SUMERIAN DREAMING
Babylon, Diantha Livius

Divination was a common practice among many ancient cultures. The Sumerians were some of those who used this skill to contact the gods. Among the various forms of communication between this world and that of the mystical realm was dreaming. More importantly, through dream interpretation, a ruler, noble, priest or priestess not only saw the future, but was able to perform the will of the gods.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh we catch a glimpse of the importance of dreams. After Enkidu sleeps with the prostitute, and loses his wildness, his animal friends leave him. They sense he is now more human. After this happens, Gilgamesh dreams and tells his mother, the Goddess Ninsun, his dream:

I saw a star Fall from the sky, and the people Of Uruk stood around and admired it, And I was jealous and tried to carry it away But I was too weak and I failed.

He asks his mother what this means and she interprets the dream for him. According to Ninsun his dream portends this:

Your equal is the star Which fell, as if a sign from Heaven Had been sent which is too heavy But which you will try to lift And drive away, and fail.

But I have never failed before, he interrupted Her, surprised himself at his anxiety. It will be a person, she continued, Speaking in her somber monotone, A companion who is your equal In strength, a person loyal to a friend Who will not forsake you and whom you Will never leave.

Gilgamesh then dreams of an ax that night and recounts it to his mother:

The people stood around the ax When I tried to lift it, and I failed. I feel such tiredness, I cannot explain.

The ax is a man Who is your friend and equal. He will come. A graceful man Who will lift you out of tiredness.

Those of you who have read this tale know that Enkidu and Gilgamesh become the best of friends until Enkidu dies. For a time, he does lift Gilgamesh out of his tiredness and makes him a better man and king for his people.

In another myth, entitled, “The Death of Dumuzi”, the lover and consort of the Goddess Inanna has a dream. Dumuzi, the shepherd of Erech, has a premonition about his death. He sent up a lamentation, then fell asleep. The shepherd then dreams a dream that makes him tremble. In confusion, he calls to his sister, Geshtinanna, who is the divine poetess, singer and interpreter of dreams. Dumuzi tells her of his dream:

My dream, O my sister, my dream,
This is the heart of my dream!
Rushes rise up all about me, rushes sprout all about me,
One reed standing all alone bows its head for me,
Of the reeds standing in pairs, one is removed for me,
In the wooded grove, tall (?) trees rise fearsomely all about me,
Over my holy hearth, water is poured,
Of my holy churn - its stand (?) is removed,
The holy cup hanging from a peg, from the peg has fallen,
My shepherd’s crook has vanished,
An owl holds a ....,
A falcon holds a lamb in its claws,
My young goats drag their lapis bards in the dust.
My sheep of the fold paw the ground with their bent limbs,
The churn lies (shattered), no milk is poured,
The cup lies (shattered), Dumuzi lives no more,
The sheepfold is given over to the wind.
(Translation from “The Sumerians” by Samuel Noah Kramer © 1963)

But, not all dreams foretell great events or disaster. Some merely give instructions of the gods. Another Sumerian account, in which dreams play a prominent role, is that of the King Gudea of Lagash. The city had been blessed with the rich overflow of the Tigris River. This is when the God, Ningirsu, decided to contact the king through a dream. He wanted a temple, the Eninnu, built in his honor.

Gudea did not know what he was seeing at first. In the dream he saw a large man wearing a divine crown on his head, the wings of a lion-headed bird, and for the lower part of his body, a “flood wave”. On the right and left of this man there were a pair of crouched lions. He commanded Gudea to build him a temple, but the king could not understand the god’s instructions. In the dream, dawn broke and a woman was standing before the king. In her hand she held a golden stylus and was looking at a clay tablet in which the starry heavens were depicted. A “hero” appeared after the vision of the woman, and in his hands he held a tablet of lapis lazuli. On this, he drew the picture of a house, then placed bricks in a brick mold that stood before the king along with a carrying basket. While this occurred, at the same time, a male donkey stood pawing the ground.

