Wednesday, May 27, 2015

A Handful of Dust

[As I noted in my last entry, "The Relics", I am taking a hiatus from writing new monthly blog entries until I develop some fresh inspirations.  In the meantime, I thought that this would be a good venue to share an earlier project of mine: a 16-episode history series that I did for a public radio station about ten years ago which is titled "Larger than Life".  What I argued in this series is that the history of any people is in large part determined by what that people believes about itself: its origins, its place in the world and among the rest of humanity, and its destiny.  The first eight episodes dealt mainly with the impacts of mythology and religion in our early civilization, and the second eight episodes focused upon more modern history, and the growing role of science in shaping our world views and our collective behaviors.  I hope that you find this series at least as entertaining and enjoyable as the blogs.  Episode 1 is entitled "A Handful of Dust".]

They huddle together, around a large fire.  The sun’s been down for hours, and it is cold, very cold.  The murmur of their voices sounds feeble against the other shrieks, wails, and cracklings coming from the forest that surrounds them. The young are frightened by these sounds; their elders have learned to ignore them.  They all know the dangers that come after dark – from the wild animals, and from others like themselves, who will try to plunder what they have in the cover of darkness.  Only the fire protects them now.  And yet, there is an air of anticipation, even of excitement, as the old storyteller makes his way to the circle.  For they know, that when he speaks, he will tell them who they are, and where they come from.

“In the beginning . . .” these three words begin one of the most sacred texts in our civilization.  And they offer an answer to a question that haunts every person who tries to find meaning in his or her personal life, and in the society of which they are a part.  “Where do we come from?”  “Why are we here?”  In trying to fathom a destination, an end to life’s journey, we desperately search for a beginning.  Is life nothing more than a glorious accident?  And if so, is it merely a delusion to believe that there is some purpose to it, some plan of which we are a part?  Science, with its disciplined conjectures and hypotheses, has given us so much, and yet it seems to have given us so little.  We still grapple with the same questions that troubled our ancestors long ago - in ages before there were atoms and molecules, and the “Big Bang”, and evolution.  We’re in search of a story, a story that will provide us with a beginning, a middle, and an end.



In our own lives, we search for a story, a story of who we are, who we’ve been, and who we’re becoming.  As we live each day, we try to link the events of that day to some theme, some personal destiny, that gives us a special identity.  Each of us has an occupation, a set of goals, a set of private fantasies of what we’ll someday do, or could have done.  And we have memories – some good, some bad, and some that have special importance to us.  It’s amazing, though, when you think of it, how little we really remember.  Do you remember exactly what you were doing, this time yesterday?  Do you remember exactly what you were thinking?  Could you write down every thought that went through your mind over the last twenty-four hours?  How about the last hour?  There’s really so little that we keep, to define who we are.  And often what we keep, we don’t even remember correctly.  Have you ever found yourself discussing with a friend some great moment that the two of you shared, and then discovered that you disagreed in the details?  Or that your memory of the event was completely different?  Not only do we remember very little of our own past, but it seems that even that we occasionally get wrong.  We write our own personal histories, we edit them, and we even throw in a little fiction.  But it’s that story – that story we create – that defines who we are and guides us as we live our daily lives.

This series, “Larger than Life”, is going to examine the “story” of our civilization.  Not its history – something more than that.  It’s what we’ve believed about our history.  But this isn’t a series on mythology, either.  We’re going to be in that troublesome place, the place between fact and myth that has played a more important role in the shaping of our civilization than most people would care to admit.  Think about your own beliefs for a moment.  There are the “truths that we hold self-evident”  - the “scientific” facts that you and I believe without hardly any doubts at all.  We believe in gravity, and a round earth, and that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.  And then there are the things that we might both agree are fable – Santa Claus, leprechauns, flying saucers.  All right, you might actually disagree with me on that last one.  But that’s exactly the kind of beliefs that we’re talking about – the “unscientific” ones, or ones that are not shared by everybody, but still influence all of our lives.  Maybe they’re true, and maybe they’re not, we say.  Or maybe there’s a kernel of truth in them.  These are dangerous waters that we’re treading, because this is where we find religious beliefs.  God may not be a scientific certainty, but God certainly plays an important role in our society.  We even run into trouble if we try to take the word “God” out of our pledge of allegiance.  So if you’re easily offended, this may not be a series that you will enjoy or appreciate.  And if you’re not, you might just have a wonderful time.

