Sumerian creation myth. Sumerian-Akkadian mythology Tales of the Sumerians

This is the shortest Sumerian epic poem, and there is no mention of any gods. Apparently, this legend can be considered as a historiographical text. Tablets with this myth were found by an expedition of the University of Pennsylvania in Nippur and date back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, possibly being copies of earlier Sumerian texts.

The Lord of Uruk, Gilgamesh, is in a gloomy mood, tormented by thoughts of death. That’s when he decides that if he is destined to die like all mortals, then he will at least glorify his name before leaving for the “land of no return.” He intends to go to the distant mountains, cut down cedars there and deliver them to his homeland. Gilgamesh reveals his plans to his faithful servant Enkidu, but he advises his master to first notify the sun god Utu, who owns that country.

The poem begins with a prologue about the divine act of creation, the separation of earth and sky, the overthrow of the goddess Ereshkigal into the underworld, and the battle of Enki with the monster of the lower world. The following describes the huluppu tree (possibly willow), which grew on the banks of the Euphrates. It was uprooted by the merciless south wind, but Inanna found it and planted it in her garden. She looked after him, apparently hoping to make a throne and bed out of him in the future.

Beautiful Inanna, Queen of Heaven, daughter of the bright moon god Nanna, lived in a palace at the edge of the sky. When she descended to the ground, from each of her touches the soil was covered with greenery and flowers. The goddess had no equal in beauty, and both the divine shepherd Dumuzi and the divine farmer Enkimdu fell in love with her. Both of them wooed the lovely maiden, but she hesitated and delayed answering. Her brother, the sun god Utu, tried in every possible way to persuade her to turn her gaze to the meek Dumuzi.

Once upon a time there lived a gardener named Shukalletuda. He very diligently cultivated his garden, watered the trees and beds, but all his efforts were in vain - the dry desert wind dried out the soil and the plants died. Exhausted by failures, Shukalletuda turned his gaze to the starry heavens and began to ask for a divine sign. He probably received the command of the gods, because by planting a sarbatu tree (origin unknown) in the garden, which stretches its shadow from west to east, Shukalletuda got the desired result - all the plants in his garden bloomed in lush colors.

Inanna, the queen of heaven, the patron goddess of Uruk, once passionately desired to raise her city and make it the capital of all Sumer, which would contribute to her veneration and glory. She knew that the god of wisdom Enki, who lives in the underground world ocean Abzu, is in charge of all divine crafts and all the foundations of the universe. He kept a hundred tablets on which were imprinted the essence of things, the foundations of being and the mysterious institutions of life. If Inanna had managed to obtain them in any way, the power of Uruk would have become unsurpassed. Therefore, the goddess goes to the city of Eridu, where the entrance to the Abzu was located, to meet with Enki. The wise Enki learns that a great guest is approaching his city and sends his messenger, the two-faced Isimuda, to meet her.

The king of Uruk, Enmerkar, once planned to make a campaign against Aratta and conquer the rebellious country. He called out across the cities and lands, and hordes of warriors began to flock to Uruk. This campaign was led by seven mighty and famous heroes. Lugalbanda joins them.

They had barely covered half the distance when Lugalbanda was attacked by some strange disease. Weakness and pain shackled the hero; he could not move his arm or leg. Friends decided that he had died and thought for a long time what to do with him. In the end, they leave him on Mount Hurum, laying him a magnificent bed, leaving him with all kinds of food. On the way back from the campaign, they plan to pick up his body and take it to Uruk.

Lugalbanda wanders alone in the mountains for a long time. Finally it occurred to him that if he could somehow please the wonderful eagle Anzud, he would be able to help the hero find the army of Uruk.

So he did. He found a huge tree on the top of a rock, in which Anzud built a nest, waited until the giant bird went hunting, and began to please the little eaglet in every possible way. He fed him various delicacies, tinted his eyes with kohl, decorated him with fragrant juniper, and placed a crown on his head.

Unfortunately, the tablet on which the myth was written has not been completely preserved, and the beginning of the myth has been lost. We can fill in the meaning of the missing fragments from its later Babylonian version. It is inserted as a story into the epic of Gilgamesh “On Who Has Seen Everything...”. The first lines read tell about the creation of man, the divine origin of royal power and the founding of the five oldest cities.

Further, we are talking about the fact that at the council of the gods it was decided to send a flood to the earth and destroy all of humanity, but many gods are upset by this. Ziusudra, the ruler of Shuruppak, appears to be a pious and God-fearing king who is in constant anticipation of divine dreams and revelations. He hears the voice of a god, most likely Enki, informing him of the gods' intention to “destroy the human seed.”

Inanna, Queen of Heaven, the ambitious goddess of love and war who married the shepherd king Dumuzi, decides to become the ruler of the lower world. Her sister Ereshkigal, the goddess of death and darkness, ruled there. Apparently the relationship between the sisters left much to be desired, since before entering the “land of no return,” Inanna gives instructions to her servant Ninshuburu. They agree that if the goddess does not return within three days, then Ninshubura should go to Nippur and pray to Enlil there for her salvation. If Enlil refuses, then it was necessary to go with the same request to Ur to the moon god Nanna. If he did not help, it was necessary to go to Eridu to Enki.

Sumerian civilization and Sumerian mythology are rightfully considered one of the most ancient in the history of all mankind. The golden age of this people, who lived in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), occurred in the third millennium BC. The Sumerian pantheon consisted of many different gods, spirits and monsters, and some of them were preserved in the beliefs of subsequent cultures of the Ancient East.

Common features

The basis on which Sumerian mythology and religion rested was communal beliefs in numerous gods: spirits, demiurge deities, patrons of nature and the state. It arose as a result of the interaction of an ancient people with the country that fed them. This faith did not have a mystical teaching or orthodox doctrine, as was the case with the beliefs that gave rise to modern world religions - from Christianity to Islam.

Sumerian mythology had several fundamental features. She recognized the existence of two worlds - the world of gods and the world of phenomena that they controlled. Each spirit in it was personified - it possessed the features of living beings.

Demiurges

The main god of the Sumerians was considered An (another spelling is Anu). It existed even before the separation of Earth from Heaven. He was depicted as an advisor and manager of the assembly of the gods. Sometimes he was angry with people, for example, he once sent a curse in the form of a heavenly bull to the city of Uruk and wanted to kill the hero of ancient legends, Gilgamesh. Despite this, for the most part An is inactive and passive. The main deity in Sumerian mythology had its own symbol in the form of a horned tiara.

An was identified with the head of the family and the ruler of the state. The analogy was manifested in the depiction of the demiurge along with the symbols of royal power: a staff, a crown and a scepter. It was An who kept the mysterious “meh”. This is how the inhabitants of Mesopotamia called the divine forces that controlled the earthly and heavenly worlds.

Enlil (Ellil) was considered the second most important god by the Sumerians. He was called Lord Wind or Mr. Breath. This creature ruled the world located between earth and sky. Another important feature that Sumerian mythology emphasized: Enlil had many functions, but they all boiled down to dominion over the wind and air. Thus, it was an elemental deity.

Enlil was considered the ruler of all countries foreign to the Sumerians. He has the power to arrange a disastrous flood, and he himself does everything to expel people alien to him from his possessions. This spirit can be defined as the spirit of wild nature that resisted the human collective trying to inhabit desert places. Enlil also punished kings for neglecting ritual sacrifices and ancient holidays. As punishment, the deity sent hostile mountain tribes to peaceful lands. Enlil was associated with the natural laws of nature, the passage of time, aging, death. In one of the largest Sumerian cities, Nippur, he was considered their patron. It was there that the ancient calendar of this vanished civilization was located.

