Script

Cast

Research Notes

Images of Sumer

Costume and Scene Concepts

Music and Literature of Sumer

Links

Biographies of the Inanna Troupe

Agreement

Dates

Acknowledgements

Coming Soon

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 6

Image 8 Dumuzi

Image 9 Sacred Wedding

Image 10
Sacred Marriage of Inanna & Dumuzi

RESEARCH NOTES

Pantheon of Gods Appearing in the Play

Brief History & Geographical Description of Sumer

Related Myth: Creativity and the Dual Nature of the Divine Mother

Lists of Objects

PANTHEON OF GODS USED IN THE PLAY INNANA

The Sumer speaking people, hence the name of the people, were solid, conventional peasant people. They had always formed the backbone of Mesopotamia thereby providing little change when their civilization was invaded. The conquering Amorites, Kassites, Assyrians and Chaldeans adopted their ways. For 3000 years, their art, literature and institutions pervaded the functions of kings and the day-to-day occupations of the people. They believed that land, the sky and the turning of seasons relied on the beneficence of the gods. Through the millennia, temple was built upon temple suggesting the same sacred sites were honored from Neolithic times.

Several philosophical schools of priests formulated religious ideas expressed through divine families. They generally agreed on principles, patron gods and legends. The divine families were a society that replicated the organization of the Sumerian family and they lived in the sky, the earth and the underworld. These gods, like the Greek and Aryan gods had qualities similar to human beings in appearance, passions and defects of character. However, they had marvelous strength, supernatural powers and immortality. They manifested themselves in a circle of brilliant light which filled people with awe and a feeling of connection with the divine.

<< See images 1, 2, 3

At the bottom of the hierarchy were the helpful spirits and malevolent demons that belonged to folk belief rather than religion. Then there was the angel, a personal intercessor between the person and the gods. Simple deities were responsible for work tools and helped laborers, artisans and farmers. Deities of rivers, mountains, minerals, plants, wild and domesticated animals, fertility, birth, and medicine and the gods of the winds and the rains were the spiritual core of the phenomenal life.

Then there were the powerful gods.
The primeval female god, Nammu, Queen of the Cosmic Ocean was wife to Apsu, King of the Sweet Waters. But she became pregnant without the help of a male god. She gave birth to the male Sky god, An and the female earth goddess, Ninhursag or Ki, which were joined together. The offspring of the sky and earth, Enlil, the Air god, separated them and created all living creatures.

Queen Ereshkigal and her husband Nergal, the god of pestilence and war reigned in the Underworld in a huge palace surrounded by deities and guards. To reach the palace, spirits of the dead had to cross a river by ferry and take off their clothes. There they led a wretched life where dust and clay were their food. The deities ate regular food, however. There was a hierarchy of souls. A king had privilege and those who lived a life servitude continued to do so. There was no light and they wore garments of feathers. The door to the Underworld was bolted and covered in dust. Ereshkigal and Nergal have their own interesting biographies.

	Image 4 A woman's plaintive expression was captured by an artist of Ur around 2100 BC. The figure may portray the goddess Ningal, consort of the moon god Nanna, Ur's patron deity. Love songs endow Ningal with a passionate nature, and her earthly equivalents, the high priestesses, probably reenacted a sacred marriage ritual dedicated to Ningal within their temple precincts.
	Image 5 Aztec equivalent of Ereshkigal

The sky gods such as Nanna and Ningal, god and goddess of the moon, controlled time and knew the destinies of all living things. Utu, their son, was the sun god who stood for justice as he pervaded the Earth with blinding light.

Inanna, their daughter was lovely and voluptuous, passionate and argumentative.

<< See image 6

In her early life she had no husband or children but lovers whom she regularly dismissed. She was goddess of erotic love as well as war.

Image 7 Inanna subjugates Kur.

She chose Dumuzi to be her husband whom she loved and cared for. However, when he showed his limitations for loving her, she thrust him into the Underworld.

<< See images 8, 9, 10

Dumuzi was a shepherd god, son of Enki and goddess Situr, the Sheep goddess. He protected the cattle and the sheep, the vegetation that cycles through death and renewal in winter and spring. His descent to the Underworld for 6 months of the year replicates the planting and harvesting of seasons – his re-emergence from the Underworld occurred in the spring. His mythical task was to keep the gates of the Underworld open so that a clear passage between the fertile Earth and the infertile realm of death was secured.

Enki was a more complex god. He ruled the sweet waters that flowed in wells and springs, in rivers and lakes that brought life to Sumer. He was held in awe for his intelligence. He was the inventor of all techniques, sciences and arts and was patron of magicians. He also held the 100 me (pron. May), treasures of wisdom inspired by the gods that taught the People of Sumer what was most valuable to maintain civilization.

After the world was created he applied the me thereby creating world order. Then he blessed the cattle sheds, fields and cities and their people. He transformed himself into a bull and filled the Tigris with the sparkling water of his semen. He was the ear and the mind of the land, fine-tuning all living things and arranging their destinies. He handed the entire Universe over to Utu, the sun god. Always an advocate of the Earth’s people, he instructed them to fulfill the gods’ work and eventually saved them from the Great Flood.

The Western Religious Literature is filled with parables, histories and philosophy of civilized living that has its origins in Ancient Sumer.

Image 11 Enki in sea house (Abzu). Left is Utu with rays and saw-toothed scimitar. Other deity is unknown. Bulls’ horns arranged in tiers on the deity’s head is a crown. Bulls’ horns signify.

Image 12 Enki’s trusted messenger, Isimud is Janus-faced. (see cylinder seal above on Right side)

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