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Religious Pron - Mesopotamia 1

May 5, 2022, 1:09 PM

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Eridu, one of the “first five” cities that existed before the Great Flood, as told in Sumerian literature. That’s the flood where Utnapishtim was warned in advance by the god Enki. Enki instructed him to build a giant boat to save his family, some craftsmen, and some animals from the imminent destruction of the world by Enlil. Five thousand years ago, the river ran right beside the city. Not so much, today, though.

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In the Eridu Flood Story, mankind wasn’t corrupt, they were noisy, and so the god Enlil decided they must all die. Anyone who has tried to sleep late on their day off when the neighbor is cutting his grass, the kids down the street are revving their motorcycles, and the trash truck is beeping and backing up to get to the dumpsters can understand Enlil’s plight. I too have on occasion decreed the complete destruction of mankind, usually just before burying my head in my pillow for a few more moments of quiet rest. Here’s the story of noisy man and his fate.

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An aerial view of the city of Ur, another of the very oldest cities in existence, according to the Sumerians themselves.

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That big mass at the top is the Ziggurat of Ur, dedicated to the moon god Nammu.

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Nammu is the crescent-shaped fellow in this clay impression, overlooking his city, its king, and his governors.

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A 6000 year old vase from Sumeria. You won’t find better craftsmanship today at Waccamaw pottery. Essential for holding everything from grain to wine. Not only were vases better than sliced bread, they were invented much sooner. Sliced bread didn’t come along till 1928.

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And they could groove to the music, too. A pair of 4500 year old Bull-headed harps from Ur.

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Just like the ancient pictures on the wall. Bull’s head and all.

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And they had leisure time. A 4500 year old Sumerian backgammon-style game. What all the kids in Ur wanted for Christmas before the bicycle wheel was invented.

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Even babies were looked after. A 4500 year old pig-shaped baby rattle. For kids too young to play Sumerian backgammon.

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For ease of consumption I’ve divided today’s poast into 2 parts: 1-Mesopotamian Afterlife, and 2-Mesopotamian Contributions. We’ll hit 3-Geography/Politics and 4-Religion in follow up posts.

1. The Mesopotamian Afterlife:

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Bad news guys. We’re all going to he77.

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Well, not just yet, but maybe in a week or two. That’s when we’ll start to look at Mesopotamian religions in detail, and in particular, their view of he77. It’ll be the best d.a.m.n.e.d tour of the afterlife since Dante’s Inferno!

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...d.a.m.n.e.d tour…

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One thing that every Mesopotamian knew for certain, besides death and taxes, was that he was going to he77. Good deeds or bad deeds, just or unjust, nice guy or a-hole, everybody ended up in he77. Your sole purpose in life was to be a slave and servant to your god, and then to die.

The gods created you and all of mankind from their own god blood, flesh, and spit, so your axx belonged to them. The lesser gods were kinda lazy and didn’t want to do the work the greater gods demanded, so they made man to do the work for them. And that was your sole lot in life, to be a mortal errand boy.

So, not only were all Mesopotamians equal in the end, they were all equally doomed to he77, too.

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He77 was a grim, underground place called Kur (among other names), and despite the fact that you had to live in the dark, eat sand for food, and BE food for the occasional passing demon, it was pretty much like life while you were still alive. Not unlike the Egyptian view of afterlife, just a whole lot shiddier.

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Little Regan’s tormenting spirit in The Exorcist was a Mesopotamian demon, named Pazuzu.

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Here’s a statue of him. He was a wind demon, and also a protector demon who saved you from other mean gods and demons. So he got some bad press and needed a better image consultant.

How a Catholic priest bumped into a Mesopotamian demon in Washington, D.C. is beyond me, but that’s Hollywood and poorly researched novels for you. I’m pretty sure he’s male.

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One of the best SNL skits ever, featuring Pazuzu and Richard Pryor

https://youtu.be/B8dKnFU5LUE
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Anyway, how bad does your life have to be that you can’t even DREAM of a better life, much less a better afterlife? Mesopotami-bad, that’s how bad.

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A Mesopotamian chain gang, breaking rocks in the – hot sun – guarded by soldiers. You can always tell them by their thick, full beards.

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So, just like the Egyptian’s cream-puff life and world view was shaped by their easy flowing, cream-puff river, the Nile, Mesopotamian civilizations were carved out by two rivers that would kill you with floods and disease a lot faster than they would feed you. And their world view was, consequently, as chaotic as their lifestyle.

