I work second shift and so find myself driving home late at night most weekdays, where I often while away the commute by listening to “Coast to Coast AM with George Noury.” For those who do not recognize the name, George hosts an interview/call-in show that caters to conspiracy theorists, New Age gurus, cryptozoologists, (unfortunately) the occasional right-wing wacko like Alex Jones, ghost hunters, numerologists...you get the idea.

It’s fun. I’ve always been impressed by George’s ability to agree with whatever insane theory his on-air guest is propounding even though the previous night he was equally agreeable to someone whose ideas utterly contradict the current guest’s.

One of George’s favorite theorists is Zechariah Sitchin, famous for his Earth Chronicles books, which argue that humans were created by a race of aliens – the Annunaki – from the planet Nibiru. Nibiru orbits the sun every 1,600 years in an elliptical orbit, and every so often wanders into the inner Solar System. About a ½ million years ago, an expedition from that planet came to Earth and set down in the southern Mesopotamian plain. They created humans by combining their DNA with the local primates’, creating a slave-labor force that would help them mine minerals, esp. gold. Sitchin “proved” his hypothesis with a selective reading of Sumerian and other Mesopotamian writings as well as culling the Bible for “clues.”

It is with enjoyment that I turn from books like Sitchin’s to those written by people who’ve actually worked on Mesopotamian sites, and there discover how much more interesting the actual story is compared to the fantasy.[1] Such is the case with Susan Pollock’s Ancient Mesopotamia: The Eden that Never Was. Pollock is an associate professor of anthropology at State University of New York at Binghamton (or she was when the book was published in 1999) and has done fieldwork in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, and has here produced a brief introduction to the earliest civilizations of the Middle East.

The book’s time frame stretches from 5000 to 2100 BC – technically the Ubaid (5000-4000), the Uruk (4000-3100), the Jemdet Nasr (3100-2900), the Early Dynastic (2900-2350) and the Akkadian (2350-2100) periods. Pollock marshals evidence showing how urban civilization developed and spread from southern Mesopotamia, organically and without the aid of aliens or divine interventions.

The book’s audience is not the general reader, even ones interested in history/archaeology, but rather a beginning student. There are pages of graphs and charts comparing things such as animal bones and sizes of sites, for example. Though, I’m not studying to be an archaeologist, I found the book fascinating so what follows is a summary of the main points I gleaned from it.

The first chapter after the Introduction, “Geographic setting and environment,” makes two chief observations. The first is that Mesopotamia is a dynamic landscape. Neither the Tigris nor Euphrates rivers are as reliable as the Nile: the periodic flooding usually occurs at the worst time of the year from a farmer’s point of view and the rivers (and tributaries) regularly overflow their banks and change course. Human intervention – deforestation and salinization, primarily – further alters the region’s ecology, causing agricultural expansion/collapse cycles.[2] This dynamism, along with the second observation – the lack of significant stone and metal resources – were important in the development of urban centers and large-scale states.

“Settlement patterns,” the next chapter, presents evidence for the increase in the number of permanent settlements and the growth of urban centers at the expense of smaller, rural villages over time. Pollock also suggests that people shifted from sedentary lifestyles to more mobile ones relatively frequently in response to that dynamic landscape mentioned above.

“Making a living: tributary economies of the fifth and fourth millennia” and “A changing way of life: the oikos-based economy of the third millennium” track the development of a tribute-based economy where most productive activity still occurred in individual households to an oikos-based one:

In the tributary economies of the fifth and fourth millennia, political and economic leaders strove to control the distribution of goods; direct control over production of most goods…appears to have been limited. In the oikos economy, by contrast, many forms of production as well as distribution were controlled directly. Control over production was ensured by the concentration of the means of production…in the hands of the oikoi rather than the producers (p. 147).

Increasingly, production was divorced from its formerly domestic context, and producers lost control over their output.

“The growth of bureaucracy” takes up the origins of writing:

For ancient Mesopotamia as for many other parts of the world, it has become increasingly clear that writing was not the primary catalyst for major social, political, or economic change. Rather, the invention of writing was a response to other changes that...required a more flexible system of accounting and record keeping. Although...scholars continue to debate the extent to which writing developed directly out of tokens, there is no doubt that writing originated in the context of a growing bureaucracy (p. 172).

