General Feedback on Massey
I thought this one may prove interesting as a possible example of the odd cross cultural attempt which isn't usually done in any big way in Assyriology outside of examples such as the pan-Babylonians. I figured there would be abundant scholarly discourse about the strong stance Massey appears to have took, but searching at the library, the would appear not to be the case.
Massey was an interesting personage and in many ways commendable. As a child in England in the early 1800s, he grew up very poor and was put to hard labor at the age of eight. As he grew up he took refuge in what scraps of literature and scripture he could lay hands on and slowly over the years educated himself and began to excel as a poet. He is best remembered as an English poet and free thinker.
At one point he seems to have developed a strong interest in Egyptian religion and he adopted what is called "diffusionist" thinking. That is the idea that the primary aspects of a particular and central religion spread (diffused) and influenced all other religions, basically. In this case, Massey argued for the influence of Egyptian religion on the Judeo-Christian religions, and most relevent, the influence of the same on Assyria and Mesopotamia.
I was somewhat surprised to find a lack of commentary and criticism in the ANE journals, certain of which through JSTOR go back to the mid 1800s. The issue at hand may not so much be that Massey's ideas were not overturned at some point, but that as a self-educated Egyptologist his ideas may not have drawn as much attention in the Assyriological community outside of Sayce. As he himself writes in his reply to Sayce "I am not a recognized authority" and so he may not have recieved acknowledgement in large part.
Sayce's descriptions from "
Assyria and Babylonia"
A.H. Sayce was a disciplined Assyrologist who made great contributions to the field including a large part in dispherment of the Hititte language. Ive quoted below some of his observations as he is able to account for the Sumerians as the culture predecessors of the Babylonians/Assyrians - this seems to be an essential Massey at the same time misses. Keep in mind, Sayce is also very early and so his observations are in places over-simplified; they should be read cautiously.
p.233
"The official creed itself was an artificial amalgamation of two different currents of belief. The Babylonian race was mixed; Sumerian and Semite had gone to form it in days before history began. Its religion therefore was equally mixed; the religious concepts of the Sumerian and Semite differed widely, and it was the absorption of the Sumerian religion by the Semitic which created the religion of later days...
..[In Sumer] every object had its
zi, or "spirit," which accompanied it like a shadow, but unlike a shadow could not act independantly of the object to which it belonged. The forces and phenomena of nature were themselves "spirits;" the lightning which struck the temple, or the heat which parched up the vegetation of spring, were as much "spirits" as the
zi, or "spirit" which enabled the arrow to reach its mark and to slay its victim....Man, too, had a
zi, or "spirit" attached to him; it was the life which gave him movement and feeling, the principal vitality which constituted his intellectual existence. In fact, it was the display of vital energy in man and in lower animals from which the whole concept of the
zi was derived...
....The
zi of the Sumerians was thus a counterpart of the
ka, or "double," of Egyptian belief. The description given by Egyptian students of the
ka would apply equally to the
zi of Sumerian belief. They both belong to the same level of religious though; indeed, so closely do they resemble one another that the question arises whether the Egyptian belief was not derived from that of ancient Sumer.
" Referring to
The Emergence of Writing in Egypt, by John D. Ray
World Archaeology, 1986
Part of Massey's reply to Sayce (see link given in post above) has Massey making the argument that both cuneiform and hieroglyphics owe their most original and basic forms to natural phenomena - but further he seems to state Egypt as the origin point for the earliest forms in the following comment:
"For example, the Egyptian pictograph of a soul is a human-headed bird, and that type is continued when the Babylonian dead are described as being clad like birds in a garment of feathers. Notwithstanding Mr. Sayce's offhand dicta it will be seen in the future that Egypt was as truly the parent of hieroglyphics as she is of alphabets! But to show the Professor's determination to avoid Egypt: after pointing to the fact that the statues from Telloh bear a great likeness to the Egyptian in the time of the pyramid builders; and after admitting that the Egyptian art of sculpture was infinitely superior to the Babylonian at that time,--he quietly suppresses Egypt altogether on behalf of an entirely unknown "school of sculpture in the Sinaitic peninsula!" (P. 138.) Anything rather than look Egypt honestly in the face!
" The claim is made with the line "truly the parent of Hieroglyphics and alphabets." In referring to Ray's 1986 article there are some interesting insights which should reflect on this. Ray explains:
"Prehistoric Egypt is best seen in the recent study by Hoffman (1980). Whatever the situation may have been in the Palaeolithic, Egypt of the fourth millennium does seem to exhibit many of the characteristics of later Egypt: a strong cultural unity (except that the Delta and Upper Egypt are still markedly different) artistic creations of high standard, and, at least to judge from tomb structures and furnishing, an incresedly stratified society, with a leisured or wealthy class creating a demand for luxuries which involves a considerable section of the population. The tone, at least in Upper Egypt, seems to be aristocratic and agricultural, rather than mercantile. Towards the end of the period, however, in the phase known as Nagada II or Gerzean, change seems to occur at an accelerated pace. The main feature of this transformation, other than general changes in the styles and ranges of artefact's, is the adopt of foreign motifs, in particular Mesopotamian, or in some cases Proto-Elamite. These motifs- the cylinder-seal, artistic devices comprising animals with intertwined neck's, fashions in clothing, and even architectural designs such as th e 'palace-facade' - are undeniable, even if th explanation is hard to find. Mere trade seems an inadequate reason, and some Egyptologists have fallen back on the concept of a full-scale invasion, either by way of Syria-Palestine, or by sea around the coasts of Arabia. Inadequate pathology was often used to bolster up this theory, and the "dynastic race" was created as a convenient model. But if we bear in mind the cultural generalizations suggested above, and if we adopt more recent explanations of how primitive societies can "take off" into a more sophisticated level of culture, we can probably see that Egypt, on the eve of its emergence as a historical state, was adopting foreign influences in order to assist its own development. Mesopotamian and Elamite motifs were chosen, not because of political events, but because they were the only models which fitted her stage of development: and these models, once adopted, were almost entirely discarded as soon as Egypt had found it self-confidence and identity. The young civilization needed a prop with which to learn to walk; then it could throw away the prop.
Writing was the most important of these adoptions, and the only one which was not to be thrown aside. At the moment it does look as if writing, or rather the idea of writing, was extraneous to Egypt. In Mesopotamia, we can see the gradual emergence of picture-writing as a form of accounting or similar record-keeping, at a date earlier by a couple of centuries than its appearance, Athena-like, from the head of Egyptian hierarchy.
"However, Ray adds that the actual signs used for Heiroglyphics were drawn from uniquely Egyptian sources - predynastic symbols as for example
ka (up-stretched arms). He states "What then did the Egyptians adapt from Mesopotamia, when it came to creation a writing system? The simplest answer is probably the best: they took the idea of writing."
IT remains I suppose to find something insightful about Masseys comparison on Semitic and Egpytian terms, however, some observations which seem particular bad are those on Ishtar. Ishtar does have many aspects however, I don't see her being "the Scorpian" or "white Heifer" and the so called triad given below must be based on some sort of inaccurate reading.
Isis as the Scorpion. = Ishtar as the Scorpion.
Triad of Isis, Nephtys, and Horus. = Triad of Ishtar, Tillil, and Tammuz.
Hathor, the white heifer. = Ishtar, the white heifer.
