tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/babylon-32895/articles
Babylon – The Conversation
2023-08-21T12:25:17Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210361
2023-08-21T12:25:17Z
2023-08-21T12:25:17Z
The idea that imprisonment ‘corrects’ prisoners stretches back to some of the earliest texts in history
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543081/original/file-20230816-27-7c81zv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1022%2C873&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hymn to the Goddess Nungal, on display at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hymn_to_the_goddess_Nungal_by_a_scribe_accused_of_a_capital_offense_-_Oriental_Institute_Museum,_University_of_Chicago_-_DSC07107.JPG">Daderot/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prisons are places of suffering. But in theory, they aim for something beyond punishment: reform.</p>
<p>In the United States, the goal of prisoner rehabilitation can be traced back, in part, to the 1876 opening of <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814766231/benevolent-repression/">the Elmira Reformatory</a> in upstate New York. Purported to be an institution of “benevolent reform,” the reformatory aimed to transform prisoners, not just deprive them – though founder Zebulon Brockway, known as the “Father of American Corrections,” was notoriously harsh. </p>
<p>Other states soon adopted the reformatory model, and the notion that prisons are <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">places to “correct” people</a> has become a staple of the judicial system.</p>
<p>But the idea that imprisonment and suffering were supposedly good for the prisoner didn’t emerge in the 19th century. The earliest evidence <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">goes back some 4,000 years</a>: to a hymn in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq, praising a prison goddess named Nungal.</p>
<p>Almost a decade ago, <a href="https://rts.academia.edu/NicholasReid">as a graduate student</a> researching <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a693cd93-092e-4118-ae02-b9775bc2285e">slavery in early Mesopotamia</a>, I came across numerous texts dealing with imprisonment. Some were administrative documents dealing with everyday accounting information. Others were legal texts, literature or personal letters. I became fascinated with <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">imprisonment in these cultures</a>: Most of them detained suspects only briefly, but in literary and ritual texts, imprisonment was seen as a transformative, purifying experience.</p>
<h2>The ‘house of life’</h2>
<p>Around 1,800 B.C., students training as scribes at Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city, frequently copied from a selection of <a href="https://www.isdistribution.com/BookDetail.aspx?aId=17307">10 literary works</a>. Using cuneiform, these aspiring scribes would copy texts that included the exploits of the legendary hero Gilgamesh as he <a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1815.htm">fought the beast Huwawa</a>, the fearsome <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1883-0118-AH-2598">guardian of the forest</a>. They wrote about <a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr24201.htm">a great Mesopotamian king named Šulgi</a>, <a href="https://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=biography_shulgi">who claimed to be a god</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A slate-colored ancient seal has characters and an etching of a kneeling man holding a lion above his head." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A seal from around the ninth-seventh century B.C. shows Gilgamesh overpowering a lion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/seal-depicting-a-bearded-hero-gilgamesh-kneeling-and-news-photo/152191411?adppopup=true">Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>And as the master scribe dictated these various texts, the students also heard about a prison goddess named Nungal.</p>
<p>Though her justice was inescapable, Nungal was also celebrated for her compassion. Her “house” brought suffering upon prisoners, whose sorrow gave rise to lament. Through that lament, however, prisoners could be purified of their sins and made right with their personal gods, who were their protectors and mediators before <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/deit/hd_deit.html">the greater gods</a>. </p>
<p>The “Hymn to Nungal,” which dates from the second <a href="https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_5565.ahtml">or third millennium B.C.</a>, details how a guilty prisoner sentenced to death was not killed, but snatched “from the jaws of destruction” and put in Nungal’s house, which she calls a “house of life” – but also a place of suffering, isolation and pain.</p>
<p>Still, the hymn describes prisoners <a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4281.htm">transformed by their time in prison</a>. The goddess says her house is “built with compassion, it soothes the heart of that person, and refreshes his spirits.” Eventually, she continues, they will lament and be purified in the eyes of their deity: “When it has appeased the heart of his god for him; when it has polished him clean like silver of good quality, when it has made him shine forth through the dust; when it has cleansed him of dirt, like silver of best quality … he will be entrusted again into the propitious hands of his god.”</p>
<h2>Fact vs. fiction</h2>
