Back to schedule
of class meetings:Back to schedule
of class meetings:
Caste, Contemplation & Writing in Ancient Mesopotamia
I. From Palaeolithic Shaman to Bronze Age Priest
A. Chronology: From Hunter Gatherers to Farmers to City-dwellers in Nation-states
B. Shaman: Characteristics (Eliade et al.) - Ambivalent relation to group
C. Neolithic revolution: cereal grass cultivation and civilization
D. The Goddess of Old Europe and her Year-god Consort vs. Mesopotamian Patriarchy
E. Cave Art, Symbols, Calendar Notation, Tokens and the Invention of Writing
F. Ziggurat and Hierarchy in Sumeria
II. The Epic of Gilgamesh
A. History of the Text/ On its translation/Outline of the story in Tablets I - XII
B. Who was Gilgamesh: Historical figure and legendary Hero/Characters in Epic/Pantheon
C. Shamanic Motif: Butterworth's interpretation of the encounter with Humbaba
D. Astronomical knowledge in the Epic: [the interpretation in Hamlet's Mill]
E. Recurrence of the Number Seven & the Seven Sages
F. Recurring references to bread, cakes, beer & wine -- grain
III. Babylonian Genesis: Enuma Elish
A. Babylonian Pantheon [in relation to Sumerian & Greek]
B. Political Nature of the Text/ Divine Kingship and Theocracy
C. Marduk vs. Tiamat
D. Biblical Parallels
E. Relation to Gilgamesh & Inanna
F. Ordering and Abstracting Process/Babylonian Astrology
IV. Bibliography
A. Primary Sources [in English]:
John Gardner and John Maier, Gilgamesh: translated from the Sîn-Leqi-Unninni Version, New York, Random House (Vintage), 1985.
Alexander Heidel, trans. & ed., The Babylonian Genesis, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1969.
The Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (Revised Standard Edition/College Edition), New York, Oxford University Press, 1965.
N.K. Sandars, trans. & intro., The Epic of Gilgamesh, Middlesex,England & New York, Penguin Books, 1984.
E.A. Speiser, "The Epic of Gilgamesh," pp. 40 - 75 and "Descent of Ishtar to the Nether World," pp. 80 - 85 in J.B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, Princeton, N.J., Princeton Univ. Press, 1955.
Diane Wolkstein & Samuel Noah Kramer, trans. & ed., Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, New York, Harper & Row, 1983.
B. Secondary Sources:
E.A.S. Butterworth, The Tree At the Navel of the Earth, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1970 (esp.Chapter VII: "The Symbols of Ecstasy in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Myths of Etana and the Indian Prince Jimutavahana," pp. 138 - 161).
Alan Dundes, ed., The Flood Myth, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1988.
Arden Eby, "The Origin and Development of Writing in Mesopotamia: An Economic Interpretation," @ Site Links Related to Mesopotamia or Language http://www.primenet.com/~seagoat/sumerian/sumlinks.htm.
Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structures of Alchemy, trans. S.Corrin, [esp. "Meteorites and Metallurgy, 19-26], Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1978.
____________, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History, trans. W.R.Trask, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1991.
____________, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. W.R.Trask, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press (Arkana), 1989.
Henri Frankfort, H.A. Frankfort, John A. Wilson, Thorkild Jacobsen & William A. Irwin, The Intellectual Adventures of Ancient Man, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Henri Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, London and New York, Penguin Books, 1977.
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: Part IV: Adonis, Attis, Osiris (Vol.I) & Part VII: Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild (Vol.I), London, Macmillan & Co.,Ltd., 1955, 1966.
Theodor H. Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East, New York, Harper & Row, 1966.
Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe 6500 - 3500 bc, London, Thames & Hudson, 1990.
______________, The Language of the Goddess, San Francisco, Harper Collins, 1989.
Robert Graves (with Raphael Patai), Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis, London, Arena Books, 1989.
Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948.
John Heise, The Akkadian Language @ http://saturn.sron.ruu.nl/%7Ejheise/akkadian/http://saturn.sron.ruu.nl/%7Ejheise/akkadian/
Richard Hooker, "Gilgamesh: Summary of the Epic" @World Cultures: http://www.wsu.edu:8001/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM
Edward Hyams, Dionysus: A Social History of the Wine Vine (esp. "Origins and Early Practice of Viticulture" & "The Drunken Gods," pp. 35 - 64.
Solomon H. Katz & Fritz Maytag, "Brewing an Ancient Beer," @ Site Links Related to Mesopotamia or Language http://www.primenet.com/~seagoat/sumerian/sumlinks.htm
Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986.
Sabatino Moscati, The Face of the Ancient Near East, Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Co. (Anchor Books), 1962.
Paul Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher (1927), New York, Dover Books, 1957.
_________, Primitive Religion (1937), New York, Dover Books,1957.
Giorgio de Santillana & Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill, esp. "The Adventure and the Quest," pp. 288 - 316 and "Gilgamesh and Prometheus," pp. 317 - 325, Boston, David R. Godine, 1969.
