#this is what studying mesopotamia is like too

[yamayuandadu]

What is your opinion on the article "Mesopotamian or Iranian? A New Investigation on the Origin of the Goddess Anāhitā" by Alireza Qaderi?

He proposes that Anahita is possibly the syncretism of an Iranian Water goddess with Annunitum, and while it largely makes a lot of sense to me, especially with how it points out that we can't treat the Avesta as we know it as identical to the Avesta in Zarathustra's time, it also assumes the Central Asian goddess Ardokhsho comes from Aredvi Sura instead of Arti, and everything else I've seen just says Ardokhsho comes from Arti, although I haven't seen much literature on either deity tbh

Sorry it took me a few days to answer this ask even though it’s basically laser focused on my interests. I had some other stuff to read and unpleasant work duties to perform and couldn’t properly go through the recommended paper.

My feelings about the paper are mixed. I think anyone who remembers Annunitum was a distinct deity as early as in the late third millennium BCE deserves at least some credit. The notion of interchangeability of goddesses still haunts the field, fueled by Bible scholars, Helsinki hyperdiffusionists and the like. Overall the author shines in the sections dedicated only to the evaluation of the broadly Iranian material, but as soon as the focus switches to Mesopotamia things fall apart, sadly. More under the cut. Hope you don’t mind that I’ll also use this as an opportunity to talk about Annunitum in Sippar in general. I've been gathering sources to improve her wiki article further (don’t expect that any time soon though). 

The Iranian material

Criticizing the vintage attempts at equating Anahita with Sarasvati is sound and sensible. Same with stressing that she is distinct from Nanaya and Oxus. The criticism of theories depending on lack of familiarity with the historical range of the beaver was a nice touch too, it demonstrates well that the author wanted to cover as much previous literature as possible. However, I also have no clue what’s up with “ΑΡΔΟΧΡΟ has an ambiguous relationship with Arədvī Sūrā”, I’ve also only ever seen this name explained as a derivative of Ashi/Arti save for a single paper trying to force a link to Oxus which was met with critical responses. It’s entirely possible this is an argument I simply haven’t seen though, I’m also not really familiar with this matter.

Overall the arguments against seeking Anahita’s origin in the east are perfectly sensible, and line up with the evidence well - no issues at all with this part of the paper. Following a more detailed list of Anahita’s easter attestations from Shenkar’s Intangible spirits and graven images. She appears on some Kushano-Sasanian coins, but this seems to reflect importing her from the west relatively late on since she appears in neither Kushan nor Bactrian sources. The coins are even exclusively inscribed in Middle Persian, with no trace of the local vernacular. 

For unclear reasons Anahita caught on to a degree even further east in Sogdia, but attestations are limited to the period between fourth and sixth centuries. Since they’re largely just generic theophoric names, it is hard to call her anything but a minor deity of indeterminate character in this context, though. I’ve seen the argument that the popularity of Oxus in the east might have been the obstacle to introducing her. Oxus was a bigger deal in Bactria than in Sogdia so it could even explain why Sogdians were slightly more keen on her, arguably, even if they and Bactrians came into contact with her cult under similar circumstances.

Back to the article, the section dealing with the western attestations starts on a pretty strong note too. The need for reevaluation if it’s fair to talk about Achaemenid rulers as “Zoroastrian” is a mainstay of studies published over the past 10-15 years or so. I can’t weigh on the linguistic arguments because I know next to nothing about that.

I’m not sure if I follow the argument that it makes no sense Iranian population wouldn’t need a royal order to start worshipping a new deity as long as they were Iranian, tbh - linguistic or cultural affiliation doesn’t come prepackaged with automatically updated list of deities one is obliged to instantly adopt as soon as they pop up into existence. Following this logic, why didn’t Sargon’s Akkadian speaking subjects in Syria just adopt Ilaba before being obliged to do so? You will find literally hundreds of cases like this, it’s a very weird argument to me.

The Mesopotamian material

The biggest problems start once the coverage of Mesopotamia begins. The rigor evident in the strictly Iranian sections of the article just… vanishes and it’s incredibly weird. Herodotus as a source is… quite something. The phrase “ a goddess with a Semitic character” is… well, quite something too (Reallexikon generally advises against defining anything but languages as “Semitic” in Mesopotamian context - Mesopotamian is a perfectly fine label to use, and accounts for the fact that Sumerian, Hurrian and Kassite are not a part of the Semitic language family). It keeps repeating later and admittedly I’m not very fond of this. Especially when it pertains to the west of Iran, where deities originating in Mesopotamia were worshiped since the late third millennium BCE - they were more Elamite than Mesopotamian by the time Persians showed up, really. The matter is covered in detail in Wouter Henkelman’s Other Gods who Are with Adad in the Persepolis Fortification Archive as a case study.

Cybele was by no means Mesopotamian (with each new study she keeps becoming more strictly Phrygian, with earlier Anatolian, let alone Mesopotamian, influence becoming less and less likely) so I'm not sure what she's doing here, Nanaya’s associations with lions is almost definitely an Iranian innovation and not attested before the late first millennium BCE; despite earlier sound arguments against ascribing strictly Avestan Zoroastrian sensibilities to people in the late first millennium BCE, that’s basically what happens here. Lions were evidently viewed favorably by at least some Persians and especially Bactrians and Sogdians.

The less said about the part trying to link evidence from Palmyra to Inanna and Dumuzi (what does a marginal spouse deity like Dumuzi, entirely absent from Palmyra, have to do with Sabazius, a veritable pantheon head equated with Zeus?), the better. Frazerian bit, if I have to be honest.

I’m not sure about the enthusiasm for Boyce’s argument that it makes little sense for Anahita to simultaneously be a river goddess and to bestow victory in battle. The latter characteristic lines up well with her elevation to the position of a deity tied to investiture of kings, which in turn is something which boils down to personal preference of a given dynasty. The character of deities isn’t necessarily supposed to be one-dimensional and having distinct spheres of activity because of historical factors is hardly unusual.

Stressing that it’s not possible to treat Anahita and Ishtar as interchangeable is commendable. However, I don’t think it’s possible to claim continuity between the religious beliefs reflected in the relief of Anubanini and first millennium BCE Media. The argument is not pursued further, to be fair, but it’s still weird.

The next huge issue is the treatment of the late “Anu theology”. A good recent overview of this matter can be found in Krul’s 2018 monograph (shared by the author herself here).

For starters, it’s completely baffling to declare Anu had no spouse at first; Urash and Ki are both attested in the Early Dynastic period already - and the former appears reasonably commonly in this role in literary texts and god lists. Even Antu might already be present in the Abu Salabikh list.

Attributing Inanna prominence in Uruk and in the Eanna in particular to identification with Antu is utterly nightmarish and one of the worst Inanna takes I’ve ever seen; the fact it’s contradicted by information of the same page makes it pretty funny, admittedly. Inanna’s ties to the city go back literally to the beginning of recorded history (some of the oldest texts in the world are demands aimed at cities under the control of Uruk to provide offerings for Inanna ffs), and probably even further back. Meanwhile, Anu for most of his history was an abstract hardly worshiped deity; Krul stresses this in the beginning of her book linked above. I’m not a fan of ancient matriarchy takes which are often lurking in the background when the cases of earliest city goddesses like Inanna, Nisaba and Nanshe are discussed but I do think the need to downplay Inanna’s prominence and elevate Anu which pops up every few years in scholarship is suspect and probably motivated by sexism, consciously or not, tbh. 

Trying to make the “Anu theology” which developed in the late first millennium BCE an influence on the entirety of Mesopotamia and beyond is puzzling. Sabazius appearing in Palmyra with a spouse is tied to Anu, somehow? The fact that deities had spouses is? Atargatis ties into this somehow? I’m sorry, but I’m not following. Also, Uruk was no longer a theological center of the Mesopotamian world in the first millennium BCE. Babylon was, and before that Nippur. There is no need to speculate, there are thousands of texts to back it up. The late sources from Uruk in particular show that Babylon was somewhat forcefully influencing the city, not the other way around.

The Anu theology was a display of local “nationalism” of Uruk and had a very limited impact. There is evidence for some degree of late theological cooperation between Uruk and Nippur, and possibly Der as well (Der itself despite being located with certainty has yet to be excavated, though, so caution is necessary), but nothing of this sort is to be found in the late sources from other locations.

Annunitum = Anahita?

Finally, let’s look at the core idea behind the article.

Right off the bat I feel it’s necessary to stress Annunitum generally wasn’t regarded as an astral deity. In the Old Babylonian period, the Venus role was evidently handled by Ninsianna in Sippar; later on they aren’t even attested there but the regular Ishtar is. Seems doubtful it would actually be Annunitum who got to be an astral deity there at any point in time.

This claim is also highly dubious. There is no evidence that Antu was ever worshiped in Sippar, let alone that she was equated there with Annunitum; she doesn’t show up at all in Jennie Myers’ 2002 thesis The Sippar pantheon: a diachronic study. Paul-Alain Beaulieu stresses her lack of importance all across Mesopotamia save for first millennium BCE Uruk here. There is also no evidence that the late Anu theology impacted Sippar in any capacity. Shamash retained his position in the city until the death of cuneiform. Even in Uruk, Annunitum in the late sources appears only in association with Ishtar and Nanaya, not Anu and Antu. I will repeat how I feel about the need to assert Anu’s importance where there is no trace of it. Overall it feels like unrelated Mesopotamian and adjacent sources from different areas and time periods are used indiscriminately; which is ironically the criticism employed in the article wrt the treatment of Iranian textual sources by other researchers. The Assyriological sources employed leave a bit to be desired, too. In particular Abusch’s Ishtar entry in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible is a nightmare (he’s good when he covers incantations but his broader “theological” proposals are… quite something), here are some quotes from it to show how awful it is is a central point of reference:

Of the other authors cited, Jacobsen is Jacobsen and a lot changed since the 1960s. Roberts was criticized right after his study was published by researchers like Aage Westenholz. Langdon’s study from the early 1900s is an outdated nightmare, I guess we know what’s up with the Dumuzi hot takes now. Beaulieu is great but his papers and monographs aren’t really utilized to any meaningful extent, I feel. 

Other criticisms aside, I’m unsure if Annunitum was important enough in the fifth century BCE to be noticed by Artaxerxes II as postulated here, especially since Shamash was right next door and definitely retained some degree of prominence. Most if not all cases of Mesopotamian deities influencing Persian or broader Iranian tradition reflect widespread cults of popular deities - Nanaya, Nabu (via influence on Tishtrya), Nergal (in the west, around Harran) - as opposed to a b-list strictly local deity. And it’s really hard to refer to Annunitum differently. Let’s take a quick look at her position in the twin cities of Sippar - as far as I am aware, the most recent treatment of this matter is still Myers’ thesis, and that’s what I will rely on here. 

Annunitum is first attested in Sippar in the Old Babylonian period, during the reign of Sabium, though as a deity already locally major enough to appear in an oath formula alongside Shamash. In the Early Dynastic period Sippar-Amnanum was likely associated with an enigmatic figure designated by the logogram ÉREN+X who doesn’t seem to be related to her. When and how exactly the tutelary deity change occurred is not presently possible to determine and admittedly of no real relevance here.

Evidently Annunitum’s cult in Sippar was influenced to some degree by the Sargonic tradition she originated in, her temple was even called Eulmaš just like that in Akkad. It’s not impossible it was even originally founded by one of the members of the Sargonic dynasty, but in absence of pre-OB evidence caution is necessary. There is no shortage of later rulers who wanted to partake in the Sargonic legacy, after all. By the earliest documented times, it was the second most important temple in the Sippar agglomeration, and the only one beside the Ebabbar to have its own administrative structure. Annunitum was even referred to as the “queen of Sippar” (Šarrat Sippar; note that by the Neo-Babylonian period this title came to function as a distinct goddess, though). In Sippar-Amnanum there was a street, a gate and a canal named after her. A bit over 6% of the inhabitants of both cities bore theophoric names invoking her, also. Sippar-Amnanum was abandoned for some 200 years after the reign of Ammi-saduqa, but it seems the clergy simply moved to the other Sippar next door. Next few centuries are very sparsely documented at this site, but supposedly Shagarakti-Shuriash rebuilt Annunitum’s temple (the matter is discussed in detail here).

Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser I dealing with the conquest of northern Babylonia affirm that Annunitum continued to be viewed as the goddess of Sippar through the Neo-Assyrian period. According to an inscription of Nabonidus her temple, and Sippar-Amnanum as a whole, were razed by Sennacherib (he also blames “Gutians” for it though by then this is a label as generic as “barbarian”). This might be why her cult had to be relocated to the other part of Sippar again. In the Neo-Babylonian period it returned to Sippar-Amnanum under Neriglissar, though her temple was only rebuilt by Nabonidus. It survived at least until the reign of Darius, though it was only a small sanctuary (É.KUR.RA.MEŠ) like those of Adad and Gula.

There is very little evidence for popular worship of her so late on: only two theophoric names have been identified…. For comparison, Shamash appears in 208 (out of 823 theophoric names, out of a total of 1243 total). Nergal, Gula, Adad and even Amurru are all more common.  Aya is also absent, but unlike Annunitum despite her prominence in earlier periods she was actually never common in theophoric names, save for the names of naditu; and naditu ceased to be a thing after the OB period.

Offering lists complicate the matter further. From the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Annunitum started to lose ground to a duo introduced from Dur-Kurigalzu: a manifestation of Nanaya associated with this city and Ishtar-tashme. Why they suddenly appeared in Sippar and why they overshadowed Annunitum is uncertain, perhaps Dur-Kurigalzu just failed to recover from decline after the end of the Kassite period and eventually the decision was made to start transferring local deities to other nearby major urban centers. The process reversed during the reign of Nabonidus, who ordered an increase in offerings made to her. This might’ve been motivated by his general concern for Sin and any deities considered members of his immediate family - essentially, a display of personal devotion. This elevation is still evident in offering lists from the reign of Cyrus, though.

Overall the paper is quite convincing - outstanding, even - when it comes to the Iranian material alone, and between mediocre and nightmarish once the author shifts to Mesopotamia.

#mesopotamian miscellanea #hinadoll39

[jinjeriffic]

DC x DP prompt/ficlet

Throwing my hat in the ring with this idea that has been doing the zoomies in my brain for days. The Tim/Danny Accidental Ghost Marriage to Fake Dating to Friends to Lovers AU:

Pariah Dark was a piece of shit. Before his imprisonment, mortals would sometimes manage to bargain with the Ghost King for scraps of power. One of the "standard" deals was to send PD a "Bride" to play with and feed on (because I HC he feeds on fear and pain) and what better way than a little mortal battery that couldn't get away from him? The deal was sealed with a cursed amulet. Now in one instance, the contract was never fulfilled (maybe the petitioner died before he could complete his half) and the amulet was lost. After Pariah was imprisoned and couldn't make deals anymore the knowledge of the rituals needed was gradually forgotten since they didn't work anymore...

Eventually the amulet gets dug up by archeologists (maybe in Egypt or Mesopotamia?) and ends up in a traveling exhibit in Gotham. A Rogue robs the place (Riddler? Two-Face? doesn't really matter). When the Bats show up to foil the robbery, during the fight with the goons a drop of Red Robin's blood gets on the amulet, there's a blinding flash of green light and the amulet is suddenly glued to him.

While everyone is dazed by the ghostly magic flashbang, Fright Knight pops out of a portal, yoinks Red Robin across his saddle and jumps back through the portal before anyone can stop him. Cue the Bats trying to frantically figure out what in the multi-dimensional occult hell happened and where RR went?!

Meanwhile, Danny is disturbed to receive a ghostly missive in his college dorm to tell him that his Mail Order Bride has been delivered to his Ghost Zone Palace and is awaiting him so they can consummate their Unholy Matrimony.

