ref, ref, ref, ref

Ancient Cosmology Shaped Everyone’s Theology

Sacred Flat Earth, often with hills/mountains: “Mound of Creation” or “Axis Mundi.”

“Cosmology in the ancient Near East (ANE) refers to the plurality of cosmological beliefs in the Ancient Near East, covering the period from the 4th millennium BCE to the formation of the Macedonian Empire by Alexander the Great in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. These beliefs include the Mesopotamian cosmologies from Babylonia, Sumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from Ugarit and ancient Israel and Judah (the biblical cosmology); the Egyptian cosmology from Ancient Egypt; and the Anatolian cosmologies from the Hittites. This system of cosmology went on to have a profound influence on views in early Greek cosmology, later Jewish cosmology, patristic cosmology, and Islamic cosmology (including Quranic cosmology). Until the modern era, variations of ancient near eastern cosmology survived with Hellenistic cosmology as the main competing system. Ancient near eastern cosmology can be divided into its cosmography, the physical structure and features of the cosmos; and cosmogony, the creation myths that describe the origins of the cosmos in the texts and traditions of the ancient near eastern world. The cosmos and the gods were also related, as cosmic bodies like heaven, earth, the stars were believed to be and/or personified as gods, and the sizes of the gods were frequently described as being of cosmic proportions.” ref

Cosmography

“Ancient Near Eastern civilizations held to a fairly uniform conception of cosmography. This cosmography remained remarkably stable in the context of the expansiveness and longevity of the ancient Near East, but changes were also to occur. Widely held components of ancient near eastern cosmography included:

• a flat earth and a solid heaven (firmament), both of which are disk-shaped
• a primordial cosmic ocean. When the firmament is created, it separates the cosmic ocean into two bodies of water:
• the heavenly upper waters located on top of the firmament, which act as a source of rain
• the lower waters that the earth is above and that the earth rests on; they act as the source of rivers, springs, and other earthly bodies of water
• the region above the upper waters, namely the abode of the gods
• the netherworld, the furthest region in the direction downwards, below the lower waters.” ref

“Keyser, categorizing ancient near eastern cosmology as belonging to a larger and more cross-cultural set of cosmologies he describes as a “cradle cosmology,” offers a longer list of shared features. Some cosmographical features have been misattributed to Mesopotamian cosmologies, including the idea that ziggurats represented cosmic objects reaching up to heaven or the idea of a dome- or vault-shaped (as opposed to a flat) firmament. Another controversy concerns if the ancient near eastern cosmography was purely observational or phenomenological. However, a number of lines of evidence, including descriptions from the cosmological texts themselves, presumptions of this cosmography in non-cosmological texts (like incantations), anthropological studies of contemporary primitive cosmologies, and cognitive expectations that humans construct mental models to explain observation, support that the ancient near eastern cosmography was not phenomenological.” ref

Cosmogony

“Ancient near eastern cosmogony also included a number of common features that are present in most if not all creation myths from the ancient near east. Widespread features included:

• Creatio ex materia from a primordial state of chaos; that is, the organization of the world from pre-existing, unordered and unformed (hence chaotic) elements, represented by a primordial body of water
• the presence of a divine creator
• the Chaoskampf motif: a cosmic battle between the protagonist and a primordial sea monster
• the separation of undifferentiated elements (to create heaven and earth)
• the creation of mankind.” ref

“Lisman uses the broader category of “Beginnings” to encompass three separate though inter-related categories: the beginning of the cosmos (cosmogony), the beginning of the gods (theogony), and the beginning of humankind (anthropogeny). There is evidence that Mesopotamian creation myths reached as far as Pre-Islamic Arabia.” ref

Overview of the whole cosmos

“The Mesopotamian cosmos can be imagined along a vertical axis, with parallel planes of existence layered above each other. The uppermost plane of existence was heaven, being the residence of the god of the sky Anu. Immediately below heaven was the atmosphere. The atmosphere extended from the bottom of heaven (or the lowermost firmament) to the ground. This region was inhabited by Enlil, who was also the king of the gods in Sumerian mythology. The cosmic ocean below the ground was the next plane of existence, and this was the domain of the sibling deities Enki and Ninhursag. The lowest plane of existence was the underworld. Other deities inhabited these planes of existence even if they did not reign over them, such as the sun and moon gods. In later Babylonian accounts, the god Marduk alone ascends to the top rank of the pantheon and rules over all domains of the cosmos. The three-tiered cosmos (sky-earth-underworld) is found in Egyptian artwork on coffin lids and burial chambers.” ref

“A variety of terms or phrases were used to refer to the cosmos as a whole, acting as rough equivalents to contemporary terms like “cosmos” or “universe”. This included phrases like “heaven and earth” or “heaven and underworld”. Terms like “all” or “totality” similarly connoted the entire universe. These motifs are found in temple hymns and royal inscriptions located in temples. The temples symbolized cosmic structures that reached heaven at their height and the underworld at their depths/foundations. Surviving evidence does not specify the exact physical bounds of the cosmos or what lies beyond the region described in the texts.” ref

Three Heavens and Earths

“In Mesopotamian cosmology, heaven and earth both had a tripartite structure: a Lower Heaven/Earth, a Middle Heaven/Earth, and an Upper Heaven/Earth. The Upper Earth was where humans existed. Middle Earth, corresponding to the Abzu (primeval underworldly ocean), was the residence of the god Enki. Lower Earth, the Mesopotamian underworld, was where the 600 Anunnaki gods lived, associated with the land of the dead ruled by Nergal. As for the heavens: the highest level was populated by 300 Igigi (great gods), the middle heaven belonged to the Igigi and also contained Marduk’s throne, and the lower heaven was where the stars and constellations were inscribed into. The extent of the Babylonian universe therefore corresponded to a total of six layers spanning across heaven and Earth. Notions of the plurality of heaven and earth are no later than the 2nd millennium BC and may be elaborations of earlier and simpler cosmographies.” ref

“One text (KAR 307) describes the cosmos in the following manner, with each of the three floors of heaven being made of a different type of stone:

30 “The Upper Heavens are Luludānītu stone. They belong to Anu. He (i.e. Marduk) settled the 300 Igigū (gods) inside. 31 The Middle Heavens are Saggilmud stone. They belong to the Igīgū (gods). Bēl (i.e. Marduk) sat on the high throne within, 32 the lapis lazuli sanctuary. And made a lamp? of electrum shine inside (it). 33 The Lower Heavens are jasper. They belong to the stars. He drew the constellations of the gods on them. 34 In the … …. of the Upper Earth, he lay down the spirits of mankind. 35 [In the …] of the Middle earth, he settled Ea, his father. 36 […..] . He did not let the rebellion be forgotten. 37 [In the … of the Lowe]r earth, he shut inside 600 Anunnaki. 38 […….] … […. in]side jasper.” ref

“Another text (AO 8196) offers a slightly different arrangement, with the Igigi in the upper heaven instead of the middle heaven, and with Bel placed in the middle heaven. Both agree on the placement of the stars in the lower heaven. Exodus 24:9–10 identifies the floor of heaven as being like sapphire, which may correspond to the blue lapis lazuli floor in KAR 307, chosen potentially for its correspondence to the visible color of the sky. One hypothesis holds that the belief that the firmament is made of stone (or a metal, such as iron in Egyptian texts) arises from the observation that meteorites, which are composed of this substance, fall from the firmament.” ref

Seven heavens and earths

“Some texts describe seven heavens and seven earths, but within the Mesopotamian context, this is likely to refer to a totality of the cosmos with some sort of magical or numerological significance, as opposed to a description of the structural number of heavens and Earth. Israelite texts do not mention the notion of seven heavens or earths.” ref

Unity of the cosmos

“Mythical bonds, akin to ropes or cables, played the role of cohesively holding the entire world and all its layers of heaven and Earth together. These are sometimes called the “bonds of heaven and earth”. They can be referred to with terminology like durmāhu (typically referring to a strong rope made of reeds), markaṣu (referring to a rope or cable, of a boat, for example), or ṣerretu (lead-rope passed through an animals nose). A deity can hold these ropes as a symbol of their authority, such as the goddess Ishtar “who holds the connecting link of all heaven and earth (or netherworld)”. This motif extended to descriptions of great cities like Babylon which was called the “bond of [all] the lands,” or Nippur which was “bond of heaven and earth,” and some temples as well.” ref

Center of the cosmos

“The idea of a center to the cosmos played a role in elevating the status of whichever place was chosen as the cosmic center and in reflecting beliefs of the finite and closed nature of the cosmos. Babylon was described as the center of the Babylonian cosmos. In parallel, Jerusalem became “the navel of the earth” (Ezekiel 38:12). The finite nature of the cosmos was also suggested to the ancients by the periodic and regular movements of the heavenly bodies in the visible vicinity of the Earth.” ref

Firmament: Firmament

“The firmament was believed to be a solid boundary above the Earth, separating it from the upper or celestial waters. In the Book of Genesis, it is called the raqia. In ancient Egyptian texts, and from texts across the Near East generally, the firmament was described as having special doors or gateways on the eastern and western horizons to allow for the passage of heavenly bodies during their daily journeys. These were known as the windows of heaven or the gates of heaven. Canaanite text describe Baal as exerting his control over the world by controlling the passage of rainwater through the heavenly windows in the firmament. In Egyptian texts particularly, these gates also served as conduits between the earthly and heavenly realms for which righteous people could ascend. The gateways could be blocked by gates to prevent entry by the deceased as well. As such, funerary texts included prayers enlisting the help of the gods to enable the safe ascent of the dead. Ascent to the celestial realm could also be done by a celestial ladder made by the gods. Multiple stories exist in Mesopotamian texts whereby certain figures ascend to the celestial realm and are given the secrets of the gods.” ref

“Four different Egyptian models of the firmament and/or the heavenly realm are known. One model was that it was the shape of a bird: the firmament above represented the underside of a flying falcon, with the sun and moon representing its eyes, and its flapping causing the wind that humans experience. The second was a cow, as per the Book of the Heavenly Cow. The cosmos is a giant celestial cow represented by the goddess Nut or Hathor. The cow consumed the sun in the evening and rebirthed it in the next morning. The third is a celestial woman, also represented by Nut. The heavenly bodies would travel across her body from east to west. The midriff of Nut was supported by Shu (the air god) and Geb (the earth god) lay outstretched between the arms and feet of Nut. Nut consumes the celestial bodies from the west and gives birth to them again in the following morning. The stars are inscribed across the belly of Nut and one needs to identify with one of them, or a constellation, in order to join them after death. The fourth model was a flat (or slightly convex) celestial plane which, depending on the text, was thought to be supported in various ways: by pillars, staves, scepters, or mountains at the extreme ends of the Earth. The four supports give rise to the motif of the “four corners of the world.” ref

Earth: Flat Earth, Topography of the earth

“The ancient near eastern earth was a single-continent disk resting on a body of water sometimes compared to a raft. An aerial view of the cosmography of the earth is pictorially elucidated by the Babylonian Map of the World. Here, the city Babylon is near the Earth’s center and it is on the Euphrates river. Other kingdoms and cities surround it. The north is covered by an enormous mountain range, akin to a wall. This mountain range was traversed in some hero myths, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh travels past it to an area only accessible by gods and other great heroes. The furthest and most remote parts of the earth were believed to be inhabited by fantastic creatures. In the Babylonian Map, the world continent is surrounded by a bitter salt-water Ocean (called marratu, or “salt-sea”) akin to Oceanus described by the poetry of Homer and Hesiod in early Greek cosmology, as well as the statement in the Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk that Marduk created the first dry land surrounded by a cosmic sea. Egyptian cosmology appears to have also shared this view, as one of the words used for sea, shen-wer, means “great encircler”. World-encircling oceans are also found in the Fara tablet VAT 12772 from the 3rd millennium BC and the Myth of Etana.” ref

