Sumerian Edin or Eden?

Most interesting. Can you toss a link at me? I agree... I just want to read more.



That matches everything I've read about this. In fact, in most early cultures the gods lived on mountains and it was possible to walk to the homes of the gods (this is also true of Native American beliefs.)



I'd dispute this, for I have a vague memory of this topic being addressed in the myths of the death of Tiamat, where her body becomes the sky.

Hmm.... but I see where you're coming from. They didn't think anything existed beyond the blue of the sky.

The trouble is, as is the tendency of Sitchin, the mainstream position on Sumer tends to bundle Akkadian and Babylonian thought, art and stories, right in with the Sumerian ones. This, in my estimation, is a mistake. There was a clear demarcation between Sumer and Akkadia, for example. The artforms are the most prominent indicator of that, and the changing of the guard, if you will.

For example, Tiamat was not a sumerian word. In fact, the concept of Tiamat wasn't introduced till some time after the meso flood




[edit on 20-11-2006 by undo]

the link for the sumerian dictionary i have posted here a few times now
psd.museum.upenn.edu...
this is the part of the Enuma Elish that describes what happened to Tiamats body but like Undo pointed out and for which i commend her most highly, Tiamat is a babylonian myth and not a sumerian one

Then the lord rested, gazing upon her dead body,
While he divided the flesh of the ... , and devised a cunning plan.
He split her up like a flat fish into two halves;
One half of her he stablished as a covering for heaven.


where it says of course that he used one half of her as a covering for heaven you have to remember that this is still not a celestial heaven
so he may just as well have been using her ribs as roof beams.

the Sumerians had the same legend as is found in many ancient cultures all of which coincedentally are those that used the winged sun disc to represent their culture
"the world is built on the bones of a great serpent"

this question also caused some of the early Sumerologists to ask questions
the best I have ever heard was by Edward Chiera from a book he wrote a while back
www.allreaders.com...
this is an excerpt describing the aftermath of the fight between Tiamat and one of the Sumerian Deities (unknown)
"Then a question arose: what should he do with the gigantic carcass? It must have been immense in size, and in form it must have resembled that of a huge flat vase."
very astute man that Chiera
one of the best


thats right they do that all the time
why just the other day I heard someone claim that Gilgamesh was a character in the Enuma Elish

i think it was actually in this thread halfway down page 2
but of course i chose not to say anything at the time because I'm nice like that





this is a little erroneous Beth
the name Tiamat wasn't introduced until Babylonian times
but ušumgal/great dragon dates from at least 3000bce and specifically mušhuš/red serpent which is what Tiamat is later described as dates from at least 2500bce
then you should consider the actual narrative in which she appears which starts

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;

so these events tell of a time before civilisation and before the gods existed
so whatever particular language it is written in is irrelevant
they are retelling an ancient myth which is supported by the use of the name of some of the gods later mentioned in it using the Sumerian spelling
Most scholars agree that the Enuma Elish is a babylonian version of a Sumerian myth that we just haven't excavated yet
but the fact that the Akkadians called KI.EN.GIR (sumerian - land of the civilised lords) Shumer (Hebrew - shinar) which is derived from the sumerian words for red serpent (SU.MIR) does point to the idea of a great red serpent having a lot to do with its history before the babylonians wrote it down

and the meso flood that you're talking about wasn't the same flood as the one in which Upnapishtim/Atrahasis/Ziusudra and Noah appear
if you look at the kings list in its original format you'll find several floods marked on it and yet kingship doesnt break stride
so there was to start with one huge deluge that is immortalised in mythology and then a series of smaller floods
this of course is verified by the geology which proves that the only floods that affected mesopotamia were local ones and that the great deluge if it happened anywhere happened somewhere else entirely




[edit on 20-11-2006 by Marduk]

oh doh! erase enuma elish and insert epic of gilgamesh.

by the way, can you point me to the sumerian text that discusses a red dragon?

Thanks, Marduk! Especially for the pics and the explanations...

I think I understand this, now, truly, and how it all relates. I'm not sure I could explain it - it's not 'concrete' knowledge, if you know what I mean. But your explanation of how they did not (Sumerians) use it as a noun proper locative makes so much sense!

