The Shadow Side and Prospects for Return

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us4-he2-gal2
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The Shadow Side and Prospects for Return Dec 24, 2009 23:11:33 GMT -5

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Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Dec 24, 2009 23:11:33 GMT -5

Reviewing

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Scenes from the Shadow Side

(Frans Wiggermann - 1996)

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In Frans Wiggermann's article "Scenes from the Shadow Side" (Mesopotamian Poetic Language 1996), the author gives a broad discussion on the subject of Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography and the creatures thought to inhabit the fringes of the known world. Attempts to understand the edges of the world in a time before science and before reliable geographical information frequently resulted in notions of the world which were, in part, mythological. The Greek notion of cosmos is an example, on it's fringes were thought to be imprisoned Giants and Titans, among other things. Wiggermann will assert that this tension between empirical geography and mythology is well attested in ancient Mesopotamia as well.

At an earlier point our very astute and pedantic member, Madness, has reviewed parts of this same article - his aim was to elaborate on the concept of the four winds for us. For this excellent post please see the "Pentacle/Pentagram + Madness 4 winds" thread here, or the enenuru.net adaption located here. I gratefully draw from both these summations below, and intend present some additional insights from Wiggermann 1996 below.

Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography/

Wiggermann proceeds by identifying and explaining the principal pieces of archeology that assist the Assyriologist in understanding the Mesopotamian idea of cosmic geography - in particular, these are an assortment of tablets which sometimes contain not only cuneiform text but a drawing or map - these maps depict the notion of the world as it was in those times. The earliest of these maps is to be found on a ED IIIA tablet from Fara, which according to the author, "has on one side a copy of the best known list of professional names, and on the other a drawing that can hardly be anything other than a map of the world."

a) Map from ED Fara
CDLI entry here

(Madness:) "Drawn four times is the sign ašagx (GANA2) "field." In the centre the sign kur, of which Wiggermann says is "undoubtedly referring to the city of Nippur and the Ekur, "Mountain House", whence Enlil, surnamed the "Great Mountain" (dkur-gal), rules his human subjects. Four rivers are drawn, surrounding the world."

In addition, a tablet from about the same time from Abu Salabikh has a similar list of professions and what Wiggermann
believes to be a sort of abstract version of the cosmic map, pictured here:

b) Map from ED Abu Salabikh
[See See Inscriptions from Tell Abu Salabikh. OIP 99, p. 31 fig. 29]

This notion of cosmic geography that was similar to the Greek is therefore evidenced at quite early points in Mesopotamian history: the known world is surrounded by 4 rivers, the center of the world is the E-kur, Enlil's great mountain. However there is perhaps an even more impressive map specimen that survives from a Late Babylonian source - a well known tablet often called the Mappa Mundi (Map of the World).

c) Mappa Mundi - the late Babylonian map of the world

In this map, Wiggermann says, "the cosmic river surrounding the earth is called marratu, "ocean", and in the descriptive part of the obverse it is explained as Tâmtu, "Sea', the name of Marduk's arch-enemy in the Enūma Elish." In fact, the map more or less represents the way in which Marduk settled the bodies of his vanquished opponents here and there on the sea around the world - and so, as the author implied early on, the map thus demonstrates perfectly the tendency of ancient cosmology to resort to myth in dealing with the fringes of the world.

The Outer Regions and their Inhabitants/

From the 4th Millennium onward the Mesopotamians steadily (if slowly) gained knowledge about the world around them - this included both geographical insight, but also ethnological information (the knowledge of close and distant peoples necessarily for extensive trade). Wiggermann writes that the acquisition of this sort of information is observable in a wide variety of Mesopotamian literature, and as the Mappa Mundi indicates, results in a world view
which blends with mythology, theology, and impacts certainly on the Mesopotamian's own perspective of themselves. The author has charted the following contrastive elements which play a part "in the native definition of Mesopotamian civilization":

