Bull of Heaven
In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, the Bull of Heaven is a mythical beast fought by the hero Gilgamesh. The story of the Bull of Heaven is known from two different versions: one recorded in an earlier Sumerian poem and a later episode in the Standard Babylonian (a literary dialect of Akkadian) Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Sumerian poem, the Bull is sent to attack Gilgamesh by the goddess Inanna for reasons that are unclear.
The more complete Akkadian account comes from Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh refuses the sexual advances of the goddess Ishtar, the East Semitic equivalent of Inanna, leading the enraged Ishtar to demand the Bull of Heaven from her father Anu, so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh in Uruk. Anu gives her the Bull and she sends it to attack Gilgamesh and his companion, the hero Enkidu, who slay the Bull together.
After defeating the Bull, Enkidu hurls the Bull's right thigh at Ishtar, taunting her. The slaying of the Bull results in the gods condemning Enkidu to death, an event which catalyzes Gilgamesh's fear for his own death, which drives the remaining portion of the epic. The Bull was identified with the constellation Taurus and the myth of its slaying may have held astronomical significance to the ancient Mesopotamians. Aspects of the story have been compared to later tales from the ancient Near East, including legends from Ugarit, the tale of Joseph in the Book of Genesis, and parts of the ancient Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Mythology
Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven
In the Sumerian poem Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the Bull of Heaven, who has been sent to attack them by the goddess Inanna, the Sumerian equivalent of Ishtar.[4][5][6] The plot of this poem differs substantially from the corresponding scene in the later Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.[7] In the Sumerian poem, Inanna does not seem to ask Gilgamesh to become her consort as she does in the later Akkadian epic.[5] Furthermore, while she is coercing her father An to give her the Bull of Heaven, rather than threatening to raise the dead to eat the living as she does in the later epic, she merely threatens to let out a "cry" that will reach the earth.[7]
Epic of Gilgamesh
In Tablet VI of the standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, after Gilgamesh repudiates her sexual advances, Ishtar goes to Heaven, where she complains to her mother Antu and her father Anu.[8] She demands that Anu give her the Bull of Heaven[9][10] and threatens that, if he refuses, she will smash the gates of the Underworld and raise the dead to eat the living.[11] Anu at first objects to Ishtar's demand, insisting that the Bull of Heaven is so destructive that its release would result in seven years of famine.[11][10] Ishtar declares that she has stored up enough grain for all people and all animals for the next seven years.[11][10] Eventually, Anu reluctantly agrees to give it to Ishtar, whereupon she unleashes it on the world, causing mass destruction.[9][11]
The Bull's first breath blows a hole in the ground that one hundred men fall into and its second breath creates another hole, trapping two hundred more.
Ishtar calls together "the crimped courtesans, prostitutes and harlots"
Symbolism and representation
Numerous depictions of the slaying of the Bull of Heaven occur in extant works of ancient Mesopotamian art.
Gordon and Rendsburg note that the notion of flinging a bull's leg at someone "as a terrible insult" is attested across a wide geographic area of the ancient Near East
Influence on later stories
Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg note that the Near Eastern motif of seven years of famine following the death of a hero is attested in the
According to the German classical scholar Walter Burkert, the scene in which Ishtar comes before Anu to demand the Bull of Heaven after being rejected by Gilgamesh is directly paralleled by a scene from Book V of the Iliad.[8] In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ishtar complains to her mother Antu, but is mildly rebuked by Anu.[8] In the scene from the Iliad, Aphrodite, the later Greek development of Ishtar, is wounded by the Greek hero Diomedes while trying to save her son Aeneas.[21] She flees to Mount Olympus, where she cries to her mother Dione, is mocked by her sister Athena, and is mildly rebuked by her father Zeus.[21] Not only is the narrative parallel significant,[21] but so is the fact that Dione's name is a feminization of Zeus's own, just as Antu is a feminine form of Anu.[21] Dione does not appear throughout the rest of the Iliad, in which Zeus's consort is instead the goddess Hera.[21] Burkert therefore concludes that Dione is a calque of Antu.[21]
British classical scholar Graham Anderson notes that, in the Odyssey, Odysseus's men kill the sacred
Bruce Louden compares Enkidu's taunting of Ishtar immediately after slaying the Bull of Heaven to Odysseus's taunt of the giant Polyphemus in Book IX of the Odyssey.[24] In both cases, the hero's own hubris after an apparent victory leads a deity to curse him.[24]
References
- ^ Powell 2012, p. 342.
- ^ a b c d e f Black & Green 1992, p. 90.
- ^ Powell 2012, pp. 341–343.
- ^ Black & Green 1992, p. 89.
- ^ a b Tigay 2002, p. 24.
- ^ ETCSL 1.8.1.2
- ^ a b Tigay 2002, pp. 24–25.
- ^ a b c Burkert 2005, pp. 299–300.
- ^ a b c d e f Black & Green 1992, p. 49.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Gordon & Rendsburg 1997, p. 46.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Jacobsen 1976, p. 201.
- ^ a b c d e Dalley 1989, p. 82.
- ^ Fontenrose 1980, pp. 168–169.
- ^ a b c d Fontenrose 1980, p. 169.
- ^ a b Jacobsen 1976, p. 202.
- ^ Dalley 1989, p. 82-83.
- ^ Fontenrose 1980, p. 171.
- ^ Gordon & Rendsburg 1997, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Pryke 2017, p. 205.
- ^ "Surah Yusuf - 47-48". Quran.com. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
- ^ a b c d e f Burkert 2005, p. 300.
- ^ Anderson 2000, p. 127.
- ^ a b c d West 1997, p. 417.
- ^ a b Louden 2011, p. 194.
Bibliography
- Anderson, Graham (2000). Fairytale in the Ancient World. New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-23702-4.
- Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992), Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, The British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0714117058
- ISBN 978-1-4051-0524-8
- ISBN 978-0-19-283589-5
- Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy (1980) [1959], Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, Berkeley, California, Los Angeles, California, and London, England: The University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-04106-6
- Gordon, Cyrus H.; Rendsburg, Gary A. (1997) [1953], The Bible and the Ancient Near East, New York City, New York and London, England: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-31689-6
- Jacobsen, Thorkild (1976), The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven, Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-02291-9
- Louden, Bruce (2011), Homer's Odyssey and the Near East, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-76820-7
- ISBN 978-0-205-17607-6
- Pryke, Louise M. (2017), Ishtar, New York and London: Routledge, ISBN 978-1-138--86073-5
- Rice, Michael (1998), The Power of the Bull, New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-09032-2
- Tigay, Jeffrey H. (2002) [1982], The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, Wauconda, Illinois: Bolchazzy-Carucci Publishers, Inc., ISBN 978-0-86516-546-5
- ISBN 978-0-19-815221-7