Enki

Like other ancient mythologies, Sumerian mythology included exactly the opposite images. So, a kind of “anti-Enlil” was Enki (Ea) - the lord of the earth. He was considered the patron saint of fresh waters and all humanity in general. The lord of the earth was prescribed the characteristics of a craftsman, a magician and an artist who taught his skills to the younger gods, who, in turn, shared these skills with ordinary people.

Enki is the main character of Sumerian mythology (one of the three along with Enlil and Anu), and it was he who was called the protector of education, wisdom, scribes and schools. This deity personified the human collective, which was trying to subjugate nature and change its habitat. Enki was especially often turned to during wars and other serious dangers. But during periods of peace, its altars were empty; sacrifices, so necessary to attract the attention of the gods, were not made there.

Inanna

In addition to the three great gods, in Sumerian mythology there were also the so-called elder gods, or gods of the second order. Inanna is counted among this host. She is best known as Ishtar (an Akkadian name that was later also used in Babylon during its heyday). The image of Inanna, which appeared among the Sumerians, survived this civilization and continued to be revered in Mesopotamia in later times. Its traces can be traced even in Egyptian beliefs, and in general it existed until Antiquity.

So what does Sumerian mythology say about Inanna? The goddess was considered associated with the planet Venus and the power of military and love passion. She embodied human emotions, the elemental power of nature, as well as the feminine principle in society. Inanna was called the warrior maiden - she patronized intersexual relations, but she herself never gave birth. This deity in Sumerian mythology was associated with the practice of cult prostitution.

Marduk

As noted above, each Sumerian city had its own patron god (for example, Enlil in Nippur). This feature was associated with the political features of the development of ancient Mesopotamian civilization. The Sumerians almost never, with the exception of very rare periods, lived within the framework of one centralized state. For several centuries, their cities formed a complex conglomerate. Each settlement was independent and at the same time belonged to the same culture, bound by language and religion.

Sumerian and Akkadian mythology of Mesopotamia left its traces in the monuments of many Mesopotamian cities. It also influenced the development of Babylon. In a later period, it became the largest city of antiquity, where its own unique civilization was formed, which became the basis of a large empire. However, Babylon began as a small Sumerian settlement. It was then that Marduk was considered his patron. Researchers classify him as one of the dozen elder gods that Sumerian mythology gave birth to.

In short, Marduk's importance in the pantheon grew along with the gradual growth of Babylon's political and economic influence. His image is complex - as he evolved, he included the features of Ea, Ellil and Shamash. Just as Inanna was associated with Venus, Marduk was associated with Jupiter. Written sources of antiquity mention his unique healing powers and the art of healing.

Together with the goddess Gula, Marduk knew how to resurrect the dead. Also, Sumerian-Akkadian mythology placed him in the place of the patron of irrigation, without which the economic prosperity of the cities of the Middle East was impossible. In this regard, Marduk was considered the giver of prosperity and peace. His cult reached its apogee in the period (VII-VI centuries BC), when the Sumerians themselves had long disappeared from the historical scene, and their language was consigned to oblivion.

Marduk vs Tiamat

Thanks to cuneiform texts, numerous tales of the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia have been preserved. The confrontation between Marduk and Tiamat is one of the main plots that Sumerian mythology preserved in written sources. The gods often fought among themselves - similar stories are known in Ancient Greece, where the legend of gigantomachy was widespread.

The Sumerians associated Tiamat with the global ocean of chaos in which the whole world was born. This image is associated with the cosmogonic beliefs of ancient civilizations. Tiamat was depicted as a seven-headed hydra and a dragon. Marduk entered into a fight with her, armed with a club, a bow and a net. God was accompanied by storms and heavenly winds, called by him to fight monsters generated by a powerful enemy.

Each ancient cult had its own image of the foremother. In Mesopotamia, Tiamat was considered her. Sumerian mythology endowed her with many evil traits, because of which the rest of the gods took up arms against her. It was Marduk who was chosen by the rest of the pantheon for the decisive battle with the ocean-chaos. Having met his foremother, he was horrified by her terrible appearance, but entered into battle. A variety of gods in Sumerian mythology helped Marduk prepare for battle. The water demons Lahmu and Lahamu gave him the ability to summon floods. Other spirits prepared the rest of the warrior's arsenal.

Marduk, who opposed Tiamat, agreed to fight the ocean-chaos in exchange for the recognition by the other gods of their own world domination. A corresponding deal was concluded between them. At the decisive moment of the battle, Marduk drove a storm into Tiamat's mouth so that she could not close it. After that, he shot an arrow inside the monster and thus defeated his terrible rival.

Tiamat had a consort husband, Kingu. Marduk dealt with him too, taking away the tables of destinies from the monster, with the help of which the winner established his own dominance and created a new world. From the upper part of Tiamat's body he created the sky, the signs of the zodiac, the stars, from the lower part - the earth, and from the eye the two great rivers of Mesopotamia - the Euphrates and the Tigris.

The hero was then recognized by the gods as their king. In gratitude to Marduk, a sanctuary in the form of the city of Babylon was presented. Many temples dedicated to this god appeared in it, including the famous ancient monuments: the Etemenanki ziggurat and the Esagila complex. Sumerian mythology left many evidences about Marduk. The creation of the world by this god is a classic plot of ancient religions.

Ashur

Ashur is another Sumerian god whose image survived this civilization. He was originally the patron saint of the city of the same name. In the 24th century BC it arose there. When in the 8th-7th centuries BC. e. this state reached the peak of its power, Ashur became the most important god of all Mesopotamia. It is also curious that he turned out to be the main figure of the cult pantheon of the first empire in the history of mankind.

The King of Assyria was not only the ruler and head of state, but also the high priest of Ashur. This is how theocracy was born, the basis of which was Sumerian mythology. Books and other sources of antiquity and antiquity indicate that the cult of Ashur existed until the 3rd century AD, when neither Assyria nor independent Mesopotamian cities existed for a long time.

Nanna

The Sumerian moon god was Nanna (also a common Akkadian name Sin). He was considered the patron saint of one of the most important cities of Mesopotamia - Ur. This settlement existed for several millennia. In the XXII-XI centuries. BC, the rulers of Ur united all of Mesopotamia under their rule. In this regard, the importance of Nanna increased. His cult had important ideological significance. The eldest daughter of the king of Ur became the High Priestess of Nanna.

The moon god was favorable to cattle and fertility. He determined the fate of animals and the dead. For this purpose, every new moon Nanna went to the underworld. The phases of the Earth's celestial satellite were associated with his numerous names. The Sumerians called the full moon Nanna, the crescent moon Zuen, and the young crescent Ashimbabbar. In the Assyrian and Babylonian traditions, this deity was also considered a soothsayer and healer.

Shamash, Ishkur and Dumuzi

If the moon god was Nanna, then the sun god was Shamash (or Utu). The Sumerians believed that day was a product of night. Therefore, in their minds, Shamash was Nanna’s son and servant. His image was associated not only with the sun, but also with justice. At noon Shamash judged the living. He also fought evil demons.

The main cult centers of Shamash were Elassar and Sippar. Scientists date the first temples (“houses of radiance”) of these cities to the incredibly distant 5th millennium BC. It was believed that Shamash gave wealth to people, freedom to prisoners, and fertility to lands. This god was depicted as a long-bearded old man with a turban on his head.

In any ancient pantheon there were personifications of each natural element. So, in Sumerian mythology, the god of thunder is Ishkur (another name is Adad). His name often appeared in cuneiform sources. Ishkur was considered the patron saint of the lost city of Karkara. In myths he occupies a secondary position. Nevertheless, he was considered a warrior god, armed with terrible winds. In Assyria, the image of Ishkur evolved into the figure of Adad, which had important religious and state significance. Another nature deity was Dumuzi. He personified the calendar cycle and the change of seasons.

