Biblical Stories with Ties to Ancient Mesopotamian Stories | Middle East And North Africa

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BABYLON, CREATION, GARDEN OF EDEN AND THE GREAT FLOOD

Eve by Durer

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:“The Babylonian account of creation, though often compared with the Biblical one, differs from it on main and essential points for it contains no direct statement of the Creation of the world: Tiamtu and Apsu, the watery waste and the abyss wedded together, beget the universe; Marduk, the conqueror of chaos, shapes and orders all things; but this is the mythological garb of evolution as opposed to creation. It does not make the Deity the first and only cause of the existence of all things; the gods themselves are but the outcome of pre-existent, apparently eternal, forces; they are not cause, but effect. It makes the present world the outcome of a great war; it is the story of Resistance and Struggle, which is the exact opposite of the Biblical account. It does not arrange the things created into groups or classes, which is one of the main features of the story in Genesis. The work of creation is not divided into a number of days — the principal literary characteristic of the Biblical account.[Source: J.P. Arendzen, transcribed by Rev. Richard Giroux, Catholic Encyclopedia |=|]

“The Babylonian mythology possesses something analogous to the biblical Garden of Eden. But though they apparently possessed the word Edina, not only as meaning "the Plain", but as a geographical name, their garden of delight is placed in Eridu, where "a dark vine grew; it was made a glorious place, planted beside the abyss. In the glorious house, which is like a forest, its shadow extends; no man enters its midst. In its interior is the Sun-god Tammuz. Between the mouths of the rivers, which are on both sides." This passage bears a striking analogy to Gen., ii, 8-17. The Babylonians, however, seem to have possessed no account of the Fall. It seems likely that the name of Ea, or Ya, or Aa, the oldest god of the Babylonian Pantheon, is connected with the name Jahve, Jahu, or Ja, of the Old Testament. Professor Delitzsch recently claimed to have found the name Jahve-ilu on a Babylonian tablet, but the reading has been strongly disputed by other scholars. |=|

“The greatest similarity between Hebrew and Babylonian records is in their accounts of the Flood. Pir-napistum, the Babylonian Noe, commanded by Ea, builds a ship and transfers hither his family, the beasts of the field, and the sons of the artificers, and he shuts the door. Six days and nights the wind blew, the flood overwhelmed the land. The seventh day the storm ceased; quieted, the sea shrank back; all mankind had turned to corruption. The ship stopped at the land of Nisir. Pir-napistum sends out first a dove, which returns; then a swallow, and it returns, then a raven, and it does not return. He leaves the ship, pours out a libation, makes an offering on the peak of the mountain. "The gods smelled a savour, the gods smelled a sweet savour, the gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer." No one reading the Babylonian account of the Flood can deny its intimate connection with the narrative in Genesis, yet the former is so intimately bound up with Babylonian mythology, that the inspired character of the Hebrew account is the better appreciated by the contrast.” |=|

Babylonian Story of the Expulsion from a Garden

Some say aspects of the “Babylonian Story of the Expulsion from a Garden” bear a striking resemblance to the Adam and Eve and Garden of Eden story. Others say it sounds more like the expulsion of a slave than the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden.

The “Babylonian Story of the Expulsion from a Garden” goes:
Like vegetable food .....
a. To do that in rebellion he has....
b.... he did not obey him.
My heart is full, is full of....
.......is given,
Fear, lo lamentation is given
Unto me thou dost call;
And I at thy call
In my weakness was fleeing.
And I in my person.....
Thy humanity, they body has not been taken away.....
For humanity the words of understanding are not....
End thy weeping!

Adam and Eve driven from Eden

From my midst go forth to the steppe!
a. To me forever, having taken the clothing — establishing-tree
b. as an outcast thou shalt not return!
a. The death-emancipating reed the enlightened children who are wretched
b. Shall not take
Thou shalt never take.
In no way heareafter shalt thou attain release.
To my ox for threshing, as an outcast thou shalt not return!
To my field for irrigating as an outcast thou shalt not return!
To my field for tilling as an outcast thou shalt not return
To my work to do it as an outcast thou shalt not return!