<p>The extent to which the ancients <a href="https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/event/the-gods-in-literature-myth-theology-and-belief-in-ancient-near-eastern-and-greek-poetry">believed such stories about the gods</a> remains a matter of debate. Were texts like the “Hymn to Nungal” matters of sincere religion or just fairy tales that no one took seriously?</p>
<p>Since it is a literary text, it is not a reliable source about the justice system, either. Mesopotamian kingdoms during that time seem to have used prisons to detain suspects prior to punishment, similar to jails that hold suspects before trial today. They also <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">detained people to force them to pay a fine or debt</a>, and to coerce labor – sometimes for over three years. But punishment, which typically involved physical or financial consequences, did not include time in prison.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A faded blue tile shows tan-colored figures walking in a line." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A detail from the Standard of Ur, from third-millennium B.C. Sumeria, shows prisoners of war between soldiers. (Held in the British Museum)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_of_Ur_-_War_-_Detail_Top_Right.jpg">LeastCommonAncestor/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Still, detainment entailed suffering, with one prisoner describing the “prison” as a “house of distresses or famine” in <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/3183">a letter written to his superior</a>. <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/297">In another text</a>, the sender says he was released but complains of beatings that another prisoner endured as part of the investigative process – although the sender does not mention the nature of the suspected offense. </p>
<p>However, scholars <a href="https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_5565.ahtml">Klaas Veenhof</a> and <a href="https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/9782251446714/la-vie-meconnue-des-temples-mesopotamiens">Dominique Charpin</a> have found evidence of Nungal playing a role in the judicial process. At some temples, oaths would be taken in the presence of a throw-net, similar to what is used to cast for fish, which symbolized Nungal and inescapable justice.</p>
<p>The vision cast in the hymn was likely folded into a later ritual practice where imprisonment was used to purify the king. During <a href="http://www.islet-verlag.de/BandAmbos2.html">the New Year festival</a>, the king was stripped of his regalia and entered a makeshift prison made of reeds, where the king offered prayers to the gods for his sins. Through prayer and ritual, he was deemed purified and able to resume his royal duties.</p>
<h2>Yesterday and today</h2>
<p>While most people may not have spent long periods in Mesopotamian prisons, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">they did suffer in them</a>. Perhaps it is that experience that caused a text like the “Hymn to Nungal” to be written, exploring how such an experience could be used <a href="http://www.islet-verlag.de/BandAmbos2.html">to reform the prisoner through lament</a>. </p>
<p>The notion that imprisonment can be good is pervasive, but is it accurate? How prison systems think about reform is very different today than how the “Hymn to Nungal” envisions it. Yet the powerful idea that suffering can be good for prisoners has deep historical roots – allowing incarceration systems to claim that the suffering within their walls is compassionate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J. Nicholas Reid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Mesopotamia’s prisons were built for detaining people, not punishing them. But they shaped powerful ideas about justice and reform that aren’t so different from today’s.
J. Nicholas Reid, Professor Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Reformed Theological Seminary
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201658
2023-03-15T03:06:34Z
2023-03-15T03:06:34Z
Hollywood, memory and family: how The Fabelmans and Babylon both use music to evoke nostalgia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515046/original/file-20230314-2603-va5wq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1198%2C797&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year has seen the release of a varied collection of nostalgic films about film making. Damien Chazelle’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10640346/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2">Babylon</a> looks at the excesses of 1920s and 30s Hollywood; Steven Spielberg’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14208870/">The Fabelmans</a> explores the position of film in the director’s own childhood in the 1960s, and Sam Mendes’ <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14402146/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Empire of Light</a> is about a cinema in 1980s England. </p>
<p>These cinematic looks back offer film composers a challenge: how should they musicalise the past of their medium while adhering to the expectations of contemporary audiences? Two of these films’ composers were nominated for Academy Awards for best score: Justin Hurwtiz for Babylon and John Williams for The Fabelmans. Neither won, but Hurwitz and Williams take opposing yet equally successful approaches to this challenge.</p>
<p>Both scores have been met with largely positive critical reception, the music being one of many points of excellence critics have found with The Fabelmans but one of the few they have found with Babylon.</p>
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<h2>Nostalgia and the score</h2>
<p>While both films use music to evoke nostalgia for the times in which they are set, the effects are very different. </p>
