six thousand years ago, an enigmatic people emerged from the
cloak of prehistoric anonymity, and began to build
marvellous cities in the fertile plain between the mighty
Tigris and Euphrates rivers (a region roughly equivalent to modern-day
Iraq). These cities – Eridu, Ur, Lagash, Uruk, Shuruppak,
Nippur, Kish and Sippar – were the cities of the Sumerians,
and the entire region was known as Sumer, or in later days
by the Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning ‘(the land)
between the rivers’.
Sumerians instigated a technological revolution in fields such
as agriculture, commerce, mathematics,
From the mid-4th millennium BC, this remarkable people began
to develop sophisticated forms of government and established
known social institutions, such as schools and courts of law.
Most significantly, the Sumerians invented writing c. 3300
in a pictographic form, but later in a style known as cuneiform – a
curious system of wedge-shaped signs, which were impressed
into clay tablets using a stylus.
clay tablets relate an amazing story – of gods who
created the heavens and the Earth, and physically descended
to the Earth at the beginning of time, in order to lay the
of the Sumerian cities. In those days, the gods alone had
occupied the great land of Sumer, but soon they grew weary of
work and set about creating mankind to release themselves
from the burden
of their toil. The result was the Sumerian ‘people’,
known by the enigmatic title ‘the black-headed ones’.
first Sumerian ‘people’ lived in the underworld
(compare the Greek myth of Prometheus) which was conceived
as the ‘garden
of the gods’. All good things in this garden had
been sent down by the gods from Heaven to Earth – cattle
and grain, trees and vegetation, the vine, the date-tree,
and, of course,
the seed of mankind itself. Man worked up an abundance
for the gods in this garden, and eventually, after he had
worthy, the gods granted him the insignia and regalia of
kingship, along with the various gifts of civilisation,
all of which they
lowered from Heaven. At this point, it would seem, mankind
was elevated from the underworld to the surface of the
Earth. It is
intriguing to note that in ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ the
mythical subterranean garden is described as ‘the
plain of E.DIN’ – a forerunner to the Garden
of Eden in the Hebrew Book of Genesis. The Sumerian term
E.DIN meant ‘the
abode of the gods’.
BC, the Sumerians began to lose control of their territory to
the Akkadians, a
Semitic-speaking group of
peoples, who soon
dominated the region of Sumer. But they, in turn, yielded
to the Gutians c. 2200 BC. Then, after a brief Sumerian
revival (c. 2100-2000
BC), the entire region was conquered by the Amorites
c. 2000 BC.
new millennium brought more chaos, with first the Babylonians,
then the Kassites, and finally the Assyrians
power. But, amazingly, throughout all of these turbulent
of the Sumerians survived virtually intact. By and
large, the same gods were worshipped, the same temples and ziggurats
or rebuilt, and the same myths were copied and translated
piously, with only minor adaptations or alterations.
The ideas and ideals
of the Sumerians thus became the basic creed and dogma
of much of the ancient Near East, being passed from
to another over the course of some three thousand years.
reason for such constancy was an unprecedented obsession with
religion, which was summed up by the
for more than three thousand years the religious ideas promoted
by the Sumerians played an extraordinary
in the public and private life of the Mesopotamians,
modelling their institutions, colouring their works of art
and literature, pervading every form of activity...
In no other antique
society did religion occupy such
a prominent position, because in no other antique society
did man feel himself so utterly dependent upon the will of
the religious motives should
never be forgotten or minimised.
was the nature of this enduring religion?
the heart of it was the Creator-God and the myth of creation.
In each of the
key cities, a Great God and a Great Goddess
personified the powers
brought the Universe into existence. In Eridu, the
God was called Enki
(or Ea); in Ur, the God was called Nannar (or Sin)
and the Goddess was called
in Lagash, the God was called Ninurta (or Ningirsu);
in Uruk, the God was called An (or Anu) and the Goddess was
was called Enlil and the Goddess was called Ninlil;
and in Sippar the God was called Utu (or Shamash).
each of these Gods would have been the Creator in his own right.
But in later times they formed a
deity became specialised: Enki as the god of the
subterranean sea (Apsu), Nannar
as the Moon-god, Inanna as Venus, Enlil as the sky-god,
and Utu as the Sun-god. There were numerous other
Gods too, such as Nergal
who became gods
the underworld, and a multiplicity of Goddesses who
were generally identified with Mother Earth.