Four corners of the earth (Four Mountains)

“A common honorific that many kings and rulers ascribed to themselves was that they were the rulers of the four quarters (or corners) of the Earth. For example, Hammurabi (ca. 1810–1750 BCE or around 3,810 to 3,750 years ago) received the title of “King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Four Quarters of the World”. Monarchs of the Assyrian empire, like Ashurbanipal, also took on this title. (Although the title implies a square or rectangular shape, in this case, it is taken to refer to the four quadrants of a circle, which is joined at the world’s center.) Likewise, the ‘four corners’ motif would also appear in some biblical texts, such as Isaiah 11:12.” ref

Cosmic mountain

Further information: Sacred mountains, Mashu, Axis mundi, and World tree

“According to iconographic and literary evidence, the cosmic mountain, known as Mashu in the Epic of Gilgamesh, was thought to be located at or extend to both the westernmost and easternmost points of the earth, where the sun could rise and set respectively. As such, the model may be called a bi-polar model of diurnal solar movement. The gates for the rising and setting of the sun were also located at Mashu. Some accounts have Mashu as a tree growing at the center of the earth with roots descending into the underworld and a peak reaching to heaven. The cosmic mountain is also found in Egyptian cosmology, as Pyramid Text 1040c says that the mountain ranges on the eastern and western sides of the Nile act as the “two supports of the sky.” In the Baal Cycle, two cosmic mountains exist at the horizon acting as the point through which the sun rises from and sets into the underworld (Mot). The tradition of the twin cosmic mountains may also lie behind Zechariah 6:1.” ref

Heavenly bodies

Sun

“The sun god (represented by the god Utu in Sumerian texts or Shamash in Akkadian texts) rises in the day and passes over the earth. Then, the sun god falls beneath the earth in the night and comes to a resting point. This resting point is sometimes localized to a designated structure, such as the chamber within a house in the Old Babylonian Prayer to the Gods of the Night. To complete the cycle, the sun comes out in the next morning. Likewise, the moon was thought to rest in the same facility when it was not visible. A similar system was maintained in Egyptian cosmology, where the sun travelled beneath the surface of the earth through the underworld (known among ancient Egyptians as Duat) to rise from the same eastern location each day. These images result from anthropomorphizing the sun and other astral bodies also conceived as gods. For the sun to exit beneath the earth, it had to cross the solid firmament: this was thought possible by the existence of opening ways or corridors in the firmament (variously illustrated as doors, windows or gates) that could temporarily open and close to allow astral bodies to pass across them. The firmament was conceived as a gateway, with the entry/exit point as the gates; other opening and closing mechanisms were also imagined in the firmament like bolts, bars, latches, and keys. During the sun’s movement beneath the earth, into the netherworld, the sun would cease to flare. This enabled the netherworld to remain dark. But when it rose, it would flare up and again emit light.” ref

“This model of the course of the sun had an inconsistency that later models evolved to address. The issue was to understand how, if the sun came to a resting point beneath the earth, could it also travel beneath the earth the same distance under it that it was observed to cross during the day above it such that it would rise periodically from the east. One solution that some texts arrived at was to reject the idea that the sun had a resting point. Instead, it remained unceasing in its course. Overall, the sun god’s activities in night according to Sumerian and Akkadian texts proceeds according to a regular and systematic series of events: (1) The western door of heaven opens (2) The sun passes through the door into the interior of heaven (3) Light falls below the western horizon (4) The sun engages in certain activities in the netherworld like judging the dead (5) The sun enters a house, called the White House (6) The sun god eats the evening meal (7) The sun god sleeps in the chamber agrun (8) The sun emerges from the chamber (9) The eastern door opens and the sun passes through as it rises. In many ancient near eastern cultures, the underworld had a prominent place in descriptions of the sun journey, where the sun would carry out various roles including judgement related to the dead.” ref

“In legend, many hero journeys followed the daily course of the sun god. These have been attributed to Gilgamesh, Odysseus, the Argonauts, Heracles and, in later periods, Alexander the Great. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh reaches the cosmic mountain Mashu, which is either two mountains or a single twin-peaked mountain. Mashu acts as the sun-gate, from where the sun and sets in its path to and from the netherworld. In some texts, the mountain is called the mountain of sunrise and sunset. According to the Epic:

The name of the mountain was Mashu. When [he] arrived at Mount Mashu, which daily guards the rising [of the sun,] – their tops [abut] the fabric of the heavens, their bases reach down to Hades – there were scorpion-men guarding its gate, whose terror was dread and glance was death, whose radiance was terrifying, enveloping the uplands – at both sunrise and sunset they guard the sun…” ref

“Other texts describing the relationship between the sun and the cosmic mountain reads:

O Shamash, when you come forth from the great mountain, When you come forth from the great mountain, the mountain of the deep, When you come forth from the holy hill where destinies are ordained, When you [come forth] from the back of heaven to the junction point of heaven and earth… A number of additional texts share descriptions like these.” ref

Moon

“Mesopotamians believed the moon to be a manifestation of the moon god, known as Nanna in Sumerian texts or Sîn in Akkadian texts, a high god of the pantheon, subject to cultic devotion, and father of the sun god Shamash and the Venus god Inanna. The path of the moon in the night sky and its lunar phases were also of interest. At first, Mesopotamia had no common calendar, but around 2000 BCE, the semi-lunar calendar of the Sumerian center of Nippur became increasingly prevalent. Hence, the moon god was responsible for ordering perceivable time. The lunar calendar was divided into twelve months of thirty days each. New months were marked by the appearance of the moon after a phase of invisibility.” ref

“The Enuma Elish creation myth describes Marduk as arranging the paths of the stars and then spends considerable space on Marduk’s ordering of the moon:

12 He made Nannaru (=the moon-god) appear (and) entrusted the night to him. 13 He assigned him as the jewel of the night to determine the days. 14 Month by month without cease, he marked (him) with a crown: 15 “At the beginning of the month, while rising over the land, 16 you shine with horns to reveal six days. 17 On the seventh day, (your) disc shall be halved. 18 On the fifteenth day, in the middle of each month, you shall stand in opposition. 19 As soon as Šamaš (= the sun-god) sees you on the horizon, 20 reach properly your full measure and form yourself back. 21 At the day of disappearance, approach the path of Šamaš. 22 [… 3]0. day you shall stand in conjunction. You shall be equal to Šamaš.” ref

“The ideal course of the moon was thought to form one month every thirty days. However, the precise lunar month is 29.53 days, leading to variations that made the lunar month counted as 29 or 30 days in practice. The mismatch between the predictions and reality of the course of the moon gave rise to the idea that the moon could act according to its expected course as a good omen or deviate from it as a bad omen. In the 2nd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian scholars composed the Enūma Anu Enlil, a collection of at least seventy tablets concerned with omens. The first fourteen (1–14) relate to the appearance of the moon, and the next eight (15–22) deal with lunar eclipses. The moon was also assigned other functions, such as providing illumination during the night, and already in this period, had a known influence on the tides. During the day when the moon was not visible, it was thought that the moon descended beneath the flat disk of the earth and, like the sun, underwent a voyage through the underworld. The cosmic voyage and motion of the moon also allowed it to exert influence over the world; this belief naturally allowed for the practice of divination to arise.” ref

Stars and planets

Further information: Classical planet

“Mesopotamian cosmology would differ from the practice of astronomy in terms of terminology: for astronomers, the word “firmament” was not used but instead “sky” to describe the domain in which the heavenly affairs were visible. The stars were located on the firmament. The earliest texts attribute to Anu, Enlil, and Enki (Ea) the ordering of perceivable time by creating and ordering the courses of the stars. Later, according to the Enuma Elish, the stars were arranged by Marduk into constellations representing the images of the gods. The year was fixed by organizing the year into twelve months, and by assigning (the rising of) three stars to each of the twelve months. The moon and zenith were also created. Other phenomena introduced by Marduk included the lunar phases and lunar scheme, the precise paths that the stars would take as they rose and set, the stations of the planets, and more.” ref

“Another account of the creation of the heavenly bodies is offered in the Babyloniaca of Berossus, where Bel (Marduk) creates stars, sun, moon, and the five (known) planets; the planets here do not help guide the calendar (a lack of concern for the planets also shared in the Book of the Courses of the Heavenly Luminaries, a subsection of 1 Enoch). Concern for the establishment of the calendar by the creation of heavenly bodies as visible signs is shared in at least seven other Mesopotamian texts. A Sumerian inscription of Kudur-Mabuk, for example, reads “The reliable god, who interchanges day and night, who establishes the month, and keeps the year intact.” Another example is to be found in the Exaltation of Inanna. The word “star” (mul in Sumerian; kakkabu in Akkadian) was inclusive to all celestial bodies, stars, constellations, and planets. A more specific term for planets existed however (udu.idim in Sumerian; bibbu in Akkadian, literally “wild sheep”) to distinguish them from other stars (of which they were a subcategory): unlike the stars thought to be fixed into their location, the planets were observed to move.” ref

“By the 3rd millennium BCE, the planet Venus was identified as the astral form of the goddess Inanna (or Ishtar), and motifs such as the morning and evening star were applied to her. Jupiter became Marduk (hence the name “Marduk Star”, also called Nibiru), Mercury was the “jumping one” (in reference to its comparatively fast motion and low visibility) associated with the gods Ninurta and Nabu, and Mars was the god of pestilence Nergal and thought to portend evil and death. Saturn was also sinister. The most obvious characteristic of the stars were their luminosity and their study for the purposes of divination, solving calendrical calculations, and predictions of the appearances of planets, led to the discovery of their periodic motion. From 600 BC onwards, the relative periodicity between them began to be studied.” ref

Upper waters

Main article: Cosmic ocean

“Above the firmament was a large, cosmic body of water which may be referred to as the cosmic ocean or celestial waters. In the Tablet of Shamash, the throne of the sun god Shamash is depicted as resting above the cosmic ocean. The waters are above the solid firmament that covers the sky. In the Enuma Elish, the upper waters represented the waters of Tiamat, contained by Tiamat’s stretched out skin. Canaanite mythology in the Baal Cycle describes the supreme god Baal as enthroned above the freshwater ocean. Egyptian texts depict the sun god sailing across these upper waters. Some also convey that this body of water is the heavenly equivalent of the Nile River.” ref

Lower waters

Main articles: Abzu and Nu

“Both Babylonian and Israelite texts describe one of the divisions of the cosmos as the underworldly ocean. In Babylonian texts, this is coincided with the region/god Abzu. In Sumerian mythology, this realm was created by Enki. It was also where Enki lived and ruled over. Due to the connection with Enki, the lower waters were associated with wisdom and incantational secret knowledge. In Egyptian mythology, the personification of this subterranean body of water was instead Nu. The notion of a cosmic body of water below the Earth was inferred from the realization that much water used for irrigation came from under the ground, from springs, and that springs were not limited to any one part of the world. Therefore, a cosmic body of water acting as a common source for the water coming out of all these springs was conceived.” ref