As the dream was not clear to Gudea, he decided to go to the Goddess Nanshe, who interpreted the dreams of the gods. Gudea had to travel by boat, as Nanshe lived in a district (called Nina) of Lagash in which traveling by canal was the easiest way to reach her house. Along the way, the king stopped at several important shrines to pray and make sacrifices. Then, upon reaching the temple, he made yet another sacrifice. He poured out libations and offered prayers to the goddess, then told her of his dream. Nanshe interpreted the dream, point by point, thus:

“The man of tremendous stature with a divine crown on his head, the wings of a lion-headed bird, a flood wave of the lower part of his body, and lions crouching to his right and left - that is her brother Ningirsu, who commanded him to build the temple Eninnu. The breaking of day over the horizon - that is Ningishzida, Gudea’s personal god, rising like the sun. The woman holding a gold stylus and studying a clay tablet on which the starry heaven was depicted - that is Nidaba (the goddess of writing and patron deity of the edubba), who directs you to build the house in accordance to the “holy stars”. The hero holding a tablet of lapis lazuli - that is the (architect) god Nindub drawing the temple plan. The carrying baskets and brick mold in which “the brick of fate” was placed - these betoken the bricks for the Eninnu temple. The male donkey pawing the ground impatiently - that, of course, is Gudea himself, who is impatient to carry out his task.” (“The Sumerians” by Samuel Noah Kramer, © 1963)

Nanshe then gave Gudea further instructions on how to please the god Ningirsu. She told the king to make a new, beautifully decorated chariot for her brother. Gudea was to present the conveyance, along with its span of male donkeys in a grand procession, accompanied by drums. Along with the asses and chariot, he was to also have the god’s emblem and weapons. After receiving these instructions, Ningirsu visited Gudea in another dream. The god gave the king more detailed instructions, then blessed the city of Lagash with abundance and overflow. He then assured Gudea that his people would work thoroughly and build Ningirsu’s temple, the Eninnu, with various woods and stones brought to Lagash from distant lands. The dream ended and Gudea rose to accomplish the task he had been given.

In all of these accounts, someone else was consulted to decipher the dream. In these cases, it was a goddess who is the interpreter - the link between this world and the mystical realm. It was an important connection for the ancient Sumerians.

SAMHAIN - NOV. 1ST
CELTIC FIRE FESTIVAL - THE END OF THE CELTIC YEAR
Celtia, Ninian CuChulainn

The earliest record of the festival of Samhain is found on the Coligny Calendar. It’s a Celtic lunar calendar inscribed on bronze tablets and discovered in Eastern France. It shows twelve months starting with Samon (Samonios) which means summer. This corresponds to parts of the present October/November. It’s during this month that the festival of Trinouxtion Samonii is found. It’s the three-night period of Samonios.

Although the Fire Festival of Samhain is considered the beginning of winter, why then would this festival be in a month named for summer? It’s possible it’s a reference to the summer, which begins at the same time in the Otherworld. The name Samhain comes from the Irish Gaelic language. Other variations include Oiche Shamhna in Ireland, Nos Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Samhuinn in Scots Gaelic and Sauin in Manx

The Celtic day always begins at sunset. Therefore Samhain technically begins at sunset October 31 and lasting for the next three days. As the Celtic day begins in darkness so does the year. Darkness comes before the light just as life begins in the dark womb before birth. The moment of death is the beginning of the path back to life’s renewal.

Samhain was one of the boundaries of the two halves of the year. The other festival being Beltane (May 1st). It was considered a time of danger and vulnerability. A time found outside or suspended from normal time. The known laws of the world and nature temporarily didn’t apply. The barriers between this world and the next thinned allowing free movement between the two.

