Gaia, the Return of the Earth Goddess

Temple worship in Ur, from Sumerian times. Note in the lower panel people are bringing all sort of goods to the temple represented as the abstract structure on the right. 

House founded by An, praised by Enlil, given an oracle by mother Nintud! A house, at its upper end a mountain, at its lower end a spring! A house, at its upper end threefold indeed. Whose well-founded storehouse is established as a household, whose terrace is supported by lahama deities; whose princely great wall, the shrine of Urim! (the Kesh temple hymn, ca. 2600 BCE)

Not long ago, I found myself involved in a debate on Gaian religion convened by Erik Assadourian. For me, it was a little strange. For the people of my generation, religion is supposed to be a relic of the past, opium of the people, a mishmash of superstitions, something for old women mumbling ejaculatory prayers, things like that. But, here, a group of people who weren't religious in the traditional sense of the word, and who included at least two professional researchers in physics, were seriously discussing about how to best worship the Goddess of Earth, the mighty, the powerful, the divine, the (sometimes) benevolent Gaia, She who keeps the Earth alive.

It was not just unsettling, it was a deep rethinking of many things I had been thinking. I had been building models of how Gaia could function in terms of the physics and the biology we know. But here, no, it was not Gaia the holobiont, not Gaia the superorganism, not Gaia the homeostatic system. It was Gaia the Goddess.

And here I am, trying to explain to myself why I found this matter worth discussing. And trying to explain it to you, readers. After all, this is being written in a blog titled "Chimeras" -- and the ancient Chimera was a myth about a creature that, once, must have been a sky goddess. And I have been keeping this blog for several years, see? There is something in religion that remains interesting even for us, moderns. But, then, what is it, exactly?

I mulled over the question for a while and I came to the conclusion that, yes, Erik Assadourian and the others are onto something: it may be time for religion to return in some form. And if religion returns, it may well be in the form of some kind of cult of the Goddess Gaia. But let me try to explain

What is this thing called "religion," anyway?

Just as many other things in history that go in cycles, religion does that too. It is because religion serves a purpose, otherwise it wouldn't have existed and been so common in the past. So what is religion? It is a long story but let me start from the beginning -- the very beginning, when, as the Sumerians used to say "Bread was baked for the first time in the ovens".

A constant of all ancient religions is that they tell us that whatever humans learned to do -- from fishing to having kings -- it was taught them by some God who took the trouble to land down from heaven (or from wherever Gods come from) just for that purpose. Think of when the Sumerian Sea-God called Aun (also Oannes in later times) emerged out of the Abzu (that today we call the abyss) to teach people all the arts of civilization. It was in those ancient times that the Gods taught humans the arts and the skills that the ancient Sumerians called "me,"  a bewildering variety of concepts, from "music" to "rejoicing of the heart." Or, in a more recent lore, how Prometheus defied the gods by stealing fire and gave it to humankind. This story has a twist of trickery, but it is the same concept: human civilization is a gift from the gods.

Now, surely our ancestors were not so naive that they believed in these silly legends, right? Did people really need a Fish-God to emerge out of the Persian Gulf to teach them how to make fish hooks and fishnets? But, as usual, what looks absurd hides the meaning of complex questions.

The people who described how the me came from the Gods were not naive, not at all. They had understood the essence of civilization, which is sharing. Nothing can be done without sharing something with others, not even rejoicing in your heart. Think of "music," one of the Sumerian me: can you play music by yourself and alone? Makes no sense, of course. Music is a skill that needs to be learned. You need teachers, you need people who can make instruments, you need a public to listen to you and appreciate your music. And the same is for fishing, one of the skills that Aun taught to humans. Of course, you could fish by yourself and for your family only. Sure, and, in this way, you ensure that you all will die of starvation as soon as you hit a bad period of low catches. Fishing provides abundant food in good times, but fish spoils easily and those who live by fishing can survive only if they share their catch with those who live by cultivating grains. You can't live of fish alone, it is something that I and my colleague Ilaria Perissi describe in our book, "The Empty Sea." Those who tried, such as the Vikings of Greenland during the Middle Ages, were mercilessly wiped out of history.

Sharing is the essence of civilization, but it is not trivial: who shares what with whom? How do you ensure that everyone gets a fair share? How do you take care of tricksters, thieves, and parasites? It is a fascinating story that goes back to the very beginning of civilization, those times that the Sumerians were fond to tell with the beautiful image of "when bread was baked for the first time in the ovens,"  This is where religion came in, with temples, priest, Gods, and all the related stuff.

Let's make a practical example: suppose you are on an errand, it is a hot day, and you want a mug of beer. Today, you go to a pub, pay a few dollars for your pint, you drink it, and that's it. Now, move yourself to Sumerian times. The Sumerians had plenty of beer, even a specific goddess related to it, called Ninkasi (which means, as you may guess, "the lady of the beer"). But there were no pubs selling beer for the simple reason that you couldn't pay for it. Money hadn't been invented, yet. Could you barter for it? With what? What could you carry around that would be worth just one beer? No, there was a much better solution: the temple of the local God or Goddess.

We have beautiful descriptions of the Sumerian temples in the works of the priestess Enheduanna, among other things the first named author in history. From her and from other sources, we can understand how in Sumerian times, and for millennia afterward, temples were large storehouses of goods. They were markets, schools, libraries, manufacturing center, and offered all sorts of services, including that of the hierodules (karkid in Sumerian), girls who were not especially holy, but who would engage in a very ancient profession that didn't always have the bad reputation it has today. If you were so inclined, you could also meet male prostitutes in the temple, probably called "kurgarra" in Sumerian. That's one task in whicb temples have been engaging for a long time, even though that looks a little weird to us. Incidentally, the Church of England still managed prostitution in Medieval times

So, you go to the temple and you make an offer to the local God or Goddess. We may assume that this offer would be proportional to both your needs and your means. It could be a goat that we know it was roughly proportional to the services of a high-rank hierodule. But, if all you wanted was a beer, then you could have limited your offer to something less valuable: depending on your job you could have offered fish, wheat, wool, metal, or whatever. Then, the God would be pleased and as a reward the alewives of the temple would give you all the beer you could drink. Seen as a restaurant, the temple worked on the basis of what we call today an "all you can eat" menu (or "the bottomless cup of coffee," as many refills as you want).

Note how the process of offering something to God was called sacrifice. The term  comes from "sacred" which means "separated." The sacrifice is about separation. You separate from something that you perceived as yours which then becomes an offer to the God or to the community -- most often the same thing. The offerings to the temple could be something very simple: as you see in the images we have from Sumerian times, it didn't always involve the formal procedure of killing a live animal. People were just bringing the goods they had to the temple. When animals were sacrificed to God(s) in the sense that they were ritually killed, they were normally eaten afterward. Only in rare cases (probably not in Sumeria) the sacrificed entity was burnt to ashes. It was the "burnt sacrifice called korban olah in the Jewish tradition. In that case, the sacrifice was shared with God alone -- but it was more of an exception than the rule.

