Where to look for Cains?

I still could not figure out where the Sumerian myths end and the Akkadian ones begin? Obviously, they will go further in one spike. Just taking into account the fact that there are earlier ones among them, and there are later ones. Just taking into account the fact that even within their own "country" the cities were constantly fighting among themselves for hegemony, which was reflected in the process of myth-making. A kind of jar with spiders ...

Here is the "Nippur" version:

In the world space filled with the waters of Nammu, the daughter of the ocean, there was a mountain of heaven and earth. She gave birth to Nammu Ana-sky and settled him on the top of the mountain, and at its foot Ki-earth. Ki and An gave birth to Enlil, and then seven more elemental sons. And then the lesser gods of the Anunnaki appeared. And they all began to unite among themselves as men and women, and children and grandchildren were born to them. When the space of the mountain for the gods was not enough, An and Enlil tore the mountain: An carried the top high into the sky, Enlil lowered its base down and created the earth beautiful. At the request of the gods, he built the city of Nippur, and he himself settled there.

There lived in Nippur sister Ana Nunbarshegunu (if Ana's sister, then it should be Ki) with her daughter Ninlil, over whom the "fiery bull" Enlil will commit violence. For which the elder gods will send him to the lower world. Along with Enlil, Ninlil will also go there, carrying her son Nanna under her heart. To return to heaven, they will leave other sons in the underworld (Nergal, the center of his cult was the temple of Emeshlam in the city of Kutu, originally the "heavenly" god; Ninurta - noise. Ningirsu, the god of Lagash; Namtar - the messenger of the gods). By the way, is it not for this reason that subsequent kings and leaders will “go” to the other world accompanied by? Additional information on the "underground" gods indicates that the version with the descent of Enlil is completely far-fetched.

The gods multiplied so much that they began to lack food and they turned to Nammu. She woke up Enki (in other myths, the eternally sleeping one is Enlil ...) and instructed him, together with Ninmah, to mold people from his mother's flesh-clay. After a plentiful "beer outpouring", Enki and Ninmah's people turned out to be oblique, crooked and natural freaks. Moreover, this couple managed to quarrel, so much so that Ninmah Enki "sent" straight to the underworld!

In Hebrew there are several words meaning "man", "man". One of them is “enoch” (the same root “beginning-end”), the root of which has the meaning “weak” or “sick”. Enoch? (So ​​evaluate the "origins" of Judaism).

The myth "Enki and the Universe" says that the god An created the sky, and the wise god Enki equipped the earth (Enlil, it turns out, has nothing to do with it; but the shepherd god Dumuzi is born). In addition, the wise Enki will write down the tables-tablets of Me, which the adventurer Inanna will steal from him from the underworld. And in later versions, for some reason, she will go to the mistress of the underworld Ereshkigal (this is instead of Enki) and “substitute” the shepherd Dumuzi (Tammuz) in her place. In an even later version, Tammuz "expired" his spirit while hunting, and the inconsolable Ishtar (Inanna) will follow him to Ereshkigal. (Just as the Ugaritian warlike maiden Anatu (Atana-Athena) descends to the kingdom of Mummu for her beloved Balu).

In another myth, Enlil and Enki get along quite well together and even cooperate.

“Enlil is considered the creator of all vegetation, livestock, agricultural implements and civilization, although he acted indirectly - through the creation of less significant gods who carry out his tasks. To give the earth cattle and grain, at the suggestion of the god of wisdom Enki (among the Babylonians - Ea), Enlil created two lesser deities - Lahar, the god of cattle, and Ashnan, the goddess of grain, to give the gods food and clothing. The myth describes the abundance created by the gods on earth. However, they drink wine, get drunk, quarrel, forget about their duties and simply cannot get what they need. Man was created precisely to correct this situation. The following passage from Kramer's translations is part of the myth of Lahar and Ashnan:

In those days, in the dwelling,
Where the gods made
Born in Dulkug
There were Lahar and Ashnan.
And their creation Anunnaki
Everything eats and eats, get enough
Can not.
From the purest pastures
Milk... and more
Other
All the Anunnaki drinks -
Can't get enough.
To have milk and more
And so that in the pastures
Walked healthy cattle -
Man was created...

The passage is interesting in that here the Anunnaki is used in the singular. By the name of Lahar (La Har), information was found that this common Semitic word means "sheep." Ashnan, respectively, grain.

On the example of the Akkadian myths, for the first time we are confronted with the phenomenon that the “creation of the world” can be interpreted not only as a real act of the creation of the universe, but also as a “truce”.

The myth of Atrahasis.

The myth is known in several versions. The main one is the Old Babylonian, recorded by the junior scribe Ku-Aya in the middle of the 17th century. BC e.

Table I begins with a description of the time immemorial, when the Anunnaki divided the world among themselves, and the Igigi were forced to dig rivers and canals, build palaces and dwellings. This went on for many years, until one day the Igigi rebelled and started an uprising. The leader of the Iggigs led them to Ekur, the palace of Enlil.

The supreme god immediately convened a council, at which Anu proposed to create people in order to put the burden of hard work on them. The foremother, the great Nintu (Mami), agreed to take on this business together with Eya. For creation, one of the gods had to be killed, possibly the instigator of the uprising.

From the blood of the slain god Ve-Il (the mind of God), the clay of Apsu and the saliva of the Igigi, people were created - 7 men and 7 women. From now on, the gods were free from hard work. (By the way, Ve-Il is very consonant with Baal, isn’t this why such a contradictory situation with the god Baal and with the Phoenician-Semitic “balls” in general? ..)

As time passed, after 12 centuries people bred, stopped honoring the gods and began to annoy Enlil with their hubbub. The supreme god ordered Namtar to send a plague on humanity, which began to rage on earth. There lived then among the people a certain Atrahasis, the wisest of all. In his city, everyone worshiped Enlil, but Atrahasis put the wise Eya above all. He began to pray to his god to help people, and good Eya advised to sacrifice to Namtar. Atrahasis heeded the advice, and pleased with the attention, Namtar averted the plague from humanity.

Fragment from the Assyrian version:

Eya opened his mouth,
Thus he speaks to the gods, to his brothers...
Let the Anunnaki sit before you,
Belet-Ili, the mother of the gods will appear,
Let her make a man...
They called the goddess, they called
The midwife of the gods, the wisest Mami ...
"I can't create alone
Only with Enki will I do the work...
Enki opened his mouth
This is what he says to the great gods:

I will perform the rite of purification.
Let one of the gods be defeated,
May the gods be cleansed in the blood by dipping.
From his flesh, on his blood
Let Nintu mix clay! ..
In the first month, the seventh and fifteenth days,
He performed the rite of purification.
"Wise" - a god that has a mind,
They (the Anunnaki) killed in their congregation...
And the Igigi, great gods,
They moistened the clay with their saliva ...

The epithet of the "Wise"-god immediately reminds of the Ugaritian "Pretty-and-Wise" (Katar-va-Khasis). This is not an accident. But for now, let's get acquainted with the contents of the other two tablets.

“The second tablet says that after a while people again bred, again ceased to honor the gods, again disturbed Enlil. At the council of the gods, it was decided to send a drought to the earth. The terrible disasters of mankind are described, the features of people were distorted by hunger, in the sixth year, parents began to eat their children. The wisest Atrahasis constantly prayed to his god, asking for help. Finally, the heart of good Aya trembled and he advised Atrahasis to propitiate Adad with sacrifices. And so it happened - Adad "was ashamed of the gift" and sent rain on the earth. Enlil was angry that humanity managed to survive, he reproaches Enki, and he has to justify himself. Further, the text was almost not preserved, but most likely, people again bred and again caused Enlil's displeasure. At the council of the gods, a unanimous decision was made to destroy the world with a flood. Only Enki refused to swear this oath.

The third tablet says that Eia warns Atrahasis about the flood and orders to build a ship with the name "saving lives". Wise Atrahasis carried out the order exactly and at the appointed time loaded his family, animals and birds onto the ship. The myth describes an element that rages for seven days and nights, the fury of which trembles even the gods themselves. Foremother Nintu reproaches the Anunnaki for their unwise decision to destroy the world. However, when Enlil learned that Atrahasis managed to survive, he began to reproach Enki for complicity with people. True, when people who survived the flood made sacrifices to the gods, his heart softened. As a result, the foremother Nintu created "birth watchmen" for people, forbade the priestesses to have children and released the demon Pashita to the earth. This reconciled Enlil to the existence of mankind…”

With the Anunnaki, the situation is also not very clear. Then he is alone. They are the Anunnaki and the Igigi, the truce between which is concluded in such a monstrous way.

Igigi (Akkadian) - not a very specific group of gods of a heavenly nature. In bilingual Sumero-Akkadian texts of the Middle Babylonian period, the Sumerian equivalent is the word "nungalene" (great princes). The Anunnaki are represented in such cases as subterranean or earthly gods. Sometimes the seven great gods of the Igigs are called: Anu, Enlil, Eya, Sin, Shamash, Marduk, Ishtar. But these same gods can also be referred to as the Anunnaki. In general, there was a confrontation, and who is who - go and figure it out now!

The Babylonian version is:

“The first tablet begins with a description of the most ancient state of the universe, when nothing else existed but Apsu, an ocean of pure, sweet (fresh) water, and Tiamat, an ocean of salty sea water. From their union, the gods were born. The first pair of gods, Lahmu and Lahamu (Jacobsen interpreted these gods as silt deposited at the connection of the ocean and rivers), gave birth to Anshar and Kishar (the horizon line of the sea and sky - in the interpretation of the same scientist). In turn, Anshar and Kishar gave birth to Anu, god of the sky, and Nudimmud or Ea, god of earth and water. Here there is some difference from the Sumerian tradition. Enlil, whose activities are already familiar to us from Sumerian mythology, is replaced by Ea, or Enki, who is designated in Babylonian mythology as the god of wisdom and the source of magic. Ea gives life to Marduk, the hero of the Babylonian version of the myth. However, even before the birth of Marduk, the first conflict arises between the progenitor gods and their offspring. Tiamat and Apsu are annoyed by the noise the lesser gods are making and confer with their vizier, Mummu, contemplating how to destroy them. Tiamat is not particularly keen on destroying her own children, but Apsu and Mummu develop a plan. However, their intention becomes known to the lesser gods, and this naturally worries them. However, the wise Ea comes up with his own plan: he casts a sleeping spell on Apsu, kills him, blinds Mumma and puts a cord in his nose. He then builds a sacred abode and calls it Apsu. Marduk is born there, followed by a description of his beauty and extraordinary strength. The first tablet ends with a description of the preparations for a new conflict between the older and younger gods. The older children reproach Tiamat for being calm when they killed Apsu. They manage to "stir up" her and take action to destroy Anu and his assistants. She forces Kingu, her firstborn, to lead the charge, arms him, and gives him "tablets of fate". Then she gives life to a horde of terrible creatures, such as the scorpion man and the centaur, whose image we see on the Babylonian seals and boundary stones. She places Kingu at the head of this horde and prepares to avenge Apsu.
The second table describes how the assembly of gods perceives the news of the impending attack. Anshar is alarmed and, in thought, tears his thigh. First, he reminds Ea of his last victory over Apsu and offers to deal with Tiamat in the same way; but Ea either refuses to do so or simply fails to defeat Tiamat; at this very point the text breaks off, and it is not quite clear what happened to Ea. The council of the gods then sends an armed Anu to convince Tiamat to abandon her intentions, but he too fails to do so. Anshar proposes that this task be entrusted to the mighty Marduk. Marduk's father Ea advises him to agree to complete this task, and he agrees, but on the condition that he is given full and unconditional "power on the council of the gods", that his word will be decisive in determining fate. This concludes the second table.

The third tablet reiterates the decision made by the gods and ends with a description of the feast where Marduk formally receives the power he demanded.
The fourth table begins with the presentation of the symbol of kingship to Marduk. The gods demanded from him proof that he had sufficient strength to cope with the task entrusted to him. To do this, by his own will, he makes his mantle disappear, and then reappear. The gods were pleased and proclaimed: "Marduk is king." Then Marduk is armed for battle; his weapons are a bow and arrows, lightning and a net, which is held at the corners by four winds; he fills his body with flame and creates seven terrible hurricanes; he gets into his storm-drawn wagon and marches against Tiamat and her horde. He challenges Tiamat to a duel; he throws a net to capture her, and when she opens her mouth to swallow him, he rides into it on an evil wind and strikes her with an arrow right in the heart. Her demon helpers flee but are caught in the net. Their leader Kingu is also captured and tied up. Then Marduk takes the "tablets of fate" from Kingu and ties them to his chest, thus emphasizing his supremacy over the gods. Following this, he divides the body of Tiamat in two; one half he places above the earth as the sky, strengthens it on poles, sets guards. Then he builds Esharra, the home of the great gods after the model of Ea's Apsu, and forces Anu, Enlil and Ea to settle there. This concludes the fourth table.

The fifth tablet is too fragmentary for us to learn from it information about the first steps in the organization of the universe, but its opening lines indicate that Marduk created the calendar first of all (this was always one of the first duties of the king). He determined the months of the year and their sequence according to the phases of the moon. He also defines three earthly "paths" - the path of Enlil in the northern heavens, the path of Anu at the zenith, and the path of Ea in the south. The planet Jupiter should watch over the celestial order of things.

The sixth tablet tells about the creation of man. Marduk declares his intention to create man and make him serve the gods. On the advice of Ea, it was decided that Kingu, the leader of the rebels, should die in order to create people in his image and likeness. So, Kingu is executed, and people are created from his blood who must “liberate the gods”, that is, perform actions related to the implementation of temple rites and get food for the gods. Then the gods build for Marduk the great temple of Esagila in Babylon with the famous "ziggurat". By command of Anu they proclaim the fifty great names of Marduk. Their enumeration occupies the rest of the poem. This is the story of the Babylonian creation myth. It clearly traces the Sumerian basis. However, those elements that are scattered throughout several Sumerian myths are brought together in the Enuma Elish and represent a coherent whole. We have no evidence that the various Sumerian myths were ever part of a ritual. The poem "Enuma Elish" became a ritual myth with magical power and playing a vital role in the Babylonian New Year's holiday, in connection with the dramatic embodiment of the plot of the death and resurrection of the gods ... "

Marduk (Akkad.), Amarutu (noise) - originally the patron god of the community centered in the city of Babylon, one of the younger gods (igigs). With the rise of Babylon at the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. the importance of Marduk also grows.

Babylon (from Akkad. bab-ilani "gates of the gods") - a city in ancient Mesopotamia on the territory of the historical region of Akkad. Founded no later than the III millennium BC. e.; known in Sumerian sources as Kadingirra. In the early dynastic period, it was an insignificant city, the center of a small region or nome within the system of Sumerian city-states. In the XXIV-XXI centuries. BC e. - a provincial center within the Akkadian kingdom and the Power of the III dynasty of Ur. In the II-I millennium BC. e. - the capital of the Babylonian kingdom, one of the great powers of antiquity, and the most important city of the region of the same name.

