Somalia and the Ancient World (Part 4)

Papers in African Pre-history

The prehistoric origins of African culture

Remarkable and exciting discoveries that have been made in Africa during the last five years suggests that it was here that tool-making first appeared in the geological record, and that it was then carried to other continents by hominid forms, the discovery of which has necessitated completely new thinking about the biological development of man. In the same way the discovery undreamed of twenty years ago, of urban centres in the near east, dating to as early as the eighth millennium BCE, is providing unique details of life in early Neolithic times and causing pre-historians to look back ever further into the past, almost to the close of the last glacial period, for the first signs of the domestication of plants and animals and settled village life.

Such discoveries are fundamental to the study of the origins and growth of social and economic life and increasing use is being made of the archaeological record by the cultural and anthropologist and ethno-historian, although there is still in places a lingering tendency to consider that prehistory has nothing to offer the student of present-day culture. The success of collaboration between anthropologists, linguists, historians and archaeologists has, however, already been amply demonstrated in several African countries. While, therefore, it is now obvious that archaeology can provide some if the best source material for the reconstruction of cultural antecedents, population movements, and even of the origins of some social and religious practices on a factual basis, it is the new ways in which the archaeologist is using his data that render the results and potential so valuable. The artefacts in the Bed I Living-sites show that there can be little doubt that the east African australopithecines were working stone for use as tools. Indeed, their Pliocene ancestors had been using tools for millions of years. Archaeologists have discovered a stone hand-axe dating back millions of years in a site in Sheikh, Somalia.

Elliot Smith, though basically in with G. Sergi, was inclined to accord independent status to the Nordic or Teutonic races, and wanted to add to the Euro-Africans; the ancient Sumerians, the Arab Dravidians, and other dwellers on the shores of the Indian Ocean, forming a new but very loosely defined entity called the Brown race ‘in reference to the distinctive colours of their skin.’ The

Mediterranean and Hamites are sub-groups of their race. (pp 110) The introduction of political and social organisation on a wilder scale than the tribes is credited to the Hamites, although it should perhaps be made clear that the position which appears proper to assign to the Hamites is not due to a mere belief in the inherent superiority of the Hamite element; as Greenberg puts it, but to their actual and potential abilities as demonstrated by factual evidence. Any ethno-types which lack chief-ship or Hamitic patriliny may be excluded from consideration as civilisers. The Somali and Oromo, rather than the Egyptians, are to be regarded as the source whence ideas of political growth spread westwards, i.e. these are to be considered the civilisers.

Africa created cereal sorghums long before India, which used African types as parents. The present writer has shown that the term was borrowed from the Hamitic languages; Somali is the cradle of cereal cultivation. (Papers in African prehistory, pp 126)

Emmer wheat and barley were known very early in other centres of civilisation in old world – in Mesopotamia by 7000 BCE (Jamo) and in Egypt in about 4500 BCE (Merimte) moreover, the existence of considerable contact among the ancient centres is increasingly known and documented. Though direct contact between highland Ethiopia and Egypt has not been proved for times predating the Semitic invasion, it is a real possibility. Already about 2600 BCE, the pharaoh Sneferu dispatched to Phoenicia a fleet of forty vessels to obtain cedar logs, which indicates a considerable skill in navigation.

By the time of Sahure (c. 2488-2475 BCE) there are reports of an Egyptian fleet reaching the land of (punt, Hafoon also known as God’s land), a contact which was reaffirmed in other inscriptions, such as that telling of the famous expedition of queen Hatshepsut in 1496 BCE.

It has generally been believed hitherto that the pastoral and agricultural economist of Africa were originally quite distinct, that pastoralism was racial characteristic (Bauman for instance, used cattle-herding as irrefragable evidence for his presence of his eastern Hamites) and even, that the pastoralists were responsible for transmission of the elements of higher culture to negro peoples and for the construction of complex political systems the route sometimes suggested, from Arabia across the horn, is ruled out by absence of all but the most primitive cultures of south Arabia until the first millennium BCE and in Somali until the Christian era. Moreover, the word for cow in a great variety of Sudanese and east African languages can be referred to the Nubian form Ti (pp. 59-69).