In any case, God was the supreme arbiter who insured that your sacrifice was appreciated -- actually not all sacrifices were appreciated. Some people might try to trick by offering low quality goods, but God is not easy to fool. In some cases, he didn't appreciate someone's sacrifices at all: do you remember the story of Cain and Abel? God rejected Cain's sacrifice, although we are not told exactly why. In any case, the sacrifice was a way to attribute a certain "price" to the sacrificed goods.

This method of commerce is not very different than the one we use today, it is just not so exactly quantified as when we use money to attach a value to everything. The ancient method works more closely to the principle that the Marxists had unsuccessfully tried to implement "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." But don't think that the ancient Sumerian were communists, it is just that the lack of method of quantification of the commercial transaction generated a certain leeway that could allow to the needy access to the surplus available, when it was available. This idea is still embedded in modern religions, think of how the holy Quran commands the believers to share the water of their wells with the needy, once they have satisfied their needs and those of their animals. Or the importance that the Christian tradition gives to gleaning as a redistribution of the products of the fields. Do you remember the story of Ruth the Moabite in the Bible? That important, indeed.

But there is more. In the case of a burnt sacrifices, the value attributed to the goods was "infinite" -- the goods consumed by the flames just couldn't be used again by human beings. It is the concept of Taboo used in Pacific cultures for something that cannot be touched, eaten, or used. We have no equivalent thing in the "market," where we instead suppose that everything has a price.

And then, there came money (the triumph of evil)

The world of the temples of the first 2-3 millennia of human civilizations in the Near East was in some  ways alien to ours, and in others perfectly equivalent. But things keep changing and the temples were soon to face a competition in a new method of attributing value to goods: money. Coinage is a relatively modern invention, it goes back to mid 1st millennium BCE. But in very ancient times, people did exchange metals by weight -- mainly gold and silver. And these exchanges were normally carried out in temples -- the local God(s) ensured honest weighing. In more than one sense, in ancient times temples were banks and it is no coincidence that our modern banks look like temples. They are temples to a God called "money." By the way, you surely read in the Gospels how Jesus chased the money changers -- the trapezitai -- out of the temple of Jerusalem. Everyone knows that story, but what were the money changers doing in the temple? They were in the traditional place where they were expected to be, where they had been from when bread was baked in ovens for the first time. 

So, religion and money evolved in parallel -- sometimes complementing each other, sometimes in competition with each other. But, in the long run, the temples seem to have been the losers in the competition. As currency became more and more commonplace, people started thinking that they didn't really need the cumbersome apparatus of religion, with its temples, priests, and hierodules (the last ones were still appreciated, but now were paid in cash). A coin is a coin is a coin, it is guaranteed by the gold it is made of -- gold is gold is gold. And if you want a good beer, you don't need to make an offer to some weird God or Goddess. Just pay a few coppers for it, and that's done.

The Roman state was among the first in history to be based nearly 100% on money. With the Romans, temples and priests had mainly a decorative role, let's say that they had to find a new market for their services. Temples couldn't be anymore commercial centers, so they reinvented themselves as lofty place for the celebration of the greatness of the Roman empires. There remained also a diffuse kind of religion in the countryside that had to do with fertility rites, curing sickness, and occasional cursing on one's enemies. That was the "pagan" religion, with the name "pagan" meaning, basically, "peasant." 

 

Paganism would acquire a bad fame in Christian times, but already in Roman times peasant rites were seen with great suspicion. The Romans burned witches, oh, yes, they loved to burn witches -- they burned many more than would ever be burned in medieval times. And the victims were most likely countryside enchanters and enchantresses. They were considered dangerous because the real deity that the Romans worshiped was money. An evil deity, perhaps, but it surely brought mighty power to the Romans, but their doom as well, as it is traditional for evil deities. Roman money was in the form of precious metals and when they ran out of gold and silver from their mines, the state just couldn't exist anymore: it vanished. No gold, no empire. It was as simple as that.

The disappearance of the Roman state saw a return of religion, this time in the form of Christianity. It is a long story that would need a lot of space to be written. Let's just say that the Middle Ages in Europe saw the rise of monasteries to play a role similar to that of temples in Sumerian times. Monasteries were storehouses, manufacturing centers, schools, libraries, and more -- they even had something to do with hierodules. During certain periods, Christian nuns did seem to have played that role, although this is a controversial point. Commercial exchanging and sharing of goods again took a religious aspect, with the Catholic Church in Western Europe playing the role of a bank by guaranteeing that, for instance, ancient relics were authentic. In part, relics played the role that money had played during the Roman Empire, although they couldn't be exchanged for other kinds of goods. The miracle of the Middle Ages in Europe was that this arrangement worked, and worked very well. That is, until someone started excavating silver from mines in Eastern Europe and another imperial cycle started. It is not over to this date, although it is clearly declining.

So, where do we stand now? Religion has clearly abandoned the role it had during medieval times and has re-invented itself as a support for the national state, just as the pagan temples had done in Roman times. One of the most tragic events of Western history is when in 1914, for some mysterious reasons, young Europeans found themselves killing each other by the millions while staying in humid trenches. On both sides of the trenches, Christian priests were blessing the soldiers of "their" side, exhorting them to kill those of the other side. How Christianity could reduce itself to such a low level is one of the mysteries of the Universe, but there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. And it is here that we stand. Money rules the world and that's it.

The Problem With Money

Our society is perhaps the most monetized of history -- money pervades every aspect of life for everyone. The US is perhaps the most monetized society ever: for Europeans it is a shock to discover that many American families pay their children for doing household chores. For a European, it is like if your spouse were asking you to pay for his/her sexual services. But different epochs have different uses and surely it would be shocking for a Sumerian to see that we can get a beer at the pub by just giving the alewives a curious flat object, a "card," that they then give back to us. Surely that card is a powerful amulet from a high-ranking God. 

 

So, everything may be well in the best of worlds, notoriously represented by the Western version of liberal democracy. Powerful market forces, operated by the God (or perhaps Goddess) called Money or, sometimes, "the almighty dollar," ensure that exchanges are efficient, that scarce resources are optimally allocated, and that everyone has a chance in the search for maximizing his/her utility function.

Maybe. But it may also be that something is rotten in the Great Columned Temple of Washington D.C. What's rotten, exactly? Why can't this wonderful deity we call "money" work the way we would it like to, now that we even managed to decouple it from the precious metals it was made of in ancient times?

Well, there is a problem. A big problem. A gigantic problem. It is simply that money is evil. This is another complex story, but let's just say that the problem with evil and good is that evil knows no limits, while good does. In other words, evil is equivalent to chaos, good to order. It has something to do with the definition of "obscenity." There is nothing wrong in human sex, but an excess of sex in some forms becomes obscene. Money can become obscene for exactly this reason: too much of it overwhelms everything else. Nothing is so expensive that it cannot be bought; that's the result of the simple fact that you can attribute a price to everything.