<p>Hurwitz’s massive score for Babylon goes along with the excess of every other aspect of the film, while Williams’s modest work for The Fabelmans adds subtle emphasis to a delicate story. Hurwitz’s score plays through well over half of the three-hour Babylon, while Williams’ for The Fabelmans only takes up 20 minutes (including the end credits).</p>
<p>Notably, neither Hurwitz or Williams write in the currently dominating style of soundscape-based film music best exemplified by the work of Hans Zimmer, a style to which <a href="https://theconversation.com/whoever-wins-this-years-music-oscar-hans-zimmer-remains-the-most-influential-composer-working-in-hollywood-today-177225">last year’s set of Oscar nominees</a> adhered more consistently. </p>
<p>Of the other nominated scores, Son Lux’s for Everything Everywhere All At Once is a kitchen-sink pop extravaganza and Carter Burwell’s for The Banshees of Inisherin is a finely-wrought chamber score. One might have hoped that the fact that only one nominated score this year, Volker Bertelmann’s for All Quiet on the Western Front, is in the Zimmer style presages greater variety in film scoring in the years to come. That it went on to win suggests otherwise.</p>
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<h2>Hybrid music</h2>
<p>In Babylon, Hurwitz places tropes and topics of 1920s popular music into a 21st century context. From the 1920s, we have choirs of saxophones, muted trumpets, the syncopations of early jazz, and honky-tonk pianos. From the 2020s come cyclical melodic modules, chord-based harmonic gestures, and trance-like repetition – all recorded in clean multi-channel audio. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nightmarish-underside-of-the-dream-factory-how-babylon-captures-hollywood-in-the-1920s-198406">The nightmarish underside of the dream factory: how Babylon captures Hollywood in the 1920s</a>
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<p>Hurwitz also throws in a healthy dose of the 1960s jazz-based film scoring style of Michel Legrand, Henry Mancini, and Lalo Schifrin.</p>
<p>This hybrid of ‘20s, ‘60s, and “today” has frequently been used in American films and television shows about films and television. The recent Netflix series <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGpynZlX55E">Hollywood</a> was scored (by Nathan Barr) in much the same way, although it is set in the late 1940s. </p>
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<p>I date the popularity of this style to the innovative and influential backstage TV show <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huteagsm_Io">30 Rock</a>, where composer Jeff Richmond took a postmodern approach to the big band styles of earlier decades to musicalise the fast-paced and absurd goings-on in the New York late night TV comedy world.</p>
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<h2>Past and emotion</h2>
<p>Williams’s score for The Fabelmans could hardly be more different. Piano and celesta solos feature with a small orchestra playing Williams’ rich and subtly shifting chromatic harmonies. </p>
<p>This is the kind of music that, if not so carefully arranged with every note in the right place, could have quickly become saccharine. But Williams’s score only enters the film at a few key moments. The film’s soundscape consists primarily of music from the 1960s when the film is set (a technique of place-making more frequently used by Martin Scorsese than by Spielberg) and the piano music played by lead character Sammy Fabelman’s mother Mitzi (Michelle Williams), a character based strongly on Spielberg’s own mother Leah, who trained as a concert pianist. </p>
<p>As Sammy becomes a filmmaker his actions and the films he makes are accompanied by pop songs and excerpts from other film scores of the time, while the home atmosphere is largely connected to Mitzi’s own piano playing. The score is used primarily for emotionally charged moments between mother and son.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Spielberg and Williams on The Fabelmans.</span></figcaption>
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<p>I read the presence of the score as Spielberg reflecting on these moments from his past – Williams scores the director’s emotional memory, while the pop songs and piano pieces are more literal nods to the years in which the film is set. All of the film’s music is about personal nostalgia shared with the audience by the director (compared to Babylon, where the nostalgia is not linked to personal memories of filmmaking and family but rather to the medium of film itself).</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/winning-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-5-experts-on-the-big-moments-at-the-oscars-2023-201661">Winning everything everywhere all at once: 5 experts on the big moments at the Oscars 2023</a>
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<p>Williams’s most poignantly scored scene takes place during a family camping trip, where Mitzi spontaneously and lyrically dances for the family. The music provides focus to the scene, creating a sonic link between the mother as she dances and the son as he films her. The rest of the world seems to melt away as the filmmakers centre on music, light, and movement.</p>
<p>Hurwitz and Williams both musicalise the film-making process in both its procedural and emotional aspects. Both show excellent technical skill, Williams at the golden age end of his career and Hurwitz still at the beginning of his.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Camp does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Both Babylon and The Fabelman’s were nominated for Academy Awards for best score – and both take opposing but equally successful approaches evoking nostalgia.