We begin at the beginning.  Or what we think was the beginning.  Is there anything that we know for sure about where and how we began?  We have all probably questioned, from time to time, how scientists seem to be able to recreate the history of our planet from such scanty evidence: images in a telescope, rock formations, or a handful of dust.  After all, if we’re going to declare that the existence of God is less than certain, then should we believe it without question when an astronomer declares that the universe is more than 10 billion years old?  Or when a geologist asserts that the earth is more than 4 billion years old?  Why is a 10 billion year old universe a greater certainty than the existence of God?  And what of the paleontologist who tells us that creatures resembling humans walked the earth more than 3 million years ago?  Are the calcified bones from which they draw these conclusions really any more reliable than the truths uttered by saints or enlightened sages?  Ironically, most of us choose to believe all of these facts, and base our beliefs more on faith and tradition than on any systematic reasoning or understanding.  When anthropologists tell us that Homo sapiens – people like us – first appeared somewhere between 70,000 and 200,000 years ago, most of us do not dispute it.  But when all of these facts are laid together against a truth of which we are far more certain, that recorded civilization began just a little more than five thousand years ago, we run up against a conclusion that is truly startling.  The whole history of our civilization, with all of its wars, and inventions, and stories, and dramas, is just a blink of an eye compared with the vast stretch of time that preceded it.  If we count the whole time that people like us have existed on this planet as a day, then civilization has been around for less than one hour.  If we count the time that life has existed on this planet as a day, then human beings have been around for about the last three seconds, and civilization for about a tenth of a second.

Image result for images easter island statues

Where do we come from?  If we put religion and science aside, what do we have left?  Where can we turn for tangible evidences of our beginnings?  There are the monoliths – the Great pyramid and Sphinx in Egypt, Stonehenge and the serpent mounds in Britain, the strange rock giants on Easter Island, and the pyramids of South America.  Somebody, very long ago, felt the need to leave these traces of their existence.  What were they trying to tell us?  Why did they feel compelled to build these monuments to their existence?  Is there some great secret hidden in these stones?  If so, the secret still eludes us.    We search desperately for something that will speak to us, that will tell us what we want to know.  We must listen to the voices from the past, and the tales that they tell.  And all that is left of these is preserved in the writings that have survived from ancient times.

The oldest writings that do survive come from a land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, written by a people who called themselves simply “the dark-headed”, and the place where they lived, “the land”.  The Bible calls this place “the land between two rivers”, and today we remember it by the Greek name that means the same thing: Mesopotamia.  Its inhabitants said that they came from the east – the land where the sun rises.  They were called by their neighbors, Sumerians.  From their earliest writings, which date back to 3300 B.C., we know that they were already fairly civilized.  They had the wheel, and ploughs drawn by animals, and even sailboats.  They worked with metal tools, taming the wild marshes that they inhabited and converting them into fields of cultivated agriculture.  And they wrote – on clay tablets – mainly about mundane, daily transactions involving trades, and feeding of livestock, and payments to workers.  They worshiped a pantheon of gods, four of whom participated in creation: Anu, god of heaven, Ki, goddess of earth, Enlil, the god of air, and Enki, the god of water.  We also learn from these writings that each of the dozen cities of Sumer was ruled by an independent king, and that war was not uncommon.  But the cities managed to survive, prosper, and maintain their independence for a thousand years, until a people from the north, the Akkadians, conquered them all.  Their leader was a man named Sargon, the founder of the world’s first true empire (or at least the first empire that we know of).  Tales of his exploits were read aloud to enthralled listeners a thousand years after his death.  They heard tales of how, as an infant, he was discovered floating in a reed basket on the Tigris River by the queen’s servants, and was brought up in the royal household, eventually becoming a king himself.  But while his legend survived for a millennium, his empire only lasted for a century.  After Sargon’s dynasty collapsed, the land enjoyed a brief return to freedom from foreign invaders, and during this time the Sumerians composed an epic describing the exploits of a more ancient and revered king, the legendary Gilgamesh.



