The Scholar and the Dragon

A year ago I had drawn conclusions about the role of Tiamat in Babylonian myth, from two different sets of material; Samuel Noah Kramer’s The Sumerians, and Gerald Massey’s Natural Genesis. I’ve blogged previously about Gerald Massey’s work from more than a century ago wherein he draws similarities and conclusions of the mythologies of the Ancient Near East(ANE) based upon an Egyptological framework. Working with the similarities that he had drawn, and the supposition that Tiamat’s role must have existed in some form, for the inhabitants of pre-Babylonian, nay, pre-Sumerian Iraq, began drawing a few conclusions of my own regarding the mythological significance.

Despite the fact that I take issue with Egyptology, some of the writers on myth and symbols from a century ago were not just emphatic about the archaeological explosion in Egypt, but were Egyptological scholars in their own right. Authors such as Gerald Massey and Sir Wallis Budge do often draw interesting conclusions about mytholgical and symbolic parallels between civilizations in the ANE.

Much of the evidence that I have found as of late suggests that the Ubaid, preUbaid, Halaf and Samarran all converged upon the worship of a goddess, in some form or another. What is particularly intriguing regarding the pre-Ubaid, was the combination of feminine and serpentine attributes which many archaeological finds detail through a female body and a lizard-like head. Similarly both Nintu (Sumerian) and Isis (Egyptian) are also portrayed as half female and half serpent.

Its clear that from the importance of the serpent in the pre-Sumerian civilizations of the ANE, that serpentine attributes and symbolism predated Sumer and Egypt. What is also evident is the connection between the feminine role of creation and serpentine symbolism of fertility and abundance. I haven’t quite made the connection between the female force and destruction, except through the serpent. Serpents were probably perceived as a threat to civilization in Sumer.  A study such as this is important to me from a practical perspective since there is little to no appearance of Tiamat worship in Babylonian archaeology. Its difficult to consider Babylonian reconstructionist worship of a deity for whom there is relatively little to no supporting evidence. So the search continues.

~ by tavthe on November 28, 2008.