In “Ideology and images of power,” Pollock looks at the roles religion, monumental architecture and sculpture took in enforcing and justifying the status quo, and shows how ideology changed over time. Each era had its own “flavor”: The Ubaid period tended to mask inequalities and promoted communal unity. Uruk identified the social order with the natural order.[3] Later periods built on Uruk’s model but introduced local and interregional competition between city-states and larger polities like Akkad and Elam.

“Death and the ideology of community” continues the theme taken up in the previous chapter and relates it to death: “Mortuary practices are the deliberate, meaningful expressions of people’s views about themselves, other members of the society, and/or the world as they perceive or wish others to perceive it” (p. 216). Over time, the Ubaid-era emphasis on community and “all are equal in death” gave way to increasingly differentiated burials, expressing the decedent’s status while alive.

I want to digress and mention how different this is from the ancient Egyptians’ attitude about death and the afterlife, to which I’ve recently been exposed having read Toby Wilkinson’sLives of the Ancient Egyptians and Genesis of the Pharaohs. Where the typical Sumerian saw death as “the House of Darkness” where “those who dwell do without light, where dirt is their drink, their food is of clay” and “light cannot be seen,” the Egyptian expected to pass his time in a more perfect – definitely sunnier – place than he occupied in life. An essentially optimistic view.

The concluding chapter touches on why Sumer and later Mesopotamian cultures developed the way they did:

Mesopotamian civilization…emerged in an inhospitable environment, with a harsh and unpredictable climate and limited natural resources. The unpredictability and ever-present risks associated with agriculture…played important roles in the particular social, economic, and political forms taken by Mesopotamian societies. Institutions or cooperative groups that pooled resources and risks were preferred.... Chronic tendencies toward soil salinization and the availability of large tracts of arable and pasture land encouraged frequent movements of settlement.... The importance of microenvironmental differences for agricultural success in Mesopotamia, the necessity of irrigation, and the instability of the Euphrates River regime all contributed to the unequal growth of settlements and, ultimately, urbanization (p. 219).

The author ends by calling for greater in-depth study of how ordinary people lived. Pollock’s focus in the preceding pages has been on such research; she rarely mentions specific individuals (like Sargon of Akkad or Lagash’s Urukagina), focusing instead on the “boring” evidence of how societies functioned day to day. But continued research is necessary. She also asks for a focus on gender-related research. The roles men and women (and children) played in economies and politics are not well understood. Class, wealth and religious belief, for example, all factored into relative status and power, and it is difficult – not to say, ill-advised – to make generalizations.

I can’t recommend this book for everyone. As I mentioned above, its audience is not the general reader, who’s probably more interested in reading about the historical origins of Gilgamesh or the Flood myth and would prefer a narrative history. But if you have a deeper interest in and not too much familiarity with the subject of (really) ancient Mesopotamia, then I think this is a good place to start. The 21-page bibliography provides ample fodder for further reading.

[1] The same can be said for authors like Toby Wilkinson, whose books on Egypt I’ve enjoyed for the opportunity to glimpse an admittedly “alien” but thoroughly human world.

[2] Though not discussed in this volume, I have read elsewhere about the roles climate change and ecological collapse have played in the rise and fall of empires.

[3] A tendency one still finds in politics and economics today, unfortunately.

Now, even though I have already completed a commentary on this book I still cannot help but go over a few more aspects of this story because I feel that there is actually a lot more to consider than meets the eye. It is also very useful to compare with the biblical account, if only to see the similarities. Some would suggest that this book disproves the biblical account, however I generally take a different approach by saying that it actually goes a long way to support it. Others argue that the biblical account was written to counter these creation myths, and that I do not doubt, however we must still consider that the main purpose of the biblical account (as well as the others) is to outline our origins and to explain why the world is in the state that it is in.