----------------

Danny: Wtf I have to study I don't have time to get MARRIED

Fright Knight: I'm sorry my liege, but according to the laws of ghosts, gods and magic you already ARE

Danny: Wtf. How did this happen?

RR: I would like to know that too

Danny: Oh shit, you're a superhero. Frighty, you can't just kidnap people! Especially not SUPERHEROES!

RR: While that's good to hear, I would really like to know about this supposed marriage..?

FK: I am not aware of the exact details, I was merely summoned to retrieve the Bride of the Ghost King. There used to be standard magical contracts for this, which went into effect when the Bride bled on the King's Token...

RR: Shit

Danny: Hold on, PARIAH got married? Multiple times??

FK: ...but we can always consult the Royal Archivist, if we can dig him out from under the several thousand years worth of paperwork that piled up while there was no King actively ruling...

Danny: Oh ancients, am I gonna have to deal with that?? I have exams to prepare for, dude!

RR: ...the dead still have to do exams? And paperwork?? *horror*

-------------

Some time and explanations later...

Royal Archivist: It took some digging, but I believe I have found the contract in question. You are one Timothy Drake-Wayne, correct?

Tim: Fml

RA: Ahem. The contract was sealed with your mortal blood, as is standard procedure. Congratulations, you are officially King-Consort of the Infinite Realms! Until death do you part, and all that

Danny: Can I see that contract? ...This isn't in English

RA: Oh dear, looks like we will have to schedule your Royal Highness classes in reading cuneiform/hieroglyphics

Tim: Okay, does it say anywhere in that contract how to dissolve it? What's the procedure for a ghost divorce? Fright Knight mentioned the previous king being married multiple times

RA: Well usually, when Pariah tired of a consort he would simply devour their soul...

Danny: Ewwwww I am so not doing that

Tim: I concur. I can't imagine my soul would taste good anyway

Danny: That's what you took from that??

RA: ...but when you die and your soul passes into the Afterlife proper, the contract will be fulfilled. As long as you're not resurrected again.

Tim: Nuts, there goes that loophole

RA: Until then you are the Consort and duty-bound to fulfill his Royal Highness' every whim; ghostly, spiritual, carnal...

Danny: *sinks through the floor in embarrassment*

Tim: Can't he just... release me from the contract? Take the amulet off me or something?

RA: Not without obliterating your soul, no

Danny and Tim: Fuck

--------------

Some time later, while Danny is away consulting other ghosts on possible ways of dissolving the contract, they discover the nasty little clause that if Tim isn't in regular physical contact with Danny the amulet starts draining his life force. To prevent victims from escaping you see... Danny really really hates Pariah right now.

They eventually return to the mortal plane to explain to the Batfam what the hell is going on and that they're still trying to fix it. In the meantime, Danny can't miss any more classes (studying areospace engineering at MIT or sth) and Tim has to stick close to him because of the curse...

Alfred: Oh dear, looks like Master Timothy will have to go to college after all *unflappable British Smugness*

Bruce pulls a lot of strings to fast track Tim getting his high school diploma and let him attend classes with Danny (he's not officially enrolled yet, but Money, Dear Boy). They never know when Danny has to respond to a ghost emergency or Red Robin to a Bat emergency, so they stay pretty much joined at the hip in their civilian lives. Of course there's gonna be rumors. Why did the Wayne CEO suddenly drop everything to go to college? So they make up a story about Danny and Tim having been secret boyfriends for a while and Tim becoming so smitten that he moves with him to Boston...

Cue the fake dates, interviews with magazines, couple photoshoots to really sell the bit... and the two young men gradually becoming friends... and then "Feelings?? But what do I do?? He was forced into this?" etc.

#dcxdp #dpxdc #dp x dc #dc x dp #dc x dp crossover #dc x dp prompt #danny phantom #tim drake #red robin #danny fenton #ficlet #batman #batfam #accidental marriage #arranged marriage

[delphi-shield]

outfit control ↪ leon s. kennedy

DI!Leon / fem!reader age gap implied, power dynamics at play, soft dom leon mdni - 18+

First of all, this man is not doing a 24/7 dynamic. He doesn’t mind playing, and he doesn’t mind power dynamics outside the bedroom from time to time, but he is so goddamn tired. He cannot be responsible for your every action. He’s going to snap if he has to micromanage you. He requires a firm ‘scene start’ and ‘scene end’.

Look me in my eyes and tell me where Leon ‘You’re Pulling Me Off Furlough Again?’ Scott Kennedy has found the time to be an experienced dominant.

Dude spent years unable to form lasting relationships. He’s got experience, but he’s rarely had the chance to cultivate anything close to a dynamic with someone.

So, yeah, not exactly ‘World’s No. 1 Dom’. He’s doing his best out here, and his best is fumbling and awkward and endearing. 

Sex? No prob.

Communicating openly about his wants and desires? Hm. Perhaps a slight prob.

He wasn’t even sure he was going to like having all the control that you wanted to give him.

However.

If there’s one thing about Leon, it’s that he’s gonna study. He’s gonna learn the ins and outs, and he’s going to improve. Dude likes to learn. He goes down rabbit holes all the time. If you look through his bookmarks, half of it is just wikipedia articles he hasn’t finished reading yet. When you ask him to try this with you, it’s like you’re handing him homework. He takes this shit seriously.

He’s not gonna ask you about what you want, he’s going to go on a several hour long deep dive.

He’s holed up in his office in the late hours of the night, scouring the internet and leaving behind a very incriminating search history. You don’t even know how many burner accounts this guy has. Ever since you showed him the power of adding ‘reddit’ to the end of a google search, he’s been unstoppable.

(“Did you know that the origins of BDSM date back to Mesopotamia.” “Leon, it’s four in the morning. Please just come to bed.”)

He eased you into it, more for his sake than for yours. Straight up picking out your outfits was a little much for him, especially if you were actually planning on leaving the house that day. It’s not a humiliation thing for him, it’s more the thrill of control and seeing you all dressed up like he wants.

So he starts small. Picks out your jewelry, asks you to wear your hair a certain way, things that are somewhat innocuous in his mind.

Once he gets comfortable with that, he asks you to select a couple outfits for him to pick from. Send him a picture of you wearing the outfit he picked, he’s gonna be thinking about it all day long.

Sometimes he’ll pick out every piece of your outfit himself, but he still has you pick out options for him to choose pretty often. He knows your wardrobe pretty well by this point, and he puts together surprisingly competent outfits that you never would have paired yourself.

He’ll put together an outfit for you and sometimes there’s just? A new dress? New panties? You have never seen these before. He denies buying them for you, insists that you just have too many clothes to know what you have in your closet. He delights in spoiling you, and even more in surprising you with clothes like this.

This is absolutely not an everyday thing. (Again, see above – too busy. Would explode if he had to take full responsibility for your well-being.) He’s only just starting to take care of himself, don’t make him try to take care of you, too.

Gets legitimately pouty if you don’t wear what he picked out for you. God help you if you changed clothes without asking him.

Wanna see a grown man mope around? Wear a different shirt.

His idea of a punishment is a funishment. Good luck getting him to actually punish you. He’d much rather overstimulate you until you’re crying, your hand fisted tight in his hair, pleading for him.

Highkey wants you to pick his clothes out too. He’s not going to tell you this. You’ll have to read his mind.

You picked out his tie for him exactly one time and he’s been riding that high ever since. He would much rather try to trick you into picking things out for him.

(“Can you grab my tie for me?” “Sure, which one?” “...Oh, y’know.”)

It’s like pulling teeth to get this guy to tell you what he wants in this regard, I’m so serious.

Also he’d love to coordinate outfits, especially for special occasions. He’s not into matching, but he loves to have a theme, something that unifies the both of you. If it’s subtle and it signifies the two of you as together without screaming it to the world, then he absolutely adores it.

"Excuse me." Your step pauses. Leon's practically pouting from his seat on the couch, arms folded over his broad chest.  “What?” You ask, smothering a smile. “I don’t think that’s what I set out for you.”  He taps his thigh, waving for you to come over to him. You gravitate towards him and stop short. You know damn well that he wants you to sit on his lap. You give a little spin instead, showing off the outfit you had selected. His brow furrows, his forehead creasing at your brazen display. “You don’t like it?” You ask, innocently enough. Leon scoffs. His hand encircles your wrist, tugging you closer. “I didn’t say that,” he says, urging you to his lap. This time, you relent. “You look very nice. But that’s not what I set out for you, is it?” You shrug. Play dumb. He can’t prove shit. “Your memory must be going, old man.” Leon tuts, tugging at a lock of your hair. His hand splays over your thigh, warm and encompassing. To his credit, he keeps his eyes on yours, not on the enticing expanse of skin that’s been bared to him so readily. “Pretty sure the dress I picked out for you was longer than this. You trying to tell me something?” “I plead the fifth.” “I guess we’ll take it to a jury of your peers, then.”

#leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon kennedy imagine #leon kennedy headcanons #resident evil x reader #resident evil #leon kennedy #hi my name's delphi and i like kink negotiation more than actual kink sometimes

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #4 – War in Human Civilization by Azar Gat

This is my first big history book of the year, and one I’ve been rather looking forward to getting to for some time now. Its claimed subject matter – the whole scope of war and violent conflict across the history of humanity – is ambitious enough to be intriguing, and it was cited and recommended by Bret Devereaux, whose writing I’m generally a huge fan of. Of course, he recommended The Bright Ages too, and that was one of my worst reads of last year – apparently something I should have learned my lesson from. This is, bluntly, not a good book – the first half is bad but at least interesting, while the remainder is only really worth reading as a time capsule of early 2000s academic writing and hegemonic politics.

The book purports to be a survey of warfare from the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens through to the (then) present, drawing together studies from several different fields to draw new conclusions and a novel synthesis that none of the authors being drawn from had ever had the context to see – which in retrospect really should have been a big enough collection of dramatically waving red flags to make me put it down then and there. It starts with a lengthy consideration of conflict in humanity’s ‘evolutionary state of nature’ – the long myriads between the evolution of the modern species and the neolithic revolution – which he holds is the environment where the habits, drives and instincts of ‘human nature’ were set and have yet to significantly diverge from. He does this by comparing conflict in other social megafauna (mostly but not entirely primates), archaeology, and analogizing from the anthropological accounts we have of fairly isolated/’untainted’ hunter gatherers in the historical record.

From there, he goes on through the different stages of human development – he takes a bit of pain at one point to disavow believing in ‘stagism’ or modernization theory, but then he discusses things entirely in terms of ‘relative time’ and makes the idea that Haida in 17th century PNW North America are pretty much comparable to pre-agriculture inhabitants of Mesopotamia, so I’m not entirely sure what he’s actually trying to disavow – and how warfare evolved in each. His central thesis is that the fundamental causes of war are essentially the same as they were for hunter-gatherer bands on the savanna, only appearing to have changed because of how they have been warped and filtered by cultural and technological evolution. This is followed with a lengthy discussion of the 19th and 20th centuries that mostly boils down to trying to defend that contention and to argue that, contrary to what the world wars would have you believe, modernity is in fact significantly more peaceful than any epoch to precede it. The book then concludes with a discussion of terrorism and WMDs that mostly serves to remind you it was written right after 9/11.

So, lets start with the good. The book’s discussion of rates of violence in the random grab-bag of premodern societies used as case studies and the archaeological evidence gathered makes a very convincing case that murder and war are hardly specific ills of civilization, and that per capita feuds and raids in non-state societies were as- or more- deadly than interstate warfare averaged out over similar periods of time (though Gat gets clumsy and takes the point rather too far at times). The description of different systems of warfare that ten to reoccur across history in similar social and technological conditions is likewise very interesting and analytically useful, even if you’re skeptical of his causal explanations for why.

If you’re interested in academic inside baseball, a fairly large chunk of the book is also just shadowboxing against unnamed interlocutors and advancing bold positions like ‘engaging in warfare can absolutely be a rational choice that does you and yours significant good, for example Genghis Khan-’, an argument which there are apparently people on the other side of.

Of course all that value requires taking Gat at his word, which leads to the book’s largest and most overwhelming problem – he’s sloppy. Reading through the book, you notice all manner of little incidental facts he’s gotten wrong or oversimplified to the point where it’s basically the same thing – my favourites are listing early modern Poland as a coherent national state, and characterizing US interventions in early 20th century Central America as attempts to impose democracy. To a degree, this is probably inevitable in a book with such a massive subject matter, but the number I (a total amateur with an undergraduate education) noticed on a casual read - and more damningly the fact that every one of them made things easier or simpler for him to fit within his thesis - means that I really can’t be sure how much to trust anything he writes.

I mentioned above that I got this off a recommendation from Bret Devereaux’s blog. Specifically, I got it from his series on the ‘Fremen Mirage’ – his term for the enduring cultural trope about the military supremacy of hard, deprived and abusive societies. Which honestly makes it really funny that this entire book indulges in that very same trope continuously. There are whole chapters devoted to thesis that ‘primitive’ and ‘barbarian’ societies possess superior military ferocity and fighting spirit to more civilized and ‘domesticated’ ones, and how this is one of the great engines of history up to the turn of the modern age. It’s not even argued for, really, just taken as a given and then used to expand on his general theories.

Speaking of – it is absolutely core to the book’s thesis that war (and interpersonal violence generally) are driven by (fundamentally) either material or reproductive concerns. ‘Reproductive’ here meaning ‘allowing men to secure access to women’, with an accompanying chapter-length aside about how war is a (possibly the most) fundamentally male activity, and any female contributions to it across the span of history are so marginal as to not require explanation or analysis in his comprehensive survey. Women thus appear purely as objects – things to be fought over and fucked – with the closest to any individual or collective agency on their part shown is a consideration that maybe the sexual revolution made western society less violent because it gave young men a way to get laid besides marriage or rape.

Speaking of – as the book moves forward in time, it goes from being deeply flawed but interesting to just, total dreck (though this also might just me being a bit more familiar with what Gat’s talking about in these sections). Given the Orientalism that just about suffuses the book it’s not, exactly, surprising that Gat takes so much more care to characterize the Soviet Union as especially brutal and inhumane that he does Nazi Germany but it is, at least, interesting. And even the section of World War 2 is more worthwhile than the chapters on decolonization and democratic peace theory that follow it.

Fundamentally this is just a book better consumed secondhand, I think – there are some interesting points, but they do not come anywhere near justifying slogging through the whole thing.

#book review #history #war in human civilization #azar gat

[natalynsie]

random ducktales headcanons in whatever order I think of them

Louie likes math. He acts like he doesn’t because he thinks it’s dumb and nerdy, but he likes math.

In a human AU, Huey would wear cargo pants, track pants, or jeans on occasions. Dewey is a jeans every day type-of-guy, he doesn’t own any pants besides jeans. Louie always wears sweatpants or track pants.

Researching Scrooge really got Webby into American history. She loves learning about Scrooge when he was in America. Some of her favorite periods to learn about; The Gold Rush, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, primarily the early Gilded Age.

As Dewey gets older, he gets a passion for writing. His overactive imagination is a tool for this. He also uses inspiration from his childhood fantasies and incorporates them into his stories. For example, he makes references only he would get about Dewey High in his writing. He does primarily action/adventure and realistic fiction.

Louie gets easily embarrassed about his hobbies. He starts by doing them nonchalantly, but when he realizes people are noticing, he starts doing them in secret.

Huey does not get art, primarily poetry, plays, or anything written. It just goes right over his head. He hates English class and Shakespeare.

When Lena likes something, she draws it a lot. Whether it be her magic, people, friendship bracelets, or even just a little trinket she found, she’ll draw it. These drawings go into her most beloved sketchbooks. But she also has the Sketchbook of No Return, in which she draws things she hates as a way of getting her emotions out. Sometimes she even blacks out the page after drawing it.

Violet introduces Webby to Ancient Civilizations. They study early history together, from Mesopotamia to India to Greece.

Huey and Violet get competitive when they do Junior Woodchuck things, but they get along really well otherwise. They both have passions for science and nature.