Demons

Like many other ancient peoples, the Sumerians had their own underworld. This lower underground world was inhabited by the souls of the dead and terrible demons. In cuneiform texts, hell was often called "the land of no return." There are dozens of underground Sumerian deities - information about them is fragmentary and scattered. As a rule, each individual city had its own traditions and beliefs associated with chthonic creatures.

Nergal is considered one of the main negative gods of the Sumerians. He was associated with war and death. This demon in Sumerian mythology was depicted as the distributor of dangerous epidemics of plague and fever. His figure was considered the main one in the underworld. In the city of Kutu there was the main temple of the Nergalov cult. Babylonian astrologers personified the planet Mars using his image.

Nergal had a wife and his own female prototype - Ereshkigal. She was Inanna's sister. This demon in Sumerian mythology was considered the master of the chthonic creatures Anunnaki. The main temple of Ereshkigal was located in the large city of Kut.

Another important chthonic deity of the Sumerians was Nergal's brother Ninazu. Living in the underworld, he possessed the art of rejuvenation and healing. His symbol was a snake, which later became the personification of the medical profession in many cultures. Ninaza was revered with special zeal in the city of Eshnunn. His name is mentioned in the famous Babylonian ones where it is said that offerings to this god are obligatory. In another Sumerian city - Ur - there was an annual holiday in honor of Ninazu, during which abundant sacrifices were held. The god Ningishzida was considered his son. He guarded the demons imprisoned in the underworld. The symbol of Ningishzida was the dragon - one of the constellations of Sumerian astrologers and astronomers, which the Greeks called the constellation Serpent.

Sacred trees and spirits

Spells, hymns and prescription books of the Sumerians testify to the existence of sacred trees among this people, each of which was attributed to a specific deity or city. For example, tamarisk was especially revered in the Nippur tradition. In Shuruppak's spells, this tree is considered to be Tamarisk, used by exorcists in rites of purification and treatment of diseases.

Modern science knows about the magic of trees thanks to the few traces of conspiracy traditions and epics. But even less is known about Sumerian demonology. Mesopotamian magical collections, which were used to drive out evil forces, were compiled already in the era of Assyria and Babylonia in the languages ​​of these civilizations. Only a few things can be said for certain about the Sumerian tradition.

There were spirits of ancestors, guardian spirits and hostile spirits. The latter included the monsters killed by the heroes, as well as personifications of illnesses and diseases. The Sumerians believed in ghosts, very similar to the Slavic hostages of the dead. Ordinary people treated them with horror and fear.

Evolution of mythology

The religion and mythology of the Sumerians went through three stages of its formation. At the first, communal-tribal totems evolved into the masters of cities and demiurge gods. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, conspiracies and temple hymns appeared. A hierarchy of gods emerged. It began with the names An, Enlil and Enki. Then came the suns and moons, warrior gods, etc.

The second period is also called the period of Sumerian-Akkadian syncretism. It was marked by a mixture of different cultures and mythologies. Alien to the Sumerians, the Akkadian language is considered the language of the three peoples of Mesopotamia: the Babylonians, Akkadians and Assyrians. Its oldest monuments date back to the 25th century BC. Around this time, the process of merging the images and names of Semitic and Sumerian deities began, performing the same functions.

The third, final period is the period of unification of the common pantheon during the III dynasty of Ur (XXII-XI centuries BC). At this time, the first totalitarian state in human history arose. It subjected to strict ranking and accounting not only people, but also the disparate and multifaceted gods. It was during the Third Dynasty that Enlil was placed at the head of the assembly of gods. An and Enki were on either side of him.

Below were the Anunnaki. Among them were Inanna, Nanna, and Nergal. About a hundred more minor deities were located at the foot of this staircase. At the same time, the Sumerian pantheon merged with the Semitic one (for example, the difference between the Sumerian Enlil and the Semitic Bela was erased). After the fall of the III dynasty of Ur in Mesopotamia it disappeared for some time. In the second millennium BC, the Sumerians lost their independence, finding themselves under the rule of the Assyrians. A mixture of these peoples later gave rise to the Babylonian nation. Along with ethnic changes, religious changes also occurred. When the former homogeneous Sumerian nation and its language disappeared, the mythology of the Sumerians also sank into the past.

Ancient Greek geographers called the flat region between the Tigris and Euphrates Mesopotamia (Interfluve). The self-name of this area is Shinar. The center of development of the most ancient civilization was in Babylonia. Northern Babylonia was called Akkad, and southern Babylonia was called Sumer. No later than the 4th millennium BC. The first Sumerian settlements arose in the extreme south of Mesopotamia, and gradually they occupied the entire territory of Mesopotamia. Where the Sumerians came from is still unknown, but according to a legend widespread among the Sumerians themselves, from the Persian Gulf Islands. The Sumerians spoke a language whose kinship with other languages ​​has not been established. In the northern part of Mesopotamia, starting from the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. Semites lived, pastoral tribes of ancient Western Asia and the Syrian steppe, the language of the Semitic tribes was called Akkadian.

In the southern part of Mesopotamia, the Semites spoke Babylonian, and to the north they spoke the Assyrian dialect of the Assyrian language. For several centuries, the Semites lived next to the Sumerians, but then began to move south and by the end of the 3rd millennium BC. occupied all of southern Mesopotamia, as a result of which the Akkadian language gradually replaced Sumerian, but it continued to exist as the language of science and religious worship until the 1st century. AD Mesopotamian civilization is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the world. It was in Sumer at the end of the 4th millennium BC. human society has emerged from the stage of primitiveness and entered the era of antiquity, which means the formation of a new type of culture and the birth of a new type of consciousness.

Writing played an important role in the formation and consolidation of the new culture of ancient society, with the advent of which new forms of storing and transmitting information became possible. Mesopotamian writing in its oldest, pictographic form appeared at the turn of the 4th - 3rd millennium BC. It is believed that in early pictographic writing there were over one and a half thousand symbols-drawings. Each sign meant one or more words. The improvement of the writing system proceeded along the line of unifying icons and reducing their number, as a result of which cuneiform prints appeared. At the same time, phoneticization of the letter occurs, i.e. icons began to be used not only in their original, verbal meaning, but also in isolation from it. The most ancient written messages were a kind of puzzles, but a developed cuneiform system, capable of conveying all shades of speech, was developed only by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Most of what is known about the culture of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians was obtained from the study of 25 thousand tablets and fragments of the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Ancient Mesopotamian literature includes both monuments of folklore origin and works of authorship. The most outstanding monument is the Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the story of the search for immortality and the meaning of human life. Of great interest are the Old Babylonian Poem of Atrahasis, which tells about the creation of man and the Flood, and the cult cosmogonic epic Enuma elish (When Above). Mythology of Mesopotamia - the mythology of the ancient states of Mesopotamia: Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia, Sumer, Elam.
Sumerian-Akkadian mythology is the mythology of the oldest known civilization, located on the territory of Mesopotamia, and developing from the 4th to the 2nd millennium BC.

Hurrian mythology - the mythology of the peoples who inhabited Northern Mesopotamia in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e.
Assyrian mythology - the mythology of Assyria, located in Northern Mesopotamia in the XIV-VII centuries. BC e.; it was based on Sumerian-Akkadian mythology, and after the capture of Assyria by the Babylonian kingdom, it had a strong influence on Babylonian mythology. Babylonian mythology - the mythology of Babylonia, a state in the south of Mesopotamia in the 20th-6th centuries BC. e.; was influenced by Assyrian mythology. The history of the formation and development of mythological ideas of Sumer and Akkad is known from materials of fine art from approximately the middle of the 6th millennium BC, and from written sources - from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC.