As we can see, the left column (Center / Mesopotamian) represents the ancients own notions about themselves, and what defined their society. The right column is what Wiggermann terms "the shadow side", all that the Mesopotamians considered 'other', the opposite in each case of what they saw as their society. Of course, we might deduce that while these things were contrastive, they had an important role in defining what was Mesopotamian, if only by being tangible examples of opposition. The right column is just as instructive as the left therefore.
The author continues explaining that the two spheres do not normally intermingle, but entities from the right column such as enemies, wild animals, spirits, demons or monsters, infringe on the civilized world - sometimes this is seen as a sign of divine displeasure with a king or inhabitants. There is no impassable boundary between the two spheres. The dead, indeed, "have no choice in the matter, but must travel westwards through the desert" says Wiggermann.
The subject of direction that the dead must travel is made complex by the fact that notions of the netherworld underwent significant changes from the original Sumerian netherworld located in the mountain land, and the Semitic concept which places it under the earth. About the former concept, the author says: "the most common term for the Other World is kur, "mountain land", which is in opposition to kalam, "our country". This kur is where the dead go, and where rebellious mountain gods, demons, and monsters are at home. Human enemies as well descend from the mountains, and sometimes they are so dreadful that they cannot be distinguished from demons... Both steppe and mountains harbor a host of wild animals which are hunted and killed by Mesopotamian rulers from the late Uruk period onwards; they were brought to the capital as spoils or tribute, and symbolically express the wide extent of just rule. Assyrian kings make statues of some of the more exotic animals, and stand them as guardians of their palaces as apotropaic monsters."

All that is from the perphery is stands in defiance of the gods - and in opposition to the Mesopotamian people therefore. Commenting again on the right hand column, the author states that the "properties of the elements in the right hand column of our scheme are more or less interchangeable; that the inimical fuses with the demonic, and the peripheral with death and the underworld, thus resulting in a more or less unified image of all that is evil and conspires against civilized life, i.e. zi-ša3-gal2. The geography involved is marked by an increasing loss of empirical content, until finally the Land of No Return is reached; this is the realm of the dead, whence no traveler can bring back reliable information."

Scenes from the Shadow Side/

While textual evidence can be hard to date, iconography, the author believes, provides a medium that is more easily datable. He turns next to Mesopotamian iconography which can be shown to represent scenes from the shadow side - imagery from the periphery of Mesopotamian life. After turning to a few early seals which contain beings from the peripheral (anzu birds, bison faced men, the bird man and so on - creatures which in one way or another are described by the right side column), the author turns unexpectedly to a very familiar item; and here he examines the animal inlay found on the Bull-headed Lyre of Ur, a now well known artifact from the Early Dynastic cemetery of Ur, grave number PG 789 -

Wiggermann describes the lowest register: "A scorpion man holding a dipper, a gazelle holding two beakers, and a large container with a dipper."

second lowest: a donkey/onager plays the lyre, sitting is a fawn/jerboa/jackel with a sistrum and a small drum, and behind is a dancing bear.

second from top: "a wolf? with butcher's knife holding a table with animal heads, and a lion with a large vessel and a lamp"

uppermost register: "the upper register contrasts with the three below it, and has a static scene: a hairy hero (lahmu) holding two Man-faced Bisons (alim)."

Wiggermann has previously explain that animals acting as humans (playing instruments, dancing) are acting abnormally, and belong to the mythical periphery - the Scorpion man, as in Gilgamesh, acts as a doorman to the underworld, the man-faced bisons appear often associated with Utu as they are from the mountains (the periphery) where the sun risings and sets.
The author now proposes what I think is a brilliant interpretation of this inlay scene - he recognizes that "what is being shown is clearly the preparation for a festive meal, the reception of a guest" (thus a refreshing drink in the lowest register, music in the next, and food in the third) , however, "the guest is conspicuously absent, or in other words, yet to arrive." Further, he observes that the inlay was fixed to a lyre with a bull shaped body "the same type of lyre played by the wild ass.. it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to conclude that with this self-reference the lyre reveals its purpose. It will serve at a banquet similar to the one depicted on the panel: a feast to be held on the Other Side. With this conclusion all elements fall into place; the expected guest is the person laid to rest in PG 789, and the lyre is among the gifts to the inhabitants of the Other Side, the world of the dead. The scenes on the panel reveal how the dead person and his contemporaries imagined their future as ghosts."