The Sumerian analogue of the toponym Babili(m) was the logogram KA.DINGIR(KI) or KA.DINGIR.RA(KI), where KA is “gate”, DINGIR is “god”, RA is a dative indicator, KI is a determinative of a settlement. In addition, a mixed spelling was encountered in the Old Babylonian period: Ba-ab-DINGIR (KI). It is believed that the toponym babil(a) is of non-Semitic origin and is associated with some older, unknown language.

Excavations at the site of the ancient city of Ashur, the first capital of the Assyrian Empire, unearthed tablets with the text of the Assyrian version of Enuma Elish, in which the place of the Babylonian god Marduk was taken by Ashur, the main god of Assyria.

Ashur or Assur (consonant with the asura gods from the Vedas) is the capital of ancient Assyria, the first city built by the Assyrians and named after the Assyrian Supreme God Ashur. It was probably located on the site of a Subarean settlement.

Subar (Sumer. Su-bir/Subar/Subur) or Subartu is a country mentioned in Akkadian and Assyrian texts. It was located on the Tigris River, north of Babylonia. The name of the country also has the form Subari in documents from the Amarna archive or Sbr (vowels omitted) in Ugaritic inscriptions.

“According to most historians, Subartu is the early name of Assyria proper on the Tigris, although according to a number of other theories, Subartu could be located somewhat to the east, north or west. According to I. M. Dyakonov, Subart is apparently the area along the middle and upper reaches of the Tigris and its tributaries, where, under Sargon I, speakers of the “banana” language, as well as the Hurrians, whom the Akkadians called Subarei, could still live ... "

The Hurrians apparently had a similar history. It has come down to our days in a free translation: the Hittite "Poem about the reign in heaven." Since Eya appears again in it, one can only guess what the original was. Let me remind you that the Hittites themselves (the self-name Nesili or Kanesili - from the city of Nesa (Kanish), known at least from the beginning of the 19th century BC) were an Indo-European tribe that gained power later than the Sumerians (c. 1800 -1180 BC). BC), and they adopted the cuneiform script from the Babylonians.

"The Poem of Kingship in Heaven":

In former times, the god Alalu reigned in the sky, and even the mighty god Anu had to serve him. After nine epochs, Anu expelled him and himself reigned in heaven. He is forced to serve his son Kumarbi, but after nine epochs the son rebelled against his father. Anu fled to heaven in fear, but Kumarbi overtook him, dragged him down and, in the heat of battle, bit off Anu's manhood. Kumarbi rejoiced, and Anu predicted to him the birth of three formidable gods: Teshub, his assistant Tasmisu and the river Aranzakh (the Hurrian name for the Tigris). Hearing this, Kumarbi spat out Anu's sperm, but not all of it, since three great gods were still born from his head. The earth, from the seed spat out by Kumarbi, became pregnant and gave birth to two children.

“The messenger comes with news.
God Ea, seated on the throne,
Heeds him with approval:
"I hear good news:
The earth gave birth to twins.
Hearing the good news
King Ea sent gifts,
He sends them clothes
He gave them silver
magic spindle
He sends them a gift.
End of the first song table.

Rewrote from a damaged tablet by the scribe Askhapala.

I wonder where the Greeks "borrowed" the story about Uranus and Kronos from?

The Hittites themselves preserved the myth of the dragon Illuyanka in two versions. The preface to an earlier version of the myth states that this is a cult legend associated with the festival of Purulli in honor of the heavenly storm god, and that this variant of the myth is no longer told. The mentioned holiday is, most likely, the holiday of the New Year.

“In an older version of the myth, the dragon Illuyanka defeats the storm god. When the dragon defeated the storm god, he took out his heart and eyes. There is a similar detail in the Egyptian myth of the battle between Horus and Set, in which Horus lost an eye. To take revenge on the dragon, the god of the storm married the daughter of a poor man, and she bore him a son. When the son grew up, he married the daughter of Illuyanka. The storm god told his son that when he entered his wife's house, he would have to ask for his father's heart and eyes to be returned to him. The son did so, and they gave him the eyes and heart of his father, which he returned to the god of the storm. When the storm god received the once lost body parts, he took a weapon and went to battle with the dragon. When he was close to victory, his son exclaimed, "Better kill me, don't spare me!" Then the storm god killed both: both the dragon and his own son, taking revenge on the dragon. Here the text is interrupted, and when the next passage begins, it already concerns a certain rite, which is a competition or race, the results of which determine the rank and significance of the gods.

Commentaries on New Year's rites in Babylon also mention a running race in which Marduk's son Nabu slays the god Zu - this episode is also associated with the resurrection of a dead god. Thus, both versions suggest that the Babylonian myth of the victory over the dragon Tiamat, which was recited during the celebration of the New Year, largely influenced the formation of the Hittite ritual myth of Purulli ... "

In the second version of the Hittite myth, “... the dragon Illuyanka defeats the god of the storm. And he turns to the assembly of the gods for help, and the goddess Inara makes a trap for the snake. She fills many vessels with wine and other drinks and asks a man named Hupasiya to help her. He agrees to this on the condition that she shares a bed with him. She agrees, after which she hides him near the snake's dwelling. She preens and lures the dragon out of the house with the children. They drink wine from the vessels to the last drop and cannot return to their cave. After that, Hupasia emerges from the ambush and ties the dragon with a rope. The storm god and the rest of the gods appear and kill the dragon Illuyanka. Next, a scene is described that is not entirely related to the main plot of the myth and is a purely folklore work. Inara builds a house for herself on a rock, in the land of Tarukka, and settles Khupasiya there. She warns him that in her absence he should not look out the window, because there he will see his wife and children. When she was not at home for twenty whole days, he looked out of the window and saw his wife and children. When Inara returns, Khupasiya begs her to allow him to return to his family, after which the goddess kills him for disobeying ... "

Speaking of the Hittites, it should be mentioned that they came to the lands of the Hatti people, who, according to one of the hypotheses, are related to the Circassians. The Hattians may have been related in language and origin to the Khalda people. Khaldy (Khaldi) - a people who inhabited the southeastern Black Sea coast (now part of Turkey) in the Bronze Age. In the same period, the Hutts lived near them, possibly close to them in language. The question of kinship with the people of the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia remains open. But the Chaldeans lived even later.

Khalde; and - Semitic tribes that lived in the south of Mesopotamia, in the region of the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on the northwestern shore of the Persian Gulf in the first half of the 1st millennium. They fought with Assyria for the possession of Babylon. In 626-536 BC e. in Babylon, the Chaldean dynasty ruled, which founded the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. They spoke Aramaic. Chaldeans were called sorcerers, magicians, sorcerers, fortune-tellers, astrologers. According to one version, the Magi Chaldeans were magicians who came to bow to the born Jesus.

To complete the picture, it remains to add here the Turks. Taken from O. Zhanaydarov "Tengrianism: myths and legends of the ancient Turks":

“... This myth was recorded by Verbitsky among the Altaians. Here is its content:

When there was no earth, no sky, there was only a great ocean, without borders, without end and edge. Above all this God flew tirelessly - Tengri - by the name of Ulken - that is, big, huge. In some sources, even Kazakh ones, the name of this god is written as Ulgen, which seems to me incorrect. Ulgen is like being dead, Olgen. God, who is destined to give birth to life and create the universe, cannot be dead or bear the name "Dead" ...

So, the Big God - Tengri Ulken flew and flew tirelessly over the ocean of water, until some voice ordered him to grab onto a rock-cliff that looked out of the water. Sitting on this cliff by order from above, Tengri Ulken began to think:

"I want to create the World, the universe. But how should it be? Who and how should I create?" At that moment, Ak Ana, the White Mother, who lived in the water, came to the surface and said to Tengri Ulken:

"If you want to create, then say the following sacred words: "I created, that's it!" Basta, in the sense, it's over, since I said! But the trick is that in the Turkic language the word "Basta, Bastau" and mean "Start, Start ". The White Mother said so and disappeared. (But the trick is also that in Sanskrit there is also Basta - this is a ram or a goat. And the Egyptians have Khnum. Khnum (the god of fertility, the son of Nun) is a creator god, sculpting a man made of clay on a potter's wheel, guardian of the Nile, a man with a ram's head with spirally twisted horns, but the most famous Egyptian Creator-Amon, whose symbols are a white goose and a ram.).

Tengri Ulken remembered these words. He turned to the Earth and said: "Let the Earth arise!" and the earth was born.

Tengri Ulken turned to the Sky and said: "Let the Sky arise" and the Sky appeared.

Tengri Ulken created three fishes and placed the World created by him on the backs of these three fishes. At the same time, the World was motionless, firmly standing in one place. After Tengri Ulken created the World in this way, he climbed the highest Golden Mountain, reaching the heavens, and sat down there, watching.

The world was created in six days, on the seventh Tengri Ulken went to bed. Waking up, he looked around, and looked at what he had created. He, it turns out, created everything except the Sun and the Moon.

Once he saw a lump of clay in the water, grabbed it, and said: "Let him be a man!" Clay turned into a man, to whom Tengri Ulken gave the name "Erlik", and began to consider him his brother.

But Erlik turned out to be an envious person, he envied Ulken that he himself was not the same as Erlik, that he was not the creator of the whole World.

Tengri Ulken created seven people, made bones from reeds, and muscles from earth and mud, and breathed life into them through their ears, and breathed reason into their heads through their noses. In order to lead people, Tengri Ulken created a man named Maitore and made him a khan…”

Have you noticed that the ancient Turkic concept of Tengri corresponds very exactly to the Sumerian concept of Din-Gir (gods)?

And now I propose to move away from mythology in a slightly different direction. Have you heard of kashrut?

Kashrut (in the Ashkenazi pronunciation "kashrus") is a term in Judaism, meaning the permissibility or suitability of something from the point of view of Halakha, the Jewish Law. I paid attention to this word only because another one may well be hidden behind the letter “sh” (by analogy with Ruth-Ruth, Python-Python, Qatar-Caesar).

Usually the term kashrut is used in relation to a set of religious rules related to food, but it is also used in other aspects of traditional life.

Only the meat of animals that are both ruminant (strictly herbivorous) and artiodactyl (having cloven hooves) is allowed for food.

The laws of kashrut also apply to the process of slaughtering an animal. For meat to be fully kosher, it must meet several requirements:
1. Only meat from kosher animals listed above should be used.
2. The animal must be slaughtered in accordance with all the requirements of the Halacha. This process is called shechita. According to Halakha, one of the necessary conditions for kosher shechita is shechita with one smooth movement of the knife, cutting at the same time a large part (diameter) of the trachea and a large part of the esophagus. The ragged movement of the knife, the delay in the movement of the knife, the puncture of the tissues of the animal with the sharp end of the knife make shechita non-kosher, and the animal is forbidden to be eaten by Jews.

The Torah forbids the consumption of blood. Therefore, the meat is soaked in water at room temperature, and then placed on a special salting board and sprinkled with coarse salt. Salt absorbs blood. After that, the meat is thoroughly washed.

Products that are not related to either dairy or meat food (fish, vegetables, fruits) are called parve (I assume “parve” - Pa Ra Va, what Ra ate).

Jewish law considers kashrut as "hok" - a commandment that has no logical explanation, but is performed solely as a sign of submission to the will of God. In the light of the Sumerian-Akkadian-Babylonian myths, which are clearly related to the formation of Judaism, I suppose that the concept of "kosher" should be associated with the name of the "Wise One". But with whom then should the name Aya be associated?

Do you think I'm wrong? No, everything is duplicated here. Do you know what "halal" is?

Halal - permissible actions in Shariah. Variously acceptable from desirable (sunnah) through neutral (mubah) to undesirable (makruh tanzihi). In Muslim life, halal is usually understood as animal meat, the use of which does not violate Islamic food prohibitions, but in general, halal refers to almost any area of ​​human life.

Muslims also do not eat pork, they use approximately the same rules for slaughtering livestock. But in Islam there is no special person whose functions would include monitoring the observance of religious restrictions. There is only one restriction that is in Islam, but it is not in Judaism: Islam forbids the consumption of alcoholic beverages, and from the point of view of kashrut, there is nothing reprehensible in this. It can be noted that kashrut is generally stricter than halal. Despite the fact that both Islam and Judaism forbid eating the blood of an animal (it is believed that the soul is in the blood), Islam has its own rite of slaughtering an animal, which differs from the rite in Judaism.

And if kashrut reminds of Katar-va-Khasis (morning sun) from Ugaritic myths, then halal is about Astara, the prototype of Heilel (morning star).

There is Allah. And there is Halacha or Alacha. In a narrower sense, a set of laws contained in the Torah, the Talmud, and later rabbinical literature.

Torah (Hebrew "teaching, law") - in Ashkenazi pronunciation: Toiro (southeastern dialect - Poland, Ukraine), Teiro (northeastern dialect - Belarus, Lithuania) and Torra (Sephardic dialect). Tor-Ra - "doctrine, law." I think I found the equivalent of the Torah in Sanskrit - this is "Karana", which means "document, written knowledge, body." Why such a double meaning? Obviously, the answer lies in the very roots of the word: Kar-An. http://marichin.narod.ru/Sanscrit/VEDRO/10_k.htm. And in Dahl's dictionary, I found another equivalent: a gibberish letter - digitized, encrypted, which requires a special key.

I want to finish this part with a little information for reflection. Compare: Ding-Gear and money, money-ha; Ra-Pa and ruble, rupee, chop; Heylel and halal - a small change monetary unit of Saudi Arabia, equal to 1/100 riyal (riyal and Ra-Al); Lars - Roman-Etruscan house deities and Georgian lari - the main monetary unit of Georgia, as well as the Maldivian lari (laari, larin) - a small change monetary unit of the Republic of Maldives, equal to 1/100 rufiyaa; Peso (Spanish peso "weight", from Latin pensum pensum, i.e. "weighted", Pa An Su) - a silver coin of medieval Spain and its colonies, as well as the name of a number of monetary units of some states - former Spanish colonies; Da-La (Giver, Dazh, Dalai Lama) and a dollar ... Is it possible to turn the name of God into a bargaining chip?

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Religion and Mythology of Ancient Mesopotamia (Sumer, Babylon)

Plan.

1. The concept of myth and religion…………………………………………..……3

2. "Ancient East"………………………………………………..……3

2.1. Ancient Sumer…………………………………………………4

2.2. Babylon…………………………………………………….….5

3. Religion and mythology of Ancient Mesopotamia…………………….6

4. Mesopotamian mythological creatures and deities………….7

5. Priesthood………………………………………………………….….….12

6. Demons…………………………………………………………….…..13

7. Magic and mantle………………………………………………………..13

8. Achievements of the peoples of Ancient Mesopotamia………………..……14

9. Conclusion………………………………………………………..…..15

10. References………………………………………………....17

1. The concept of myth and religion.

Myth and religion are forms of culture that reveal a deep relationship in the course of history. Religion, as such, presupposes the presence of a certain worldview and attitude, centered on the belief in the incomprehensible, deities, the source of the existing. The religious view of the world and the accompanying type of attitude are initially formed within the boundaries of mythological consciousness. Different types of religion are accompanied by dissimilar mythological systems.