And truly, considering what I've come to understand about the deeper, non-literal, message of the Hebrew lore and mysticism, I don't think that the proper understanding of the Hebrew 'eden' is noun proper locative, either. But for the most part, many of the mainstream religions/believers that are concerned with the idea of Eden as it mentioned in the Canon, do not approach their studies in a non-literal symbological perspective; therefore things will probably not ever 'jibe' in the way that it is promoted because that wasn't the intention of the writers (IMO).

in fact I couldn't point you to any Sumerian text that discusses anything
because everything I've ever read is Akkadian or later and tells stories about things that happened in Sumerian times, a theme they were fond of because it proved that they had providence and in many cases this providence was used by kings as a right to rule. Bit like the divine right of kings but replacing "history" for "God"
the fact that no stories remain from Genuine Sumerian times is twofold.
firstly because it is believed to be the case because scribes were taught to read and write by copying ancient texts, so whenever one produced a better version of an existing text the old copy was thrown away and the new one took its place.
and secondly because clay tablets even though a good way for preserving writing over the millenia don't last forever and all the early sumerian citties were closer to the ocean which means the ground they would be preserved in was wetter. and you know what happens to clay when it gets wet right
but I thought you already knew that
most surviving Sumerian documents are to do with trade.
a lot are just lists of words called lexicons that survived from Temple schools which of course are the reason why we know so much about the language
the oldest text you will find anywhere that makes any sense is "'The building of Ninĝirsu's temple'" which dates to around 2400bce

there are three early mentions of the word dragon
one comes from a Sumerian Lexicon which dates to 3000bce.
the next comes from a barely readable piece of literature from lagash which dates to 3000bce
and the last comes from another illegible piece of literature which also dates to 3000bce and was found at Girsu



I'd have to disagree with you on that one
the Eden mentioned in the bible is definitely in a mountainous location located east of Canaan




two of these heads are described as forming the Tigris and the Euphrates
the sources of both of these are in the southern caucasus east of Canaan




[edit on 21-11-2006 by Marduk]

I found this, but I don't know if it will be relevant, or not - Marduk, I am sure you could clarify such for me - since I don't know as much about this as you do. Would you tel me what you know about the following book, please? I don't want to read it all the way through unless it is going to be helpful nor recommend it to anyone else if I can't say whether or not it mentions red dragons, for sure....it said so, searching...but you never know!

The Babylonian Legends of the Creation by E. A. Wallis Budge

That edin/eden is a noun meaning steppe/plain while the Hebrew `eden means delight is important. I how did edin/eden the steppe come to be rendered "delight"?
Scholars have noted that the Bible's explanation of certain names or words are derived from what they call "folk etymologies." That is to say the etymology is philologically _incorrect_. Moses (Hebrew Moshe) is expalined as meaning "being drawn from the water" yet Egyptologists state it is an Egyptian word originally and part of a "sentence-name," Thuthmose means "born of the god Thoth." Cain (Hebrew qayin) is said to mean "to get, acquire" but scholars suggest it actually is a noun: "smith" as in a metal-smith. Noah means "rest" but Jewish scholars have noted this makes as no sense as the Bible suggests Noah gives "comfort" _not_ "rest" to mankind when he plants a vinyard. "comfort" in Hebrew suggests the name should have been Nahman _not_ Noah. Apparently the Hebrews are at times IN ERROR regarding the correct origins of words and their meanings. Babel is explained uin the Bible as balal "confusion" and is understood to be a deliberate misinterpreatation of a foreign word, Akkadian bab (gate) il (of god) to heap derision upon Mesopotamian religious beliefs. I suspect that Ebla's eden (ca. 2500-2300 BC) was deliberately transformed by adding the phoneme /`/ coming up with Hebrew `eden="delight". Why? For me the Hebrews are denying, refuting and challenging Mesopotamian creation-of-man myths, often times by inversions and reversals and recastings, to render a 180 degree counter-argument to that of the earlier faith (Mesopotamian). So edin the _inhospitable_ desert-like steppe was "recast" as a place of delight and being well-watered by adding the phoneme /`? to eden/edin. Another observation: Genesis states that God's garden is watered by a river that rises in Eden. We are told _after_ leaving the garden this river subdivides into four streams, the Pishon, Gihon, Hidekkel (Tigris) and Euphrates. The Mesopotamians understood man had been created by the gods to work in their city-gardens to raise food to feed the gods, ending the gods' self-toil upon the earth. ALL of the city-gardens were fed by the Tigris or Euphrates rivers in ancient Sumer. In effect Genesis denies this. The Hidekkel and Euphrates do _not_ water God's garden, they become streams when they subdivide _after_ leaving God's garden. Genesis then, _refutes_ the Mesopotamian notion that there are _many_ gods' city gardens that man was made to toil in and that these gardens' source of water is the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. For me the Hebrews are being "very creative and artistic" in recasting the Mesopotamian beliefs in order to refute, challenge and deny them.