Boyd and Huey are best friends, and hang out all the time. Despite being a robot, like all Gearloose’s inventions Boyd feels human emotions. Huey finds this extremely fascinating. Louie likes to tease Huey about being friends with a robot, but Louie doesn’t really have many friends himself so he can’t say much.

Gosalyn feels awkward at the huge sleepovers the Duck and Vanderquack family are always hosting. Her only friend at them is Dewey, while everyone else knows each other. Even Boyd knows Lena and Violet. Plus, Gosalyn doesn’t even know the rest of the Duck boys. But, eventually she warms up to everyone after being super competitive in games and sort of cold as a defense mechanism.

Lena and Violet dye their hair together sometimes.

Panchito and José eventually become known as Uncle Panchito and Uncle José.

Huey, being terrified of Dewey’s carelessness, finds Louie to be his Comfort Sibling™

Louie is kind-of into knitting???

Fethry, Gladstone, Donald, and Della always came to Scrooges for the Holidays. Every Holiday. Winter and Spring break too. They all got pretty close. Plus, adventuring was not Donald and Della exclusive.

Donald is the only one who can tell the triplets apart when they do their hair the same way and wear the same clothes.

One time Louie stole Webby's skirt because he wanted to know what it was like to wear one. He's also done this with Scrooge's clothes.

Dewey cannot cook for the life of him, but Huey is a master chef. Huey also makes the best soup-and-salad combos. Louie is in the middle ground, but for some reason finds baking much easier.

One time Della, Donald, Fethry and Gladstone played War together, but on teams. Donald and Gladstone wanted to see whose luck would outweigh the others, so they teamed up. The game was cut short because the table got knocked over and the cards fell through the floorboards. They looked for the cards but couldn’t find them.

May loves drawing and June loves reading, and they like to write books together. Daisy gives May fashion tips for her characters, and reads the books June recommends.

Webby likes to photobomb Dewey's selfies.

Gosalyn and Louie scam people together.

Webby and Lena have a playlist of both their favorite songs. They sing to all of them at their one-on-one sleepovers.

Lena and Violet both like heavy metal.

Gosalyn was extremely girly as a child.

Lena reminds Scrooge of Donald when he was younger.

Drake adopted Gosalyn (obviously).

Lena and Huey lowkey have beef.

Dewey was actually laid first.

One time Dewey accidentally called Storkules his Uncle Storkules. The man was never happier.

Panchito became a sky pirate once but Don Karnage booted him.

Boyd really likes listening to Huey talk about his passions, which is good since Huey goes on and on about them. Donald thinks it's so sweet that Huey has such a good friend. Boyd is Donald's favorite of all of the boys' friends.

Louie's khopesh is his favorite treasure ever.

Della was Donald's best man at his and Daisy's wedding. It didn't matter that she wasn't a man.

Launchpad and Drake nerd out together for at least three hours a week.

Drake cannot handle affection. He gets all awkward when someone tells him they love him or when someone hugs him.

When Louie isn't around, Boyd is the number two comfort buddy for Huey.

Violet and Boyd get along really well, and Huey gets jealous of Violet. But they primarily hang out in JW meetings so it isn't crazy.

#ducktales #ducktales 2017 #headcanons #ducktales headcanon #ducktales 2017 headcanon #Huey Duck #Dewey Duck #Louie Duck #Webby Vanderquack #donald duck #Della Duck #Scrooge McDuck #Lena Sabrewing #Lena De Spell #Violet Sabrewing #Boyd #B.O.Y.D. #Gosalyn #Ducktales Gosalyn #gosalyn mallard #gosalyn waddlemeyer #the three cabarellos #panchito x josé #Fethry #Cousin Fethry #Gladstone #Gladstone Gander #May Duck #June Duck #may and june duck

[gust-jar-simulator]

I like the idea of Vio adopting some Gerudo traditions as a way of mourning Shadow and coping with his loss.

I base a lot of my Gerudo culture headcanons on ancient Egypt, even though my specialty is Mesopotamia and “ancient Egypt” is about as vague as saying “yeah I have a mammal in my house”. The time frame we’re looking at- ancient Egypt is so vast that actual ancient Egyptians had their own archaeologists studying their own past. So. Read my uncited and sleep-deprived fandom post with that in mind, and maybe go look up Hathor’s significance as a goddess of both mining and makeup, or the origin of the dog star. People seem to think Egypt was all about death.

Still, I’m here for goth blorbo posting, so talk of death it is!

For my personal headcanons, and Hyrule Historia’s debatable take on Shadow being made from Ganondorf AND Link- I think he was both an attempt at mocking Link, but also possibly an attempt to create a Gerudo hero. It must sting that not only can Ganondorf never win, but even his people suffer the short end of the stick. I’ll leave Shadow’s creation and the motives behind it up in the air, but- I do like the idea of him being somewhat racially Gerudo, if not raised in it culturally. Shadow is alone, running on emotions and instincts that might be his and might be the old hate of an endlessly reincarnated demon. His brain keeps spitting up random facts about the divine ritual significance of the king, flooding season and how to respectfully summon ghosts, and he has no idea what to do with any of this.

Until, of course, one day he brings home a cute nerdy twink to the evil castle and Shadow wants this guy’s attention So Bad. Cue poorly planned and half-understood infodumping that still earns him Vio’s complete undivided attention and possibly even cuddles. We don’t know what they were doing while Blue and Red tried not to die. Maybe they painted eachother’s nails while Shadow awkwardly coughed up random facts about Gerudo noun modifiers. (It would work on me)

Let’s fast forward.

Shadow is, for all intents and purposes, very dead by the end of things. While I love the idea of Vio descending into the guts of occult research hell to bring him back, there’s time between the end of the adventure and when- or even if- his attempts work. Research is one coping mechanism. How else does he want to remember Shadow?

Shadow wanted to be a person, above all else. Real, someone to be looked in the eye and respected. Nobody else is going to mourn him- who else would have cared enough, known him enough? The other parts of Link might try to understand for Vio’s sake, but they didn’t live it. They didn’t drink with him and toss around awful villain greetings like “vile morning your wretchedness”. The only people who don’t get graves or rites or anything are��� well, being deliberately treated as less than people. And even if Shadow was a magic construct made of half a dozen things and the kitchen sink, enough of him was Gerudo for him to cling to it and say this, this is evidence that I’m a person too.

Something about the practice of religion that might not be immediately apparent to the average white American Protestant or culturally Christian atheist is that orthopraxy and orthodoxy are two different things. Correct action versus correct belief, essentially. In the ancient world, it often didn’t matter if you “believed” in a god, especially if you were in a high political position- the motions still had to be performed. It was taken as a matter of fact that the ghosts needed to be given bread and the rash on your neck was a sign of a god’s displeasure that could be interpreted via medical divination.

I’m vastly simplifying it because this is a fandom post and I’m running on two hours of sleep, so I’ll cut to the chase- it doesn’t matter if Vio “follows” the goddess of the sands or any other deity, or even none at all. If he thinks Shadow would have wanted beer and bread left out for his ghost, according to how any real person would be honored, I don’t think it’s out of the question that he might just do that. Plus, I think Vio would be invested enough in how Shadow would want his memory to be treated that he’d do the reading and maybe hop over to the Desert of Doubt to ask the Gerudo for proper funerary details in person. Again, it’s not like Shadow would have any other family or friends to fill the role.

Vio absolutely has a little sketch of Shadow in his room with a glass of water and a little plate next to it, and when Blue leaves a giant platter of stress-baked cookies outside his door he shares them with his dead boyfriend. I’m just saying. The guy may be dead but the love is not.

#the goth vio saga #vidow #pagan religion rambles in my Zelda? it’s more likely than you’d think

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Hello! I have a humble ask for you if you have a bit of time to indulge me. While I understand from your name that your interest is primarily in the late republic, I was wondering if you had any recommendations for me regarding a slightly later period:

I’ll be taking a class on the Roman Empire and its emperors (+Julius probably) next semester. I’ve got more of a background in Classical Greek history than Roman, so I’m a bit out of my depth. I did a brief survey of some of the early big names in high school (mostly I just remember J Seas, October August, Capri Pants Tibby, Little Booties, Neckbeard Zero, and Ostrich Boy, though I’m sure we covered others), but I was wondering if you had any recommendations for interesting figures in and around the imperial court at really any time during the centuries of Roman Empire to look out for and/or stan in the coming year. I tend to find that being able to latch on to interesting people with lots of personality or story about them makes it easier to study the surrounding events, so I’m hoping for some help from fellow tumblr nerds to get a head start on that. Thank you for reading (and perhaps replying)!

Welcome, dear reader! It sounds like you're in the market for a blorbo...or perhaps a punching bag!

You already know the Julio-Claudian Clusterfuck, so I'll skip them. (I recommend all of them though!) If you enjoyed their family drama, you'll find even more of it in the Severan dynasty. Starting with Rome's first African-born emperor, through his fratricidal sons, to Elagabalus - who might've been what we now call transgender, but it's hard to tell. These folks make the Julio-Claudians look stable.

Or maybe you'd prefer a more relatable guy like Marcus Aurelius. He's one of the few emperors whose inner personality we can really see, thanks to his diary surviving and getting renamed the Meditations. I think many people struggling with depression, anxiety or existential dread might find a lot in common with Marcus' writings. He was a good guy who tried his best, despite never wanting to be emperor and facing horrible luck. His predecessor Antoninus Pius was also a very cool dude, the kind who did good quietly and resolved issues with diplomacy instead of war. They're two of the few emperors I think were actually good people.

If military history's your thing, you can't go wrong with Trajan, Aurelian or Constantine. Trajan conquered Dacia and Mesopotamia, making the empire bigger than ever. Aurelian's superb leadership and character helped to end a 40-year civil war. People seem to either love Constantine or hate him. He was also the first Christian emperor, and played a huge role in shaping Christianity as an institution and orthodox set of beliefs. Whether that was good for Christianity is a question in itself...Constantine's family had tons of drama, too!

If you'd rather pray to Jupiter than Jesus, you'll probably like Julian, Rome's last pagan emperor and a Huge Fucking Nerd. He's a favorite of alternate history buffs for what paganism and Christianity might've turned into if he lived longer. Also, he wrote satirical fanfiction about other emperors for fun!

Vespasian, Titus and Hadrian are interesting if you're into Jewish history. Well, "interesting" in a bad way...You can blame the first two for the destruction of the Second Temple, and Hadrian for the atrocities of the Bar Kokhba revolt. I liked reading Flavius Josephus' account of the first Jewish revolt, which characterizes Vespasian, Titus and Herod (that Herod) quite vividly. It's a very bloody tragedy, and all the trigger warnings apply, but it really brings this time period to life. (Get an edition with a Jewish translator, if possible - older Christian-led translations tend to shove antisemitic junk in there.)

Titus was the emperor when Mt. Vesuvius erupted, so the ruins of Pompeii and Pliny the Elder's wacky Natural History date to Titus' time. Some people really connect with Hadrian's famous gay love affair with Antinous, and he was an incredibly well-traveled man who left monuments like Hadrian's Wall all over the empire...but his genocide in Judea overshadows everything else for me.

But hey, maybe you're fascinated by the awful ones. Or maybe you think some emperors have been misunderstood. There's been a lot of discussion in recent years over whether Tiberius, Nero, Domitian and Commodus were as bad as they're usually portrayed. I'm only really acquainted with Tiberius. In his case, I found not a monster, just a deeply troubled man who'd been put into the worst job possible against his will.

I don't know many imperial women, but I gotta give shout-outs to Livia, Julia the Elder, Agrippina the Elder and Younger, Empress Theodora (wife of Justinian), and Empress Irene (whom Charlemagne wanted to marry!).

Readers, feel free to chime in with your favorite emperors, empresses and court-adjacent Romans! The wilder the stories, the better!

#just roman asks #local-queer-classicist #roman emperors #suetonius is also a lot of fun for reading about the first twelve emperors #even if he's blatantly wrong sometimes. especially when he's wrong #A+ source of imperial gossip #genocide mention #jlrrt essays

[jeannereames]

Good evening, Dr. Reames I wanted to ask you something, a long time ago I read that during the XIX century there was a lot of discussion about the veracity of the figure of Alexander, like: Did he really exist or is he a legendary character? What do you think about it? Thank you very much, I love your work very much.

Did Alexander the Great Actually Exist?

Skepticism about historical figures was part of a larger development in the discipline of history: the critical evaluation of our sources.

“Historiography,” or the history of history. Instead of just taking sources at face value, historians began to interrogate them: who wrote it, when, and what was that person’s perspective?

These are just the most basic questions. As time progressed, historiography became ever more refined. I’ve discussed some of these refinements before in my longer posts here. For instance, the difficulty in untangling imperial Roman tropes/themes overlying anecdotes about Alexander. We work for awareness of layering, narrative context, big-picture themes….

Yet sometimes the pendulum swings too far, at least IMO. Scholarly trends can get out of hand. Shiny new toys (ideas) are fun, but must be woven into the larger scholarly conversation, not suck all the air out of the room. History has fads just like anything else—including undue skepticism. Some things I warn my own students about:

Smoke does not always equal fire. That is, don’t assume the negative report is true over a neutral or positive one; especially the latter can be denigrated as whitewashing. Fact is, people love dirt and lie about or exaggerate bad things just as much as they polish up events or a person’s image.

Things can be exaggerated rather than invented out of whole cloth. Without solid evidence to support pure invention, I’ll tend to assume exaggeration. Layers of “truth” exist. It gets tricky.

Back to historiographic development….

The Enlightenment led to the questioning of much received truth. That’s the era of Darwin, of historical Biblical criticism, Reason over Faith, the birth of archaeology, etc. As part of the critical evaluation of ancient sources, scholars began to doubt the existence of heroes such as Agamemnon, Achilles, Theseus, and events too, such as the Trojan War. In fact, all events in Greek myth/history before 776 BCE—the date of the first Olympics—were regarded as fictional. As archaeology took over Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Italy, Greece was fighting for freedom from Ottoman control, archaeology new there—bronze-age Greece yet uncovered.

In any case, as part of the new en vogue skepticism, some scholars questioned not only heroes and myths, but historical figures too, especially those further back in time. Did Solon exist? Cyrus? Croesus? Or even … Jesus? (Radical!)

Proposing Alexander as mythical falls into that same hyper-skeptical period. The fact all our biographies were written so long after he lived made it easier to hypothesize he was a myth!

Yet recall… archaeology was new, epigraphy (study of stone inscriptions) just starting. A lot of information we have now simply didn’t exist at that time.

Today, trying to argue that Alexander wasn’t real is ridiculous. We have coins minted in his reign, epigraphical evidence from his own day naming him, oodles and oodles of images, archaeological evidence from Macedonia itself, etc. There’s no question Alexander of Macedon existed, and he conquered a hella lot of his known world. The basic outlines of his campaign are documented in hard evidence.

We can, however, (and should!) question many of the stories and anecdotes about his campaign. Even the outlines of some battles. Two mutually-exclusive versions of the Battle of Granikos exist. Some famous events probably didn’t happen at all (the whole proskynesis affair). Others didn’t happen as they’re told. After all, we have competing stories in the original sources themselves—take the Gordion Knot episode. That’s where we apply our critical historiographic eye now.

But to return to our story of burgeoning historiography in the 19th and early 20th centuries….

In 1870, Heinrich Schliemann began to dig at Troy, which opened up the Greek bronze age and put a hard skid on the “it’s all fiction” trend. Now, that shithead Schliemann did boatloads of damage and has earned his rep as a lying little Colonialist weasel who’s roundly cursed by most modern archaeologists. But you gotta give him that small sliver: he reversed the trend that regarded Greek myth as entirely false.

Then the pendulum swung the other way. If the Trojan War had really happened, was myth just barnacle-encrusted history? That notion wasn’t so different from what the ancients had believed about their own myths, in fact.