Myth is the first form of rational comprehension of the world, its figurative-symbolic reproduction and explanation, resulting in the prescription of actions. Myth turns chaos into space, creates the possibility of comprehending the world as a kind of organized whole, expresses it in a simple and accessible scheme that could be transformed into a magical action as a means of conquering the incomprehensible.

Mythological images are understood as real-life. Mythological images are highly symbolic, being the product of a combination of sensory-concrete and conceptual moments. Myth is a means of removing socio-cultural contradictions, of overcoming them. Mythological representations receive the status of religious not only through their orientation towards the incomprehensible, but also due to their connection with the rites and the individual life of believers.

Religion is one of the forms of social consciousness, one of the forms of ideology. And any ideology is, ultimately, a reflection of the material existence of people, the economic structure of society. In this respect, religion can be placed on a par with such ideological forms as philosophy, morality, law, art, and so on.

Both in the primitive community and in class society there are general conditions that support belief in the supernatural world. This is man's impotence: his helplessness in the struggle against nature under the primitive communal system and the impotence of the exploited classes in the struggle against the exploiters in class society. It is this kind of impotence that inevitably gives rise to distorted reflections in the human mind of the social and natural environment in the form of various forms of religious beliefs.

Thus, religion is not only a reflection of some real phenomena of life, but also a replenishment of the forces that a person lacks.

1. "The Ancient East".

The term "Ancient East" consists of two words, one of which is a historical characteristic, the second - geographical. Historically, the term "ancient" refers in this case to the very first civilizations known to mankind (starting from the 4th millennium BC). The term "East" in this case goes back to ancient tradition: this is the name of the former eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and the territories adjacent to them, that is, what was east of Rome. What we call the East today: Central and South Asia, the Far East, etc. not included in the concept of "Ancient East". In general, oriental refers to the cultures of peoples with non-antique cultural roots.

In ancient times, mighty civilizations flourished in the Middle East: Sumer, Egypt, Babylon, Phoenicia, Palestine . In socio-political terms, a common distinguishing feature of all these civilizations was their belonging to the Eastern despotisms, which, to one degree or another, are characterized by monopolization and centralization of power (features of totalitarianism), the personification of power in the figure of a despot (king, pharaoh), sacralization, that is, absolute obedience to religious norms throughout the life of society, the presence of systems of permanent physical and psychological terror, cruel oppression of the masses. The state played a huge role here. This role was expressed in the implementation of irrigation, prestigious construction (pyramids, palaces, etc.), in control over all aspects of the life of subjects, and in the conduct of external wars.

"Mesopotamia" means "Land between the rivers" (between the Euphrates and the Tigris). Now, Mesopotamia is understood mainly as a valley in the lower reaches of these rivers, and lands are added to it east of the Tigris and west of the Euphrates. In general, this region coincides with the territory of modern Iraq, with the exception of mountainous regions along the borders of this country with Iran and Turkey.

Mesopotamia is the country where the oldest civilization in the world arose, which existed for about 25 centuries, starting from the time of the creation of writing and ending with the conquest of Babylon by the Persians in 539 BC.

2.1. Ancient Sumer.

To the east of Egypt, in the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates, starting from the 4th millennium BC. arise, replacing each other, a number of state formations. This is Sumer, which is now considered the most ancient civilization known to mankind, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria. Unlike Egyptian culture, in the Mesopotamia, numerous peoples rapidly replaced each other, fought, mixed and disappeared, so the overall picture of culture appears extremely dynamic and complex.

In the south of Mesopotamia, where agriculture was widely carried out, ancient city-states developed: Ur, Uruk (Erech), Kish, Eridu, Larsa, Nippur, Umma, Lagash, Sippar, Akkad, etc. The heyday of these cities is called the golden age of the ancient state of the Sumerians .

Sumerians - the first of the peoples living on the territory of Ancient Mesopotamia, who reached the level of civilization. Probably around 4000 B.C. the Sumerians came to the swampy plain (Ancient Sumer) in the upper reaches of the Persian Gulf from the east or descended from the mountains of Elam. They drained swamps, learned to regulate river floods and mastered agriculture. With the development of trade, the Sumerian settlements turned into prosperous city-states, which by 3500 BC. created a mature civilization of an urban type with developed metalworking, textile crafts, monumental architecture and a writing system.

The Sumerian states were theocracies, each of them was considered as the property of a local deity, whose representative on earth was the high priest (patesi), endowed with religious and administrative power.

Cities were constantly at war with each other, and if a city managed to capture several neighboring cities, then for a short time a state arose that had the character of a small empire. However, around the middle of the III millennium BC. the Semitic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, who settled in the northern regions of Babylonia and adopted the Sumerian culture, became so strong that they began to pose a threat to the independence of the Sumerians. Around 2550 BC Sargon of Akkad conquered them and created a power that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Approximately after 2500 BC. the Akkadian power fell into decline, and for the Sumerians a new period of independence and prosperity began, this is the era of the third dynasty of Ur and the rise of Lagash. It ended around 2000 BC. with the strengthening of the Amorite kingdom - a new Semitic state with its capital in Babylon; the Sumerians lost their independence forever, and the territory of the former Sumer and Akkad was absorbed by the power of the ruler Hammurabi.

Although the Sumerian people disappeared from the historical scene, and the Sumerian language ceased to be spoken in Babylonia, the Sumerian writing system (cuneiform) and many elements of religion formed an integral part of the Babylonian, and later Assyrian culture. The Sumerians laid the foundations for the civilization of a large part of the Middle East; the ways of organizing the economy, technical skills and scientific knowledge inherited from them played an extremely important role in the life of their successors.

At the end of the II millennium BC. e. the Sumerians assimilated with the Babylonians. The ancient slave-owning state of Babylon flourished, which lasted until the 6th century BC. BC e. The Babylonian, Chaldean and Assyrian civilizations took a lot from the culture of the Sumerians.

1. Babylon.

Babylon was called "Bab-ilu" in the ancient Semitic language, which meant "Gate of God", in Hebrew this name was transformed into "Babel", in Greek and Latin - into "Babylon". The original name of the city has survived the centuries, and still the northernmost of the hills on the site of ancient Babylon is called Babil.

The ancient Babylonian kingdom united Sumer and Akkad, becoming the heir to the culture of the ancient Sumerians. The city of Babylon reached its pinnacle when King Hammurabi (reigned 1792-1750) made it the capital of his kingdom. Hammurabi became famous as the author of the world's first set of laws, from where we have come down to, for example, the expression "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

The political system of Babylon differed from the ancient Egyptian one in the lesser importance of the priesthood as an apparatus for managing state irrigation and agriculture in general. The Babylonian political regime was a model of theocracy - the unity of secular and religious power, concentrated in the hands of a despot. This hierarchical structure of society is reflected in the Babylonian ideas about the structure of the world.

Assyro-Babylonian culture became the successor of the culture of Ancient Babylonia. Babylon, which was part of the mighty Assyrian state, was a huge (about one million inhabitants) eastern city, proudly calling itself the "navel of the earth."

It was in Mesopotamia that the first centers of civilization and statehood appeared in history.

1. Religion of ancient Mesopotamia.

The religion of Mesopotamia in all its major moments was created by the Sumerians. Over time, the Akkadian names of the gods began to replace the Sumerian ones, and the personifications of the elements gave way to star deities. Local gods could also lead the pantheon of a particular region, as happened with Marduk in Babylon or Ashur in the Assyrian capital. But the religious system as a whole, the view of the world and the changes taking place in it differed little from the initial ideas of the Sumerians.

None of the Mesopotamian deities was the exclusive source of power, none had supreme power. The fullness of power belonged to the assembly of the gods, who, according to tradition, elected the leader and approved all important decisions. Nothing was set forever or taken for granted. But the instability of the cosmos led to intrigues among the gods, and therefore promised danger and gave rise to anxiety among mortals.

The cult of the ruler-symbol, mediator between the world of the living and the dead, people and gods, was closely connected not only with the idea of ​​the holiness of the powerful, who possessed magical powers, but also with the certainty that it was the leader’s prayers and requests that would most likely reach the deity and will be most effective.

The Mesopotamian rulers did not call themselves (and others did not call them) the sons of the gods, and their sacralization was practically limited to granting them the prerogatives of the high priest or the right recognized for him to have direct contact with the god (for example, an obelisk with the image of the god Shamash, handing Hammurabi a scroll with laws, has been preserved) . The low degree of deification of the ruler and the centralization of political power contributed to the fact that in Mesopotamia quite easily, without fierce rivalry, many gods got along with each other with temples dedicated to them and priests serving them.

The Sumerian pantheon already existed at the early stages of civilization and statehood. Gods and goddesses entered into complex relationships with each other, the interpretation of which changed over time and depending on the change of dynasties and ethnic groups (the Semitic tribes of the Akkadians, mixed with the ancient Sumerians, brought with them new gods, new mythological subjects).

The world of spiritual culture of the Sumerians is also based on mythology.

The mythology of Mesopotamia includes stories about the creation of the earth and its inhabitants, including people molded from clay, in which the images of the gods were imprinted. The gods breathed life into man, i.e. created him to serve them. A complex cosmological system was developed from several heavens, covering the earth as a semi-arch, floating in the world's oceans. Heaven was the abode of the higher gods. The myths tell about the beginning of the world, about the gods and their struggle for the world order. It is a question of primitive chaos - Apsu. This, perhaps, is the male personification of the underground abyss and underground waters. Tiamat is a female personification of the same abyss or the primeval ocean, salt water, depicted as a four-legged monster with wings. There was a struggle between the born gods and the forces of chaos. The god Marduk becomes the head of the gods, but with the condition that the gods recognize his primacy over all others. After a fierce struggle, Marduk defeats and kills the monstrous Tiamat, cuts her body and creates heaven and earth from its parts.

There was also a story about a great flood. The famous legend of the great flood, which subsequently spread so widely among different peoples, entered the Bible and was accepted by Christian teaching, is not an idle invention. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia could not perceive catastrophic floods - the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - otherwise, as a great flood. Some details of the Sumerian story about the great flood (the message of the gods to the virtuous king about the intention to arrange a flood and save him) are reminiscent of the biblical legend of Noah.

In Sumerian mythology, there are already myths about the golden age of mankind and paradise life, which eventually became part of the religious ideas of the peoples of Asia Minor, and later - in biblical stories.

Most of the Sumerian-Akkadian-Babylonian gods had an anthropomorphic appearance, and only a few, such as Ea or Nergal, bore zoomorphic features, a kind of recollection of totemic ideas of the distant past. Among the sacred animals, the Mesopotamians attributed the bull, personifying power, and the snake, the personification of the feminine.

Mesopotamian deities and mythological creatures.

Anu Akkadian form of the name of the Sumerian god An, - the king of heaven, the supreme deity of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. He is the "father of the gods", his domain is the sky. According to the Babylonian creation hymn Enuma Elish, Anu is descended from Apsu (originally fresh water) and Tiamat (sea). Although Anu was worshiped throughout Mesopotamia, he was especially revered in Uruk and Dera.

Enki or Ea, one of the three great Sumerian gods (the other two are Anu and Enlil). Enki is closely associated with Apsu, the personification of fresh water. Because of the importance of fresh water in the religious rituals of Mesopotamia, Enki was also considered the god of magic and wisdom. He did not awaken fear in the hearts of people. In prayers and myths, his wisdom, benevolence and justice are invariably emphasized. In the Enuma Elish, he is the creator of man. As the god of wisdom, he ordered life on earth. The cult of Enki and his consort Damkina flourished in Eridu, Ur, Lars, Uruk and Shuruppak. Enki received from his father An the divine laws - "me" to pass them on to people. "Me" played a huge role in the religious and ethical system of views of the Sumerians. Modern researchers call "me" "divine rules", "divine laws", "factors ordering the organization of the world." "Me" was something like established and controlled by Enki laws prescribed for each phenomenon of nature or society, relating to both the spiritual and material side of life. They included a variety of concepts: justice, wisdom, heroism, kindness, justice, lies, fear, fatigue, various crafts and arts, concepts associated with a cult, etc.

Enlil, along with Anu and Enki, one of the gods of the main triad of the Sumerian pantheon. Initially, he is the god of storms (Sumerian "en" - "master"; "lil" - "storm"). In Akkadian, he was called Bel ("lord"). As the "lord of storms" he is closely associated with the mountains, and therefore with the earth. This god was truly feared. Perhaps even more feared than honored and respected; he was considered a ferocious and destructive deity, rather than a kind and merciful god. In Sumero-Babylonian theology, the universe was divided into four main parts - heaven, earth, water and the underworld. The gods who ruled over them were respectively Anu, Enlil, Ea and Nergal. Enlil and his wife Ninlil ("nin" - "lady") were especially revered in the religious center of Sumer Nippur. Enlil was the god who commanded the "heavenly host" and who was especially enthusiastically worshiped.

Ashur, the main god of Assyria, as Marduk is the main god of Babylonia. Ashur was the deity of the city that bore his name from ancient times, and was considered the main god of the Assyrian Empire. The temples of Ashur were called, in particular, E-shara ("House of omnipotence") and E-hursag-gal-kurkura ("House of the great mountain of the earth"). "Great Mountain" is one of the epithets of the god Enlil, which passed to Ashur when he became the main god of Assyria.

Marduk - chief god of Babylon. The temple of Marduk was called E-sag-il. The temple tower, the ziggurat, served as the basis for the creation of the biblical legend of the Tower of Babel. In fact, it was called E-temen-an-ki ("House of the foundation of heaven and earth"). Marduk was the god of the planet Jupiter and the main god of Babylon, in connection with which he absorbed the features and functions of other gods of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. Since the rise of Babylon, from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, Marduk has come to the fore. He is placed at the head of the host of gods. The priests of the Babylonian temples compose myths about the primacy of Marduk over other gods. They are trying to create something like a monotheistic doctrine: there is only one god Marduk, all other gods are just his different manifestations. Political centralization was reflected in this inclination towards monotheism: the Babylonian kings just took over the entire Mesopotamia and became the most powerful rulers of Asia Minor. But the attempt to introduce monotheism failed, probably due to the resistance of the priests of local cults, and the former gods continued to be revered.

Dagan by origin - a non-Mesopotamian deity. Entered the pantheons of Babylonia and Assyria during the massive penetration of Western Semites into Mesopotamia around 2000 BC. The names of the kings of the north of Babylonia of the Issin dynasty Ishme-Dagan (“Dagan heard”) and Iddin-Dagan (“given by Dagan”) testify to the prevalence of his cult in Babylonia. One of the sons of the king of Assyria Shamshi-Adad (a contemporary of Hammurabi) was named Ishme-Dagan. This god was revered by the Philistines under the name Dagon.