you copy and paste a lot Syracuse
because you do that it generally is an unreadable mess and doesn't specifically answer the question set by the previous poster
you could anotate that whole grammar free diatribe by saying that the Hebrews were out to overturning any Babylonian belief that they could get their hands on...
this idea though is completely erroneous.

when you read the stories of the Hebrews and find their counterparts in Akkadian only texts it soon becomes clear that whatever it was that the Hebrews found holy it was wholly Akkadian

they were hardly likely to worship the Gods of their owners were they
the Babylonians were the ones who recast the Akkadian beliefs to suit their own culture just as the akkadians recast the beliefs of the Sumerians before them. the Hebrews just went with the earlier Akkadian version

queenannie38
that book wouldn't be too helpful, its way outdated
the text about the dragon that it tells of is this one
www.hope.edu...
its a passage cut from the early christian Bible which lives on in the greek version
if you ever wondered why Daniel ended up in the pit with the lions this explains it nicely
it is of course completely fictional and highly allegorical
this book
www.whitedragon.org.uk...
is far better and it would put you several steps ahead of Beth because I know she hasn't read it

syracuse,

perhaps it should've been called, the place of the buried gate of god, where the namshub was used.

queenannie,

marduk is not going to encourage you to read budge. no one who takes a hard line on the ancient past, is going to encourage you to read budge. no one who takes a liberal line on the ancient past, is going to encourage you to read budge. but i encourage you to read budge for comparative reasons. never discount a scholar. popularity or general acceptance does not necssarily determine truth and for all its worth, there are as many glaring mistakes in accepted works as there are in unaccepted ones. the only difference is, the people calling the shots get to say who's version is the best.

do you know why it was called the gate of God Beth ?
bet you don't do you
if you did you'd realise how stupid you sounded when you just said that
and I told you before that a namshub is a poem recited like a blessing
psd.museum.upenn.edu... perfect
psd.museum.upenn.edu... thought



thats like because hes hopelessly out of date
doh

hope you're not letting the hoovering go undone while you're posting this stuff Beth
that would be a waste

[edit on 21-11-2006 by Marduk]

While I am unable to direct you to a text mentioning a "RED" dragon (serpent-dragon) scholars have noted that serpent-dragons with four legs appear on the famous Ishtar gate unearthed at Babylon erected by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BC. These figures are in bas-relief and the bricks are enameled, the gate's background is blue enameled brick and the serpent-dragons are enameled (glazed) RED. This gate has been reassembled and is on display in a Berlin, Germany museum.

what do you happen to know about the term "Scorpion" from that time frame. it's really got me puzzled. there's something more to it than the traditional meaning.

omg you've never heard of Namtar either
ahahahaha

marduk,

it's interesting that pretty much anything available on the net about ancient egyptian texts is a budge work. i tried to find a single translation of the legend of re and hathor that wasn't a budge work and there wasn't any. if these scholars are so worried about the man's mistakes, you'd think they'd flood the market place with their new and revised additions so that it would be their work being quoted on the net instead of budge. so the reader reads budge, forms conclusions and then is told, ohsorry, but budge is outdated, but if wanna know the real translation, here, read this ! and of course the thing is written in german and the person wanting the new, revised version is an english-speaking/reading individual. this of course, causes the proponent of the german version to roll their eyes dramatically as if the reader is an idiot because they can't read german. *yawn*

if the truth needs to be taught and the revised editions of budge's work be available, post the dam n things in more than one language.

elaborate please, without the attitude.

so enki recited a poem that caused the language of the people to not be one language anymore. interesting. actually, it's translated more precisely when combined into one word Nam+shub = Namshub, by the word, invocation or magic spell, or sorcery. i think it was some form of technology, personally, that interfered with brain waves.