Gregory Camp, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/198406
2023-01-31T19:20:20Z
2023-01-31T19:20:20Z
The nightmarish underside of the dream factory: how Babylon captures Hollywood in the 1920s
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507245/original/file-20230130-26-um4tht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1198%2C673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his latest film, Babylon, director Damien Chazelle presents a very different vision of the home of America’s motion picture industry than he did in his Oscar-winning 2016 film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/">La La Land</a>. </p>
<p>Instead of a romantic, wistful homage to the dream of Hollywood stardom and success, Babylon reveals the nightmarish underside of the dream factory in the 1920s. In telling the rise-and-(mostly)-fall stories of a group of striving movie celebrities against the backdrop of social, cultural and technological change in the new, modern, 20th-century America, the movie has both relevance and resonance today. </p>
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<h2>Hollywood in the roaring twenties</h2>
<p>The Roaring Twenties – an era of affluence and consumption, of cultural ferment and innovation – put Hollywood on the map. Movie-making became an economic powerhouse. With the financial centre in New York and the production centre in California, the industry consolidated from many small firms to eight major companies, such as Warner Brothers, Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox. The big studios achieved near-monopolistic control, extending from production through distribution to exhibition, and churned out thousands of movies for an ever-growing audience at home and abroad. </p>
<p>Chazelle gets a lot right about the history of Hollywood in this decisive decade. The development of the star system, which produced and sold the movies as star vehicles and created celebrity icons with millions of fans, is shown right from the start, with an over-the-top party that is at once lavishly ostentatious and garishly outrageous. At the party, we meet Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a young starlet about to get her big break, and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), an established star, two characters loosely based on the tragic lives of Clara Bow and John Gilbert.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507236/original/file-20230130-12383-c60ia2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The excess and debauchery of Hollywood as captured by Babylon (2023).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount Pictures</span></span>
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<p>Drugs, drinking and sexual debauchery are on full display at the party and lead to the death of a young actress, a tragedy that recalls the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-skinny-on-the-fatty-arbuckle-trial-131228859/">Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle</a> scandal of 1921. At the time an incredibly popular and highly paid comedy star, Arbuckle was accused of rape and tried for manslaughter in the death of Virginia Rappe. Although he was eventually exonerated, the scandal ended Arbuckle’s career and exposed the seamy behind-the-scenes reality of what came to be called “Hollywood Babylon.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507237/original/file-20230130-18603-11w5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Newspaper scan of the outcome of the infamous Roscoe Arbuckle third trial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Morality and scandal in Hollywood</h2>
<p>The Arbuckle scandal and others that followed led to public outcry and political calls for a “moral makeover” in Hollywood. The studios inserted “morals clauses” into employees’ contracts, allowing the studios to fire an employee for social or sexual impropriety or causing a public scandal. </p>
<p>They formed a trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, and hired to head it Will Hays, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Promising to clean up the movies, Hays promoted a list of “<a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/early-hollywood-and-hays-code/">Don’ts and Be Carefuls</a>” and then the <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode#:%7E:text=The%20Hays%20Code%20was%20the,cinema%20for%20over%20three%20decades.">Production Code of 1930</a> (informally known as the Hays Code), to prevent profanity, nudity, sex and “ridicule of the clergy” from appearing on screen.</p>
<p>This crackdown on movie content was part of a wider conservative backlash, as the United States entered the modern era. By 1920, most Americans were living in cities. Consumer and popular culture were thriving. Women had the right to vote. And European immigration and African American migration had made evident a more multicultural America. Many Americans feared and resisted these changes, and they sought to reestablish cultural homogeneity and control, including over the motion picture industry.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chinese-american-actresses-soo-yong-and-anna-may-wong-contrasting-struggles-for-recognition-in-hollywood-159174">Chinese American actresses Soo Yong and Anna May Wong: Contrasting struggles for recognition in Hollywood</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>From silence to sound</h2>
<p>These culture wars profoundly mirror our current ones, whereby social groups – in this case, conservative and liberal Americans – compete and conflict over whose values and beliefs will dominate the culture. </p>
