The place of Sunrise: Notions of Birth and Origin

Thread Orentation: Largely following the work of Polonsky, we give consideration here to the Mesopotamian notion of birth and human origin. Something apparently quite interwoven with cosmology and the gods.

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The magical and mythical significance of the place of Sunrise has not previously failed to win our curiosity - On the Esoterica thread, we have noted that in the myth Inanna and Shukaletuda, dust from the mountains blew into Shukaletuda's eye, where after he was able to see the gods of the mountains of sunset, and the gods of the mountains of sunrise. We have noted line 706 of the Building of Ningiru's temple: 706. "Facing the sunrise, where the fates are decided, he erected the standard of Utu, the Bison head, beside others already there. "


In Dina Katz' work on the Netherworld, pg. 50, it is stated: "although the "place ofsunset" is relatively un-documented in early Sumerian sources, considerable interest was shown to the place of his rising "which brings light back to the world and enables revitalization and justice for all living things. Accordingly, the current belief was that destinies were decided in the place of sunrise, which, by definition, diminished the mythological significance of sunset." And of course, on the Revisions to Sisig thread, we were quite inspired by Steinkeller's suggestions about the sun god (see reply #15) ; specifically, that "the future is born in the netherworld", and Utu and his dream god sons convey messages of the impending future at night, by means of dreams and omens.


Thanks very much to Madness for posting and pointing out Polonsky's work - as Madness mentions, Steinkeller cites her work in a footnote; thus, it's possible this study helped inspire Steinkeller and so much of the Sisig thread in the first place.









Summing J. Polonsky: The Mesopotamian Conceptualization of Birth and the Determination of Destiny at Birth/





The paper I am now considering is one contributed by Polonsky to the Volume If a Man Builds a Joyful house... (Cuneiform Monographs 31). Considering that in 2001 Polonsky completed a 1136 page dissertation on related topics, I am going to suppose that what she writes here is quite state of the field. Perhaps someday her larger work will be accessible to me.



She begins by examining a birth incantation which addresses Utu and his family in addition to Enki and Asarluḫi. While these last two gods are expected in incantation literature, Utu is fairly unimportant in this genre (dream omens and divination being another story). Why is Utu called on in birth incantations, even featuring as the primary addresse in this specimen? As the author notes, this 1st millennium incantation places the well-being of the birthing mother and her child in the hands of the sun-god at the moment of his rise:









ḫašur mountain has been identified by the author with the mountain of sunrise, thus she is able to surmise: "As he emerges from the inner realm of heaven and appears over Mount ḫašur, the mountain of sunrise, the sun god executes judgement for the determination of destiny within the daily convocation of the divine assembly."







The infant and the fetus prior to birth are bound to the sun god/




The author makes the above claim, that the infant/fetus are bound to the sun god prior to birth, on the grounds of a "recurrent imagery" that occurs in texts related to childbearing: In 1st millennium incantations designed to sooth the baby, the child is described as the one "who has come out and seen the light of the sun god" and similar lines occur in OB versions; other texts say of the unborn child "Dweller in the darkness, who has not seen the sunrise, you have come out, [you have seen the light of the sun]." In that both the sun and the infant emerge from a place of darkness until they 'see the sunrise' so to speak, there may be intentional shared imagery here - but this is not the only indication of that.



The author also points to word play - specifically, the verb è (aṣú) "to rise" or "to come out" is a word used both to describe the birth of the baby and the emergence of the sun. One OB text makes a direct comparison using this verb "Let (the baby) rise for you (the mother) like the [...] of the sun god." Additionally, although Polonsky hasn't mentioned it in this paper, Hughnergard chap. 26 gives the definitions of the word ṣītum as "rise, rising (of sun), east; emergence, birth, origin; produce, product; etc. etc..." further ūm ṣītum is "distant time (past or future).