Many historians sought to “purify” myth: find the truth behind it. The trend remained popular well into the 20th century in both academic history as well as historical fiction (see Mary Renault’s The King Must Die and Bull from the Sea). It also encouraged periodic “searches” for mythical places. The seemingly never-ending “Search for Atlantis” is the most obvious example. (Newsflash: Plato made that shit up. It’s a philosophical metaphor, y’all.)

Today, most professional historians regard Greek heroes as fictional. Instead, we trace how myths and heroes morphed over time and across cultures. So, Greek Herakles translated into Etruscan Hercle, then into Roman Hercules, plus Greek Herakles’s probable antecedent in ancient near eastern myths of Gilgamesh, Marduk, Sampson, Melquart, etc.

We’re also interested in how myths/legends embed reality at the edges to make them realistic to their hearers. It’s not barnacle-encrusted history but may still convey reality…much as fiction does today. If you watch a TV show about, say, hospital emergency rooms, most people don’t assume the characters are actual doctors or the events real except in broad brushstrokes. Yet we do rate such shows for how well they approximate ER experience. World build. That’s how modern historians and Classicists tend to approach myths today.

Myths are the stories a culture tells itself about itself.

What a culture valued, emulated, and how it wanted to think about itself can be found in myths.

These are the same things reception studies consider, btw. They’re less about what actually happened in history, than what people later wanted to believe happened. That’s as interesting a question (to my mind) as the truth of the event itself.

So perhaps all those fads in history tell us as much about the historians who purvey them as what they were uncovering. 😉

#historiography #Alexander the Great #classics #tagamemnon #asks #birth of archaeology #myth as history #purpose of myth #skepticism in historical thought #did Alexander the Great exist? #ancient Greece #Greek history

[katarina-writes-about-jesus]

On the topic of Speaking in tongues

When I had just found God I was in university in Scotland. I was on fire for God even though I really didn't know anything. I'm grateful God found me. I studied theology and met young people from all over the world and we formed a little community. We were from different denominations and from different backgrounds. Some of us came from very christian backgrounds, some of us were from less christian backgrounds. It was fun to discuss religion! And it was fun to pray with different people. Especially for me who had just found Christ.

...and that's when I found myself praying with a girl from Kazakhstan. She was very cool. Exmuslim, had found Christ and defied her parents. Very mentally strong. She had several bibles with passages highlighted and I could tell she was trying to teach me. It was nice. Until she took my hands, closed her eyes and started praying. It started normally with words in English. Then it switched over to nonsense words. She was from the pentecostal church. I found it very strange, I remember opening my eyes and just looking at her. After the praying was done, she told me that it was praying words you don't understand because it's a divine language. Me, who didnt know anything, thought she was right. So the following days I tried to pray like that. But my heart is too traditionally Lutheran to manage.

Now that I'm older and - God help me - wiser I no longer believe that talking in tongues the way that the pentecostal church does is a thing. Tongues means language, like English, Swedish, Arabic etc. If I can bring your attention to The Book of Acts chapter 2:

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?" 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Above it says that when The Holy Spirit entered them they started speaking in different tongues. At that time there were Jews from all over the world there and they understood what the apostles were saying. The human Jews understood what the early Christians were saying. If it had been words that no humans could understand it wouldn't have been so.

They even ask "Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?" Which again they would only ask if they could understand what was being said.

It's a huge miracle that the Galileans could suddenly speak languages of the world that they had never spoken before! And that's that in my head.

...thanks for reading!

#jesus #christian #bible #christianity #christian living #bible quote #lgbt christian #jesus christ #queer christian #god #pentecostal #speaking in tongues

[bending-sickle]

We Walk Into A Bar

so there's this post which talks about the earliest known example of a bar joke ("x walks into a bar and...") which no one knows or understands the punch line of, if it even has one, since it's a proverb.

it is followed up by selected screencaps of a (now deleted) thread wherein someone claims to have deciphered it all (with - also deleted - linguistic receipts) and figured out the pun.

with me so far?

okay let's go down a rabbit hole.

How We Found Out: https://www.tumblr.com/bending-sickle/723007901258711040

We Know Nothing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_joke

“[Assyriologist Dr. Seraina] Nett suggests that the punchline could be a pun that is incomprehensible to modern readers, or a reference to some figure who was well known at the time but similarly unfamiliar to us today. Gonzalo Rubio, another Assyriologist, cautions that this ambiguity ultimately means it is simply not possible to definitely categorize the proverb as a joke, though he and other scholars like Nett do point to the recurring use of innuendo in such proverbs as indicating that many were indeed intended to be humorous.”

We Know Nothing, Part 2: Podcast Boogaloo

“What makes the world’s first bar joke funny? No one knows.” Endless Thread podcast, August 5, 2022 https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2022/08/05/sumerian-joke-one

Hosts: Amory Siverston & Ben Brock Johnson

Guests:

Dr. Seriana Nett (Assyriologist and researcher at the Department of Linguistics and Philology at Uppsala University, Sweden)

Dr. Gonzalo Rubio (Assyriologist and Associate Professor of Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University, USA)

Dr. Philip Jones (Associate Curator and Keeper of Collections of the Babylonian section at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, a.k.a. the Penn Museum, USA).

Excerpts:

Amory: Seraina Nett works at Uppsala University in Sweden, where she studies ancient Mesopotamia, including a region called Sumer and its language Sumerian. She spends a lot of time translating Sumerian, looking for clues about early human development.

[…]

Ben: Seraina was one of several thousands of people who happened upon this joke in March on Reddit and initially on Twitter.

Amory: That’s where the account @DepthsOfWiki posted a screenshot from an unlinked, unnamed Wikipedia page. It reads like this: “One of the earliest examples of bar jokes is Sumerian, and it features a dog.”

[…]

Amory: The humor of the dog-in-a-bar joke was probably related to those Sumerian ways of life, perhaps the middle class or well-off, people with downtime and drinking shekels.

Ben: But while some experts know some things about Sumer, the nuances have been lost, and it’s the nuances that bring jokes to life.

[…]

Seraina: It could have been a pun that we don’t understand. It could have been a reference, I don’t know, to a local politician or some famous figure. So it’s very hard for us to tell.

[…]

Seraina: This proverb is in no way special. It’s part of a larger collection of many, many, many proverbs.

Amory: The bar joke — or proverb — is Number 5.77 in a collection of hundreds of other proverbs about dogs, donkeys, husbands. Some read like sayings. Others like weird short stories. But jokes? Depends on how you see things. Like this other proverb Gonzalo told us:

Gonzalo: It’s something like, “Behold! Watch out! Something that has never occurred since time immemorial; the young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

Ben: Sorry, I’m going to be really dumb for a second.

Amory: I am too because this is—

Ben: I’m not sure I get the joke. Is the joke that the woman would never admit that she farted in her husband’s lap? Or is the joke that the woman always farts in her husband’s lap? And that’s the joke, that we’re suggesting that it’s never happened before.

Gonzalo: I think the joke is precisely the latter. The joke is that it is expected to happen. To set up the joke by saying, “Watch out, this is something that has never happened, not once.” And then the sentence is, well, “The young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

[…]

Seraina: There’s quite a lot of innuendo — things like sexuality or, I don’t know, excrement. For example, one of my favorite ones is, “A bull with diarrhea leaves a long trail.”

[…]

Gonzalo: The word for tavern, “ec-dam,” for us, it conveys the idea of a pub or a bar. But really, in ancient Mesopotamia, a tavern is also a place where sex trade takes place. So it’s a tavern, but you could also translate it as a brothel.

[…]

Seraina: It could have been the dog walks into the bar with his eyes closed; “Let me open this,” as in the eyes. Or open, I don’t know, a door. There is also a word that sounds very similar to one of the words that is a word for female genitalia.

[…]

Ben: There’s another complication, though, because it still doesn’t make sense. Or, at least, we’re not laughing. Plus, the translations are too loose and feel kind of unreliable. We mentioned this to Seraina, who dropped one more tantalizing clue about the clay tablet — or tablets that hold our proverb.

Seraina: So this particular proverb is attested on two different versions of the text. And actually, they’re not identical. So, already, somebody screwed up. One of them is also a little bit broken, so it’s hard to tell.

Amory: This thing that everyone’s struggling to understand: No fricken wonder! Because there are two copies. They’re actually both broken, and they don’t match.

[…]

Ben: These two ancient tablets, he tells us, were etched around 1700 B.C.E. At first, this means nothing to us, really, but Phil explains. By that time, Sumer had actually been overtaken by the Babylonian empire. The culture was pretty similar, except that the Sumerian language had already died out.

Amory: Kids at the time spoke Babylonian, also called Akkadian. Only scribes continued to learn Sumerian. It was considered more dignified — kind of like learning Latin today. Knowing this, it seems now even more likely to us that there are mistakes in the text. For instance:

[…]

Ben: Ignoring the random non-Sumerian word, the dog enters the taverny brothel or brothely tavern. He can’t see a thing. He opens this one. Only, Phil says the word “open” is very similar to the word for “close.”

Phil: I mean, not in this case. I think it obviously means to—. Well? It obviously means to open in this case because they do spell—

Amory: Are you sure?

Ben: Yeah, you sound unsure.

Phil: I think I’m fairly sure because normally, if they mean “to close,” they’ve ended up using a different spelling than this one.

[…]

Amory: But he [Phil] adds that everyone’s missing some very important context about the dog.

Phil: The dog is a specific character type. It’s a guard dog whose job is to keep the wolves from the sheep. And in the proverbs, you know, it’s operating on the basis that it’s a personality type that is fairly brutal and not really to be messed with.

Ben: Interesting. That puts like a whole ‘nother layer on this thing because I feel like I wasn’t making any assumptions about the dog other than its general doggyness.

[…]

Phil: I think usually in proverbs, when they say “this,” it refers to something you’ve already heard in the proverb, not to something new. So I think the idea that he’s opening rooms and revealing, you know, couples in flagrante doesn’t quite go with how I would see the word “this” functioning. So I did wonder whether this is more the idea that letting the guard in negates his use because, basically, he wants to see out, he’s going to open the door, and so everybody else outside the tavern can now see in. I mean, I think that’s a legitimate way of looking at it.

Ben: Phil covers the old clay. We wistfully shuffle out. And, at this moment, we buy his theory. A brothel’s guard dog is sitting outside the door under the bright Sumerian sun. He’s scaring away unwelcome Peeping Toms. But then he leaves his post.

Amory: He goes inside, and his eyes aren’t used to the dark, so he can’t see anything. He opens the front door again, propping it to let in a little light. Now, outside, all those Toms are looking in, seeing their politicians and neighbors in flagrante, as Phil said. The guard dog messed up. Get it?

Reddit Redux: User serainan (Seraina Nett) To The Rescue

1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tbgetc/this_bar_joke_from_ancient_sumer_has_been_making/

"We usually translate the word esh-dam as 'tavern'. Yes, they are associated with prostitution, but it is not primarily a brothel. There is eating and drinking and sex. So, the joke could be sexual, but doesn't necessarily have to be.

The verb ngal2--taka4 in its basic meaning means 'to open' without any sexual connotation. However, there's a noun gal4-la that sounds similar and means 'vulva', so there could be some double-entendre there...

Essentially, the interpretation of the proverb depends on the demonstrative 'ne-en' 'this' and what it refers to – grammatically, I'd agree with you and say it seems to refer to the eye, but there's really no way of knowing for sure.

The problem with jokes is really that they are so culture-specific. Maybe this joke makes fun of a local politician or it is using a very crude word that is not otherwise attested in our sources (written texts, particularly in ancient cultures, of course only cover a limited part of the vocabulary).

Bottom line: We don't get the joke! ;) ”

The Unknown and Deleted: A Story in Four Sources

1 - https://twitter.com/lmrwanda/status/1505648702119202823?t=IHkQWeElTa0T63o3lbr12Q&s=19

2 - https://twitter.com/lmrwanda/status/1505646738627088389?t=06aHTTZkf1ZaJyCDhWUzTg&s=19

3 - https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/subversive-walex-kaschuta-1979505/episodes/lin-manuel-rwanda-the-twilight-158022618

4 - http://im1776.com/author/lin-manuel

There was one person on Twitter claiming the joke was, “A friendly dog walks into a bar. His eyes do not see anything. He should open them.” Or “He should crack one open.” (1) They add “It’s a ‘man walks into a bar and hurts his head’ tier dad joke, basically. The ‘pun’ in Sumerian is centered on the fact that the verb ‘to see’ also literally means ‘open (one’s) eye’.” This was at the end of a long word-by-word translation thread (which I can’t judge the quality of, and no other experts were chiming in) dated March 20, 2022 (2). I did not save the thread and Twitter is saying the page doesn’t exist anymore, so that’s a dead end now.

I hesitate to trust this source because I can’t find any of their qualifications (are they an assyriologist? A linguist? A candlestick maker?) and other experts in the field do not seem aware of this (if true) ground-breaking cracking of the highly-debated pun. (Dr. Seraina Nett’s gave an interview five months after this thread was made, and still called the actual pun a mystery.) I could only find out that their Twitter name is “Lin-Manuel Rwanda, @lmrwanda, Epistemic trespasser” and that, according to the podcast Subversive w/ Alex Kaschuta (December 14, 2022) (3), they are “a Twitter poster” with essays on the online magazine IM-1776, where they are credited as “Lin Manuel” (4). (Their introduction in the podcast also reveals they are a British national and resident, but the host is  very coy about revealing even that. Lin Manuel corrects them, adding that they are “half Rwandan”, which explains the Twitter name. I am not listening to the whole hour and a half to look for more clues.)

#hey kids wanna learn about an obscure joke #you can see why i can't put this in a fanfic footnote #and putting it in an appendix is just...insane #anyway this has been eating my brain for a while #randomness #and now you know #a dog walks into a bar #linguistics

[yamayuandadu]

The most important deity you've never heard of: the 3000 years long history of Nanaya

Being a major deity is not necessarily a guarantee of being remembered. Nanaya survived for longer than any other Mesopotamian deity, spread further away from her original home than any of her peers, and even briefly competed with both Buddha and Jesus for relevance. At the same time, even in scholarship she is often treated as unworthy of study. She has no popculture presence save for an atrocious, ill-informed SCP story which can’t get the most basic details right. Her claims to fame include starring in fairly explicit love poetry and appearing where nobody would expect her. Therefore, she is the ideal topic to discuss on this blog. This is actually the longest article I published here, the culmination of over two years of research. By now, the overwhelming majority of Nanaya-related articles on wikipedia are my work, and what you can find under the cut is essentially a synthesis of what I have learned while getting there. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed working on it. Under the cut, you will learn everything there is to know about Nanaya: her origin, character, connections with other Mesopotamian deities, her role in literature, her cult centers… Since her history does not end with cuneiform, naturally the later text corpora - Aramaic, Bactrian, Sogdian and even Chinese - are discussed too. The article concludes with a short explanation why I see the study of Nanaya as crucial.

Dubious origins and scribal wordplays: from na-na to Nanaya Long ago Samuel Noah Kramer said that “history begins in Sumer”. While the core sentiment was not wrong in many regards, in this case it might actually begin in Akkad, specifically in Gasur, close to modern Kirkuk. The oldest possible attestation of Nanaya are personal names from this city with the element na-na, dated roughly to the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad, so to around 2250 BCE. It’s not marked in the way names of deities in personal names would usually be, but this would not be an isolated case.

The evidence is ultimately mixed. On one hand, reduplicated names like Nana are not unusual in early Akkadian sources, and -ya can plausibly be explained as a hypocoristic suffix. On the other hand, there is not much evidence for Nanaya being worshiped specifically in the far northeast of Mesopotamia in other periods. Yet another issue is that there is seemingly no root nan- in Akkadian, at least in any attested words.

The main competing proposal is that Nanaya originally arose as a hypostasis of Inanna but eventually split off through metaphorical mitosis, like a few other goddesses did, for example Annunitum. This is not entirely implausible either, but ultimately direct evidence is lacking, and when Nanaya pops up for the first time in history she is clearly a distinct goddess.