It was a time for feasting. A time when thanks were given for the events of the past year. The cattle were driven from their summer pastures between two bonfires for protection and purification. Those cattle which couldn’t be kept for winter were slaughtered and the blood given as a gift for the land. All harvest must be gathered in because soon the plants would no longer be able to grow. The family would come together, working in harmony in preparation for the time ahead. The principal feast in Ireland was part of an assembly called the Feast of Tara. This was near the heart of the land and the place where the High King ruled. Throughout Ireland the hearth fires were extinguished until a new fire was lit, by the druids at Tlachtga, a hill about 12 miles northwest of Tara.

At the feast, the dead were invited to join the living. A place was set aside for them including food, which had been specially prepared. To eat that food would bar a person from ever attending a Samhain feast again. Even extending into death. Stories would be told of past events keeping the ancestors up to date. War would end until Beltane brought renewal back to the land. The world would begin to sleep for the winter.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
Babylon, Yeshua Ben Judah

Throughout history, empires have emerged, grown, and crumbled; most would have been forgotten if not for archaeology. One culture managed to preserve their history in a book, or actually a group of books called The Bible. Derived from the Greek word biblios, or biblion, which is a plant that most of the original documents were written on. The history of the book we know today is just as interesting as the content inside. Some of the earliest forms of literature dating back to the ancient Sumerians have strong resemblances to stories out of the “Bible”. For instance, The Sumerians had a creation story where parallels are most evident. There is also an account of a great deluge, not found until 1914 by archaeologist, George Smith, and translated by Arno Poebel that same year. These discoveries are not translations of the Bible, but show it’s early beginnings as being historical documents.

It was during a series of invasions in the two dominant empires of the time, the Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates valley and the Egyptians in the Nile valley, where another civilization began to be known. It was a lush valley east of the Mediterranean Sea known as Canaan, where the history of the Bible as we know it begins. (C.a. 2500 BC) The people who dwelt in this area seemed to stay out of the way of the conquest and bloodshed that was occurring around the rest of the world at this time. These people began to tell stories of their heritage, and new ones were lived.

There was most likely a famine that struck the valley around 1900 BC, because this was when the people of Canaan migrated to Egypt. The Pharaoh that was there in Egypt accepted the Hebrew people, but after that Pharaoh died, one who was less tolerant and used the Hebrew settlers as a source of unpaid labor succeeded him. It wasn’t until circa 1200 B.C that the Hebrew people were freed, but once they were, a whole new series of stories began.

It was most likely that the Hebrew people were writing these stories down, but they were probably written on Papyrus, which rots very easily and were destroyed. The Hebrews were soon conquered by the Babylonians, and following ancient custom, the Babylonians exiled the Israelite Kings to Babylon. Soon after this though, the Persians came through under King Cyrus and became the first liberators of the Jewish people. While not enslaved, the Hebrews were not independent as they once were.

This was about the time of the first compilation known of the stories of the Old Testament. It was compiled about 330 BC. and was called the canon of the Pentateuch . Thousands of copies were made of this version; almost a thousand years since it’s first words were scratched on clay tablets. The canon of Pentateuch was soon translated from Hebrew into Greek; the language of scholars.

The Greek version, the Septuagint, was named this because of the legend that has surfaced with it. The legend, which originated from a scribe of Ptolemy Philadephus, Aristeas, told of how the Ptolemy wanted a copy of every book of the day for the Great Library of Alexandria. Aristeas goes on to tell of how Ptolemy wrote to the Chiefs of Jerusalem and asked for seventy-two well learned men to translate the Pentateuch into Greek, six men from each of the twelve tribes. The men all worked in seclusion and once work was completed, Aristeas went so far as to say that all translations matched exactly . This we know is a farce because the Hebrew language didn’t use vowels, so there was room for confusion.

After the translation into Greek, the Roman Empire spread over the Mesopotanian world. This was about the time Jesus appears, and what is known to the world as the ‘Jesus-phenomenon’ came into history . A whole new part to the known Bible, which we now call the New Testament, was being conceived. This also brought a new religion to the world known as Christianity.

