The Ancient Near East
Movement · The Ancient Near East○
Yazidism
An ancient Kurdish religion centred on a sacred valley shrine, transmitted orally through sung religious poems rather than written scripture.
What it meansYazidis worship one God, who entrusted the world to seven holy beings led by Tawûsî Melek, the Peacock Angel; the sacred hymns carry this teaching, and pilgrimage to Sheikh Adi's shrine at Lalish renews the bond between the community, its holy beings and God.
The FindingFor centuries, outsiders have falsely accused Yazidis of devil worship, a slander with no basis in their actual theology. That charge and the discrimination built on it are directly connected to the genocidal violence Yazidis suffered in 2014, which this entry names factually as part of the community's documented history.
Book · around 1900 BCE
The Descent of Inanna
Seven Gates, One Substitute
Not a rescue — the goddess returns from the dead by handing her husband to the demons in her place.
SignificanceShe passes seven gates and surrenders one thing at each — crown, rod, beads, breastplate — arriving naked and bowed low. She returns only by nominating a substitute, and chooses her husband. Nobody comes back from the dead free of charge; someone else goes.
The FindingThe West met this poem backwards — Frazer in 1914 had Ishtar descending "in quest of" her lost lover Tammuz, and the Sumerian text Kramer began assembling in 1937 shows the goddess handing her husband to the demons instead.
Book · 9th century BCE
Enūma Eliš
A Charter First, a Cosmogony Second
Seven Akkadian tablets: Marduk kills Tiamat, builds the sky from her, wins first rank — Babylon's charter.
SignificanceMarduk is granted supremacy before he fights, on the condition that he wins — the gods hold an assembly and vote him their king. The cosmos is then built from the body of the defeated. Authority in this text is conferred by a council and ratified by violence, in that order.
The FindingIn the Assyrian recension copied at Ashur, Aššur stands where Marduk stood — a creation story whose creator can be swapped out is a charter for a city, not an account of how the world began.
- Enūma ElišA Charter First, a Cosmogony SecondMesopotamian
- Kuntillet AjrudIsraelite and Canaanite
- Lamashtu and PazuzuMesopotamian
- Sacred Marriage and the Sacred-Prostitution ClaimMesopotamian
- Taha Baqir and the Gilgamesh Dream TabletMesopotamian
- The Ātash Bahrām and the DakhmaZoroastrianism
- The Descent of InannaSeven Gates, One SubstituteMesopotamian
- The Egyptian Book of the DeadAncient Spells, Modern BookEgyptian
- The Epic of GilgameshOlder Than Genesis, Lost Until 1872Mesopotamian
- The Oldest HoroscopeBabylonian Astrology
- The Pyramid TextsFirst Words Against DeathEgyptian
- YazidismYazidism