Underworld

Main articles: Ancient Mesopotamian underworld and Egyptian underworld

“The Underworld/Netherworld (kur or erṣetu in Sumerian) is the lowest region in the direction downwards, below even Abzu (the primeval ocean/lower waters). It is geographically parallel with the plane of human existence, but was so low that both demons and gods could not descend to it. One of its names was “Earth of No Return”. It was, however, inhabited by beings such as ghosts, demons, and local gods. The land was depicted as dark and distant: this is because it was the opposite of the human world and so did not have light, water, fields, and so forth. According to KAR 307, line 37, Bel cast 600 Annunaki into the underworld. They were locked away there, unable to escape, analogous to the enemies of Zeus who were confined to the underworld (Tartarus) after their rebellion during the Titanomachy. During and after the Kassite period, Annunaki were largely depicted as underworld deities; a hymn to Nergal praises him as the “Controller of the underworld, Supervisor of the 600”. In Canaanite religion, the underworld was personified as the god Mot. In Egyptian mythology, the underworld was known as Duat and was ruled by Osiris, the god of the afterlife. It was also the region where the sun (manifested by the god Ra) made its journey from west (where it sets) to the east (from where it would rise again the next morning).” ref

Origins of the cosmos

“The world was thought to be created ex materia. That is, out of pre-existing, and unformed, eternal matter. This is in contrast to the later notion of creation ex nihilo, which asserts that all the matter of the universe was created out of nothing. The primeval substance had always existed, was unformed, divine, and was envisioned as an immense, cosmic, chaotic mass of water or ocean (a representation that still existed in the time of Ovid). In the Mesopotamian theogonic process, the gods would be ultimately generated from this primeval matter, although a distinct process is found in the Hebrew Bible where God is initially distinct from the primeval matter. For the cosmos and the gods to ultimately emerge from this formless cosmic ocean, the idea emerged that it had to be separated into distinct parts and therefore be formed or organized. This event can be imagined of as the beginning of time. Furthermore, the process of the creation of the cosmos is coincident or equivalent to the beginning of the creation of new gods.” ref

“In the 3rd millennium BCE, the goddess Nammu was the one and singular representation of the original cosmic ocean in Mesopotamian cosmology. From the 2nd millennium BCE onwards, this cosmic ocean came to be represented by two gods, Tiamat and Abzu who would be separated from each other to mark the cosmic beginning. The Ugaritic god Yam from the Baal Cycle may also represent the primeval ocean. Sumerian and Akkadian sources understand the matter of the primordial universe out of which the cosmos emerges in different ways. Sumerian thought distinguished between the inanimate matter that the cosmos was made of and the animate and living matter that permeated the gods and went on to be transmitted to humans. In Akkadian sources, the cosmos is originally alive and animate, but the deaths of Abzu (male deity of the fresh waters) and Tiamat (female sea goddess) give rise to inanimate matter, and all inanimate matter is derived from the dead remains of these deities.” ref

Origins of the gods

“The core Mesopotamian myth to explain the gods’ origins begins with the primeval ocean, personified by Nammu, containing Father Sky and Mother Earth within her. In the god-list TCL XV 10, Nammu is called ‘the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth’. The conception of Nammu as mother of Sky-Earth is first attested in the Ur III period (early 2nd millennium BCE), though it may go back to an earlier Akkadian era. Earlier in the 3rd millennium BCE, Sky and Earth were the starting point with little apparent question about their own origins. The representation of Sky as male and Earth as female may come from the analogy between the generative power of the male sperm and the rain that comes from the sky, which respectively fertilize the female to give rise to newborn life or the Earth to give rise to vegetation. In the desert-dweller milieu, life depended on pastureland.” ref

“Sky and Earth are in a union. Because they are the opposite sex, they inevitably reproduce and their offspring are successive pairs or generations of gods known as the Enki-Ninki deities. The name comes from Enki and Ninki (“Lord and Lady Earth”) being the first pair in all versions of the story. The only other consistent feature is that Enlil and Ninlil are the last pair. In each pair, one member is male (indicated by the En- prefix) and the other is female (indicated by the Nin- prefix). The birth of Enlil results in the separation of heaven and earth as well as the division of the primordial ocean into the upper and lower waters. Sky, now Anu, can mate with other deities after being separated from Earth: he mates with his mother Nammu to give birth to Enki (different from the earlier Enki) who takes dominion over the lower waters. The siblings Enlil and Ninlil mate to give birth to Nanna (also known as Sin), the moon god, and Ninurta, the warrior god. Nanna fathers Utu (known as Shamash in Akkadian texts), the sun god, and Inanna (Venus). By this point, the main features of the cosmos had been created/born. A variation of this myth existed in Egyptian cosmology. Here, the primordial ocean is given by the god Nu. The creation act neither takes its materials from Nu, unlike in Mesopotamian cosmology, nor is Nu eliminated by the creation act.” ref

Separation of heaven and earth

“3rd millennium BCE texts speak of the cosmic marriage or union of Heaven and Earth. Only one towards the end of this era, the Song of the hoe, mentions their separation. By contrast, 2nd millennium texts entirely shift in focus to their separation. The tradition spread into Sumerian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and early Greek mythology. The cause of the separation involves either the agency of Enlil or takes place as a spontaneous act. One recovered Hittite text states that there was a time when they “severed the heaven from the earth with a cleaver”, and an Egyptian text refers to “when the sky was separated from the earth” (Pyramid Text 1208c). OIP 99 113 ii and 136 iii says Enlil separated Earth from Sky and separated Sky from Earth. Enkig and Ninmah 1–2 also says Sky and Earth were separated in the beginning. The introduction of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld says that heaven is carried off from the earth by the sky god Anu to become the possession of the wind god Enlil. Several other sources also present this idea.” ref

“There are two strands of Mesopotamian creation myths regarding the original separation of the heavens and earth. The first, older one, is evinced from texts in the Sumerian language from the 3rd millennium BC and the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. In these sources, the heavens and Earth are separated from an original solid mass. In the younger tradition from Akkadian texts, such as the Enuma Elish, the separation occurs from an original water mass. The former usually has the leading gods of the Sumerian pantheon, the King of Heaven Anu and the King of Earth Enlil, separating the mass over a time-frame of “long days and nights”, similar to the total timeframe of the Genesis creation narrative (six days and nights). The Sumerian texts do not mention the creation of the cosmic waters, but it may be surmised that water was one of the primordial elements.” ref

Stretching out the heavens

“The idiom of the heavens and earth being stretched out plays both a cultic and cosmic role in the Hebrew Bible where it appears repeatedly in the Book of Isaiah (40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13, 16), with related expressions in the Book of Job (26:7) and the Psalms (104:2). One example reads “The one who stretched out the heavens like a curtain / And who spread them out like a tent to dwell in” (Is 40:22). The idiom is used in these texts to identify the creative element of Yahweh‘s activities and the expansion of the heavens signifies its vastness, acting as Yahweh’s celestial shrine. In Psalmic tradition, the “stretching” of the heavens is analogous to the stretching out of a tent. The Hebrew verb for the “stretching” of the heavens is also the regular verb for “pitching” a tent. The heavens, in other words, may be depicted as a cosmic tent (a motif found in many ancient cultures). This finds architectural analogy in descriptions of the tabernacle, which is itself a heavenly archetype, over which a tent is supposed to have been spread. The phrase is frequently followed by an expression that God sits enthroned above and ruling the world, paralleling descriptions of God being seated in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle where he is stated to exercise rule over Israel. Biblical references to stretching the heavens typically occur in conjunction with statements that God made or laid the foundations of the earth.” ref

“Similar expressions may be found elsewhere in the ancient near east. A text from the 2nd millennium BC, the Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi, says “Wherever the earth is laid, and the heavens are stretched out”, though the text does not identify the creator of the cosmos. The Enuma Elish also describes the phenomena, in IV.137–140:

137 He split her into two like a dried fish: 138 One half of her he set up and stretched out as the heavens. 139 He stretched the skin and appointed a watch. 140 With the instruction not to let her waters escape. In this text, Marduk takes the body of Tiamat, who he has killed, and stretches out Tiamat’s skin to create the firmamental heavens which, in turn, comes to play the role of preventing the cosmic waters above the firmament from escaping and being unleashed onto the earth. Whereas the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible states that Yahweh stretched heaven like a curtain in Psalm 104:2, the equivalent passage in the Septuagint instead uses the analogy of stretching out like “skin”, which could represent a relic of Babylonian cosmology from the Enuma Elish. Nevertheless, the Hebrew Bible never identifies the material out of which the firmament was stretched. Numerous theories about what the firmament was made of sprung up across ancient cultures.” ref

Origins of humanity

“Many stories emerged to explain the creation of humanity and the birth of civilization. Earlier Sumerian language texts from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC can be divided into two traditions: those from the cities of Nippur or Eridu. The Nippur tradition asserts that Heaven (An) and Earth (Ki) were coupled in a cosmic marriage. After they are separated by Enlil, Ki receives semen from An and gives rise to the gods, animals, and man. The Eridu tradition says that Enki, the offspring of An and Namma (in this tradition, the freshwater goddess) is the one who creates everything. Periodical relations between Enki and Ninhursaga (in this tradition, the personification of Earth) gives rise to vegetation. With the help of Namma, Enki creates man from clay. A famous work of the Eridu tradition is Eridu Genesis.” ref

“A minority tradition in Sumerian texts, distinct from Nippur and Eridu traditions, is known from KAR 4, where the blood of a slaughtered deity is used to create humanity for the purpose of making them build temples for the gods. Later Akkadian language tradition can be divided into various minor cosmogonies, cosmogonies of significant texts like Enuma Elish and Epic of Atrahasis, and finally the Dynasty of Dunnum placed in its own category. In the Atrahasis Epic, the Anunnaki gods force the Igigi gods to do their labor. However, the Igigi became fed up with this work and rebel. To solve the problem, Enlil and Mami create humanity by mixing the blood of gods with clay, who in the stead of the Igigi are assigned the gods’ work. In the Enuma Elish, divine blood alone is used to make man.” ref

Main texts

“The Hebrew Bible, especially in the Genesis creation narrative, undergirds known beliefs about biblical cosmology in ancient Israel and Judah. From Mesopotamia, cosmological evidence has fragmentarily survived in cuneiform literature especially in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, like the Enuma Elish. Cosmogonic information has been sourced from Enki-Ninki god lists. Cosmogonic prologues preface texts falling in the genre of the Sumerian and Akkadian disputation poems, as well as individual works like the Song of the hoe, Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, and Lugalbanda I. Evidence is also available in Ugaritic (Ritual Theogony of the Gracious Gods) and Hittite (Song of Emergence) sources. Egyptian papyri and inscriptions, like the Memphite Theology, and later works such as the Babyloniaca of Berossus, offer additional evidence. A less abundant source are pictorial/iconographic representations, especially the Babylonian Map of the World. Limitations of these types of texts (papyri, cuneiform, etc) is that the majority are administrative and economic in their nature, saying little about cosmology. Detailed descriptions are unknown before the first millennium BCE. As such, reconstructions from that time depend on gleaning information from surviving creation myths and etiologies.” ref