Leonard Schlain, "The Curse of Literacy," in Utne Reader, September - October, 1998, pp. 71 - 75.
Christopher Siren, "Sumerian Mythology FAQ," 1994 @Site Links Related to Mesopotamia or Language http://www.primenet.com/~seagoat/sumerian/sumlinks.htm
______________, "Assyro-Babylonian Mythology FAQ" website @http://pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/assyrbabyl-faq.html
Denise Schmandt-Besserat, "The Earliest Precursor of Writing," in The Scientific American, June 1978, vol. 238, No.6, pp.50 - 59.
Greg Wadley & Angus Martin, "The Origins of Agriculture: A Biological Perspective and a New Hypothesis," in Australian Biologist 6: 96: 105, June 1993 [also @ http://www.vegan-straight-edge.org.uk/GW_paper.htm].
Calvert Watkins, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Grains," in Indo-European Studies III, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977, pp. 468 - 498.
Andrew Webber, "Beer or Bread: Was Beer the First Great Cereal Food?", Religion 205: Archaeology and the Bible, @ Site Links Related to Mesopotamia or Language http://www.primenet.com/~seagoat/sumerian/sumlinks.htm.
Sir Leonard Woolley, Ur of the Chaldees, Hammondsworth/ Middlesex, England, Penguin Books, 1952.
V. Addendum: The Epic of Gilgamesh:
A. Gilgamesh's dream of the Meteor and the Coming of Enkidu:
Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible:
19: "It was inevitable that meteorites should inspire awe. They came from some remote region high up in the heavens and possessed a sacred quality enjoyed only by things celestial. In certain cultures there was a time when men thought the sky was made of stone, and even today the Australian aborigines believe the vault of heaven to be made of rock crystal and the throne of the heavenly deity of quartz."
19: Stones of light quote
20 - 21: Meteorites and thunderstones: "But the heavenly...union between heaven and earth."
21: Primitive people worked with meteoric iron...This was how the Greenland Eskimos made their knives out of meteoric iron."
22: "The peoples of the ancient Orient...a Caucasian origin."
B. Gilgamesh & Shamanism
E.A.S. Butterworth: The Tree At the Navel of the Earth
C. Babylonian Astrology:
Graves quote:
"When and where the Zodiac originated is not known, but it is believed to have gradually evolved in Babylonia from the twelve incieents in the life-story of the hero Gilgamesh --his killing of the Bull, his love-passage with the Virgin, his adventures with two Scorpion-men (the Scales later took the place of one of these) and the Deluge story (corresponding with the Water Carrier). Calendar tablets of the seventh century b.c. bear this out, but the Epic of Gilgamesh is not a really ancient one; Gilgamesh is thought to have been a Hyksos (Kassite) invader of Babylonia in the 18th century b.c. to whom the story of an earlier hero was transferred, a Tammuz of the familiar sort already connected with the Zodiac.
The original Zodiac, to judge from the out-of-date astronomical data quoted in a poem by Aratus, a Hellenistic Greek, was current in the late third millenium b.c. But it is likely to have been first fixed at a time when the Sun rose in the Twins at the Spring equinox -- the Shepherds' festival; in the Virgin who was generally identified with Ishtar, the Love-goddess, at the Summer solstice; in the Archer, identified with Nergal (Mars) and later with Cheiron the Centaur, at the Autumn equinox, the traditional season of the chase; in the resurrective Fish at the Winter solstice, the time of most rain....
The Zodiac signs were borrowed by the Egyptians at least as early as the sixteenth century b.c., with certain alterations---Scarab for Crab, Serpent for Scorpion, Mirror for He-goat, etc., but by that time the phenomenon known as the procession of the equinoxes had already spoilt the original story. About every 2000 years the Sun rises in an earlier sign; so in 3800 B.C. the Bull began to push the Twins out of the House of the Spring equinox, and initiated a period recalled by Virgil in his account of the Birth of Man:
The white bull with his gilded horns
Opens the year...
At the same time the tail of the Lion entered the Virgin's place at the Summer solstice--hence apparently the Goddess's subsequent title of 'Oura', the Lion's Tail -- and gradually the Lion's body followed, after which for a time she became leonine with a Virgin's head only. Similarly the Watercarrier succeeded the Fish at the Winter solstice---and proveided the water to float the Spirit of the Year's cradle ark.
About 1800 b.c. the Bull was itself pushed out of the Spring House by the Ram. This may account for the refurbishing of the Zodiac myth in honour of Gilgamesh, a shepherd king of this period; he was the Ram who destroyed the Bull. The Crab similarly succeeded the Lion at the Summer solstice; so the Love-goddess became a marine deity with temples by the sea-shore. The He-goat also succeeded the Water-carrier at the Winter solstice; so the Spirit of the New Year was born of a She-goat. The Egyptian Greeks then called the Ram the 'Golden Fleece' and recast the Zodiac story as the voyage of the Argonauts.
....At any rate, the archetype of Gilgamesh the Zodiac hero was 'Tammuz', a tree-cult hero of many changes; "