Sumerian mythology

The Sumerians are tribes of unknown origin, at the end. 4th millennium BC e. mastered the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates and formed the first city-states in Mesopotamia. The Sumerian period in the history of Mesopotamia covers about one and a half thousand years, it ends at the end. 3 - beginning 2nd millennium BC e. so-called III dynasty of the city of Ur and the dynasties of Isin and Larsa, of which the latter was already only partially Sumerian. By the time of the formation of the first Sumerian city-states, the idea of ​​an anthropomorphic deity apparently had formed. The patron deities of the community were, first of all, the personification of the creative and productive forces of nature, with which the ideas about the power of the military leader of the tribe-community, combined (at first irregularly) with the functions of the high priest, are connected. From the first written sources (the earliest pictographic texts of the so-called Uruk III - Jemdet-Nasr period date back to the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium), the names (or symbols) of the gods Inanna, Enlil, etc. are known, and from the time of the so-called. n. the period of Abu-Salabiha (settlements near Nippur) and Fara (Shuruppak) 27-26 centuries. - theophoric names and the most ancient list of gods (the so-called “list A”). The earliest actual mythological literary texts - hymns to the gods, lists of proverbs, presentation of some myths (for example, about Enlil) also go back to the Farah period and come from the excavations of Farah and Abu-Salabih. From the reign of the Lagash ruler Gudea (c. 22nd century BC), building inscriptions have come down that provide important material regarding cult and mythology (description of the renovation of the main temple of the city of Lagash Eninnu - the “temple of the fifty” for Ningirsu, the patron god of the city ). But the bulk of Sumerian texts of mythological content (literary, educational, actually mythological, etc., one way or another connected with myth) belong to the end. 3 - beginning 2nd thousand, to the so-called the Old Babylonian period - a time when the Sumerian language was already dying out, but the Babylonian tradition still preserved the system of teaching in it. Thus, by the time writing appeared in Mesopotamia (late 4th millennium BC), a certain system of mythological ideas was recorded here. But each city-state retained its own deities and heroes, cycles of myths and its own priestly tradition. Until the end 3rd millennium BC e. there was no single systematized pantheon, although there were several common Sumerian deities: Enlil, “lord of the air,” “king of gods and men,” god of the city of Nippur, the center of the ancient Sumerian tribal union; Enki, lord of underground fresh waters and the world ocean (later the deity of wisdom), the main god of the city of Eredu, the ancient cultural center of Sumer; An, the god of keb, and Inanna, the goddess of war and carnal love, the deity of the city of Uruk, who rose to the top. 4 - beginning 3rd millennium BC e.; Naina, the moon god worshiped at Ur; the warrior god Ningirsu, worshiped in Lagash (this god was later identified with the Lagash Ninurta), etc. The oldest list of gods from Fara (c. 26th century BC) identifies six supreme gods of the early Sumerian pantheon: Enlil, An, Inanna , Enki, Nanna and the solar god Utu. Ancient Sumerian deities, including astral gods, retained the function of a fertility deity, who was thought of as the patron god of a separate community. One of the most typical images is that of the mother goddess (in iconography she is sometimes associated with images of a woman holding a child in her arms), who was revered under different names: Damgalnuna, Ninhursag, Ninmah (Mah), Nintu. Mom, Mami. Akkadian versions of the image of the mother goddess - Beletili (“mistress of the gods”), the same Mami (who has the epithet “helping during childbirth” in Akkadian texts) and Aruru - the creator of people in Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian myths, and in the epic of Gilgamesh - “wild” man (symbol of the first man) Enkidu. It is possible that the patron goddesses of cities are also associated with the image of the mother goddess: for example, the Sumerian goddesses Bay and Gatumdug also bear the epithets “mother”, “mother of all cities”. In the myths about the gods of fertility, a close connection between myth and cult can be traced. Cult songs from Ur (late 3rd millennium BC) speak of the love of the priestess “Lukur” (one of the significant priestly categories) for King Shu-Suen and emphasize the sacred and official nature of their union. Hymns to the deified kings of the 3rd dynasty of Ur and the 1st dynasty of Isin also show that a ritual of sacred marriage was annually performed between the king (at the same time the high priest “en”) and the high priestess, in which the king represented the incarnation of the shepherd god Dumuzi, and the priestess the goddess Inanna. The content of the works (constituting a single cycle “Inanna-Dumuzi”) includes motives for the courtship and wedding of hero-gods, the descent of the goddess into the underworld (“the land of no return”) and her replacement by a hero, the death of the hero and crying for him, and the hero’s return to land. All the works of the cycle turn out to be the threshold of the drama-action, which formed the basis of the ritual and figuratively embodied the metaphor “life - death - life”. The numerous variants of the myth, as well as the images of departing (perishing) and returning deities (which in this case is Dumuzi), are connected, as in the case of the mother goddess, with the disunity of Sumerian communities and with the very metaphor “life - death - life” , constantly changing its appearance, but constant and unchanged in its renewal. More specific is the idea of ​​replacement, which runs like a leitmotif through all the myths associated with the descent into the underworld. In the myth about Enlil and Ninlil, the role of the dying (departing) and resurrecting (returning) deity is played by the patron of the Nippur community, the lord of the air Enlil, who took possession of Ninlil by force, was expelled by the gods to the underworld for this, but managed to leave it, leaving instead himself, his wife and son "deputies". In form, the demand “for your head - for your head” looks like a legal trick, an attempt to circumvent the law, which is unshakable for anyone who has entered the “country of no return.” But it also contains the idea of ​​some kind of balance, the desire for harmony between the world of the living and the dead. In the Akkadian text about the descent of Ishtar (corresponding to the Sumerian Inanna), as well as in the Akkadian epic about Erra, the god of plague, this idea is formulated more clearly: Ishtar at the gates of the “land of no return” threatens, if she is not allowed in, to “release the dead eating the living,” and then “the dead will multiply more than the living,” and the threat is effective. Myths related to the cult of fertility provide information about the Sumerians' ideas about the underworld. There is no clear idea about the location of the underground kingdom (Sumerian Kur, Kigal, Eden, Irigal, Arali, secondary name - Kur-nugi, “land of no return”; Akkadian parallels to these terms - Erzetu, Tseru). They not only go down there, but also “fall through”; The border of the underworld is the underground river through which the ferryman ferries. Those entering the underworld pass through the seven gates of the underworld, where they are greeted by the chief gatekeeper Neti. The fate of the dead underground is difficult. Their bread is bitter (sometimes it is sewage), their water is salty (slop can also serve as a drink). The underworld is dark, full of dust, its inhabitants, “like birds, dressed in the clothing of wings.” There is no idea of ​​a “field of souls”, just as there is no information about the court of the dead, where they would be judged by their behavior in life and by the rules of morality. The souls for whom funeral rites were performed and sacrifices were made, as well as those who fell in battle and those with many children are awarded a tolerable life (clean drinking water, peace). The judges of the underworld, the Anunnaki, who sit before Ereshkigal, the mistress of the underworld, pronounce only death sentences. The names of the dead are entered into her table by the female scribe of the underworld Geshtinanna (among the Akkadians - Beletseri). Among the ancestors - inhabitants of the underworld - are many legendary heroes and historical figures, for example Gilgamesh, the god Sumukan, the founder of the III dynasty of Ur Ur-Nammu. The unburied souls of the dead return to earth and bring misfortune; the buried are crossed across the “river that separates from people” and is the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The river is crossed by a boat with the ferryman of the underworld Ur-Shanabi or the demon Khumut-Tabal. The actual cosmogonic Sumerian myths are unknown. The text “Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld” says that certain events took place at the time “when the heavens were separated from the earth, when An took the sky for himself, and Enlil the earth, when Ereshkigal was given to Kur.” The