Gilgamesh, we are told, built the city of Uruk in 2700 B.C., more than three hundred years before the reign of Sargon.  Part god, part mortal, he was the strongest man who ever lived, but his powers made him arrogant and cruel toward the people that he ruled.  The people appealed to the sky god Anu for help, and Anu created a wild man, Enkidu, to do battle with Gilgamesh.  But before he encountered the king, Enkidu encountered a temple prostitute, who put him through a transformation, of sorts.  As a result of this encounter, Enkidu lost much of his animal strength, but in its place he gained understanding and knowledge – and not just about worldly things.  He became Gilgamesh’s friend and counselor, and together the two of them lived a life of comfort and ease – too comfortable, in fact, for heroes of their stature.  They went out in search of adventure, going to the great Cedar Forest and overcoming Humbaba, the powerful demon that guarded it, and bringing back the cedars to build walls for Gilgamesh’s city.  They killed the great bull that had been sent by the gods to punish Gilgamesh for spurning the love of the goddess, Ishtar.  But the gods retaliated by taking Enkidu’s life, and Gilgamesh, who now became aware of his own mortality, was overcome with grief.  In desperation, he went on a perilous journey to seek out the only humans who had ever been granted eternal life by the gods, Utnapishtim and his wife.  Upon finding him, Gilgamesh bowed and offered this prayer:

Utnapishtim, the Eternal, you whom men call the Faraway, you who dwell at the mouth of the rivers, hear me!  I am Gilgamesh, lord of Kullab, from the house of Anu, king of Uruk.  You wonder at my appearance, but why should you look at me thus?  My face is of one who has made a long journey in heat and cold, in light and darkness, over the mountain passes and across the waters of death.  As for my clothing, it is the raiment of mourning, and I wear it for my friend Enkidu, who is dead.  For seven days and nights I watched by his side when he died, and I saw the servants of the Annunaki take him below.  I watched his death, and now I fear my own.  As for my heart, it is the heart of a man who has seen death a thousand times and never feared it, yet saw death but once and now cowers in despair.  Oh you whom the gods spared, you to whom they gave eternal life, my father Utnapishtim, you who have entered the assembly of the gods, I beg you: how shall I find the life for which I am searching?

Utnapishtim, in reply, explained that long ago, the gods had decreed that the earth should be destroyed by a great flood.  But Ea, one of the gods that created human beings, took pity on Utnapishtim, and allowed him to learn of the impending flood, and of how to save himself and his wife by building a great boat.  They loaded the boat with personal possessions and all living things.  The Flood lasted for seven days and seven nights, until the entire earth was covered in water.  Utnapishtim’s boat came to rest on top of Mount Nimush, where it remained for seven days.  On the seventh day, after sending out a raven that didn’t return, Utnapishtim released all of the animals.  Enlil, one of the other gods, was angry at first that humanity had survived, but then took mercy on them and bestowed immortal life upon the couple, by touching his forehead to theirs.  Utnapishtim explained to Gilgamesh that if he could remain awake for six days and seven nights, then he too could attain immortality.  But Gilgamesh failed the test, and Utnapishtim offered him, as a consolation, a magic herb that would make him young again, if Gilgamesh was willing to go to the bottom of the ocean, where it grew, to retrieve it.  Gilgamesh did retrieve the plant, but he didn’t eat it immediately – because he didn’t trust in its powers, and while he slept a snake rose out of a nearby well and ate it.  At that moment, the snake acquired the power to renew itself by shedding its skin – which, as is explained in the epic poem, is a power that snakes retain to this day.  Gilgamesh, after awakening and discovering what had happened, lamented his fate – that all of his labors and journeys had gained him nothing, and only profited the lowly snake.