There are a few other proposals regarding Nanaya’s origin, but they are considerably weaker. Elamite has the promising term nan, “day” or “morning”, but Nanaya is entirely absent from the Old Elamite sources you’d expect to find her in if Mesopotamians imported her from the east. Therefore, very few authors adhere to this view. The hypothesis that she was an Aramaic goddess in origin does not really work chronologically, since Aramaic is not attested in the third millennium BCE at all. The less said about attempts to connect her to anything “Proto-Indo-European”, the better.

Like many other names of deities, Nanaya’s was already a subject of etymological speculation in antiquity. A late annotated version of the Weidner god list, tablet BM 62741, preserves a scribe’s speculative attempt at deriving it from the basic meaning of the sign NA, “to call”, furnished with a feminine suffix, A. Needless to say, like other such examples of scribal speculation, some of which are closer to playful word play than linguistics, it is unlikely to reflect the actual origin of the name.

Early history: Shulgi-simti, Nanaya’s earliest recorded #1 fan

A typical Ur III administrative tablet listing offerings to various deities (wikimedia commons)

The first absolutely certain attestations of Nanaya, now firmly under her full name, have been identified in texts from the famous archive from Puzrish-Dagan, modern Drehem, dated to around 2100 BCE. Much can be written about this site, but here it will suffice to say that it was a center of the royal administration of the Third Dynasty of Ur ("Ur III") responsible for the distribution of sacrificial animals. Nanaya appears there in a rather unique context - she was one of the deities whose cults were patronized by queen Shulgi-simti, one of the wives of Shulgi, the successor of the dynasty’s founder Ur-Namma. We do not know much about Shulgi-simti as a person - she did not write any official inscriptions announcing her preferred foreign policy or letters to relatives or poetry or anything else that typically can be used to gain a glimpse into the personal lives of Mesopotamian royalty. We’re not really sure where she came from, though Eshnunna is often suggested as her hometown. We actually do not even know what her original name was, as it is assumed she only came to be known as Shulgi-simti after becoming a member of the royal family. Tonia Sharlach suggested that the absence of information about her personal life might indicate that she was a commoner, and that her marriage to Shulgi was not politically motivated The one sphere of Shulgi-simti’s life which we are incredibly familiar with are her religious ventures. She evidently had an eye for minor, foreign or otherwise unusual goddesses, such as Belet-Terraban or Nanaya. She apparently ran what Sharlach in her “biography” of her has characterized as a foundation. It was tasked with sponsoring various religious celebrations. Since Shulgi-simti seemingly had no estate to speak of, most of the relevant documents indicate she procured offerings from a variety of unexpected sources, including courtiers and other members of the royal family. The scale of her operations was tiny: while the more official religious organizations dealt with hundreds or thousands of sacrificial animals, up to fifty or even seventy thousand sheep and goats in the case of royal administration, the highest recorded number at her disposal seems to be eight oxen and fifty nine sheep. A further peculiarity of the “foundation” is that apparently there was a huge turnover rate among the officials tasked with maintaining it. It seems nobody really lasted there for much more than four years. There are two possible explanations: either Shulgi-simti was unusually difficult to work with, or the position was not considered particularly prestigious and was, at the absolute best, viewed as a stepping stone. While the Shulgi-simti texts are the earliest evidence for worship of Nanaya in the Ur III court, they are actually not isolated. When all the evidence from the reigns of Shulgi and his successors is summarized, it turns out that she quickly attained a prominent role, as she is among the twelve deities who received the most offerings. However, her worship was seemingly limited to Uruk (in her own sanctuary), Nippur (in the temple of Enlil, Ekur) and Ur. Granted, these were coincidentally three of the most important cities in the entire empire, so that’s a pretty solid early section of a divine resume. She chiefly appears in two types of ceremonies: these tied to the royal court, or these mostly performed by or for women. Notably, a festival involving lamentations (girrānum) was held in her honor in Uruk. To understand Nanaya’s presence in the two aforementioned contexts, and by extension her persistence in Mesopotamian religion in later periods, we need to first look into her character.

The character of Nanaya: eroticism, kingship, and disputed astral ventures

Corona Borealis (wikimedia commons)

Nanaya’s character is reasonably well defined in primary sources, but surprisingly she was almost entirely ignored in scholarship quite recently. The first study of her which holds up to scrutiny is probably Joan Goodnick Westenholz’s article Nanaya, Lady of Mystery from 1997. The core issue is the alleged interchangeability of goddesses. From the early days of Assyriology basically up to the 1980s, Nanaya was held to be basically fully interchangeable with Inanna. This obviously put her in a tough spot. Still, over the course of the past three decades the overwhelming majority of studies came to recognize Nanaya as a distinct goddess worthy of study in her own right. You will still stumble upon the occasional “Nanaya is basically Inanna”, but now this is a minority position. Tragically it’s not extinct yet, most recently I’ve seen it in a monograph published earlier this year. With these methodological and ideological issues out of the way, let’s actually look into Nanaya’s character, as promised by the title of this section. Her original role was that of a goddess of love. It is already attested for her at the dawn of her history, in the Ur III period. Her primary quality was described with a term rendered as ḫili in Sumerian and kuzbu in Akkadian. It can be variously translated as “charm”, “luxuriance”, “voluptuousness”, “sensuality” or “sexual attractiveness”. This characteristic was highlighted by her epithet bēlet kuzbi (“lady of kuzbu”) and by the name of her cella in the Eanna, Eḫilianna. The connection was so strong that this term appears basically in every single royal inscription praising her. She was also called bēlet râmi, “lady of love”. Nanaya’s role as a love goddess is often paired with describing her as a “joyful” or “charming” deity. It needs to be stressed that Nanaya was by no metric the goddess of some abstract, cosmic love or anything like that. Love incantations and prayers related to love are quite common, and give us a solid glimpse into this matter. Nanaya’s range of activity in them is defined pretty directly: she deals with relationships (and by extension also with matters like one-sided crushes or arguments between spouses), romance and with strictly sexual matters. For an example of a hymn highlighting her qualifications when it comes to the last category, see here. The text is explicit, obviously. We can go deeper, though. There is also an incantation whose incipit at first glance leaves little to imagination:

However, the translator, Giole Zisa, notes there is some debate over whether it’s actually about having sex with Nanaya or merely about invoking her (and other deities) while having sex with someone else. A distinct third possibility is that she’s not even properly invoked but that “oh, Nanaya” is simply an exclamation of excitement meant to fit the atmosphere, like a specialized version of the mainstay of modern erotica dialogue, “oh god”.

While this romantic and sexual aspect of Nanaya’s character is obviously impossible to overlook, this is not all there was to her. She was also associated with kingship, as already documented in the Ur III period. She was invoked during coronations and mourning of deceased kings. In the Old Babylonian period she was linked to investiture by rulers of newly independent Uruk. A topic which has stirred some controversy in scholarship is Nanaya’s supposed astral role. Modern authors who try to present Nanaya as a Venus deity fall back on rather faulty reasoning, namely asserting that if Nanaya was associated with Inanna and Inanna personified Venus, clearly Nanaya did too. Of course, being associated with Inanna does not guarantee the same traits. Shaushka was associated with her so closely her name was written with the logogram representing her counterpart quite often, and lacked astral aspects altogether. No primary sources which discuss Nanaya as a distinct, actively worshiped deity actually link her with Venus. If you stretch it you will find some tidbits like an entry in a dictionary prepared by the 10th century bishop Hasan bar Bahlul, who inexplicably asserted Nanaya was the Arabic name of the planet Venus. As you will see soon, there isn’t even a possibility that this reflected a relic of interpretatio graeca. The early Mandaean sources, many of which were written when at least remnants of ancient Mesopotamian religion were still extant, also do not link Nanaya with Venus. Despite at best ambivalent attitude towards Mesopotamian deities, they show remarkable attention to detail when it comes to listing their cult centers, and on top of that Mesopotamian astronomy had a considerable impact on Mandaeism, so there is no reason not to prioritize them, as far as I am concerned. As far as the ancient Mesopotamian sources themselves go, the only astral object with a direct connection to Nanaya was Corona Borealis (BAL.TÉŠ.A, “Dignity”), as attested in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN. Note that this is a work which assigns astral counterparts to virtually any deity possible, though, and there is no indication this was a major part of Nanaya’s character. Save for this single instance, she is entirely absent from astronomical texts. A further astral possibility is that Nanaya was associated with the moon. The earliest evidence is highly ambiguous: in the Ur III period festivals held in her honor might have been tied to phases of the moon, while in the Old Babylonian period a sanctuary dedicated to her located in Larsa was known under the ceremonial name Eitida, “house of the month”. A poem in which looking at her is compared to looking at the moon is also known. That’s not all, though. Starting with the Old Babylonian period, she could also be compared with the sun. Possibly such comparisons were meant to present her as an astral deity, without necessarily identifying her with a specific astral body. Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wasserman suggest that it might be optimal to simply refer to her as a “luminous” deity in this context. However, as you will see later it nonetheless does seem she eventually came to be firmly associated both with the sun and the moon. Last but not least, Nanaya occasionally displayed warlike traits. It’s hardly major in her case, and if you tried hard enough you could turn any deity into a war deity depending on your political goals, though. I’d also place the incantation which casts her as one of the deities responsible for keeping the demon Lamashtu at bay here.

Nanaya in art

The oldest known depiction of Nanaya (wikimedia commons)

While Nanaya’s roles are pretty well defined, there surprisingly isn’t much to say about her iconography in Mesopotamian art.The oldest certain surviving depiction of her is rather indistinct: she’s wearing a tall headdress and a flounced robe. It dates to the late Kassite period (so roughly to 1200 BCE), and shows her alongside king Meli-Shipak (or maybe Meli-Shihu, reading remains uncertain) and his daughter Hunnubat-Nanaya. Nanaya is apparently invoked to guarantee that the prebend granted to the princess will be under divine protection. This is not really some unique prerogative of hers, perhaps she was just the most appropriate choice because Hunnubat-Nanaya’s name obviously reflects devotion to her. The relief discussed above is actually the only depiction of Nanaya identified with certainty from before the Hellenistic period, surprisingly. We know that statues representing her existed, and it is hard to imagine that a popular, commonly worshiped deity was not depicted on objects like terracotta decorations and cylinder seals, but even if some of these were discovered, there’s no way to identify them with certainty. This is not unusual though, and ultimately there aren’t many Mesopotamian deities who can be identified in art without any ambiguity. 

Nanaya in literature

As I highlighted in the section dealing with Nanaya’s character, she is reasonably well attested in love poetry. However, this is not the only genre in which she played a role. A true testament to Nanaya’s prominence is a bilingual (Sumero-Akkadian) hymn composed in her honor in the first millennium BCE. It is written in the first person, and presents various other goddesses as her alternate identities. It is hardly unique, and similar compositions dedicated to Ishtar (Inanna), Gula, Ninurta and Marduk are also known. Each strophe describes a different deity and location, but ends with Nanaya reasserting her actual identity with the words “still I am Nanaya”. Among the claimed identities included are both major goddesses in their own right (Inanna plus closely associated Annunitum and Ishara, Gula, Bau, Ninlil), goddesses relevant due to their spousal roles first and foremost (Damkina, Shala, Mammitum etc) and some truly unexpected, picks, the notoriously elusive personified rainbow Manzat being the prime example. Most of them had very little in common with Nanaya, so this might be less an attempt at syncretism, and more an elevation of her position through comparisons to those of other goddesses. An additional possible literary curiosity is a poorly preserved myth which Wilfred G. Lambert referred to as “The murder of Anshar”. He argues that Nanaya is one of the two deities responsible for the eponymous act. I don't quite follow the logic, though: the goddess is actually named Ninamakalamma (“Lady mother of the land”), and her sole connection with Nanaya is that they occur in sequence in the unique god list from Sultantepe. Lambert saw this as a possible indication they are identical. There are no other attestations of this name, but ama kalamma does occur as an epithet of various goddesses, most notably Ninshubur. Given her juxtaposition with Nanaya in the Weidner god list - more on that later - wouldn’t it make more sense to assume it’s her? Due to obscurity of the text as far as I am aware nobody has questioned Lambert’s tentative proposal yet, though.

There isn’t much to say about the plot: Anshar, literally “whole heaven”, the father of Anu, presumably gets overthrown and might be subsequently killed. Something that needs to be stressed here to avoid misinterpretation: primordial deities such as Anshar were borderline irrelevant, and weren't really worshiped. They exist to fade away in myths and to be speculated about in elaborate lexical texts. There was no deposed cult of Anshar. Same goes for all the Tiamats and Enmesharras and so on.

Inanna and beyond: Nanaya and friends in Mesopotamian sources

Inanna on a cylinder seal from the second half of the third millennium BCE (wikimedia commons)

Of course, Nanaya’s single most important connection was that to Inanna, no matter if we are to accept the view that she was effectively a hypostasis gone rogue or not. The relationship between them could be represented in many different ways. Quite commonly she was understood as a courtier or protegee of Inanna. A hymn from the reign of Ishbi-Erra calls her the “ornament of Eanna” (Inanna’s main temple in Uruk) and states she was appointed by Inanna to her position. References to Inanna as Nanaya’s mother are also known, though they are rare, and might be metaphorical. To my best knowledge nothing changed since Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz’s monograph, in which she notes she only found three examples of texts preserving this tradition. I would personally abstain from trying to read too deep into it, given this scarcity. Other traditions regarding Nanaya’s parentage are better attested. In multiple cases, she “borrows” Inanna’s conventional genealogy, and as a result is addressed as a daughter of Sin (Nanna), the moon god. However, she was never addressed as Inanna’s sister: it seems that in cases where Sin and Nanaya are connected, she effectively “usurps” Inanna’s own status as his daughter (and as the sister of Shamash, while at it). Alternatively, she could be viewed as a daughter of Anu. Finally, there is a peculiar tradition which was the default in laments: in this case, Nanaya was described as a daughter of Urash. The name in this context does not refer to the wife of Anu, though. The deity meant is instead a small time farmer god from Dilbat. To my best knowledge no sources place Nanaya in the proximity of other members of Urash’s family, though some do specify she was his firstborn daughter. To my best knowledge Urash had at least two other children, Lagamal (“no mercy”, an underworld deity whose gender is a matter of debate) and Ipte-bitam (“he opened the house”, as you can probably guess a divine doorkeeper). Nanaya’s mother by extension would presumably be Urash’s wife Ninegal, the tutelary goddess of royal palaces. There is actually a ritual text listing these three together. In the Weidner god list Nanaya appears after Ninshubur. Sadly, I found no evidence for a direct association between these two. For what it’s worth, they did share a highly specific role, that of a deity responsible for ordering around lamma. This term referred to a class of minor deities who can be understood as analogous to “guardian angels” in contemporary Christianity, except places and even deities had their own lamma too, not just people. Lamma can also be understood at once as a class of distinct minor deities, as the given name of individual members of it, and as a title of major deities. In an inscription of Gudea the main members of the official pantheon are addressed as “lamma of all nations”, by far one of my favorite collective terms of deities in Mesopotamian literature. A second important aspect of the Weidner god list is placing Nanaya right in front of Bizilla. The two also appear side by side in some offering lists and in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN, where they are curiously listed as members of the court of Enlil. It seems that like Nanaya, she was a goddess of love, which is presumably reflected by her name. It has been variously translated as “pleasing”, “loving” or as a derivative of the verb “to strip”. An argument can be made that Bizilla was to Nanaya what Nanaya was to Inanna. However, she also had a few roles of her own. Most notably, she was regarded as the sukkal of Ninlil. She may or may not also have had some sort of connection to Nungal, the goddess of prisons, though it remains a matter of debate if it’s really her or yet another, accidentally similarly named, goddess.