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The Egyptian dream life. No dolphins in the Nile, but there are some in the Red Sea. Who knew?

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They still live large and party hearty on the Nile to this day…

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But not so much in ancient, or modern Mesopotamia/Iraq…

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So, just like their lifestyles were different, their afterlifes were too. The big difference was that in Egypt you were either going to heaven (The Field of Reeds) to re-live your swank mortal lifestyle forever, or you were going to be eradicated forever. It was a pass/fail judgment test by the gods.

In Mesopotamia, nothing you did in life would affect your path to he77. There was no judgment at all. The only thing that might affect the quality of your afterlife was how you were buried. For instance, if someone put a harp in your tomb you might have some music to pass the time, if you knew how to play it, or maybe a best-selling fiction clay tablet to read.

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At some point I’ll do a special post comparing the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Jewish, and Christian afterlifes, along with a few others maybe.
It’s really interesting to see the similarities and differences in thought between them all.

2. Mesopotamian Contributions:

The fact that Mesopotamians had to fight for their lives every day against both nature and man didn’t stop them from creating some of the world’s greatest civilizations in their free time, though.

Besides civilization (living in cities) itself, they invented agriculture, the plow, the wheel, the sail, writing, mathematics, astronomy, and even some useful stuff we still use to this day.

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Like bricks…

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And beer…

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Ninkasi, the Sumerian Goddess of Beer

The Prayer and Hymn to Ninkasi (which sounds suspiciously like a recipe)

Ninkasi,
You are the one who handles the dough with a big shovel
You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground
You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar, the waves rise, the waves fall
You are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats, till coolness overcomes it

When you pour the beer of the collection vat,
It is like the rush of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the beer of the collection vat,
It is like the rush of Tigris and Euphrates.

Amen. Pour the beer, girl! (I added this last line)
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Modern beer goddesses.

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Beer, tea, coffee, whatever. It’s all good in the right company.

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These are the competition - Egyptian beer makers (you can tell by their white skirts, clean faces, and Beatle haircuts). Beer was pretty handy, because not only was it safe to drink, it was a calorie-filled liquid meal too. Pyramid workers were rationed over a gallon a day. A fella can get thirsty hauling rocks or working the fields and canals.

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Those were all great inventions, but some Mesopotamian stuff was just crap. They took the Egyptian concept of a day being divided into 24 units called hours, and divided each hour into 60 units called “minutes.” Dumb.

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Then, to make things even more confounding, they divided each minute into 60 units called “seconds”. Clearly, such a burdensome system would not last.

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The regular flooding of the Nile handed those Egyptian folks an easy life on a silver platter, but in Mesopotamia the chaotic waters had to be controlled, and so being a canal worker was equivalent to being in the high-tech industry today. Some of the highest placed persons in society were canal technicians, and they had special office positions and ranks at the right hand of the kings.

In fact, the word “Google” comes from the Mesopotamian word “Gugal”, which means “Canal Inspector”.

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Modern descriptions of the canals and fields around an ancient Mesopotamian town

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No, I can’t lie to you. That’s not true.

“Gugal” does mean canal inspector in the ancient Sumerian language, but it has nothing to do with the company Google. I made that part up because they sound the same and were both the cutting edge of technology in their day.

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But let that be a life lesson for all of us. Even if your life sucks and you are he77-bound for certain, you can still find a little sunshine and maybe even some status in your life just by digging ditches and drinking a lot of beer.

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Till next time, here’s some more cool pics to look at...

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In Mesopotamia you had to fight man as well as nature to survive. Here’s a Sumerian phalanx marching forward, trampling bodies beneath them, detailed down to the fingers holding their pikes. And those guys have big noses, too.

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A golden helmet/toupe, complete with a man-bun. It even has ear holes just like our warriors have.

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To the victors go the captives. You can even see their hands bound behind them. And without even the dignity of a loin cloth. You can get sunburned bad that way.

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Off to the next war campaign. I think the good guys are on the left and have the cloaks and helmets with chin straps. They’ve also got the 4 wheeled chariots that are trampling the bad guys under hoof. Ouch. Mesopotamia is a dangerous place.

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But even with he77 awaiting them, two rivers trying to kill them, and war and rumors of war, Mesopotamians still found time to love…

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Religious Pron - Mesopotamia 1

love that song

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