Enuma Elish

“The Enuma Elish is the most famous Mesopotamian creation story and was widely known in among learned circles across Mesopotamia, influencing both art and ritual. It is also the only complete cosmogony, whereas others must be reconstructed from disparate sources. The story was, in many ways, an original work, and as such is not a general representative of ancient near eastern or even Babylonian cosmology as a whole, and its survival as the most complete creation account appears to be a product of it having been composed in the milieu of Babylonian literature that happened to survive and get discovered in the present day. On the other hand, recent evidence suggests that after its composition, it played an important role in Babylonian scribal education. The story is preserved foremost in seven clay tablets discovered from the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. The creation myth seeks to describes how the god Marduk created the world from the body of the sea monster Tiamat after defeating her in battle, after which Marduk ascends to the top of the heavenly pantheon. The Enuma Elish is one of a broader set of near eastern traditions describing the cosmic battle between the storm and sea gods, but only Israelite cosmogonies share with it the act of creation that follows the storm gods victory.” ref

“The following is a synopsis of the account. The primordial universe is alive and animate, made of Abzu, commonly identified as a male deity of the fresh waters, and Tiamat, the female sea goddess of salt waters. The waters mingle to create the next generations of deities. However, the younger gods are noisy and this noise eventually incenses Abzu so much that he tries to kill them. In trying to do so, however, he is killed by Ea (Akkadian equivalent of the Sumerian Enki). This eventually leads to a battle between Tiamat and the son of Ea, Marduk. Marduk kills Tiamat and fashions the cosmos, including the heavens and Earth, from Tiamat’s corpse. Tiamat’s breasts are used to make the mountains and Tiamat’s eyes are used to open the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Parts of the watery body were used to create parts of the world including its wind, rain, mist, and rivers. Marduk forms the heavenly bodies including the sun, moon, and stars to produce periodic astral activity that is the basis for the calendar, before finally setting up the cosmic capital at Babylon. Marduk attains universal kingship and the Tablet of Destinies. Tiamat’s helper Kingu is also slain, and his life force is used to animate the first human beings.” ref

“The Enuma Elish is in continuity with other texts like the Myth of Anzû, the Labbu Myth, and KAR 6. In both the Enuma Elish and the Myth of Anzu, a dragon (Anzu or Tiamat) steals the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil, the chief god and in response, the chief god looks for someone to slay the dragon. Then, in both stories, a champion among the gods is chosen to fight the dragon (Ninurta or Marduk) after two or three others before them reject the offer to fight. The champion wins, after which he is acclaimed and given many names. The Enuma Elish may have also drawn from the myth of the Ninurta and the dragon Kur. The dragon is formerly responsible for holding up the primordial waters. Upon being killed, the waters begin to rise; this problem is solved by Ninurta heaping stones upon them until the waters are held back. One of the most significant differences between the Enuma Elish and earlier creation myths is in its exaltation of Marduk as the highest god. In prior myths, Ea was the chief god and creator of mankind.” ref

Genesis creation narrative

Main article: Genesis creation narrative

“The Genesis creation narrative, composed perhaps in the 7th or 6th century BC, spans Gen 1:1–2:3 and covers a one-week (seven-day) period. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: day one divides the darkness from light, day two the “waters above” from the “waters below”, and day three the sea from the land. In each of the next three days, these divisions are populated: day four populates the darkness and light with “greater light” (Sun), “lesser light” (Moon), and stars; day five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally land-based creatures and mankind populate the land. According to Victor Hamilton, most scholars agree that the choice of “greater light” and “lesser light”, rather than the more explicit “Sun” and “Moon”, is anti-mythological rhetoric intended to contradict widespread contemporary beliefs that the Sun and the Moon were deities themselves. In 1895, Hermann Gunkel related this narrative to the Enuma Elish via an etymological relationship between Tiamat and təhôm (“the deep” or “the abyss”) and a sharing of the Chaoskampf motif. Today, another view rejects these connections and groups the Genesis creation narrative with other West Semitic cosmologies like those of Ugarit.” ref

More biblical cosmogonies

“Other prominent biblical cosmogonies include Psalm 74:12–17; Psalm 89:6–13; and Job 26:7–13, with a variety of additional briefer passages expounding on subsections of these lengthier passages (like Isaiah 51:9–10). Like traditions from Babylon, Egypt, Anatolia, Canaan, and the Levant, these cosmogonies describe a cosmic battle (on the part of Yahweh in the biblical versions) with a sea god (named Leviathan, Rahab) but only with Babylonian versions like the Enuma Elish is the victory against the sea god followed by an act of creation. The seemingly well-known cosmogony proceeded as follows: Yahweh fights and subdues the sea god while portrayed as holding a weapon and fighting with meteorological forces; the Sea that previously covered the earth is forced to make way for dry land and parts of it are confined behind the seashore, in the clouds, and into storehouses below the earth; Mount Zaphon is established and a temple for Yahweh is erected; finally, Yahweh is enthroned above all the gods.” ref

“An alternative cosmogony appears in the doxologies of Amos (4:13; 5:8; 9:5–6). Instead of the earth being already covered by a primal sea, the earth is originally in a dry state, and only later is the sea stretched over it. No cosmic battle takes place. The winds and mountains, which elsewhere primordially exist, in this account are both created. Like some passages in Deutero-Isaiah, these doxologies appear to present a view of creation ex-nihilo. These cosmogonies are relatively mythologized compared to the Genesis cosmogony. In addition, the Genesis cosmogony differs by describing the separation of the upper and lower waters by the creation of a firmament, whereas here, they are typically assembled into clouds. The closest cosmogony to Genesis is the one in Psalm 104.” ref

Babyloniaca of Berossus

Main article: Babyloniaca (Berossus)

“The first book of the Babyloniaca of the Babylonian priest Berossus, composed in the third century BC, offers a variant (or, perhaps, an interpretation) of the cosmogony of the Enuma Elish. This work is not extant but survives in later quotations and abridgements. Berossus’ account begins with a primeval ocean. Unlike in the Enuma Elish, where sea monsters are generated for combat with other gods, in Berossus’ account, they emerge by spontaneous generation and are described in a different manner to the 11 monsters of the Enuma Elish, as it expands beyond the purely mythical creatures of that account in a potential case of influence from Greek zoology. The fragments of Berossus by Syncellus and the Armenian of how he described his cosmogony are as follows:

Syncellus: There was a time, he says, when everything was [darkness and] water and that in it fabulous beings with peculiar forms came to life. For men with two wings were born and some with four wings and two faces, having one body and two heads, male and female, and double genitalia, male and female … [a list of monstrous beings follows]. Over all these a woman ruled named Omorka. This means in Chaldaean Thalatth, in Greek, it is translated as ‘Sea’ (Thalassa) … When everything was arranged in this way, Belos rose up and split the woman in two. Of one half of her he made earth, of the other half sky; and he destroyed all creatures in her … For when everything was moist, and creatures had come into being in it, this god took off his own head and the other gods mixed the blood that flowed out with earth and formed men.” ref

“For this reason, they are intelligent and share in divine wisdom. Belos, whom they translate as Zeus, cut the darkness in half and separated earth and sky from each other, and ordered the universe. The creatures could not endure the power of the light and were destroyed. When Belos saw the land empty and barren, he ordered one of the gods to cut off his own head and to mix the blood that flowed out with earth and to form men and wild animals that were capable of enduring the air. Belos also completed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets. Alexander Polyhistor says that Berossus asserts these things in his first book. Syncellus: They say that in the beginning, all was water, which was called Sea (Thalassa). Bel made this one by assigning a place to each, and he surrounded Babylon with a wall.” ref

“Armenian: All, he said, was from the start water, which was called Sea. And Bel placed limits on them (the waters) and assigned a place to each, allocated their lands, and fortified Babylon with an enclosing wall. The conclusion of the account states that Belus then created the stars, sun, moon, and five planets. The account of Berossus agrees largely with the Enuma Elish, such as its reference to the splitting of the woman whose halves are used to create heaven and earth, but also contain a number of differences, such as the statement about allegorical exegesis, the self-decapitation of Belus in order to create humans, and the statement that it is the divine blood which has made humans intelligent. Some debate has ensued about which elements of these may or may not go back to the original account of Berossus. Some of the information Berossus got for his account of the creation myth may have come from the Enuma Elish and the Babylonian Dynastic Chronicle.” ref

Other cosmogonies

“Additional minor texts also present varying cosmogonical details. The Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk describes the construction of Earth as a raft over the cosmic waters by Marduk. An Akkadian text called The Worm describes a series of creation events: first Heaven creates Earth, Earth creates the Rivers, and eventually, the worm is created at the end of the series and it goes to live in the root of the tooth that is removed during surgery.” ref

Influence

“Copies from the Sippar Library indicate the Enuma Elish was copied into Seleucid times. One Hellenistic-era Babylonian priest, Berossus, wrote a Greek text about Mesopotamian traditions called the Babyloniaca (History of Babylon). The text survives mainly in fragments, especially by quotations in Eusebius in the fourth-century. The first book contains an account of Babylonian cosmology and, though concise, contains a number of echoes of the Enuma Elish. The creation account of Berossus is attributed to the divine messenger Oannes in the period after the global flood and is derivative of the Enuma Elish but also has significant variants to it. Babylonian cosmology also received treatments by the lost works of Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus. The last known evidence for reception of the Enuma Elish is in the writings of Damascius (462–538), who had a well-informed source. As such, some learned circles in late antiquity continued to know the Enuma Elish. Echoes of Mesopotamian cosmology continue into the 11th century.” ref

Early Greek cosmology: Early Greek cosmology

Early Greek cosmology was closely related to the broader domain of ancient Near Eastern cosmology, reflected 8th century BC works like the Theogony of Hesiod and the works of Homer, and prior to the emergence of an independent and systematic Hellenistic system of cosmology that was represented by figures such as Aristotle and the astronomer Ptolemy, starting with the Ionian School of philosophy at the city of Miletus from the 6th to 4th centuries BC. In early Greek cosmology, the Earth was conceived of as being flat, encircled by a cosmic ocean known as Oceanus, and that heaven was a solid firmament held above the Earth by pillars. Many believe that a Hurro-Hittite work from the 13th century BCE, the Song of Emergence (CTH 344), was directly used by Hesiod on the basis of extensive similarities between their accounts. The notion of heaven and earth originally being in unity followed by their separation continues to be attested in later Greek cosmological texts, such as in the descriptions of Orphic cosmology according to the Wise Melanippe of Euripides in the 5th century BC and the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd century BCE, as well as in other and still later Greek accounts, such as the writings of Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BCE.” ref

Zoroastrian cosmology: Zoroastrian cosmology

“The earliest Zoroastrian sources describe a tripartite sky, with an upper heaven where the sun exists, a middle heaven where the moon exists, and a lower heaven where the stars exist and are fixed. Significant work has been done on comparing this cosmography to ones present in Mesopotamian, Greek, and Indian parallels. In light of evidence which has emerged in recent decades, the present view is that this idea entered into Zoroastrian thought through Mesopotamian channels of influence. Another influence is that the name that one of the planets took on in Middle Persian literature, Kēwān (for Saturn), was derived from the Akkadian language.” ref

Jewish cosmology: Jewish cosmology

“Mesopotamian cosmology, especially as it manifested in the biblical Genesis creation narrative, exerted continued substantial influence on Jewish cosmology, especially as it is described in the rabbinic literature. Not all influence appears to have been mediated through the Bible. The dome-shaped firmament was described in Hebrew as a kippah, which has been related to its Akkadian cognate kippatšamê, though the latter only refers to flat objects. The Jewish belief in the seven heavens, as it is absent from the Hebrew Bible, has often been interpreted as being taken from early interactions with Mesopotamian cosmologies.” ref