Sumerian myth of creation begins with a cataclysm in the sky.
or the Goddess, portrayed as
a Great Mountain,
down upon the primeval Earth. As a result, the
Mountain of Heaven, personified by the God, impregnates the
Mountain of Earth, personified
by the Goddess,
with his seed.
the Sumerian poem ‘Dispute
between Summer and Winter’, we read:
the king of all the lands, set his mind.
He thrust his penis into the Great Mountain
Summer and Winter, the fecundating overflow
of the land, he poured into the womb.
Wheresoever Enlil would thrust his penis, he
roared like a wild bull.
There, HAR.SAG spent the day, rested happily
Delivered herself of Summer and Winter like
in another poem, the Sacred Marriage is described as follows:
big Earth made herself resplendent, beautified her body
Wide Earth bedecked her body with precious
metal and lapis lazuli,
Adorned herself with diorite, chalcedony,
and shiny carnelian.
Heaven arrayed himself in a wig of
verdure, stood up in princeship.
Holy Earth, the virgin, beautified
herself for Holy Heaven.
Heaven, the lofty god, planted his
knees on Wide Earth,
Poured the semen of the heroes Tree
and Reed into her womb.
Sweet Earth, the fecund cow, was
impregnated with the rich semen
Joyfully did Earth tend to the giving
birth of the plants of life,
Luxuriantly she brought forth rich
produce, and gave birth to wine
myths describe the God descending from Heaven to take up
residence in the underworld,
over the mantle of
descent of the God or Goddess from Heaven to Earth is often
a Deluge – the forerunner
of the Hebrew myth of the
Great Flood. In some myths,
the descending God ejaculates
a great flood of water
from his body, thus
filling up the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. In other
myths, the descending God
brings a great flood of
stone, which he piles up
and mounds’ upon
the face of the Earth.
the God or Goddess disintegrates in the heavens,
is the emanation of gods – with
a small ‘g’.
This multiplicity of
gods, who collectively
the former body of the
God, personify the Deluge
and meteoritic material.
Upon falling to the Earth,
they become denizens
of the underworld – the
faceless and anonymous
Earth is thus reshaped, but the
final act of
creation is yet to
come. It is
called ‘the separation
of the heavens from
the Earth’. In
this final drama, the
God seemingly creates
the Sun, the Moon,
and the stars by separating
them (or rather their
material) from the
myths are extremely
vague on this point,
seems to happen in
parallel with the
resurrection, or spiritualisation,
of the God and the
gods, who are translated
to the sky after their
fall to the Earth.
This mysterious transformation
seems to re-create,
a metaphysical sense,
the original Mountain
and perhaps at the
same time the Sun,
and the stars are created.
A significant point
here, is that the final
of creation is geocentric,
results in a geocentric
Universe (compare Egypt
and Greece where this
idea is made more explicit).
for the creation
of man, the Sumerian
In one myth, man
uses his ‘pickaxe’ to
hack open a hole
in the Earth. In
myth, man is created
from the flesh and
of sacrificed sky-gods
(he is thus created
in their image; compare
the Book of Genesis).
Whilst in other myths,
man is created in
the Womb of the Earth
a clay that has been
flung down from Heaven.
A bizarre feature
of the Sumerian
myths is the idea
that man first existed
a subterranean race
who was enslaved
by the Anunnaki gods
the underworld. It
was only at a later
juncture – possibly
when kingship was
lowered from Heaven – that
man was elevated
to the surface of
the Sumerians used to say, “Let
the wise teach
the mystery to the wise.”
religion was a ‘cult of creation’. The Great God
and Great Goddess personified the cataclysm of creation and
the formative Universe.
Alford, ‘When The Gods Came Down’, Hodder and
Dalley, ‘Myths from Mesopotamia’,
Oxford University Press, 1998 edition.
Frankfort et al, ‘The
Jacobsen, ‘The Treasures of Darkness’,
Yale University Press,
Kramer, ‘The Sumerians’,
University of Chicago
Kramer, ‘History Begins at Sumer’,
University of Pennsylvania
Pritchard, ed., ‘ANET’ (‘Ancient
Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament’),
Press, 3rd edition,
Roux, ‘Ancient Iraq’,