[.. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands..]
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Eridu (present day Abu Shahrein, Iraq) was considered the first city in the world by the ancient Sumerians and, certainly, is among the most ancient of ruins. Founded in circa 5400 BCE, Eridu was thought to have been created by the gods and was home to the great water god Enki (who, later, would develop from a local god to merge with deities such as Anu and Enlil as Lord of the Universe, and was associated with Ea, god of wisdom). The Sumerian King List cites Eridu as the “city of the first kings”, stating, “After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu” and the city was looked back upon by the variouis tribes and city-states of Mesopotamia as a metropolis of a 'golden age’ in the same way the writers of the biblical narratives created a 'Garden of Eden’ (most probably on the model of Eridu) as their mythical paradise from which humanity fell.
The city of Eridu features prominently in Sumerian mythology, not only as the first city and home of the gods, but as the locale to which the great goddess Innana traveled in order to receive the gifts of civilization which she then bestowed upon humanity from her home city of Uruk (considered by modern scholars to be the first city in the world). The Eridu Genesis (composed c. 2300 BCE) is the earliest description of the Great Flood, pre-dating the biblical book of Genesis, and is the tale of the good man Utnapishtim (also known as Atrahasis or Ziusudra) who builds a great boat by the will of the gods and gathers inside 'the seed of life'. The Eridu Genesis may have been the first written record of a long oral tradition of a time around 2800 BCE when the Euphrates rose high above her banks and flooded the region. Excavations at Ur by Leonard Wooley in 1922 CE revealed an eight-foot layer of silt and clay, consistent with the sediment of the Euphrates, which seemed to support the claim of a catastrophic flood in the area around 2800 BCE. Notes of the excavation taken by Wooley's assistant, Max Mallowan, however, showed the event was clearly a local, not a global, event.
A proto-Genesis tale of the Garden has been found at Eridu in which Tagtug the Weaver (or gardener) is cursed by the great god Enki
The story of Inanna (Ishtar in Akadian or Astarti in Greek) the Goddess of Wisdom, love, sex and war in which the goddess of Uruk takes away the sacred meh (gifts of civilization) from Enki, the god of Eridu, can be seen as an ancient story symbolizing this shift in the paradigm of Sumerian culture.
The city was an important center for trade as well as religion and, at its height, was a great 'melting pot’ of cultures and diversity, as evidenced in the various forms of artistry found among the ruins. Eridu was abandoned intermittently over the years for reasons which remain unclear and, finally, left behind completely sometime around the year 600 BCE. The great Ziggurat of Amar-Sin in the center of the city has been associated with the Biblical Tower of Babel from The Book of Genesis and the city itself with the Biblical city of Babel.
<< (the "sun" of Ishtar)
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Gilgamesh (Bilgamesh) was a King of Uruk, thought to have lived between 2800 and 2500 BCE in Mesopotamia. In a nutshell, the epic is about the fear of death; it examines our longing for immortality through a man’s heroic struggles, both for self-renown and to gain eternal life. It also examines the desperation ensuing when he realises the futility of his quest and that the only way to cheat death is to leave behind some sort of lasting achievement. The King has to face reality and, so to speak, grow up.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. Dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur, it is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about 'Bilgamesh' (Sumerian for 'Gilgamesh'), king of Uruk. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī ("Surpassing All Other Kings"). Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later "Standard" version dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru ("He who Saw the Deep", in modern terms: "He who Sees the Unknown"). Approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk.
After an initial fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain and defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances.
In the second half of the epic, distress about Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. He eventually learns that "Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands". However, because of his great building projects, his account of Siduri's advice, and what the immortal man Utnapishtim told him about the Great Flood, Gilgamesh's fame survived his death. His story has been translated into many languages, and in recent years has featured in works of popular fiction.
Interwoven into King Gilgamesh’s story, is the tale of the flood. Tradition tells us that the gods sought to destroy mankind by means of a great flood; the wisdom that Gilgamesh receives by meeting Uta-napishti (the biblical Noah), survivor of the flood, allows him to restore his land to its antediluvian splendour. The ancient city-state of Uruk, in Sumer, is the central setting of the epic. It is ruled by Kind Gilgamesh, semi-divine (his mother was the goddess Ninsun), but a mortal nonetheless. Men lived in cities and cultivated the land, using irrigation technology. Clear of civilisation was the ‘wild’ and beyond that, a sacred forest guarded by the fearsome ogre Humbaba. At the edge of the world, by the mountains where the sun rose and set, lived horrible sentries, half men and half scorpions. Finally, across the ocean, were the Waters of Death and beyond them was the island where Uta-napishti lived, spared by the gods and immortal.
Gilgamesh’s aspirations, grief and despair are universal and applicable to all ages of mankind. The story, mythical as you like in its events, still serves a purpose, that of explaining aspects of the natural and social world as seen at the time.
Gods were part of daily life, to the extent that there was no need for the use of the noun religion, or its adjective – it was simply life. Mesopotamian cultures believed that men were created to serve the gods, the original inhabitants of all the cities throughout the land. At first, gods had to take care of themselves (bless them). When it got too much, they mutinied. The god Ea then, had an idea (Science Fiction point coming up): he invented the technology to create man from raw clay, and then make it reproduce itself!