The civilisations of Africa are the civilisations of the Hamites, it is the history record of these peoples and of their interaction with the two other African stocks, the negro and the bushman, whether this influence was exerted by highly civilised Egyptians or by such wider pastoralists as are represented at the present day by the Beja and the Somali. The incoming Hamites were pastoral. 35000 years ago or 35000 BCE; there is quite a possibility that this might have been so, for in East Africa, certainly, the later blade and burin industries were the work of populations of this physical type, largely identified today with the Hamites or Cushites of the Horn of Africa.

[4]: Black Athena: The Afro-asiatic roots of classical civilization Volume I: The fabrication of ancient

Greece 1785-1985

This concludes my presentation of the work of Ina Cigaal Yey, and it is my hope that all who encounter this work shall form a favourable impression of this subject.

Somalia and the Ancient World (Part 3)

The Ancient Egyptians and the Origins of their Culture

The Egyptian art of the earliest dynasties bears again a remarkable resemblance to that of early Babylonia. The conquering race brought to Egypt the religion and a culture originally derived from that of the Sumerian. The legends which seem to bring the ancestors of the Egyptians from the Red Sea coast have already been mentioned. Now the Egyptians always knew that they were from the land of the God – Somalia; in the time of the XVIIII^th Dynasty they depicted the inhabitants of God’s land as greatly resembling themselves in form, feature, and dress, and as wearing the little turn-up beard which was worn by Egyptians of the earliest times, but even as early as the IV^th dynasty was reserved for the God kings. The statues of Min are older. The crioceras-shells belong to the Red sea. This theory, which would make all the Neolithic inhabitants of Egypt one people, who were conquered race bringing a culture of Sumerian origin to Egypt by way of the Wadi Hammamat, is that generally accepted at the present time. Sumerians did not bring the civilisation to Egypt; the Sumerians and Egyptians both migrated from the land of God, or present day Somalia.

It seems likely that the delta dwellers established themselves at Egypt at a slightly earlier date than the Upper Egyptians and brought their agriculture and science more rapidly to perfection. Some scholars nevertheless refuse to accept this hypothesis of the early supremacy of the Delta. They prefer to believe that the predominant influence was exerted by Upper Egypt, whose inhabitants may have reached Egypt from the direction of the Red Sea. The larger extent and better state of preservation of the pre-dynastic culture of Upper Egypt is advanced as an argument in favour of this view. It may be noted that the ancient Egyptians themselves appear to have been convinced that their place of origin was African rather than Asian. They made continued reference to the land of God Hafun (Punt) as their homeland. In dynastic times, ambitious trading expeditions were dispatched to (Punt) Hafun which has been identified as modern Somaliland. ^[1]

Hatshepsut required Senmut, a man whose architectural gifts resembled and were not inferiror to those of Imhotep, to build an imposing monument which would enhance her disputed claim to the throne, and Senmut hit upon a design which lent grace and distinction to the grandiose intention of the building. He sent an expedition to the land of God (Punt) or Hafun on the Red Sea to procure Myrrh trees, while on his airy terraces he disposed palm trees, sacred persea trees and papyrus beds. One of his colonnades was devoted to carved pictures of the expedition to Somali country, another to representations of the allegedly divine birth of the Queen. ^[2]

[1]:Ancient Egypt Jon Eubank Manchip White-P.141

[2]:Ancient Egypt Jon Eubank Manchip White-P.77

While Crete kept the Bull-cultas central for another 600 years, Egypt abandoned the royal cult of Mont with the rise of the 12^th Dynasty soon after 2000 B.C. The new dynasty had the upper Egyptian Ram-God Amon as its patron. I believe that it is from influence of the period that most of the ram-cults found around the Aegean and generally associated with Zeus were derived, drawing both from Amon and from the lower Egyptian cult of the ram/goat Mendes.

