Mythoblogia

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient story from Babylonia, and comprises of a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the hero-king Gilgamesh. He was born out of the mother goddess, like Kurduk, but is more man than god (although he reputedly lived 126 years which is pretty good for a guy back then). Anyway, we are looking at about the 3rd millennium BC, with the most complete version known to exist being preserved on 11 clay tablets in the library of the 7th century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Gilgamesh's tale appears to have been widely known and to have influenced literature from Europe to India, and certainly the tale of Utnapishtim and the deluge rings some bells. The story involves Gilgamesh, a demi-god-king who is down in the dumps and his friend Enkidu, born from the mother goddess as well but lured into man's domain by a woman (indeed by a 'harlot of the temple', which is presumably where you found harlots in those days). Enkidu and Gilgamesh do great man-like stuff full of bravado before Enkidu shuffles off his mortal coil. Gilgamesh is distraught and the tale goes on at length about his feelings of loss. At one point Gilgamesh crosses into the afterlife and back again (by boat, which is how you do such things) in search of a herb that gives you rebirth. He finds it, carries it carefully back to shore and has it stolen by a snake. Of course the snake then sloughs its skin - as snakes do - proving the worth of that herb. I could do with some, actually. Anyway, that leaves Gilgamesh unhappy again - all that work for nothing. It's quite a tale.

It's worth noting that some accounts of Marduk suggest that after cleaving Tiamat in 2 to form the heavens and the Earth he drained the blood of the god Kingu to give live to the bone and flesh of Man. Man of course to be the slave of the Gods, so that they could laze their days away watching TV or whatever.

So what have we got here? It's patriarchal, man defeating woman in the broadest sense. It's also an individual asserting himself over others. It's a creation myth, both of the world and of Man. It's Babylonian - the centre of civilisation at the time. So what does it really mean? Well Marduk was also Babylon's own home god, if you like, so it was asserting Babylon's dominance over everything else. The Marduk story evolved, as all stories do, to fit the political times. It reinforced male-dominated, power-based city-life over the old way of mother-Earth goddesses and a group awareness of spirituality mingled with a respect and worship of the sun, moon, stars and seasons. Well that's how I see it, anyway!

There's nothing quite as compelling as a great story of internecine family disputes, especially when it leads to Creation. Creation of us and Earth, because they were already here (they always are). Let's start in Babylon, as most things do, with the victory of Marduk over his great-great-great-grandmother Tiamat.

In brief - if this can be brief - it starts before Creation with the primal Apsu, Mummu (son) and Tiamat, the earth-mother (later the Greek Gaea) if you like. It's a story of a patriarchial system slandering and defeating the previous matriarchal system, which is again quite a common theme. It's done to justify the way we want to live our lives on Earth, but it must be played out in myth first to 'prove' a case. Most religions are like this - there's not just a meaning but an intent behind the stories,to defame what came before and justify the new. Anyway, what happened is familiar enough - they had kids. Lahmu and Lahamu, followed by Anshar and Kishar. Then Anu, then Ea. They were bigger and stronger than their fathers and grandfathers and collectively were wreaking havoc. Apsu asked Mummu for advice about these noisy kids and so it came about that they suggested to Tiamat that they 'dispose' of the children. Tiamat of course would hear nothing of it, quite rightly, and Apsu and Mummu went away to brood and plot. Well Ea was sensitive to brooding and plotting and sought to get in first by slaying Apsu (grandfather) and Mummu (brother). Now this is very icky in many ways as we have sibling rivalry and murder at work for starters, but it gets worse. Tiamat was a bit upset about Ea killing her husband, his grandfather, and flew into a rage. Now Ea went to his dad, Anshar, and he got his son Anu to confront Tiamat. However he was put off by Tiamat's rage and said 'no way, dad'. So they all got together these god-kids and their god-parents and Ea volunteered his son Marduk to defeat Tiamat. Marduk agreed but insisted on a clause in the contract that made him the ultimate God thereafter. So it was. Marduk slayed Tiamat, cleaved her in 2 and turned her carcass into the Earth and the heavens. It's a lovely tale that deserves further study, doesn't it?

