Witchvox Article

Author: Priestess Jean
Posted: February 28th. 2010
Times Viewed: 1,155

There have been many books written about the Sumerian civilization. It is clearly a subject whose scope far exceeds anything that I might be able to properly cover in this brief article. Rather, what I hope to do here is to explore just a few selected facts that may be relevant to followers of the Goddess.

The Sumerians lived in the area that we now call southern Iraq and Kuwait. This region includes the extremely fertile delta between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers... an ideal place for farming, and where fresh water was plentiful. They were first known to be occupying this area around 5300 BCE.

The Sumerians were responsible for the invention of many fundamental technologies... most notably the system of writing known as cuneiform, around 3200 BCE. By that time, their civilization had developed into one of the earliest known nation-states, with over a dozen major cities and a total population of well over 500, 000. These cities were initially ruled by a Priest-class, and later by a series of kings, allied with them.

Sumerian civilization came to an end around 2000 BCE, and after that, their language became lost to the world. Although archeologists had collected a large number of cuneiform clay tablets, it was not until the 1950's that the Sumerian language actually began to become intelligible to us. The largest repository of translated Sumerian cuneiform tablets can be found in the University of Oxford's electronic text corpus.

One especially noteworthy aspect of the Sumerian language was the existence of two separate dialects: Emegir, which was spoken by the majority of the people, and Emesal, which was used exclusively by wealthy and powerful women, the Priestesses, and by the goddesses in various mythological stories. In his wonderful 2006 book "The Literature of Ancient Sumer", Jeremy Black has compiled some of the most interesting cultural and religious documents. I highly recommend reading it, if you have the time.

The first wave of the Kurgan invasion is estimated to have occurred around 4000 BCE. At that time, the primary deity of the Sumerians was the Mother Goddess Namma. Whether the Kurgans invaded Sumer directly, or merely occupied lands to the north and east of it, remains unknown... however, their arrival was clearly signaled by the appearance of the war-god An.

Following that, we can observe all the usual results of Kurganization... the creation of standing armies, the reduction in the status of women, and a conversion of religion from an activity of spirituality into a mechanism of support for a violent and powerful ruling elite. A state of nearly constant warfare came to dominate life, just as it often did in the other Kurganized areas of the world.

Namma was soon transformed into Ninhursag, the subservient spouse of An. This is described in detail on our main website. Ninhursag was eventually eclipsed by Inanna, a more violent and sinister sort of goddess... and the overall pantheon continued to expand with each passing century, until it contained literally hundreds of deities.

Originally, we know that the Sumerians came from somewhere to the north. In addition to their worship of a Mother Goddess, many other aspects of their culture bear a strong similarity to those of the Hattian people of Turkey. At sites such as Catal Hoyuk, we have often found that the dead were buried below the floors of the houses, particularly in the shrine rooms. This custom is also found in Sumer, and was practiced without interruption until the end of their civilization around 2000 BCE.

Sumerians were known to make a distinctive handclasp when praying, which we see illustrated in many carvings and statues. Indeed, many of the dead were even found buried with their hands clasped in that manner. This is exactly the same clasp that has been observed with followers of the Goddess in Turkey, and later with the Roman Priestesses of Cybele.

Yet another interesting similarity concerns the existence of transsexual Priestesses within the Sumerian clergy. We find several types mentioned in very early primary sources. The Gala Priestesses apparently petitioned the gods through singing, dancing, and various incantations. The Kurgarra and the Assinnu Priestesses were associated with the goddess Inanna. Their role is not completely clear, although they sometimes acted as surrogates for the goddess during sexually-oriented religious practices.

Although born male, these types of Priestesses lived as women, adopted female names, and spoke the sacred feminine dialect of Emesal. Their existence is traceable to pre-Kurgan times, circa 5000 BCE or earlier. While modern historians struggle to explain their significance, it seems clear that they could not have attained the privileged and honored position they did, without having some genuine spiritual and metaphysical gifts.

If we consider that the Sumerians were non-Semitic, and are believed to have originally come from the north... as well as the many similarities between their culture and the Hattian culture of early bronze-age Turkey... we might speculate that they shared a common ancestry with them, and migrated southward from there. Their civilization prospered, due to the fertile lands that they inhabited... but their wealth made them a target for the Kurgan invaders, while their poorer cousins back in Turkey were much less affected.

Eventually, around 2000 BCE, the agricultural output of Sumerian farms began to decline substantially. Centuries of irrigation had gradually deposited enough dissolved salt into the soil to permanently destroy it's fertility. In addition, an invasion by the Elamites, from the area immediately to the east of Sumer (now a part of modern-day Iran) made further habitation of the lower delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers impossible. Yet the story of the Sumerians was far from over. Between about 2000-1700 BCE they migrated northwards, merging with the Akkadian people of central Iraq. There they would help to build another of the ancient world's greatest nations... the legendary city-state of Babylon.

Egypt, like Sumer, has a history far too vast to cover in brief essay... and so, I'll give a little background info and then try to focus on those aspects of their religious beliefs that pertain to the primordial Mother Goddess.

The people of ancient Egypt were indigenous to the area, from the advent of humanity. Around 10, 000 BCE, climatic changes forced their tribal societies to congregate around the banks of the Nile river. By about 5500 BCE, the usual transition to an agrarian, urbanized society was well underway.

Like many other ancient civilizations, the earliest form of Egyptian religion revolved around the various forces of nature... and indeed, this was a theme that would be repeated throughout their history. Things such as the Nile River, the Earth, the sky, and even the very air itself were thought to be deities. Later, not surprisingly, their first truly sentient deity appears to have been a Mother Goddess.