Herodotos and later authors wrote at length about the widespread conquests of a pharaoh he called Sesostris – whose name has been identified with s-n-wsrt or Senwosret, that of a number of 12^th dynasty pharaoh Heredotos claims on this, however, have been treated with especial derision. The same treatment has been given to ancient legends concerning wider-ranging expeditions by the north-eastern African or Egyptian prince Memnon, whose name could well derive from Imn-m-h₃t (written Ammenemés by later Greek writers), the name of other important 12^th dynasty pharaohs. Both legendary cycles now seem to have been vindicated by the recent reading of an inscription from Memphis which details the conquests, by land and sea, of two 12^th dynasty pharaohs, Senwosret I and Ammenemés II. There is also an intriguing resemblance between Hpr KiR; an alternative name for Senwosret and Kekrops, the legendary founder of Athens whom some ancient sources said was an Egyptian. To investigate the claim for conquest in the Caucuses we have to look at another class of evidence. This is the Tater tradition. Herodotus believed that the inhabitants of Colchis on the eastern shore of the black sea were descendants of troops from Sesostris army who had settled there. He based this claim on a number of factors, including that this was what the Colchians claimed to be their origin and that they were black with tight curly hair; which was how he identified the Egyptians. It also suggests Herodotus was erring on the side of caution when he said that Egyptians, unlike the Colchians, were unaware of any connection between their two countries. A long passage from the Argonanautika attribute the foundation of Colchis to an Egyptian Pharaoh who had ruled before there was any Greece. This and a number of reported aspects of Colchian culture attended to confirm Herodotus’ picture, at least to the extent that the Colchians in the fifth century BC believed themselves to be descendants from soldiers in Sesostris army if not that their tradition was essentially accurate. A still more remarkable fact is that, even today, there is an African black local population in from the subtropical coast near the resort of Sukhumi. The people, who survived Stalin’s attempts to scatter them and to force inter-marriage, speak the local Caucasian language of Abkhaz and are fiercely Muslim.

The next wave of influence, about which tradition was much more clear-cut, took place during the Hyksos period. The Hyksos, whose name came from the Egyptian Hkst, rulers of foreign lands; were invaders from the north or from the Red sea who conquered and ruled at least Lower Egypt from about 1720 to 1575 B.C. Although other, possibly Hurrian, elements seem to have been involved, the Hyksos were predominantly Semitic or Hamitic speaking?

In the 12^th century B.C. there was a more disruptive historical break. In antiquity, what is now called the ‘Dorian Invasion’ was much more frequently termed ‘The return of the Heraklids’. The incomers undoubtedly came from the north-western fringes of Greece, which had been less affected by the Middle Eastern culture of Mycenaean palaces which they destroyed. Black Athena Volume II Chapter VIII is concerned with the Hyksos or Hykas in Somali language, the people from the northeast, who invaded or infiltrated Egypt at the end of the Middle Kingdom and who controlled at least Lower Egypt for over a century and a half until they were expelled by the Egypto-Nubian 18^th dynasty at some point near 1570 B.C. The first problem considered is that of chronology, which is very uncertain from the Egyptian records. I argue, on the basis of Palestinian ceramic periods, that the Hyksos or Hykas had arrived in at least the Eastern Delta by 1740 B.C. The second problem is that of the ethnicity of the Hykas or Hyksos. I approach this by considering the historiography of the Hykas-Hyksos. The standard classical text on this, written by the Egyptian priest Manetho, described by the Hykas-Hyksos as from the regions of the East, invaders of obscure race who invaded and ruthlessly conquered Egypt. As mentioned above, from at least Hellenistic times writers have associated the Hikas-Hyksos rule in Egypt with the Israelite captivity or Sojourn in Egypt so that, until the end of the 19^th century, it appears to have been assumed that the invaders were Israelite or proto-Israelites, in any event Semitic speakers. With the systemisation of anti-Semitism, however, this picture of northerners sweeping town on prosperous river valleys seemed typically Aryan and not at all Semitic, if as the late 19^th century scholars did, one discounts the Arabs for the purpose of this argument. This view of the Hyksos-Hikas had the backing of Manetho’s statement that they were of “obscure race” and of an 18^th dynasty inscription which was read as stating that the Hyksos-Hikas capital contained SM₃W, the standard Egyptian term for the Semitic speakers of Syro-Palestine, with the SM₃W, wonderers or foreigners in their midst. This was interpreted as an indication that the Hyksos-Hikas had a non-Semitic core. This was quickly indentified with the newly discovered Hurrians, speakers of a language that was neither Semitic nor Indo-European, who were supposed to have migrated to the northern Mesopotamia from the third millennium and probably much earlier still. Scholarly enthusiasm for the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni that was contemporaneous with the 18^th dynasty became even greater when it was discovered that some Mitanni royal and divine names and chariot driving terms were Indo-Iranian if not Indo-Aryan. Black Athena Volume III Page 12,