myth of the hoe and the ax says that Enlil separated the earth from the heavens, the myth of Lahar and. Ashnan, goddesses of livestock and grain, describes the still fused state of earth and heaven (“mountain of heaven and earth”), which, apparently, was in charge of An. The myth “Enki and Ninhursag” talks about the island of Tilmun as a primeval paradise. Several myths have come down about the creation of people, but only one of them is completely independent - about Enki and Ninmah. Enki and Ninmah sculpt a man from the clay of the Abzu, the underground world ocean, and involve the goddess Nammu - “the mother who gave life to all gods” - in the creation process. The purpose of human creation is to work for the gods: to cultivate the land, graze cattle, collect fruits, and feed the gods with their victims. When a person is made, the gods determine his fate and arrange a feast for this occasion. At the feast, drunken Enki and Ninmah begin to sculpt people again, but they end up with monsters: a woman unable to give birth, a creature deprived of sex, etc. In the myth about the goddesses of cattle and grain, the need to create man is explained by the fact that the gods who appeared before him The Anunnaki do not know how to conduct any kind of farming. The idea that people used to grow underground, like grass, comes up repeatedly. In the myth of the hoe, Enlil uses a hoe to make a hole in the ground and people come out. The same motive sounds in the introduction to the hymn of the city of Ered. Many myths are dedicated to the creation and birth of gods. Cultural heroes are widely represented in Sumerian mythology. The creator-demiurges are mainly Enlil and Enki. According to various texts, the goddess Ninkasi is the founder of brewing, the goddess Uttu is the creator of weaving, Enlil is the creator of the wheel and grain; gardening is the invention of the gardener Shukalitudda. A certain archaic king Enmeduranka is declared to be the inventor of various forms of predicting the future, including predictions using the pouring out of oil. The inventor of the harp is a certain Ningal-Paprigal, the epic heroes Enmerkar and Gilgamesh are the creators of urban planning, and Enmerkar is also the creator of writing. The eschatological line is reflected in the myths of the flood and the wrath of Inanna. In Sumerian mythology, very few stories have been preserved about the struggle of gods with monsters, the destruction of elemental forces, etc. (only two such legends are known - about the struggle of the god Ninurta with the evil demon Asag and about the struggle of the goddess Inanna with the monster Ebih). Such battles in most cases are the lot of a heroic person, a deified king, while most of the deeds of the gods are associated with their role as fertility deities (the most archaic moment) and bearers of culture (the most recent moment). The functional ambivalence of the image corresponds to the external characteristics of the characters: these omnipotent, omnipotent gods, creators of all life on earth, are evil, rude, cruel, their decisions are often explained by whims, drunkenness, promiscuity, their appearance can emphasize unattractive everyday features (dirt under the nails, Enki's dyed red, Ereshkigal's disheveled hair, etc.). The degree of activity and passivity of each deity is also varied. Thus, Inanna, Enki, Ninhursag, Dumuzi, and some minor deities turn out to be the most alive. The most passive god is the “father of the gods” An. The images of Enki, Inaina and partly Enlil are comparable to the images of the demiurge gods, “carriers of culture”, whose characteristics emphasize elements of the comic, the gods of primitive cults living on earth, among people whose cult supplants the cult of the “supreme being”. But at the same time, no traces of “theomachy” - the struggle between old and new generations of gods - were found in Sumerian mythology. One canonical text of the Old Babylonian period begins with a listing of 50 pairs of gods who preceded Anu: their names are formed according to the scheme: “the lord (mistress) of so-and-so.” Among them, one of the oldest, according to some data, gods Enmesharra (“lord of all me”) is named. From an even later source (a New Assyrian spell of the 1st millennium BC) we learn that Enmesharra is “the one who gave the scepter and dominion to Anu and Enlil.” In Sumerian mythology, this is a chthonic deity, but there is no evidence that Enmesharra was forcibly cast into the underground kingdom. Of the heroic tales, only the tales of the Uruk cycle have reached us. The heroes of the legends are three consecutive kings of Uruk: Enmerkar, the son of Meskingasher, the legendary founder of the First Dynasty of Uruk (27-26 centuries BC; according to legend, the dynasty originated from the sun god Utu, whose son Meskingasher was considered); Lugalbanda, fourth ruler of the dynasty, father (and possibly ancestral god) of Gilgamesh, the most popular hero of Sumerian and Akkadian literature. The common outer line for the works of the Uruk cycle is the theme of the connections of Uruk with the outside world and the motif of the journey (journey) of the heroes. The theme of the hero's journey to a foreign country and the test of his moral and physical strength in combination with the motifs of magical gifts and a magical assistant not only shows the degree of mythologization of the work compiled as a heroic-historical monument, but also allows us to reveal the early motives associated with initiation rites. The connection of these motifs in the works, the sequence of a purely mythological level of presentation, brings Sumerian monuments closer to a fairy tale. In the early lists of gods from Fara, the heroes Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh are assigned to the gods; in later texts they appear as gods of the underworld. Meanwhile, in the epic of the Uruk cycle, Gilgamesh, Lugalbanda, Enmerkar, although they have mytho-epic and fairy-tale features, act as real kings - the rulers of Uruk. Their names also appear in the so-called. “royal list” compiled during the period of the III dynasty of Ur (apparently ca. 2100 BC) (all dynasties mentioned in the list are divided into “antediluvian” and those who ruled “after the flood”, the kings, especially the antediluvian period, are attributed mythical number of years of reign: Meskingasher, the founder of the Uruk dynasty, “son of the sun god,” 325 years old, Enmerkar 420 years old, Gilgamesh, who is called the son of the demon Lilu, 128 years old). The epic and extra-epic tradition of Mesopotamia thus has a single general direction - the idea of ​​the historicity of the main mytho-epic heroes. It can be assumed that Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh were posthumously deified as heroes. Things were different from the beginning of the Old Akkadian period. The first ruler who declared himself during his lifetime to be the “patron god of Akkad” was the Akkadian king of the 23rd century. BC e. Naram-Suen; During the III dynasty of Ur, cult veneration of the ruler reached its apogee. The development of the epic tradition from myths about cultural heroes, characteristic of many mythological systems, did not, as a rule, take place on Sumerian soil. A characteristic actualization of ancient forms (in particular, the traditional motif of travel) often found in Sumerian mythological texts is the motif of a god’s journey to another, higher deity for a blessing (myths about Enki’s journey to Enlil after the construction of his city, about the journey of the moon god Naina to Nippur to Enlil, his divine father, for a blessing). The period of the III dynasty of Ur, the time from which most of the written mythological sources came, is the period of development of the ideology of royal power in the most complete form in Sumerian history. Since myth remained the dominant and most “organized” area of ​​social consciousness, the leading form of thinking, it was through myth that the corresponding ideas were affirmed. Therefore, it is no coincidence that most of the texts belong to one group - the Nippur canon, compiled by the priests of the III dynasty of Ur, and the main centers most often mentioned in myths: Eredu, Uruk, Ur, gravitated towards Nippur as the traditional place of general Sumerian cult. “Pseudomyth”, a myth-concept (and not a traditional composition) is also a myth that explains the appearance of the Semitic tribes of the Amorites in Mesopotamia and gives the etiology of their assimilation in society - the myth of the god Martu (the very name of the god is a deification of the Sumerian name for the West Semitic nomads). The myth underlying the text did not develop an ancient tradition, but was taken from historical reality. But traces of a general historical concept - ideas about the evolution of humanity from savagery to civilization (reflected - already on Akkadian material - in the story of the “wild man” Enkidu in the Akkadian epic of Gilgamesh) appear through the “actual” concept of myth. After the fall at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e. under the onslaught of the Amorites and Elamites of the III dynasty of Ur, almost all the ruling dynasties of individual city-states of Mesopotamia turned out to be Amorites. However, in the culture of Mesopotamia, contact with the Amorite tribes left almost no trace.