Image result for images gilgamesh

We see, in Gilgamesh, a hero that was not unlike the Sargon who had conquered the Sumerians.  They must have felt a sense of awe at the power of Sargon, this great conqueror from the north, but also a sense of despair and outrage that an outsider could subject them to his will.  The Gilgamesh of antiquity was, for them, a more powerful figure, but also cruel and tyrannical.  What, then, made Gilgamesh a hero?  In the eyes of the Sumerians, he possessed just those things that they felt they lacked, as their land had fallen to foreign invaders.  He was strong, and he had a courage that made him bold and defiant even to the gods themselves.  In a real sense, he was one of history’s earliest rebels, and his desire to go out in search of adventure to test the limits of his abilities and find ways to transcend these limits would become a recurring theme in the legends of heroes that followed.  And in Enlil we see the earliest incarnation of the “sidekick”, the hero’s partner who both challenges him and supports him.  The sidekick often rivals his master in strength, and is more headstrong, but generally not as smart as the hero he serves.  He is initially defiant, and his loyalty must be earned, but once it has been, he is faithful to the end, even to the extent of laying down his own life in support of his friend.

Like Sargon, Gilgamesh was obsessed with his posterity.  And while just as Sargon, though creating a dynasty, had to accept his own mortality, Gilgamesh, too, after exhibiting great strength and courage in overcoming his foes, eventually had to surrender to the limits of his own abilities.  The Sumerians had witnessed not only the fall of Sargon, but eventually the decline of his kingdom as well.  For them, it had all happened once before, on a much grander scale, with their own ancestor, the god-man Gilgamesh.

The Sumerians eventually succumbed to a succession of later invaders: the Amorites - or Babylonians, as they are often called, after the city that they raised to prominence under their reign, the Hittites and Kassites, and the Assyrians.  One of the Babylonian kings, Hammurabi, became a living legend in his own right.  The code of laws that he promulgated around 1750 B.C. is the oldest known to civilization, and they were practiced for more than two thousand years.  Under this wise and noble king, the Amorites extended their power, and their land was now known as Babylonia.  Sumer was gone, and the place of its old empire there were now two rival kingdoms, Assyria in the north, and Babylonia in the south.  Eventually Babylonia fell to the ruthless Assyrians, who kept both their subjects and neighbors in check through a reign of terror.  But the Babylonians, and even the brutal Assyrians, continued to believe in many of the gods and traditions that had been preserved by the Sumerians from their earliest days.  And it was during the reign of the Assyrians that the Babylonian epic of creation, the Enuma Elish, was put to writing.

     
Tiamat and Marduk

Before there was heaven or earth, or anything that could be named, the saga tells us, there was only Apsu, the first of the gods.
  After Apsu came Tiamat, his wife, and from them arose an entire family of gods and goddesses.  But after a time there was discord among the children of Apsu and Tiamat, a discord that so revolted their father, he finally resolved to destroy them all, over his wife’s protests.  Their eldest son, Ea, god of wisdom, learned of the plan, and killed his father before he could carry it out.  The other children, tormented by guilt at the murder of their father, urged Tiamat to take vengeance on his murderer.  She approved, and conjured up eleven monsters, headed by her new consort, Kingu, to carry out the revenge.  Ea, when he learned of the plan, appealed to his own son, Marduk, to destroy this monstrous group of assassins.  Marduk agreed, but only on condition that he be granted sovereignty over all of the gods.  Ea and his allies accepted these terms, and urged Marduk on to victory.  Marduk defeated his grandmother in battle, snaring her with a net, piercing her belly with an arrow, and smashing her skull to pieces.  Her horde of demons, and the gods who aligned themselves with her, were also snared by Marduk and subdued.  After this victory, he set the sun and moon and stars in their proper places, and from the eyes of the dead Tiamat he produced the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates.  Finally, he erected a holy city on earth, a city that he names Bablyon, and Ea, at his son’s urging, creates human beings to inhabit the earth.  As an act of obeisance to their new king, the gods constructed a temple in honor of Marduk on earth:

When Marduk heard this his face shone like broad day: ‘Tall Babel Tower, it shall be built as you desire; bricks shall be set in molds and you shall name it Parakku, the Sanctuary.’
               