Of the languages itself and of the laws by which it was governed a few words must be said. The actual source of the Egyptian language is wrapped in obscurity. Some great authorities make it of Aryan origin, while others class with Semitic tongues. In all probability, neither classification is strictly correct. The Egyptian belongs, however, to what is called the Hamitic family of tongues – a group which includes the Somali, Libyan, Berber, and other African languages. In all these the feminine takes the letter T, either as a prefix or a suffix and they all conjugate the verb by agglutination. The one and only real certain fact is that the Hamitic and Semitic languages are derived from a common source. Their grammatical system is in certain essential points, the same. Many of their roots are identical, their plural forms are closely related, and in all the feminine determinative are alike; but these two linguistic families offshoots from one parent stem separated in the ages before history, that parent being itself but a prehistoric idiom of very limited range and unknown antiquity. Its home must be somewhere in northeast Africa.

Macro historical linguistics; the most generally accepted and most relevant super families, is Afro-asiatic, previously known as Hamito-Semitic. This huge range of languages includes the following families; Semitic spoken in Ethiopia and Eritrean as well as in south west Asia, Chadic, Hausa and other languages around and to the west lake Chad: Berber the original languages of north west Africa still spoken in its mountains and remotes oases; east Cushitic, Somali and related languages; Cushitic, the language of the Oromo people; south Cushitic spoken by scattered groups of Somalis in Kenya; and Omotic , spoken in south west Ethiopia. Some branches are made up of single languages; beja, spoken between the Nile and the red sea, an ancient Egyptian. Linguists have discovered enough common features among all these branches to postulate a single, though very ancient, ancestral language. Strong etymological evidence suggests that this very ancient; ancestral language, parent language is the root language which is now spoken in modern day Somalia. The Somali language remains mostly unchanged from the original ancestral language. Other linguists have found even larger super-families.

Somali and Egyptian languages in ancient times shared remarkable similarities in both language and culture; many of which are still evident in the modern day Somali language and culture. This phenomenon is also apparent between the ancient Sumerians and the Somalis; both of which share similarities in language and culture. There are insurmountable historical, archaeological and etymological evidences indicating the similar cultural and linguistic roots of the ancient Sumerians and the ancient Egyptians with the ancient Somalis. These evidences and the fact that both; the ancient Sumerian; and ancient Egyptian civilisations had no form of contact between each other for over 2000 years, lead to the discovery of a civilisation of origin for both the ancient Sumerians and the ancient Egyptians. This ancient ancestral, original civilisation is the ancient Somali civilisation.