<p>But Babylon’s plot focuses instead on the movie industry’s transition from silent to sound film and the impact of that change for stars of the silent era. Chazelle accurately introduces sound by featuring Al Jolson in the 1927 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018037/">The Jazz Singer</a>. The wildly enthusiastic audience reception for the film dashed the confident assumption of those who thought sound would be a passing fad. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gg5ws9-1Rx4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The industry shifted to the new technology, at great cost, and right before the Great Depression hit. Investment in microphones, sound-proofing studios, and wiring movie theatres and hiring new technicians and screenwriters proceeded. Actors without the right voice, accent, or diction didn’t make the cut. Chazelle covers this history well with a mix of humour, showing the difficulties of filming on the new sound stages, and heartbreak, as the careers of the main characters, Robbie’s LaRoy and Pitt’s Conrad, crash and burn. </p>
<h2>Rags to riches</h2>
<p>Babylon’s other characters represent significant aspects of the movies in the 1920s. The rise of Manny Torres (Diego Calva) from studio gofer to producer conveys the opportunities available to Latino filmmakers, such as René Cardona, and that rags-to-riches could still happen in the studio era. Ruth Adler (Olivia Hamilton), a director modelled on the pioneering Dorothy Arzner, alludes to the prominence of women as writers, editors, and directors in early Hollywood. </p>
<p>Chazelle also highlights the vital role that gossip columnists played in publicising Hollywood, its movies, stars, and fantasies. Elinor St John (Jean Smart) unsentimentally agrees with being characterised as a “cockroach”. Although the real-life inspiration for her character, British novelist Elinor Glyn, wouldn’t have agreed, gossips did feed off the crumbs of the industry and outlasted even the most celebrated stars.</p>
<p>Two additional characters matter very much for the film and its larger historical meaning. An African-American jazz musician, Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), and Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) pay respects to Louis Armstrong and Anna Mae Wong. The characters’ egregious treatment by the studios in the film – Palmer is required to perform in blackface and Lady Zhu can’t get cast as an actress – exposes the racism and sexism that dominated Hollywood for most of its history. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507241/original/file-20230130-6879-yiacef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mexican actor Ramón Novarro and Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong in a publicity photo for the film Across to Singapore (1928).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result of pressure from inside and outside, the industry is starting to change. However, these small steps have infuriated today’s cultural conservatives. For example, the casting of Halle Bailey, an African-American actress-singer in the live-action The Little Mermaid coming out this year, catalysed a storm of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2022/09/14/disneys-little-mermaid-backlash-has-reached-insane-heights/?sh=415222155592">racist reaction</a>. As was true 100 years ago, Hollywood is once again at the centre of America’s culture wars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198406/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Frost does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Damien Chazelle’s new film Babylon has both relevance and resonance today.
Jennifer Frost, Associate Professor, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184419
2022-08-24T13:27:16Z
2022-08-24T13:27:16Z
Terrifying dragons have long been a part of many religions, and there is a reason for their appeal
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478145/original/file-20220808-8059-ox4drg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=156%2C78%2C7075%2C4563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fire-breathing, fearsome dragons may represent chaos and the human impulse to conquer that threat. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/augmented-reality-royalty-free-image/166065759?adppopup=true">The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>HBO’s prequel to “Game of Thrones,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DotnJ7tTA34">House of the Dragon</a>” brought renewed attention to the ferocious dragon. Two-legged or four, fire-breathing or shape-shifting, scaled or feathered, dragons fascinate people across the world with their legendary power. This shouldn’t be surprising.</p>
<p>Long before “<a href="https://youtu.be/3EGojp4Hh6I">Harry Potter</a>,” “<a href="https://youtu.be/8YjFbMbfXaQ">Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings</a>” and other modern interpretations increased the dragon’s notoriety in the 21st century, artifacts from ancient civilizations indicated their importance in many religions across the world. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.emilyelizabethzarka.com/">scholar of monsters</a>, I’ve found dragons to be a nearly universal symbol for many civilizations. Scientists have tried to come up with explanations for the myth of dragons, but their enduring existence is testimony to their narrative power and mystery. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Pure white dragon looking backward." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dragons can symbolize the chaos of the natural world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/krUJkOtqIrw">Photo by Rock Vincent Guitard for Unsplash.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ancient dragons, ancient stories</h2>
