Download Humanities 1 “Why Ancient Mesopotamian Myth?” The importance

Humanities 1
“Why Ancient Mesopotamian Myth?”
The importance of Ancient Mesopotamia to understand our own present-day
civilization cannot be underestimated. It was Mesopotamia that was the home of
some of the world’s earliest cities and the place where writing was invented. For
these two major developments, namely to have originated a society both urban and
literate, Mesopotamia might be rightly called
“the cradle of civilization,” as
well as its literature, religious philosophy and art can be placed firmly as
direct ancestor to the Western world and the Judeo-Christian tradition in
special.
Indeed, it is possible to trace back to Mesopotamia pieces of wisdom found
later in Jewish, Phoenician, Egyptian (especially Alchemy) and even Greek
tradition, and these similarities, whenever they take place, will be highlighted
in the myths and essays that are studied in Humanities.
For example, Sargon, the Akkadian, the king who unified Sumer, has a
childhood in many aspects similar to Moses, the leader who conducted Israel out
of Egyptian slavery. Sargon was found in a reed basket flowing upon a river and
raised by a man of faith, probably a priest of Enki, the Sweet Waters Lord and
god of Magic and Wisdom, under the protection of the local high priestess of
Inanna, most certainly a royal princess herself. Adapa, the wise priest king,
much before Solomon of the Jews, preferred Wisdom to life-everlasting in the myth
that bears his name. In Enki and Ninhursag, we have the exact reversal of the
myth of the Genesis in the Old Testament Bible, and it is quite clear that the
Mesopotamian myth is wholer, much more fun and passionate, lacking the guilt that
is a trademark of its Jewish counterpart. The tale of the floods, of Sumerian
origin, predates other versions of the same phenomenon, which seemed to have
affected a large area of the Near East in ancient times. And, naturally, the most
romantic chapter of the Bible, the Song of Songs, a masterpiece of love poetry,
can have its origins traced back to the Bridal Songs and Courtly Love Poetry
which marked the Sumerian revival and glory of the Third Dynasty of Ur. In
Mesopotamian Courtly Love Poetry, the archetypal couple are Inanna/Ishtar, the
Goddess of Love and War, and her consort, Dumuzi/Tammuz, the priest-king and
shepherd of the land, who had his kingship conferred by the goddess represented
by her high priestess. Courtly love poetry is both earthly and spiritual, because
human partners represented their Divine Counterparts: love was seen as a
religious experience to be shared in all levels, by everyone in the land,
especially during the time of the Sacred Marriage Rite. Moreover, the
Mesopotamian formula for prayers and incantations normally contains the
expression "by the bond of heaven and earth" (or duranki), as well as "from the
Great Above to the Great Below" is another very common expression. We believe
this is the Mesopotamian way of saying "as above, so below", much before the
Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus in Egypt, Ki being the wondrous lapis, the
Earth Queen, Beloved of Anu and Mother of all Creation. These are only a few
examples of the importance of Mesopotamian mythology, which shaped up the psyche,
religion, culture and values of the peoples who had some contact with them.
In what follows, we will unearth passionate stories inscribed in clay with
the cuneiform system of writing invented by the ancient Mesopotamians, many dated
from pre-biblical times. The presentation and retelling of such great myths in
this work is intended to demonstrate the timelessness and profound wisdom for
present day generations embedded in such age-old stories.
Myths can be described as the narratives by which civilizations continually
struggle to make their experience intelligible to themselves by means of large,
evoking images that carry philosophical meaning to the facts of life, from the
mundane to the extraordinary. Fundamentally, myths show dramatic representations
of human aspirations and awareness of the universe. They also carry political and
moral values of the source culture, and at the same time provide the means for
interpreting individual and collective experiences within a universal
perspective. Furthermore, as the poet W.B. Yeats put so well:
‘”it is the charm of mythic narrative that it cannot tell one thing without
telling a hundred others. The symbols are an endlessly inter-marrying family.
They give life to what, stated in general terms, appears only a cold truism, by
hinting how the apparent simplicity of the statement is due to an artificial
isolation of a fragment, which, in its natural place, is connected with all the
infinity of truths by living fibers.”
In perfect harmony with Yeat’s quotation introduced above, it is the purpose
of this study to cover three aspects that make myths worth telling through the
ages. These are the following:
1) to present the chosen myths in a loose chronological sequence, as far as
present day sources allow, through the lineage and ancestry of gods and
goddesses, and mortal men and women who interacted with them.
2) to establish the possible links with developments of the Ancient Near
East history and politics
3) to show the joy, passion and values embedded in such narratives that
reveal themselves as amazingly valid for our present-day generations.