Instead, God is good because She has limits: She is benevolent and merciful. You could see that as a limitation and theologians might discuss why a being that's all-powerful and all-encompassing cannot be also wicked and cruel. But there cannot be any good without an order of things. And order implies limits of some kind. God can do everything but He cannot do evil. That's a no-no. God cannot be evil. Period.

And here is why money is evil: it has no limits, it keeps accumulating. You know that accumulated money is called "capital," and it seems that many people realize that there is something wrong with that idea because "capitalism" is supposed to be something bad. Which may be but, really, capital is one of those polymorphic words that can describe many things, not all of them necessarily bad. In itself, capital is simply the accumulation of resources for future use -- and that has limits, of course. You can't accumulate more things than the things you have. But once you give a monetary value to this accumulated capital, things change. If money has no limits, capital doesn't, either.

Call it capital or call it money, it is shapeless, limitless, a blob that keeps growing and never shrinks. Especially nowadays that money has been decoupled from material goods (at least in part, you might argue that money is linked to crude oil). You could say that money is a disease: it affects everything. Everything can be associated with a number, and that makes that thing part of the entity we call market. If destroying that thing can raise that number, somewhere, that thing will be destroyed. Think of a tree: for a modern economist, it has no monetary value until it is felled and the wood sold on the market. And that accumulates more money, somewhere. Monetary capital actually destroys natural capital. You may have heard of "Natural Capitalism" that's supposed to solve the problem by giving a price to trees even before they are felled. It could be a good idea, but it is still based on money, so it may be the wrong tool to use even though for a good purpose..

The accumulation of money in the form of monetary capital has created something enormously different than something that was once supposed to help you get a good beer at a pub. Money is not evil just in a metaphysical sense. Money is destroying everything. It is destroying the very thing that makes humankind survive: the Earth's ecosystem. We call it "overexploitation," but it means simply killing and destroying everything as long as that can bring a monetary profit to someone.

Re-Sacralizing The Ecosystem (why some goods must have infinite prices)

There have been several proposals on how to reform the monetary system, from "local money" to "expiring money," and some have proposed to simply get rid of it. None of these schemes has worked, so far, and getting rid of money seems to be simply impossible in a society that's as complex as ours: how do you pay the hierodules if money does not exist? But from what I have been discussing so far, we could avoid the disaster that the evil deity calling money is bring to us simply by putting a limit to it. It is, after all, what the Almighty did with the devil: She didn't kill him, but confined him in a specific area that we call "Hell" -- maybe there is a need for hell to exist, we don't know. For sure, we don't want hell to grow and expand everywhere.

What does it mean a limit to money? It means that some things must be placed outside the monetary realm -- outside the market. If you want to use a metaphor based on economics, some goods must be declared to have an "infinite" monetary price -- nobody can buy them, not billionaires, not even trillionaires or any even more obscene levels of monetary accumulation. If you prefer, you may use the old Hawai'ian word: Taboo. Or, simply, you decide that some things are sacred, holy, they are beloved by the Goddess and even thinking of touching them is evil. 

 

Once something is sacred, it cannot be destroyed in the name of profit. That could mean setting aside some areas of the planet, declaring them not open for human exploitation. Or setting limits to the exploitation, not with the idea of maximizing the output of the system for human use, but with the idea to optimize the biodiversity of the area. These ideas are not farfetched. As an example, some areas of the sea have been declared "whale sanctuaries" -- places where whales cannot be hunted. That's not necessarily an all/zero choice. Some sanctuaries might allow human presence and a moderate exploitation of the resources of the system. The point is that as long as we monetize the exploitation, the we are back to monetary capitalism and the resource will be destroyed.

Do we need a religion to do that? Maybe there are other ways but, surely, we know that it is a task that religion is especially suitable for. Religion is a form of communication that uses rituals as speech. Rituals are all about sacralization: they define what's sacred by means of sacrifice. These concepts form the backbone of all religions, everything is neatly arranged under to concept of "sacredness" -- what's sacred is nobody's property. We know that it works. It has worked in the past. It still works today. You may be a trillionaire, but you are not allowed to do everything you want just because you can pay for it. You can't buy the right of killing people, for instance. Nor to destroy humankind's heritage. (So far, at least).

Then, do we need a new religion for that purpose? A Gaian religion?

Possibly yes, taking into account that Gaia is not "God" in the theological sense. Gaia is not all-powerful, she didn't create the world, she is mortal. She is akin to the Demiurgoi, the Daimonoi, the Djinn, and other similar figures that play a role in the Christian, Islamic and Indian mythologies. The point is that you don't necessarily need the intervention of the Almighty to sacralize something. Even just a lowly priest can do that, and surely it is possible for one of Her Daimonoi, and Gaia is one.

Supposing we could do something like that, then we would have the intellectual and cultural tools needed to re-sacralize the Earth. Then, whatever is declared sacred or taboo is spared by the destruction wrecked by the money based process: forests, lands, seas, creatures large and small. We could see this a as a new alliance between humans and Gaia: All the Earth is sacred to Gaia, and some parts of it are especially sacred and cannot be touched by money. And not just the Earth, the poor, the weak, and the dispossessed among humans, they are just as sacred and must be respected. 

 

All that is not just a question of "saving the Earth" -- it is a homage to the power of the Holy Creation that belongs to the Almighty, and to the power of maintenance of the Holy Creation that belongs to the Almighty's faithful servant, the holy Gaia, mistress of the ecosystem. And humans, as the ancient Sumerians had already understood, are left with the task of respecting, admiring and appreciating what God has created. We do not worship Gaia, that would silly, besides being blasphemous. But through her, we worship the higher power of God.  

Is it possible? If history tells us something is that money tends to beat religion when conflict arises. Gaia is powerful, sure, but can she slay the money dragon in single combat? Difficult, yes, but we should remember that some 2000 years ago in Europe, a group of madmen fought and won against an evil empire in the name of an idea that most thought not just subversive at that time, but even beyond the thinkable. And they believed so much in that idea that they accepted to die for it

In the end, there is more to religion than just fixing a broken economic system. There is a fundamental reason why people do what they do: sometimes we call it with the anodyne name of "communication," sometimes we use the more sophisticated term of "empathy," but when we really understand what we are talking about we may not afraid to use the world "love" which, according to our Medieval ancestors, was the ultimate force that moves the universe. And when we deal with Gaia the Goddess, we may have this feeling of communication, empathy, and love. She may be defined as a planetary homeostatic system, but she is way more than that: it is a power of love that has no equals on this planet. But there are things that mere words cannot express.

 

The Sound of Waves

Painting by William Trost Richards 1833 - 1905)

by Ugo Bardi – 2020

Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away. – Sarah Kay

It is said that, once upon a time, there was a child in the city who woke up one morning and he spoke to his mother.

