From: João Simões Lopes Filho
Message: 3720
Date: 2000-09-15
----- Original Message -----
From: John Croft <jdcroft@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2000 2:54 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Religion
>
> John (Julianus) wrote:
>
> > The parallels with the Egyptian deities Shu, Nut and Geb are
> striking
> > here. I am not well acquainted with Sumerian mythology proper so
> this
> > is new to me.
>
> There is also a striking documentary evidence of culture contact
> between lower Mesopotamia and Egypt in the late Pre-Dynastic perod,
> with a number of mythic elements drom Mesopotamia entering the
> Egyptian corpus. I can give references if you are interested.
>
> John continued
>
> > The problem I have with this is that, if IE tripartition was a
> product
> > of Sumerian contacts, should we not expect to see some explicit
> social
> > tripartition in Sumeria as well? Is there such evidence? Also, if
> > Sumeria was able to influence the PIE culture that deeply I'd
> expect a
> > lot more linguistic and cultural signs with accompanying material
> > artifacts, not the least of which would be the formation of cities.
> In
> > the absence thereof I would be inclined to keep tripartition as an
> > inherent PIE system.
>
> There is a tripartite division of Sumerian Gods and Goddesses. The
> Crone, Mother and Maiden aspect was first worked out for Erishkigal,
> Ninhursag (Ki), Inanna (which also appears as a tripartite division
> of underword, earth and heavens). The Gods show a primary tripartite
> division between Anu (Sky), Enki (Earth) and Enlil (Air).
>
> In the Sumerian case the divisions are incredibly ancient, and seem
> to be a division of a previous unitary Goddess. The situation of the
> Gods is more difficult. Enki seems to have been originally the
> supernumary consort to the Ki, that grew with importance of his city
> of Eridu. If this is so, by comparison, Enlil could have been the
> consort of a still more ancient Goddess Lil (faint memories of this
> Goddess are found in the Goddess Lilitu = the Hebrew Lilith). She
> was a fearsom divinity indeed. Inanna called Gilgamesh to drive the
> demoness Lilitu from the Hulupu tree where she had made her home. In
> any case, the importance of Enlil only came to be head of the
> Sumerian pantheon, probably at the time of the 1st Dynasty of Kish,
> during which time the Nippur league was last invoked. The Nippur
> league was a very early union of all the Sumerian city states, whose
> rulers would meet at Enlil's temple at Nippur in times of emergency.
>
> The source of this tripartite division is difficult to discern. It
> may not even be Sumerian and may in fact be proto-Ephratean in
> origin. Certainly there is evidence of a Maiden-Mother-Crone tripple
> goddess underlying Hurrian beliefs, and it may also be found at Catal
> Huyuk too. But this is only speculating on the thinnest of evidence
> (I'll leave that up to Glen).
>
> Regards
>
> John
>
>
>
>