An indistinct Hurro-Hittite depiction of Ishara from the Yazilikaya sanctuary (wikimedia commons)

In love incantations, Nanaya belonged to an informal group which also included Inanna, Ishara, Kanisurra and Gazbaba. I do not think Inanna’s presence needs to be explained. Ishara had an independent connection with Inanna and was a multi-purpose deity to put it very lightly; in the realm of love she was particularly strongly connected with weddings and wedding nights. Kanisurra and Gazbaba warrant a bit more discussion, because they are arguably Nanaya’s supporting cast first and foremost. Gazbaba is, at the core, seemingly simply the personification of kuzbu. Her name had pretty inconsistent orthography, and variants such as Kazba or Gazbaya can be found in primary sources too. The last of them pretty clearly reflects an attempt at making her name resemble Nanaya’s. Not much can be said about her individual character beyond the fact she was doubtlessly related to love and/or sex. She is described as the “grinning one” in an incantation which might be a sexual allusion too, seeing as such expressions are a mainstay of Akkadian erotic poetry. Kanisurra would probably win the award for the fakest sounding Mesopotamian goddess, if such a competition existed. Her name most likely originated as a designation of the gate of the underworld, ganzer. Her default epithet was “lady of the witches” (bēlet kaššāpāti). And on top of that, like Nanaya and Gazbaba she was associated with sex. She certainly sounds more like a contemporary edgy oc of the Enoby Dimentia Raven Way variety than a bronze age goddess - and yet, she is completely genuine. It is commonly argued Kanisurra and Gazbaba were regarded as Nanaya’s daughters, but there is actually no direct evidence for this. In the only text where their relation to Nanaya is clearly defined they are described as her hairdressers, rather than children. While in some cases the love goddesses appear in love incantations in company of each other almost as if they were some sort of disastrous polycule, occasionally Nanaya is accompanied in them by an anonymous spouse. Together they occur in parallel with Inanna and Dumuzi and Ishara and Almanu, apparently a (accidental?) deification of a term referring to someone without family obligations. There is only one Old Babylonian source which actually assigns a specific identity to Nanaya’s spouse, a hymn dedicated to king Abi-eshuh of Babylon. An otherwise largely unknown god Muati (I patched up his wiki article just for the sake of this blog post) plays this role here. The text presents a curious case of reversal of gender roles: Muati is asked to intercede with Nanaya on behalf of petitioners. Usually this was the role of the wife - the best known case is Aya, the wife of Shamash, who is implored to do just that by Ninsun in the standard edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s also attested for goddesses such as Laz, Shala, Ninegal or Ninmug… and in the case of Inanna, for Ninshubur.

A Neo-Assyrian statue of Nabu on display in the Iraq Museum (wikimedia commons)

Marten Stol seems to treat Muati and Nabu as virtually the same deity, and on this basis states that Nanaya was already associated with the latter in the Old Babylonian period, but this seems to be a minority position. Other authors pretty consistently assume that Muati was a distinct deity at some point “absorbed” by Nabu. The oldest example of pairing Nanaya with Nabu I am aware of is an inscription dated to the reign of Marduk-apla-iddina I, so roughly to the first half of the twelfth century BCE. The rise of this tradition in the first millennium BCE was less theological and more political. With Babylon once again emerging as a preeminent power, local theologies were supposed to be subordinated to the one followed in the dominant city. Which, at the time, was focused on Nabu, Marduk and Zarpanit. Worth noting that Nabu also had a spouse before, Tashmetum (“reconciliation”). In the long run she was more or less ousted by Nanaya from some locations, though she retained popularity in the north, in Assyria. She is not exactly the most thrilling deity to discuss. I will confess I do not find the developments tied to Nanaya and Nabu to be particularly interesting to cover, but in the long run they might have resulted in Nanaya acquiring probably the single most interesting “supporting cast member” she did not share with Inanna, so we’ll come back to this later. Save for Bizilla, Nanaya generally was not provided with “equivalents” in god lists. I am only aware of one exception, and it’s a very recent discovery. Last year the first ever Akkadian-Amorite bilingual lists were published. This is obviously a breakthrough discovery, as before Amorite was largely known just from personal names despite being a vernacular language over much of the region in the bronze age, but only one line is ultimately of note here. In a section of one of the lists dealing with deities, Nanaya’s Amorite counterpart is said to be Pidray. This goddess is otherwise almost exclusively known from Ugarit. This of course fits very well with the new evidence: recent research generally stresses that Ugarit was quintessentially an Amorite city (the ruling house even claimed descent from mythical Ditanu, who is best known from the grandiose fictional genealogies of Shamshi-Adad I and the First Dynasty of Babylon). Sadly, we do not know how the inhabitants of Ugarit viewed Nanaya. A trilingual version of the Weidner list, with the original version furnished with columns listing Ugaritic and Hurrian counterparts of each deity, was in circulation, but the available copies are too heavily damaged to restore it fully. And to make things worse, much of it seems to boil down to scribal wordplay and there is no guarantee all of the correspondences are motivated theologically. For instance, the minor Mesopotamian goddess Imzuanna is presented as the counterpart of Ugaritic weather god Baal because her name contains a sign used as a shortened logographic writing of the latter. An even funnier case is the awkward attempt at making it clear the Ugaritic sun deity Shapash, who was female, is not a lesbian… by making Aya male. Just astonishing, really.

The worship of Nanaya

A speculative reconstruction of Ur III Uruk with the Eanna temple visible in the center (Artefacts — Scientific Illustration & Archaeological Reconstruction; reproduced here for educational purposes only, as permitted)

Rather fittingly, as a deity associated with Inanna, Nanaya was worshiped chiefly in Uruk. She is also reasonably well attested in the inscriptions of the short-lived local dynasty which regained independence near the end of the period of domination of Larsa over Lower Mesopotamia. A priest named after her, a certain Iddin-Nanaya, for a time served as the administrator of her temple, the Enmeurur, “house which gathers all the me,” me being a difficult to translate term, something like “divine powers”. The acquisition of new me is a common topic in Mesopotamian literature, and in compositions focused on Inanna in particular, so it should not be surprising to anyone that her peculiar double seemingly had similar interests. In addition to Uruk, as well as Nippur and Ur, after the Ur III period Nanaya spread to multiple other cities, including Isin, Mari, Babylon and Kish. However, she is probably by far the best attested in Larsa, where she rose to the rank of one of the main deities, next to Utu, Inanna, Ishkur and Nergal. She had her own temple, the Eshahulla, “house of a happy heart”. In local tradition Inanna got to keep her role as an “universal” major goddess and her military prerogatives, but Nanaya overtook the role of a goddess of love almost fully. Inanna’s astral aspect was also locally downplayed, since Venus was instead represented in the local pantheon by closely associated, but firmly distinct, Ninsianna. This deity warrants some more discussion in the future just due to having a solid claim to being one of the first genderfluid literary figures in history, but due to space constraints this cannot be covered in detail here. A later inscription from the same city differentiates between Nanaya and Inanna by giving them different epithets: Nanaya is the “queen of Uruk and Eanna” (effectively usurping Nanaya’s role) while Inanna is the “queen of Nippur” (that’s actually a well documented hypostasis of her, not to be confused with the unrelated “lady of Nippur”). Uruk was temporarily abandoned in the late Old Babylonian period, but that did not end Nanaya’s career. Like Inanna, she came to be temporarily relocated to Kish. It has been suggested that a reference to her residence in “Kiššina” in a Hurro-Hittite literary text, the Tale of Appu, reflects her temporary stay there. The next centuries of Nanaya are difficult to reconstruct due to scarce evidence, but it is clear she continued to be worshiped in Uruk. By the Neo-Babylonian period she was recognized as a member of an informal pentad of the main deities of the city, next to Inanna, Urkayitu, Usur-amassu and Beltu-sa-Resh. Two of them warrant no further discussion: Urkayitu was most likely a personification of the city, and Beltu-sa-Resh despite her position is still a mystery to researchers. Usur-amassu, on the contrary, is herself a fascinating topic. First attestations of this deity, who was seemingly associated with law and justice (a pretty standard concern), come back to the Old Babylonian period. At this point, Usur-amassu was clearly male, which is reflected by the name. He appears in the god list An = Anum as a son of the weather deity couple par excellence, Adad (Ishkur) and Shala. However, by the early first millennium BCE Usur-amassu instead came to be regarded as female - without losing the connection to her parents. She did however gain a connection to Inanna, Nanaya and Kanisurra, which she lacked earlier. How come remains unknown. Most curiously her name was not modified to reflect her new gender, though she could be provided with a determinative indicating it. This recalls the case of Lagamal in the kingdom of Mari some 800 years earlier.

The end of the beginning: Nanaya under Achaemenids and Seleucids

Trilingual (Persian, Elamite and Akkadian) inscription of the first Achamenid ruler of Mesopotamia, Cyrus (wikimedia commons)

After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire Mesopotamia ended up under Achaemenid control, which in turn was replaced by the Seleucids. Nanaya flourished through both of these periods. In particular, she attained considerable popularity among Arameans. While they almost definitely first encountered her in Uruk, she quickly came to be venerated by them in many distant locations, like Palmyra, Hatra and Dura Europos in Syria. She even appears in a single Achaemenid Aramaic papyrus discovered in Elephantine in Egypt. It indicates that she was worshiped there by a community which originated in Rash, an area east to the Tigris. As a curiosity it’s worth mentioning the same source is one of the only attestations of Pidray from outside Ugarit. I do not think this has anything to do with the recently discovered connection between her and Nanaya… but you may never know. Under the Seleucids, Nanaya went through a particularly puzzling process of partial syncretism. Through interpretatio graeca she was identified with… Artemis. How did this work? The key to understanding this is the fact Seleucids actually had a somewhat limited interest in local deities. All that was necessary was to find relatively major members of the local pantheon who could roughly correspond to the tutelary deities of their dynasty: Zeus, Apollo and Artemis. Zeus found an obvious counterpart in Marduk (even though Marduk was hardly a weather god). Since Nabu was Marduk’s son, he got to be Apollo. And since Nanaya was the most major goddess connected to Nabu, she got to be Artemis. It really doesn’t go deeper than that. For what it’s worth, despite the clear difference in character this newfound association did impact Nanaya in at least one way: she started to be depicted with attributes borrowed from Artemis, namely a bow and a crescent. Or perhaps these attributes were already associated with her, but came to the forefront because of the new role. The Artemis-like image of Nanaya as an archer is attested on coins, especially in Susa, yet another city where she attained considerable popularity.

Leaving Mesopotamia: Nanaya and the death of cuneiform

A Parthian statue of Nanaya with a crescent diadem (Louvre; reproduced here for educational purposes only. Identification follows Andrea Sinclair's proposal)

The Seleucid dynasty was eventually replaced by the Parthians. This period is often considered a symbolic end of ancient Mesopotamian religion in the strict sense. Traditional religious institutions were already slowly collapsing in Achaemenid and Seleucid times as the new dynasties had limited interest in royal patronage. Additionally, cuneiform fell out of use, and by the end of the first half of the first millennium CE the art of reading and writing it was entirely lost. This process did not happen equally quickly everywhere, obviously, and some deities fared better than others in the transitional period before the rise of Christianity and Islam as the dominant religions across the region. Nanaya was definitely one of them, at least for a time. In Parthian art Nanaya might have developed a distinct iconography: it has been argued she was portrayed as a nude figure wearing only some jewelry (including what appears to be a navel piercing and a diadem with a crescent. The best known example is probably this standing figure, one of my all time favorite works of Mesopotamian art:

Parthian Nanaya (wikimedia commons; identification courtesy of the Louvre website and J. G. Westenholz)

For years Wikipedia had this statue mislabeled as “Astarte” which makes little sense considering it comes from a necropolis near Babylon. There was also a viral horny tweet which labeled it as “Asherah” a few months ago (I won’t link it but I will point out in addition to getting the name wrong op also severely underestimated the size). This is obviously even worse nonsense both on spatial and temporal grounds. Even if the biblical Asherah was ever an actual deity like Ugaritic Athirat and Mesopotamian Ashratum, it is highly dubious she would still be worshiped by the time this statue was made. It’s not even certain she ever was a deity, though. Cognate of a theonym is not automatically a theonym itself, and the Ugaritic texts and the Bible, even if they share some topoi, are separated by centuries and a considerable distance. This is not an Asherah post though, so if this is a topic which interests you I recommend downloading Steve A. Wiggins’ excellent monograph A Reassessment of Asherah: With Further Considerations of the Goddess.

The last evidence for the worship of Nanaya in Mesopotamia is a Mandaean spell from Nippur, dated to the fifth or sixth century CE. However, at this point Nanaya must have been a very faint memory around these parts, since the figure designated by this name is evidently male in this formula. That was not the end of her career, though. The system of beliefs she originated and thrived in was on its way out, but there were new frontiers to explore. A small disgression is in order here: be INCREDIBLY wary of claims about the survival of Mesopotamian tradition in Mesopotamia itself past the early middle ages. Most if not all of these come from the writing of Simo Parpola, who is a 19th century style hyperdiffusionist driven by personal religious beliefs based on gnostic christianity, which he believes was based on Neo-Assyrian state religion, which he misinterprets as monotheism, or rather proto-christianity specifically (I wish I was making this up). I personally do not think a person like that should be tolerated in serious academia, but for some incomprehensible reason that isn’t the case. 

New frontiers: Nanaya in Bactria

The key to Nanaya’s extraordinarily long survival wasn’t the dedication to her in Mesopotamia, surprisingly. It was instead her introduction to Bactria, a historical area in Central Asia roughly corresponding to parts of modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The early history of this area is still poorly known, though it is known that it was one of the “cradles of civilization” not unlike Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley or Mesoamerica. The so-called “Oxus civilization” or “Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex” flourished around 2500-1950 BCE (so roughly contemporarily with the Akkadian and Ur III empires in Mesopotamia). It left behind no written records, but their art and architecture are highly distinctive and reflect great social complexity. I sadly can’t spent much time discussing them here though, as they are completely irrelevant to the history of Nanaya (there is a theory that she was already introduced to the east when BMAC was extant but it is incredibly implausible), so I will limit myself to showing you my favorite related work of art, the “Bactrian princess”:

Photo courtesy of Louvre Abu Dhabi, reproduced here for educational purposes only.

By late antiquity, which is the period we are concerned with here, BMAC was long gone, and most of the inhabitants of Bactria spoke Bactrian, an extinct Iranian language. How exactly they were related to their BMAC forerunners is uncertain. Their religious beliefs can be compared to Zoroastrianism, or rather with its less formalized forerunners followed by most speakers of Iranian languages before the rise of Zoroaster. However, there were many local peculiarities. For example, the main deity was the personified river Oxus, not Ahura Mazda. Whether this was a relic of BMAC religion is impossible to tell.We do not know exactly when the eastward transfer of Nanaya to Bactria happened. The first clear evidence for her presence in central Asia comes from the late first century BCE, from the coins of local rulers, Sapadbizes and Agesiles. It is possible that her depictions on coinage of Mesopotamian and Persian rulers facilitated her spread. Of course, it’s also important to remember that the Aramaic script and language spread far to the east in the Achaemenid period already, and that many of the now extinct Central Asian scripts were derived from it (Bactrian was written with the Greek script, though). Doubtlessly many now lost Aramaic texts were transferred to the east. There’s an emerging view that for unclear reasons, under the Achaemenids Mesopotamian culture as a whole had unparalleled impact on Bactria. The key piece of evidence are Bactrian temples, which often resemble Mesopotamian ones. Therefore, perhaps we should be wondering not why Nanaya spread from Mesopotamia to Central Asia, but rather why there were no other deities who did, for the most part. That is sadly a question I cannot answer. Something about Nanaya simply made her uniquely appealing to many groups at once. While much about the early history of Nanaya in Central Asia is a mystery, it is evident that with time she ceased to be viewed as a foreign deity. For the inhabitants of Bactria she wasn’t any less “authentically Iranian” than the personified Oxus or their versions of the conventional yazatas like Sraosha. Frequently arguments are made that Nanaya’s widespread adoption and popularity could only be the result of identification between her and another deity.Anahita in particular is commonly held to be a candidate. However, as stressed by recent studies there’s actually no evidence for this. What is true is that Anahita is notably missing from the eastern Iranian sources, despite being prominent in the west from the reign of the Achaemenid emperor Artaxerxes II onward. However, it is clear that not all yazatas were equally popular in each area - pantheons will inevitably be localized in each culture. Furthermore, Anahita’s character has very little in common with Nanaya save for gender. Whether we are discussing her early not quite Zoroastrian form the Achaemenid public was familiar with or the contemporary yazata still relevant in modern Zoroastrianism, the connection to water is the most important feature of her. Nanaya didn’t have such a role in any culture. Recently some authors suggested a much more obvious explanation for Anahita’s absence from the eastern Iranian pantheon(s). As I said, eastern Iranian communities venerated the river Oxus as a deity (or as a yazata, if you will). He was the water god par excellence, and in Bactria also the king of the gods. It is therefore quite possible that Anahita, despite royal backing from the west, simply couldn’t compete with him. Their roles overlapped more than the roles of Anahita and Nanaya. I am repeating myself but the notion of interchangeability of goddesses really needs to be distrusted almost automatically, no matter how entrenched it wouldn’t be. While we’re at it, the notion of alleged interchangeability between Anahita and Ishtar is also highly dubious, but that’s a topic for another time.