Ereshkigal, cruel and vengeful goddess of the underworld of the dead. Only the god of war, Nergal, who became her husband, could pacify her.

The Sumerians called the land of the dead Kur. It is a haven for the shadows of the dead, wandering without any hope.

Hell is not an abyss where only sinners are plunged, there are good and bad people, great and insignificant, pious and wicked. The humility and pessimism that permeate the pictures of hell are the natural result of ideas about the role and place of man in the world around him.

After death, people found eternal refuge in the gloomy kingdom of Ereshkigal. The border of this kingdom was considered a river, through which the souls of the buried were transported to the kingdom of the dead by a special carrier (the souls of the unburied remained on earth and could cause a lot of trouble to people). In the “land of no return”, there are immutable laws that are binding on both people and gods.

Life and death, the kingdom of heaven and earth and the underworld of the dead - these principles were clearly opposed in the religious system of Mesopotamia.

In Sumerian culture, for the first time in history, a person made an attempt to morally overcome death, to understand it as a moment of transition to eternity. The Sumerian paradise was not meant for humans. It was a place where only the gods could dwell.

The fear of death, the fear of an inevitable transition to the country of Ereshkigal - all this gave rise not only to humility and humility, but also to protest, longing for a different, better and more worthy fate for a person. The Sumerians understood that eternal life, which is the lot of the gods alone, is unattainable for mere mortals, and yet they dreamed of immortality.

Gilgamesh, the mythical ruler of the city of Uruk and one of the most popular heroes of Mesopotamian folklore, the son of the goddess Ninsun and a demon. His adventures are recorded in a long tale on twelve tablets; some of them, unfortunately, have not been completely preserved.

Gorgeous Ishtar, goddess of love and fertility, the most significant goddess of the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. Later, she was also assigned the functions of the goddess of war. The most interesting figure in the host of the Sumerian goddesses. Her Sumerian name is Inanna ("lady of heaven"), among the Akkadians she was called Eshtar, among the Assyrians - Istar. She is the sister of the sun god Shamash and the daughter of the moon god Sin. Identified with the planet Venus. Her symbol is a star in a circle. Like other similar female fertility deities, Ishtar also showed the features of an erotic goddess. As the goddess of physical love, she was the patroness of temple harlots. She was also considered a merciful mother, standing up for people before the gods. In the history of Mesopotamia in different cities she was revered under different names. One of the main centers of the Ishtar cult was the city of Uruk. As a goddess of war, she was often depicted sitting on a lion.

God Damuzi(also known as Tammuz) was the male counterpart of the goddess Ishtar. This is the Sumerian-Akkadian god of vegetation. His name means "true son of Apsu". The cult of Damuzi was widespread in the Mediterranean. According to the surviving myths, Tammuz died, descended into the world of the dead, was resurrected and ascended to earth, and then ascended to heaven. During his absence, the land remained barren and the herds fell. Because of the proximity of this god with the natural world, fields and animals, he was also called the "Shepherd". Damuzi is an agricultural deity, his death and resurrection is the personification of the agricultural process. The rites dedicated to Damuzi undoubtedly bear the imprint of very ancient ceremonies associated with the mourning of everything that dies in the autumn-winter period and is reborn to life in the spring.

Thunderer Ishkur- the god of thunder and strong winds - originally represented the same forces as Ningirsu, Ninurta or Zababa. All of them personified the powerful forces of nature (thunder, thunderstorm, rain) and at the same time patronized animal husbandry, hunting, agriculture, military campaigns - depending on what their admirers were doing. As a deity of thunder, he was usually depicted with lightning in his hand. Since agriculture in Mesopotamia was irrigated, Ishkur, who controlled the rains and annual floods, occupied an important place in the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon. He and his wife Shala were especially revered in Assyria.

Naboo god of the planet Mercury, son of Marduk and divine patron of scribes. Its symbol was "style" - a reed rod used to mark cuneiform signs on unbaked clay tablets for writing texts. In Old Babylonian times it was known under the name of Nabium; his veneration reached its highest point in the neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire. The names Nabopolassar (Nabu-apla-ushur), Nebuchadnezzar (Nabu-kudurri-ushur) and Nabonidus (Nabu-naid) contain the name of the god Nabu. The main city of his cult was Borsippa near Babylon, where his temple of Ezid ("House of Firmness") was located. His wife was the goddess Tashmetum.

Shamash, Sumerian-Akkadian god of the sun, in Akkadian his name means "sun". The Sumerian name for the god is Utu. Every day he made his way from the eastern mountain towards the western mountain, and at night he retired to the “inside of heaven.” Shamash is the source of light and life, as well as the god of justice, whose rays highlight all evil in a person. The main centers of the cult of Shamash and his wife Aya were Larsa and Sippar.

nergal, in the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon, the god of the planet Mars and the underworld. His name in Sumerian means "Power of the great abode". Nergal also assumed the functions of Erra, originally the plague god. According to Babylonian mythology, Nergal descended into the World of the Dead and took power over it from his queen Ereshkigal.

Ningirsu, god of the Sumerian city of Lagash. Many of his attributes are the same as those of the common Sumerian god Ninurta. He is a god who does not tolerate injustice. His wife is the goddess Baba (or Bau).

Ninhursag, mother goddess in Sumerian mythology, also known as Ninmah ("Great Lady") and Nintu ("Lady giving birth"). Under the name Ki ("Earth"), she was originally An's consort; from this divine couple all the gods were born. According to one myth, Ninmah helped Enki create the first man out of clay. In another myth, she cursed Enki for eating the plants she created, but then she repented and cured him of the diseases resulting from the curse.

Ninurta, Sumerian god of the hurricane, as well as war and hunting. His emblem is a scepter surmounted by two lion heads. The wife is the goddess Gula. As the god of war, he was highly revered in Assyria. His cult especially flourished in the city of Kalhu.

Syn, Sumerian-Akkadian deity of the moon. Its symbol is the crescent. Since the Moon was associated with the measurement of time, he was known as the "Lord of the Month". Sin was considered the father of Shamash, the god of the sun, and Ishtar, the goddess of love. The popularity of the god Sin throughout Mesopotamian history is attested by the large number of proper names of which his name is an element. The main center of the cult of Sin was the city of Ur.

The functions of the Sumerian goddesses were even more similar than the gods. Called differently, the goddesses, in fact, represented one idea - the idea of ​​mother earth. Each of them was the mother of the gods, the goddess of harvest and fertility, the adviser of her husband, the co-ruler and patroness of the city that belonged to the god-spouse. All of them personified the feminine, the mythological symbol of which was Ki or Ninhursag. Ninlil, Nintu, Baba, Ninsun, Geshtinanna, in essence, did not differ much from the mother of the gods Ki. In some cities, the cult of the patron goddess was older than the cult of the patron god.

Fate, more precisely, the essence or something "determining destiny" among the Sumerians was called "namtar"; the name of the demon of death, Namtar, also sounded. Perhaps it was he who made a decision about the death of a person, which even the gods could not cancel.

For everything that happened on earth, it was necessary to thank the gods. Above each city, temples "raised their hands" to heaven, from where the gods watched their servants. The gods had to be constantly prayed for help and assistance. Appeal to the gods took a variety of forms: the construction of temples and a network of canals, sacrifices and the accumulation of temple wealth - "God's property", prayers, spells, pilgrimages, participation in the mysteries, and much more.

But even the most powerful gods could not escape their fate. Like humans, they also suffered defeat. The Sumerians explained this by saying that the right to make the final decision belonged to the council of the gods, against which none of its members could oppose.

1. Priesthood.

Priests were considered intermediaries between people and supernatural forces. Priests - servants of temples, usually came from noble families, their title was hereditary. One of the ritual requirements for candidates for the priesthood was the requirement not to have physical defects. Along with the priests, there were also priestesses, as well as temple servants. Many of them were associated with the cult of the goddess of love Ishtar. The same goddess was also served by eunuch priests, who wore women's clothes and performed women's dances.

The cult was generally strictly regulated. The Babylonian temples were a very impressive sight, they served as an occasion for the creation of the Jewish legend about the construction of the Tower of Babel.

Only the priests had access to the temples - the "dwellings of the gods". Inside the temple was a labyrinth of economic, residential, religious premises, decorated with extraordinary splendor, splendor and wealth.

The priests at the same time were scientists. They monopolized the knowledge that was necessary for the conduct of an organized irrigation and agricultural economy. In Babylonia, astronomical science developed very early, not inferior to Egyptian. Observations were made by priests from the height of their temple towers. Orientation of knowledge to the sky, the need for continuous observations of the luminaries, as well as the concentration of these observations in the hands of the priests - all this was significantly reflected in the religion and mythology of the peoples of Mesopotamia. The process of astralization of deities began quite early. Gods and goddesses became associated with heavenly bodies. The god Ura-Sin was identified with the Moon, Nabu with Mercury, Ishtar with Venus, Nergal with Mars, Marduk with Jupiter, Ninurta with Saturn. It was from Babylonia that this custom of naming heavenly bodies, especially planets, by the names of the gods passed to the Greeks, from them to the Romans, and the Roman (Latin) names of the gods have been preserved in the names of these planets up to the present day. The months of the year were also dedicated to the gods.

Introduction

The Sumerians were the first of the peoples living on the territory of Ancient Babylonia (in modern Iraq) who reached the level of civilization. Probably still ok. 4000 BC the Sumerians came to the swampy plain (Ancient Sumer) in the upper reaches of the Persian Gulf from the east or descended from the mountains of Elam. They drained swamps, learned to regulate river floods and mastered agriculture. With the development of trade with Iran, Elam, Assyria, India and the Mediterranean coast, the Sumerian settlements turned into prosperous city-states, which by 3500 BC. created a mature civilization of an urban type with developed metalworking, textile crafts, monumental architecture and a writing system.

The Sumerian states were theocracies, each of them was considered as the property of a local deity, whose representative on earth was the high priest (patesi), endowed with religious and administrative power. The most important centers in this early historical period were the cities of Ur, Uruk (Erech), Umma, Eridu, Lagash, Nippur, Sippar, and Akkad, a Semitic state in northern Mesopotamia. Cities were constantly at war with each other, and if a city managed to capture several neighboring cities, then for a short time a state arose that had the character of a small empire. However, around the middle of the III millennium BC. the Semitic tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, who settled in the northern regions of Babylonia and adopted the Sumerian culture, became so strong that they began to pose a threat to the independence of the Sumerians. OK. 2550 BC Sargon of Akkad conquered them and created a power that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Approximately after 2500 BC. the Akkadian power fell into decline, and for the Sumerians a new period of independence and prosperity began, this is the era of the third dynasty of Ur and the rise of Lagash under the rule of Gudea. It ended ok. 2000 BC with the strengthening of the Amorite kingdom - a new Semitic state with its capital in Babylon; the Sumerians lost their independence forever, and the territory of the former Sumer and Akkad was absorbed by the power of Hammurabi.

1.History of the formation of the state of Ancient Sumer

In the second half of the 4th millennium BC. e. in southern Mesopotamia, the Sumerians appeared - a people who, in later written documents, call themselves "black-headed" (Sumer. "Sang-ngiga", Akkad. "Tsalmat-Kakkadi"). They were a people ethnically, linguistically and culturally alien to the Semitic tribes who settled northern Mesopotamia at about the same time or somewhat later. The Sumerian language, with its bizarre grammar, is not related to any of the languages ​​that have survived to this day. They belong to the Mediterranean race. Attempts to find their original homeland have so far ended in failure. Apparently, the country where the Sumerians came from was somewhere in Asia, rather in a mountainous area, but located in such a way that its inhabitants could master the art of navigation. Evidence that the Sumerians came from the mountains is their way of building temples, which were erected on artificial mounds or on terraced hills made of bricks or clay blocks. It is unlikely that such a custom could have arisen among the inhabitants of the plains. It, along with beliefs, had to be brought from their ancestral home by the inhabitants of the mountains, who paid honors to the gods on the mountain peaks. And one more evidence - in the Sumerian language, the words "country" and "mountain" are written the same way. Much also speaks for the fact that the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia by sea. First, they primarily appeared in the mouths of rivers. Secondly, the gods Anu, Enlil and Enki played the main role in their ancient beliefs. And, finally, having barely settled in Mesopotamia, the Sumerians immediately took up the organization of an irrigation economy, navigation and navigation along rivers and canals. The first Sumerians to appear in Mesopotamia were a small group of people. At that time, it was not necessary to think about the possibility of mass migration by sea. The Sumerian epic mentions their homeland, which they considered the ancestral home of all mankind - the island of Dilmun, but there are no mountains on this island.

Having settled in the mouths of the rivers, the Sumerians captured the city of Eredu. This was their first city. Later they began to consider it the cradle of their statehood. After a number of years, the Sumerians moved deep into the Mesopotamian plain, building or conquering new cities. For the most distant times, the Sumerian tradition is so legendary that it has almost no historical significance. It was already known from the data of Berossus that the Babylonian priests divided the history of their country into two periods: “before the flood” and “after the flood”. Berossus, in his historical work, notes 10 kings who ruled "before the flood", and gives fantastic figures for their reign. The same data is given by the Sumerian text of the 21st century BC. e., the so-called "Royal List". In addition to Eredu, the "Royal List" names Bad-Tibira, Larak (subsequently insignificant settlements), as well as Sippar in the north and Shuruppak in the center as "antediluvian" centers of the Sumerians. This newcomer people subjugated the country, not displacing - this the Sumerians simply could not - the local population, but on the contrary, they adopted many achievements of the local culture. The identity of material culture, religious beliefs, socio-political organization of various Sumerian city-states does not at all prove their political community. On the contrary, it can rather be assumed that from the very beginning of the Sumerian expansion deep into Mesopotamia, rivalry arose between individual cities, both newly founded and conquered.

I Early Dynastic Period (c. 2750-2615 BC)

At the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia there were about a dozen city-states. Surrounding, small villages were subordinate to the center, headed by the ruler, who was sometimes both a commander and a high priest. These small states are now commonly referred to by the Greek term "nomes".

Of the cities of the Sumero-East Semitic culture outside Lower Mesopotamia, it is important to note Mari on the Middle Euphrates, Ashur on the Middle Tigris, and Der, located east of the Tigris, on the road to Elam.

The cult center of the Sumerian-East Semitic cities was Nippur. It is possible that originally it was Mr. Nippur who was called Sumer. In Nippur there was E-kur - the temple of the common Sumerian god Enlil. Enlil was revered as the supreme god for thousands of years by all the Sumerians and Eastern Semites (Akkadians), although Nippur never represented a political center either in historical or, judging by Sumerian myths and legends, in prehistoric times.

