h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice entry!

I wanted to recommend a sci-fi novel to you, Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson. It goes on at some length about the sumerians and is well-researched (even if the theories are a bit on the far-out side).

I have heard that the legends of marduk vs tiamat may in fact be an allegorical reference to an earlier political power struggle in which a matriarchal society was overthrown in favour of replacement by the sumerians. Any thoughts on this? One thing about their legends that really does stir the imagination is that the suggested symbolism is often quite metaphysical... I really enjoy studying them.

I seem to recall studying somewhere that the two creation myths in Genesis (whatever their original source) were added in at different timesl the adam/eve myth is considered an ancient judaic story, and it is thought that at some point during one of israel's periods of captivity in babylon that the '7 days of creation' got tacked onto the front of the judaic book of beginnings. I have no doubt that you are correct in supposing that the Adam/Eve figures can trace their mythical lineage back to a sumerian origin, but the judaic version does have its own feel and seems to focus on a slightly different cosmology.

anyways, im falling asleep, drop me a line sometime

I shall look up the aforementioned novel with interest. The Sumerians are such a neglected part of history, probably because they are so ancient. That's why I'm suprised somebody has attempted a novel based on them, but I'm looking forward to reading it.

As you suggest, there are enough parallels between the Judaic and Sumerian stories to propose that one is source material for the other, whilst detractors might say that there too many points of complete difference for there to be no link. And that, I think, is our chosen area of historical obsession in a nutshell!

I had not heard of the Marduk vs Tiamat struggle being an allegory for something else. Can you expound on that? Where did you hear it? I myself would be happy if I could find more information on the Nephilim, who are mentioned extensively in the mythology of the Sumerians. It has been proposed that these are the people whom the Bible translates as 'giants'.

What does interest me about the Sumerians is the level of chemical expertise that they are believed to have had. In my entry on Alchemy I have written about the ingestion of melatonin. The Sumerians are supposed to have known all about the chemicals that the brain produced, and how to extract individual chemicals, and what effects they could expect if they took them.

That's another example of the amnesia that appears to have afflicted our species at some point. Just as only generations after producing the Giza pyramids the Egyptians 'forgot' how to make pyramids that could stand up in a light breeze, so humanity appears to have lost that indepth knowledge of the brain and we end up with theories about bile and phlegm and God knows what. What on earth happened to the population to forget these things?

It could be that the Sumerian and hebraic lengeds both trace their origins back to an even earlier story actually, a historical event or an oral tradition that was widespread enough to be remembered by several different cultures.

Ah I seem to recall reading that there was in theory a widespread society predating the sumerians which covered most of Asia. This society worshipped a fertility goddess (statues of the goddess resembling a pregnant buddha) and eventually fragmented. This information as far as I can tell is reliable (and I think the date 14,000 bc sticks in my mind for some reason).

What is not so reliable but also interesting is that this society may have been matriarchal (females dominated it) and that it fell as the result of an ah, uprising by males. Hence the later patriarchal societies (sumeria and what not) rememebered the struggle in myth as Enki the ubermale battled the female dragon of Chaos, tiamat. Then again, perhaps the myth is meant to be more cosmic... enki spills the seed of reason into the waters of the female chaos, etc etc (which tends to reflect the later babylonian myth).

The sumerians knew a lot of stuff. I hadn't heard about their chemical knowledge or anything but uh gee aren't there ziggurats still standing in the jungles of mexico? =) Hard to say. Their religion is of the greatest interest to me. The demons and gods they worshipped are the ones still invoked today by occultists and so forth. Lovecraft based his mythos on the sumerian pantheon. Hell even WP Blaaty's movie the Exorcist was based on his studies of sumeria in part; the demon that inhabits regan in that movie is inferred to be pazuzu, a sumerian rot demon or some such.

We have forgotten a lot. It's a shame.

My main source of information for the Adam article, certainly one of the most enlightened books I've come across recently, is 'Genesis Of The Grail Kings' by Laurence Gardner. You obviously know your Nephilims from your Elohims, you might well find this of interest. I did recommend this to Gargleblaster along with some others, but I think he plumped for getting those that fell into the 'debunking the New Testament' category.

I was not aware of an earlier civilisation that might have left a legacy for the Sumerians, although I am sure - as odd as it sounds - that there is a civilisation missing from History, somewhere. When you say we have forgotten a lot, I agree totally. I came across a theory that states Atlantis might not only have been a real place, but still extant today - buried under the permafrost of Antarctica. I really believe that if we could get under that ice, we might find a lot of answers. I've done an entry concerning this and interspersed it with my own polemic.

I wonder why we have forgotten so much? Why, in the space of a couple of generations, did the egyptians go from perfect pyramids such as Giza, to the pyramids that fell down in a couple of years and resemble sandcastles?

I love The Exorcist, but I had no idea that the demon was a real one. The statues that we see at the start of the film, are they Pazuzu?

My main source for the stuff about the ancient matriarchal society is class notes I took in an introductory theology course caled 'the religious life of man" which studied various religious traditions past and present. As I recall there is quite a bit of evidence that such a society existed but they didn't seem to have written language.

Neal stephenson's theory seems to be that human brains were organized differently then, rather like ant colony drones, programmed via neuro-linguistic techniques to carry out various tasks and what not; the 'nam-shub' of enki was a neurolinguistic virus that caused a fragmentation of the old order, hence the stories concerning the tower of babel and the multitude of tongues etc.

As far as atlantis goes, I was taught by some unimaginative historian that it was a myth surrounding an island near crete that sank into the ocean as the result of a volcanic explosion; then again, the current graecian government is deterring people from exploring near there to ascertain one way or the other. Who knows? Orson Scott Card wrote a novel called 'pastwatch' about some time travelling historians who search for the mystery of atlantis, and it had some interesting ideas about the topic.

I'd love to hear your theories/ideas/facts concerning the pyramids; do a guide entry on them sometime. My guess is that perhaps the mysterious cataclysm referred to by the myth of the tower of babel may relate once again; hard to say.

Yes, the statue of the demon at the beginning of the Exorcist is meant to represent Pazuzu, lord of rotting genitalia and plague. The statue itself was a hollywood prop contrived for the purpose (a good one nonetheless). Some time ago, Avon books published a work titled 'necronomicon' which was meant to sell to flakey cultists who think that Lovecraft's work 'was real'. It may be of interest to you though because it seems to contain some occult gibberish founded on sumerian dieties, and I am guessing their research isn't that far off historically. Enki, marduk, kutulu, pazuzu, are all in there. Kutulu incidentally is the sumerian diety lovecraft borrowed to write 'the call of cthulhu'. Kutulu was the great lord of darkness and evil, and eventually came to be known as Satan in zoroastrianism some years later.

I must admit, I've looked at the entry on the pyramids by the h2g2 writing team. And it's bobbins. Alright, challenge accepted. The pyramids it is. Guess I'll speak to you again in, ooo, six months time?

I'll be watching this space let me know when it's ready

http://www.h2g2.com/A264106 for the start of the entries on the pyramids. All sub-sections will branch off from this page. God only knows how it will sound when I've finished. My very own personal tale of madness!

"The wedding guest sat on a stone: he cannot choose but hear;"

On my way there.