Ancient Sumerian	Somali	English Translation
Eabe	Eabe	God
Iriddu	Irid	Exit
Ina	Ina	Son of
Asari	Asar/ausar/asair	Head/king
Nin/ninbu’bu’	Nin	Man

Ancient Egypt	Somali	English Translation
Ab	Ab	Drink
Aar	Aar	Lion (male)
Usha	Ul/Usha	A stick (e.g. walking)
Hes	Hees	Song/sing
Rah	Qorah	The sun
Hun/hunnu	huuno	A title for children
Ausar	Asar/ausar/asair	Head/king
Barkin/barsi	Barkin	Wooden pillow

Somalia and the Ancient World (Part 2)

The History of the Ancient Egyptians and their Origins

The Egyptian pantheon was a gradual accretion, the result of amalgamating the various local cults; but these continued predominant in their several localities; and practically the only deities that obtained anything like a general recognition were Osiris, Isis, Horus and the Nile-god Hapi. Besides the common popular religion, the belief of the masses there was another that prevailed among the priests and among the educated. The primary doctrine of this esoteric religion was the real essential unity of the divine nature. The sacred texts known only to the priests and to the initiated, taught that there was a single Being, “the only true Living God, self-originate”, “Who existed from the beginning”, “Who has made all things, but has not himself been made”. This Being seems never to have been represented by any material, even symbolical form. It is thought that he had no name, or if he had, that it must have been unlawful to pronounce or write it. He was a pure spirit perfect in every respect; all-wise, almighty, supremely good. It is of him that the Egyptian poets use such expressions as the following: “He is not graven in marble; he is not beheld; his abode is not known; no shrine is found with painted figures of him; there is no house that can contain him;” and again: “Unknown is his name in heaven; he doth not manifest his forms; vain are all representations;” and yet again: “His commencement is from the beginning; He is the God who existed from old time; no father hath begotten him, he is a God; Goddess created from himself; all gods came into existence when he began.”_[3]

[3]: The story of the Nations page 38

This geographical distribution of the pre-historic remains fits in curiously with the ancient legend concerning the origin of ancestors of the Egyptians in Upper Egypt, and supports the much discussed theory that they came originally to the Nile Valley from the shores of the Red Sea by way of the Wadi Hammamat which debouches on to the Nile in the vicinity of Koptos and Kus, opposite Ballas and Tukh. The supposition seems a very probable one, and it may well be that the earliest Egyptians entered the Valley of the Nile by the route suggested and then spread northwards and southwards in the Valley. The other southern founders of the Monarchy who belonged to the race who had come from the Red Sea by the Wadi Hammamat, and so were the ancestors of the later natives of lower Egypt. Anyhow we have to account for the legends of distant origin on the Red Sea coast, the probability that one element of the Egyptian population was extraneous origin and come from the east into the Nile Valley near Koptos and finally the historical fact of an advance of the early dynastic Egyptians from the south to the conquest of the north. Those who entered the Nile Valley by the Wadi Hammamat came from the Red Sea towards the end of the Neolithic period, and, being of higher civilisation the native neolites, assumed the lordship over them, gave a great impetus to the development of their culture, and started at once the institution of Monarchy, the knowledge of letters, and the use of metals. The chiefs of this superior tribe founded the Monarchy conquered the north, unified the kingdom, and began Egyptian history. From many indications it would seem probable that these conquerors were of Babylonian Sumerian origin, but they themselves were African who came from God’s land or Opone = Ophone= Hafun by way of the straits of Bab El Mandeb, and proceeded up the coast to about the neighbourhood of Kuser, when the Wadi Hammamat offered them an open road to the valley of the Nile. By this route they may have entered Egypt, bringing with them a civilization, which, like that of Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia. The Egyptian civilization of predynastic period resembles well known elements of the civilization of Babylonia. We may instance the use of the cylinder-seal, which died out in Egypt in the time of the XVIII^th dynasty, but was always used in Babylonia from the earliest to the latest times. The early Egyptian mace-head is of exactly the same type as the Babylonian one. In the British museum is an Egyptian mace-head of red breccia, which is identical in shape and size with one from Babylonia (also in the museum bearing the name of Sargon, King of Akkada.

