Early Theology - Summer 2012: Goddesses
Jul 12, 2012 20:06:17 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Jul 12, 2012 20:06:17 GMT -5
Thread Orientation: On this thread we can explore the status of goddesses in the early pantheon, in accordance with the overall questions posed in the Early Theology Summer Focus.
Steinkeller's 1999 makes the point which I summed as Point 1: "It appears quite certain that the earliest pantheon was dominated by female deities." For me, the notion came as quite a surprise - so it's become important to see just where the author is coming from. Fortunately, one of our members has made me aware of a bibliography put together by the author, in which he lists several articles which he feels are important for the study of goddesses in Mesopotamia.
One of those is by W.G. Lambert and is entitled Goddesses in the Pantheon: A Reflection of Women in Society? (printed in "La Femmed dans le Proche-Orient Antique" 1987).
The thrust of Lambert's article is this: an examination of female gods and their roles in relation to roles women are known to have had in actual Sumerian society. Lambert finds that, for the most part, gender and role in divine society corresponds to gender and role in mundane society. Thus, Ninhursag is the mother goddess (and women are mothers); Inanna was the goddess of sexual love (and prostitutes were normally women); Ninkasi is goddess of brewing (and women likely "much of the work in breweries, and certainly brewed at home.") There are, of course, plentiful exceptions or logical obstacles that Lambert mentions, including Inanna's role as goddess of war (a male occupation) and Nissaba's role as patron of scribes "in Sumerian society female scribes were very rare."
He remarks: Some deities' sex seems to be a reflection of sexual roles of human society: mothers are female, sheperds are male. In other cases the role bears no relation to sexually-bound roles in Sumerian society. There is no hint of discrimination against females, indeed Inanna as goddess of war is usurping a male role."
Lambert on the Importance of Goddesses/
The author made note of Kramer's 1976 arguement, wherein Kramer made the case for "the gradual decline in the status of women (and goddesses) over the centuries starting with the second half of the third millennium and culminating in the rise of monotheism." (Kramer in The Legacy of Sumer (ed. D.Schmandt-Besserat,1976)).
While Lambert holds that it would really take an entire book to explore what Kramer briefly suggested, he goes on to ask basically, 'is this so'? One interesting avenue in the qualification of Kramer's statement is pointed out: the city gods. (In fact, one of Steinkeller's key lines of evidence). Lambert states: "For the first half of the third millennium the names of many places and the names and genders of their gods are simply not known. However, anyone taking a quick glance over such material as exists for the whole third millennium will not fail to notice that goddesses in high position of patrons of towns are much more common than women as rulers of the same towns."
In other words, while women may not often have been rulers, goddesses sometimes were. Steinkeller's statement that goddesses dominated the early pantheon is not necessarily supported by Early Dynastic evidence however.. Lambert goes on to say that, even if their position as rulers may be unexpected, they do not seem to out number male city gods in this period - the Sumerian Temple Hymns, for example, list 22 male city gods to 14 female.
Lambert is inclined to see the decline of the status of female deities not as a reflection of some lessoning of women's roles in society or the raising of Semitic values over Sumerian, but as a consequence of a (somewhat coincidental) decline in the relevant cities: "the accidents of city decline are to blame. If one seeks the seats of the fourteen female city patrons in the Sumerian Temple Hymns after about 1500 BC., it appears most were no longer inhabited." In particular, he believed that the decline of Ninhursag/Nintu, the mother goddess, was due to the decline of her city Kesh, and perhaps also to her merging in *some* Babylonian theologies, with Ishtar, wherein the net result was not the elevating rank of Ishtar but the lowering in rank of the mother goddess.
Reviewing Lambert 1987
Steinkeller's 1999 makes the point which I summed as Point 1: "It appears quite certain that the earliest pantheon was dominated by female deities." For me, the notion came as quite a surprise - so it's become important to see just where the author is coming from. Fortunately, one of our members has made me aware of a bibliography put together by the author, in which he lists several articles which he feels are important for the study of goddesses in Mesopotamia.
One of those is by W.G. Lambert and is entitled Goddesses in the Pantheon: A Reflection of Women in Society? (printed in "La Femmed dans le Proche-Orient Antique" 1987).
The thrust of Lambert's article is this: an examination of female gods and their roles in relation to roles women are known to have had in actual Sumerian society. Lambert finds that, for the most part, gender and role in divine society corresponds to gender and role in mundane society. Thus, Ninhursag is the mother goddess (and women are mothers); Inanna was the goddess of sexual love (and prostitutes were normally women); Ninkasi is goddess of brewing (and women likely "much of the work in breweries, and certainly brewed at home.") There are, of course, plentiful exceptions or logical obstacles that Lambert mentions, including Inanna's role as goddess of war (a male occupation) and Nissaba's role as patron of scribes "in Sumerian society female scribes were very rare."
He remarks: Some deities' sex seems to be a reflection of sexual roles of human society: mothers are female, sheperds are male. In other cases the role bears no relation to sexually-bound roles in Sumerian society. There is no hint of discrimination against females, indeed Inanna as goddess of war is usurping a male role."
Lambert on the Importance of Goddesses/
The author made note of Kramer's 1976 arguement, wherein Kramer made the case for "the gradual decline in the status of women (and goddesses) over the centuries starting with the second half of the third millennium and culminating in the rise of monotheism." (Kramer in The Legacy of Sumer (ed. D.Schmandt-Besserat,1976)).
While Lambert holds that it would really take an entire book to explore what Kramer briefly suggested, he goes on to ask basically, 'is this so'? One interesting avenue in the qualification of Kramer's statement is pointed out: the city gods. (In fact, one of Steinkeller's key lines of evidence). Lambert states: "For the first half of the third millennium the names of many places and the names and genders of their gods are simply not known. However, anyone taking a quick glance over such material as exists for the whole third millennium will not fail to notice that goddesses in high position of patrons of towns are much more common than women as rulers of the same towns."
In other words, while women may not often have been rulers, goddesses sometimes were. Steinkeller's statement that goddesses dominated the early pantheon is not necessarily supported by Early Dynastic evidence however.. Lambert goes on to say that, even if their position as rulers may be unexpected, they do not seem to out number male city gods in this period - the Sumerian Temple Hymns, for example, list 22 male city gods to 14 female.
Lambert is inclined to see the decline of the status of female deities not as a reflection of some lessoning of women's roles in society or the raising of Semitic values over Sumerian, but as a consequence of a (somewhat coincidental) decline in the relevant cities: "the accidents of city decline are to blame. If one seeks the seats of the fourteen female city patrons in the Sumerian Temple Hymns after about 1500 BC., it appears most were no longer inhabited." In particular, he believed that the decline of Ninhursag/Nintu, the mother goddess, was due to the decline of her city Kesh, and perhaps also to her merging in *some* Babylonian theologies, with Ishtar, wherein the net result was not the elevating rank of Ishtar but the lowering in rank of the mother goddess.