Mother, I heard a strange sound tonight.

My son, what did you hear? Were you afraid of monsters walking in the night? Or of ghosts haunting the house?

No, mother, it was not the sound of ghosts or monsters. And I was not afraid.

Then, what was this sound?

Mother, it was the sound of waves, the sound of the sea.

Oh, my son, how can you say that? You never saw the sea. And I never saw it, either. And your father never saw the sea, nor any of your relatives. The sea is far, far from the city, and some say that such a thing doesn't even exist. It is a legend, a fancy story, a dream that someone dreamed.

Mother, dear mother. I heard this sound and it was the sound of waves. I know that.

My son, be careful in what you say, because people could think ill things of you and of our family if you tell them of this strange dream of yours. Are you sure of what you heard?

Mother, I am sure that I heard the sound of the waves, I heard the swell of the waves, sometimes roaring, sometimes murmuring. And I heard the water coming and returning to the beach, as if they were mother and child, never tired to embrace each other.

Son, do promise me that you won't tell anyone.

I promise that to you, mother.

Years passed and the child became a man, and he took the name of Lugalzid, which means “strong and trusted.” And one day he went to see his mother and he spoke to her.

Mother, dearest mother, I came to say goodbye to you because I am leaving the city.

Lugalzid, my dear, I thought you would tell me that. And I know where you want to go.  It is because of the dream you had when you were a child, the sound of waves. Am I right?

You are right, mother. It is because of that. From the first time when I told you about the sound I was hearing, I heard that sound every morning. And every morning I woke up lulled by that gentle murmur of the waves crashing on the beach, one after the other. And I still hear it every morning. But I promised to you I won’t tell anyone about that, and I didn’t. But now I want to leave the city and search for the sea that they say exists on the other side of the mountains.

My son, my dear Lugalzid, I can tell you that every morning when I saw you waking up, I knew that you were hearing something that was denied to me to hear. And sometimes I thought that you were possessed by a demon who was sending that sound to you.

Mother, sometimes I thought the same, but the sound I heard was so sweet and so beautiful that I can’t believe it could have been a demon sending it to me.

And I believe that, too. My son, you are grown up and I cannot tell you anymore what to do. You are an adult and you know the path that you are to follow. But, my sweet son, my heart bleeds at the thought of the dangers that you will face. And I could die at the very thought of not having you with me anymore.

Mother, my heart bleeds too at the thought that I couldn’t see you anymore. But I had been thinking to do what I am going to do for a long time, and this is what I will do.

But you know that the way across the mountains is long and difficult. And they say that there are demons in the mountains who attack travelers.

That I heard, too, mother. But I am not afraid and I will be careful.

I know you will be careful, Lugalzid, still it will be a difficult travel over the dry mountains. And if the demons attack you, you will need the sword that belonged to your father.

A sword? Mother, I didn’t know that my father had a sword.

Lugalzid, your father was a good man who pulled water out of the well, and who worked hard in the garden. He took good care of his family, so he never needed a sword. But he had inherited a sword from his father, who had inherited it from his father, and maybe from his father, but none of them ever used it. But there was a time, long ago, when the city was rich and populous, not like it is now, half ruined and with so few people. And at that time the city had a King who led men in battle. And your ancestors were warriors, my son. This is the sword that you are inheriting from them, because at heart you are a warrior, too.

So, mother, I take this sword with pleasure in honor of my ancestors, although I hope I will never have to use it. But if my destiny will be that of being a warrior, I will follow it.

Lugalzid, do you know of the old legend that says that one day a warrior will make the river flow to the sea again?

I heard of that legend, mother.

Maybe you could be that warrior? If you heard that sound, the sound of waves, it must be because the Goddess send it to you as a sign.

This I cannot say, mother. I can only say that I heard that sound and that now I want to see if there really is a sea on the other side of the mountains.


My son, Lugalzid, do you know that they say the sea is blue?

So I have heard, mother. They say the sea is vast and deeply blue.

Dear Lugalzid, I know that I won’t see you again, but make a promise to me.that when you find the sea that you have been searching for, you will say a prayer to the Goddess for my soul.

I will do that, mother. I promise. When I found the sea, I will say a prayer for your soul to the Goddess.

They say that Lugalzid marched for many days, and months, and years. And that he fought thirst, and hunger, and cold, and strong winds, and landslides. And that, one day, he arrived at the ancient shoreline of the sea.

He marched onward and he saw that there were huts lined along the beach and that all the huts were ruined and empty, and the pathways between huts were dusty and empty, swept by the wind. And there were many strange ruined wooden hulls that he thought were what was left of very old boats. And on the ground, there were strands of what he thought were old nets. And he marched onward until he saw the sand gently sloping down. And that seemed to him that the sea should have been in front of him, but there was just brown sand all the way to the horizon. And no vast and blue sea to see, nor the sound of the waves to hear.

Lugalzid marched on the dry sand and he knelt down on the sand, bowing to the setting sun. As he was there, he heard the sound of steps behind him. He rose up and in front of him, there was a woman. Dressed in black, her head was covered by a cape and her face was covered by a scarf, but her eyes were black and penetrating. And the woman spoke to him.

Who are you, sir? What are you doing here?

Lady, my name is of no importance. I come from the city on the other side of the mountains. And I came here to see if it is true that there is a vast blue sea on the this side of the mountain. But what is your name, lady? Where do you come from?

My name is of no importance, sir. I am the last inhabitant of the village that once was full of people. And you can see by yourself that there is no sea on this side of the mountains, although once the water was arriving all the way to were you stand now. But, what were you doing, kneeling on the sand?

Lady, I waspraying the Goddess for the soul of my mother to whom I had promised I would do that once I had arrived to the sea

That was kind of you, sir. But did the Goddess send you here?

Lady, I came because I had been hearing the sound of waves in my mind from when I was a child. And my mother said it could be a sign that the Goddess sent to me, but of this I can’t say anything.

This is strange, because there is an old legend that my mother told me that says that the waters of the sea would return one day when a warrior would plow the sand with his sword. I see that you carry a sword with you, are you a warrior? Maybe you used that sword to defend yourself from the demons of the mountains?

Lady, I found no demons in the mountains. Only whirlwinds of sand, and much dryness, and I almost died of thirst and hunger, or because of the dusty wind that nearly swept me away, or because of the landslides that almost buried me alive. So, I didn’t need the sword to defend myself, but I carry it in honor of my ancestors who were indeed warriors.

But if you are a warrior, maybe the legend refers to you, sir. Would you plow the sand with your sword?

Lady, if you tell me that you would like me to do that, I can try.

And Lugalzid unsheathed his sword and stuck the blade into the sand and down it went all the way to the hilt. And the sun was slowly falling at the horizon, and a gentle wind was blowing. Lugalzid looked at the hilt sticking out of the sand, and the woman looked at the hilt sticking out of the sand. And they looked at each other, and they smiled at each other. And then they both laughed. And when they couldn’t laugh anymore, the woman spoke first.