Somalia and the Ancient World (Part 1)

I have encountered some fragments of evidence, over the years, which paint a picture if ancient Somalia and its relationship with other ancient societies. I am very pleased to be able to present here (re-produced integrally with the permission of the writer, one Ina Cigaal Yey) as a series of articles:

Babylonian Cosmogony

The Babylonian Myth of Creation; few creation myths are more replete with interest than those which have literary sanction. These are few in number as, for example, the creation story in Genesis, those to be found in Egyptian papyri, and that contained in the ‘Popol vuh’ of the Maya of Central America. In such an account we can trace the creation story from the dim conception of world-shaping to the polished and final effort of a priestly caste to give a theological interpretation to the intentions of the creative deity; and this is perhaps more the case with the creation myth which had its rise among the old ‘Akkadian’ population of Babylonian than with any other known to mythic science. In the account in Genesis of the framing of the world it has been discovered that two different versions have been fused to form a single story.

The Gilgamesh Epic

It is probable that the materials of the Gilgamesh epic, the great mythological poem of Babylonia, originally belonged to the older epoch. Thus a tablet dated 2100 B.C contains a variant of the deluge story interested in the XI^th tablet of the Gilgamesh epic. In the remote Sumerian period, perhaps this and other portions of the epic existed in oral tradition before they were committed to writing. Ashurbanipal was an enthusiastic and practical patron of literature. In this great library at Nineveh (the nucleus of which had been taken from Calah by Sennacherib) he had gathered a vast collection of volumes, clay tablets and papyri; most of which had been carried as spoil from conquered lands. He also employed scribes to copy older texts, and this is evidently how the existing edition of the Gilgamesh epic came to be written.

Eabani

The most important of the various mythological strata underlying the Gilgamesh myth is probably that concerning Eabani; who, as has been said, is a type of primitive man, living amongst the beasts of the field as one of themselves. However he is also, according to certain authorities, a form of the sun-god even as Gilgamesh himself. The transfer of power, from Ea to Merodach, however was skilfully arranged by the priesthood, for they made Merdach the son of Ea, so that he would naturally inherit his father’s attributes. In this transfer we observe the passing of the supremacy of the city of Eridu to that of Babyloia. Ea or Oannes, the fish-tailed god of Eridu, stood for the older and more southerly civilisation of the Babylonian race, whilst Merodach, patron god of Babylon, a very different type of deity,

represented the newer political power. Strange as it will appear, although he was patron god of Babylon, he did not originate in that city, but in Eridu, the city of Ea, and probably this is the reason why he was first regarded as the son of Ea. He is also directly associated with the Shamash, the chief sun-god of the later pantheon, and is often addressed as the god of canals, and opener of subterranean fountains; in appearance he is usually drawn with tongues of fire proceeding from his person, thus indicating the solar character. At other times he is represented as standing above the watery deep, with a horned creature at his feet, which also occasionally surface to symbolise Ea. It is noteworthy too, that his temple at Babylon bore the same name E-Sagila, their lofty house, as did Ea’s sanctuary at Eridu. We find among the cuneiform texts a copy of an older Babylonian text an interesting little poem which shows how Merodach attracted the attributes of the other gods to himself.

Ea is the Marduk (or Merodach) of canal,

Ninib is the Marduk of strength,

Nergal is the Marduk of war,

Zamama is the Marduk of battle,

Enlil is the Murduk of Sovereignty and control,

Nebo is the Marduk of passion,

Sin is the Marduk of illumination of the night,

Shamash is the Marduk of judgement,

Adad is the Marduk of rain,

Tishpak is the Marduk of the host,

Gal is the Marduk of strength,

Shukamunu is the Marduk of the harvest;

This would seem as if Merodach had absorbed the characteristics of all the other gods of any importance so successfully that he had almost established his position as the sole deity in Babylonia, and that therefore some degree of monotheism had been arrived at.