Analysis of both the "King's List" and archaeological data show that the two main centers of Lower Mesopotamia from the beginning of the Early Dynastic period were: in the north - Kish, dominating the network of channels of the Euphrates-Irnina group, in the south - alternately Ur and Uruk. Eshnunna and other cities of the Diyala river valley, on the one hand, and Lagash nome on the I-nina-gena channel, on the other, were usually outside the influence of both the northern and southern centers.

II Early Dynastic Period (c. 2615-2500 BC)

The defeat of Aga under the walls of Uruk caused, as it seems, the invasion of the Elamites, subjugated by his father. The Kish tradition places after the I dynasty of Kish the dynasty of the Elamite city of Avan, which, obviously, established its hegemony, in addition to Elam, in the northern part of Mesopotamia. That part of the "list" where one would expect the names of the kings of the Avan dynasty is damaged, but it is possible that one of these kings was Mesalim.

In the south, parallel to the Avan dynasty, the I dynasty of Uruk continued to exercise hegemony, the ruler of which Gilgamesh and his successors managed, as documents from the archive of the city of Shuruppak testify, to rally a number of city-states around themselves into a military alliance. This union united the states located in the southern part of Lower Mesopotamia, along the Euphrates below Nippur, along Iturungal and I-nina-gene: Uruk, Adab, Nippur, Lagash, Shuruppak, Umma, etc. If we take into account the territories covered by this union, we can , probably to attribute the time of its existence to the reign of Mesalim, since it is known that under Meselim the Iturungal and I-nina-gena channels were already under his hegemony. It was precisely a military alliance of small states, and not a united state, because in the documents of the archive there is no data on the intervention of the rulers of Uruk in the affairs of Shuruppak or on the payment of tribute to them.

The rulers of the “nome” states included in the military alliance, unlike the rulers of Uruk, did not wear the title “en” (cult head of the nome), but usually called themselves ensi or ensia[k] (Akkad. ishshiakkum, ishshakkum). This term apparently meant "master (or priest) laying structures." In reality, however, the ensi had both cult and even military functions, as he led a squad of temple people. Some rulers of the nomes sought to appropriate the title of military leader - lugal. Often this reflected the ruler's claim to independence. However, not every title "lugal" testified to hegemony over the country. The military leader-hegemon called himself not just “lugal of his nome”, but either “lugal of Kish” if he claimed hegemony in the northern nomes, or “lugal of the country” (lugal of Kalama), in order to obtain such a title, it was necessary to recognize the military supremacy of this ruler in Nippur as the center of the Sumerian cult union. The rest of the lugals practically did not differ from the ensi in their functions. In some nomes there were only ensi (for example, in Nippur, Shuruppak, Kisur), in others only lugals (for example, in Ur), in others, both at different periods (for example, in Kish) or even, perhaps, simultaneously in a number of cases (in Uruk, in Lagash) the ruler temporarily received the title of lugal along with special powers - military or otherwise.

III Early Dynastic Period (c. 2500-2315 BC)

The III stage of the Early Dynastic period is characterized by the rapid growth of wealth and property stratification, the aggravation of social contradictions and the relentless war of all the nomes of Mesopotamia and Elam against each other with an attempt by the rulers of each of them to seize hegemony over all the others.

During this period, the irrigation network expanded. From the Euphrates in a southwestern direction, new canals Arakhtu, Apkallatu and Me-Enlil were dug, some of which reached the strip of western swamps, and some completely gave their water to irrigation. In the southeast direction from the Euphrates, parallel to the Irnina, the Zubi canal was dug, which originated from the Euphrates above the Irnina and thereby weakened the significance of the nomes of Kish and Kutu. New nomes were formed on these channels:

• Babylon (nowadays a number of settlements near the city of Hilla) on the Arakhtu canal. Dilbat (now Deylem settlement) on the Apkallatu canal.
• Marad (now the settlement of Vanna va-as-Sa'dun) on the Me-Enlil canal. Casallu (exact location unknown).
• Push on the Zubi channel, in its lower part.

New canals were diverted from Iturungal, as well as dug inside the Lagash nome. Accordingly, new cities arose. On the Euphrates below Nippur, probably based on dug canals, cities also grew up claiming an independent existence and fighting for water sources. It is possible to note such a city as Kisura (in Sumerian “border”, most likely, the border of the zones of northern and southern hegemony, now the settlement of Abu-Khatab), some nomes and cities mentioned in inscriptions from the 3rd stage of the Early Dynastic period cannot be localized.

The raid on the southern regions of Mesopotamia, undertaken from the city of Mari, dates back to the 3rd stage of the Early Dynastic period. The raid from Mari roughly coincided with the end of the hegemony of the Elamite Avan in the north of Lower Mesopotamia and the 1st dynasty of Uruk in the south of the country. Whether there was a causal connection is hard to say. After that, two local dynasties began to compete in the north of the country, as can be seen on the Euphrates, the other on the Tigris and Irnina. These were the II dynasty of Kish and the dynasty of Akshak. Half of the names of the Lugals who ruled there, preserved by the "Royal List", are East Semitic (Akkadian). Probably both dynasties were Akkadian in language, and the fact that some of the kings bore Sumerian names is explained by the strength of cultural tradition. Steppe nomads - Akkadians, who apparently came from Arabia, settled in Mesopotamia almost simultaneously with the Sumerians. They penetrated into the central part of the Tigris and Euphrates, where they soon settled and switched to agriculture. Approximately from the middle of the 3rd millennium, the Akkadians established themselves in two large centers of northern Sumer - the cities of Kish and Aksha. But both of these dynasties were of little importance compared to the new hegemon of the south - the lugals of Ur.

According to the ancient Sumerian epic, about 2600 BC. e. Sumer is united under the rule of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, who later transferred power to the dynasty of Ur. Then the throne is seized by Lugalannemundu, the ruler of Adab, who subjugated the space from the Mediterranean to southwestern Iran to Sumer. At the end of the XXIV century. BC e. the new conqueror - the king of Umma Lugalzagesi expands these possessions to the Persian Gulf.

In the XXIV century BC. e. most of Sumer was conquered by the Akkadian king Sharrumken (Sargon the Great). By the middle of the II millennium BC. e. Sumer was swallowed up by the growing Babylonian Empire. Even earlier, towards the end of the III millennium BC. e., the Sumerian language lost its status as a spoken language, although it persisted for another two millennia as the language of literature and culture.

2. Socio-economic structure

Although a number of temple archives have come down from ancient Sumer, including those dating back to the period of the Jemdet-Nasr culture, however, the social relations reflected in the documents of only one of the Lagash temples of the 24th century have been sufficiently studied. BC e. According to one of the most common points of view in Soviet science, the lands surrounding the Sumerian city were divided at that time into naturally irrigated and high fields that required artificial irrigation. In addition, there were also fields in the swamp, that is, in the territory that did not dry out after the flood and therefore required additional drainage work in order to create soil suitable for agriculture here. Part of the naturally irrigated fields was the "property" of the gods, and as the temple economy passed into the jurisdiction of their "deputy" - the king, it actually became royal. Obviously, high fields and fields-“swamps” until the moment of their cultivation were, along with the steppe, that “land without a master”, which is mentioned in one of the inscriptions of the ruler of Lagash, Entemena. The processing of high fields and fields-“swamps” required large expenditures of labor and funds, so relations of hereditary ownership gradually developed here. Apparently, it is about these ignoble owners of high fields in Lagash that the texts relating to the 24th century speak. BC e. The emergence of hereditary ownership contributed to the destruction from within the collective farming of rural communities. True, at the beginning of the III millennium, this process was still very slow.

The lands of rural communities have been located in naturally irrigated areas since ancient times. Of course, not all naturally irrigated land was distributed among rural communities. They had their allotments on that land, on the zeros of which neither the king nor the temples conducted their own economy. Only lands that were not in the direct possession of the ruler or the gods were divided into allotments, individual or collective. Individual allotments were distributed among the nobility and representatives of the state and temple apparatus, while collective allotments were reserved for rural communities. The adult males of the communities were organized into separate groups, which, both in war and in agricultural work, acted together, under the supervision of their elders. In Shuruppak they were called gurush, i.e. "strong", "well done"; in Lagash in the middle of the III millennium they were called Shublugal - "subordinates of the king." According to some researchers, the “subordinates of the king” were not community members, but workers of the temple economy already cut off from the community, but this assumption remains controversial. Judging by some inscriptions, the “subordinates of the king” are not necessarily considered as the staff of any temple. They could also work on the land of the king or ruler. We have reason to believe that in the event of war, the "subordinates of the king" were included in the army of Lagash.

The allotments given to individuals, or perhaps, in some cases, to rural communities, were small. Even the allotments of the nobility at that time amounted to only a few tens of hectares. Some allotments were given free of charge, while others were given for a tax equal to 1/6 -1/8 of the crop.

The owners of allotments worked in the fields of temple (later also royal) households, usually for four months. Draft cattle, as well as a plow and other tools of labor, were given to them from the temple economy. They also cultivated their fields with the help of temple cattle, since they could not keep cattle on their small plots. For four months of work in the temple or royal household, they received barley, in a small amount - emmer, wool, and the rest of the time (i.e., for eight months) they fed on the harvest from their allotment. There is also another point of view on social relations in early Sumer. According to this point of view, both naturally flooded and high lands were communal lands, since the irrigation of the latter required the use of communal water reserves and could be carried out without large expenditures of labor, possible only with the collective work of communities. According to the same point of view, persons who worked on the land allocated to temples or the king (including - as indicated by the sources - and on land reclaimed from the steppe) have already lost contact with the community and were subjected to exploitation. They, like slaves, worked in the temple economy all year round and received in-kind allowances for their work, and at the beginning they also received land plots. Harvest on the temple land was not considered the harvest of the communities. The people who worked on this land had neither self-government, nor any rights in the community or benefits from the conduct of the community economy, therefore, according to this point of view, they should be distinguished from the community members themselves, who were not involved in the temple economy and had the right, with the knowledge of the great families and the communities they belonged to, buy and sell land. According to this point of view, the land holdings of the nobility were not limited to the allotments that they received from the temple.

Slaves worked all year round. Prisoners captured in the war were turned into slaves, slaves were also bought by tamkars (trading agents of the temples or the king) outside the state of Lagash. Their labor was used in construction and irrigation works. They guarded the fields from birds and were also used in horticulture and partly in cattle breeding. Their labor was also used in fishing, which continued to play a significant role.

The conditions in which the slaves lived were extremely difficult, and therefore the mortality rate among them was enormous. The life of a slave was little valued. There is evidence of the sacrifice of slaves.

3.State system

Sumer was not a single state. On its territory there were several dozen independent cities and regions. The most famous were the cities of Eridu, Ur, Lagash, Umma, Uruk, Kish.

At the head of the city and the region was the ruler, who bore the title of "ensi" ("patesi"). It was the high priest of the main city temple. If the power of the ruler went beyond the city, the ruler was given the title of "lugal". Their functions were the same and were reduced to the management of public construction and irrigation, the temple economy; they led the community cult, led the army, presided over the council of elders and the people's assembly.

The council of elders and the people's assembly elected the ruler, gave him recommendations in all important matters, carried out general control over his activities, carried out court and management of community property. Thus, these were the organs that limited the power of the ruler.

4. The most ancient code of laws of the Sumerians

The fate of great archaeological discoveries is sometimes very interesting. In 1900 During excavations at the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur, an expedition from the University of Pennsylvania discovered two badly damaged fragments of a clay tablet with an almost illegible text. Among other more valuable exhibits, they did not attract much attention and were sent to the Museum of the Ancient East, which was located in Istanbul. Its keeper F. R. Kraus, having connected the parts of the table with each other, determined that it contains the texts of ancient laws. Kraus cataloged the artifact in the Nippur Collection and forgot about the clay tablet for five long decades.

Only in 1952. Samuel Kramer, at the prompt of the same Kraus, again drew attention to this table, and his attempts to decipher the texts were partially crowned with success. The poorly preserved, cracked tablet contained a copy of the legal code of the founder of the Third Dynasty, Urra, who ruled at the very end of the third millennium. BC, - King Ur-Nammu.

In 1902, the discovery of the French archaeologist M. Jacquet, who found during excavations in Susa, a slab of black diorite - a more than two-meter stele of King Hammurabi with a code of laws engraved on it, thundered all over the world. The Code of Ur-Nammu was composed more than three centuries earlier. Thus, the dilapidated tablets contained the text of the earliest legal code that has come down to us.

It is likely that it was originally carved on a stone stele, as was the codex of King Hammurabi. But, neither it, nor even its modern or later copy has survived. The only thing that researchers have at their disposal is a partially damaged clay tablet, so it is not possible to fully restore the code of laws of Ur-nammu. To date, only 90 of the 370 lines that scholars believe constitute the full text of Ur-Nammu's legal code have been deciphered.

In the prologue to the code, it is said that Ur-Nammu was chosen by the gods as their earthly representative in order to establish the triumph of justice, to eradicate disorder and lawlessness in Ur in the name of the welfare of its inhabitants. Its laws were designed to protect "an orphan from the arbitrariness of a rich man, a widow from those in power, a person with one shekel from a person with one mine (60 shekels)".

Researchers have not come to a consensus on the total number of articles in the Ur-Nammu code. With a certain degree of probability, it was possible to recreate the text of only five of them, and then only with certain assumptions. Fragments of one of the laws speak of the return of the slave to the owner, in another article the question of the guilt of witchcraft is considered. And only three laws, however, also not completely preserved and difficult to decipher, are extremely interesting material for the study of social and legal relations that have developed in Sumerian society.

They sound like this:

• “If a person damages the foot of another person with a tool, he will pay 10 shekels in silver”
• "If a man breaks another man's bone with a tool, he pays one mina in silver"
• "If a person damages another person's face with a tool, then he pays two-thirds of a mina of silver."

All this indicates that already at the very beginning of the second millennium BC in the city-states of Sumer there was a humane and fair legislation, which was alien to the principle of blood feud - "an eye for an eye". The perpetrator was not subjected to corporal punishment, but had to repair the damage or pay a fine.

Of course, in many respects the basis of this humane, from our point of view, law was the prevailing socio-economic conditions. At the same time, based on all the documents found, it seems that the Sumerians inherited from previous centuries the "instinct of justice" and a sense of community of people striving for virtue, order and law. In their official declarations, the rulers of Sumer proclaim their main function in this world is the strengthening of laws, the establishment of order and justice. Their direct duty is to protect the poor from the oppression of the rich, the weak from the arbitrariness of the powerful of this world, the eradication of thieves and criminals. The Code of Ur-Nammu is based on traditional Sumerian law that has been developed over many centuries and is based on ancient customs and claims from earlier periods.

A document has come down to us that tells about the reign of King Uruinimgin in Lagash, three hundred years before Ur-Nammu, approximately in the middle of the twenty-fourth century BC.