Christian cosmology: Hexaemeron

“Christian texts were familiar with ancient Near Eastern cosmology insofar as it had shaped the Genesis creation narrative. A genre of literature emerged among Jews and Christians dedicated to the composition of texts commenting precisely on this narrative to understand the cosmos and its origins: these works are called Hexaemeron. The first extant example is the De opificio mundi (“On the Creation of the World”) by the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. Philo preferred an allegorical form of exegesis, in line with that of the School of Alexandria, and so was partial to a Hellenistic cosmology as opposed to an ancient near eastern one. In the late fourth century, the Hexaemeral genre was revived and popularized by the Hexaemeron of Basil of Caesarea, who composed his Hexaemeron in 378, which subsequently inspired numerous works including among Basil’s own contemporaries. Basil was much more literal in his interpretation than Philo, closer instead to the exegesis of the School of Antioch. Christian authors would heavily dispute the correct degree of literal or allegorical exegesis in future writings. Among Syrian authors, Jacob of Serugh was the first to produce his own Hexaemeron in the early sixth century, and he was followed later by Jacob of Edessa‘s Hexaemeron in the first years of the eighth century. The most literal approach was that of the Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes, which presented a cosmography very similar to the traditional Mesopotamian one, but in turn, John Philoponus wrote a harsh rebuttal to Cosmas in his own De opificio mundi. Syrian Christian texts also shared topographical features like the cosmic ocean surrounding the earth.” ref

“Cosmographies were described in works other than those of the Hexaemeral genre. For example, in the genre of novels, the Alexander Romance would portray a mythologized picture of the journeys and conquests of Alexander the Great, ultimately inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh. The influence is evident in the texts cosmography, as Alexander reaches an outer ocean circumscribing the Earth which cannot be passed. Both in the Alexander Romance, and in later texts like the Syriac Alexander Legend (Neshana), Alexander journeys to the ends of the Earth which is surrounded by an ocean. Unlike in the story of Gilgamesh, however, this ocean is an unpassable boundary that marks the extent to which Alexander can go. The Neshana also aligns with a Mesopotamian cosmography in its description of the path of the sun: as the sun sets in the west, it passes through a gateway in the firmament, cycles to the other side of the earth, and rises in the east in its passage through another celestial gateway. Alexander, like Gilgamesh, follows the path of the sun during his journey. These elements of Alexander’s journey are also described as part of the journey of Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Quran. Gilgamesh’s journey takes him to a great cosmic mountain Mashu; likewise, Alexander reaches a cosmic mountain known as Musas. The cosmography depicted in this text greatly resembles that outlined by the Babylonian Map of the World.” ref

Quranic cosmology: Quranic cosmology

“The Quran conceives of the primary elements of the ancient near eastern cosmography, such as the division of the cosmos into the heavens and the Earth, a solid firmament, upper waters, a flat Earth, and seven heavens. As with rabbinic cosmology, however, these elements were not directly transmitted from ancient near eastern civilization. Instead, work in the field of Quranic studies has identified the primary historical context for the reception of these ideas to have been in the Christian and Jewish cosmologies of late antiquity. This conception of the cosmos was carried on into the traditionalist cosmologies that were held in the caliphate, though with a few nuances that appear to have emerged.” ref

ref, ref, ref

The Babylonian Universe Newly Interpreted

“Few studies in ancient cosmology can more entertain or instruct the investigator of to-day than a careful comparison of the seven diagrams published as correct pictures of the Babylonian universe in the works named below. No two of the seven agree. Moreover, the first represents the Zodiac as at a vast distance above the sphere of the fixed stars, a proceeding which at the start disarranges all ordinary astronomic ideas. Equally unpicturable in my imagination is the seventh of the series, the world sketched by Radau. Again and again have I tried to construct it in thought, but every time have failed. Even Jensen in his great work gives us for “the place of the Convocation of the Gods” (Du-azag), only a pitch-dark cavern in the thin crust of his sea-filled hemispherical earth, and has no place for Hades but another cavern located in the same thin crust and oddly enough far above the cave of the gods. Surely there is a call for new attempts to think the thoughts of these ancient Semites after them.” ref

“The circulation of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans would be very simple, and straightforward if it were not for the planet’s shape and rotation. That revolutionary idea that the Earth was essentially a rotating sphere did not appear until the sixteenth century CE. Earlier ideas had been that the Earth was flat surrounded by a dome or spheres that held the Sun, Moon, the known planets, and stars. Later it was more generally recognized that the Earth was a globe, surrounded by those spheres. The origins of many of these ideas are lost in the depths of time, but here are some of the highlights.” ref

ref

THE SEARCH FOR EGYPT’S MOUND OF CREATION

“Sokar-Osiris is a mummy inside a stepped primeval mound, symbolizing the womb of creation. Here, he is associated with the deceased achieving rebirth in the Duat-underworld under the light of the midnight sun. Above the mound we see a huge snake, a protector of the dead king when in this realm, as well as the pharaoh as Osiris greeted by the god Horus.” ref

Book of the Dead chapter 149

“The composition designated ‘chapter 149’ by Lepsius, from its position in the Ptolemaic Period papyrus of Iufankh, presents a numbered series of fourteen ‘mounds’ in the underworld. Each mound is addressed with reference to its inhabitants or landscape, and the encounter is used to empower the deceased: in this way, each potential obstacle to new life is converted into empowerment of the deceased. Most of the fourteen parts of chapter 149 occur for the first time in the Eighteenth Dynasty, and are only known from this chapter; some parts recur as separate compositions in the Book of the Dead, some already occur in the Middle Kingdom (about 2025-1700 BCE) among the funerary compositions written on the sides of coffins (the ‘Coffin Texts’), and one section echoing one of the compositions inscribed on the walls within the Old Kingdom (about 2686-2181 BCE) pyramids (‘Pyramid Texts’).” ref

“O this mound of the West, where one lives on cakes and fine vegetables, Unwind your headcloths at my approach, just as for the Eldest God among you. May he bind my bones and make my limbs firm. Bring me Ihy, lord of hearts, to have my bones built, to establish the Great Crown of Atum. Make firm my head for me, O Nehebkau, fill and make firm the balance. Rule over the gods, Min, the builder. O this mound of spirits, on which there is no sailing, which bears the spirits, while the flame is an engulfing fire. O gods who are in that mound of spirits, your faces downwards, sacred in your mounds, pure in your bindings. This is what you are commanded to do for me by Osiris for eternity. I am the great one of the Red Crown at the fore of the spirits, who brings the Two Lands and all their people to life, by the flame of its mouth, who rescues Ra from Aapep. O he who dominates the secret mound, O this tall and mighty mountain that is in the underworld on which sky and earth alight, measuring 300 rods in length and 10 rods in width, with a serpent on it called Shooter of Two Knives,
measuring 70 cubits in its circuit, living on cutting down spirits and damned in the underworld. I stand in your stronghold, so that the sailing may be smooth, for I have seen the way past you. I am the united one, I am the male: cover your head.
I am well: I am the great in power, my eyes are given to me, and I am transfigured. What is this, going on its belly, your strength at your mountain? Look at me, I have gone against you; your strength is with me. I am the one who raises strength. I have come and taken the earth gods for Ra. I have rested in the evening, at the circling of this sky. You are in your chains. This is the order for you from the beginnings.” ref

GIZA’S COSMIC BLUEPRINT:  THE SEARCH FOR EGYPT’S MOUND OF CREATION

The Sumerian Myth of the Cosmic Egg

Golden Egg: The Mythical Origins and Its Modern Significance

The Golden Egg: A Symbol of Creation and Rebirth

THE RELIGION AND MORALS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.

My thoughts on the Evolution of Religion: from Animism to Paganism

Philosophy to the Rescue: explaining Reason, Logic, Evidence, Truth, Certainty, Reality, and Science

Talking about “Religion and Deity Evolution” on Twitter (X) Questions and Answers

You can’t change people, by reason and evidence. WRONG, I do it all the time.

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“Haplogroup U is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup (mtDNA). The clade arose from haplogroup R, likely during the early Upper Paleolithic. Its various subclades (labeled U1–U9, diverging over the course of the Upper Paleolithic) are found widely distributed across Northern and Eastern Europe, Central, Western, and South Asia, as well as North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Canary Islands. Basal U was found in the 26,000-year-old remains of Ancient North Eurasian, Mal’ta boy (MA1). The age of U5 is estimated at between 25,000 and 35,000 years old, roughly corresponding to the Gravettian culture. and is the DNA associated with the seeming first Gravettian shaman burial seen in the Pavlovian culture, around Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia. One of the Dolní Věstonice burials, located near the huts, revealed a human female skeleton aged to 40+ years old, ritualistically placed beneath a pair of mammoth scapulae, one leaning against the other. Surprisingly, the left side of the skull was disfigured in the same manner as the aforementioned carved ivory figure, indicating that the figure was an intentional depiction of this specific individual. The bones and the earth surrounding the body contained traces of red ocher, a flint spearhead had been placed near the skull, and one hand held the body of a fox. This evidence suggests that this was the burial site of a shaman. This is the oldest site not only of ceramic figurines and artistic portraiture, but also of evidence of female shamans.” ref, ref, ref, ref

“Approximately 11% of Europeans (10% of European-Americans) have some variant of haplogroup U5. U5 was the predominant mtDNA of mesolithic Western Hunter Gatherers (WHG). U5 has been found in human remains dating from the Mesolithic in England, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, France, and Spain. Neolithic skeletons (~7,000 years old) that were excavated from the Avellaner cave in Catalonia, northeastern Spain included a specimen carrying haplogroup U5. Haplogroup U5 and its subclades U5a and U5b today form the highest population concentrations in the far north, among Sami, Finns, and Estonians. However, it is spread widely at lower levels throughout Europe. This distribution, and the age of the haplogroup, indicate individuals belonging to this clade were part of the initial expansion tracking the retreat of ice sheets from Europe around 10,000 years ago. The modern Basques and Cantabrians possess almost exclusively U5b lineages (U5b1f, U5b1c1, U5b2).” ref

6 Ice Age Humans (30,000 Years Ago)

“Abstract: Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased capacity. It was because some groups culturally evolved the “social tools” that allowed them to maintain connections and share information over long distances. The groups with the most effective social tools managed to stay connected and to survive, and their descendants inherited this culture of connectedness. It’s likely that forming greater connectedness and more complex culture was necessary in order to survive the periods of high climate variability that were a feature of the last ice age.” ref

“Archaeologists usually describe two regional variants: the western Gravettian, known mainly from cave sites in France, Spain, and Britain, and the eastern Gravettian in Central Europe and Russia. The eastern Gravettians, which include the Pavlovian culture, were specialized mammoth hunters, whose remains are usually found not in caves but in open air sites. Gravettian culture thrived on their ability to hunt animals. They utilized a variety of tools and hunting strategies. Compared to theorized hunting techniques of Neanderthals and earlier human groups, Gravettian hunting culture appears much more mobile and complex. They lived in caves or semi-subterranean or rounded dwellings which were typically arranged in small “villages”. Gravettians are thought to have been innovative in the development of tools such as blunted-back knives, tanged arrowheads, and boomerangs. Other innovations include the use of woven nets and oil lamps made of stone. Blades and bladelets were used to make decorations and bone tools from animal remains.” ref

