Annunaki and the Cultivation of Opium

originally posted by: Hanslune

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: Hanslune

Yes i'm sure you're right, if you want something doing best do it yourself, and after all it is all my own research and ideas.

if YOU don't do it the information will probably be lost.

Clearly outside of your normal sphere of interest but I can assure you that there is absolutely no danger of the information being lost. The Nippur medical tablet (now at Penn Museum) explains both the derived products, their preparation and the cultivation of the poppy itself. And, as the trade seals, that Kantz applies her personal interpretation to, clearly demonstrate, both as a prepared medicine and as seed, opium was widely traded. The recipes and preparations of opium as a medicinal are the same on the Nippur tablet as those to be found in Culpepper and I have a late 18th century translation of an old Indian text that is equally comparative to Nippur in terms of cultivation and harvesting.

The long and continuous cultivation and usage has been incredibly well documented and written about, opium seeds have been found at numerous sites from the Near East region (spreading exponentially) dating to the mid-Neolithic. Although it is likely that they were consumed as a food it establishes the plant-human relationship, and supports those who believe the seed was traded from earliest times. Those of us who have grown it, know how very easily it grows and that it is the harvesting ritual that is the vital aspect involved in producing the most efficacious medicine. The seals do not describe that which makes perfect sense. If anyone and everyone can grow it, but only you can produce the finest, you don't put the recipe on your advertising mark or seal.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
Opiates are always going to be addictive which would explain why the Akkadians chose to suppress cultivation and associated cults.

Addiction is never really the issue, control of distribution, then as now, is the reason for the suppression. They gladly traded the information on both cultivation and harvesting with the Egyptians when they were no longer able to meet demand in terms of domestic produce, forming perhaps the first international drug cartel.

The poppy itself grows like a weed and cannot be controlled, let alone suppressed. It is only the very specific harvesting process for the optimal product that was a trade secret, one that the British blew wide open to great exploitational effect.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

I happen to have notes from an archaeologist who did testing on Soma cups, ill copy what I wrote:

SOM/Mahoo
Small bitter root growing in the northwest from India, beyond Khyber pass
flowerless ground plant
sweetened with honey
precursor to Norse mead, minus local flora
active ingredient is EPHEDRA - causes nausea
poppy, cannabis

a reply to: Ridhya
To clarify, he found traces of honey, poppy, cannabis, and local plants in the cups, and it was certainly fermented.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout


But if it was simply the case that production and distribution passed from one group to another i'd still be expecting to see the plant mentioned in medicinal and trade records even if it's been taken out of a sacred or social context, there seems to be no evidence for the plants cultivation and usage after the early Dynastic period


a reply to: Ridhya

Yes it was quite a concoction, which has caused me to consider that the eight plants associated with the spider Goddess Uttu might in themselves have formed a strange and potent brew and Hul Gil was one of those ingredients.

She grew the 'tree' plant, she grew the 'honey' plant, she grew the 'vegetable' plant, she grew the esparto grass (?), she grew the atutu plant, she grew the aštaltal plant, she grew the …… plant, she grew the amḫaru plant.

a reply to: DonVoigt

Yes others have considered similar, here's a paper that tries to identify iconography relating to Cannabis in Mesopotamia.

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: Kantzveldt

Really cool thread. Those seals do seem to depict poppies. I'm curious though, your sources seem to mention that this plant of joy was cultivated for a drink. Is it even possible to derive any sort of intoxication from opium if it's in a drink or if it's eaten?

it must be brewed like tea for the alkaloids to be transferred through water solubility. However not boiled or it kills off the delicate opiate alkaloids. This is how poppy pod tea and poppy seed tea is made. Which can easily kill you if the contents are too strong and there's no real way to measure except to sip slowly.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

I was referring to Kantzveldtz interpretation of the evidence of shown on seals held in private collections.

a reply to: Hanslune

I see, but still you can rest assured that while the seals themselves may be lost in private collections now, they were well documented and studied prior to being looted from the Iraqi museum in Baghdad.

Have you seen how many books there are just about seals? Rightly so of course, they're an amazing source of information.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
But if it was simply the case that production and distribution passed from one group to another i'd still be expecting to see the plant mentioned in medicinal and trade records even if it's been taken out of a sacred or social context, there seems to be no evidence for the plants cultivation and usage after the early Dynastic period

No evidence? How do you figure that out?

Opium was a medicinal and therefore use and distribution of the refined, most effacious product, was confined to the Priest/Doctor caste and knowledge passed according to those routes. That that knowledge was preserved, that there is a clearly defined route and verbatim transference of knowledge is about as good as it gets for anything from the ancient world. The seals, as you have linked them, are evidence of trade, that was the whole point of seals. It didn't pass from one group to another, it stayed with the same group, the rulers changed, the Priest caste was almost always retained. It passed onto Egypt and was incorporated into their practice of medicine-religion, and so on into Greece at which point medicine began to be secularised opening up the commercial production of opium.