Go; perform the work; raise the food to eat!
I! I will never receive thee!
a. Men like thee will perform the work; their mothers and their fathers
b. shall eat of heaven's food.
Since the hand of the son of the menial has divided their food, their eyes are opened.
As for themselves each has taken 10 measures of barley;
The children who are servants of their fathers have each taken 10 measures of barley for himself:
For each of their fathers barley has been threshed;
Barley, oil, wool, sheep have been brought unto them.
O humanity, be abundant!
[Source: George A. Barton, “Archaeology and the Bible”,” 7th Edition revised, (Philadelphia: American Sunday School, 1937), pg. 307-308, piney.com]

Mesopotamian Flood Stories and Noah’s Ark

Floods were a constant concern for people living along the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. One of the most famous Sumerian tablets contained a story about a great flood that destroyed Sumer that is virtually the same story as the Noah story in the Old Testament. It describes a man named Utnapishtim who is warned by the water god Enki to build a boat to save himself, his family, animals and artisans from a great flood.

One passage goes:

All the windstorms, exceedingly powerful attacked as one.
The deluge raged over the surface of the earth.
After, for seven days and seven nights.
The deluge had raged in the land.
And the huge boat had been tossed about on great waters.
Utu came forth, who sheds light on heaven and earth.
Ziusudra opened a window of the huge boat.
Ziusudra, the king.
Before Utu prostrated himself.”

According to the Mesopotamia tale: "Swiftly it mounted up; the water reached the mountains." The Bible reads: "And the water prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and the all the high hills...were covered."

Smith made his discovery from a fragment of a tablet that contained details of the flood, a ship caught on a mountaintop and a bird sent out to search for dry land. It was the first conformation of a flood story in ancient Mesopotamia , complete with a Noah-like figure and an ark.

Babylonians and the Tower of Babel

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:““(3) The next Biblical passage which requires mention is that dealing with the Tower of Babel (Gen., xi, 1-9). This narrative, though couched in the terms of Oriental folklore, yet expresses not merely a moral lesson, but refers to some historical fact in the dim past. There was perhaps in the ancient world no spot on all the earth where such a variety of tongues and dialects was heard as in Babylonia, where Akkadians, Sumerians, and Amorites, Elamites, Kassites, Sutites, Qutites, and perhaps Hittites met and left their mark on the language; where Assyrian or Semitic Babylonian itself only very gradually displaced the older non-Semitic tongue, and where for many centuries the people were at least bilingual. It was the spot where Turanian, Semitic, and Indo-Germanic met. Yet there remained in the national consciousness the memory that the first settlers in the Babylonian plain spoke one language. "They removed from the East", as the Bible says and all recent research suggests. When we read, "The earth was of one tongue", we need not take this word in its widest sense, for the same word is often translated "the land".[Source: J.P. Arendzen, transcribed by Rev. Richard Giroux, Catholic Encyclopedia |=|]

“Philology may or may not prove the unity of all human speech, and man's descent from a single set of parents seems to postulate original unity of language; but in any case the Bible does not here seem to refer to this, and the Bible account itself suggests that a vast variety of tongues existed previous to the foundations of Babylon. We need but refer to Gen., x, 5, 21, 31: "In their kindreds and tongues and countries and nations"; and Gen., x, 10, where Babylon is represented as almost coeval with Arach, Achad, and Calanne, and posterior to Gomer, Magog, Elam, Arphaxad, so that the original division of languages cannot first have taken place at Babel. What historical fact lies behind the account of the building of the Tower of Babel is difficult to ascertain. Of course any real attempt to reach heaven by a tower is out of the question. The mountains of Elam were too close by, to tell them that a few yards more or less were of no importance to get in touch with the sky. But the wish to have a rallying-point in the plain is only too natural. It is a striking fact that most Babylonian cities possessed a ziggurrat (a stage, or temple-tower), and these bore very significant Sumerian names, as, for instance, at Nippur, Dur-anki, "Link of heaven and earth" — "the summit of which reaches unto heaven, and the foundation of which is laid in the bright deep"; or, at Babylon, Esagila, "House of the High Head", the more ancient designation of which was Etemenanki, "House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth"; or Ezida, at Borsippa, by its more ancient designation Euriminianki, or "House of the Seven Spheres of Heaven and Earth". |=|