It occurs to me that this is quite common: resurrection, I mean. Whilst the sun rises and falls, only to be reborn the following day, it is pretty much the same size and shape every day. Just a bit higher or lower in the sky. Whereas the moon dies every night and is reborn, but manages to wax and wane as well. Now if I was an unsophisticated cave dweller I'd be pretty amazed by that... in fact I'm amazed anyway. It gets confusing but Osiris had to be resurrected to make sense of his life. Mithra, Adonis and Tammuz similarly were reborn, and they were by no means the only ones. It's not hard to see a connection between the annual death and rebirth of Gods and the yearly cycle of rebirth that is represented by the seasons. It's not surprising that new religions continued the theme, accepting the mantle of ideas that went before.

Griffins can be simply eagle-headed men or women, but more usually are lion-bodied and can have an eagle's wings as well as equine ears and - sometimes - even a serpent's tail. Not a critter to mess with, it's as much a Persian as a Greek invention and has been around for a few thousand (let's say 3 thousand) years at least. It's a powerful combination, eagle-eyed, talon-clawed, soaring high or standing on either the 4 paws of a lion or on man's powerful legs. A Hippogriff is a horse crossed with a Griffin.

There's a long history here and it's natural that man, struggling in the wild, fighting tooth and nail for a niche in the wilderness should take special note of women, for their procreative powers, and the land, for its ability to bring forth fruit and meat. So we have the beginnings here, even if only in our imagination, of both the worship of females as 'mother goddesses' and of the land and animals thereon for their sustenance. It is equally obvious that fertility is aligned with the phases of the moon, so goddesses will align with the moon as well. The worship of the sun is equally obvious, and if we take into account the lack of television 50,000 years ago it's no wonder that the heavens above held us in awe and fascination. It's not hard to see why these things prompted beliefs, especially when no explanation was readily at hand. Thinking again of snakes, it's not that hard to see the phallic shape and skin-sloughing as signs also of birth and rebirth. It's conjecture, sure, but what else would man (or woman) have thought about before books, TV and supermarkets?

What's slightly more surprising is that we still do it. Plenty of people believe in "the stars" (astrology) and many more pay their respects to patron saints who hark back to earlier, much earlier, beliefs. There's even the apparent Christian worship of the 'goddess' Mary to consider. Christianity not just the worship of a god, Elohim, Yahweh or Jehovah, but of a son of god, Jesus, his virgin Mother Mary and a host of saints and martyrs. It's a complex set of intertwined beliefs that split off from Judaism 2,000 years ago, and like most religions it supplanted previous beliefs. In so doing it took over important festivals and dates; it also adapted previous gods and goddesses to serve new purposes. How close is Mary to Aphrodite, for instance?

Another fascinating story that I have marvelled over for decades is the story of the blind seer, Tiresias. It's got it all.

It goes somewhat like this (there is another version, but this is the 'classic' imho): Tiresias wandering in a glen, finds 2 serpents (there's the snake theme again) entwined, as they do when coupling (a la the caduceus). Mesmerised, he pokes them absent-mindedly with his staff (the axis mundi?). Naturally, they don't like that at all and being quite unusual snakes they convert Tiresias from man to woman. Well he blundered into these same (?) snakes 7 years (a mystic number, 7... 7 days in a week, too) later and probed them with his staff again, thinking that if once converted him one way, twice would see him back to maleness. And so it proved.

But that's not how he was blinded. Zeus and Hera were arguing over who enjoyed sex more, the male or the female. Zeus thought that the woman had the greater pleasure. As they knew Tiresias had been both sexes, they asked him. Of course he sided with Zeus (supposedly rating the woman's pleasure 9 to a man's 1) and in a fit of pique Hera blinded him. Zeus took pity and gave him 2nd sight, the seer's gift of prophecy. This is intriguing because Hera, female, represents the moon, the earth, the night and all that is shades of grey; whereas Zeus, male, is more starkly black and white, like the blinding sun and its power to withdraw and create darkness. So Hera took away the Sun and Zeus gave Tiresias the Moon.

No, they weren't flatmates in some sordid uni squat. But they do have some interesting parallels.

Medusa, the Gorgon with writhing snake-hair, feared by all, one look turning animals to stone, slain by Perseus in the Greek legend; her blood used to kill or to heal, her severed head worn on a shield by Athena.

Kali, Indian goddess, accompanied by serpents, long dishevelled hair, feared by all, tameable only by Shiva; killing sword and severed head in one hand, healing plants in the other.

Of course there are many variations of both legends, and I ahve cheery picked the best bits. Both are interesting and absorbing stories and worth a good look.


