More on "Man-Beast Amulets"

Continuing from my previous entry on “Man-Beast amulets”:  I doubt very much that the Sumerians would have depicted Inanna using amulets with a Sphinx on it – I am not sure of the Sumerian-Egyptian comparative timelines to know far apart the Sphinx and the recorded love story in Sumerian hieroglyphics are – or even if they ARE “far apart”.

However, since I have no idea what Inanna’s amulets looked like, if I need to make a good faith effort to design a contemporary amulet that still dives deeply into history, you can’t do better than the Sphinx.  Particularly as there are so many magickal correspondences attached to the Sphinx.

“Eliphas Levi here offers the Four Powers as the words of the Magus and casually links them with the Sphinx. He goes on in the same chapter to link the Four Powers of the Sphinx with the four Elements and the four Kerubic Signs of the zodiac:

“You are called to be king of air, water, earth and fire; but to reign over these four living creatures of symbolism, it is necessary to conquer and enchain them. He who aspires to be a sage and to know the Great Enigma of Nature must be the heir and despoiler of the sphinx: his the human head, in order to possess speech; his the eagle’s wings, in order to scale the heights; his the bull’s flanks, in order to furrow the depths; his the lion’s talons, to make a way on the right and the left, before and behind.”
Source:  http://hermetic.com/osiris/onthepowersofthesphinx1.htm

Okay, so I missed the eagle in my last entry.  Human, eagle, lion, bull.  There’s a “Man-Beast” if I ever saw one!  I will say that Levi seems a tad “patriarchal” in this paragraph, enthusing about “conquering” and “enchaining” things.  I’d rather seduce things, or maybe that’s just me.

I also should have added an explanation of that “cylinder seal” she held in her hand:

“A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Susa in south-western Iran and Uruk in southern Mesopotamia. They are linked to the invention of the latter’s cuneiform writing on clay tablets.  They were used as an administrative tool, a form of signature, as well as jewelry and as magical amulets; later versions would employ notations with Mesopotamian cuneiform. In later periods, they were used to notarize or attest to multiple impressions of clay documents. Graves and other sites housing precious items such as gold, silver, beads, and gemstones often included one or two cylinder seals, as honorific grave goods.”

Now here is an interesting coincidence.  The ancient city of Susa, which “appears in the very earliest Sumerian records”, is  “one of the places obedient to Inanna, patron deity of Uruk, in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta .” (Wikipedia)  Susa is located in present day Iran.  An ancient cylinder seal was unearthed in Susa.  In an article comparing mankind’s search for the elixir of life to the history of dragon mythology and folklore (“the most venerable symbol employed in ornamental art and the favorite and most highly decorative motif in artistic design"), author G. Elliott Smith captured early depictions of dragons on cylinders found in Susa (founded in 4200 BCE), with many similarities to the Great Sphinx which is commonly believed to have been constructed later, 2558–2532 BCE.  Looking at the general timeline:

4200 BCE: Susa is founded in western Persia
4700-2900 BCE dragon motifs found along the Yellow River in China from this period
3000 BCE - Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt unite. Successive dynasties witness flourishing trade, prosperity and the development of great cultural traditions. Writing, including hieroglyphics, is used as an instrument of state.
2558–2532 BCE - Construction of The Great Sphinx
2500 BCE - Construction of the pyramids
2018 BCE - the Sumerian empire disintegrates

... it appears that, of the two/three empires,  the dragon motif originated first in Sumer or China and migrated to Egypt.  I suspect Sumer because the components of the Sphinx seem more closely connected to Sumerian origins than Chinese, and because Iran is closer to Egypt than is China.  (However, the Chinese have traditionally been known as seafarers so I wouldn’t completely disregard them, either).

However, Elliott draws a fascinating line between the earliest Sumerian dragon and the Egyptian Sphinx by pointing out that the Sumerian consisted of Sekhmet (the lioness), Horus (the eagle or falcon) and Osiris (human attributes and water controlling powers) – which also brings us back to the Sphinx which was believed to be near water at the time it was constructed.

