Glen wrote
> Ah, there's another interesting thing. This Dumuzi deity doesn't
appear to
> be a full god. Rather a demi-god if anything. Is it possible that
Dumuzi was
> in some way the representation of a "sun chief".
There is also the evidence of the Sumerian kinglists. No less than
two Dumuzi's are listed, Dumuzi the Shepherd, later worshipped as
Lord of the grain has been linked to the Uruk Period. A later Dumuzi
occurred prior to Lugalbanda "father" of Gilgamesh. We may here be
working originally not with a God at all but with a vague memory of a
divinised king.
> How do I put this... It's kinda like the Egyptians who believed
that their
> ruler was the reincarnation of the sun. Could it be that this idea
in fact
> derives from an earlier prehistoric form where it was the chief who
was
> viewed as the reincarnation of the sun? Thus, the chief would have
been
> viewed as a "demi-god", a reincarnation of the Sun or even the "Sun
Maiden's
> shepherd", the "Perfect Child".
Regarding the second Dumuzi, it is interesting that this Dynasty,
founded by Meshkiagar and his son are called "the sons of Utu".
It would seem that the association of Dumuzi as being aided by Utu
thus is a creation of the Early Dynastic phase (no earlier), from
2,900 BCE to 2,600 BCE. The whole of the Inanna-Dumuzi complex seems
to have been reworked in its final (Wolkstein) recension by
Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon of Akkad, approximately 2,200 BCE.
> In effect, as the reincarnation of The Child, the son and consort
of the
> Goddes, the chief would be thought of as in control of the animals
and
> vegetation through the power of the Goddess. Human but yet
connected with
> the gods.
It is interesting that the first consort of the Goddess was probably
a bull. This certainly seems to be the story behind the myth of the
rape of Europa, of Pasiphe and the Bull of Minos, and even
Ereshkigal's Gulaganna. The finding of bucephalia from Catal Huyuk,
Beycultestan, Minos and Syria would suggest the association of the
Goddess as the female fertility principle and the bull as the male
one is very early. Sumerian gods all had the horns of cattle as
their destinguishing feature. Thus the replacement of "the Bull of
Heaven" by an anthropomorphic god, associated with the beginnings of
histry in the Middle East takes various forms. In Greece it occurs
by a God (Zeus) taking on the form of a bull in order to seduce a
nymph (Europa), or by a Queen conceiving of an un-natural lust for a
bull as punishment of her husband (Minos) for not sacrificing the
bull he was given by Poseidon for the purpose. (The association of
Bulls with Poseidon is also interesting - harking back to our
discussion earlier about Poseidon). In Sumeria the Bull of Heaven
was slain by Enkidu and Gilgamesh, and the place of Erishkigal's
consort was then taken by Nergal, who showed his possession of his
wife by raping her. That Ereshkigal may not have been original the
Goddess of the Underworld as later described is shown by three pieces
of evidence. Firstly she is said not to have been Queen of the Dead
but obtained this role when she was given to "Kur" - the underworld
realm - portrayed as a Serpent (another aspect of Taimat or Abzu).
Secondly she is closely linked with Enki, and may have originally
been another aspect of Ki (i.e. the earth into which coffins are
placed). In this way the association of Ki-Ninhursag with the graves
on Dilmun-Bahrein are suggestive of the time in which this shift took
place. And thirdly, she is described as a sister (aspect of)
Inanna. Hannahannah the Hurrian-Hittite goddess preserves a much
fuller nature of this unitary goddess.
Glen rather than Inanna the mother I would suggest the Sumerian
tripartitie split of a unitary goddess was Inanna = maiden, Ki-
Ninhursag = mother, Ereshkigal = Crone-Hag.
Just one final point. Anatolia cannot have been the place of the
association of winter with death. Anatolia has a Mediterranean
climate too where summer is the death month, and autumn is the month
in which everything goes green again after the deadly heat of
summer. This is one reason for the ambivalent role of the Sun God as
the judge for the dead, found in Egyptian, Sumerian and Anatolian
myths. Winter was the time in which crops grew - this is the land of
winter wheat (not your Canadian spring wheat variety, which evolved
in the Northern Balkans).
Regards
John