Merodach’s ideograph is the sun, and there is abundant evidence that he was first and last a solar god. The name, originally Amaruduk, probably signifies the young steer of days, which seems to be a figure for the morning sun. He was called Asari, which may be compared with the Asar, the Egyptian name of Osiris. Here we can see the similarities between Sumerian-Babylonian and Egyptian civilisations.

Sargon, born in concealment and sent adrift like Moses, like in an ark of Bulrushes on the waters of the Euphrates, whence he was rescued and brought up by on Akki (an Akkidian), a husbandman.

The older bel, the Chief seat of his worshiper was at Nippur, where the name of his temple, E-kur or mountain-house, came to be applied to a sanctuary all over Babylonia. When we first encounter the Babylonian civilisation, we find it grouped round about two nuclei, Nippur in the North and Eridu in the south. The first had grown up around a sanctuary of god-Enlil, who held sway over the ghostly animistic spirits which at his bidding might pose as the friends or enemies of men. A more ‘civilised’ deity held sway at Eridu, which was the home of Ea or Oannes, the god of light and wisdom, who exercised his knowledge of the healing art for the benefit of his votaries.

The ancient Sumerian city of Eridu, which means ‘on the sea shore’, was invested in great sanctity from the earliest of times, and Ea/Eabani (Eabe); the great magician of the gods, “was invoked by workers of spells, the priestly magicians of historic Babylonia. The mythological spell exercise by Eridu in later times suggests that the civilisation of Sumeria owed much to the worshipers of Eabani (Eabe or Eebow). At the sacred city the first man was created: there the souls of the dead passed towards the great deep, its proximity to the sea- Ea was Nin-Bubu, “god of the sailor;” may have brought it into contact with other people and other early civilisations. Like the early Egyptians, the early Sumerians may have been in touch with Punt=Somali people, which some regard as the cradle of Mediterranean race. The Egyptians obtained from the sacred land incense-bearing trees, which had magical potency. In a fragmentary Babylonian charm there is a reference to a sacred tree or bush at Eridu.

Professor Sayce has suggested that it is the biblical “tree of life” in the Garden of Eden. His translations of certain vital words, however is sharply questions by Mr R Campbell Thompson of British Museum, who does not accept the theory. It may be that Ea’s sacred bush or tree is a survival of tree and water worship. If Eridu was not the cradle of the Sumerian race, it was possibly the cradle of Sumerian civilisation. _[1]

[1]: Myths and Legends of Babylonia and Assyria

Along with En-lil and Ea, Anu makes up universal triad. He is called the ‘Father’ but appears to be of the Gods; descended from still older deities. His name is seldom discovered in the inscriptions prior to the time of Khammurabi, but such notices as occur of him seem to have already fixed his position as ruler of the sky. His cult was specially associated with the city of Erech. It is probable that in the earliest days he had been the original Sumerian sky-father, as his name is merely a form of the Sumerian word for heaven. This idea is associated by the manner in which his name is originally written in the inscriptions as the symbol signifying it is usually that employed for ‘heaven’. It is plain, therefore, that Anu was once regarded as the expanse of heaven itself, just as are the ‘sky-fathers’ of numerous primitive people. Several writers who deal with Anu appear to be of the opinion that a God of the heaven is an abstraction, popular fancy.

BA (see Egyptian myth, KA)

Baal (see dying Gods, Phoenician myth)

Many Canaanite fertility-gods were called Baal (Lord) before the Baal, Lord of thunder and rain, assumed their god which, as with the Hebrew deity Yahweh, could be pronounced only by initiates and under exceptional circumstances with his chief temple at tyre, his worship entered Israel via Jezehel (jeze-baal), Ahab’s wife, but Elijah had all the prophets of baal slaini Yahweh triumphed, temples to baal-hammon, lord of the altar of incense were popular from carthage to pallmyra. The Babylonian Belmardule may be associated, or maybe a masculinisation of the Sumerian goddess Belili. Connection with the British Bel (or Belinas) is unsure though the celtic may day festival of Beltane fire of Bel is suggestive.