“Gravettian culture extends across a large geographic region, as far as Estremadura in Portugal. but is relatively homogeneous until about 27,000 years ago. They developed burial rites, which included simple, purpose-built offerings and/or personal ornaments owned by the deceased, placed within the grave or tomb. Surviving Gravettian art includes numerous cave paintings and small, portable Venus figurines made from clay or ivory, as well as jewelry objects. The fertility deities mostly date from the early period; there are over 100 known surviving examples. They conform to a very specific physical type, with large breasts, broad hips and prominent posteriors. The statuettes tend to lack facial details, and their limbs are often broken off. During the post glacial period, evidence of the culture begins to disappear from northern Europe but was continued in areas around the Mediterranean. The Mal’ta Culture (c. 24,000 years ago) in Siberia is often considered as belonging to the Gravettian, due to its similar characteristics, particularly its Venus figurines, but any hypothetical connection would have to be cultural and not genetic: a 2016 genomic study showed that the Mal’ta people have no genetic connections with the people of the European Gravettian culture (the Vestonice Cluster).” ref

“Fu et al. (2016) examined the remains of fourteen Gravettians. The eight males included three samples of Y-chromosomal haplogroup CT, one of I, one IJK, one BT, one C1a2, and one sample of F. Of the fourteen samples of mtDNA, there were thirteen samples of U and one sample of M. The majority of the sample of U belonged to the U5 and U2. Teschler et al. (2020) examined the remains of one adult male and two twin boys from a Gravettian site in Austria. All belonged to haplogroup Y-Haplogroup I. and all had the same mtDNA, U5. According to Scorrano et al. (2022), “the genome of an early European individual from Kostenki 14, dated to around 37,000 years ago, demonstrated that the ancestral European gene pool was already established by that time.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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34,000 years old Russan “Sungir” Early Totemistic-Shamanism

“Probably occupied from as much as around 38,900–32,630 years ago. It had previously been dated at a lower date as low as around 23,000-19,000 years ago which changed.” ref

Sungar “Gravettian culture” (Russia) and related Dolni Vestonice Pavlovian/Gravettian culture (Czech Republic).

The Gravettian culture (Europe) shared ritual ideas and The Ancient North Eurasian culture (Asia) 24,000 years ago

Sungar (Russia), found posable evidence of shamanistic Gravettian culture burials and that seem to match the latter indigenous American shamanistic burials in Alaska at the Tanana River site with around 11,500 years old duel infant burial very similar shamanistic grave offerings like decorated stone weapons. To further a clear connection is the Bluefish Cave (Yukon Territory Canada) that held bones with cut marks which is possibly as old as 24,000 to 19,650 years ago and the youngest are around 12,000 years old seem to offer strong support for the “Beringian hypothesis” human population dispersed to North and South America. ref

To me, is seems Siberian is the general origin of native Americans at least by around 11,000 years ago, by the land bridge “Beringia” from Asia by way of Siberia in Russia over to Alaska in the Americas, which the Paleoindians had crossover on, finally flooded over by rising sea levels and was submerged. Siberia has a large variety of climate, vegetation, and landscape. Siberia’s Prehistory demonstrates several distinct cultures sometimes transferring ideas, other times not, and some split from earlier cultures creating new ones often in illation, mainly starting with hunter-gatherer nomadism. During glaciation around 115,000 to 15,000 years ago, the Siberia tundra extended south and an ice sheet covered area of Russia around the Ural Mountains that while some of the oldest mountains are more like large hills, and the area to the east of the lower Yenisei River basin, which in the general area of central and southern Siberia. ref

Some of the first nomadic peoples entered Siberia about 50,000 years ago. Ancient nomadic tribes such as the Ket people and the Yugh people a separate but similar group lived along its banks. Shamanism among Kets shares characteristics with those of Turkic and Mongolic peoples thus not at all homogeneous in expression though neither is shamanism in Siberia in general. As for shamanism among Kets had several types of Ket shamans and shared characteristics with those of Turkic and Mongolic peoples. The Yana River sites, in Siberia, demonstrate that modern human populations had reached Western Beringia by 32,000 years ago then engaging in an early dispersal possibly by 24,000 years ago. ref

SHAMANISM IN RUSSIA AND MONGOLIA

“Shamanism is still practiced in Russia, particularly in the Lake Baikal area of southern Siberia near the Mongolian border and in the middle Volga regions. The word Shamanism comes from Siberia. And believed shamanistic powers are passed on from generation to generation or by spontaneous vocation during an initiation ceremony that usually involves some kind of ecstatic death, rebirth, vision or experience. Though a for some shaman cultures a distinction is made between hereditary ones and those who have become shaman after suffering a serious illness. A shamanist is a one person cult-authority, spirit medium, soul-traveler, meteorologist, physician, philosopher, and ideologist.” ref

“Shaman have traditionally been important religious figures and healers among many Siberian peoples and commonly connect to and revolved around hunting and family/ancestor cults. The word “shaman” comes to us from the Tungus language via Russian. In Siberia, shamans have traditionally been called upon to heal the sick, solve problems, protect groups from hostile spirts, make predictions and mediate between the spiritual world and human world and guide dead souls to the afterlife.” ref

“After death it was believed that the breath soul left through the nostrils.
Many groups make wooden images of dolls of the deceased and for a period of time, they are treated like the real person. A wide variety of goods may be placed in the graves of the deceased, depending on the group. These generally include things the deceased needs in the next life. Often totems are broken or defaced in some way to “kill” them so they don’t assist the dead in returning. Some groups placed the dead in graves others on the ground covering them with something, while other groups placed the dead on a special platform on the trees.” ref

‘Sky Burial’ theory and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older.

“Shaman cults tend to revolve around animals, natural objects, heroes and clan leaders have also been central to the lives of many of Siberia’s indigenous people. Many groups have strong beliefs in spirits, in realms of the sky and earth and follow cults associated with animals, especially the Raven. Things like illness and other misfortunes were attributed to spirits. Many Arctic people believe that each person has two souls: (1) a shadow soul that may leave the body during sleep or unconsciousness and take the form of a bee or a butterfly, and (2) a “breath” soul that provides life to humans and animals. Many groups believe the life forces lies within the bones, blood, and vital organs. For this reason the bones of the dead are treated with great reverence so a new life can be regenerated from them.” ref

“The Khanty (an indigenous people calling themselves Khanti, Khande, Kantek, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as “Yugra” in Russia) shamans who believe the forest is inhabited by invisible people and spirits of animals, forest, rivers and natural landmarks. The most important spirits belong to the sun, moon, and bear. Khanty shaman work as intermediaries between the living worlds and the spiritual world. The invisible people are like gremlins or trolls. They are blamed for missing puppies, strange events and unexplained behavior.” ref

Why This Paleolithic Burial Site Is So Strange (and So Important)

“In addition to beads and ochre, carefully manufactured mammoth ivory spears, ivory disks, and pierced cervid antlers were found with the skeletons. And this is not supersizing because by approximately 40,000 years ago, narrow stone blades and tools made of bone, ivory, and antler appeared, along with simple wood instruments. Yet these extravagant burials are only part of the reason why  Sungir stands out as the site is characterized by a much greater diversity of mortuary behaviors than archaeologists previously thought. ” ref, ref

“Sungir – Sunghir is a site that held multiple burials of least 10 individuals  and specifically two of the most extraordinary Upper Paleolithic burials known: one of an adult male “Sungir-1” and another of two children “Sungir-2 and  Sungir-3. The  two children  originally thought to be a boy and girl,are now thought to be two boys interred head-to-head. All remains were covered in ochre and were accompanied by rich grave goods including ivory beads and spears, armbands, and carvings, as well as arctic fox canines. Adjacent to  Sungir-2  was the femoral diaphysis (main or midsection (shaft) of a long bone) of an adult “Sungir 4″ that had been polished, hollowed out, and filled with red ochre. The site also yielded other less complete human remains, some of uncertain stratigraphic provenance [Sunghir 5 to 9. Radiocarbon analyses place the age of  Sungir-1 to  Sungir 4 date between 33,600-34,600 years ago. The homogeneity in morphological traits (e.g., metopism) among the remains, as well as signs of possible congenital pathologies in SIII, have been interpreted as evidence of inbreeding. Other Upper Paleolithic individuals with reported congenital or degenerative pathologies (e.g., at Barma Grande and Dolní Věstonice) reinforce the view that Upper Paleolithic groups were small and susceptible to inbreeding, possibly as extensive as what has been reported for the Altai Neandertal. However, genomic data available for some of those individuals were of insufficient coverage to infer population sizes or inbreeding levels.” ref, ref

Picture: link 

“There where at least three different forms of burials were practiced at Sunghir. While an adult femur shaft was found in the grave with the two youngsters, another femur bone was discovered isolated near the graves, with indications that the body had been abandoned on the surface without receiving any formal treatment. A cranium, was found with artifacts just above the adult’s lavish grave. This cranium represents only one part of the skeleton, it appears to have been deposited there in the context of a funerary ritual.” ref

“Sungir may thus be considered as the earliest modern human burial site in Europe with evidence of a social structure that would not have solely depended on people’s acquired status. And as can be indicative to a general shamanism thinking about body difference being special, both the juvenile and the adolescent appear to have suffered from physical abnormalities and likely their disabilities would have been visible to others. Their difference may have been part of the reason they were given an extravagant burial.” ref

“Analyses of mtDNA genomes from Sungir1 to Sungir 4 put them in haplogroup U, consistent with West Eurasian and Siberian Paleolithic and Mesolithic genomes. Sungir1 belongs to haplogroup U8c; the sequences for the three individuals from the double burial ( Sungir 2 to Sungir 4) are identical and belong to haplogroup U2, which is closely related to the Upper Paleolithic Kostenki 12 and Kostenki 14 individuals. Phylogenetic analyses of the Y chromosome sequences place all  Sungir individuals in an early divergent lineage of haplogroup C1a2. Y chromosome haplogroup C1, which is rare among contemporary Eurasians, has been found in other early European individuals, including the ~36,000-year-old Kostenki 14.” ref

“Haplogroup C1a2 (also known as Haplogroup C-V20): which has been discovered in the remains of Palaeolithic people in Czech Republic (30,000 years ago), Belgium (35,000 years ago), and the Sunghir archaeological site near Vladimir, Russia. Regarding more recent prehistory, Haplogroup C-V20 has been found in the remains of a male (died ca. 7,000 years ago) associated with a late group of the Alföld Linear Pottery culture at Kompolt-Kigyósér, Hungary whose mtDNA belonged to haplogroup J1c1, the remains of a male (died ca. 7,000 years ago) associated with the LBK Culture at Apc-Berekalja (I.), Hungary whose mtDNA belonged to haplogroup K1a3a3, and the remains of a male (died ca. 7,000 years ago) associated with Mesolithic culture at La Braña-Arintero, León, Spain whose mtDNA belonged to haplogroup U5b2c1. Haplogroup C-V20 Y-DNA also has been found in a small number of modern Europeans, Algerian Berbers,[6]Armenians, and Nepalis. It includes many Y-DNA samples associated with the oldest currently known population of anatomically modern humans in Europe (Cro-Magnons), and it is considered to be a carrier of the Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian culture that began 40,000 years ago.” ref

“There is significant Totamistic-Shamanism activity from Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, with triple burial three teenagers to larger males DV 13 and DV 14 side by side flanking a smaller handicap male DV 15 in the middle position of the burial, a single older woman shaman burial with a carved portrait, and a Venus of Dolní Věstonice, 27,000 and 25,000 years ago. The Dna of three inhabitants of Dolni Vestonice, lived 31,155 years ago and to have mitochondrial haplogroup U, and one inhabitant mitochondrial haplogroup U8.” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Early Gravettian – The Pavlovian