Smith, G. Elliot, M.A., M.D., FRS.  Dragons and Rain Gods,  “Bulletin of the John Rylands Library”, Volume 5, The University Press, Manchester; Longmans, Greene and Company, London; August 1918 – July 1920, p. 317-380.

And yes, on the right is the same dragon of chaos you saw battling Marduk in this blog. 

THE ultimate point being that I suspect an amulet of the Sphinx is a perfect “Man-Beast” amulet to celebrate Inanna’s sacred marriage to Dumuzi.

Sumerian Mythology, Seas of Octagons and Nobel Prize Concerts

Ahhhh, December. The month that makes you cringe because you should be doing stuff in preparation for the end of the month, but you’re not. I am slurping down a delicious split pea soup, though. One of the advantages of colder weather: you can enjoy all sorts of thick, hearty soups you normally don’t eat when it’s warmer.

A sudden onslaught of readers from Sweden (21 of them in one day) and the Netherlands (2, ditto) had me thinking, "Wha ...?" until I remembered the Nobel Prize concert, 3 days from now, in Stockholm. Well, hello, Sweden and Netherlands!

Anyway, It’s December. I’ve just finished reading Samuel Noah Kramer’s Sumerian Mythology* as preparation for the second "book" of poetry: "Paradise Lost" turned upside down.

I’ve written the first seven sets of verses, which, in my theological world, began with a dream. Difficult to explain: an endless field of octagons, brightly lit from within, moving gently, and within each, twin souls, wrapped around each other, like a "yin" and a "yang" symbol, but not exactly. The souls were cared for, but I have no memory from that dream of anyone or anything beyond what I’ve described: a distant view of the nursery, the knowledge that I began there and the touch of my soul mate. This was my "memory" of a "soul’s nursery". I also remember the music in this dream, which could never be recreated, as it consisted also of sounds and notes which don’t exist in our world, so I can’t even describe them, other than to say that the sound was the very source of bliss.
*Kramer, Samuel Noah. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. Harper & Brothers, New York. 1961, Revised Edition. First published in 1944, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

I was reading the story of Ashnan (the much beloved and very ancient Sumerian grain goddess, "the wise") and Lahar ("the cattle god"). Ashnan, by the way, was ancient enough that She first appears in the Sumerian Early Dynastic period (2900-2350 B.C.E.) according to Black, Cunningham, Robson and Zólyomi in 2004. As I read, I came across this sentence: "in those days, in the creation chamber of the Gods ... Lahar and Ashnan were fashioned." (page 73). I stopped reading and said, "creation chamber ...!"

Okay, that may not have specifically referenced a "sea of clear octagons in a soul nursery", but that was the closest I’d come in my studies to something I had seen in my dreams.

Even more fascinating was seeing the earliest cosmological stories that found their way into the three major religions of that region, and knowing that so many people thought they had "the only correct belief", without any awareness of the origins of their belief systems. While quite a few people know that the deluge story did NOT originate with the Book of Genesis, but with the Epic of Gilgamesh,  many have no idea how important it was that their primary patriarch - Abraham, present in all three - was  Sumerian.

Abraham the Sumerian was the primary patriarch of at least three major religions; I’m guessing that not a soul within those belief systems knows that Abraham’s father was a powerful oracle within the Sumerian religion - basically a priest in the Sumerian magickal system. I’m also quite sure that no one within those belief systems understands that when they refer to the "God of Abraham", they are referring only to a household God within Abraham’s pagan household. One of the greatest Gods within the Sumerian system was certainly not an insignificant household god in one household, even though the patriarch of that household (Abraham’s father) was a powerful psychic and oracle in Sumer. No, one of the greatest Gods of Sumer at the time would have been the God that the bible trashed repeatedly: Marduk.

More later.