First of all there is the creation of man, however it is interesting to note that this does not occur until later in the first tablet (the story is divided into tablets, which are basically the same as pages). Humanity was created from clay (which is the same as the biblical account) however the clay was also mixed with the blood of a dead god and with the spittle of each of the living gods. This, once again, is similar to the biblical account in where God breaths life into humanity thus indicating a divine origin and nature of our race. However, it differs in that the creator is the female god, and that she used a womb as a means of creating humanity. This obviously is reflective of what the ancients originally could see around them, particularly noting that a baby is formed in the womb of a female.

Being an origin myth the Atrahasis also explores the nature of the main Mesopotamian gods, with Anu, Ellil, and Enki dividing the world up amongst them. Anu was given the sky to be his domain, Ellil was given the Earth, and Enki was given the seas. In a way it is similar to the division in the Greek myths, with Zeus taking command over the sky, Hades being given the underworld (namely because the Earth was the domain of humanity) and Poseidon being given the sea. I suspect if we look closer to the Mesopotamian gods we will see a number of similarities with the Greek gods, though we should note that Ellil seems to be the god that has the biggest gripe with humanity while Enki is the one who always seems to step in and protect them.

The final aspect that I wish to explore is the nature of rebellion, something that I have flagged above as being central to the text itself. It appears that the text is really about rebellion and how the gods dealt with humanity's rebellion. This is critical as it provides the link to the biblical account in that the bible is really about humanities rebellion against God, and his response to it (though the Bible is also the story of how God redeems humanity). The interesting thing in the Atrahasis is that there are two rebellions, the first being the Igigi and the later being humanity. While not explicitly stated in the bible, there are a number of hints as to an angelic rebellion. This seems to be the same as the rebellion of the Igigi, however it differs in that the bible is very clear that the rebellious angels were cast out of heaven where as the Igigi's demands were met. Further, note that the Mesopotamian gods were not overthrown. This differs from the Greek myths in that there are also two rebellions, the first being the Titans rebelling against the rule of the old gods, and then the new gods rebelling against the Titans. In both events the rebels won and overthrew their predecessors. This could be reflective of the invasions that occurred over the period of Ancient Greek history known as the Dark Ages. It is quite possible, or more than possible, that the later gods were introduced by the invaders, and that the changes in the heavenly powers is indicative of these invasions.

When I has handed a copy of this text in Old Testament I was not sure if I had actually read it or not even thought I had the Oxford World Classic's [bbok:Myths from Mesopotamia}. However, when I recently returned to that book to read the myths again (so that I could be more accurate when commenting on them, and the book as a whole, for Goodreads) I discovered that the 'Epic of Creation', as it is called in that book, is the Enuma Elish. I guess I had read it.

I have now read it again so I feel in a much better position to be able to write some decent comments, and in doing so I will outline the story, try to give my understanding of this story (though it will be quite speculative which is likely to put me in the madhouse alongside [book:Immanuel Velikovsky]) and then throw down some thoughts on its relationship to the biblical account.

Basically the Enuma Elish is a creation myth – well, not quite, but I will say that it is to ease some confusion. The story opens with the god Tiamat rebelling against the other gods, creating a race of monsters, and then setting a guy named Qingu up as the chief god and her consort. I guess even in Ancient Mesopotamia the saying still holds true that behind every great man is an equally great woman. Anyway, Tiamat, who is basically using Qingu as a puppet, prepares to go to war against the other gods so that she may fulfil her goal of becoming all powerful. A couple of gods attempt to confront her but her power is so great that they are either defeated or flee in terror. Then Marduk presents himself as the champion, confronts Tiamat, and in an epic battle, slays her. Qingu is then captured and later executed for treason. The gods then take Tiamut's body and from her remains create the world. From the remains of Qingu they create humanity to pretty much do all of the work that they no longer wish to perform. The tale then ends with a list of the gods and their role in the governance of creation.