Baal’s father was El, or Dagon. His wife (and mother) was anat. Later Astarte, defeating the sea-god Yam. Baal denied the authority of mot, his brother, Lord of the arid desert, also spirit of the harvest. Mot invested Baal to the land of the dead, and would not revive him. Anat killed Mot burning, grinding and scattering his members on the over the fields. Baal and Mot were duly resurrected, fighting an annual stalemate which ended only when \el dismissed Mot, leaving Baal in sole authority. The fecund god of rainfall and vegetation overcoming the parched, harvest plains. Babel tower of (nimrod) Genesis XI 1-9 tells how men tried to build the tower of babel, so high that from its summit they could assault heaven itself. The work went well, for all men spoke the same language. To confound it, Yahweh cursed the so all began babbling in different tongues, and split into seventy hostile nations, scattering over the face of the earth.

The name babel is commonly derived bab-ili, gate of god. The biblical account says this tower was built in the land of shinar the prophet micah calls Assyria the land of nimrod – in Hebrew Lore the name of the evil king who ordered the tower to be built. Others have identified it with the ziggurat esagilla in Babylon itself. The myths seeks to account for the dispersal of humanity into different nations and languages, similarly a Sumerian legend tell how the god Ea diversified language, so ending the golden age. (The myth and legends, S. Gordon, Pg 47-48

Babylonian myth (concordance)

About 3500 BC or earlier the Sumerian culture developed in mesopatamian desert and marsh lands adjacent to the Persian gulf land fertilised by the rivers tigris and Euphrates. Here arose the first states – Lagashm Kish and Eridu, sippar and uruk. Here too writing developed. Pictographs embraced on tablets of baked clay led to the wage shaped cuniform script. Babylon (bab-ili, gate of the gods, or gate of the gods; babel) was one such city state, though prominent only after the accession c. 2200 BC of the first dynasty. By the era of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC; famed for his code of civil law). Babylon epitomised a new culture and, amid the waves of semitic invasion. Yet Sumerian texts survived, being now interweaved with akkadian translation.

Thus Babylonian ( and Assyrian) myths remained much as first expressed by the Sumerians, not least as all mesopotomiam culture relied whatever the era-on the fertility of the land between the two rivers. Yet shifts in attitude arose from historical conflicts shaping the politics of the region. The Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish (from its opening words: when on hish...) agrees with the Sumerians that the gods created man to serve them, and in return for which service they renew the world each day – but the nature and status of earlier god changed. The Sumerian Ea, Lord of the deep, creator of all things, is known in Babylon, but now bows to babylons champion marduk (Bel-Marduk), slayer of the dragon Tiamat. Enlil city god of nippur and a powerful Sumerian deity retains name and status in the Assyirio-Babylonian pantheon, but the fearful aspect of his elemental nature is emphasised. Yet the names of shamash (sun-god), Sin(moon-god), Nergal(God of the death and the underworld), Ishtar(love-goddess, consort of tammuz and the Babylonian version of the Sumerian inanna) are not semitic, but Sumerian.

And though the epic of Gilgamesh was found the library of the Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC), the tale remains Sumerian from the third millennium BC. The cultural continuity remains. Our problem is that we deal not with centuries but with millennia. Between the earliest Sumerian city states and hammurabi’s Babylon lie at least 1200 years: and again 1200 from Hammurabi to the Jewish captivity. In Europe, 1200 years ago, Charlamagne was crowned. Before the birth of Alexander the great, Babylon the great was already a memory, 2400 years ago. King Nebuchadnezzar (d. 562 BC) and Belshazzar his son (d. 539 BC), to whom Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall just before Cyrus the Persian seized Babylon, precede Alexander by as many years as napoleon precedes the last decade of the twentieth century. But mythic memory endures. Before the Gulf war Saddam Hussein of Iraq was attempting to restore this city and its empire rebuilding the walls of ancient Babylon.