“As the most important component of the Early Gravettian in Danubian Europe, the Pavlovian (30 – 25 ky) occupies a central location within the Lower Austrian – Moravian – South Polish geomorphological corridor (fig. 2a). Both the Pavlovian settlement archaeology and the resource analysis suggest a discontinuity compared to the previous Early Upper Paleolithic settlement strategies: the typical formation of the large open-air settlements in an axial manner, in lower altitudes and along the rivers; the long-distance transport of lithic raw materials; the intensive exploitation of mammoths supplemented by a variety of small animals; and, finally, aspects of ritual and style.” ref

“The art production at this stage of the Gravettian is remarkably complex, and includes carvings and engravings, soft stone carvings, and especially the ceramic plastic production. A majority of the human skeletal remains are equally dated to this period (Predmostí, Dolní Vestonice – Pavlov, Krems). Some of the ritual burials are covered by ochre, and some are covered by mammoth shoulderblades. It should be underlined, however, that they are poorly equipped by additive artifacts (if any, so just a few pierced decorative objects. The earliest Pavlovian occupation is best documented at Willendorf II, layer 5 (around and after 30 ky BP), Krems, and Dolní Vestonice II (a complex occupation horizons dated to 27 ky). The industry is dominated by burins, backed implements, and endscrapers, where burins are about the twice as numerous as endscrapers. The number of microliths, and especially geometric microliths, is usually low. A variety of pointed blades (including the Jerzmanowice-type points) and pointed microblades (including the Krems or Font Yves points) occur as well.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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31,000-25,000 Dolni Vestonice,  Czech Republic Totemistic-Shamanism

“A remarkable cluster of Pavlovian radiocarbon dates is recorded during the following two millennia, between 27,000 – 25,000 years ago. These dates were received from Willendorf II (layers 6-8), Aggsbach, Krems, Grub/Kranawetberg, Dolní Vestonice – Pavlov, Milovice (settlement), Borsice, Jarosov (settlement), Spytihnev, and Predmostí (the main occupation layer). An increase of microliths, including the geometric microliths (lunates, triangles, trapezes), is typical at this stage, especially within the Dolní Vestonice – Pavlov area. A variety of pointed blades and micro blades continue to occur, but the typical leaf-points are absent at this stage. A few of the 14 C datings from sites like Dolní Vestonice, Milovice, and Jarosov are later than 25,000 years ago; so, for example, the mammoth bone deposits at Milovice and Jarosov are dated later than the related settlements. If these dates are correct, they would suggest a prolongation of occupation at these sites after the Pavlovian.” ref

“The most typical example of another type of Early Gravettian, non-Pavlovian site, is Bodrogkeresztúr-Henye in eastern Hungary. The site provided two dates, 28,700 and 26,300 years ago that place it chronologically to the Early Gravettian. Contrary to the Pavlovian sites, however, the fauna is dominated by horse and elk, and the lithic industry, dominated by burins, retouched blades, endscrapers, and sidescrapers, lacks the typical microliths. In addition, there are differences of a rather functional nature. Nemsová, a workshop site with an Early Gravettian date in western Slovakia, is located near an important raw material source: the radiolarite. Two smaller cave sites, Slaninova Cave and Dzeravá skala Cave, yielded early Gravettian dates in association with fragments of the typical ivory points with circular sections. This may be an evidence for periodical visits of Gravettian hunters in the karstic regions.” ref

31,000-25,000 years old Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic Totemistic-Shamanism

31,000 – 30,000 Years Ago – Dolni Vestonice (Czech Republic) an Odd Triple Shamanistic Burial

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

24,000 Years Old Sacred Burial of a Siberian Mal’ta Boy

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.

Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region.

To an Animistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them”

 

To a Totemistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them; they may have religio-cultural importance.”

“Lakes are often mysterious bodies of water, especially if they are very deep or surrounded by mountains. No wonder legends and mysteries thrive about them, including monsters that supposedly lurk in their bottomless depths.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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People may have first seen the Shaman Rock with the natural brown rock formation resembling a dragon between 30,000 to 25,000 years ago.

Shaman Rock, on Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, Siberia, with a natural rock image that resembles a dragon. And is one of the “Nine Holy Sites of Asia.”

Genetic Relations to Ancient North Eurasians: Zagros/Iranian, Anatolian, Eastern, Caucasus, Western, Scandinavian, and Iberian hunter-gatherers

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Here are my thoughts/speculations on where I believe is the possible origin of shamanism, which may have begun sometime around 35,000 to 30,000 years ago seen in the emergence of the Gravettian culture, just to outline his thinking, on what thousands of years later led to evolved Asian shamanism, in general, and thus WU shamanism as well. In both Europe-related “shamanism-possible burials” and in Gravettian mitochondrial DNA is a seeming connection to Haplogroup U. And the first believed Shaman proposed burial belonged to Eastern Gravettians/Pavlovian culture at Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia in the Czech Republic, which is the oldest permanent human settlement that has ever been found. It is at Dolní Věstonice where approximately 27,000-25,000 years ago a seeming female shaman was buried and also there was an ivory totem portrait figure, seemingly of her.

And my thoughts on how cultural/ritual aspects were influenced in the area of Göbekli Tepe. I think it relates to a few different cultures starting in the area before the Neolithic. Two different groups of Siberians first from northwest Siberia with U6 haplogroup 40,000 to 30,000 or so. Then R Haplogroup (mainly haplogroup R1b but also some possible R1a both related to the Ancient North Eurasians). This second group added its “R1b” DNA of around 50% to the two cultures Natufian and Trialetian. To me, it is likely both of these cultures helped create Göbekli Tepe. Then I think the female art or graffiti seen at Göbekli Tepe to me possibly relates to the Epigravettians that made it into Turkey and have similar art in North Italy. I speculate that possibly the Totem pole figurines seen first at Kostenki, next went to Mal’ta in Siberia as seen in their figurines that also seem “Totem-pole-like”, and then with the migrations of R1a it may have inspired the Shigir idol in Russia and the migrations of R1b may have inspired Göbekli Tepe.

Seeming Connections: Totem poles, Ceremonial poles, Spirit poles, Sacred poles, Deity poles, Deities with poles, Pole star, Axis Mundi, Sacred trees, World tree, Maypole, Sun Dance with poles, etc.

“Migration from Siberia behind the formation of Göbeklitepe: Expert states. People who migrated from Siberia formed the Göbeklitepe, and those in Göbeklitepe migrated in five other ways to spread to the world, said experts about the 12,000-year-old Neolithic archaeological site in the southwestern province of Şanlıurfa.“ The upper paleolithic migrations between Siberia and the Near East is a process that has been confirmed by material culture documents,” he said.” ref

“Semih Güneri, a retired professor from Caucasia and Central Asia Archaeology Research Center of Dokuz Eylül University, and his colleague, Professor Ekaterine Lipnina, presented the Siberia-Göbeklitepe hypothesis they have developed in recent years at the congress held in Istanbul between June 11 and 13. There was a migration that started from Siberia 30,000 years ago and spread to all of Asia and then to Eastern and Northern Europe, Güneri said at the international congress.” ref

“The relationship of Göbeklitepe high culture with the carriers of Siberian microblade stone tool technology is no longer a secret,” he said while emphasizing that the most important branch of the migrations extended to the Near East. “The results of the genetic analyzes of Iraq’s Zagros region confirm the traces of the Siberian/North Asian indigenous people, who arrived at Zagros via the Central Asian mountainous corridor and met with the Göbeklitepe culture via Northern Iraq,” he added.” ref

“Emphasizing that the stone tool technology was transported approximately 7,000 kilometers from east to west, he said, “It is not clear whether this technology is transmitted directly to long distances by people speaking the Turkish language at the earliest, or it travels this long-distance through using way stations.” According to the archaeological documents, it is known that the Siberian people had reached the Zagros region, he said. “There seems to be a relationship between Siberian hunter-gatherers and native Zagros hunter-gatherers,” Güneri said, adding that the results of genetic studies show that Siberian people reached as far as the Zagros.” ref

“There were three waves of migration of Turkish tribes from the Southern Siberia to Europe,” said Osman Karatay, a professor from Ege University. He added that most of the groups in the third wave, which took place between 2600-2400 BCE, assimilated and entered the Germanic tribes and that there was a genetic kinship between their tribes and the Turks. The professor also pointed out that there are indications that there is a technology and tool transfer from Siberia to the Göbeklitepe region and that it is not known whether people came, and if any, whether they were Turkish.” ref

“Around 12,000 years ago, there would be no ‘Turks’ as we know it today. However, there may have been tribes that we could call our ‘common ancestors,’” he added. “Talking about 30,000 years ago, it is impossible to identify and classify nations in today’s terms,” said Murat Öztürk, associate professor from İnönü University. He also said that it is not possible to determine who came to where during the migrations that were accepted to have been made thousands of years ago from Siberia. On the other hand, Mehmet Özdoğan, an academic from Istanbul University, has an idea of where “the people of Göbeklitepe migrated to.” ref

“According to Özdoğan, “the people of Göbeklitepe turned into farmers, and they could not stand the pressure of the overwhelming clergy and started to migrate to five ways.” “Migrations take place primarily in groups. One of the five routes extends to the Caucasus, another from Iran to Central Asia, the Mediterranean coast to Spain, Thrace and [the northwestern province of] Kırklareli to Europe and England, and one route is to Istanbul via [Istanbul’s neighboring province of] Sakarya and stops,” Özdoğan said. In a very short time after the migration of farmers in Göbeklitepe, 300 settlements were established only around northern Greece, Bulgaria, and Thrace. “Those who remained in Göbeklitepe pulled the trigger of Mesopotamian civilization in the following periods, and those who migrated to Mesopotamia started irrigated agriculture before the Sumerians,” he said.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Gobekli Tepe: First Temple, Early Paganism Themes, Sky Burial, Skull Cult, T-pillar Site Similarities, Obsidian Trade, Agriculture Revolution, and Megalith Cultures 

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Haplogroup migrations related to the Ancient North Eurasians: I added stuff to this map to help explain. 

People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.

Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region. 

To an Animistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them” 

To a Totemistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them; they may have religio-cultural importance.” 