In southern Egypt, the Goddess was originally known as Nekhbet and was often represented as a white vulture. This of course reminds us of the paintings found at Catal Hoyuk, and the very early association of the vulture with the process of recycling the body of the deceased, back into nature. Interestingly, in the Egyptian hieroglyphic language, the symbol of the vulture represents both "mother" and "ruler".

In the northern areas of pre-dynastic Egypt, near the Nile river delta, the Goddess was originally called Wadjet. She was usually represented as a cobra. In addition, both of these primordial Mother Goddess archetypes were accompanied by a lion-headed war-goddess. Wadjet's lion was known as Bast, and Nehkbet's lion was called Sekhmet.

Another similarity with our own religion is that both Wadjet and Nehkbet had Oracles... although they didn't operate in quite the same way. Rather than receiving a direct communication from the Goddess, the Priests or Priestesses simply gave an answer based on their own opinion. Wadjet's Oracle was once located in Per-Wadjet (now Buto) , and Nehkbet's Oracle was located in Nekheb (now El Kab) .

Around 3200 BCE, northern Egypt was conquered by southern Egypt, and the country became unified. About that same time, the hieroglyphic system of writing was invented, and as a result, our knowledge concerning the events that followed is fairly accurate. Unfortunately, the story is amazingly complex and confusing, due to the period of over 3000 years that it spans, and the vast size of their empire.

It should be noted that Egypt did not experience a direct invasion by the Kurgans... instead, they were influenced by contact with their Kurganized neighbors, and followed a similar pattern in terms of the rising importance of warfare, standing armies, and male deities. In the case of Egypt, many of the male deities were not violent war-gods, and served more benevolent and ethereal purposes, such as assisting deceased Pharaohs in the afterlife.

When Egypt was unified in 3200 BCE, the capitol was located in Memphis, which is near modern-day Cairo. At that time, both Wadjet and Nehkbet became co-protectors and patrons of the kingdom, and were commonly referred to as the "Two Ladies". No attempt was made to replace Wadjet by Nehkbet, although Sekhmet did replace Bast as Egypt's official war-goddess. Bast was reduced from a lion to an ordinary housecat, and her name changed to Bastet, which is a diminutive form of Bast.

Within Egypt, some major cities had unique pantheons of their own, which would later be merged into the overall cosmology. As early as 2700 BCE, the inhabitants of Hermopolis were known to worship a Mother Goddess called Hathor, who was often depicted as a cow. Her spouse was a deity called Ra, who was a sun-god.

Hathor was related to an even older fertility goddess known as Bat, who was also portrayed as a cow. Both Bat and Hathor were associated with joyful music and dancing, and their clergy often played an instrument called a Sistrum. Hathor was the most popular deity of her time, and was attended by both Priests and Priestesses.

In the city of Thebes, another Mother Goddess archetype called Mut was worshipped. When Thebes became the capitol, around 2200 BCE, Mut began to replace both Wadjet and Nehkbet, and along with her spouse Amun, eventually came to dominate the national pantheon.

Mut was yet another very ancient deity, who began as a personification of the cosmos, and evolved into a creator and mother. She was perhaps the first goddess of her type to be portrayed as a human, rather than an animal. The Queen acted as her High-Priestess, and her temples were administered exclusively by women.

There was a brief period around 1340 BCE, where the Pharaoh Akhenaten attempted to force Egypt to convert to the monotheistic worship of the sun-god Aten... but the attempt failed, and shortly after his death, Egypt returned to the previous pantheon.

Around 1250 BCE, the Pharaoh Ramesses II moved the capitol from Thebes to the lower Nile delta. Thebes then entered into a period of decline, and as the Hermopolis pantheon was more popular in the northern part of the country, it began to become dominant. By about 1100 BCE Mut was replaced by Hathor (now depicted as a woman) ... and later, Amun was merged with Ra, becoming Amun-Ra.

Some time after this re-arrangement of deities, the goddess Isis began to rise in prominence. Isis was a minor Mother Goddess archetype, from northern Egypt, dating to at least 2500 BCE. She was initially regarded as the daughter of Hathor and Amun-Ra, but as time passed she began to take on the qualities of Hathor and replace her. At the same time, Osiris replaced Anubis as the god of the underworld, and Horus replaced Amun-Ra as the god of the sky. These three deities... Isis, Osiris and Horus... were to become the central entities in the Egyptian pantheon, until it's destruction by the Christians in 400 CE.

Isis came to be known as a goddess of fertility, children, nature, magic, and the primary creation deity. She was depicted as a beautiful woman, at various times with a child, the horns and solar disk of Hathor, the sistrum, or the Ankh. Both Priests and Priestesses, including some transsexuals, served her.

With the entry of Alexander the Great into Egypt in 332 BCE, the worship of Isis spread throughout the Greek empire. When Egypt became a possession of Rome in 30 BCE, the expansion continued, with the worship of Isis reaching places like Germany, France and England soon afterward. The Romans equated Isis with Cybele... and without doubt, there were a great many similarities.

The story of the Mother Goddess in Egypt is clearly a long and complex one... Although their pantheon underwent many politically and socially motivated changes, it clearly began with a Mother Goddess, and always included a prominent Mother Goddess figure. Indeed, in her final incarnation as Isis, she became one of the most famous and popular Mother Goddesses of all time.

Bright Blessings,

Priestess Jean

Footnotes:
The Literature of Ancient Sumer, by Jeremy Black

Wikipedia, etc

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