“The remains of Ezida, at present Birs Nimrud, are traditionally pointed out as the Tower of Babel; whether rightly, is impossible to say; Esagila, in Babylon itself, has as good, if not a better, claim. We have no record of the building of the city and tower being interrupted by any such catastrophe as a confusion of languages; but that such an interruption because of diversity of speech of the townspeople took place, is not impossible. In any case it can only have been an interruption, though perhaps of many centuries, for Babylon increased and prospered for many centuries after the period referred to in Genesis. The history of the city of Babylon before the Amorite dynasty is an absolute blank, and we have no facts to fill up the fifteen centuries of its existence previous to that date. The etymology given for the name Babel in Gen., xi, 9, is not the historic meaning of the word, which, as given above is Kadungir, Bab-Ilu, or "God's Gate". The derivation in Genesis rests upon the similarity of sound with a word formed from the root balal, "to stammer", or "be confused". |=|

Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel Confusion of Tongues and the Nam-shub of Enki

The nam-shub of Enki is from a Sumerian cuneiform tablet. It records speaking in tongues as God's punishment to separate spiritual people from those attempting to climb their own "Tower of Babel" to force God to give them a direct revelation. [Source: piney.com]

The nam-shub of Enki reads:
“Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion,
There was no hyena, there was no lion,
There was no wild dog, no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.

In those days, the land Shubur-Hamazi,
Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the me of princeship,
Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people well cared for,

To Enlil in one tongue gave speech.
Then the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant,
Enki, the lord of abundance, whose commands are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who scans the land,
The leader of the gods,
The lord of Eridu, endowed with wisdom,
Changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it,
Into the speech of man that had been one.”

Similarly Genesis 11:1-9 (the Tower of Babel story) reads:
1.And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2.And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3.And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4.And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
5.And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6.And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7.Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8.So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9.Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Legend of Sargon and Its Parallels with the Moses Story

The birth story of Moses (Exodus 2:1-10) was probably recorded during the tenth century B.C. It has similarities with the birth account of King Sargon, who lived near the end of the third millennium B.C. It doesn’t seem improbable that people in ancient times hid unwanted children in such a way that they were found by rich or powerful people so the child wouldn’t have to die or force a family to struggle more than it already was. [Source: piney.com]

The Sargon account Cuneiform texts reads: 1. Sargon, the mighty king, king of Akkadê am I, 2. My mother was lowly; my father I did not know; 3. The brother of my father dwelt in the mountain. 4. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the bank of the Purattu [Euphrates], 5. My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth. 6. She placed me in a basket of reeds, she closed my entrance with bitumen, 7. She cast me upon the rivers which did not overflow me. 8. The river carried me, it brought me to Akki, the irrigator. [Source: George A. Barton, “Archaeology and the Bible”,” 3rd Ed., (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1920), p. 310]

9 Akki, the irrigator, in the goodness of his heart lifted me out, 10. Akki, the irrigator, as his own son brought me up; 11. Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me. 12. When I was a gardener the goddess Ishtar loved me, 13. And for four years I ruled the kingdom. 14. The black-headed peoples I ruled, I governed; 15. Mighty mountains with axes of bronze I destroyed . 16. I ascended the upper mountains; 17. I burst through the lower mountains. 18. The country of the sea I besieged three times;

19 Dilmun I captured . 20. Unto the great Dur-ilu I went up, I . . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . .I altered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22. Whatsoever king shall be exalted after me, 23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24. Let him rule, let him govern the black-headed peoples; 25. Mighty mountains with axes of bronze let him destroy; 26. Let him ascend the upper mountains, 27. Let him break through the lower mountains; 28. The country of the sea let him besiege three times; 29. Dilmun let him capture; 30. To great Dur-ilu let him go up.