Now this is hardly what you’d expect to hear in a Sunday sermon although, as you may have guessed, this is the same Tower of Babel of biblical fame.  And the Babylonian king Hammurabi, in addition to being remembered for his code of laws, might also have made a mark on posterity by being the actual person responsible for destroying this legendary tower, not because it grew too high to heaven, but because, after standing for nearly two thousand years, it had become structurally unsound.

For the Babylonians and Assyrians, creation itself was a violent act, an act of usurpation.  Ea and Marduk, the heroes of this myth, have attained their high places in the pantheon of gods by murdering a parent and a grandparent, respectively.  Ea is fortunate - rather than face death at the hands of his son, he merely has to acknowledge him as lord and master.  Here, then, in tales handed down from the dawn of our civilization, is another of the earliest images of the hero.  He is impertinent, rebellious, and can be every bit as cruel and merciless as the tyrants that he overthrows, and monsters that he destroys.

The ancients, as they struggled to build their civilizations, were confronted with a number of challenges.  Their day-to-day lives, which involved the building of shelters, cultivation of crops, and hunting of animals, were controlled by fickle changes of climate.  Within their societies, some held power over their lives, while the masses were subject to the whims of these overlords.  And beyond their societies, there was the ever-present threat of war or invasion from outsiders.  The stories of their gods and goddesses, and the legends of their ancient heroes, cast these struggles within a grander scale, and helped to make sense of their lives.  If the gods could be appeased, then perhaps nature itself could be controlled.  The people could consol themselves with the beliefs that their leaders were divinely appointed, and that therefore power was not fickle or arbitrary.  Their gods protected the established order, and as long as these were appeased and not offended, the people could live in peace and safety.  According to Babylonian scribes, for example, it was the anger of the god Enlil that finally brought down the dynasty of Sargon – an anger provoked when king Naram-sin sacked the city of Nippur, a city that worshiped Enlil as its patron god.  When societies were usurped from within or from without, the people could not only interpret it as an act of divine intervention, but they could also see these conflicts mirrored in the struggles and conflicts of the gods themselves.  When the Amorites invaded Mesopotamia and made Babylon the new center of religion and culture, their god Marduk became the pre-eminent deity in the entire land, displacing the other gods who had once reigned at the top of the pantheon – Anu and Enlil.  And so we find in the Babylon creation epic the story of how Marduk was given authority over the other gods.  In the tales of the gods, we find clues to the history of humanity.

But while the myths of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians helped to make sense of a hostile world, they provided little of comfort to the individual.  The people might trust in a patron god to protect their crops, their cities, even their families, but would any of these fickle and combative gods really care about the problems and concerns of a single person?  One could rely on charms and incantations to ward off evil and misfortune, but not the care of a personal, loving god – not in a universe where the goddess of love was younger sister to the goddess of death.  Did it really matter to the gods if a person lived a good life, or at least one that was not flagrantly evil?  What rewards were offered to the good, the noble, and the just?  Only the kings were bold enough to expect such divine blessings.  And if life here on earth was unpleasant, could one look forward to an afterlife, and the promise of happiness there?  Was there even a soul that survived this life?  When even the greatest of the mythical heroes failed to find immortality, then for the masses - the struggling farmers and soldiers, the housewives and craftsmen - there was not even a faint hope of such a reward. 


Here, in the earliest civilization, there was not yet a place for the immortal human soul.  To find such a place, we must turn to another ancient kingdom, rising on the banks of the Nile – the land of Egypt.

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