Death and Immortality

1
Death and Immortality

• CNE/ENG 120
• 9/8/04

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Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld

• Culture Mesopotamian
• Author unknown
• Time late 2nd millennium BCE
• Genre poetry
• Names to know Ereshkigal, Dumuzi
• Themes double meaning of the underworld
  (seasonal renewal), conflict in divine family.

3
Social Context

• This story is first attested in Late Bronze Age
  texts, in Babylon, Assyria, and later, Nineveh.
  It seems to end with ritual instructions for an
  annual fertility ritual that took place in
  June/July, and featured the bathing, anointing,
  lying in state in Nineveh of a statue of Dumuzi.

4
Plot

• Ishtar, goddess of the upper world, descends to
  the underworld to challenge her sister,
  Ereshkigal, queen of the dead.

5
Stylistic Features

• Repetition of phrases and events (feature of oral
  style).
• Fondness for descriptions of nonverbal behaviors
  (gestures, affect displays, etc.)

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Narrative Pattern

• Ishtar passes through the various gates to the
  underworld, threatening violence if she is
  denied, stripping herself of her jewelry
  clothing at the demands of the gatekeeper.

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Plot Climax

• Ereshkigal and Ishtar come face to face
  Ereshkigal trembles as Ishtar leaned over her.
• Ereshkigal addressed her vizier Namtar, ordering
  him to send out 60 diseases to Ishtar.

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Earthly Consequences of Ishtars Death

• Lines 78-82 fertility is gone from the land,
  since the goddess of sexuality is withdrawn from
  life.
• Papsukkal, vizier of the great gods, mourning,
  addressed Sin and Ea.

9
Eas Solution

• What does Ea decide to do to fix the problem?
• How does Ereshkigal react?
• In line 101, Good-looks may be referring to
  Ishtars corpse when he says, let them give me
  the waterskin, that I may drink water from it.

10
Ishtars Resurrection

• Namtar sprinkles the water of life on Ishtar,
  then led her back through the gates, restoring
  her jewelry clothing. She pays for her life
  with Dumuzi, her former lover who will now live
  with Ereshkigal.
• He returns to the upper world in the ritual of
  the statue (the dead were wrapped in red cloth).

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Dumuzi in the Underworld
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The Book of the Dead

• Culture Egyptian
• Author unknown
• Time 2nd millennium BCE (New Kingdom)
• Genre prose (spells)
• Term to know maat (truth)
• Original title The Book of Coming Forth by Day.
• Context burial (religious)
• Themes judgment of the dead, eternal life, the
  afterlife

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The Opening of the Mouth

• One of the spells meant to bring about the
  resurrection of the dead person and to ensure
  his/her safety in the afterlife.
• Reflects ritual acts performed during and after
  burial.
• People could buy the Book of the Dead and just
  insert their names into the ready-made scroll,
  which was then buried with the dead.

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The Opening of the Mouth, Continued

• Magical texts used to ensure ones bodily
  afterlife.
• The opening of the mouth was an important
  ritual performed before statues and before
  mummies prior to burial.

15
The Heart as Witness

• The weighing of the dead persons heart on the
  scales before an assembly of gods who are
  presided over by Osiris.
• Those who pass the judgement of maat, win eternal
  life with the gods, those who fail are destroyed
  utterly.

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The Declaration of Innocence

• Purpose to purge the soul of sins.
• Said in the Hall of Maat
• Person declares that he/she knows the names of
  all the gods because this meant power over them.
• What kinds of sins are mentioned? (pp. 137-8)

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The First Interrogation

• The gods interrogate the dead person as a prelude
  to the judging of his/her soul by maat.
• Most of the questions and answers refer to the
  mysteries of Osiris.

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Instructions for Use

• Practical information for the dead.
• Instructions on how to dress, what to offer.
• Indication of what the person will achieve
  eternal life with all earthly pleasures with the
  gods.
• Effective a million times.

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Letters to the Dead

• A little later than The Book of the Dead - 2nd to
  1st c. BCE (still New Kingdom).
• The living could communicate with the dead, who
  were expected to help them.
• Context written on pots left in tombs as
  offerings.

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How Can the Dead Hurt/Help?

• How can the dead hurt the living?
• What kinds of help do the living want from the
  dead in these letters?

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Erra and Ishum

• Culture Mesopotamian
• Author Kabti-ilani-Marduk
• Time 8th c. BCE
• Genre poetry
• Name to know Erra (god of pestilence death)
• Context after nomadic invasion loss of spoils
  from Marduks temple, period of civil unrest and
  conflict.

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Erra and Ishum

• Consists of 5 tablets, the main one in the shape
  of an amulet. Such amulets were hung in houses to
  ward off plague.
• Introduction poet declares the main theme
  (similar to the one in the Epic of Gilgamesh).

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Erra

• Erra is another name for Nergal, a great god of
  plague and lord of the Underworld (consort to
  Ereshkigal).
• God of fertility, controller of animals, patron
  of copper smelting.
• His weapons floods and mountain torrents
  (compare with myth of the Great Flood).

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Opening Situation

• Erras heart urges him to battle, but his arms
  are heavy.
• He stays at home having sex with his wife.
• His weapons, among them the Sebitti, 7 warrior
  gods, take him to task, complaining that they
  will soon be unfit for war.

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Gender Roles

• The 7 warrior gods declare to Erra,
• For young men, going to war is like going to a
  feast!
• They urge him to launch his battle cry to scare
  the mortal realm.
• Pleased by their address, Erra calls them out to
  war.

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Ishum Replies

• Ishum, Erras vizier, speaks out against the
  plan.
• But Erra is determined to challenge Marduk, god
  of Babylon.
• Compare the picture of Marduk given here with
  that in the Enuma Elish.

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Erras Plan

• Wants to punish humans since they do what they
  want to do, not what Marduk wants them to do.
• He devises a plan to get Marduk out of his temple
  so he can destroy the human race.

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The Plot Thickens

• How does Erra try to get Marduk to leave his
  temple?
• How does Marduk respond?
• What does Erra propose?
• What will happen if Marduk leaves his throne?
• What is Erras solution?

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Chaos in Babylon

• Marduk leaves to consult the craftsmen in the
  underworld.
• Erra unleashes chaos in Babylon, despite Ishums
  attempts at intervention.
• Marduk himself cries woe! clutches his heart.

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In the End . . .

• All over Babylonia people are at war and the
  country is violated.
• Ishum catalogues Erras evildoing (lines 542
  ff.).
• Eventually Erra retires to his temple in Kutha
  (an underworld city).
• Ishum gathers the people, foretelling prosperity
  and victory in the future.

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The Book of Job

• Culture ancient NE (Israelite)
• Time 6th c. BCE
• Author unknown
• Genre prose
• Theme problem of evil, justice
• Context monotheistic religion evil not a
  problem in polytheistic religions, since it can
  be caused by evil gods (like Erra).

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Context

• Like Erra, it was written during the 6th c. BCE,
  in the Babylonian Exile, when the nation of
  Israel had been destroyed.
• Jobs author revises an old folktale to explore
  the trauma of loss and the struggle with God on
  an individual level.
• Compare Jobs quest for justice with the much
  earlier Egyptian Declaration of Innocence.