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The Eridu Genesis is written on a Sumerian cuneiform tablet of which about two thirds are now lost. The missing parts can be reconstructed from texts like the Sumerian King List and Berossus:
- the creation of men (now lost);
- their miserable condition;
- creation of kingship;
- the first cities;
- the kings who ruled before the Great Flood (lost)
- the supreme god Enlil's decision to destroy sinful humankind (lost);
- Ziusudra learns of the approaching calamity building of the Ark (lost);
- The Great Flood;
- Ziusudra's sacrifice;
- An offer of eternal life to Ziusudra.
He Creator Goddess thinks about humankind
Nintur was paying attention:
"Let me bethink myself of my humankind, all forgotten as they are;
and mindful of mine, Nintur's, creatures let me bring them back,
let me lead the people back from their trails.
Let they come and build cities and cult places,
that I may cool myself in their shade;
may they lay the bricks for the cult cities in pure spots,
and may they found places for divination in pure spots!"
She gave directions for purification, and cries for clemency,
the things that cool divine wrath,
perfected the divine service and the august offices,
said to the surrounding regions: "Let me institute peace there!"
When An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursaga
fashioned the dark-headed people,
they had made the small animals that came up from out of the earth
come from the earth in abundance and had let there be, as befits it,
gazelles, wild donkeys, and four-footed beasts in the desert.
[large part lost; perhaps a story of a failed attempt to build a city]
Creation of kingship
... "and let me have him advise;
let me have him oversee their labor,
and let him teach the nation to follow like unerringly like cattle!"
When the royal scepter was coming down from heaven,
the august crown and the royal throne being already down from heaven,
the king regularly performed to perfection
the august divine services and offices,
and laid the bricks of those cities in pure spots.
They were named by name and allotted half-bushel baskets.
The first cities
The firstling of the cities, Eridu, she gave to the leader Nudimmud,
the second, Bad-Tibira, she gave to the Prince and the Sacred One,
the third, Larak, she gave to Pahilsag,
the fourth, Sippar, she gave to the gallant Utu,
the fifth, Šuruppak, she gave to Ansud.
These cities, which had been named by names,
and had been alloted half-bushel baskets,
dredged the canals, which were blocked with purplish
wind-borne clay, and they carried water,
Their cleaning of the canals established abundant growth.
[Large part lost, in which the antediluvian kings must have been mentioned. Working in the canals and on the fields, they produced so much noise, that the supreme god Enlil persuaded the other gods to destroy humankind.]
That day, Nintur wept over her creatures
and holy Inanna was fill of grief over her people;
but Enki took counsel with his own heart.
An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursaga
had the gods of heaven and earth swear by the names of An and Enlil.
Ziusudra's Vision
At that time Ziusudra was king and lustration priest.
He fashioned, being a seer, [a statue of] the god of giddiness
and stood in awe beside it, wording his wishes humbly.
As he stood there regularly day after day
[90'] something that was not a dream was appearing: conversation,
a swearing of oaths by heaven and earth, a touching of throats,
and the gods bringing their thwarts up to Kiur.
Enki's advice
And as Ziusudra stood there beside it, he went on hearing:
"Step up to the wall to my left and listen!
Let me speak a word to you at the wall and may you grasp what I say,
may you heed my advice! By our hand a flood will sweep over
the cities of the half-bushel baskets, and the country;
the decision, that mankind is to be destroyed, has been made.
A verdict, a command of the assembly, can not be revoked,
[100'] no order of An and Enlil is known to have been countermanded,
their kingship, their term, has been uprooted; they must bethink themselves ...
Now ...
What I have to say to you ..."
[Lacuna; Enki orders Ziusudra to build the ark and load it with pairs of animals.]
The Flood
All the evil winds, all stormy winds gathered into
one and with them, them, the Flood was sweeping
over the cities of the half-bushel baskets,
for seven days and seven nights.
After the flood had swept over the country,
after the evil wind had tossed the big boat about on the great waters,
the sun came out spreading light over heaven and earth.
Ziusudra's sacrifice
Ziusudra then drilled an opening in the big boat
and the gallant Utu sent his light into the interior of the big boat.
Ziusudra, being the king,
stepped up before Utu kissing the ground before him.
The king was butchering oxen, was being lavish with the sheep,
barley cakes, crescents together with ...
... he was crumbling for him
...
juniper, the pure plant of the mountains he filled on the fire
and with a ... clasped to
the breast he ...
[Lacuna; Enlil is angry at finding survivors, but Enki explains himself]
End of Enki's speech
"You here have sworn by the life's breath of heaven,
the life's breath of earth that he verily is allied with you yourself;
you there, An and Enlil, have sworn by the life's breath of heaven,
the life's breath of earth, that he is allies with all of you.
He will disembark the small animals that come up from the earth!"
Reward of Ziusudra
Ziusudra, being king, stepped up before An and Enlil, kissing the ground,
and An and Enlil after honoring him
were granting life like a god's,
were making lasting breath of life, like a god's, descend into him.
That day they made Ziusudra, preserver, as king,
of the small animals and the seed of mankind,
live toward the east over the mountains of Dilmun.
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