It was a difficult time for Lagash, a time of lawlessness and violence. Consumed by ambition and a thirst for power, the rulers waged predatory wars and carried out predatory raids on neighboring cities. But the period of power, domination over all the city-states of Sumer ended, Lagash returned to its former borders. In order to raise and equip an army, the palace nobility deprived each individual citizen of their social and personal rights, imposed incredible taxes on all their income and property, bringing them to complete poverty. And in peacetime, the rulers continued the same policy and even took possession of the property of the temples. Residents were thrown into prison under the most insignificant pretexts, for the slightest offense, and often without it, on trumped-up charges. The spirit of cynicism and self-enrichment reigned in the country, when the rich became richer, robbing and oppressing the weak and defenseless.

It was at this catastrophic time that the supreme deity of the city chooses a new ruler from among its citizens - Uruinimgin, who was called upon to restore the "divine laws" forgotten and despised by his predecessors. An ancient chronicler relates that Uruinimginu and his supporters were proud of the social and legal reforms they made.

He removed the palace bureaucracy, banned and reduced all kinds of extortions and taxes from which the inhabitants suffered. He put an end to the injustice and abuse of the rich and powerful towards the poorer and weaker citizens. Uruinimgina concluded an agreement with the god Ningirsu that "a man with strength" would not do injustice to the most defenseless and vulnerable, widows and orphans.

In addition, this document is of great importance for the history of law in another aspect. One of its provisions says that special emphasis in the Sumerian courts was placed on the written registration of all cases. It was mandatory to indicate the guilt and the punishment incurred. Thus, we see that legal regulation and legislative activity was the norm for the states of Sumer by the middle of the third millennium BC, and it is possible that the traditions of legal proceedings date back to even more distant times in the mists of time. All discovered documents refer to the decline of the Sumerian civilization, but affect the norms and customs of earlier periods.

5. Family and inheritance law of the ancient Sumerians.

Children were the main value of the Sumerian family. According to the law, sons became full heirs of all their father's property and household, continuers of his craft. It was a great honor for them to provide for the posthumous cult of their father. They were to see to it that his ashes were properly buried, that his memory was constantly honored, and that his name was perpetuated.

Even at a minor age, children in Sumer had fairly broad rights. According to the deciphered tablets, they had the opportunity to perform acts of sale, trade transactions and other business transactions.
All contracts with underage citizens, according to the law, had to be fixed in writing in the presence of several witnesses. This was to protect inexperienced and not very intelligent youth from deceit and prevent excessive wastefulness.

Sumerian laws imposed many duties on parents, but they also gave quite a lot of power over children, although it cannot be considered complete and absolute. Parents, for example, had the right to sell their children into slavery to pay off debts, but only for a fixed period, usually no more than three years. Moreover, they could not deprive them of their lives, even for the most serious offense and self-will. Disrespect for parents, filial disobedience, was considered a grave sin in Sumerian families and severely punished. In some Sumerian cities, recalcitrant children were sold into bondage, they could cut off their hand.

The duty of the father was to fully provide for the children. The father had to allocate funds for the wedding ransom to his son from his property. He must also provide a dowry for his daughters in the amount required by law. The process of dividing the inheritance after the deceased parents took place strictly in accordance with the laws, practically unchanged in most Sumerian city-states.

As already noted, all property after the death of the head of the family passed to the sons. Usually, they did not break it into parts, they ran a common household and shared the income received from the property. Sumerian families were usually small. Court records usually list no more than four heirs. The eldest son was endowed with a privileged right in the division of the inherited property, which was expressed in a somewhat large share in the income from the father's inheritance. The rights of the other brothers were equal.

Daughters received a wedding dowry and had no further share in the division of their father's household, except in cases where there were no sons in the house. Here the legislation showed some liberalism, and in the absence of males in the offspring, daughters had full rights to property and household after the death of their father.

Sumerian legislation clearly regulated the rights and obligations of heirs and was extremely scrupulous in its approach to the issue of a fair distribution of rights and income. Thus, the funds for the ransom of the bride to the younger brother were provided from their share of the inherited property by the sons who managed to get married during the life of their father and receive money for the wedding ransom from him. Part of the property was allocated to the daughter as a dowry. If she became a priestess and renounced family life, after the death of her father, it also went to her brothers. But they had to support her for life, provide proper care for her property and pay her due part of the income from the economy. The sister had the right to entrust the management of her dowry to third parties, but after her death, her share returned to the family household.

After the death of their father and the division of property, the sons took full care of their mother, she remained in their house, where she needed to provide careful care, respect and reverence. She had the right to dispose of her personal property received in the form of gifts or "widow's share", and at her discretion bequeath it to her sons in shares, depending on her own preferences.

Deprivation of an inheritance is the last resort that a father could take in case of extreme disrespect or disobedience to the parental will. In some cities, for this it was necessary to expose the son twice in insulting acts in relation to the father. In any case, the final decision rested with the court. If the court's verdict was negative, a fine or confiscation of property was imposed on the father who illegally disinherited his son.

Childlessness was the greatest grief for the Sumerian family. Therefore, in the city-states of Sumer, the practice of adopting children was widespread. Usually childless spouses warmed up a homeless foundling or a child of large neighbors. Legislation strictly regulated all issues of adoption and monitored the protection of the rights of the parties to this procedure at all stages. The child's parents, dissatisfied with the order and maintenance of their son in a foster family, had the right to demand him back from the adoptive parents. Spouses, after the birth of their child, could abandon their adopted son. At the same time, according to the laws, it was supposed to pay to the natural parents at least a third of the share due to the adopted child as the legal heir. Adopted children did not have the right to decide on their own with whom to live. Unauthorized return to the native family, as well as slander and disrespect for foster parents, were severely punished according to the laws of Sumer, up to cutting off the tongue.

Sumerian laws in the field of family law were fair and fairly liberal and resolutely took the side of the injured or innocent, regardless of the social and property status, and often gender, of the conflicting parties. They were based on citizens' respect for public order, a clear awareness of their duties and guarantees of rights, on the protection of which the entire state system stood.

5.1 Women's rights in Sumerian society

A Sumerian woman had almost equal rights with a man. It turns out that far from our contemporaries managed to prove their right to vote and equal social status. At a time when people believed that the gods lived side by side, hated and loved like people, women were in the same position as they are today. It was in the Middle Ages that the female representatives, apparently, became lazy and themselves preferred embroidery and balls to participation in public life.

Historians explain the equality of Sumerian women with men by the equality of gods and goddesses. People lived in their likeness, and what was good for the gods was good for people. True, legends about the gods are also created by people, therefore, most likely, equal rights on earth nevertheless appeared earlier than equality in the pantheon.

A woman had the right to express her opinion, she could get divorced if her husband did not suit her, however, they still preferred to give out their daughters under marriage contracts, and the parents themselves chose the husband, sometimes in early childhood, while the kids were small. In rare cases, a woman chose her husband herself, relying on the advice of her ancestors. Each woman could defend her rights herself in court, and she always carried her own small seal-signature with her.

She could have her own business. The woman led the upbringing of children, and had a dominant opinion in resolving controversial issues relating to the child. She owned her property. She was not covered by the debts of her husband, made by him before marriage. She could have her own slaves who did not obey her husband. In the absence of a husband and in the presence of minor children, the wife disposed of all property. If there was an adult son, the responsibility was shifted to him. The wife, if such a clause was not specified in the marriage contract, the husband in the case of large loans, could be sold into slavery for three years - to work off the debt. Or sell forever. After the death of her husband, the wife, as now, received her share of his property. True, if the widow was going to marry again, then her part of the inheritance was given to the children of the deceased.

5.2 Rights of a man

The husband could not be faithful, and even had the right to have concubines for himself. A husband could send his wife home if she was barren. True, at the same time he returned the dowry and paid her monetary compensation. True, if this was not allowed by the marriage contract, a man could take a second wife into the house, but she was powerless when the first one was alive. Customs are very similar to harem laws in Arab countries. The second wife had to obey the first, wait on her, wash her feet, carry a chair to the temple. There is an opinion that the first wife allowed the presence of the second, only then the husband could bring another woman into the house. He could demand this permission if his wife fell ill with something. In such cases, a new agreement was concluded on the obligations of the husband to look after the first wife and support her. If the husband took a concubine, then, having given birth, the girl could become free. It just didn't get any rights. Sometimes the wives themselves looked for concubines for their husbands, tired of marital duties, or fell ill.

5.3 Moral aspect of marriage

Over the centuries, women gained more and more rights in the Sumerian state, and by the end of the third millennium, monogamous marriage became the norm. Although in this case, the brides were infringed more than the grooms. If the groom refused marriage, his family returned the gifts received during the engagement and the money that the bride's family gave. But if the bride refused, her family had to pay double compensation for the shame inflicted on the failed husband. By the way, the dowry that the girl brought to her husband's family remained her property, and when she died, she divided it at will between her children. If a woman died childless, part of what her parents accumulated was returned to her father, and part remained to her husband.

In ancient times, apparently, treason was not considered a reason for terminating the union. In principle, before marriage, a woman, like a man, could meet with other representatives of the opposite sex, if she had not already been promised to someone. But if a woman did not fulfill her duties in the marital bed, the husband could well file for divorce, and his claim would be satisfied. But by the end of the third millennium, with the advent of monogamy, the requirements of morality were simultaneously tightened. Perhaps the strengthening of the positions of religious institutions played a role. Now, in case of treason, a woman was waiting for the death penalty by drowning.

At the conclusion of marriage, the property of the bride and groom were united, the marriage itself was sealed before the judges under oath. Although the poor Sumerians may still have married for love. This fact is supported by some Sumerian proverbs and examples of paternal instructions. For example, there is a teaching where a father advises his son not to marry a priestess, that is, a young man could take a girl without the permission of his parents. There is a proverb: "Marry the girl you like." Although, perhaps, such a choice was possible only for the male part of the Sumerian civilization.

The court was equally loyal to all people, regardless of their gender. This is evidenced by numerous clay tablets about litigation of a domestic nature.

5.4. The rights of the child in the Sumerian family

Until the child became an adult, the parents had the right to dispose of his fate as they pleased. Beat for disobedience, marry off a few months old, disinherit even adults. They could curse their child, expelling not only from the house, but also from the city. They could sell into slavery and forever deprive not only their families, but also the right to manage their lives. An adult son could claim his share of the inheritance through his father, however, then after death he could no longer claim anything. Girls received the same share of the inheritance as brothers. And if they decided to become priestesses, they received their share during the life of their parents. Adopted children had equal rights with relatives, if the father recognized them as his own. They even had the right to inheritance.

6.Criminal law

Along with the everyday, everyday, to some extent formal cases discussed above, the Sumerian courts also dealt with criminal offenses: theft, fraud, and murder. Let us turn to this "reverse side of life" displayed in judicial documents, especially in those whose interpretation, due to the good preservation of the text, leaves minimal room for any doubt.

How much interesting information is already contained in the first short phrases of this document! We learn that the complaint was filed directly by the ensi, that Mashkim, appointed by the ruler, himself conducted an investigation into this case, that the investigation did not find the culprit of the theft. In the next, not shown here, badly damaged part of this tablet, it is said that the alleged perpetrator was brought to justice.

It is difficult to say how things were in reality: either Mashkiy, with all his efforts, failed to cope with his task, or whether the accusation was unfounded. The text of the second half of the tablet is too damaged to make any assumptions. We remember that mashkims performed the functions of bailiffs, so to speak, "on a voluntary basis." It is not surprising that the conduct of the investigation could present certain difficulties for them. Without questioning either the abilities, let alone the honesty of Ur-Mami.

Court records from Lagash tell of the processes associated with the theft of cattle, sheep, and various property. Even a document has been preserved that tells about the trial of the theft of the onion. All these documents shed light not only on the peculiarities of the Sumerian legal proceedings, but also on the daily life and concerns of the ancient Sumerians. Sumerian legal documents, like other written sources, tell what constituted the wealth of a Sumerian farmer or pastoralist, what crops the ancient Sumerians cultivated and what professions they owned. Let's take Mashkims as an example. On the basis of court protocols, more than ten professions were established, representatives of which could be appointed by mashkims. Among them are scribes, heralds, overseers, warriors, musicians, royal messengers, butlers, bearers of the throne of a deity, etc. Judicial documents more than any other texts make it possible to judge the social relations that existed in Sumer.

7. Sumerian legal proceedings

Most of the known Sumerian court documents were discovered during the excavation of the famous "hill of tablets" in Lagash. According to the assumptions of scientists, it was here that the court archive was located, where the protocols of trials were kept. Tablets containing court records are arranged in a certain order established by customs and are strictly systematized. They have a detailed "card file" - a list of all documents, in accordance with the dates of their writing.

A huge contribution to the deciphering of court documents from Lagash was made by French archaeologists. J.-W. Sheil and Charles Virollo, who at the very beginning of the 20th century were the first to copy, publish and partially translate the texts of the tablets from the found archive. Later, already in the middle of the twentieth century, the German scholar Adam Falkenstein published dozens of detailed translations of court records and sentences, and it is largely thanks to these documents that we can today quite accurately restore the legal procedures in the city-states of Sumer.

The record of court decisions among the most ancient secretaries was called ditilla, which literally means “final verdict”, “completed trial”. All legal and legislative regulation in the city-states of Sumer was in the hands of enzi - the local rulers of these cities. They were the supreme judges, it was they who were supposed to administer justice and monitor the implementation of laws.

In practice, on behalf of the ensi, the righteous court was carried out by a specially appointed panel of judges who made decisions in accordance with established traditions and existing laws. The composition of the court was not permanent. There were no professional judges, they were appointed from representatives of the city nobility - temple officials, prefects, sea merchants, clerks, augurs. The trial was usually led by three judges, although in some cases there could be one or two. The number of judges was determined by the social status of the parties, the severity of the case, and a number of other reasons. Nothing is known about the methods and criteria for appointing judges, nor is it clear for how long judges were appointed and whether they were paid.

The documents also mention the “royal judges”, which could mean their professional affiliation, and the “seven royal judges of Nippurr”, which is mentioned in one of the texts, is apparently something like a higher court, where those dissatisfied with the decision could appeal sentence.

In all ditillahs found, the names of the judges were always preceded by the name of the mashkim. On the functions of this judicial officer, the opinions of researchers differ. His duties probably included preparing the case for trial and conducting the preliminary investigation. According to some assumptions, he could act as an intermediary between the parties to the process in attempts to pre-trial resolution of the conflict. The position of mashkim was not permanent and professional; citizens from the highest social strata were appointed to it.

The temple played almost no role in judicial conflict resolution and legal administration, although one of the documents found mentions a man who is called the judge of the main temple of Ur. This may indicate that in some exceptional cases, the temple leadership could appoint its own special judges to consider the case.

Litigation was initiated by one of the parties by filing a complaint with the mashkim. If it was not possible to resolve the conflict, then the case was referred to the court for consideration by the judges.
In the presence of the plaintiff and the defendant, the judges considered evidence, which could be the testimony of witnesses or one of the parties, as a rule, under oath. Written documents drawn up by representatives of high ranks could act as evidence.