“Ancient North Eurasian population had Haplogroups R, P, U, and Q DNA types: defined by maternal West-Eurasian ancestry components (such as mtDNA haplogroup U) and paternal East-Eurasian ancestry components (such as yDNA haplogroup P1 (R*/Q*).” ref 

The earliest centers of pottery origin in the Russian Far East and Siberia: Review of chronology for the oldest Neolithic cultures

“Abstract: The earliest pottery from the Russian Far East, Osipovka and Gromatukha cultural complexes, was radiocarbon-dated to c. 13,300-12,300 years ago. In Siberia, the earliest pottery is known from the Ust-Karenga complex, dated to c. 11,200-10,800 years ago. The Osipovka and Gromatukha complexes belong to the Initial Neolithic, and they are contemporaneous with the earliest Neolithic cultures in southern China and Japan. In spite of the very early emergence of pottery in the Russian Far East, there is no evidence of agriculture at the beginning of the Neolithic, and subsistence remains based on hunting and fishing, including anadromous salmonids in the Amur River and its tributaries.” ref

The earliest Neolithic complex in Siberia: the Ust-Karenga 12 site and its significance for the Neolithisation process in Eurasia

“Abstract: The discovery of Neolithic (i.e. pottery-containing) components at the Ust-Karenga 12 site in northern Transbaikal brought to light new data on the appearance of pottery in Siberia. Excavations and geoarchaeological studies identified the pottery complex in layer 7, 14C-dated to c. 12,180–10,750 years ago (charcoal dates) and c. 11,070–10,600 years ago (pottery organics dates). The pottery is thin and plant fibre-tempered; vessels are round-bottomed and with a comb-pattern design. Ust-Karenga 12 thus preserves by far the earliest Neolithic assemblage in Siberia, and is only slightly younger than the Initial Neolithic complexes of the Amur River basin, Russian Far East (c. 13,300–12,400 years ago).” ref

I think the “kurgan Origin” is found in “Stratified Ritual Mounds”

“From the later seventh-millennium cal BCE, in west Siberia, a new site type emerged in this period, the large, stratified mound (Russian kholm), with examples reaching 50m in diameter and up to 6m in height. These Mounds are characterized by unusual features such as groups of human skulls, clay figurines, bone and antler, hearths, and post-row structures, and are interpreted as ritual or sacrificial sites.” ref

“A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses. Some scepter graves could have been covered with a tumulus, placing the first kurgans as early as the 5th millennium BCE in Eastern Europe. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots. These structures are of the earlier Neolithic period from the 4th to the 3rd millenniums BCE.” ref

Ritual Mound Migrations: Kurgans, Dolmens, and later Pyramids likely all trace back to Siberia, helping show how Yeniseian languages, may have influenced Proto-Indo-European languages

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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34,000 years old Paleolithic dog or wolf-dog hybrid skulls found in Razboinichya Cave, Siberia

Dog Domestication, Shamanism, and Emerging “Sacred Companion” Mortuary Rituals between 33,000 to 12,000 years ago?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Anubis

“Anubis, also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian (Coptic: ⲁⲛⲟⲩⲡ, romanized: Anoup), is the god of funerary rites, protector of graves, and guide to the underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depicted as a canine or a man with a canine head. Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 – c. 2890 BCE), Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BCE) he was replaced by Osiris in his role as lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the “Weighing of the Heart”, in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.” ref

“Anubis is one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods in the Egyptian pantheon; however, no relevant myth involved him. Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized regeneration, life, the soil of the Nile River, and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis is associated with his brother Wepwawet, another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog’s head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined. Anubis’ female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet.” ref

““Anubis” is a Greek rendering of this god’s Egyptian name. Before the Greeks arrived in Egypt, around the 7th century BC, the god was known as Anpu or Inpu. The root of the name in ancient Egyptian language means “a royal child.” Inpu has a root to “inp”, which means “to decay.” The god was also known as “First of the Westerners,” “Lord of the Sacred Land,” “He Who is Upon his Sacred Mountain,” “Ruler of the Nine Bows,” “The Dog who Swallows Millions,” “Master of Secrets,” “He Who is in the Place of Embalming,” and “Foremost of the Divine Booth.” The positions that he had were also reflected in the titles he held such as “He Who Is upon His Mountain,” “Lord of the Sacred Land,” “Foremost of the Westerners,” and “He Who Is in the Place of Embalming.” ref

“In Egypt’s Early Dynastic period (c. 3100 – c. 2686 BCE), Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a “jackal” head and body. A jackal god, probably Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha, Djer, and other pharaohs of the First Dynasty. Since Predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves, jackals had been strongly associated with cemeteries because they were scavengers which uncovered human bodies and ate their flesh. In the spirit of “fighting like with like,” a jackal was chosen to protect the dead, because “a common problem (and cause of concern) must have been the digging up of bodies, shortly after burial, by jackals and other wild dogs which lived on the margins of the cultivation.” ref

“In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. He was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom (2000–1700 BCE). In the Roman era, which started in 30 BCE, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to guide them to Osiris. The parentage of Anubis varied between myths, times and sources. In early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181–2055 BCE), Anubis is the son of either the cow goddess Hesat or the cat-headed Bastet. Another tradition depicted him as the son of Ra and Nephthys.” ref

“The Greek Plutarch (c. 40–120 AD) reported a tradition that Anubis was the illegitimate son of Nephthys and Osiris, but that he was adopted by Osiris’s wife Isis:

For when Isis found out that Osiris loved her sister and had relations with her in mistaking her sister for herself, and when she saw a proof of it in the form of a garland of clover that he had left to Nephthys – she was looking for a baby, because Nephthys abandoned it at once after it had been born for fear of Set; and when Isis found the baby helped by the dogs which with great difficulties lead her there, she raised him and he became her guard and ally by the name of Anubis.” ref

“George Hart sees this story as an “attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osirian pantheon.” An Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period (30–380 CE) simply called Anubis the “son of Isis.” In Nubia, Anubis was seen as the husband of his mother Nephthys. In the Ptolemaic period (350–30 BCE), when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The two gods were considered similar because they both guided souls to the afterlife.” ref

“The center of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means “city of dogs.” In Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Although the Greeks and Romans typically scorned Egyptian animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was mockingly called “Barker” by the Greeks), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens and Cerberus and Hades in the underworld.  In his dialogues, Plato often has Socrates utter oaths “by the dog” (Greek: kai me ton kuna), “by the dog of Egypt”, and “by the dog, the god of the Egyptians”, both for emphasis and to appeal to Anubis as an arbiter of truth in the underworld.” ref

Anubis Roles

As jmy-wt (Imiut or the Imiut fetish) “He who is in the place of embalming“, Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called ḫnty zḥ-nṯr “He who presides over the god’s booth”, in which “booth” could refer either to the place where embalming was carried out or the pharaoh’s burial chamber. In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris. Indeed, when the Osiris myth emerged, it was said that after Osiris had been killed by Set, Osiris’s organs were given to Anubis as a gift. With this connection, Anubis became the patron god of embalmers; during the rites of mummification, illustrations from the Book of the Dead often show a wolf-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.” ref

Protector of tombs

Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-Amentiu, which means “foremost of the westerners” and was also the name of a different canine funerary god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as tpy-ḏw.f (Tepy-djuef) “He who is upon his mountain” (i.e. keeping guard over tombs from above) and nb-t3-ḏsr (Neb-ta-djeser) “Lord of the sacred land”, which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.” ref

“The Jumilhac papyrus recounts another tale where Anubis protected the body of Osiris from Set. Set attempted to attack the body of Osiris by transforming himself into a leopard. Anubis stopped and subdued Set, however, and he branded Set’s skin with a hot iron rod. Anubis then flayed Set and wore his skin as a warning against evil-doers who would desecrate the tombs of the dead. Priests who attended to the dead wore leopard skin in order to commemorate Anubis’ victory over Set. The legend of Anubis branding the hide of Set in leopard form was used to explain how the leopard got its spots. Most ancient tombs had prayers to Anubis carved on them.” ref

Shapeshifters: found among Totemists, Shamanists, and Paganists?

Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Dnieper–Donets culture

“The Dnieper–Donets culture complex (DDCC) (ca. 5th—4th millennium BCE) was a Mesolithic and later Neolithic culture which flourished north of the Black Sea ca. 5000-4200 BCE. It has many parallels with the Samara culture, and was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture. The Dnieper–Donets culture complex was defined by the Soviet archaeologist Dmytro Telehin (Dmitriy Telegin) on proposition of another archaeologist Valentyn Danylenko in 1956. At that time Dmytro Telehin worked at the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1952 – 1990). David Anthony (2007: 155) dated the beginning of the Dnieper–Donets culture I roughly between 5800/5200 BCE. It quickly expanded in all directions, eventually absorbing all other local Neolithic groups. By 5200 BCE the Dnieper–Donets culture II followed, which ended between 4400/4200 BCE. Note that the unsourced entry in the Ukrainian graphic contradicts both Telegin’s and Anthony’s chronology and geography.” ref

“The Dnieper–Donets culture was distributed in the steppe and forest-steppe areas north of the Black Sea. Throughout its existence, rapid population growth and an expansion towards the steppe is noticeable. There are parallels with the contemporaneous Samara culture to the north. Striking similarities with the Khvalynsk culture and the Sredny Stog culture have also been detected. A much larger horizon from the upper Vistula to the lower half of Dnieper to the mid-to-lower Volga has therefore been drawn. Influences from the DDCC and the Sredny Stog culture on the Funnelbeaker culture have been suggested. An origin of the Funnelbeaker culture from the Dnieper–Donets culture has been suggested, but this is very controversial. The Dnieper–Donets culture was contemporary with the Bug–Dniester culture. It is clearly distinct from the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture.” ref

“The physical remains recovered from graves of the Dnieper–Donets culture have been classified as “Proto-Europoid“. They have predominantly characterized as large and more massive features than the gracile Mediterranean peoples of the Balkan Neolithic. Males averaged 172 cm in height, which is much taller than contemporary Neolithic populations. Its rugged physical traits are thought to have genetically influenced later Indo-European peoples. Physical anthropologists have pointed out similarities in the physical type of the Dnieper-Donets people with the Mesolithic peoples of Northern Europe. The peoples of the neighboring Sredny Stog culture, which eventually succeeded the Dnieper–Donets culture, were of a more gracile appearance.” ref

“First archaeogenetic analysis involving DDCC individuals was published by Nikitin et al. in 2012. The authors reported mtDNA haplogroups of two individuals from the Mykilske (Nikols’skoye in Russian) and Yasynuvatka (Yasinovatka) DDCC cemeteries. Haplogroups of west Eurasian (H, U3, U5a1a) and east Eurasian (C, C4a) descent have been identified. The authors linked the appearance of east Eurasian haplogroups with potential influence from northern Lake Baikal area. Mathieson et al. (2018) analyzed 32 individuals from three Eneolithic cemeteries at Deriivka, Vilnyanka and Vovnigi, which Anthony (2019a) ascribed to the Dnieper–Donets culture. These individuals belonged exclusively to the paternal haplogroups R and I (mostly R1b and I2), and almost exclusively to the maternal haplogroup U (mostly U5, U4, and U2). This suggests that the Dnieper-Donets people were “distinct, locally derived population” of mostly of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) descent, with Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) admixture.” ref

“The WHG admixture appears to have increased in the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. Unlike the Yamnaya culture, whose genetic cluster is known as Western Steppe Herder (WSH), in the Dnieper–Donets culture no Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) or Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry has been detected. At the same time, several Eneolithic individuals from the Deriivka I cemetery carried Anatolian Neolithic Farmer (ANF) – derived as well as WSH ancestry. At the Vilnyanka cemetery, all the males belong to the paternal haplogroup I, which is common among WHGs. David W. Anthony suggests that this influx of WHG ancestry might be the result of EEFs pushing WHGs out of their territories to the east, where WHG males might have mated with EHG females. Dnieper-Donets males and Yamnaya males carry the same paternal haplogroups (R1b and I2a), suggesting that the CHG and EEF admixture among the Yamnaya came through EHG and WHG males mixing with EEF and CHG females. According to Anthony, this suggests that the Indo-European languages were initially spoken by EHGs living in Eastern Europe.” ref

“The Dnieper–Donets culture was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture, its eastern neighbor, with whom it co-existed for a time before being finally absorbed. The Dnieper–Donets culture and the Sredny Stog culture were in turn succeeded by the Yamnaya culture. The Mikhaylovka culture, the Novodanilovka group, and the Kemi Oba culture displays evidence of continuity from the Dnieper–Donets culture.” ref