The rest of the text is broken.

The German journalist Werner Keller wrote: “The basket-story is a very old Semitic folk-tale. It was handed down by word of mouth for many centuries. The Sargon legend of the third millennium B.C. is found on Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets of the first millennium B.C. It is nothing more than the frills with which prosperity has always loved to adorn the lives of great men.” [Source: Werner Keller, “The Bible as History,” 2nd revised Ed. Morrow & Co, NY, page 123, Skeptically.org]

Ludlul Bêl Nimeqi, a Sumerian Job (Poem Of The Righteous Sufferer)

Ludlul bēl nēmeqi ("I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom") is sometimes called “The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer” in English. It is a Mesopotamian poem written in Akkadian that concerns itself with the problem of the unjust suffering of an afflicted man, named Šubši-mašrâ-Šakkan (Shubshi-meshre-Shakkan). The author is tormented, but he does not know why. He has been faithful in all of his duties to the gods. He speculates that perhaps what is good to man is evil to the gods and vice versa. He is ultimately delivered from his sufferings. The poem is thought to have been composed during the reign of Kassite king of Babylon Nazi-Maruttaš (c. 1307–1282 B.C.)., who is mentioned on line 105 of tablet IV. [Source: Wikipedia]

The Sumerian story of “Ludlul Bêl Nimeqi” (1700 B.C.) is notable for its parallels with the Biblical story of Job. George A. Barton wrote in “Archaeology and the Bible”: Tabu-utul-Bêl was an official of Nippur, perhaps one of the antediluvian kings. The Sumerian form of his name is Laluralim and is glossed as Zugagib or "Scorpion." Zugagib is one of the early kings of Sumer, who is said to have ruled 840 years. This story has striking similarities to the Book of Job. [Source: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia]

The first part of Ludlul Bêl Nimeqi reads: 1. I advanced in life, I attained to the allotted span
Wherever I turned there was evil, evil — -
Oppression is increased, uprightness I see not.
I cried unto god, but he showed not his face.

I prayed to my goddess, but she raised not her head.
The seer by his oracle did not discern the future
Nor did the enchanter with a libation illuminate my case
I consulted the necromancer, but he opened not my understanding.
The conjurer with his charms did not remove my ban.
How deeds are reversed in the world!
I look behind, oppression encloses me
Like one who the sacrifice to god did not bring
And at meal-time did not invoke the goddess
Did not bow down his face, his offering was not seen;
(Like one) in whose mouth prayers and supplications were locked
(For whom) god's day had ceased, a feast day become rare,
(One who) has thrown down his fire-pan, gone away from their images
God's fear and veneration has not taught his people
Who invoked not his god when he ate god's food;
(Who) abandoned his goddess, and brought not what is prescribed
(Who) oppresses the weak, forgets his god
Who takes in vain the mighty name of his god, he says, I am like him.
But I myself thought of prayers and supplications — -
Prayer was my wisdom, sacrifice, my dignity;
The day of honoring the gods was the joy of my heart
The day of following the goddess was my acquisition of wealth
The prayer of the king, that was my delight,
And his music, for my pleasure was its sound.
I gave directions to my land to revere the names of god,
To honor the name of the goddess I taught my people.
Reverence for the king I greatly exalted
And respect for the palace I taught the people — -
For I knew that with god these things are in favor.
What is innocent of itself, to god is evil!
What in one's heart is contemptible, to one's god is good!
Who can understand the thoughts of the gods in heaven?
The counsel of god is full of destruction; who can understand?
Where may human beings learn the ways of God?
He who lives at evening is dead in the morning;
Quickly he is troubled; all at once he is oppressed;
At one moment he sings and plays;
In the twinkling of an eye he howls like a funeral-mourner.
Like sunshine and clouds their thoughts change;
They are hungry and like a corpse;
They are filled and rival their god!
In prosperity they speak of climbing to Heaven
Trouble overtakes them and they speak of going down to Sheol. [At this point the tablet is broken. The narrative is resumed on the reverse of the tablet.]