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A bit Anglo-centric and Western I know but I've always liked the history behind seemingly simple things like the calendar. Firstly there are some contradictions, like the 10th month is not December (my Latin is poor but I think decem is Latin for 10) as you'd expect, nor November (novem, or close thereto, is Latin for 9) the 9th, and of course the 8th month is not October (octo, Latin for 8) , either. That's the Julian Calendar at work, of course.

You'll see lots of Roman references here. The original Roman year was of course 10 named months, along the lines of Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis ("ie our July"), Sextilis (ie our "August"), September, October, November and December. Plus a gap in Winter when nothing was doing from an agricultural point of view, so they didn't bother naming that part - yet.

It was Numa Pompilius, by legend the 2nd king of Rome (circa 695 BC) who added Januarius and Februarius. He also moved the start of the year from Marius to Januarius and fiddled with the length of each month to fit it all in with the Earth's travels around the sun, and to ensure some odd numbered ends of months, considered to be lucky. Because Earth actually orbits in a year of 365 and a quarter days an additional month of Mercedonius or more usually Intercalaris (or intercalendar) was added every now and then to balance things, and always after Februarius. Now we have leap years of course, but still they are hitched to February.

Of course nothing stays the same forever. In around 46 BC Gaius Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar (which is why we call it the Julian calendar). He changed the number of days in several months, again, and this time removed Intercalaris.

So what are the other months, and why are they so named?

1. January, Latin Januarius, meaning of Janus. Two-faced Janus is the Roman god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings. His festival month is January, natch.
2. February, Latin Februarius, meaning of Februltus or a righting of wrongs. It was Julius Caesar who gave us the leap year of 29 days every fourth year and 28 days otherwise. Nothing to do with Mount Olympus and the Greeks after all. Hmmm, must look up what the Greeks called Februarius, if they called it anything. BTW, Februa is the Roman festival of purification, held on February 15th.
3. March, Latin Martius, meaning of Mars. March was the original beginning of the year, and after a Winter layoff the time for the resumption of war. Mars is the Roman god of war and identified with the Greco/Roman god Ares. If you know your Astrology you'll recognise the sunsign Aries as the beginning of the year, and you'll also know Mars to be the ruling planet. It all fits, see?
4. April, Latin Aprilis from Etruscan Apru. In Greek it's Aphro, short for Aphrodite. Now that makes some sense. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty. She is also identified with the Roman goddess Venus.
5. May, Latin Maius, of Maia. I understand that Maia means grandmother, mother, nurse or 'the great one', so take your pick. Maia may also be equivalent to the old Italic goddess of spring, the daughter of Faunus or even Faunus herself.
6. June, Latin Junius, of Juno. Juno is a street (ok, a parade) in Sydney and I always wondered why. Anyway she is also a principal goddess of the Roman Pantheon, the goddess of marriage and the well-being of women; she is also the wife of Jupiter. She is roughly equivalent with the Greek goddess Hera.
7. July, Latin Julius, as in Julius Caesar. When you get to be Caesar of Rome you get your pick of months. Previously known as Quintilis (5th). Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar in 46 BC and as I said, took naming rights.
8. August, Latin Augustus, as in Augustus Caesar, Julius's successor. Previously known as Sextilis (6th). You can guess that Augustus was impressed with Julius's work, gave it a look over and stamped his name on it as well.
9. September, Latin septem, for seven. Well it was the 7th month at one stage.
10. October, Latin octo or eight. As I said...
11. November, Latin november, the ninth month. As before...
12. December, Latin december or the tenth month. No surprises here, if you've bothered to read all of the above, anyway.

Having said all of that, Julius and his advisers got it a bit wrong - the year was slightly long and the error was pushing important agricultural, fertility and religious dates back, bit by bit. They probably realised that the errors would add up but for whatever reason it was left. Until the leap year errors became too great and the Gregorian Calendar was introduced to fix it up. It was very largely based on the Julian in any case but conveniently (for Pope Gregory) managed to centre itself on the presumed birthdate of Christ.

You may have read or heard of Noah and his ark, or Utnapishtim and the Gilgamesh epic, or the even earlier Sumerian Epic of Ziusudra, and of the great flood (or floods?) that caused boats to be built by the belivers and destroyed the unbelievers. Well the genetic diversity of mankind - or the limited diversity - suggests that at some time when there were numerically few modern humans around we did indeed become greatly reduced in number - perhaps perilously so - and quite obviously recovered (although the facts are disputed, as always). Whilst the deluge stories may be hard to believe, there may be a grain of truth in there, too. Mankind did settle near rivers after all (we still do) and they did on occasion flood, so at least some flood-plain based civilisations at various times would have experienced a widespread and devastating flood.