I am sorry, sir. I told you a silly old legend.

Lady, don’t worry. It was fun to try. Who knows? The legend could have been right.

Oh, sir, we could have imagined that we won’t gain anything by planting a sword in the sand. Why don’t you take it back?

Lady, I will take the sword back, although it just encumbered me all the trip to here and it never was useful to me for anything. Yet, I think that my ancestors were proud of this sword and so, in honor to them, I’ll take it out of the sand and keep it with me

It is good that you honor your ancestors, sir, just like you honored your mother by praying for her. But I think you are tired. And you must be thirsty and hungry.

That is right, lady. I am tired, and hungry, and I have no food left and no place to rest. But I won’t impose to you to feed me and to provide rest for me. Because I saw that the village is ruined and certainly you must not live in abundance.

That’s right, kind sir, I do not live in abundance. But the goddess has been kind to me and She made sure that the well near my home never gets dry and with the water I can take from the well I can cultivate a small garden and that gives me food enough to live. And with the barley I cultivate I can make good ale, too. And I’ll gladly share this food and this ale with you. You can come with me, you eat and drink, and then rest at my home.

Lady, I accept your kind offer and I am now obliged to tell you my name, which is Lugalzid, which means the strong and trusted man. And because of your kindness in offering me food and drink, I take the vow to help you in any way I can, and that I will defend you with the sword I inherited from my ancestors.

Lugalzid, since you accepted my offer, I am obliged to tell you my name, which is Siduri, which means the woman who makes beer. And I am greatly honored because of your kindness, although I hope that there will never be a need to defend me with your sword, I am grateful to you for offering me to do that. But I would say that it would be more useful to me if you were to help me to raise water from the well, because the well is deep and sometimes my bones ache because of the effort.

And I will do this for you with pleasure, Siduri. 

And Lugalzid went with Siduri to her hut and he helped her to raise water from the well. Then, Lugalzid ate a meal in Siduri’s home and drank the beer that Siduri had made. And then Siduri took Lugalzid to the door of the home and they stood together, looking at the sea of sand lighted up by the Moon. And then Siduri spoke to Lugalzid.

Lugalzid, they say that the sea was once vast and blue, and that must have been beautiful to behold.

That is what they say in the city, too, Siduri. And, yes, it must have been beautiful to see it.

I never saw the blue sea.

Neither did I.

But you told me you can hear the sound of waves.

This I told you, and it is true.

But nobody has heard the sound of waves here for many, many years. What is it like?

Siduri, I cannot tell you exactly what the sound of waves is like. But I can tell you that it is a gentle sound, it is the sound of water crashing on the beach, it is coming and going, never stopping, it is like two lovers always searching each other and never stopping to embrace each other.

Lugalzid, maybe I know that sound.

Siduri, do you really?

Listen to me, Lugalzid. Is this the sound of waves? Listen to the sound I make as I breathe.

Siduri, it is like the sound of waves, indeed.

It is the sound of a woman in love, Lugalzid.

I can hear it, Siduri. It is like the waves that love the beach and never get tired of crashing onto the shore.

And the beach that loves the waves never gets tired of the waves crashing on it. Will you love me, kind Lugalzid?

I will, gentle Siduri.

And Siduri took down the cape she had on her head and showed to Lugalzid her black hair, shiny in the moonlight. Then Lugalzid loved Siduri many times, and then they slept together on the couch of the hut, and Lugalzid slept sound and well. And when he woke up, he heard the sound of waves as he was used to hear in the morning. But this sound was a little different. And Lugalzid opened his eyes and he saw Siduri in front of him. And Siduri took Lugalzid’s hand and she led him to the door of the hut. And there, in the bright light of the sun, the sea was vast and blue, stretching all the way to the horizon. And the waves gently crashed on the beach, murmuring and roaring as two lovers who never tire to search for each other.

And Lugalzid marveled at what he was seeing and he could not tire to look at the blue waters, and the waves, and the clouds reflecting on the water.

What happened, Siduri? How long did I sleep?

For quite some time, Lugalzid, my love. The legend was right, after all. It only referred to another kind of sword, the one you used to plow my body. And after you did that, you slept, and the clouds come, and much rain came. And you were sleeping so well, that I didn’t wake you up. And day and night, more and more rain came. And you were still sleeping so well that I didn’t wake you up. And many days passed, perhaps weeks, perhaps months, perhaps years. And then so much rain came that the mountains were dripping it in streams everywhere, and the waters from the river came in a great rush of waves, foam, and bubbles, rushing to the sea as a lovers return to each other after having been away from each other for a long time. And many more days passed, and more water flew into the sea, and the sea became full.

That must have taken a long time, Siduri.

Such a long time, Lugalzid. You slept for a hundred years, maybe.

A hundred years? But who are you, Siduri?

Lugalzid, you know that my name is Siduri, which means the woman who makes beer. But it is only one of my names. You can call me also Inanna, the Goddess of Heaven who is also the Goddess of Earth. And know, Lugalzid, that it was humankind that destroyed the sea with their greed and that a great offense to me, since I am also the Goddess of the Sea. And that's why the sea became dry and the river became dry, and men and women suffered so much. But the Goddess had sworn that she would give another chance to them if she could find a man who was worth of her love. And it was because of your kindness in honoring your mother, your ancestors, and me, that I thought you are such a man, and because of that I loved you and I still love you. And in reward for your efforts that I bestowed on humans another chance to deal with the bounty of the Earth, which is always abundant for human needs, although never sufficient for human greed. But if now they will use only what they need, then the Goddess will give them plenty more, because I am benevolent and merciful and the fruits of my benevolence flood the whole Earth.

Siduri, I am amazed at what you are telling me. Was it all because of me?

Not just because of you, Lugalzid, you were the vessel that carried the blessing of the Goddess and that blessing is now spreading in the world. But you have great merit for what you did.

I don’t think I deserve that merit, my kind Siduri.

I know that you are modest, Lugalzid, and that is one more reason why you deserve it.

But what should do, now?

You may go back to the city you came from if you like. Or you may stay here, and live as a fisherman in the village in front of the deep blue sea. Because people will come here to restart fishing and some are already here.

But, you, Siduri, what will you do?

Oh, I may go back to heaven. See, I have a palace in the clouds. But, if you like . . .

If I like what?

I can stay with you.

Really? A Goddess staying with a mere man? How could that be?

Sweet Lugalzid, a goddess can do many things. I will stay with you and you will fish for me and I’ll cook for you and make good ale for you, and we’ll stay in this nice hut and we will be happy to be husband and wife and we’ll have many happy children. Because the Goddess gives life to everything and she is loves everything and gives life to everything, and nothing and no one is too humble for Her or too small for Her. And now, come with me, my sweet husband. I want to love you again and to love you many times. Kiss me and you can go fishing tomorrow.