<p>Religions and cultures <a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/dragon-legends">across the globe</a> are rife with dragon lore. In fact, across the vast <a href="https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-57506-279-2.html">majority of religions</a>, there is mythic trope some scholars call Chaoskampf, a German word that translates as struggle against chaos. This term, used by <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315236278">mythologists</a>, refers to a pervasive motif involving a heroic character who slays a primordial chaos “monster,” often with serpentine or dragonlike characteristics and a massive size that dwarfs humans. </p>
<p>One ancient example is found in the “<a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/225/enuma-elish---the-babylonian-epic-of-creation---fu/">Enūma Eliš</a>,” a Babylonian creation text from around 2,000 to 1,000 years <a href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/BCE">B.C.</a>. </p>
<p>In the text, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Tiamat/">Tiamat</a>, the female primordial deity of salt water and matriarch of the gods, births 11 kinds of monsters, including the dragon. While Tiamat herself is never described as a “dragon,” some of her children, or “monsters,” include several different kinds of dragons with explicit references to her <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/156921212X629446">dragon children</a>. Iconography later evolved so that her appearance began to take on serpentine features, linking her image to another famous clawed mythological predator, the dragon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colorful dragon wrapped around a column near the ceiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The dragon, lord of the scaly animals, represents one of four animals in Chinese mythology corresponding to directions and seasons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/WgFwcIozP-o">Photo by Raimond Klavins for Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dragons in Chinese and other cultures</h2>
<p>The presence of the dragon in China, where it is called Long is also ancient and integral to various cultural, spiritual and social traditions. </p>
<p>Dragons are members of the Chinese zodiac, one of the sacred guardian creatures that make up the <a href="http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/astronomy/sky.html">Four Benevolent Animals</a> and
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/suslj.v9i1.3735">provide justification</a> for <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1125/the-dragon-in-ancient-china/">imperial dynasties</a>. Different kinds of these aquatic, intelligent, semidivine beings form <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298514/a-chinese-bestiary">a hierarchy</a> in ancient Chinese cosmology and appear in <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Chinese_mythology">creation myths</a> of various indigenous traditions. </p>
<p>When Jesuit missionaries reintroduced Christianity in China in the 16th century, <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/14/1-3/article-p340_15.xml?language=en">the dragon’s existence was not contested</a>. Instead, they became associated with a more Westernized explanation – the Devil. </p>
<p>Today, dragons are celebrated and revered in Buddhist, Taoist and Confucianism traditions as symbols of strength and enlightenment.</p>
<p>Dragons also appear in <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/58405">Anatolian religions</a>, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/leon/article/53/1/50/46847/Drawing-New-Boundaries-Finding-the-Origins-of">Sumerian myths,</a> <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520272996/the-saga-of-the-volsungs">Germanic sagas</a>, <a href="https://www.harvard-yenching.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy_files/featurefiles/Nguyen%20Ngoc%20Tho_The%20Symbol%20of%20the%20Dragon%20and%20Ways%20to%20Shape%20Cultural%20Identities%20in%20Vietnam%20and%20Japan.pdf">Shinto beliefs</a> and in <a href="https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-57506-106-1.html">Abrahamic scriptures</a>. The creature’s repeated and important presence across global religions and cultures raises an interesting question: Why did dragons appear at all?</p>
<h2>Symbolic power</h2>
<p>A long-proposed theory is that there are natural explanations for dragons. That’s not to say the beasts of myth existed in real life but rather that fossils, living animals and geological features existing in the natural world inspired their creation. </p>
<p>Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Carl Sagan wrote <a href="http://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/159732/">a book</a> on the subject, arguing that dragons evolved from a human need to merge science with myth, the rational with the irrational, as part of an evolutionary response to real predators. His thoughts are an expansion of <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dragon_Seekers/vC4c3Kx746QC?hl=en&gbpv=0">proposed ideas</a> beginning in the 19th century or earlier as newly discovered fossils were linked to representations of dragons across the globe. </p>
<p>Full or partial remains of numerous <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/D/bo70560676.html">extinct species</a> may explain the physical attributes of dragons. In 2020, two scholars, <a href="https://www.roanoke.edu/inside/a-z_index/biology/meet_the_biologists/dr_dorothybelle_poli">DorothyBelle Poli</a> and <a href="https://directory.roanoke.edu/faculty/stoneman">Lisa Stoneman</a>, even proposed that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004415133_007">fossilized remains of Lepidodendron</a>, a plant with a scalelike resemblance, may be behind the global presence of dragons. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fossilized scalelike bark of Lepidodendron could inform dragon mythology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/landscape-with-plants-from-the-carboniferous-period-news-photo/857133514?adppopup=true">Print by De Agostini Editorial via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Human encounters with flying lizards, oarfish, crocodiles, Saharan horned vipers, large snakes and certain species of <a href="https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/komodo-dragon">lizards</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Quetzalcoatl">birds</a> have also been proposed as possible explanations for dragon lore, given their physical resemblance to different dragons. </p>