Akkadian (Babylonian-Assyrian) mythology

Since ancient times, the Eastern Semites - Akkadians, who occupied the northern part of the lower Mesopotamia, were neighbors of the Sumerians and were under strong Sumerian influence. In the 2nd half of the 3rd millennium BC. e. The Akkadians also established themselves in the south of Mesopotamia, which was facilitated by the unification of Mesopotamia by the ruler of the city of Akkad, Sargon the Ancient, into the “kingdom of Sumer and Akkad” (later, with the rise of Babylon, this territory became known as Babylonia). History of Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC. e. - this is the history of the Semitic peoples. However, the merger of the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples occurred gradually; the displacement of the Sumerian language by Akkadian (Babylonian-Assyrian) did not mean the complete destruction of Sumerian culture and its replacement with a new, Semitic one. Not a single early purely Semitic cult has yet been discovered on the territory of Mesopotamia. All Akkadian gods known to us are of Sumerian origin or have long been identified with Sumerian ones. Thus, the Akkadian sun god Shamash was identified with the Sumerian Utu, the goddess Ishtar - with Inanna and a number of other Sumerian goddesses, the storm god Adad - with Ishkur, etc. The god Enlil receives the Semitic epithet Bel (Baal), “lord”. With the rise of Babylon, the main god of this city, Marduk, begins to play an increasingly important role, but this name is also Sumerian in origin. The Akkadian mythological texts of the Old Babylonian period are much less known than the Sumerian ones; Not a single text was received in full. All main sources on Akkadian mythology date back to the 2nd-1st millennium BC. e., that is, by the time after the Old Babylonian period. If very fragmentary information has been preserved about Sumerian cosmogony and theogony, then the Babylonian cosmogonic doctrine is represented by the large cosmogonic epic poem “Enuma elish” (according to the first words of the poem - “When above”; the earliest version dates back to the beginning of the 10th century BC) . The poem assigns the main role in the creation of the world to Marduk, who gradually occupies the main place in the pantheon of the 2nd millennium, and by the end of the Old Babylonian period receives universal recognition outside Babylon (for a presentation of the cosmogonic myth, see Art. Abzu and Marduk). In comparison with the Sumerian ideas about the universe, what is new in the cosmogonic part of the poem is the idea of ​​successive generations of gods, each of which is superior to the previous one, of theomachy - the battle of old and new gods and the unification of many divine images of the creators into one. The idea of ​​the poem is to justify the exaltation of Marduk, the purpose of its creation is to prove and show that Marduk is the direct and legitimate heir of the ancient powerful forces, including including Sumerian deities. The “primordial” Sumerian gods turn out to be young heirs of more ancient forces, which they crush. He receives power not only on the basis of legal succession, but also by the right of the strongest, therefore the theme of struggle and the violent overthrow of ancient forces is the leitmotif of the legend. The traits of Enki - Eya, like other gods, are transferred to Marduk, but Eya becomes the father of the “lord of the gods” and his advisor. In the Ashur version of the poem (late 2nd millennium BC), Marduk is replaced by Ashur, the main god of the city of Ashur and the central deity of the Assyrian pantheon. This became a manifestation of a general tendency towards monotheism, expressed in the desire to highlight the main god and rooted not only in the ideological, but also in the socio-political situation of the 1st millennium BC. e. A number of cosmological motifs from the Enuma Elish have come down to us in Greek adaptations by a Babylonian priest of the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e. Berossus (through Polyhistor and Eusebius), as well as the Greek writer of the 6th century. n. e. Damascus. Damascus has a number of generations of gods: Taute and Apason and their son Mumiyo (Tiamat, Apsu, Mummu), as well as Lahe and Lahos, Kissar and Assoros (Lahmu and Lahamu, Anshar and Kishar), their children Anos, Illinos, Aos (Anu , Enlil, Eya). Aos and Dauke (i.e., the goddess Damkina) create the demiurge god Bel (Marduk). In Berossus, the mistress corresponding to Tiamat is a certain Omorka (“sea”), who dominates darkness and waters and whose description is reminiscent of the description of the evil Babylonian demons. God Bel cuts it down, creates heaven and earth, organizes the world order and orders the head of one of the gods to be cut off in order to create people and animals from his blood and earth. Myths about the creation of the world and the human race in Babylonian literature and mythography are associated with tales of human disasters, deaths, and even the destruction of the universe. As in the Sumerian monuments, the Babylonian legends emphasize that the cause of disasters is the anger of the gods, their desire to reduce the number of the ever-growing human race, which bothers the gods with its noise. Disasters are perceived not as legal retribution for human sins, but as the evil whim of a deity. The myth of the flood, which, according to all data, was based on the Sumerian legend of Ziusudra, came down in the form of the myth of Atrahasis and the story of the flood, inserted into the epic of Gilgamesh (and little different from the first), and was also preserved in the Greek transmission of Berossus. The myth of the plague god Erra, who fraudulently takes away power from Marduk, also tells about the punishment of people. This text sheds light on the Babylonian theological concept of a certain physical and spiritual balance of the world, dependent on the presence of a rightful owner in its place (cf. Sumerian-Akkadian motif of balance between the world of the living and the dead). Traditional for Mesopotamia (since the Sumerian period) is the idea of ​​​​the connection of a deity with his statue: by leaving the country and the statue, the god thereby changes his place of residence. This is done by Marduk, and the country is damaged, and the universe is threatened with destruction. It is characteristic that in all epics about the destruction of humanity, the main disaster - the flood - was caused not by a flood from the sea, but by a rain storm. Connected with this is the significant role of the gods of storms and hurricanes in the cosmogony of Mesopotamia, especially the northern one. In addition to the special gods of wind and thunderstorms, storms (the main Akkadian god is Adad), winds were the sphere of activity of various gods and demons. So, according to tradition, he was probably the supreme Sumerian god Enlil (the literal meaning of the name is “breath of the wind”, or “lord of the wind”), although he is mainly the god of air in the broad sense of the word. But still Enlil owned destructive storms, with which he destroyed enemies and cities that he hated. Enlil's sons Ninurta and Ningirsu are also associated with the storm. The winds of the four directions were perceived as deities, or at least as personified higher powers. The Babylonian legend of the creation of the world, the plot of which was built around the personality of a powerful deity, the epic development of episodes telling about the battle of a hero-god with a monster - the personification of the elements, gave rise to the theme of a hero-god in Babylonian epic-mythological literature (and not a mortal hero, as in Sumerian literature). According to Akkadian concepts, tables of fate determined the movement of the world and world events. Their possession ensured world domination (cf. Enuma Elish, where they were initially owned by Tiamat, then by Kingu and finally by Marduk). The scribe of the tables of destinies - the god of scribal art and the son of Marduk Nabu - was also sometimes perceived as their owner. Tables were also written in the underworld (the scribe was the goddess Beletseri); Apparently, this was a recording of death sentences, as well as the names of the dead. If the number of god-heroes in Babylonian mythological literature prevails in comparison with Sumerian, then about mortal heroes, except for the epic of Atrahasis, only the legend (obviously of Sumerian origin) about Etan, the hero who tried to fly on an eagle to heaven, and a relatively later story are known about Adapa, the sage who dared to “break off the wings” of the wind and arouse the wrath of the sky god An, but missed the opportunity to gain immortality, and the famous epic of Gilgamesh is not a simple repetition of Sumerian tales about the hero, but a work that reflected the