Marduk wrote:
"you could anotate that whole grammar free diatribe by saying that the Hebrews were out to overturning any Babylonian belief that they could get their hands on...this idea though is completely erroneous."

Syracuse replies:
You _misunderstand_ perhaps the fault is mine? I do _not_ understand that the Hebrews were out to overturning "every" Mesopotamian belief. They accepted "some". They accepted the notion man had been created and placed in a god's garden to till and tend it. They accepted the notion the garden received its water from a river. They accepted the notion man had been denied immortality via a god's actions. They accepted the notion that a god needed to be fed (Yahweh receiving a sacrifice/offering twice a day, morning and evening at Jerusalem until the Romans ended it in 70 AD). They accepted the notion all men are sinners. They accepted the notion one must wail and plead for mercy with one's God hoping for some compassion.
Marduk wrote:
"when you read the stories of the Hebrews and find their counterparts in Akkadian only texts it soon becomes clear that whatever it was that the Hebrews found holy it was wholly Akkadian ."
Syracuse replies:
I disagree. The motifs and concepts in Genesis are _not_ wholly Akkadian or Babylonian. Some are modified Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian _and_ Egyptian, Syrian, Phoenician, Hittite and Canaanite. But only a _careful study_ involving many hours of my many articles at my website would reveal this to you. Based on what I have posted so far to the ATS forum, I can see why you have innocently drawn this erroneous conclusion. The Mesopotamians understood man had been made of clay, in Genesis man is made of dust. Canaanite correspondence to Pharaoh Akhenaton (14th century BC) reveals the Canaanite "vassals" describing themselves in self-effacing language as the _dust_ under Pharoh's sandals. I understand that Genesis' notion of man being dust is harkening back to this Canaanite self-abasement expression. So everything in Genesis is _not_ wholly Akkadian as you seem to suggest. I understand that the Mercy Seat atop the Ark of the Covenant is a Hebrew recast of Canaanite winged sphinx thrones that are in turn Phoenican recast of Egyptian thrones of the Late Bronze Age (14th-12th centuries BC).

Marduk wrote:
"they were hardly likely to worship the Gods of their owners were they the Babylonians were the ones who recast the Akkadian beliefs to suit their own culture just as the akkadians recast the beliefs of the Sumerians before them. the Hebrews just went with the earlier Akkadian version"

Syracuse replies:
Agreed that the Akkadiana and later the Babylonians are recasting earlier Sumerian concepts and that the Hebrews are doing it as well. The Christians "recast" (reinterpreted) the stories found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) deriving "new meanings" from them that _challenged_ the Jewish understandings. Still later Islam arose and recast (reinterpreted) Jewish and Christian notions. For example: God is seen by Adam, Eve, and Moses, but the Christians deny this, these people did not see God they saw Jesus in his role as the Logos, "The Word." Moses received the Ten Commandments not from God but Jesus, the Hebrews were _unknowingly_ worshipping Jesus in his role as "The Word," not God the father. Islam's recasts: Eden is not a garden on the earth, its a paradise in heaven, Adam and Eve upon being exiled from the heavenly Eden resumed their lives on the earth.. Abraham sacrified Ishmael _not_ Isaac and thus Ishmael's progeny gets God's blessing: The Promised Land (Palestine/Israel)_not_ the Jews. Jesus is _not_ the God appearing in the Old Testament, Allah is. Jesus is meerly a human prophet born of Mary the sister of Moses. Allah is ONE, the Christian notion of a Trinity, "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" is _denied_ by Islam and regarded as blasphemous polythesism. The whole world will _not_ bend the knee to the Jewish Yahweh, or Jesus, but to Allah

heres the long version
Namtar was a sumerian lesser deity of the underworld
www.pantheon.org...
its also the Sumerian word for sickness; fate, destiny
psd.museum.upenn.edu...
and its also the name of the star sign that in the modern world is known as Scorpio
the scorpion men were so called because they attacked their enemies like a disease
not because they were half alien hybrids from the planet scorpius or anything like that

heres the brief version
Namtar takes the form of a scorpion