Eren offerings at the Mountain of Sunrise/



Perhaps the most fascinating evidence for the ideological equation under consideration, is the author's research on the eren substance; Some birth incantations visualize the fetus as a boat making its way over the horizon, which, of course, is the way the ancients saw the journey of the sun as well; one such incantation contains these lines (boat = fetus):

"Upon a boat of perfume, she has loaded perfume.
Upon a boat of eren, she has loaded eren.
Upon a boat of eren-fragrance, she has loaded eren-fragrance.
(Upon) a boat of carnelian and lapis lazuli, she has loaded carnelian and lapis lazuli."

Polonsky has made the very insightful observation (Polonsky "The Rise of the Sun God") that: "The eren-foliage and eren-fragrance that are carried by the fetus are products of the mountain of sunrise. Also, eren and eren-incense have been identified as offerings placed before the gods during ceremonies of sunrise fate determination." (Italics are my own). Having decoded some important parts of symbolism of birth incantation rites, Polonsky is able to surmise:



"These components of the language of recitation within birth incantations suggest that the birth-giving process was conceptualized as a journey of the newborn from a place of darkness and potential death, toward a location representing the inception of life—the place of the rising sun god, where destiny is determined."








The Birth Goddess and Determination of Fate at Sunrise/



While it is fairly well known, the evidence is also easily overlooked in the study of a many faceted Sumerian religion: the birth goddess determines the fate of the newborn, as oppose say, Enlil. The author reminds us that in Enki and Ninmah, the (misshapen) human beings are assigned a fate at the time of their fashioning; Whenever the birth goddess Nintu fashions a being she also assigns it's fate. And in the Incantation to Utu (ASJ 13, Alster) the author notes an additional nuance - that the birth goddess relies on the sun god to enact the power of fate determination: "Utu, without you Ninmah, the lady who creates everything, who cuts the umbilical cord, could not decide the fate for mankind.”





Fate assigned even in the womb?/



The author has collected some evidence that fate was even determined in the womb, as in such textual statements as "ever since he was in his (mther's) womb, a favorable destiny was decreed for him" and in particular, a Shulgi hymn states "I, Shulgi, the princely son, whose good state was determined in the true womb." I would say this is either hyperbole, that is, exaggeration, as if to say 'I was so important my fate was determined ahead of the expected time' ; or, it may actually have been a sometime facet of Mesopotamian birth ideology. If so, the new proposals of the divination system are indeed a mirror - the future is born in the Netherworld the place of darkness, messages can be passed through dream of omen to the diviner at night, and at sunrise, the future is born, the information in the omens actualized. In the case of the unborn the future is in the womb, it's fate is transmitted by one or another of Utu's agents, and on birth (symbolically a sunrise), it is actualized by those who decree fate. Or at least this possible parallel may be suggested.









Possible role of Sisig or other agent of Utu: transmission of fate/




In keeping with a determination to search for elucidation in Mesopotamia's most shadowy theology, I will make some bullet points on why the activity of Sisig, or possibly some other agent of the Sun god, may be suspected as a theological motif in the birth process:



- In an Incantation to Utu (ASJ 17, see reply #6 of the thread), Sisig is mysteriously called "The father or mankind".
- Sisig is the son of Utu, and may be thought of as an aspect of the sun god; he a netherworld god who dwells in darkness, but he is one who makes light in dark places; he is transporter of shades (Enkidu for one, and of the dead in the festival of ghosts - see the Death of Gilgamesh) as well as the transmitter or dream messages.
- There is some evidence that fate was assigned in the womb, a dark place, perhaps ideologically similar to the way dreams are transmitted to the sleeper. At sunrise, both fate and omens are actualized.
- The involvement of other members or Utu's circle, offspring and also aspects of Utu, such as kittu "truth" and mīšaru "justice" is attestable at the decreeing of fate at sunrise. (Polonsky 2006).
- - While no textual evidence seems to have surfaced yet, and so the suggestion can't really be made, perhaps with further textual studies Sisig or another aspect of Utu will emerge as the transmitter of fate to the unborn child.