The court decision was made conditionally and came into force only after the administrative confirmation in the temple of the oath, of the party from which the court required it. If the written assurance of one of the parties acted as evidence, then its confirmation in the temple was not required. When making their decision, the judges relied on existing legal norms or on existing precedents. After the verdict was written, no one had the right to cancel it, the judges were threatened with resignation and public censure for this. The convict retained the right to appeal to higher instances, except in cases where the verdict of the court was approved by the supreme judge - ensi. Usually the punishment for the guilty was a fine or confiscation of property. The judge himself supervised the execution of the decision.

The text of the court record was very concise. It was a brief report listing, without undue detail, information about the reasons for the initiation of the lawsuit, the content of the plaintiff's claims, the testimony of witnesses, or the oath of the parties. The verdict itself was most often formulated in one sentence, something like "X (winning trial) took the slave as his" or "Y (losing trial) must pay." Sometimes, but not always, the reason for this decision was given. This was followed by a listing of the names of judges, mashkim and ensi, and the date of the trial was recorded.

List of used literature:

1. Kramer Samuel Noah. Sumerians. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2002.

2. Emelyanov VV Ancient Sumer: Essays on culture. - SPb.: ABC-classics: St. Petersburg. Oriental studies, 2003.

3. Belitsky M. Sumerians. Forgotten world. - M.: Veche, 2000.

4. Reader on the history of the Ancient East, parts 1-2, - M., 1980

Lebedians

Swan - Civilization of Love. A planet of talking flowers and murmuring paradises. Its beautiful inhabitants live as long as they want, not knowing diseases and old age. They voluntarily reincarnate in the body of a newly born Lebedian, and their former body shell immediately burns out without a trace. So many couples are preserved from incarnation to incarnation. The Lebedeans have passed all evolutionary circles long ago and passed into the phase of disembodied Radiant Beings.

Ursa Major humanoids

They live on the large planets Vam and Fin, revolving around a white and yellow star. These stars are called Aliot and Dubhe. The most highly spiritual representatives of the Big Dipper live on the planet Vam. They have already gone through a cycle of reincarnations and have become Holograms of the Spirit, possessing at the same time a bright individuality and a powerful mind. Previously on Earth, they oversaw science and helped the scientists of Atlantis.

Civilization of Maldek/Phaethon

Phaeton was once the most flourishing planet in the solar system. But the peoples who lived on it were the Vegans and some other Civilizations of the Star Systems of the same Lyra. They constantly fought among themselves and could not justly divide the planet. Territorial disputes were fought using thermonuclear arguments. In one of these wars, another giant planet came very close to Phaethon. It was Nibiru, whose period of revolution around the Sun is 3600 years. Under the influence of Nibiru's gravity, thermonuclear explosions caused a chain reaction in the bowels of Phaethon. The giant planet exploded loudly, leaving behind a belt of debris and asteroids.

Moon civilization

The planet Moon is very densely populated by fantastic peoples on the physical, ethereal, astral and mental levels. People of the Moon have pretty white bodies 2m - 2.50m high. The skin on them shines, as if covered with fish scales. The facial features are similar to human ones, only the eyes are large and slanted. We do not see them with terrestrial vision due to the fact that the wavelength of the bodies of the lunar inhabitants is slightly shorter than ours. The cities of the moon people are located on the inner surface of the planet. They are divided into men and women, maintain close contacts with the population of Ketu, the center of the Earth and other planets.

Some terrestrial people at the time of the full moon become sleepwalkers. This is explained by the fact that during sleep the Astral Body of a person leaves his Physical Body. The Astral Shell of a lunar person enters the empty body in order to wander around the Earth a little, to get a little experience of earthly life. By mutual agreement of Souls, an earthling can also enter the body of a lunar person and stagger through the city parks and neon streets of the Moon.

On the moon also live undersized people, like frogs walking on their hind legs. They have four webbed fingers and toes, blue shiny skin, and bulging eyes. There are also elementals that have the forms of animal lizards and birds. The people of the surface of the Earth also have their cities on the Moon. They are located in the zone of vibration corresponding to the lower layers of the astral plane. Earthlings are enslaved here, their astral bodies groundlessly work for the lunar race. Often, in order to enslave a good scientist or a talented inventor, UFOs of the Ketuans or gray or lunar people shoot down the planes of earthlings with invisible heat rays. And then, insidious, they capture the astral form of the talented specialist they need and take the kicking genius to their planet. During the full moon, when the Moon is at perigee, the astral auras of the two planets lovingly penetrate each other. At this time, all of the above nations can visit each other without the use of technical means, only with the help of willpower. The silvery shapes of thought-food flying saucers often become visible to earthlings during strong magnetic storms or strong fasts.

Ketuans

Chupacabra

According to some researchers, they began to visit the Earth quite recently. However, their striking resemblance to the chimeras, gargoyles, and sirens in Gothic architecture suggests that they have been on Earth for a very long time. They are cautious and shy, but cruel, like wild predators. There is a theory that they are the result of an unsuccessful genetic experiment of some alien civilization. Another theory, by the way, claims that the Chupacabra is an earthly experiment. For the first time in modern history, they were noted in Puerto Rico (located in the Caribbean Sea a little east of Cuba and Jamaica), in the area where the top-secret military facility of the Pentagon is located. The object is rumored to specialize in conducting experiments in the field of biology. Probably, the Chupacabras cannot be fully considered aliens (reasonable meaningful actions, contacts with a person, movement on man-made devices). They are just animal-like humanoids that appear out of nowhere and disappear into no one knows where.

The creature attacks wild and domestic animals and birds. Most Chupacabra appear in Latin America. They hunt at night and attack defenseless animals, suck out blood and disappear. People found completely bled dead bodies in the forest or paddock. A small round wound with ideally smooth and round edges was found on the body of the animals (mainly in the neck area), through which, presumably, all the blood was sucked out; There were no drops of blood at the scene. Sometimes the animals remained alive, but turned out to be severely crippled. There was a case when a whole herd of 70 cattle was killed. Often animals are found without some organs: viscera, brain, eyes, gonads, tail or paws. Many species of animals have been victims of this creature, from birds to cattle. Their height: 1.20m - 1.80m. Weight 50 - 60 kg. The eyes are red, oval, with pointed edges. Hair is missing. The skin is dark brown. There are two thin sharp fangs; some eyewitnesses report that there is a pair of wings or sometimes a fishtail; on the back is a comb that glows in the dark; paws are webbed with three fingers.

Men in Black

The Men in Black have received a lot of mention in the press, as their visits are recorded by the "waking" consciousness of a person. These creatures are allowed to make these visits because they are in the same density as humans and are not quarantined. They are not aliens at all, but live underground, in tunnels and caves. Their villages exist in isolation, as they very rarely travel from one village to another without the risk of showing themselves to people once again. They fear the Awakening, because then people will become aware of their presence. And although the final outcome of the Transformation - the Service-to-Other World - does not frighten them, they are afraid of this very transition. When this Transformation occurs, this race will continue to remain in the 3rd Density while underground. Then they will be in quarantine, and will not mix with those inhabitants who will eventually inhabit the world on the surface. While they have stable food sources and secure shelters that will basically survive the cataclysms, they still fear being flooded after the cataclysms. These fears are unfounded, but they nevertheless made attempts to slow down the Awakening, in their own way. The Men in Black built underground cities, multi-level structures and transportation systems powered by electricity. But all this is done in natural caves and is not connected to one another unless there are natural natural passages. They do not generate their electricity in any of the ways that people are familiar with - using streams of water, windmills, steam turbines, steam from controlled nuclear reactions, or burning natural fuels. The electrical energy that the Men in Black use is chemically generated, a method they learned on their home planet before they were transplanted to Earth. Their home planet did not have such an abundance of fossil fuels as the Earth provides, there were no such changes in the natural relief that would allow the construction of hydroelectric power stations, and there was not enough water there. So they worked with what they had. Their source of electricity is not plentiful, and would hardly be enough to power the average US housewife, whose home is crammed with electrical appliances. The Men in Black, unable to live on the surface, acclimatized underground when they first appeared on Earth in a technologically advanced state. Long before humans were skilled in spelunking, the Men in Black built their defensive structures. Take a look at the key signs that cavers know about the existence of new passages - air currents, air quality and sounds like flowing water. When there is deathly silence and not a breeze, it is assumed that there are only solid rocks. The Men in Black have developed and created tools to test the degree of isolation of their caves and corridors. Before they build anything there, they do a control check, when, in fact, the air is sucked up into the vent on the roof. If there are air leaks in the connecting channels leading to other underground corridors, then there is also an air flow inward, and this is detected. Men in Black have not been discovered so far only because of the vulnerability and shyness of this race, which has no bombs, no tanks, no bazookas. In fact, they don't even have dungeons or prisons. That is unnecessary. They are not violent like humans are by nature, but they are foolishly afraid of being discovered by humans. Being no less intelligent than humans, they spent a lot of time inventing ways to avoid being discovered. Like a rat in a hole with no back door. The issue to focus on is not whether they threaten humanity, but what they do. When you talk to your dog that you want to impress, what do you do? You act like a "master dog"! On the strong, the one whom they cannot subdue, dogs react by adjoining and avoiding. And dogs react to the weak, who they can subdue, either by grabbing the throat of a resisting opponent, or growling menacingly at someone who is already afraid. The Men in Black studied their co-inhabitants, and correctly understood what impresses them. Power without the ability to execute and destroy is ignored. Therefore - it is necessary to threaten. The Men in Black phenomenon, as well as some manifestations of the Illuminati structure, play out the Orionian need to control. The Men in Black have several origins. Some of them are human incarnations from Orion and/or the negatively oriented energies of Sirius. Others are indeed Orions from the past who have moved "forward" in time to the current Earth. They perceive the Earth as a "threat". From their perspective, as humanity awakens and liberates itself, it "magnetizes" the oppressed beings of Orion to seek freedom here. They want to keep those windows of opportunity closed to Orion's victims, keep the Earth powerless, and remain in total control. The Men in Black are just one manifestation of this idea, although they do not currently have the power to carry it out. Generally speaking, it plays out on Earth in a much more subtle form. Those individuals who carry patterns of oppression from Orion act according to the dictates of the memory of their Soul, and are not necessarily aware of their desire for absolute control. Exploring the contacts with the Men in Black that took place in the 20th century, one comes across an irony in the behavior of these creatures: they operate on a very autonomous level and never seem to lay claim to the power that they are so purposefully trying to wrest from people. It can be assumed that the Men in Black are just pawns in some even more sophisticated struggle.

Lumanians

Another highly developed civilization that exists on Earth in parallel with us. Their technological enterprises and civilization itself were located mainly underground. Similar tunnels and entire underground cities are located in South America, the Middle East, and China. Many of the caves that are often considered the refuge of primitive people were tunnels leading to the cities of the Lumani civilization. They created energetic protective fields around their cities and other habitats.

Lumania was a very high-tech civilization. To conduct warfare or create underground tunnels, the Lumanians used ultrasound. They used sound everywhere: for healing, for moving mountain ranges, for creating artificial seas, in building underground and surface cities, in creating new materials unknown to us, and so on. The sound, filled with mental images, was the conductor of matter from higher dimensions to the physical world.

Lumanians also occupied lands in areas of Australia and Antarctica. This civilization did not seek to expand its inviolable boundaries and directed its efforts towards Spiritual Development. For a very long time, the Lumanians not only did not try to civilize the natives, but, on the contrary, did everything possible to stop the technical development of the earthlings. Initially, they surrounded their land cities and entrances to underground tunnels with impenetrable force fields, gamma radiation or infrasonic waves that are deadly for low human frequencies.

One of the main goals of the Lumanian civilization was the task of forming a "new man" who would not accept any kind of violence. The desire to "live in peace" in the people of the dungeons was brought to the level of instinct. In the ethereal double of man and in his genes, the Lumanians made irreversible changes. And when the mind signaled to the body about the aggressive mood of emotions, the physical flesh simply refused to follow the orders of the logical mind and brain. In some peoples of South Asia, the rudiments of this mechanism remained. There are people on Earth now who, when their aggressiveness flares up, lose consciousness, or harm their own body in order to stop their aggression.

After the creation of the “new man”, the Lumanians began to come to the natives who lived on neighboring islands and continents. They built beautiful families with them and produced delicate offspring, hoping in this way to pacify the aggressiveness of earthlings. Lumanians taught people to put up with violence not only through preaching, but also at the genetic level. They physically eliminated the craving for aggression in their descendants, produced together with earthlings. However, this noble path led the underground civilizers to a dead end. It is impossible to forcefully forbid the energy to flow freely - through the physical, etheric and astral body. Energy will always find a way out in the most unexpected place. The altered physiology of people has led to a violation of creative functions. After all, any aggression is also one of the types of creative energy, the desire to do things, the desire of the Soul to make mistakes and grow wiser through future suffering. If the purple aggression of a person is redirected spiritually into the mental channel, then non-standard ideas, great discoveries, grandiose deeds and cosmic pictures will appear.

The limitations built into the physiology of the body have led to the formation of unnatural rules for human behavior. A body appeared to be overly conscious, unemotional, with a muffled survival instinct.

Mentally, the Lumanians developed rapidly. In order not to destroy living plants, they developed and introduced artificial food. To maintain the cleanliness of the environment, underground emitters of ultrafine vibrations were used.

Physically, the Lumanians were weak, frail, and short in stature compared to the native population. The height of a person at that time reached 7m - 9m, and the Lumanians were half that. Mentally, they were divided into geniuses and mediocrity. Unfortunately, there was no middle ground. Half of the population of Lumanians brilliantly worked in the field of creativity, and the other half brilliantly enjoyed the earthly existence in the Gardens of Eden and underground resorts. At that time, all Lumanians had innate psychic abilities, they read knowledge from the Akashic Records - energy vibrations of the subtle planes of being. Over time, more and more civilizers realized that their experiment had failed. Many of them, after physical death, reunited with the Pleiadians and were born on their young Planets.

hybrids

Earth is a very old planet. Many different species of mankind inhabited the Earth before us. Even before the advent of the Lemurians, people lived here who breathed carbon dioxide and exhaled oxygen. Over time, almost all carbon dioxide was assimilated by living beings. It turned into hydrocarbons and lay underground in the form of oil and coal deposits. That, the previous humanity died out due to a lack of carbon dioxide in the air. Then the Gardeners of the Earth from the constellation Sirius brought out on Mars a new model of a man who inhaled poison - oxygen, and exhaled life-giving force - carbon dioxide. These people settled the old planet. The task of the new humanity is to remove hydrocarbons from the earth and saturate the atmosphere of the planet with carbon dioxide in order to enable the following race of people-gods to breathe carbon dioxide on Earth again and exhale oxygen. In order for us, people, not to kill each other and our Planet as a whole, the Sirians were entrusted to look after us, to direct their progress of the Venusian civilization of the Hathors and the Martian civilization of the "gray". So that humanity does not die out from its stupidity and laziness, would not kill itself with wars and chemistry, the "gray" every 200 years take several healthy women from earthlings and fertilize them on the bases of the Moon and Mars with the seed of superhuman beings. The sedated women are then returned to Earth. Women have their memories erased and they don't remember where they've been. But amazing children are born to young mothers - demigods, who from birth have cosmic knowledge, siddhis and an open Third Eye. These demigod people lead humanity to knowledge, enlightenment and direct them to the path of God. One of these demigods was Orpheus.