Nana (Nanaya) on a coin of Kanishka (wikimedia commons)

Nanaya experienced a period of almost unparalleled prosperity with the rise of the Kushan dynasty in Bactria. The Kushans were one of the groups which following Chinese sources are referred to as Yuezhi. They probably did not speak any Iranian language originally, and their origin is a matter of debate. However, they came to rule over a kingdom which consisted largely of areas inhabited by speakers of various Iranian languages, chiefly Bactrian. Their pantheon, documented in royal inscriptions and on coinage, was an eerie combination of mainstays of Iranian beliefs like Sraosha and Mithra and some unique figures, like Oesho, who was seemingly the reflection of Hindu Shiva. Obviously, Nanaya was there too, typically under the shortened name Nana. The most famous Kushan ruler, emperor Kanishka, in his inscription from Rabatak states that kingship was bestowed upon him by “Nana and all the gods”. However, we do not know if the rank assigned to her indicates she was the head of the dynastic pantheon, the local pantheon in the surrounding area, or if she was just the favorite deity of Kanishka. Same goes for the rank of numerous other deities mentioned in the rest of the inscription. Her apparent popularity during Kanishka’s reign and beyond indicates her role should not be downplayed, though. The coins of Kanishka and other Bactrian art indicate that a new image of Nanaya developed in Central Asia. The Artemis-like portrayals typical for Hellenistic times continue to appear, but she also started to be depicted on the back of a lion. There is only one possible example of such an image from the west, a fragmentary relief from Susa, and it’s roughly contemporary with the depictions from Bactria. While it is not impossible Nanaya originally adopted the lion association from one of her Mesopotamian peers, it is not certain how exactly this specific type of depictions originally developed, and there is a case to be made that it owed more to the Hellenistic diffusion of iconography of deities such as Cybele and Dionysus, who were often depicted riding on the back of large felines. The lunar symbols are well attested in the Kushan art of Nanaya too. Most commonly, she’s depicted wearing a diadem with a crescent. However, in a single case the symbol is placed behind her back. This is an iconographic type which was mostly associated with Selene at first, but in the east it was adopted for Mah, the Iranian personification of the moon. I’d hazard a guess that’s where Nanaya borrowed it from - more on that later. The worship of Nanaya survived the fall of the Kushan dynasty, and might have continued in Bactria as late as in the eighth century. However, the evidence is relatively scarce, especially compared with yet another area where she was introduced in the meanwhile.

Nanaya in Sogdia: new home and new friends

A Sogdian depiction of Nanaya from Bunjikat (wikimedia commons)

Presumably from Bactria, Nanaya was eventually introduced to Sogdia, its northern neighbor. I think it’s safe to say this area effectively became her new home for the rest of her history. Like Bactrians, the Sogdians also spoke an eastern Iranian language, Sogdian. It has a direct modern descendant, Yaghnobi, spoken by a small minority in Tajikistan. The religions Sogdians adhered to is often described as a form of Zoroastrianism, especially in older sources, but it would appear that Ahura Mazda was not exactly the most popular deity. Their pantheon was seemingly actually headed by Nanaya. Or, at the very least, the version of it typical for Samarkand and Panijkant, since there’s a solid case to be made for local variety in the individual city-states which made up Sogdia. It seems that much like Mesopotamians and Greeks centuries before them, Sogdians associated specific deities with specific cities, and not every settlement necessarily venerated each deity equally (or at all). Nanaya's remarkable popularity is reflected by the fact the name Nanaivandak, "servant of Nanaya", is one of the most common Sogdian names in general. It is agreed that among the Sogdians Panjikant was regarded as Nanaya’s cult center. She was referred to as “lady” of this city. At one point, her temple located there was responsible for minting the local currency. By the eighth century, coins minted there were adorned with dedications to her - something unparalleled in Sogdian culture, as the rest of coinage was firmly secular. This might have been an attempt at reasserting Sogdian religious identity in the wake of the arrival of Islam in Central Asia. Sogdians adopted the Kushan iconography of Nanaya, though only the lion-mounted version. The connection between her and this animal was incredibly strong in Sogdian art, with no other deity being portrayed on a similar mount. There were also innovations - Nanaya came to be frequently portrayed with four arms. This reflects the spread of Buddhism through central Asia, which brought new artistic conventions from India. While the crescent symbol can still be found on her headwear, she was also portrayed holding representations of the moon and the sun in two of her hands. Sometimes the solar disc and lunar orb are decorated with faces, which has been argued to be evidence that Nanaya effectively took over the domains of Mah and Mithra, who would be the expected divine identities of these two astral bodies. She might have been understood as controlling the passage of night and day. It has also been pointed out that this new iconographic type is the natural end point of the evolution of her astral role. Curiously, while no such a function is attested for Nanaya in Bactria, in Sogdia she could be sometimes regarded as a warlike deity. This is presumably reflected in a painting showing her and an unidentified charioteer fighting demons.

The "Sogdian Deities" painting from Dunhuang, a possible depiction of Nanaya and her presumed spouse Tish (wikimedia commons)

Probably the most fascinating development regarding Nanaya in Sogdia was the development of an apparent connection between her and Tish. This deity was the Sogdian counterpart of one of the best known Zoroastrian yazatas, Tishtrya, the personification of Sirius. As described in the Tištar Yašt, the latter is a rainmaking figure and a warlike protector who keeps various nefarious forces, such as Apaosha, Duzyariya and the malign “worm stars” (comets), at bay. Presumably his Sogdian counterpart had a similar role. While this is not absolutely certain, it is generally agreed that Nanaya and Tish were regarded as a couple in central Asia (there’s a minority position she was instead linked with Oesho, though). Most likely the fact that in Achaemenid Persia Tishtrya was linked with Nabu (and by extension with scribal arts) has something to do with this. There is a twist to this, though. While both Nabu and the Avestan Tishtrya are consistently male, in Bactria and Sogdia the corresponding deity’s gender actually shows a degree of ambiguity. On a unique coin of Kanishka, Tish is already portrayed as a feminine figure distinctly similar to Greek Artemis - an iconographic type which normally would be recycled for Nanaya. There’s also a possibility that a feminine, or at least crossdressing, version of Tish is portrayed alongside Nanaya on a painting from Dunhuang conventionally referred to as “Sogdian Daēnās” or “Sogdian Deities”, but this remains uncertain. If this identification is correct, it indicates outright interchange of attributes between them and Nanaya was possible.

The final frontier: Nanaya and the Sogdian diaspora in China Sogdians also brought Nanaya with them to China, where many of them settled in the Six Dynasties and Tang periods. An obviously Sinicized version of her, accompanied by two attendants of unknown identity, is portrayed on a Sogdian funerary couch presently displayed in the Miho Museum.

Nanaya (top) on a relief from the Miho funerary couch (Miho Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

For the most part the evidence is limited to theophoric names, though. Due to unfamiliarity with Sogdian religious traditions and phonetic differences between the languages there was no consistent Chinese transcription of Nanaya’s name. I have no clue if Chinese contemporaries of the Sogdians were always aware of these elements in personal names referred to a deity. There is a fringe theory that Nanaya was referred to as Nantaihou (那那女主, “queen Nana”) in Chinese. However, the evidence is apparently not compelling, and as I understand the theory depends in no small part on the assertion that a hitherto unattested alternate reading of one of the signs was in use on the western frontiers of China in the early first millennium CE. The alleged Nantaihou is therefore most likely a misreading of a reference to a deceased unnamed empress dowager venerated through conventional ancestor worship, as opposed to Nanaya. Among members of the Sogdian diaspora, in terms of popularity Nanaya was going head to head with Jesus and Buddha. The presence of the latter two reflected the adoption of, respectively, Manichaeism and Buddhism. Manicheans seemingly were not fond of Nanaya, though, and fragments of a polemic against her cult have been identified. It seems ceremonies focused on lamentations were the main issue for the Manichaeans. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any worthwhile study of possible Mesopotamian influence on that - the only one I found is old and confuses Nanaya with Inanna. We do not have much of an idea how Buddhists viewed Nanaya, though it is worth noting a number of other Sogdian deities were incorporated into the local form of Mahayana (unexpectedly, one of them was Zurvan). It has also been argued that a Buddhist figure, Vreshman (Vaisravana) was incorporated into Nanaya’s entourage. Nanaya might additionally be depicted in a painting showing Buddha’s triumph over Mara from Dunhuang. Presumably her inclusion would reflect the well attested motif of local deities converting to Buddhism. It was a part of the Buddhist repertoire from the early days of this religion and can be found in virtually every area where this religion ever spread. Nanaya is once again in elevated company here, since other figures near her have been tentatively interpreted as Shiva, Vishnu, Kartikeya and… Zoroaster.

Buddha conquering Mara (maravijaya) on a painting from Dunhuang (wikimedia commons)

zoom in on a possible depiction of Nanaya next to a demon suspiciously similar to Tove Jansson’s Fillyjonk

To my best knowledge, the last absolutely certain attestation of Nanaya as an actively worshiped deity also comes from the western frontier of China. A painting from Dandan Oilik belonging to the artistic tradition of the kingdom of Khotan shows three deities from the Sogdian pantheon: the enigmatic Āδβāγ (“highest god”; interpreted as either Indra, Ahura Mazda or a combination of them both) on the left, Weshparkar (a later version of Kushan Oesho) on the right and Nanaya in the center. It dates to the ninth or tenth century.

Nanaya (center) on the Dandan Oilik painting (wikimedia commons)

We will probably never know what Nanaya’s last days were like, though it is hard to imagine she retained much relevance with the gradual disappearance of Sogdian culture both in Sogdia and in China in the wake of, respectively, the rise of Islam in Central Asia and the An Lushan rebellion respectively. Her history ultimately most likely ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Conclusions and reflections Obviously, not everything about Nanaya could be covered in this article - there is enough material to warrant not one, but two wiki articles (and I don't even think they are extensive enough yet). I hope I did nonetheless manage to convey what matters: she was the single most enduring Mesopotamian deity who continued to be actually worshiped. She somehow outlived Enlil, Marduk, Nergal and even Inanna, and spread further than any of them ever did. It does not seem like her persistence was caused by some uniquely transcendent quality, and more to a mix of factors we will never really fully understand and pure luck. She is a far cry from the imaginary everlasting universal goddesses such longevity was attributed to by many highly questionable authors in the past, from Frazer to Gimbutas. Quite the opposite, once you look into the texts focused on her she comes across as sort of pathetic. After all, most of them are effectively ancient purple prose. And yet, this is precisely why I think Nanaya matters. To see how an author approaches her is basically a litmus test of trustworthiness - I wish I was kidding but this “Nanaya method” works every time. To even be able to study her history, let alone understand it properly, one has to cast away most of the dreadful trends which often hindered scholarship of ancient deities, and goddesses in particular, in the past. The interchangeability of goddesses; the Victorian mores and resulting notion that eroticism must be tied to fertility; the weird paradigms about languages neatly corresponding to religions; and many others. And if nothing else, this warrants keeping the memory of her 3000 years long history alive through scholarship (and, perhaps, some media appearances). Bibliography

Julia M. Asher-Greve & Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources (2013)

Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period (2003)

idem, Nabû and Apollo: The Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy in: Orient und Okzident in Hellenistischer Zeit (2014)

Matteo Compareti, Nana and Tish in Sogdiana (2017)

idem, The So-Called "Pelliot Chinois 4518.24". Illustrated Document from Dunhuang and Sino-Sogdian Iconographical Contacts (2021)

Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz, Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja (2008)

Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: an Anthology of Akkadian Literature (2005)

Andrew R. George & Manfred Krebernik, Two Remarkable Vocabularies: Amorite-Akkadian Bilinguals! (2022)

Valerie Hansen, Kageyama Etsuko & Yutaka Yoshida, The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500-800 in: Les sogdiens en Chine (2005)

Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (2013)

Enrico Marcato, An Aramaic Incantation Bowl and the Fall of Hatra (2020)

Christa Müller-Kessler & Karlheinz Kessler, Spätbabylonische Gottheiten in spätantiken mandäischen Texten (1999)

Lilla Russel-Smith, Uygur Patronage in Dunhuang. Regional Art Centres on the Northern Silk Road in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (2005)

idem, The 'Sogdian Deities' Twenty Years on: A Reconsideration of a Small Painting from Dunhuang in: Buddhism in Central Asia II. Practices and Rituals, Visual and Material Transfer (2022)

Tonia M. Sharlach, An Ox of One's Own. Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2017)

Michael Shenkar, Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World (2014)

idem, The Religion and the Pantheon of the Sogdians (5th-8th Centuries CE) in Light of their Sociopolitical Structures (2017)

idem, The So-Called "Fravašis" and the "Heaven and Hell" Paintings, and the Cult of Nana in Panjikent (2022)

Marten Stol, Nanaja in: Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 9 (1998)

Michael P. Streck & Nathan Wasserman, More Light on Nanāya (2013)

Aaron Tugendhaft, Gods on Clay: Ancient Near Eastern Scholarly Practices and the History of Religions in: Canonical Texts and Scholarly Practices. A Global Comparative Approach (2016)

Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Nanaya, Lady of Mystery in: Sumerian Gods and Their Representations (1997)

idem, Trading the Symbols of the Goddess Nanaya in: Religions and Trade. Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West (2014)

Xinjiang Rong, The Colophon of the Manuscript of the Golden Light Sutra Excavated in Turfan and the Transmission of Zoroastrianism to Gaochang in: The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges between East and West (2022)

Gioele Zisa, The Loss of Male Sexual Desire in Ancient Mesopotamia. ›Nīš Libbi‹ Therapies (2021)

#mesopotamian mythology #sumerian mythology #mythology #bactrian mythology #sogdian mythology #sogdia #nanaya

[ifdragonscouldtalk]

fun facts about ancient medicine because i can:

we know more about ancient mesopotamian medicine than practically any other aspect of their culture and medical assyriology is a field of study nearly completely independent from assyriology itself. we have a WEALTH of texts, REPEATING TEXTS that in detail describe their healing rituals, incantations, and prescriptions. we could perform one of their rituals ourselves if we wanted. we could diagnose an illness based on the symptoms using their texts if we wanted and give it a sumerian name.