I would personally check the Yale and British Museum collections of administrative tablets, if, as the Nippur tablet suggests, production of the medicinal opium was confined to the temples there, just as it was to Thebes in AE, it shouldn't be difficult to narrow it down.

The joy, incidently, is the joy of release rather than euphoric. Opium has no use in terms of vision questing etc.

originally posted by: DeadSeraph
a reply to: Kantzveldt

Really cool thread. Those seals do seem to depict poppies. I'm curious though, your sources seem to mention that this plant of joy was cultivated for a drink. Is it even possible to derive any sort of intoxication from opium if it's in a drink or if it's eaten?

Yes, my ancestors came from Italy, grandfather grew up in Matera but lived in the old part, the Sassi di Matera which are a bunch of caves/ homes carved out of a hillside above a river and valley. He has told us stories of the poppies and how the locals used to make tea to give the kids and put them to sleep so that the peasant farmers could work the fields when they did not have daycare. And, yes, sometimes overdoses would happen and a child would die. I guess there was some strength to it even in diluted forms.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout


It's quite easy to figure the sum of nothing, there is simply no further mention of the plant known.

From the evidence i have evaluated it was only ever produced as a drink and directly related to the cult of Ninshubur in her capacity of Minister to the Anunna Gods and to the people of the land in order to soothe hearts and to bring joy, and to the Goddess Uttu as a sacred plant.

The cults concerned with medicine and surgery, Gula, Bau, Ninisin,Ninsumen, there is seemingly no evidence from texts or iconography they were ever concerned with the plant and its extract.

The seals themselves are of the archaic into the early Dynastic Period and end with the arrival of the Akkadian, they were fairly localized to Uruk and Jemdat Nas'r culture, you cannot presume they traded with Egypt as no examples are found there, though they are found as far away as Dilmun.

The Eastern Mediterranean, Greece and Egypt didn't need to source any of their traditions from Mesopotamia with regards to the Opium Poppy as it has been first cultivated in that region, the common denominator being Turkey.

The only potential for continued usage in Mesopotamia is actually with regards to the translation of the spider Goddess Uttu at the top of the sacred tree into the winged disk and it's direct relationship to Divine Kingship, the figure within it wielding the sacred bow which had gone on to represent Canis Major, so perhaps becoming exclusive as a mystery aspect of the Royal Cult, but that was not who the grail had first served...

originally posted by: evc1shop
Yes, my ancestors came from Italy, grandfather grew up in Matera but lived in the old part, the Sassi di Matera which are a bunch of caves/ homes carved out of a hillside above a river and valley. He has told us stories of the poppies and how the locals used to make tea to give the kids and put them to sleep so that the peasant farmers could work the fields when they did not have daycare. And, yes, sometimes overdoses would happen and a child would die. I guess there was some strength to it even in diluted forms.

It was probably not due to strength. Alkaloids can (and often do) induce nausea, it is likely that those children who died choked on their own vomit rather than from an opium overdose.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
a reply to: KilgoreTrout


It's quite easy to figure the sum of nothing, there is simply no further mention of the plant known.

Really? I suspect you're looking in the wrong places, what are your sources?

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
From the evidence i have evaluated it was only ever produced as a drink and directly related to the cult of Ninshubur in her capacity of Minister to the Anunna Gods and to the people of the land in order to soothe hearts and to bring joy, and to the Goddess Uttu as a sacred plant.

I am assuming your using literary rather than administrative texts to reach that conclusion. The mixing into a drink is the common usage, but it is what is mixed into a drink that is key, hence the significance of the harvesting process and how that, very particular, technique was transmitted via Doctor-Priests

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
The cults concerned with medicine and surgery, Gula, Bau, Ninisin,Ninsumen, there is seemingly no evidence from texts or iconography they were ever concerned with the plant and its extract.

The deities you mention are localised by time and space, and would not cover the central basis of medicine in all religion. They are more aspects of it, and assimilation due to the multiculturalism.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
The seals themselves are of the archaic into the early Dynastic Period and end with the arrival of the Akkadian, they were fairly localized to Uruk and Jemdat Nas'r culture, you cannot presume they traded with Egypt as no examples are found there, though they are found as far away as Dilmun.

They are found in Dilmun because the trade representatives or merchants were based there, the seals didn't travel with the goods, just the impression of the seal. Many of the seals were passed from generation to generation.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
The Eastern Mediterranean, Greece and Egypt didn't need to source any of their traditions from Mesopotamia with regards to the Opium Poppy as it has been first cultivated in that region, the common denominator being Turkey.