At that time, the Land fell somewhere, and new seas and oceans formed in place of the continents. When the ocean calmed down, a civilization of giants was born on the new continents. Then again death and again the birth of the great peoples who inhabited the Earth to Atlantis and Lemuria. Then there was a war on spaceships between aliens for spheres of influence on the Planet. Terrestrial civilizations mastered thermonuclear weapons - and world wars began. The earth was falling out of its orbit. Then the Floods followed, and new continents were settled by new peoples. Then again the death of Atlantis, then the flourishing of Ancient Egypt, the island of Crete and the civilization of Sumer.

Martian bases on the Moon and on the inner surface of the Earth monitor the development of our civilization and produce a selection of peoples, bringing out the hybrids that are needed at a given time.

Hybrids are a genetic mixture of humanoids from Earth and humanoids from other planets. They are very similar to us and the Grays. The color of their elastic skin can be anything from white to blue, from bronze to red. The length of their bodies ranges from 150 centimeters to 3 meters in height. Some hybrid aliens look just like non-humans. But still, upon closer examination, it is clear that these are terrestrial humanoids. Many of them have large compound eyes and such a “sticky” forehead. Some have long noses and pointed ears. All of them are divided into individuals of both male and female. These hybrids reproduce sexually.

However, a quarter of all humanoids, which are brought out on the ships-wombs of Mars and the Moon, are one hundred percent people without any genetic and ethical impurities. They look exactly like earthlings. Just a little taller, slimmer and smarter than the native earthlings. The fact is that the aliens, who once founded their colonies on Earth, at all times had sexual intercourse with earthly women. Women from such contacts could not give birth on Earth. They simply died because their fetus was born too big. Born children also perished on Earth. Therefore, the Grays always watched over such women - before giving birth, they were taken to their bases of the Moon and Mars, where their mothers gave birth successfully. Women do not remember anything when they are sent to Earth after giving birth. And the Gray children were left to themselves. These children either live on orbital stations revolving around the planets of the solar system, or suffer among human nations and make brilliant discoveries for earthlings. A common characteristic for such children of aliens is high growth - from 180 to 250 centimeters. The men are fair-haired, blue-eyed, slightly tanned, and well-shaven. And women are slender and big-eyed, beautiful and kind. Usually such humanoids fly in on disk-shaped UFOs and go out to people in white clothes to teach earthly peoples to live peacefully and enlighten.

MERCURIANS

A very unusual civilization of super-intellectuals lives on the etheric plane. The cult of Knowledge reigns on Mercury, moreover, knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself, or more precisely, for the very process of obtaining it. The fact is that the inhabitants of Mercury experience incomparable pleasure from everything that is connected with the acquisition of abstract, divorced from material life, knowledge.

Description of mercurians: highbrow intellectuals can scan the entire experience and memory of the subconscious of any being, discarding and "rejecting" sensual "female" intuitive experience and being interested only in factual data about abstract ideas and concepts. Outwardly, these superintellectuals are very similar to earthly people, only their height does not exceed 1.5 meters and their physique is more fragile. The arms and legs are small, there is no hairline on the large round head, there are three fingers on the palms. However, Mercurians do not like their ethereal shell, considering it low, dirty and rough, and prefer to project themselves in the form of golden balls, especially when meeting with strangers.

The inhabitants of Mercury completely ignore material objects and issues related to the physical and ethereal world. They direct all their remarkable power of mind to comprehend the laws of the universe, its parallel worlds and various plans, its charters, orders and forms of manifestation and government. Of particular interest to them are objects of a magical and spiritual nature. But the Mercurians stop only at the process of acquiring and accumulating the actual component of the Unified Knowledge. They do not seek to apply their wide knowledge of abstract concepts in practice, considering this a matter of third-rate importance.

It is interesting that, filled with abstract information, intellectuals do not find any desire to understand the essence of things and events. Questions that require reasoning or drawing conclusions from known facts baffle them and cause only irritation. The bare facts are what really please the Mercurians.

Some Mercurians were driven to pride by the possession of knowledge. The inhabitants of Mercury naively believed that there is no such object in the Universe that they would not know. Therefore, the Mercurians constantly traveled throughout the galaxy, tirelessly replenishing their information treasury.

On Mercury there are no cities, no states, no tribes, no peoples. Together they are all Mercurians like one mycelium. They are united only by an information database, that is, they voluntarily form certain communities that act as one organism. Any information acquired by each of them is available to everyone, and the total amount of knowledge becomes the property of each member of the community. Their knowledge of facts is continuously increasing, but this does not lead to an increase in their wisdom.

It is also customary for them to follow this methodology when teaching in schools: teachers do not say anything directly and completely, do not reveal what the essence of the subject is, but only give a hint of the essence, thereby nourishing and increasing the desire for research and knowledge. According to the logic of the Mercurians, if you answer all the questions, then this desire will disappear. Therefore, they always say the opposite so that the truth stands out more clearly.

JUPITER CIVILIZATION

(one of 13 varieties)

Thirteen different civilizations live on Jupiter, including eight of them - humanoid. All of them inhabited various layers of the ethereal and vital world.

Description of one of the civilizations of Jupiter: outwardly very similar to the ancient Greek gods who lived on Olympus. Very wise and spiritualized humanoids lived here. They created their bodies from the third and fourth layers of the ether, so an ordinary person cannot see them with their eyes. These respectable natures are full of divine love, gentleness and meekness, they are tall, about 3-4 meters. All of them were relatives, since the people of this civilization lived on Jupiter in childbirth. All the people of Jupiter preferred to live outside the city, in nature. Jupiterians lived on farms and villas among lush vegetation of meadows and gardens. Therefore, the population of the capital did not reach a thousand people. Thirteen council priests and five hundred monks served their working hours in the stone city.

The Jovian villas stood at a respectful distance from each other. The average family consisted of a husband, his wife, two children, grandparents. Five or seven such families formed a related village, consisting of a dozen two-story and three-story buildings, and a central temple in the form of a pyramid. The houses were located along the perimeter of the circle and were surrounded by a beautiful green hedge fence. From the central temple, straight roads paved with polished stones ran along the radii in all directions.

There were no old people among the Jupiterians, since the older generation, who raised children, usually left their homes and secluded themselves in special sacred forests and groves, in holy places and mountains. Old people on Jupiter become ascetics and hermits in order to achieve their main goal of life - reunion with the One God. Having reached the Supreme in contemplation and meditation, the Jupiterians either go to more elevated planets, for example, to the planetary system of Sirius or the Pleiades, or return to their villas, leading the training of the younger generation. There they became the spiritual mentors of the youth. Those. Jupiter is the planet of yogis and hermits, ascetics and monks. Their needs and desires are kept to a minimum. They even go without any clothes. Their food is plant pollen, juices and various herbal infusions.

Jupiter is not only the largest of the planets revolving around the Sun, but also the most densely populated and one of the most spiritually developed. The Jupiterian civilization has chosen the path of studying the inner world, and not the external one, the path of self-knowledge, the path of spiritual development. Deeply understanding the purpose of life of each person, Jupiterians completely ignore technological progress. There are no cities on Jupiter, no factories and plants, no rumbling vehicles. Here the restriction of desires and liberation from attachments are cultivated. Jupiterians prefer to live in the bosom of nature in two-story houses or three-story villas that look like pyramids.

Jupiterians live superconsciously, that is, all their thoughts are directed to reunion with the One and Indivisible Lord. They pay special attention to the upbringing of children. Every child is educated in a school attached to a village church. Education in them is aimed at developing the spiritual abilities of students. "It is important to understand the fundamental principle on which all of Creation is built - Once you know this, you can create anything." The general education schools of Jupiter are somewhat reminiscent of the philosophical schools of ancient Greece. The Jupiterians had no written language, no radio, no television, since they all have clairvoyance, telepathy and proscopia. Education in the school took place directly - from the enlightened teacher to the student.

The life of the Jupiterians is approximately 800-1200 years. Usually the average inhabitant of Jupiter received an education, repaid the debt to society and married before the age of 50. Their children were conceived through sexual intercourse. After the birth of two or three children, the couple slept separately in different rooms. Then 20-30 years were spent on raising children, and when the children grew up and matured, then the Jupiterian either left the ethereal world if he achieved enlightenment, or went to a monastery, to a hermitage, in order to devote the rest of his life to approaching God.

Adult Jupiterians are three to four meters tall. All of them are slender, harmoniously built and very beautiful. Especially bright and sublimely beautiful are their faces with slightly protruding lips. When communicating with each other, the Jupiterians, in addition to telepathy, expressed their thoughts with the help of their faces. Mostly, they used for this that part of it, which is located around the lips. They never pretended and always said what they thought. Therefore, the Jupiterians did not strain the muscles of their faces and allowed their faces to freely express thoughts and feelings.

Around Jupiter revolve 16 moons of terrestrial density and more than 30 ethereal ones. Humanoids live on all the satellite planets of Jupiter. But the civilizations on these moons are man-made, similar to those on Mars.

Moon-eyed

2.10m - 2.40m tall, pale blue skin, bulging eyes, possibly distant relatives of the Nordics from Lyra or Andromeda.

bovvi

Very tall race from 2.5 - 3.5 meters in height.

star wanderers

Nomadic civilization. Has extensive knowledge and valuable resources, makes contact and willingly makes deals, but these deals are unreliable. They can be extremely beneficial for earthlings, just as a gift. For example, they can exchange a Mona Lisa painting for a three-year full supply of resources for the entire Earth. But they can deceive using their developed skills.

Attention: Be careful as there are Extraterrestrial Races not just negative, but terribly negative. There are Hierarchies, both Positive and Negative, Qliphonic (brown) and Demonic (black). There are also Alien Races working for the Negative Hierarchies. They are dangerous not only for your Physical Body, Psychic and Subtle Bodies, but also for your Soul. An example of such an alien Race ....

Sidrils

The form of evil that a person must know about is something negative, something else, absolute evil, which Asef Satan represents and personifies. This is evil that is created from the outside in relation to a person, regardless of his consciousness. What is it? And who is Satan?

Asef Satan is a living, really existing intelligent individual, Asef is a name, Satan is a surname. He was born over 91,000 Earth years ago on the Planet Uren, which is part of the Star System of a small Star not far from Sirius.

Since this information allows people to have a fairly complete picture of Satan and his Empire, which he would not like at all, without naming the names of subscribers: they want to stay alive, and they also have families ... They are absolutely subordinate to Satan, they are mortally afraid of him, called "god" and, as he claims, "ifat". They consider themselves to be his “children”, because they are convinced that they themselves were created by Satan, who gave them not only life, but also reason.

As it was possible to find out from the subordinates of Satan, he created from seven planets inhabited by intelligent beings - Sidrils - an entire Empire, which is located from us in the Star Cluster in the direction of the Aries Constellation sector and exists in the Yellow Space with a population of about 200 billion. The inhabitants of this Empire, just as we call ourselves "man", call ourselves "sydril", are intelligent beings that do not have a Soul in our imagination, but have something else.

The first largest planet is called Tmuzon, the second is Iso, the third is Sirui, the fourth is Uresirise, the fifth is called Iusi, the sixth is Yature and the seventh, the most important, remote and mysterious, is Lui: there is the refuge of Satan himself. (The text of the description of the planets, the population and their Stars is abbreviated).

There are 28 civilizations in the Yellow Spectrum, some of which are included in the Commonwealth of God (meaning the true Creator) and are subordinate to Him. Reasonable Beings of 21 civilizations recognize God and have a Soul, and they despise Satan as a traitor. Satan exists and lives in the space of the Yellow Spectrum, in our space he physically cannot really live, but he can have a significant impact on living forms. Satan has a direct impact on animals - which do not have in their Soul (Higher Aspect) the grafted Impulse Ring of Reason and some energy developments and structures, so it is easier to subdue them to him. It has only an indirect influence on a person and is not terrible for a person until a person begins to be afraid. And from fear, you can make mistakes, which is what Satan needs.

Now the biggest problem for his Empire, a matter of life and death, is Energy. The enterprises of the seven planets, the ships of the space fleet need a lot of energy, and their sources have long been exhausted. The main energy source of Satan's empire is the Gray Energy obtained by burning the Souls of Creatures (in particular, the people of the Earth). To ensure this, Satan created a whole system that currently gives about 80 Souls from the Earth every month, which is equivalent to almost 5,000 tons of uranium. Although this figure of abducted people and Souls from the Earth is too low. Unofficial statistics on the disappearance of people in Russia alone, annually amounts to more than 10,000 people, along with the "missing". Minus, apparently, the number of dead and from the activities of our earthly Russian criminals, without finding the bodies of the victims.

Before burning the Soul, all information is removed from it. It is important for Satan, priceless - it is a solution to the problems of strategic intelligence. Satan has a weak point, he does not know people well. He needs scientific and technical information about our world. And this is despite the fact that for tens of thousands of years he has accumulated scientific information that surpasses earthly information in volume and quality. The use of terrestrial information is dual: what can be useful for the world of the Sidrils - scientific discoveries, original technical and technological solutions, etc., suitable for use in the Yellow Space; and an assessment of the scientific and technical potential of the Earth in terms of predicting the possible counteraction of earthlings.

The "heart" of this system is the structure of the Centers for Deep Space Communications, the last of which was built 5 years ago and operates on Sirui. This is a new Center, the old ones are on Tmuzone and Luya. The new Center is much closer to the Earth, provides high-quality two-way instant communication with any person. How does this happen? A communication channel has been created in the Retrospace, the effect of a zero-transition between the Center and the peripheral element of the system near the Earth is used. This is according to the principle of action. They themselves call the system “Retrobridge”, which, in my opinion, capaciously and accurately reflects its essence.

The main goal of the Retrobridge Centers system is strategic reconnaissance of the space of the Universe to control the movement of ships of civilizations of the Creator and ensure the security of the empire; a parallel task is the search for knowledge and the corrupting impact on the civilization of the Earth by catching Souls to meet the energy needs of the Empire.

The Center itself has 37 jobs for telecom operators "for catching Souls", who work both with people - mediums conducting spiritualism sessions, and control the behavior of ordinary people.

This is where the operators of the "Retrobridges" constantly "whisper" to our contactees all kinds of false and tempting theories, predictions and "horror stories", mixed with true events on Earth. But, as a rule, there are much more lies in these "revelations" than the truth.