46 Into my prison my house is turned.
Into the bonds of my flesh are my hands thrown;
Into the fetters of myself my feet have stumbled....

With a whip he has beaten me; there is no protection;
With a staff he has transfixed me; the stench was terrible!
All day long the pursuer pursues me,
In the night watches he lets me breathe not a moment
Through torture my joints are torn asunder;
My limbs are destroyed, loathing covers me;
On my couch I welter like an ox
I am covered, like a sheep, with my excrement.
My sickness baffled the conjurers
And the seer left dark my omens.
The diviner has not improved the condition of my sickness-
The duration of my illness the seer could not state;
The god helped me not, my hand he took not;
The goddess pitied me not, she came not to my side
The coffin yawned; they [the heirs] took my possessions;
While I was not yet dead, the death wail was ready.
My whole land cried out: "How is he destroyed!"
My enemy heard; his face gladdened
They brought as good news the glad tidings, his heart rejoiced.
But I knew the time of all my family
When among the protecting spirits their divinity is exalted....
Let thy hand grasp the javelin
Tabu-utul-Bel, who lives at Nippur,
52. Has sent me to consult thee
Has laid his............upon me.
In life........has cast, he has found. [He says]:
"[I lay down] and a dream I beheld;
This is the dream which I saw by night:

53 . [He who made woman] and created man
Marduk, has ordained that he be encompassed with sickness ."....
He said: "How long will he be in such great affliction and distress?
What is it that he saw in his vision of the night?"
"In the dream Ur-Bau appeared
A mighty hero wearing his crown 55. A conjurer, too, clad in strength,
Marduk indeed sent me;
Unto Shubshi-meshri-Nergal he brought abundance;
In his pure hands he brought abundance.
By my guardian-spirit he stopped ,"

He sent a storm wind to the horizon;
To the breast of the earth it bore a blast
Into the depth of his ocean the disembodied spirit vanished ;
Unnumbered spirits he sent back to the under-world.
The...........of the hag-demons he sent straight to the mountain.
The sea-flood he spread with ice;
The roots of the disease he tore out like a plant.
The horrible slumber that settled on my rest
Like smoke filled the sky..........
With the woe he had brought, unrepulsed and bitter, he filled the earth like a storm.
The unrelieved headache which had overwhelmed the heavens
He took away and sent down on me the evening dew.
My eyelids, which he had veiled with the veil of night
He blew upon with a rushing wind and made clear their sight.
My ears, which were stopped, were deaf as a deaf man's
He removed their deafness and restored their hearing.
My nose, whose nostril had been stopped from my mother's womb — -
He eased its defonnity so that I could breathe.
My lips, which were closed he had taken their strength — -
He removed their trembling and loosed their bond.
My mouth which was closed so that I could not be understood — -
He cleansed it like a dish, he healed its disease.
My eyes, which had been attacked so that they rolled together — -
He loosed their bond and their balls were set right.
The tongue, which had stiffened so that it could not be raised
He relieved its thickness, so its words could be understood.
The gullet which was compressed, stopped as with a plug — -
He healed its contraction, it worked like a flute.
My spittle which was stopped so that it was not secreted — -
He removed its fetter, he opened its lock. [Source: George A. Barton, “Archaeology and the Bible”,” 3rd Ed., (Philadelphia: American Sunday School, 1920), pp. 392-395]

Babylonian Epics with Parallels to Hell and Dante's Inferno and Paradise Lost

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: “The Adapa-Legend, a sort of "Paradise Lost", probably a standard work of Babylonian literature, as it is found not only in the Ninive library, but even among the Amarna tablets in Egypt. It relates how Adapa, the wise man or Atrachasis, the purveyor to the sanctuary of Ea, is deceived, through the envy of Ea. Anu, the Supreme God, invites him to Paradise, offers him the food and drink of immortality, but Adapa, mistakenly thinking it poison, refuses, and loses life everlasting. Anu scornfully says: "Take him and bring him back to his earth." |[Source: J.P. Arendzen, transcribed by Rev. Richard Giroux, Catholic Encyclopedia |=|]