also, while there was an incredible amount of shifting in mesopotamian religion (it was three CENTURIES of empires and culture, after all) there are more healing goddesses than any other god/goddess i've encountered in my studies and she is the patron god of huge swaths of land and many major cities. she was important yall

the longevity of healing rituals (five centuries, give or take, if we aren't including medieval medicine which had its own entirely separate rituals) now has modern scientific basis which is so cool because religion has been proven to activate the same mechanisms in the brain as the placebo affect. religious ritual and belief has the ability to substantially influence the body, particularly the immune system

ancient romans commonly performed cataract surgery. we know because we found the tools to perform cataract surgery a lot of times and we still performed cataract surgery like that with those tools for a loooong time. we have more physical evidence of cataract surgeons than practically every other medical practitioner, aside from gynecologists and templar healers

yeah, ancient greece and rome had gynecologists. they had whole TEXTS about gynecology too. they were sexist as fuck, but sooooo interesting

we have EIGHT BOOKS of medical encyclopedias written for the roman layperson so that the father head of the household (paterfamilias) could understand slightly how to heal his investments (children and slaves)

there is evidence of plastic surgery in rome. one of the emperors i think, i dont remember specifically but yeah they had that

we have great evidence of people making medicines (and poisons) through herbals!! not as weird as the medievals using mummies in medicine, but they did utilize shit (yes you read that right) and in rome human breast milk (the greeks thought that was Gross)

on that note, human breast milk is actually incredible for boosting the immune system and kicking out infection! it was often used for malnourishment (adults and children alike) and treating eye infections (which it is still effective for, but don't try it, please just get some penicillin)

honey is one of the most effective antibacterials we know of to this day, and also helps expedite the healing of wounds. it was first commonly used in ancient egypt. the only reason we don't use it regularly anymore is because of the myth of the scientific method. they are bringing honey back for burns because it is HANDS DOWN the most effective method of treating them. so next time you touch a hot stove, slather some honey on that bitch (after you verify it isnt second or third degree. please please go to the hospital if it is a severe or large burn, it is very dangerous)

because of celsus, we know that ancient humans did in fact treat broken bones through setting

ancient greeks knew that you needed to vary your diet and have proper exercise if you wanted to try and prevent serious illness

we have hollow needles like syringes found in ancient greece and rome. i dont know what they were used for

blood letting also originated in the ancient mediterranean, not medieval europe.

we have more anatomical and healing votives from ancient greece and rome than any other religious artefacts (we have literally THOUSANDS and are constantly uncovering more)

we also have a lot of healing votives from ancient mesopotamia, but they arent anatomical. theyre dogs uwu the healing goddess' patron animal is the dog

#shut up talon #classics #classicist #ancient medicine

[nayialovecat]

Ok, it's time to confess what I've been doing artistically lately (and that's why I don't draw anything). I'm writing a novel with the working title "Empire of the Sun and Moon". The plot roughly: an alternative timeline in which Europeans didn't reach the American continent. The young king of the Sun Empire located in the rainforest (modeled on the cultures of the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas with small elements of ancient Rome and Mesopotamia) is kidnapped by a shaman of one of the Moon Tribes (modeled on the cultures of Native American of North America from the tropical warm zones to the Inuit) living in the far north (the climate of the Great Plains, but covered more with tundra). During their journey together, feelings and bonds appear between them, and with them many problems, such as cultural and ritual differences - the most serious of which is that one worships the moon and the other the sun.

Here are some character sketches. They didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but their most important features were captured: the slimness and height of King Tatucan (but he should be taller here), emphasized in the novel, and the muscles and "stubby" of Hochuma. They also have clothes similar to those described, hairstyles, and facial features that are even accurate…

I really love these two "idiots in love" <3

I would describe the genre of the novel as "drama romance with erotic elements." Apart from the feelings between the two characters (yes, there are sex scenes too), a large part of the story is presenting the legends, customs and rituals of both cultures, their confrontation, but also their mutual politics… (for example, Hochuma's observation of the ritual cutting out of the heart - when in his culture it's forbidden to kill unnecessarily and in such a cruel way, or the engagement and wedding rites of the Moon Tribe through the eyes of King Tatucan - when in his culture is something like a matchmaker and priest is needed to a marriage). I don't treat it as a historical novel - although I draw heavily from history and scientific studies on these cultures, I invent many customs and things myself only based on original ones.

#King Tatucan #Shaman Hochuma #original characters #my novel

[rabbitcruiser]

Medjoola Date Day

Medjool Date Day takes place on February 4 yearly and serves the purpose of highlighting the benefits of the Medjool dates. Originally a Middle-Eastern fruit, Medjool dates made their way to the U.S in the 18th century, and since then, they have reigned in the hearts of the people. With a hint of caramel flavor, the dates are sweet, delicious, and one of the healthiest snacks on the market nowadays. They are also great for energy and can do wonders for people who are trying to cut down on the consumption of artificial sugar.

History of Medjoola Date Day

Medjool dates, like many other delicious fruits, have existed in this world for centuries. Though dates can be traced back to around 5000 to 6000 B.C., it took some time to reach different parts of the world. This was only possible with the technological evolution in transport, as the fruit was transported to different regions of the world. The Medjool dates, originally from Morocco, were brought to Nevada in 1927. From there, the plantation grew in abundance. Today, it is one of two date varieties grown in the U.S. And yes – people are really fond of this fruit.

Medjool dates were introduced into America by Walter Swingle in the 20th century. Swingle was assigned by the U.S government to identify some exotic crops around the globe, and after the researcher discovered dates, he transported them to America. During that time, however, not many were familiar with dates. This was, after all, a fruit they hadn’t heard of before. But as globalization happened and different cultures were brought to the forefront, people came to recognize dates for the delicious fruit they are. One of the main events that added to the popularity of dates in America was the annual date festival that started in 1921.

Today, dates are eaten by people of all ages, for their delicious taste as well as the numerous health benefits linked to them. A 2021 study reveals that Medjool dates are a good source of phenolic compounds.

Medjoola Date Day timeline

7000 B.C. The Fruit Delight

The Mehrgarh civilization cultivates dates in the Asian region.

3000 B.C. Reap What You Sow

Dates are grown in Mesopotamia.

2600 - 1900 B.C. Sweet Valley

The Indus Valley Civilization grows and consumes dates.

2019 Going Strong

Nine million tonnes of date fruit are produced.

Medjoola Date Day FAQs

What is the difference between Medjool dates and regular dates?

Medjool dates are more caramel-like in taste than regular dates (also called Deglet Noor).

Do dates make you fat?

Consuming a large number of dates can lead to weight gain.

Are Medjool dates healthier than other dates?

They may be healthier since Medjool dates contain more calcium.

Medjoola Date Day Activities

Buy some Medjool Dates

Share their benefits

Cook a dish

Honor the day by heading out to the store and buying some Medjool dates for yourself and your family. Don’t forget to serve them at the dinner table!

Since Medjool dates are good for health, it's only fair you share their benefits with other people too. Find some good articles and start posting on social media now!

Start the day well by cooking up some yummy date dishes in your kitchen. Some items you can attempt include date biscuits, puddings, and cakes.

5 Fun Facts About Dates

Dates are grown in California

Nickname of Medjool dates

Amount of fiber in dates

A perennial plant

Edibles made from dates

95% of the dates in the United States are grown in California.

It’s known as the ‘king of dates.’

It has 12% of the fiber amount our body needs daily.

The date palm takes four to five years to grow.

This includes syrup, alcohol, and vinegar.

Why We Love Medjoola Date Day

The fruit is highly nutritious

Its potential health benefits

It can be a substitute for sugar

Offering a significant amount of fiber and a variety of vitamins and minerals, Medjool dates are a rich source of healthful nutrients. It also contains more calcium than other common date varieties.

Protection from disease, indigestion, and cell damage are a few of the many health benefits of Medjool dates. And compared to figs and prunes, it has the highest antioxidant content.

Medjool dates are a rich source of natural sugar. The stone fruits are especially good for people monitoring their blood sugar because they have a low glycemic index and do not cause large increases in blood sugar.

Source

#Mamluk Castle #Aqaba Fort #palm tree #date palm #Oropesa del Mar #Aqaba #Jordan #Miami Beach #Florida #Peñíscola #Spain #flora #nature #original photography #Carboneras #Almeria #Sevilla #Lisabon #Lisbon #Portugal #Viveiro #España #Southern Europe #summer 2021 #2007 #2016 #Medjoola Date Day #MedjoolaDateDay #5 February #ruins

[maratsbathtub]

8 14 18 for history asks?

Ok, so, don’t mind me, I’m just gonna reply to these questions not in order! Because I say so.

14. Why you are interested in history ( a silly question, eh?) ?

Alright, so. Jesker Lore™ time. My mom’s a historian, specifically, she studied mostly Ancient Mesopotamia (the Acadians are sus chicos. She’s obsessed with them, and a few other details I’m not going to mention because I low key fear accidentally translating a term wrong or misremembering something and her spirit coming over to hit me with a rolled up newspaper.). So I grew up with her telling me stories and helping me with my history homework. I don’t really remember history classes, except for the last few years of my life, in my head it’s always mom explaining me why things happened the way they did. When one day I started rambling about frenchmen and guillotines, she instantly started forwarding me articles and eventually started getting me books from her second hand bookstore (which is one of the reasons why I have… let me count… 36 books? On Frev? More or less.) So we can blame her for why I’m like this about Marat and Simonne Evrard.

And my interest of Spanish history is born more on my need to understand why my family ended the way it did and a bunch of other unrelated stuff that are way too personal.

8. What is the last thing you have read/ listened/ spoke with historical reference?

If Tumblr doesn’t count (which I don’t count it as), I have been reading on art history lately, because of my delusions of making it into art school next year. The book I was reading was an inherited one, and I planed to only read that one and then delve into what interested me most. But then I saw that the Mesopotamian art was only granted a page and a bit of content, and I just. Nope. That is insulting both to my mother and the Mesopotamians. So I asked mom for some extra material and now I’m reading about the topic! I’m a very slow reader though.

18. Look at the clock and assume the numbers are forming historical year ( 17;58 would be 1758) What was / is / will be the world that year? Any event happened then or will happen?

As of writing this, it’s 16:06. … Well I have no idea what the fuck was going on France then, it’s too early for my area of interest. As of Mesopotamia, it’s kinda, eh, no longer around? Spain, well, we have Felipe Tercero. We had a few Felipes in a row, so forgive me for having to check what the fuck this one did. I think the only thing he did in 1606 was change the placement of the court. And I don’t know if he expelled the moriscos before or after that. The Duque de Lerma was there fucking shit up as his valido. So yeah, not a lot of interesting stuff? We get a war just a bit later, but that isn’t interesting either, just depressing. At least it’s not Fernando Séptimo. Fuck that guy, god I hate him so muchhhhh.

#Is this rambly? Yes #but no one else asked me anything so #I deserve to ramble #as a treat #anyways shoutout to my last history teacher who stared at me oddly after I replied to every single French Revolution related question she a #and shoutout to my classmates who’d already heard me rambling about the frenchies enough to not raise their hands #and shoutout to my last English teacher who had to sit by and observe as I made every single project be somehow related to the frenchies #and to my literature teacher who allowed me to make an essay on how a fictional character of Spanish 20th century theatre was very similar #ok I’m done #probably #also yeah my surname’s jesker #enjoy that bit of lore #that’s all byeeeee

[adapembroke]

What Is Narrative Astrology?

Humans Are Storytelling Animals

In the book Spellbound: Modern Science, Ancient Magic, and the Hidden Potential of the Unconscious Mind, Dr. Daniel Lieberman tells a story about primate researchers attempting to understand the behavior of chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. 

When observing animals, humans have the tendency to anthropomorphize. That is, we ascribe human emotions and motivations to animal behavior. Animals and humans are not the same, however, so the researchers attempted to strip all anthropomorphism out of their research observations for two years. 

At the end of the study, the researchers had mountains of data, but they couldn’t understand it. All they had were gestures and movements without any semblance of meaning.

“The notebooks full of observations didn’t help them understand the behavior of the chimpanzees until they allowed themselves to think about the chimpanzees in human terms,” Zimmerman wrote, “so that their behaviors became stories.”

Every waking moment, your senses take in a ton of information about the world around you, more than your conscious mind could process in a hundred lifetimes. Deep in your unconscious mind, your brain is working, looking for the signal in the noise. All that sensory data is filtered through stories. Stories literally tell the brain what is meaningful.

Humans are storytelling animals. Without stories, we are able to perceive data, but we can’t understand it in a meaningful way. 

Unconscious Stories Create the World

Most of the stories that inform the way you see the world are unconscious. They are like a pair of glasses you can never take off. In the evolutionary history of humanity, this lack of consciousness has been to our benefit. Conscious thought is very slow, and unconscious stories allow us to respond quickly without having to agonize. Unconscious stories are like muscle memory for the soul. If you ever find yourself face to face with a tiger, your stories about predators might literally save your life. 

The problem with unconscious stories is that it’s hard to tell when they’ve become distorted. 

People who wear physical glasses know that it’s easy to end up with a pair of glasses that doesn’t help you see as clearly as it used to. Slowly, over time, your eyes change, but your glasses don’t. The change happens so slowly you become so used to seeing poorly, and you forget what it’s like to have a prescription that fits. Without regular appointments to get your eyes checked, your ability to see becomes compromised. If you wait too long, getting a new pair of glasses can feel like getting a brand new pair of eyes.  

Unconscious stories can become frozen like an old pair of glasses, living fossils, artifacts of a time that no longer exists. Sometimes, life brings you something unexpected that shows you a story that isn’t working anymore, but you don’t have to wait for happy accidents. 

Story Hacking Astrology

Astrology is one of the oldest tools humans have for turning data into stories. The discipline has its roots in the work of ancient astronomer priests in Mesopotamia. Each night, astronomer priests observed the movements of the moon and planets, looking for connections between the sky and events here on earth. 

Their observations of the sky formed the foundation of modern astronomy, but the stories they told about the data they collected are just as important as their scientific achievements. Astrology is the psychology of the ancients. The symbolic language of astrology uses the planets as a metaphor to model the systems of the human personality and society. In that model, you can observe the unconscious stories you tell about yourself and the people around you playing themselves out. 

Astrological symbols are pure data. When we interpret astrological symbols, we are telling stories. The stories we tell come from our unconscious filters on reality, but telling stories raises those unconscious filters to the level of awareness. By examining those stories critically, we are inviting our unconscious filters out of the shadows and into our conscious awareness where we can adjust them.

Narrative Astrology is a framework for identifying the unconscious stories that you use to interpret the world around you. It can help you evaluate those stories to see if they fit, repair stories that have become dysfunctional, and make good stories true.

Getting Started with Narrative Astrology

Getting started with Narrative Astrology is simple. All you need is an astrological interpretation. If you have a basic working knowledge of astrology, you can provide that interpretation for yourself, or you can work with an astrologer, read a book of interpretations, or listen to an astrology forecast.

For our purposes, it doesn’t matter if your interpretation is as simple as your sun sign or as complex as the relationship between your yod and your vertex. In fact, simple interpretations are best to start with because it is easy to hide from the truth of an uncomfortable story behind a fog of complexity. 

In Narrative Astrology, when we encounter a story that catches our attention, we examine it using the Four Questions:

How does this story make me feel?

What does this story say about me and the world I live in?

How can I change this story to make it better?

How can I make the good story true? 

You can run through the Four Questions in seconds. If you identify a story, feel your disgust with it, and metaphorically throw it in the trash, you’re working with the Four Questions. Quick check-ins like that can go a long way toward breaking the spell of unconscious nonsense. 

The Four Questions are deceptive in their simplicity, however. They have the potential to be doorways to deeper interrogations that can help to dig up and revise stories that are particularly entrenched. “How does this story make me feel?” can help you uncover personal or generational trauma through pain that is carried in the body. “What does this question say about me and the world I live in?” can point to systemic shadow stories embedded in conventional wisdom, politics, or the socioeconomic system. 

Would you like to learn more about Narrative Astrology? I recommend my course “Dreaming an Enchanted World.”

#Narrative Astrology