Last Edit: Dec 26, 2009 1:42:25 GMT -5 by us4-he2-gal2

Defying Sleep, which like a fog breaths upon him.

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The Shadow Side and Prospects for Return Dec 25, 2009 2:24:25 GMT -5

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Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Dec 25, 2009 2:24:25 GMT -5

More Detailed Notes on Kur and Kalam:

Above, Wiggermann had stated "the most common term for the Other World is kur, "mountain land", which is in opposition to kalam, "our country". I now refer to Katz 2003 (The Image of the Netherworld in Sumerian Sources), who is more specific in discussing these terms, and makes some fine points which should embellish our concepts of Sumerian Heartland and what can be termed the "Other World".

She notes that the term Kur became the most used word in denoting the Netherworld in Sumerian literature - and yet, the word has multiple meanings, it can mean as well "mountain" or "foreign country". As Katz states, the contrast between kalam and kur is both geo-physical and geo-political:

"The pair kur-kalam represent diametrically opposed concepts: in relation to kalam, the heartland of Sumer in the alluvial plain between the rivers, kur is the land that rises beyond its north and northeastern boundaries. Both kur and kalam have two meanings that are antithetically parallel to each other: from a geo-political viewpoint kalam is "the land" (our homeland Sumer) as oppose to kur "foreign land," and from a geo-physical viewpoint kalam is the level land (of Sumer) as opposed to kur the mountain area...In addition, the texts have positive connotations contrary to the inimical attitude toward kur."

Kur as in Netherworld/

The author speculates that it may have been this negative disposition toward the kur land that lead the word to take on the second connotation "hostile foreign land" or perhaps some combinations of factors (certainly hostile foreigners such as the Gutians invaded from this direction). How then did the word Kur come to have the connotation Netherworld in the early Sumerian literature? - Katz phrases this question more precisely as "how does the meaning "Netherworld" emerge from the Bipolar Concept of Kur-Kalam?". Her answer is that it is likely the original polarity between kur-kalam extended, in early Sumerian mythological reasoning, to a contrast between kalam as land of the living, and kur, as the land of the dead. If we don't know precisely why this was reasoned, we know that it in any case was, due to the survival of some early literature which portrays characters traveling across land to the mountainous Netherworld. Katz notes that this notion likely died out as early as the mid-third millennium when exploration and territorial expansion would have made a belief in kur as the netherworld unsustainable - although some vestages of this notion continued in the literature (always slow to change) new ideas of the netherworld as existing on a vertical axis (i.e. underground) emerged with the Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia.

The Term Arali and it's distinctive usage/

Katz also discusses the term Arali, which is another name for the Netherworld in Mesopotamian literature - although it occurs with less frequency then Kur. Originally, arali "designated a concrete geographical region. It was the name of the steppe between Badtibira and Uruk, where Dumuzi brought his flock to pasture and where he died." Katz writes that from the Old Babylonian period onward, the word Arali was, in accordance with the influence of the Dumuzi myth (specifically his death), reinterpreted as a sort of Netherworld place, no longer a concrete geographical location.
"In it's newly acquired meaning, arali was not characterized as grassland, but as the habitat of the dead and, in particular, of mythological creatures. With that meaning it appears in incantations and prayers." In fact, the author is able to observe that arali had a connotation quite particular to incantations - she notes that while kur may be featured as the word for netherworld, the one people go to, in the same text arali may also be employed but with a distinct semantic meaning - the place where ghosts rise out of. Somehow then, arali, devoid of any specific geographical sense and neutral in regards to location (underground or otherwise), becomes in the OB period the important term when refering to the place from which ghosts and evil spirits escape into the world of the living.

Last Edit: Dec 25, 2009 22:10:19 GMT -5 by us4-he2-gal2

Defying Sleep, which like a fog breaths upon him.