While the poem seems to be fairly short I notice that the style is similar to some of the styles that appear in the Bible. One interesting aspect is that the poem will repeat entire tracts that have previously been said: for instance, something happens and then when somebody reports that event the entire text of that event is repeated, and then when the next person goes and reports it the entire text is repeated once again. This seems to occur a number of times in Mesopotamian literature, and as mentioned (though I cannot cite any passage off hand) appears to be a similar style used in some of the earlier parts of the bible. This obviously flags the possibility that parts of the Bible were written contemporaneously with these ancient Mesopotamian myths.

We must remember that all of these events occurred before the flood, so we are dealing with prehistoric accounts. My theory is that the gods that are mentioned here were actually at one point real human beings, however due to time and also the nature of primitive religion, these gods had been deified and thrust into the realm of mythology. One of my theories of antideluvian civilisation is that they were substantially more advanced than humanity at the time that these myths were written down. Take for instance the book of Genesis. We learn that three generations after the fall humanity had discovered literature, music, and metallurgy, however technological development stops at that point. The reason being is that the writers of Genesis had no concept of technology beyond what they understood at the time of writing. So to would have the ancient Mesopotamians, and we see that in this book with references to spells and flood weapons, as well as creation of monsters and humanity out of the blood of a dead god.

Now, I am not ascribing the creation of humanity to a cloning vat, but I shall point to references in the earlier parts of Genesis of the sons of god and the daughters of men coming together and producing great heroes as well as giants known as Nephalim. Did the antideluvians have cloning technology along with being excellent bioengineers? We do not and probably will never know unless that information is revealed to us in the restoration. However, it is interesting to see the possibility of how the ancients viewed potential technology far in advance of what they actually knew at the time. We should also note that after Tiamat's death Marduk went out and destroyed all of Tiamat's creation.

My theory of how this story was elevated to mythology with the main actors being gods, is as such: the Bible indicates that the reason for the fall was because humanity chose to remove God from his rightful place as ruler of creation and place themselves up there instead. In a sense humanity was worshipping humanity. In a primitive culture, deity is usually ascribed to the older and deceased generations, a term we refer to as ancestor worship (however if you actually speak to a Christian ancestor worshipper, as I have done, we come to understand that ancestor worship is much more than simply deifying your ancestors, but rather respecting their wishes and holding their memory in high regard). However, as time passes and these ancestors drift into distant memory they cease to be human and instead become gods.

Now, with the Egyptian and Babylonian deities we notice that they take the form of animals with humanoid features, whether it be the body of an eagle and the head of a man as with Anzu, or the head of an eagle and the body of a man as with Ra. These features do not necessarily indicate that that is what the deity looked like, but rather the deity has taken on an animal form to represent an aspect of their character, in the similar way that we see animals used in the Bible to represent certain qualities (such as a bull representing strength and a dragon representing destruction).

So, by bringing them out of mythology we have an idea that maybe it is not so much the creation of the world that we are seeing but rather the development of civilisation, and the gods that we are seeing are early antideluvian human beings. Now, as with our society, so with theirs, there are is ruling class and a working class, and what we have here is a rebellion amongst the ruling class. Tiamat is attempting to overthrow the established order, and her army of monsters suggest that she has skills and abilities that are able to overrealm the established order (much the same was that Germany's advances during World War II were to give them an advantage over the less developed allied powers). However, Marduk, the champion, was able to defeat her, suggesting that the usage of her body to continue and complete creation reflects the sacking of her compound and using her technology to continue the development of civilisation. In particular we see references to the setting of times and dates (and it is interesting that the week is established on a seven day roster, and the month is established on a 30 day roster, which is very similar to the Biblical account).