Christianity during Roman antiquity must have been looked upon as a superstitious cult, with the worship of only one God. This new religion was quickly gaining popularity among the masses and the Emperor of Rome outlawed the religion by penalty of death. This brought about martyrs among the religion, people who would rather hang on to their faith than their life.

The only proofs we have of Jesus’ existence are accounts from people that were close with him, such as John and Paulones, who have traveled the world to spread his word. Forgeries were made and many other copies of actual documents were destroyed. The biggest problem with The New Testament wasn’t filling the gaps as it had been in The Old Testament; the problem was getting rid of the questionable material. A man by the name of Marcion soon came along to do just that.

Marcion came to be hated by every orthodox Christian because of his views and how he revised the Bible. As stated in Marcion’s doctrine, that “God, in his goodness sent his son to deliver mankind the evil God of the Jews,” Marcion began throwing out every doctrine having to do with Judaism. He got carried away and began throwing out almost everything except for Luke, then began weeding through Luke. Although the Church excommunicated him, they still followed his skeleton.

Down through the editing process over the years, the Bible found it’s way to Origen (200 AD). Origen first got rid of all ‘fiction or forgery’, by an organized order of classification. He then took the remaining, and divided those up into two seperate groups, "generally recognized", and "doubtful" His successescor in AD 314, Eusebius Pamphili, took after it much the way Origen did. Only Eusebius made two more groups, "wholly absurd and ungodly writings". His Bible was the one used for the translation into Latin.

Eusebius Heironymus translated the Latin Vulgate in AD 382 at the request of the Pope Damasus. Although it was assailed by angry critics because of changes made in Old Latin in the New Testament and translated the Hebrew original. Many thought that by using the Hebrew original, the revised Latin was “calling in doubt the divine inspiration of the Septuagint.” The new revision was recognized and became the Vulgate, the ‘common’ version.

It wasn’t long before it got translated into a Germanic language. The Gothic Bible of Wulifa (AD 350) was translated from the Vulgate, but had problems with certain words not being in the Gothic language. It was probably the most astonishing of all the early translations because Wulifa had to create a whole new alphabet. He succeeded in doing so, and began the Bibles move northward.

While there were other translations being made, the English versions soon made there way onto the scene. With the introduction of Wycliffe’s bible in 1382, the book soon became highly popular in England and stayed as the Bible until 1526 and the invention of moveable print in 1450. That was when a man would revise a Bible and circulate it like never before.

William Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament involved changes from the Latin Vulgate, which caused uproar. The Bishop of London said he could find 2,000 errors in Tyndale’s New Testament and ordered all copies to be burned, not to mention Tyndale himself soon after. After he translated the New Testament, Tyndale began work on the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. John Tyndale was finally caught and thrown in jail for a year.

In 1537, a need for consolidation of the Old and New Testament arose, and the Matthew Bible was created. Mathew was just a pen name for John Robert, an associate of Tyndale. Around this time, the Coverdale Bible came out, which was another revision of Tyndale’s New Testament, but used the Pentateuch for the Old Testament. Myles Coverdale was soon asked by Thomas Cromwell in 1539 to prepare another version, based on the Mathew Bible.

This Bible was called the Great Bible, and became the first authorized English version. That same year another version came out, called the Taverner Bible. This Bible had little revisions to the Old Testament, while the New Testament had many revisions. This would be the Bible used to make the King James Version in 1611; the Bible most widely used throughout most Christian churches today.

It is the earliest form of recorded human expression that has lasted since the emergence of civilization, and stands not only as a testament of human will, but also is the most widely accepted form of historical documentation.

Ackroyd, P.R., Evans, C. The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1, University Press, 1970

COPPER AND TIN, MINING AND SMELTING
Babylon, Apiladey Apilsin

Copper can also be hardened by alloying it with other elements. The most famous copper alloy, bronze, is made by mixing tin with the copper, but that didn't happen yet. The earliest successful harder-than-copper alloy was made with arsenic, which could then be made even harder through hammering. Lucas and Harris apparently feel the presence of arsenic was accidental in Egyptian bronzes though, because they later say (pgs 216 & 217), "The only constituents which were certainly added intentionally to copper in Egypt were tin, which produced bronze, and lead, which was added both to copper, and, at a later period, to bronze, which it made easier to cast."