“"Ishtar's Descent into the Underworld" here and there bearing a surprising resemblance to well-known lines of Dante's Inferno. The goddess of Erech goes:
“To the land whence no one ever returneth,
To the house of gloom where dwelleth Irkalla,
To the house which one enters but nevermore leaveth,
On the way where there is no retracing of footsteps,
To the house which one enters, and daylight all ceases.” |=|

“On an Amarna tablet we find a description ghostly and graphic of a feast, a fight, and a wedding in hell. Likewise fragments of legendary stories about the earliest Babylonian kings have come down to us. One of the most remarkable is that in which Sargon of Akkad, born of a vestal maiden of high degree, is exposed by his mother in a basket of bulrushes and pitch floating on the waters of the Euphrates; he is found by a water carrier and brought up as a gardener. This story cannot but remind us of Moses' birth. |=|

Similarities of Inanna and Dumuzi with the Bible’s Song of Songs

The “Song of Songs”, also known as the “Song of Solomon” or “Canticle of Canticles”, stands out in the Bible because of its extensive and candid sexual imagery and content. It is a work of sensual lyric poetry that portrays scenes of actual and imagined sexual relations between the poem’s female protagonist and her lover. Graphic descriptions of both male and female bodies pervade the work and sensual metaphors such as “grazing among the lilies” and “drinking … from the juice of my pomegranates” suggest sexual practices beyong the missionary position. [Source: Jonathan Kaplan, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism, The University of Texas at Austin, The Conversation, February 10, 2023]

Although the Egyptian love poems are probably the closest ancient Near Eastern parallels to the Song of Songs, there are also a number of documents from Mesopotamia which are worth considering. The big difference lies in the actors. The Egyptian songs are about people, often fictional no doubt, but unambiguously human. In Mesopotamia, the earliest love poetry involved the goddess of fertility ( Inanna/Ishtar) and her mate ( Dumuzi/Tammuz). But the language is close enough to the Song that Assyriologists tend to trace the latter's pedigree from Mesopotamia rather than Egypt. Consider the following fragment from "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi":

"My beloved, the delight of my eyes, met me.
We rejoiced together.
He took his pleasure of me.
He brought me into his house.
He laid me down on the fragrant honey-bed."

Much of the rest of the poem is a good deal more explicit, Gamos, for the full text as well as some others) but the big difference is that it is about the gods. In nature religions, such as what we find in Mesopotamia, the sexual activity of the gods is what causes the earth to be fruitful. These sorts of poems would have been performed (perhaps sung) in the temples of Inanna and Dummuzi, and most scholars think that acting them out may have been part of the worship process ensuring that fruitfulness.

The biblical worldview is exclusively monotheistic, but there were people in ancient Israel who were drawn to the nature religion way of seeing things. Sometimes they would supply a wife for God to make it possible; on other occasions they would import the foreign religion unaltered (see Eze. 8:14 ). Even so-called "sacred prostitution" may have been practiced at some shrines to the God of Israel. This is not what lies behind the Song of Songs, but such thinking does set the stage for seeing this genre of literature as fundamentally sacred, rather than just as a form of bawdy or romantic entertainment.

It is possible to imagine sacred love (called hieros gamos) poems being de-paganized by substituting the name of God for those of the foreign gods, thus rendering it useful for use by orthodox Israelites. This suggestion may challenge us, but there are good reasons to think this happened with some wisdom literature and possibly with a few pagan hymns. In spite of this, it is a little more of a stretch to get from the gods loving each other sexually to us loving God mystically. Strange things do happen, though, particularly if it turns out that this is the best way to express those kinds of feelings toward the Eternal lover.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated June 2024