Note: this story is inspired by Sumerian lore, in particular by the saga of Gilgamesh. Lugalzid should be a real Sumerian name that I built mixing the terms Lu (great), gal (man), and zid (trusted), although I don’t know if such a name was ever used in Sumerian times. Siduri, instead, is a real Sumerian name and she is the “alewife” that Gilgamesh meets in his travels. “Siduri” actually means “young woman” in Accadic, but in the saga she is both a goddess and a woman who makes beer. The hero sleeping for a hundred years is inspired by the Japanese children story “Urashima Taro”.

The Eyes, The Eyes! The Return of Inanna, the Warrior Goddess

Alita: the eyes of a beast of prey. 


The new film by James Cameron, "Alita, Battle Angel," is clunky, at best. Some creative scenery, some fascinating visual details but, the rest, well, it makes little sense. A classic failure of science fiction movies: cartoonish characters, a plot that doesn't go anywhere, clumsy motivations, silly bad guys, all that.


But Alita, well, she keeps the whole movie together. She is not cartoonish, she is perfect in her role. We recognize her. We know who she is from the scene in which she takes a battle posture facing the giant mechanical crab. It is her, she can only be her. Five thousand years after that the Sumerian Priestess Enheduanna told her story, she is back: Inanna, the warrior goddess fighting the giant dragon called Ebih.


Lady of blazing dominion
Clad in dread
Riding on fire-red power

Inanna
Holding a pure lance
Terror folds in her robes

Flood storm-hurricane adorned
She olts out in battle
Plants a standing shield on the ground

Great Lady Inanna
Battle planner
Foe smasher




(translation by Betty De Shong Meador)

How the Goddess Inanna Slew a big Monster. And she Won't Stop at That!

In the image above, you see an excellent rendition of the story of Inanna and Ebih, as it was told to us for the first time by the Sumerian priestess and poet, Enheduanna, during the 3rd millennium BCE.

The story is about how the Goddess Inanna became enraged at the bad behavior of the monster Ebih, said to be a mountain in Enheduanna's story, here shown as a mountain of flesh in the form of an elephant. Inanna first asked for help to her father, the God An, shown here as a rather embarrassed blue donkey -- and indeed, an embarrassed An refused to help his daughter.

At this point, an enraged Goddess Inanna equipped herself with her best weapons and armor, flying in the sky to fight the monster Ebih. In a spectacular clash, she slew him, utterly destroying him, "turning him into a vat of sheepfat" as Enheduanna tells us. You see in the image the victorious Inanna, still holding her sword (it was a mace in Enheduanna's story, but it is a detail).

But what about the building in the background? It is interesting to note how Enheduanna told us that her temple had been usurped by an evil man and that she had prayed the Goddess to remove him from there. Maybe it will be the next task of the Goddess: to remove the evil man who has usurped the temple that you see in the background of the image. When Inanna is angry, nothing can stop her!


A comment of mine on the story of Inanna and Ebih.

The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford 1998

1-6 Goddess of the fearsome divine powers, clad in terror, riding on the great divine powers, Inanna, made complete by the strength of the holy ankar weapon,drenched in blood, rushing around in great battles, with shield resting on the ground, covered in storm and flood, great lady Inanna, knowing well how to plan conflicts,you destroy mighty lands with arrow and strength and overpower lands.

7-9 In heaven and on earth you roar like a lion and devastate the people.Like a huge wild bull you triumph over lands which are hostile.Like a fearsome lion you pacify the insubordinate and unsubmissive with your gall.

10-22 My lady, on your acquiring the stature of heaven, maiden Inanna, on your becoming as magnificent as the earth, on your coming forth like Utu the king and stretching your arms wide, on your walking in heaven and wearing fearsome terror, on your wearing daylight and brilliance on earth,

on your walking in the mountain ranges and bringing forth beaming rays,

on your bathing the girin plants of the mountains (in light),

on your giving birth to the bright mountain, the mountain, the holy place, on your ……,

on your being strong with the mace like a joyful lord, like an enthusiastic (?) lord,

on your exulting in such battle like a destructive weapon —

the black-headed people ring out in song and all the lands sing their song sweetly.

23-24 I shall praise the lady of battle, the great child of Suen, maiden Inanna.

Through the Gate of Wonder

 Through the Gate of Wonder

And she goes out
white-sparked, radiant
in the dark vault of evening's sky
star-steps in the street
through the Gate of Wonder 

From Inanna and Ebih, by Enheduanna (translated by Betty De Shong Meador)

Moon Goddess

The Goddess goes through many cycles of varied lengths, and She returns over and over in many forms. Here, She appears in a painting by the Neapolitan master Giovanni Ricca, probably made around 1630.

Note the play of light and shadows on the face of this beautiful woman - reminding those of the half moon. The human features of this image are, probably, those of Ricca's wife, Caterina Rossa ("Red Catherine") as she appears in a red dress in the full painting. But she is just an avatar of the true Goddess.

If you ever thought that Baroque painting was all about mannerism, think it over. If you think that no Baroque master could emulate the master of them all, Caravaggio, think it over. This is a painting that, alone, can justify the existence of the human species as it evolved in order to, eventually, produce it.

But women partake the nature of the Moon Goddess in many forms, and sometimes you don't even need a master painter to see it appear, as it does in this image of Ugo Bardi's daughter, Donata, photographed in 2016 at the Escher Museum in Delft, Holland.

Are there two different species of humans? On the curious cultic behavior of earthlings

Two cultic images staying near each other in a church in the small Italian town of Bibbiena, in Tuscany. 
(h/t Paolo and Luciana) 

Just a few days ago, I was visiting a small church in an Italian village and I saw myself as an alien just landed on this planet. What was going on in there?

Earthlings have this curious habit of kneeling in front of images of non-existing beings. But what I noted in that church is how different these beings can appear. On a side, there was an idol in the shape of a human male, obviously in great pain having been nailed to two crossed planks of wood and wounded in the chest. Nearby, there was a completely different image; a smiling human female nurturing a small child. Granted; the behavior of earthlings is often difficult to understand, but, here, it is truly puzzling: how can two such different deities cohabit the same cultic place?

The solution came from a book written by an earthling named George Lakoff, "Don't think of an elephant." Apparently, there are two kinds of earthlings; at least according to Lakoff. The "nurturant" ones (the left, the liberals, the US democrats) and the "patriarchal" ones (the right, the conservatives, the US republicans). In this subdivision, Lakoff perfectly explained what I had been seeing in that small church. Let me leave the description to him  (p. 148-149).

Conservative Christianity is a strict father religion ... First, God is understood as punitive - that is, if you sin you are going to go to hell and if you don't sin, you are going to be rewarded and go to heaven. But since people tend to sin at one point or another in their lives, how is it possible for them to ever get to heaven? The answer in conservative Christianity is Christ. What Jesus does is offer conservative Christians a chance to get to heaven. The idea is this; Christ suffered on the cross so much that he built up moral credit sufficient for all people, forever. .... If you accept Jesus as your savior, that is, as your moral authority, and agree to follow the moral authority of your minister and your church, then you can get to heaven. But that is going to require discipline, You need to be disciplined enough to follow the rules, and if you don't, then you are going to go to hell. ...