As most people are aware, arsenic is a poison. Those laborers who worked with it could hardly avoid the fumes and would usually begin to show nerve damage in their limbs after a few years. It is not a coincidence that the Greek smith god, Hephaestus, and his Roman counterpart, Vulcan, were lame. This health problem wasn't encountered in the Iron Age. There are no tin-bronzes in western Asia before 3000 BC and they produced both tin and arsenic bronzes after that. They both produce bronze that is equally strong, but the tin-bronzes cast better. On the other hand, tin was scarce enough to make arsenic-bronze a worthwhile choice. Even after 3000, arsenic bronzes were the only ones being produced in Crete, Egypt and the western Med. Egypt in fact, only made arsenic-bronzes clear up to 2000 BC.

The greatest source of tin in western Asia known so far was at Kestel, in the Taurus Mtns. The Kestel Mine was being worked in 2600 BC Asia Minor and the used firesetting to make it easy to remove. The ore was taken from here to the nearby city of Goltepe where it was smelted. Goltepe was occupied from 3290 till 1840 BC. It was shortly after this time that the tin supply was depleted, for during the Assyrian period (1950 till 1850), Assyrians had to take tin to the Hittites to get their bronze-work done. The Assyrians were making lots of money on this deal. They seemed to be marking up the price of the tin by 75 to 100 percent, while the transport costs were only 10 percent. One of the several piles of slag at Goltepe weighed 600,000 tons, so the tin from there was significant. Experts believe there are still more mines in the area to be found. When Sargon of Akkad invaded Anatolia to secure a source of tin( about 2350 BC), he boasted that a single caravan carried 12 tons of it back - enough to produce 125 tons of bronze.

There was no copper at Goltepe, so the tin was exported elsewhere to be alloyed with copper (it would only make sense to carry the smaller component to the larger one rather than the other way around. Nearby cities which were famous for such work were Acemhuyuk and Kultepe. The passageways in this mine (and many others in the ancient world) are so small and narrow that the labor was probably carried out by children. At the Kestel Mine, in fact, many remains of dead children have been found. Other sources of Mesopotamian tin were Arak, Diyarbakir, Tabriz, Erzincan, Keban Maden, Niksar, and Ezerum.

Suggested Reading:

"Journey to the Copper Age" by Katherine Ozment in National Geographic 4/99, pg 70 - 79. Excellent photos of copper artifacts, an azurite deposit, drawings of a smelting community, and text on life in the Chalcolithic Age.

Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries by A. Lucas and J. R. Harris (1999 republication by Dover Publications of the 1962 publication by Edward Arnold Ltd.) 523 pp. Excellent source for the details of this and other industries in ancient Egypt.

Stones of Destiny by John R. Poss (1975). Publ. Michigan Technological University (253 pp). Except for a few mistakes, it was the first book I ever found to cover the details of metal usage in the ancient world.

Sites for:
The Kestel Mine and Goltepe
Chalcolithic Mining
Map of Mesopotamian Chalcolithic sites

SUMERIAN DREAMING
Diantha Livius Rome

CELTIC FIRE FESTIVAL - THE END OF THE CELTIC YEAR
Ninian CuChulainn Celtia

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
Yeshua Ben Judah Babylon

COPPER AND TIN, MINING AND SMELTING PART III
Apiladey Apilsin Babylon

BRYCE YUPANQUI
ChanChan Tupac

Erm... I would like to tell you about her promotion, but she doesn't like it too much to be put on a very high pedestal, so if you want to find out ...

Just look at the colour of the star in front of her name

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC
A HISTORICAL ROLEPLAY NOW IN ITS SECOND GAME YEAR!
LuciusFlaccus Valerius

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