Turkey? Where's that from?

originally posted by: KantzveldtNot the best source, there isn't much online, but this might help...

www.aggsbach.de...

Turkey is a modern producer of opium but in ancient times not so much. The climate is not ideal for it to occur naturally so it was likely introduced from Europe, and/or further East.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
The only potential for continued usage in Mesopotamia is actually with regards to the translation of the spider Goddess Uttu at the top of the sacred tree into the winged disk and it's direct relationship to Divine Kingship, the figure within it wielding the sacred bow which had gone on to represent Canis Major, so perhaps becoming exclusive as a mystery aspect of the Royal Cult, but that was not who the grail had first served...

In relation to Uttu, apart from her patronage of textile crafts, it is her storyteller/trickster role, passing information between the realms particularly the Moon that could be a tangible link to opium harvesting. And cultivation in general, but the Nippur tablet and the subsequent tradition as transmitted to Egypt onwards, emphasise the significance of the Moon.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

There are those who have looked at and discussed in publication the isolated early references to Hul Gil, if any further were known they would be widely discussed and flagged, given that's the current state of affairs amongst the specialists in translation i'm not going to be off looking in that direction myself as i have no expertise in that field, so i simply accept the current position, you suspect there's more go find it yourself!

As far as interpretation of the iconography goes i'm ahead of the field, my sources are plentiful, and i would know if those motifs had continued, they simply didn't, but component elements of them did continue to some extent. Also the pictorial evidence is by far the most voluminous if it can be read, below we see a very rare example of Ninshubur on a celestial barque as the constellation Orion, complete with her side kick the Francolin walking bird;



And again below we see the same seated figure, but also one engaged in arching over a sacred plant of the Heavens such that it touches the Earth, and the poring jar and cups that contain the sacred drink derived.




And further we can see that this servant Goddess is as it were synonymous with a little tea pot short and stout and a cup to serve with, every aspect was widely celebrated and illustrated.




Your further points, i suggested Turkey (and Northern Syria) as the common denominator of the Neolithic expansion, they all seemed to know of Opium cultivation which traces back to the early Neolithic and as far as Dilmun goes it is the seals themselves that have been found there not impressions, it was virgin territory before being settled so seal types give indication were those settlers were from, the earliest seal type found in Arabia is of the seated woman with spider seen in the OP,late 4th millenium Uruk

Earliest cylinder seal of the Arabian peninsula

A fairly good analysis there of that seal type.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout
I do not know too much about these things so thank you for that extra bit of info. Choking may, indeed, be the reason for the deaths or a portion of them, either way, you have reminded me that I must not focus too narrowly on these things when I do not understand all of the underlying science and possible interactions.

thanks!

a reply to: Kantzveldt

Calm yerself girl.

I was trying to be helpful, I didn't want a detailed list of your sources, just the general jist of where you were looking so that I could get an idea of how you had reached your conclusions as that wasn't clear, in the end, for expediency I just chose to assume they were largely literary. You have to bear in mind you are linking seals from circa 3900 BC with a tablet from 2100 BC...that is quite a leap in terms of both time and cultural development by any standard I am sure you would agree.

In terms of the body of evidence there are literally tens of thousands of individual tablets relating to administration. It is the most substantial source of information available about the region outweighing all other sources. The seals can indeed be read, given the administrative context, because that is the context to which they belong. They may be 'art' to you, and indeed they are beautiful, but they need to be transliterated in context.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt
Your further points, i suggested Turkey (and Northern Syria) as the common denominator of the Neolithic expansion, they all seemed to know of Opium cultivation which traces back to the early Neolithic and as far as Dilmun goes it is the seals themselves that have been found there not impressions, it was virgin territory before being settled so seal types give indication were those settlers were from, the earliest seal type found in Arabia is of the seated woman with spider seen in the OP,late 4th millenium Uruk

As I stated in my previous reply, Mesopotamian seals are found in Dilmun because that is where those merchants (to whome the seals belonged) were based. The merchants used the seals to mark the goods that they were shipping either into Mesopotamia or on to the Indus Valley. Same with the Indus seals found, the round and square stamps of their merchantile agents. To translate or read those. I never said that the impressions were found.

Dilmun was an entrepot. A trade colony positioned and established purely for the facilitation of trade hence the 'virgin territory'. The settlement came later, as is the way of these things and that the process is so well documented in the administrative records allowed the site to be found at all.