complex ideological evolution that, together with the Babylonian society was carried out by the heroes of Sumerian works. The leitmotif of the epic works of Babylonian literature is the failure of man to achieve the fate of the gods, despite all his aspirations, the futility of human efforts in trying to achieve immortality. The monarchical-state, rather than communal (as in Sumerian mythology) nature of the official Babylonian religion, as well as the suppression of the social life of the population, leads to the fact that the features of archaic religious and magical practice are gradually suppressed. Over time, “personal” gods begin to play an increasingly important role. The idea of ​​a personal god for each person, who facilitates his access to the great gods and introduces him to them, arose (or, in any case, spread) from the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur and in the Old Babylonian period. On reliefs and seals of this time there are often scenes depicting how the patron deity leads a person to the supreme god to determine his fate and to receive blessings. During the Third Dynasty of Ur, when the king was seen as the protector-guardian of his country, he assumed some of the functions of a protective god (especially the deified king). It was believed that with the loss of his protector god, a person became defenseless against the evil willfulness of the great gods and could easily be attacked by evil demons. In addition to a personal god, who was primarily supposed to bring good luck to his patron, and a personal goddess, who personified his life “share,” each person also had his own shedu (cf. Sumerian, Alad) - an anthropomorphized or zoomorphized life force. In addition to these defenders, a resident of Babylonia in the 2nd-1st millennium BC. e. his own personal guardian also appears - lamassu, the bearer of his personality, possibly associated with the cult of the placenta. A person’s “name” or his “glory” (shumu) was also considered as a material substance, without which his existence was unthinkable and which was passed on to his heirs. On the contrary, the “soul” (napishtu) is something impersonal; it was identified either with breath or with blood. Personal guardian gods opposed evil and were, as it were, the antipodes of the evil forces surrounding man. Among them is the lion-headed Lamashtu, rising from the underworld and leading with her all kinds of diseases, the evil spirits of diseases themselves, ghosts, embittered shadows of the dead who do not receive victims, various kinds of serving spirits of the underworld (utukki, asakki, etimme, galle, galle lemnuti - “evil devils,” etc.), the god-fate Namtar, who comes to a person at the hour of his death, the night spirits-incubus Lilu, visiting women, the succubi Lilith (Lilitu), possessing men, etc. The most complex system of demonological ideas that developed in Babylonian mythology (and not attested in Sumerian monuments) was also reflected in the visual arts. The general structure of the pantheon, the formation of which dates back to the III dynasty of Ur, basically remains without much change throughout the entire era of antiquity. The entire world is officially headed by the triad of Anu, Enlil and Eya, surrounded by a council of seven or twelve “great gods” who determine the “shares” (shimata) of everything in the world. All gods are thought of as divided into two clan groups - the Igigi and the Anunnaki; the gods of the earth and the underworld, as a rule, are among the latter, although among the heavenly gods there are also Anunnaki gods. In the underworld, however, it is no longer Ereshkigal who rules so much as her husband Nergal, who has subjugated his wife, which corresponds to the general decrease in the role of female deities in Babylonian mythology, who, as a rule, were relegated almost exclusively to the position of impersonal consorts of their divine husbands (essentially a special Only the goddess of healing Gula and Ishtar remain important, although, judging by the Epic of Gilgamesh, her position is under threat). But steps towards monotheism, manifested in the strengthening of the cult of Marduk, which monopolized the end. 2nd millennium, almost all areas of divine activity and power continue to occur. Enlil and Marduk (in Assyria - Enlil and Ashur) merge into a single image of the “lord” - Bel (Baal). In the 1st millennium BC. e. Marduk in a number of centers is gradually beginning to be replaced by his son, the scribal god Nabu, who is tending to become a single Babylonian deity. The properties of one god are endowed with other deities, and the qualities of one god are determined using the qualities of other gods. This is another way to create the image of a single omnipotent and all-powerful deity in a purely abstract way. Monuments (mostly from the 1st millennium) make it possible to reconstruct the general system of cosmogonic views of Babylonian theologians, although there is no complete certainty that such a unification was carried out by the Babylonians themselves. The microcosm seems to be a reflection of the macrocosm - “bottom” (earth) - as if a reflection of the “top” (heaven). The entire universe seems to float in the world's oceans, the earth is likened to a large inverted round boat, and the sky is like a solid semi-vault (dome) covering the world. The entire celestial space is divided into several parts: the “upper sky of Anu”, the “middle sky” belonging to the Igigi, in the center of which was the lapis lazuli cella of Marduk, and the “lower sky”, already visible to people, on which the stars are located. All heavens are made of different types of stone, for example, the “lower heaven” is made of blue jasper; above these three heavens there are four more heavens. The sky, like a building, rests on a foundation attached to the heavenly ocean with pegs and, like an earthly palace, protected from water by a rampart. The highest part of the vault of heaven is called the “middle of the heavens.” The outside of the dome (the "inside of heaven") emits light; This is the space where the moon - Sin hides during his three-day absence and where the sun - Shamash spends the night. In the east there is the “mountain of sunrise”, in the west there is the “mountain of sunset”, which are locked. Every morning Shamash opens the “mountain of sunrise”, sets out on a journey across the sky, and in the evening through the “mountain of sunset” he disappears into the “inside of heaven”. The stars in the firmament are “images” or “writings,” and each of them is assigned a firm place so that none “goes astray from its path.” Earthly geography corresponds to celestial geography. The prototypes of everything that exists: countries, rivers, cities, temples - exist in the sky in the form of stars, earthly objects are only reflections of heavenly ones, but both substances each have their own dimensions. Thus, the heavenly temple is approximately twice the size of the earthly one. The plan of Nineveh was originally drawn in heaven and existed from ancient times. The celestial Tigris is located in one constellation, and the celestial Euphrates in the other. Each city corresponds to a specific constellation: Sippar - the constellation Cancer, Babylon, Nippur - others, whose names are not identified with modern ones. Both the sun and the month are divided into countries: on the right side of the month is Akkad, on the left is Elam, the upper part of the month is Amurru (Amorites), the lower part is the country of Subartu. Under the firmament lies (like an overturned boat) “ki” - the earth, which is also divided into several tiers. People live in the upper part, in the middle part - the possessions of the god Eya (an ocean of fresh water or groundwater), in the lower part - the possessions of the earth gods, the Anunnaki, and the underworld. According to other views, seven earths correspond to the seven heavens, but nothing is known about their exact division and location. To strengthen the earth, it was tied to the sky with ropes and secured with pegs. These ropes are the Milky Way. The upper earth, as is known, belongs to the god Enlil. His temple Ekur (“house of the mountain”) and one of its central parts - Duranki (“connection of heaven and earth”) symbolize the structure of the world. Thus, a certain evolution is outlined in the religious and mythological views of the peoples of Mesopotamia. If the Sumerian religious-mythological system can be defined as based primarily on communal cults, then in the Babylonian system one can see a clear desire for monolatry and for a more individual communication with the deity. From very archaic ideas, a transition is planned to a developed religious-mythological system, and through it - to the field of religious and ethical views, no matter in what rudimentary form they may be expressed.

