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THE MARSH ARABS - HISTORY

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Bianca
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« on: August 14, 2007, 01:13:26 pm »

                                                 
The Story of Atrahasis
Atrahasis I: Creation of Humans

This story as we have it comes from an early Babylonian version of about 1700 BC, but it certainly dates back to Sumerian times. It combines familiar Sumerian motifs of the creation of mankind and the subsequent flood. On one of the Sumerian king-lists, Atrahasis is listed as king of Shuruppak in the years before the flood. The name Atrahasis means "Extra-wise,"and is thus, as Stepanie Dalley points out, quite similar in meaning to that of Prometheus ("Forethinker"), father of the Greek flood hero Deucalion (2). The story begins way before Atrahasis appears on the scene, however. It starts out with the gods digging ditches. Men have not been thought of yet, so the gods had to do the work:

The gods had to dig out the canals
Had to clear channels, the lifelines of the land,
The gods dug out the Tigris river bed
And then they dug out the Euphrates. (Dalley 9)
After 3,600 years of this work, the gods finally begin to complain. They decide to go on strike, burning their tools and surrounding the chief god Enlil's "dwelling" (his temple). Enlil's vizier Nusku gets Enlil out of bed and alerts him to the angry mob outside. Enlil is scared. (His face is described as being "sallow as a tamarisk.") The vizier Nusku advises Enlil to summon the other great gods, especially Anu (sky-god) and Enki (the clever god of the fresh waters). Anu advises Enlil to ascertain who is the ringleader of the rebellion. They send Nusku out to ask the mob of gods who is their leader. The mob answers, "Every single one of us gods has declared war!" (Dalley 12).
Since the upper-class gods now see that the work of the lower-class gods "was too hard," they decide to sacrifice one of the rebels for the good of all. They will take one god, kill him, and make mankind by mixing the god's flesh and blood with clay:

Belit-ili the womb-goddess is present,
Let the womb-goddess create offspring,
And let man bear the load of the gods! (Dalley 14-15)
After Enki instructs them on purification rituals for the first, seventh and fifteenth of every month, the gods slaughter Geshtu-e, "a god who had intelligence" (his name means "ear" or "wisdom") and form mankind from his blood and some clay. After the birth goddess mixes the clay, all the gods troop by and spit on it. Then Enki and the womb-goddess take the clay into "the room of fate," where
The womb-goddesses were assembled
He [Enki] trod the clay in her presence;
She kept reciting an incantation,
For Enki, staying in her presence, made her recite it.
When she had finished her incantation,
She pinched off fourteen pieces of clay,
And set seven pieces on the right,
Seven on the left.
Between them she put down a mud brick. (Dalley 16)
The creation of man seems to be described here as being analogous or similar to the process of making bricks: tread (knead) the clay and then pinch off pieces that will become bricks. Here, the seven pieces on the right become males and the seven pieces on the left become females. The brick between the two may be a symbol of the fetus, for when the little pieces of clay are ready to be "born," their birth is described like this:

When the tenth month came,
She [birth-goddess] slipped in a staff and opened the womb.
Just as you put a wooden spatula into a beehive-shaped brick oven to remove the bricks (like getting the pizza out when it's done), the womb-goddess or midwife uses a staff to check to see if the womb has dilated enough for birth. After the seven men and seven women are born, the birth-goddess gives rules for celebrations at birth: they should last for nine days during which a mud brick should be put down. After nine days, the husband and wife could resume conjugal relations.

Atrahasis
« Last Edit: August 14, 2007, 01:18:34 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.


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