I accept that you are not interested in adminstrative details, just in the artistic expressionism, but since the seals are administrative in nature a balance of the two is required. The association of the spider with the textile crafts is common throughout Africa and Eurasia, hence it was most probably used to denote those products. That in no way detracts from or negates the mythology because it is that that informs the 'reader' and makes the pictograph recognisable. For the seal to denote opium, that association would need to be recognisable, in order to demonstrate that that is the case, you need to look at the administrative records of the temples and/or kings. If they are seals depicting opium production then there was trade and it will be recorded.

The earliest evidence of opium use in from the substantial settlement of La Marmotta in Lake Bracciano Italy dated to around 7700 years ago, but seeds and capsules have been found in Spain, Switzerland, the Czech republic and Hungary indicating that Opium was very much a part of the European Neolithic package. Nothing though, as far as I am aware, from the Fertile Crescent predating that. Could be though that the seed and pollen analysis is yet to be done.

As far as Hul.gil goes and the assumption that it is the only name given to opium, it is unlikely to have had a single term applied, particularly not that one and the Sumerians loved word play and games. Besides, another reason I was curious about the source, Hul does mean 'joy' but gil doesn't usually mean 'plant'. I certainly can't find it similarly used. Gil is used to denote restraint...harnesses, leash, bit etc. So that remains a big question for me, although, in terms of useage it makes perfect sense. Which reminds me, the other fascinating thing about the Nippur tablet is that it has the opium info, and fifteen prescriptions, but no spells or incantations. That makes it pretty unique compared to the later medical texts. The Nippur is pure science without the pandering to superstition.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

The tablets are generally dated as far back as 3,400 BC and mentioned in terms of the oldest pharmaceutical tablets,the seals also date back to that era and it makes sense they would have been concurrent, so an instruction tablet rather than an administrative one, which were highly valued and that sort of knowledge was considered to be the legacy of the Ante-Diluvian sages, the tablets were not necessarily produced in Nippur but could have been collected by their archivists.

If you're looking at a context for those seals in terms of trade then it would have to be in terms of what they're involved with, the production of the sacred drink, whether in terms of ingredients or finished produce, Uruk seems to have had the monopoly on production according to seal distribution and so certainly it would have been exported to other centres, why consider textiles when clearly the spider motif is in conjunction often with a jar and cup, they all relate to the same industry.



The mythology is important because without it Uruk would not have had exclusive rights to production, Ninshubur was a Goddess of their city and that gave them the Divine Right, but it was far more than mythology and relates to how Sumerian culture understood itself and was set up.

The term 'Gil' in that context seems to refer to a long tubular stem identification such as a reed, but with regards to play on words Ninshubur was the Goddess of Hul Gil production and an astral identification of hers from later Babylonian times was Ul GI, meaning Black Star, which sounds like a good brand name for her brew.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

You know why the Annunaki theory has more evidence than the ancient giants theory? Well there is evidence that these Nephilim or Annunaki 'fell from the sky.'

The Anunnaki were sent out on a mission to find different minerals; gold, plutonium, uranium, etc. They mined several planets in our solar systems including Mars (Lahmu) and Earth (Tiamat)

Don't you love it when one piece of evidence answers ALL of our most deepest questions about the mysterious? It is much like when one finally goes through the large amount of time it takes to research the ancient Essenes themselves instead of listening to all the pathetic lies that egotistical and selfish academia tells us. All of the questions which remained unanswered in the New Testament are easily understood and directly answered when a person understands the Essene Teachings.

Now finally, with belief in what all of the ancient Near East and South American histories tell us, it gives us a direct link and answer to why in the heck there is a monolith on the moon of mars. It answers why there is a face on mars. It answers why we have the great pyramids, why we have the trilithon at baalbek, or the buried statues at Easter Island. That answer of the Annunaki answers like 100 other mysteries that we would have absolutely no answer for. It would be a disgrace for me to listen to my arrogant ego and selfish ambition. No, I listen to the evidence, and the evidence proves that their lies are more numerous than the grains of sand on the beach.

originally posted by: greyer
a reply to: Kantzveldt

You know why the Annunaki theory has more evidence than the ancient giants theory? Well there is evidence that these Nephilim or Annunaki 'fell from the sky.'

The Anunnaki were sent out on a mission to find different minerals; gold, plutonium, uranium, etc. They mined several planets in our solar systems including Mars (Lahmu) and Earth (Tiamat)

.....and where did that piece of info come from........it was Zacharia Sitchin was it? lol

Don't you love it when one piece of evidence answers ALL of our most deepest questions about the mysterious?

Don't you love it when one piece of made up evidence is touted to explain everything - except why anyone would believe it?

No, I listen to the evidence,

That was made up.

Greyer so as to not take Kantzveldt's thread off topic feel free to start yet another thread on this claim of yours.

Thanks