The story of a great flood is also mentioned in ancient Hindu texts, particularly the Satapatha Brahmana. Not Noah but Manu was informed of the coming deluge and was protected by the Matsya Avatara of Lord Vishnu (the 8th Avatara was Krishna, by the way) who had come to rid the world of the morally depraved and save the pious, and the animals and plants. Sound at all familiar?

The Yahweh vs Leviathan story is all about slaying that pesky old religion and asserting the power of the new over the old. Same with Zeus defeating Typhon. It's the new Greek Olympian pantheon defeating the old Pelasgian earthy religion. No surprise then that there's a similar Vedic story, where our hero Indra defeats the old (Dravidian) dragon Vritra. Like Zeus, Indra had thunderbolts to aid him. Inderestingly Indra is etymologically related to tundra or thunder if you like. Whilst not cognate with Thor, it's an interesting connection.

Speaking of Zeus and Typhon, it's worth mentioning that Typhon's mate, Echidna, escaped destruction. She cowered in a cave and protected the kids, Zeus deciding to let them live on as a challenge for future heroes. What a nice guy. Anyway, Echidna and Typhon's kids are the Nemean Lion, Cerberus, Ladon, the Chimera, the Sphinx, and the Hydra, possibly others as well. Quite a family.

Seems that serpents, snakes if you like, inhabit a special place in our darker thoughts. At a guess it is their sinuous, shiny, somewhat phallic appearance coupled with lightning-fast forked tongues and deadly venom that gets us interested. There's plenty to think about when a snake is close by.

Snakes are of the earth, as we are, although we place ourselves above nature now (to our peril, perhaps). Anyway, whatever the reason, they have been co-opted as symbols, as protectors and as representatives of evil, or of power. For perhaps 4,500 years they have wrapped themselves around staffs (or the axis mundi) as in a caduceus, or around trees as in the Elamite World Tree or the Biblical Genesis story. They became Medusa's hair, capable of turning men to stone, or the god Zeus himself as his pre-Grecian serpent form Meilichios. And so it goes. The theme is strong, ranging from the companion or protector, to the dark Serpent Lord. As we morphed into a patriarchical religious view of the world our now male gods saw a need to slay these sneaky reptiles and prove themselves masters of the earth. Thus we see Zeus conquer Typhon and Yahweh defeat the Leviathan.

Just on that theme of Mother Goddess vs Patriarchies, it's usual in mythologies to absorb the past, to build upon previous beliefs. We are mostly talking about spoken-word stories of course. For a very long time mankind could only pass along such information by camp-fire story-telling, and even when we invented writing only the elite really had that knowledge. In some places it remains so. Thus persuasive story-telling was it.

So why the change? Why move from balanced beliefs where 'good and evil' could equally be male or female, to a patriarchical system where male gods did the good stuff and the female ones were either watered down or made to do evil?

Was it a conspiracy of priests? Of Kings? Was it related to the general shift from an agrarian existence to a wealthier, more specialised type of city-state existence, where fighting wars across vast distances became the norm? And so we needed to persuade many men that it was right and noble to march in armies across the known world, for king and country?

There was another shift here, too. Mother-Goddess religion was about 'do this and this at the right time and the evil (e.g. a famine) will go away, allowing the good (i.e. rain, good crops) to naturally reappear'; whereas the patriarchies were (and are) about 'doing stuff that we ask of you because we ask for it, and in return we strong male gods will protect you from evil'. A less-than-subtle subtle shift from expecting good to flow from the earth to a sort of protection racket. This one change distanced man from nature and allowed us - to this day - to rationalise just about any abuse of the environment or ourselves.

It's all about power, isn't it? The world was advancing quite nicely with a Mother-Earth Goddess-based religious tilt then we had to have this male-centric power struggle, didn't we? Plenty of religions get along quite nicely whilst sharing power with females, so why is it that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic mob have this males-only rule? It's not as simple as monotheism vs polytheism, it is a serious post-Abrahamic divide. A decision was made - either by God himself or by the men behind his marketing - that God was one, and that one was male.

It's worth a thought or two. Why male? Why not neutral? Was man made in God's image or is man recasting God in his?

Check out Tiamat. She held the tablets in Sumerian mythology, not Moses. Her creation myth is here. And here is a more complete exposition of the shared roles of males and females in the Babylonian creation myth.