Liberal Christianity is very, very different. Liberal Christianity sees God as essentially beneficent, as wanting to help people, The central idea in liberal Christianity is grace, where grace is understood as a kind of metaphorical nurturance. In liberal Christianity, you can't earn grace - you are given grace unconditionally by God. But you have to accept grace, you have to be near God to get his grace, you can be filled by grace, you can be healed by grace, and you are made into a moral person through God's grace. In other words, grace is metaphorical nurturance ... In a nurturant form of religion, your spiritual experience has to do with your connection with other people and the world and your spiritual practice has to do with your service to other people and to your community. 

Seems clear: the two idols in that church are different deities worshiped by two different categories of humans. The nurturant humans worship the virgin Mary, the mother of God; the patriarchal humans worship Jesus, the son of God who suffered on the cross.

So, are there two species of humans? Could be; surely these two categories of humans look so different from each other that any good alien should wonder if they can even interbreed with each other. Apparently, indeed, some data indicate that they rarely do. Earthlings are, indeed, curious creatures.

Inanna and Ebih: a report of an ancient ecological catastrophe?

Ugo Bardi

Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra – Università di Firenze

Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino,

Sesto Fiorentino (Fi) via della Lastruccia 3, 50019, Italy

ugo.bardi@unifi.it

Abstract

“Inanna and Ebih” is the modern title of a text written by the Sumerian poet Enheduanna around the second half of the third millennium BCE. It describes the conflict between the Goddess Inanna and the mountain called Ebih, which ends with the destruction of the latter. I suggest that the poem may be interpreted as the result of the way the ancient perceived what we call today an “ecological catastrophe,” that is the result of overgrazing and deforestation of a fragile mountain environment.

1. Introduction

The “Inanna and Ebih” poem was composed around 2300 BCE by the Sumerian poetess Enheduanna and it was rediscovered in the 20^th Century (1)⁠. The story told in the poem can be summarized in a few lines. We read first that the Goddess Inanna is preparing to do battle against the mountain "Ebih," because the mountain “showed her no respect”. Before attacking, Inanna goes to see the God An, whom she calls “father,” apparently to ask for his help. An, however, is perplexed and Inanna decides to fight alone; eventually managing to triumph over the mountain. 

This story must have been well known in Sumerian times; so much that several copies of it have arrived to us, written in cuneiform on clay tablets. So, its meaning must have been clear for the people of ancient times who read it - or were told it. They must have found the story interesting enough that scribes kept copying it many times, apparently also as a standard exercise for young scribes (2)⁠. 

However, in our times, "Inanna and Ebih" is hard to classify as a poem. Its message, the characters, their conflict, and the very fact of a God battling a mountain appear totally alien to our modern feelings. As a story, it is far away from all the modern canons of what we define as “literature” or “poetry.”

The present paper adds some considerations to the understanding of the story of Inanna and Ebih. It is based on the concept that the ancient faced the same physical problems as we do, for instance soil erosion, deforestation, and the like. However, their way to see and describe these problems was much different than the modern ones. So, it may be that the story we are considering describes an ancient ecological catastrophe, the destruction of a forest ecosystem, told in a form that is not easy for us to recognize but that appears clear, once understood. The story also may be an echo of a conflict still existing in modern times: the need to preserve natural environments against the attempt of overexploiting them.

The author does not claim to be able to read Sumerian and the present discussion is based on the versions of the story available in modern languages; that is on the one by Betty De Shong Meador (3)⁠, the one available in the electronic corpus of Sumerian Literature (4)⁠, the version in French by Attinger (5)⁠, and the Italian one by Pettinato (6)⁠. These translations were found to differ in some details, but the overall content was the same.

2. Inanna and Ebih: interpreting the myth

There are several ways to interpret ancient myths. Perhaps the best known one is the “comparative” method, pioneered, among others, by Claude Levi-Strauss (7)⁠. It consists in finding common elements among different myths; as they can be found in different cultures and different ages. These common elements evidence the basic structure of the myth and help understand its general meaning, framing it in its specific context.

In the case of "Inanna and Ebih", we could first look for stories involving Gods engaged in fighting mountains, but such a plot appears to be very rare. A similar plot is the Sumerian text referred to as “Lugal-e,” from the first term it begins with (8)⁠. It goes back to times close to those of Enheduanna, but it is probably later. In Lugal-e, we are told of the divine hero, Ninurta, fighting a demon called “Asag” that turns out to be a “pile of stones”, perhaps to be identified as a mountain with that name. Karahashi has discussed this myth explicitly in comparison with that of Inanna and Ebih, finding several points in common, especially in the terminology used. (8)⁠

Another myth showing some structural similarities is the Greek myth of the Chimera. In this case, the hero is Bellerophon, semi-divine as the son of the God Poseidon and, as a monster, the Chimera has some Chthonic elements, especially in its fiery breath that may lead to identify it with a mountain. Both Pliny the Elder in his “Natural History” and Maurus Servius Honoratus in his commentary to Virgil's Aeneid state that the Chimera has to be intended as a representation of a volcano. We also find a similar interpretation in Plutarch's “Moralia” (3.16.9) where we are told of how Bellerophon cut away a section of a mountain called “Chimera” which was producing a nasty reflection on the plain; which, in turn, dried up the crops. In an earlier work (9)⁠, the author of the present paper proposed that the sources of the myth of the Chimera is to be found in ancient East Asian mythology. It is not impossible that one of these early sources could have been the story of Inanna and Ebih.

Apart from these ancient myths, mountainous monsters are rare in the world's lore. Some mountains were certainly important in religious terms, such as Mount Olympus for the ancient Greek and Mount Fuji in Japan, up to relatively recent times. Neither, however, were deified or given the role given to Ebih in the story we are discussing here. We can find occasional stone monsters in modern fiction; for instance in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937), we can read the description of stone monsters hurling gigantic boulders against each other. Other fantasy chthonic monsters appear in environments such as modern role playing games. On the whole, however, we can say that a plot describable as “God/hero fights mountain” is very rare both in ancient and in modern lore. Hence, it is nearly impossible to use it as a basis for the comparative method of interpretation of the myth of Inanna and Ebih.

At this point, we could attempt to classify the myth of Inanna and Ebih as an example of the generic theme of a shining hero fighting an ugly monster. There are plenty of ancient and modern myths based on this idea; however, such an interpretation misses some of the elements that make the slaying of Ebih so puzzling. Why is the monster a mountain? Why does it enrage Inanna so much? What are the reasons of Inanna's quarrel with the other Gods? Clearly, there is something more in this story than in the traditional hero/monster conflict.

