{35} E. Schrader, "Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek", Vol. VI,
I, 228
{36} Ibid
{37} Stephanie Dalley, Myths From Mesopotamia, p. 118
{38} Id at 184
{39} Id at 187
{40} Lewis Spence, Myths and Legends of Babylonia and
Assyria, p. 120
{41} Dalley, Supra note 37
{42} M. Baigent, Supra note 9. p. 50
{43} Dalley, Supra note 13
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