Mythology. Encyclopedia, -M.: Belfax, 2002
S. Fingaret "Myths and Legends of the Ancient East", - M.: Norint, 2002
S. Kramer "The Mythology of Sumer and Akkad", -M.: Education, 1977
Reader on the history of the Ancient East, parts 1-2, -M., 1980

SUMERIAN CREATION MYTH

SOME ARTICLES FROM O. ZHANAIDAROV'S BOOK "TENGRIANism: MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE ANCIENT TURKICS"

The Sumerians explained the origin of the universe as follows.
In the beginning there was the primeval ocean. Nothing is said about his origin or birth. It is likely that in the minds of the Sumerians he existed forever.
The primordial ocean gave birth to a cosmic mountain, consisting of earth united with sky.
Created as gods in human form, the god An (Sky) and the goddess Ki (earth) gave birth to the god of air Enlil.
The god of air, Enlil, separated the sky from the earth. While his father An lifted up (carried away) the sky, Enlil himself sent down (carried away) the earth, his mother. S. Kramer, "History Begins in Sumer", p.97.
And now, for comparison, we present the ancient Turkic version of the myth about the origin of the universe, earth and sky. This myth was recorded by Verbitsky among the Altai people. Here is its content:
When there was neither earth nor sky, there was only a great ocean, without borders, without end or edge. Over all this, God - Tengri - named Ulken - that is, big, huge - flew tirelessly above all this. In some sources, even Kazakh ones, the name of this god is written Ulgen, which seems incorrect to me. Ulgen is the same as dead, Olgen. God, who is destined to give birth to life and create the universe, cannot be dead or bear the name “Dead”... Once in the East Kazakhstan region I had to visit an outpost called Uryl. The officers and soldiers could not explain why it was called that. I had to turn to the locals. It turns out that the outpost and the village of the same name are named “Or El”, that is, an village located high in the mountains. Almost like an Eagle! But in the army, by the border guards, all this is distorted into the incomprehensible and derogatory Uryl. The same thing, I think, happened with Ulken-Ulgen, whose name was also distorted when recorded in the 19th century, which the Kazakhs and Altaians themselves believed. Moreover, Eastern Kazakhstan and Altai are nearby.
But next door is Ulken - the huge, great, great Altai creator of the universe! Who should create the World if not the big and huge Ulken!
So, the Big God - Tengri Ulken - flew and flew tirelessly over the ocean of water, until some voice ordered him to grab onto a rock-rock that looked out of the water. Having sat down on this cliff by order from above, Tengri Ulken began to think:
“I want to create the World, the universe. But what should it be like? Who and how should I create?” At that moment, Ak Ana, the White Mother, living in the water, came to the surface and said to Tengri Ulken:
“If you want to create, then say the following sacred words: “I created, basta!” Basta, in the sense, it’s over, since I said it! But the trick is that in the Turkic language the word “Basta, Bastau” means “Begin, Beginning "The White Mother said so and disappeared.
Tengri Ulken remembered these words. He turned to the Earth and said: “Let the Earth arise!” and the Earth came into being.
Tengri Ulken turned to Heaven and said: “Let Heaven arise,” and Heaven arose.
Tengri Ulken created three fish and placed the World he created on the backs of these three fish. At the same time, the World was motionless, standing firmly in one place. After Tengri Ulken had thus created the World, he climbed the highest Golden Mountain reaching to heaven and sat there, watching.
The world was created in six days, on the seventh Tengri Ulken went to bed. Waking up, he looked around and examined what he had created.
He, it turns out, created everything except the Sun and Moon.
One day he saw a lump of clay in the water, grabbed it, and said: “Let him be a man!” The clay turned into a man, to whom Tengri Ulken gave the name “Erlik”, and began to consider him his brother.
But Erlik turned out to be an envious man, he envied Ulken that he himself was not like Erlik, that he was not the creator of the whole World.
Tengri Ulken created seven people, made their bones from reeds, and their muscles from earth and mud, and breathed life into them through their ears, and breathed intelligence into their heads through their noses. To lead people, Tengri Ulken created a man named Maytore and made him khan.
This Altai eclectic myth combines various elements from different religions, the influence of the Bible being most noticeable. It cannot be considered completely independent.
But the Sumerian theme of the great ocean and the world mountain, created in one period, is also noticeable. We can say that the Sumerian myth about the origin of the World was edited by Semitic biblical mythology, and the Altai (ancient Turkic) myth about the origin of the World was obtained.

More than once, those biblical legends, which for many centuries were accepted as fiction, were confirmed as real by finds on the territory of the Sumerian state. The mere existence of the Sumerian version proves that the Bible is not the primary source of this knowledge. That she, at a minimum, copied ancient legends. And, as a maximum, it embodied the tales of another, extinct or destroyed people.

The flood, according to the story of the Sumerian storyteller, occurred after the gods created people. Unfortunately, the legend has reached us only in one copy. And then, the tablet that scientists discovered in Nippur is badly damaged, and part of the record is forever lost to researchers. The Flood Tablet is considered a document and is of great value for the history of mankind. It is missing the top of the tablet, which contained 37 lines from the ancient Sumerian flood epic. It was in this part that apparently talked about the reasons why the gods decided to destroy people. The visible text begins with the desire of some supreme god to save humanity from complete extinction. He is driven by the belief that people will return to religiosity and reverence for those who created them.

In this part, it is appropriate to recall the myth about the creation of biorobots by the Anunnaki, and that sometimes the results of the experiments did not satisfy the creators, and they sent a global disaster to the earth. At a minimum, then, at a maximum, a nuclear explosion, which may have completely destroyed the Sumerians.

This tablet also says that people need to be saved, and then they will build temples again. We also need to save the four-legged animals that the gods created. Then again, several lines are missing; perhaps there is a full description of the act of creation of the living world on earth. Let us remember that the Sumerians left almost no concrete examples of the creation of all living things, which makes the loss of this text on the tablet even sadder.

The next part of the myth already tells about the founding of five cities by the gods, how the kings were created, and what they were charged with doing. Five cities were formed in sacred places, these cities were Ereda, Badtibiru, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak. That is, according to this historical source, before the flood, the Sumerians lived in five cities. Then again about 37 lines of text are missing. Sumerologists believe that there could be information here about the sins of people, for which the gods sent a flood on them. Moreover, the decision of the gods was not made unanimously. The divine Inanna wept for the created people. And the unknown god - as researchers suggest, Enki - also wants to save humanity.

The next part of the tablet talks about the last ruler of Shuruppak, the God-fearing Ziusudra. In the Bible he will be called Noah. In a dream, Ziusudr receives an order from the gods to build an ark and bring there “a pair of each creature.”

And again, further on the sign there is a huge gap. Almost in the most important part of it! Apparently, they talked about what the ship should be like, how it should be built, what size it should be. This is exactly what is later more accurately reflected in the biblical legend of Noah.

The flood myth ends with a passage about the Flood itself:

All the storms raged simultaneously with unprecedented force.
And at the same moment the flood flooded the main sanctuaries.
For seven days and seven nights the Flood flooded the earth,
And the winds carried the huge ship through stormy waters,
Then Utu came out, the one who gives light to heaven and earth.
Then Ziusudra opened the window on his huge ship...
(Translated by F. L. Mendelssohn)

It was on the basis of this primary source that the Babylonian flood myth was created, and then the biblical one. This legend is reflected in the myths of almost all nations. For their good deed, King Ziusudra and his wife were awarded an eternal stay on the Island of Bliss.

An and Enlil caressed Ziusudra,
Gave him life like a god
Eternal breath, like a god, was brought for him from above.
Then Ziusudra, the king,
Savior of the name of all plants and seeds of the human race,
In the land of transition, in the land of Dilmun, where the sun rises, they placed.
(Translated by F. L. Mendelssohn)