As I have mentioned previously, it is my position that the biblical account will supersede all other accounts, including this one. As the academic Christians like to put it, the Genesis account was handed down to stand apart from the ancient mythologies that were surrounding the Isrealite nation at the time, and the general consensus is that this was while they were either in Egypt, or after that they left. I sort of disagree slightly because we must remember that the revelation appeared to a number of earlier people, including Adam and Eve (which is to be discounted because it is quite likely that the events in this poem occurred after them, however would have possibly occurred before Enoch), Noah, and Abraham. We will take Abraham as an example (and whether Noah was alive when Abraham was alive can be debated and while I would like to think that the answer to that speculation is yes I am going to fall the other way and say no, namely because Abraham received a special revelation from God, something that probably would not have been necessary is Noah was still alive). Abraham, remember, grew up in Mesopotamia, so he would have been exposed to and surrounded by these myths, which is why he received the special revelation from God, and I suspect it was a lot more than simply 'pack up your bags go to the other side of the known world'. To be honest with you, we are told that Abraham was a man of Faith, but I am doubtful he was a man of blind faith. A mysterious voice (we actually don't know how God appeared to Abraham) coming out of nowhere and telling him to pack his bags would have needed some examination as to its truth. Remember, many of the men of faith in the Bible would turn to God and say 'if you are who you say you are, prove it to me'. God never asks for blind faith, that is dangerous, no, when God asks you to step out in faith, he does it in a way that we know that we can trust him (such as Christ's resurrection, which was necessary to prove that Christ's death was more than just the execution of a revolutionary).

With the possible exception of sections of the Bible (and many of the dates that we ascribe to the various books are speculative at best) this would be the oldest piece of literature that I have read and reviewed. The epic was discovered in 1853 and was first translated in 1870 which means that we have not had the actual story for very long, however its influences do stretch out over all recorded history, particularly with the similarities between the flood story here and the flood story in Genesis (though as previously mentioned it is my position that the flood story in Genesis supersedes this flood story, as I shall explain).

The problem with this epic is that unlike the Bible or Homer we do not have a standard text. The date that I have given the poem is the earliest recorded date of tablets that have been found, however these tablets, and many of the other tablets that we have do not provide a standard telling of the story, and even by creating an outline of how we understand the story progresses, it is still incredibly corrupt and trying to piece the story together is a method of trial and error.

The story begins with Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, who was using his kingly powers to pretty much have his way with all of the women of the city, and in particular he would deny the husband the right to sleep with their new brides until after Gilgamesh had had the pleasure. It is an indication of the nature of Babylonian tyranny in that it appears that there was no law that bound the king, and the fact that he was two-thirds god appeared to make him even more authoritarian. I actually believe that there is a biblical reference to Gilgamesh in Genesis, namely a character known as Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter before the lord, and ironically appears to have had a number of cities attributed to him which are similar to the cities that Gilgamesh was said to have established.

Anyway, the people of Uruk cry out to the gods to deal with Gilgamesh's actions, so they create a wild man named Enkidu. However Enkidu proves to be quite difficult in that it appears that he is roaming the land destroying civilisation, so they send a prostitute to him to teach him about sex. After seven days of passionate love making, Enkidu is broken of his wild ways. This story has some interesting aspects to it in the nature of civilisation verses the wild. The people of Uruk represent civilisation while Enkidu represents the uncivilised man, and it appears that even as far back as then the constant conflict between civilisation and barbarity was in full swing. Even though Enkidu is only one man, it appears that he could be a representation of uncivilised tribal cultures and bandits who have no respect for the hard work of honest men.

However, the use of the prostitute is something that is reflective of a civilised nature. Tribal cultures, particularly those without a form of commerce, would unlikely have had prostitutes, therefore the existence of the prostitute reflects a civilised society because for a prostitute to be able to exist there must be some form of commerce to allow her to make a gain from the services that she provides. I do not believe that the poem is reflective of sex as being a mechanism of civilisation, however the use of a prostitute is. Since her services must be paid for, if no payment is forthcoming, then the person is in her debt. This is what happens to Enkidu.

Enkidu and Gilgamesh become friends after Enkidu confronts the king on one of his nightly escapades. One wonders if this is reflective of a homosexual relationship, however I don't feel that this is the case. It appears that the problem was that Gilgamesh was lonely, which is the nature of kingship. As a king he has total authority and he can have what he wants when he wants, as is indicated by his sexual escapades. However, what they do not create is a sense of companionship, especially when you are stealing other people's wives. What Enkidu does is to give Gilgamesh a companion and a sense of companionship, and as such, he has what he wants, and like the prostitute served to civilise Enkidu, the pact of friendship that Gilgamesh and Enkidu form, serves to civilise Gilgamesh.