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The Shadow Side and Prospects for Return Dec 25, 2009 22:11:26 GMT -5

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Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Dec 25, 2009 22:11:26 GMT -5

***See the following post for qualifying comments***

- Resurrecting the Dead -

I've recently come across a nice discussion which focuses on the Resurrection of the Dead in Mesopotamia - I am choosing to take notes here as I'm interested in the authors view that this belief, a phenomena which has proved instructive to the whole of Western religion, is essentially Mesopotamian. By observing the Mesopotamian belief in detail, we see how their ideas became those of the Hebrews and the Christians to follow. Today, we know these notions mainly from popular entertainment and novels.

The author is Benjamin Studevent-Hickman, who according to his own short biography, is an ancient historian specializing in the study of ancient Mesopotamia; he currently serves as a Lecturer on Assyriology at Harvard. While he may not be linguistically trained as are the Assyriologists we are accustomed to reviewing, he seems accomplished and is a contributor to the new journal "Religion Compass" - this journal is a peer reviewed publication frequently offering the Anthropological perspective on Mesopotamian religion. I am considering it as a potential source.

Context/

The author begins by contextualizing resurrection beliefs within the greater history of Western religion. We know the belief in the resurrection of Christ was a major tenant of Christian faith - less familiar may be the aspects of the belief within early Judaism. Studevent-Hickman informs us that upon the Jews return from the exile (the exile in Babylon), a belief in the resurrection of the dead became more and more prevalent in certain Jewish factions: the Pharisees and the Essenes. The author writes that while the Sadduccees maintained no belief in resurrection of any sort, the Essenes in the post-exilic period believed a spiritual resurrection, and a third group, the Phrarisees, actually believed in the literal and physical resurrection of the dead. This notion of physical resurrection reached it foremost proponent in the person of Paul the apostle, a Pharisee who would become demonstrably instrumental in establishing the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ - in turn, this was fundamental in the notion of the resurrection of the Christian soul after death. So where does this Phariseetic belief come from ultimately?

Studevent-Hickman asserts that the real root of the notion of resurrection (that the dead can come back to life of some unspecified sort, and not as any sort of salvation as the idea comes to be with later extrapolation...), the simple idea of resurrection was, in origin, Near Eastern: and not essentially Canaanite or Persian as has sometimes been suggested, but Mesopotamian.

Death and Return in Mesopotamia/

The author makes it clear that in Assyriological circles, the idea that any of the Iraq civilizations believed in physical return has little currency. Not only is there little study on this particular question, some have flatly denied that there is any evidence for such a belief in extent Mesopotamian literature. He chooses to differ here however, and it may prove worth debating -

The author extends first an explanation of the Mesopotamian concept of the Body and Soul, here he follows Abusch's analysis of the Atrahasis material (for a summation of Abusch 1999, see this thread Reply #9). Coming to the question of resurrection in Mesopotamia, the author puts this into Mesopotamian terminology - it is to return from the Netherworld, which itself is sometimes termed "The Land of No Return." But how often do entities in fact return from this very place in Mesopotamian literature? How often do things come back from the dead? The author lists these instance of divine return:

Cases of Divine Resurrection

Namtar, the vizier of Ereshkigal travels freely to and from the Netherworld.
Utu has this same ability
Inanna is released from the Netherworld (returning from the dead) on gaining Dumuzi as her substitute. Inanna's case is particularly indicative of a physical resurrection as she is a "slab of meat" down there, a corpse, before Enki's creature revive her with the plant and water of life.
Geshtinanna goes to and returns from the N.W. semi-annually, in concordance with her brother Dumuzi who also returns - in academic literature, Dumuzi is often considered the proto-type of the dying god type (Christ being another example).

More important, the author says, are the cases where humans, not gods, have the potential to return to the land of the living:

Cases of Non-Divine Resurrection

The cases where Ereshkigal and Inanna threaten to raise the dead that they might "outnumber the living."
The instance when Enkidu is physically raised in "Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld" and he speaks with Gilgamesh.

However, I would disagree with the author in assessing these last instances as offering "important" perspective on this matter - in the case of Ereshkigal/Inanna's threat, we can't be certain if a surge of walking dead isn't meant (although might this be a sort of life? - resurrection may imply simply animation, soul imbued or not). The second instance is debatable as well, as Enkidu's return is variously interpreted as in a dream, as a necromantic act, or as a literal physical return. Nonetheless, the author is able to conclude that return from the dead is attested for the divine, and in some capacity, the non-divine.