A different line of interpretations of the myth is reported by Delnero (2)⁠. It is based on the idea that the story is, actually, a representation of the conflict existing at the time of the author, Enheduanna, between the Akkadic and the Sumerian elements of the Mesopotamian civilization. It is known that such a conflict existed and other poems by Enheduanna may refer to it. For instance, in “nin-me-sarra” (Lady of bright powers) Enheduanna describes an insurrection that leads to her being chased away from her temple. The interpretation reported by Meador (p. 181) is that the insurgents were led by a man named Lugalanne, or Lugalanna, possibly of Sumerian ethnical origin, against the Akkadian ruler of the time, Naram-Sin, Enheduanna's nephew (3)⁠. 

There is clearly something in these interpretations and the violence that pervades Enheduanna's texts may well be a reflection of the violence that characterized her times. However, there remains the problem that “Inanna and Ebih” is so abstract in the characterization of its protagonists that, if it really describes a local conflict of Enheduanna's times, it is not clear which side should be identified with which element of the myth. Maybe this interpretation was clear to the ancient Sumerians, but that may be reasonably doubted.

Meador (3) provides a deeper interpretation of the story, seeing the poem as an early version of the Biblical myth of the Garden of Eden; with Inanna as the Sumerian equivalent of Eve/Lilith. Whereas, in the Bible, Eve is punished for her action, in the Sumerian myth Inanna takes the initiative and refuses to submit to the father-God; destroying Eden in the process. Meador also sees the story as a reflection of an ancient conflict between a female dominated pantheon, with Inanna in the role of the Mother Goddess, and an emerging male dominated pantheon, with An as a fatherly figure, ruling the other gods. This conflict is evident in several other Sumerian and Akkadian mythological stories where, for instance, Inanna is pitted against her brother Gilgamesh. 

This is a very interesting interpretation as it implies that “Inanna and Ebih” is related to even more ancient myths, perhaps going back to pre-literate times. This seems to be hinted in the text, when Inanna is said (in Meador's translation) to “wear the robes of the old, old Gods” (3)⁠. Attinger (5)⁠ and Pettinato (6)⁠ explicitly name these "old Gods" as “Enul and Enŝar” who may be, indeed, Gods of a more ancient age (10)⁠ (p. 53). However, even this way of seeing the myth does not explain the meaning of some elements; for instance, if this is the story of a conflict between a mother Goddess and a father God, what is exactly the role of the mountain Ebih?

A different way to look at this myth is the “Euhemeristic” or “rationalistic” way, consisting in explaining the myth in terms of natural phenomena. This way of interpreting ancient myths was more popular in the past than it is today, but it never went out of fashion. However, modern scholars tend to be much more cautious in explaining (some could say, “explaining away”) the elements of complex stories into banal physical phenomena. When Servius said that the Chimera was a volcano, he may have meant that the ancient were so naïve to mistake a volcano for a lion, but that, of course, is unlikely, to say the least. Rather, the ancient were facing the same physical phenomena as we do and, for them, describing a thunderstorm in terms of actions performed by a God named Zeus was a way to make it consistent with their cultural and mental tools. We do the same in modern times when we ascribe certain events to abstract and perhaps supernatural entities whose existence can be reasonably doubted (e.g. “the free market”).

Regarding Sumerian/Akkadian myths, naturalistic explanations have been proposed by Jacobsen (11)⁠, but not specifically for the story of Inanna and Ebih. However, if we examine the story in light of a possible rationalistic interpretation, we immediately see how the destruction of the mountain hints to an ecological catastrophe caused by deforestation and overgrazing.

In the myth, the Ebih mountain is described as a luxuriant place: fruits hang in its flourishing gardens. It has magnificent trees; lions, wild bulls and deer are abundant, just as wild bulls and grass. Then, we see Inanna attacking the mountain with fire and with a rain of rocks. In another of Enheduanna's poems, translated by Meador as “Lady of Largest Heart” (3)⁠ we read some lines that may refer to Inanna's fight against Ebih:

She crushes the mountain to garbage,

scattering the trash from dawn to dark,

with mighty stones she pelts,

and the mountain,

like a clay pot

crumbles

with her might

she melts the mountain

into a vat of sheepfat.

It takes little imagination to see that the poem could well be referring here to the degradation of the soil on the slopes of a mountain, turned into mud slipping downhill. Mountain terrains are especially sensitive to soil erosion and the problem is especially severe in hot climates subjected to episodes of heavy rain interspersed with dry period, as it is the case of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern climate.

Mesopotamia is a flat land, but its inhabitants briskly traded wood and other forest commodities with mountainous areas. Today, most of the mountain ranges of Northern Africa and Middle East are degraded and eroded in various degrees. But that was not the case in ancient times and it will suffice to note how the mountains of Lebanon were a source of timber for ancient Sumerians (as recorded in the myth of Gilgamesh and Enkidu), whereas in modern times these regions are nearly completely deforested and eroded (12)⁠. From the available data (13)⁠, it appears clear that the mountains of the Zagros region, which are probably where the “Inanna and Ebih” refers to, were still largely forested in Sumerian times. But it is also clear that these mountains were already being deforested at that time; a slow process that has led to the present condition of serious environmental degradation (14)⁠.

The ancient knew about the problem of soil degradation. McNeill and Viniwarter (15) summarized several elements of the question, reporting that already in 2000 BCE, that is at a time not far from that of Enheduanna, farmers in the Middle East had already developed ways to fight soil erosion. They also report how Roman writers, such as Varro, had a keen interest in soil quality and on the need of avoiding erosion. It is also well known how Plato, in his "Critias" (4th century BCE) describes the erosion and the degradation of the mountains of Greece. An interesting pre-industrial document on this issue was written by Matteo Biffi Tolomei around the end of the 18^th Century (16)⁠. It tells of the attempt to maintain the forest cover of the Appennini mountains in Tuscany, Italy, and of how the attempt failed after much debate among those who defined themselves the “modern” party (favoring the cutting of the trees) and the “old” party (favoring, instead, to keep the forest cover). This conflict of a few centuries ago is not framed in religious terms, but, in it, we may perhaps see a reflection of the much older conflict of Sumerian time that may be reflected in the story of Inanna and Ebih.

3. Conclusion: religion as a way to interpret the world

Religion in Sumerian times was certainly something very different than the way we intend it nowadays. However, certain elements of the concept of religion are common to all its forms (see e.g. Thorkild Jacobsen (11)⁠ for an exhaustive account of the characteristics and of the historical development of the Sumerian religious view of the world). A religious view of the world may see beyond the simple, short term advantage of an action (cutting trees), to note the long terms disadvantages (soil erosion). Today, we may see this kind of approach in the recent papal encyclical on climate change (17)⁠ and the Islamic declaration on global climate change (18)⁠. That may have been the point also of the history of Inanna “punishing” the mountain named Ebih, something that may be interpreted as destroying the humans who weren't been careful enough to maintain and sustain its ecosystem.

References

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