Mesopotamia: cradle of civilization

The city of New Eridu is populated by those descended from the gods, demons and monsters of ancient Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia, literally 'Land Between the Two Rivers', was located in the heart of the Fertile Crescent, now modern day Iraq. Some 9,000 years ago, it was the birthplace of agriculture. 4,000 years later came the world’s first civilisations: Sumeria, Akkadia then Assyria and Babylonia.

At that time, sandstone and mud-brick cities rose up from the desert surrounding the river basins, magnificent ziggurats (temples as well as, perhaps, palaces for early rulers) towered above the cities while homes and farms spread into the surrounding countryside. The rivers were diverted to irrigate the fields and those who worked the fields sought protection from city-states such as Uruk, Kish or Nineveh. The first city of Eridu, Sumerian for ’faraway home’, lay south of the Euphrates.

Writing also emerged in Mesopotamia in the early Bronze Age, or Jemdet Nar period: cuneiform – so named for its wedge-shaped strokes – was the world’s first script. The earliest writings to survive are commercial transactions and legal documents, but c. 2500 BC begin epic tales of heroes, gods, demons, quests and wars. Etched on brittle clay tablets or monument walls, these are the only records of the myths and legends that underpinned Mesopotamian civilisation.

When he first read the Epic of Gilgamesh, German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, "intoxicated with pleasure", is reported to have said, "Gilgamesh is stupendous." One of the greatest works of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, still incomplete after having been compiled from dozens of fragmentary cuneiform texts, is a story about universal ideas – heroism, friendship, and our fear of death. Although we return to dust, Gilgamesh learns – and we learn – that immortality can only be achieved by living on in historical memory through our achievements. In other words, recorded history is our only way to achieve immortality.

- Angela M.H. Schuster, ’Theft of Time’ in The Looting of the Iraq Museum Baghdad

Alongside these writings were images of the horned gods and beast-headed demons that ruled the earth and the fate of humankind. But the destruction of such tablets, by decay, disaster or spite, means that most stories have gaps that only the heroes, kings and, of course, the gods themselves can bridge.

Mesopotamian civilisation was effectively ended in the Iron Age (c. 4^th century BC), under the pressure of the Achaemenid Persian Empire and its new religion: Zoroastrianism. By then the gods of Mesopotamia were already weak, on the verge of expulsion from the immortal lands…They and their stories now live on only in history – that font of dead memories. And in the city of New Eridu.

The epic of creation, and the fall

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being...

- The Epic of Creation, Tablet I (transl. L.W. King)

Apsu, formed of freshwater, is the father of the gods; Tiamat, formed of saltwater, is their mother. Tiamat gives birth to the gods: Lahmu and Lahamu, Anshar and Kishar. Anshar begets Anu, who fathers Ea (or Nidimmud or Enki – the gods have been given many names). But Apsu with his vizier Mummu plans to kill his children for they are noisy and he can find no peace. The young gods, learning of this plot, instead kill him, with Ea delivering the fatal blow and burying the sweet waters of Apsu beneath his dwelling. In the Apsu, fathered by Ea, is born the hero Marduk.

The joy at Marduk’s birth is short-lived: soon Tiamat, urged by the older gods to take revenge on her husband’s killers, assembles an army of gods and monsters: lion-headed ugallu-demons, horned serpents, vicious bull-men, weird fish-men and worse. She installs her lover Qingu as general and gives him the Tablets of Destiny, which decree the fate of all gods and give supreme power to their owner.

Terrified, the younger gods – the Anunnaki of the underworld and Igigi of the sky – hold an assembly to try and find a hero who will defend them. Ea, slayer of Apsu, volunteers but even he cannot stand up to Tiamat’s might and returns defeated. The younger gods despair until Marduk steps forward as their champion. So he can defeat Tiamat and Qingu, who holds the Tablets of Destiny, the gods assign Marduk his own fate: his word cannot be undone and his enemies will have no power over him.

In battle, Marduk defeats Tiamat by bloating her stomach with his imhullu-wind and piercing her belly with an arrow. He slices her in two and smashes her skull with a mace. One half of her, he locks in the sky; her salt waters, he imprisons on land. He defeats Qingu and his fellow gods, seizes the Tablets of Destiny then enslaves their armies. Anshar, father of the younger gods, rejoices: they are saved.

The chaos of war behind him, Marduk sets stars in the sky, constellations representing the gods, and decrees the order of days, nights, months and years. He creates the moon, which waxes and wanes according to the gaze of the sun god Shamash, and with the remaining half of Tiamat’s body he makes the earth.

From her eyes he draws the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris. He cuts up the lower half of her body and with it shapes the land, mountains and plains that now cover the sweet waters of Apsu. He decrees the building of shrines, temples and palaces for all the gods – the fifty gods of heaven and earth - and a cult-centre for himself: Babylon… Finally, he orders the creation of Man, a being of blood and bone, who shall toil for the gods and allow them to live in leisure.

Ea cuts off the defeated Qingu’s head. The blood that pours forth he mixes with clay: with the magic of the mother-goddess, Ninhursag, thus Man is made, who populates the earth, who works for the gods and who worships them. But only so long as other men, created by other gods, do not rule over him…

The dynasty of Mesopotamian gods lasts less than 3,000 years before the humans they created, or rather their beliefs and their rituals, are swept from existence. A new story begins, one not written in the clay tablets bequeathed to memory.

In this story, the destinies of the gods are shattered by a force greater than Fate. Without worship to sustain them, god, demon and monster alike are cast to earth. Dejected, mortal they wander the desert plains, dropping dead as thirst and hunger claim them. By chance one day, the survivors find a wide river whose brown waters cut through the sands. They follow its banks to the foot of a mountain range. Here they found the city of New Eridu. Here they live and die, as do their descendents, in the first city of The Homeless Gods…