They go on adventures together, though only two of them are mentioned: the trek to Lebanon to defeat the ogre Humbaba, and then the fight against Ishtar's bull that is sent to destroy the city of Uruk. I will not go into much more details of these adventures with the exception to flag them as a very early adventure story. Considering that the adventures appear to be complete in themselves, it is quite possible that these stories are shortened versions of longer texts, and examples of other stories, in which the two characters star. In a way, this is probably a very early example of the modern serialised novel. In fact, we could change Gilgamesh and Enkidu to Sherlock Holmes and Watson.

The main part of the text though deals with Gilgamesh's quest for immortality and his failure to find it. He is part god, but his human nature means that he must die like every other human. Enkidu dies of a wasting disease and this sends Gilgamesh into a long period of mourning, however he does not seek immortality to bring Enkidu back, but rather to stop himself from dying. It is not the loss of a loved one that drives him, but his fear of death, and this fear of death is something that is prevalent in literature throughout recorded history.

Gilgamesh then goes on a long journey to find Umpashtim, the sole survior of the flood, and also the last human to be gifted with immortality, however while Gilgamesh learns the secret, he does not gain immortality. There are reasons for this flagged elsewhere, but note that Gilgamesh is not the wisest of characters. Umpashtim is a wise sage and his discussions with Gilgamesh indicate this. One of his tests is to stay awake for seven days (the number seven appears very regularly in Babylonian mythology, and this has come down to us in the Bible), and this he fails, with the explanation that if he cannot stay awake for seven days, how is he to fight death, which is a much more powerful opponent than sleep. We also note that as mentioned he is foolish, particularly when he goes off half-cocked to kill some giants only to discover that these giants were the only way to allow him to move forward (but his cunning allows him to do so anyway).

Finally, we have the rather nasty ending to the story. Gilgamesh sees the flower that will make him young again, and thus give him immortality, and it is within his reach, only to have it taken away from him by a serpent (which I read as a dragon). Here is another biblical parallel, as in this epic, Gilgamesh has immortality in his grasp, only to have it taken away from him at the last moment by a serpent. In the Genesis account, we have the serpent steal immortality from Adam and Eve by lying to them and getting them to disobey God. So it appears that in this mythology, the serpent is represented by the loss of immortality.

This was probably a popular and well known story to the Mesopotamians, in that it answers, or tries to answer, the question of 'why do we die'. In a sense it could also be a nursery rhyme of some sort, with the child asking the question and the nursemaid responding with this story. Mesopotamia, while a civilised state for his period, was still a violent and nasty place where life was cheap. As such death would be all around them, and there was a need and a desire to understand why this was the case.

This is a very ancient story, probably one of the oldest that we have, having been written in ancient Mesopotamia. Despite its age it is still a relatively recent discovery, namely because we did not actually know about it until the clay tablets were dug up in northern Iraq. In fact many of the stories from ancient Mesopotamia are relatively recent discoveries having been hidden under the desert sands for millennia. I guess that is one of the good things about clay tablets in that they preserve quite well (though paper does as well, as the Nag Hammadi Library and the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to).

This is the Mesopotamian story of the creation of humanity and it includes a story about the flood. In a way it has connections with the Genesis account in the Bible, I that there are a few similarities in both works. However there are also a number of differences as well. We must keep in mind though that this text is quite corrupt, meaning that there are sections of the text that are missing and in many cases it is impossible for us to actually piece together what is being said, though the style of writing can help (the Mesopotamians seemed to like repeating lines in much the same way that the Old Testament does).

I should make clear my opinion of the Genesis account first of all. Now, traditionally it is held that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, which are the first five book of the Bible. Now, I do not dispute that, however my position is that Genesis was compiled and added to the Penteteuch by Moses, but the sources from which he complied Genesis are much older. Personally I do not buy into the redactionist argument in relation to the Old Testament, nor do I accept the source criticism approach, in that the Old Testament was written in Babylon during the captivity by a collection of priests who compiled a collection of myths that had developed over the intervening years. I consider that the biblical account is a first hand account, and considering my theological stance, see no problem with a omnipotent deity making sure that the true account is handed down.