An additional element considered here is the poignant observation that incantation and medical texts in Mesopotamia abundantly attest to the belief that ghosts (largely discontented malignant ghosts) could travel to and from the netherworld with more ease perhaps than even the deities. He references Scurlock in order to state that some cases of a ghost contacting a victim strongly indicate that the contact was thought to be physical, which lends ghost afflictions to a resurrection like (on the other hand, other incantations give descriptions of contact that could hardly be more than metaphorical.)

Concluding/

Studevent-Hickman admits that there is nothing in the texts to suggest that any Mesopotamians believed in the concept of a resurrection of the body to any permanent state of rebirth - they might just die again with returns like those described, while nothing here definitively suggests a physical return. Certainly the texts are prone to prompt more questions than answers - and yet, he believes that the evidence is there to say they believed in return of some sort, at least to temporary states of rebirth - and this "does provide evidence that the idea of a physical return from the dead existed centuries before it appeared in Canaan, Persia, or ancient Israel." It was this idea, a bare minimal as it is, that is suggested to be the root notion that later doctrines were tenuously built on - this consideration then is one avenue for understanding the importance of Mesopotamian thought on Western Religion.

Last Edit: Dec 26, 2009 1:42:07 GMT -5 by us4-he2-gal2

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The Shadow Side and Prospects for Return Dec 26, 2009 1:35:07 GMT -5

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Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Dec 26, 2009 1:35:07 GMT -5

Re-examining Resurrection

Reviewing Katz 2003 for addition perspective on the return from dead, I perceive a more sober assessment of the prospect. Katz' uniquely through examination of Sumerian netherworld concepts gives her perhaps an edge when it comes to these sorts of questions.

Katz stresses that the NW is known by the epithet "the land of no return" adding "excepting a few deities who managed to leave the Netherworld in exchange for a substitute or ransom, only evil spirits could leave the realm of the dead and move freely back and fourth. The exception to the rule indicates that there is a way out, but that one does not come from the netherworld alive."

Here Katz has stuck on a good point that Studevent-Hickman may have overlooked - that being the fact the deities coming back (Inanna, Dumuzi and Geshtinanna) are reliant on substitutes to take their place in the netherworld - and so they are not precisely achieving a victory over death, rather they are trading the grip of death to some other unlucky soul. While they may live often on a temporary basis, this sort of resurrection is a step again away from the sort we see in later religions, if not more.

Additionally, Katz statement that "one does not come from the netherworld alive" is made more potent by her assertion that the principal example of a returning mortal, Enkidu, did not come back bodily, but rather as a ghost or in a dream. As in the festivals of the ghosts, she says, we are dealing with the return of spirits.

When we think of the principal message of literary works such as Gilgamesh and the Myth of Adapa it's clear that the message is to accept death as the inevitable conclusion to mortality - again in texts like the Death of Urnammu, we have elaborate preparations to appease the Netherworld gods and buy a comfortable spot in the afterlife with lavish gifts - this is not to attempt to buy off death, but to make the inevitable situation as favorable as possible. The Sumerians never thought of coming back - the hope of the dieing Sumerian (noble) was to be received well in the Netherworld, as objects like the Inlay from the bull-headed lyre of Ur attest to: resigned acknowledgment of the inevitability of NW life seems definitivly Sumerian - there was no one getting wrapped up like a mummy in this land, and this resignation seems the best explanation why.

That said, despite ultimately rejecting the idea of any notion of physical resurrection in Mesopotamia, I still agree with Studevent-Hickman that ideas of resurrection in Mesopotamian (especially Inanna and Dumuzi) may have traveled to the Pharisees and from there down to Paul - after all, even if the Mesopotamians lacked precedent of mortal resurrection in their beliefs, they knew divine resurrection in specific contexts, and Jesus to Paul was not to be thought of as less than divine.

Defying Sleep, which like a fog breaths upon him.