Also, I see no reason why this account should supercede the Genesis account, and the only argument seems to be that people are so challenged by the biblical account that they must look for a different explanation for our origins and thus we turn to other ancient accounts despite the fact that these accounts are corrupted. I do not accept the 6000 odd year old Earth theory that was concocted by the Bishop of Ulster simply because I believe that the purpose of dating in the Old Testament was not necessarily put in place a method to enable us to calculate the exact age of the Earth. Since the Bible is not meant to be a scientific text, I do not believe that we should be applying scientific and mathematical concepts to it.

One of the things that I did notice about this story was that it seemed to be a political text. It is difficult for me to understand how the story was delivered and who it was delivered too. Was it something that was kept and shared amongst the nobility and the priesthood, or were these stories told to the slave population as well? It seems in a way to be something that would be told to the hoi poloi as a means to reminding them of their place in the world. The reason I say this is because of the reason behind the creation of man and the fear that the gods had in relation to humanity.

At the beginning we seem to have two layers within the realm of the gods. There were the gods that were in charge of the world, and then there were the Igigi who seemed to the the labourers. However it appears that the Igigi rebelled against the gods and laid siege to their holy city, and as such humanity was created to perform the work that the Igigi were performing, and this allowed the gods (who decided they no longer wanted to work) to sit back and relax. This seems to be a common theme in relation to a class system. The upper class does not want to work, so they force the lower classes to work, however as one class becomes more numerous or influential, they rebel and force themselves into the lazy class, as I will call them. In fact, this seems to reflect a Marxist view of history, in that it is dominated by class war, and we can see from this ancient text that the class war was being fought as far back as ancient Mesopotamia.

The problem with humanity was that the gods had made them too powerful, and as they became more powerful, and more populous, they became more of a threat. One suggestion is that the gods became annoyed because of all of the chattering that would come from humanity, though I suspect that it has more to do with fear of being overthrown. We see some connections with the biblical account as well since humanity went to war against the deity numerous times, and each time the diety acted to defend his position (not that it was threatened anyway). In the biblical account we see the beginning of a shortened lifespan, the dispersion of the population, and also the creation of languages. We see similar events in this epic.

What is noticeable is the actions that the gods perform to defend their position against an ever increasing human population. First of all disease is sent to wipe them out, however that does not succeed and humanity keeps on expanding, so they then send drought and famine, however one of the gods shows mercy and sends dew to water the land. Then there is something about 'tying up the air'. This is quite baffling as some people could almost suggest as if the population of Earth was being cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Is this an ancient account of the end of interstellar travel? Who is to know, though I will not be staking my reputation on it, but rather just float the idea simply because it is there. In any case, how did the ancient Mesopotamians know about the atmospheric covering of Earth, and how did they know that if they went too high then there would be no air? The only explanation is that they noticed that as they climbed higher up the mountains then the air would become thinner.

Finally we have the flood, though I do not necessarily want to go into too much details. Now, I am a supporter of a world wide flood as indicated not only in the Bible but here as well. Now, it is not surprising that an ancient Mesopotamian story would talk about a flood, the reason being is that it would always be flooding in the cradle of civilisation, and sometimes the floods would be so massive that the entire desert would be covered in water. This is possible and factual, however that is also ignoring all of the other flood stories the world over. It is not simply a question of stories and myths travelling around the Middle East by merchants, but rather ancestral memories dating back to the first post-deluvian man, that being Noah. We also consider that Palestine was mountainous (and still is), as is Greece (who have their own story of the flood with the survivor being Deucalion). Now mountainous countries do not make good settings for a world wide flood story, unless of course the flood was world wide (and I suspect that there is enough water on the Earth, especially if the sunken continental plates are risen, to flood the Earth). Look, I could go into a very deep scientific argument on the possibility of a world wide flood (and some Christian writers have done so), but I really don't want to go down that path at this time, and when I get to Gilgamesh (which is the next book on my list, sort of), I will probably try to steer away from it and focus more on the question of immortality and defeating death.