<p>Scholars have also cited natural geologic processes as explanations for dragon lore – particularly when they are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2015/10/29/in-the-alps-myths-about-dragons-may-be-rooted-in-geology/?sh=60d120cd210e">associated with natural disasters</a>. Fire-breathing dragons, for instance, might be an explanation for mysterious fires that observers attempted to rationalize as a dragon’s flame. Natural gas vents, methane produced from decaying matter and other sources of underground gas deposits can produce a blaze if accidentally lit. Before the mechanics of combustion were understood fully, such events were <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Science-of-Monsters/Matt-Kaplan/9781451667998">deemed indicators</a> of a dragon’s presence, providing a cause for the seemingly implausible.</p>
<h2>Eternal dragons</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A colorful dragon sculpture lit internally against a black backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ancient dragon mythology continues to inspire art and drama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/JNbxBcFzpv8">Photo by Thomas Despeyroux for Unsplash.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One enduring reason dragons continue to appear in our world could be because they represent the power of nature. Stories about people taming dragons can be seen as stories about the ability of humans to dominate forces that cannot always be controlled. </p>
<p>To gain control over a dragon underscores the problematic idea that humans are superior to all other animals in nature. Dragons challenge the concept of human biological supremacy, raising questions about what it means if humans were forced to reposition themselves as lesser members of the food chain. </p>
<p>More importantly, I believe, the beauty, terror and power of the dragon evokes mystery and suggests that not all phenomena are easily explained or understood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Zarka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Enormous, scaly, fire-breathing dragons have fascinated civilizations for centuries. A scholar who studies monsters explains their power and appeal.
Emily Zarka, Instructor in English, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/178947
2022-03-10T13:25:21Z
2022-03-10T13:25:21Z
Russian church leader puts the blame of invasion on those who flout ‘God’s law,’ but taking biblical law out of its historical context doesn’t work
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451033/original/file-20220309-30-92b50z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C13%2C4385%2C3091&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Patriarch of Russia Kirill and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (in background), at a monastery outside Moscow in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/russian-president-vladimir-putin-accompanied-by-patriarch-news-photo/874480208?adppopup=true">Alexey Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/moscow-patriarch-stokes-orthodox-tensions-war-remarks-83322338">preached a sermon</a> on March 6, 2022, in which he suggested the violation of “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/russian-orthodox-church-leader-blames-invasion-ukraines-gay-pride-1685636">God’s law</a>” provided divine license for the war against Ukraine. </p>
<p>In particular, Kirill pointed to Ukrainian acceptance of gay rights and the promotion of <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/blaming-russias-ukraine-invasion-on-the-gays-putin-patriarch-kirill/">gay pride parades</a> as specific examples of behavior that goes against God’s law. “This is a sin that is condemned by the Word of God - both the Old and the New Testament,” <a href="http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5906442.html">he said during his sermon</a>.</p>
<p>Yet few readers of the Bible realize that the laws in biblical times worked differently than today. </p>
<h2>Legal collections in the ancient world</h2>
<p>In my <a href="https://colorado.academia.edu/SamBoyd">research</a> on the Bible and its legal material, I have come to the conclusion that much of the modern debate about the Bible in political discourse could be ascribed to mistaken literary genres.</p>
<p>For example, laws from the Code of Hammurabi, an often-cited legal collection from King Hammurabi of ancient Babylon, have the familiar structure of modern, practiced law: If someone does something wrong, then that person is guilty according to the details of the law.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A relief showing King Hammurabi standing before a seated god of justice, Shamash." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448625/original/file-20220225-31520-37lbi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stele of Hammurabi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F0182_Louvre_Code_Hammourabi_Bas-relief_Sb8_rwk.jpg">Department of Near Eastern Antiquities of the Louvre, Iraq, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, Hammurabi himself <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3684684.html">rarely referenced</a> the collection. At times, his own royal decrees were in violation of what the inscription says should happen.</p>
<p>The Code of Hammurabi was not simply a reflection of law in everyday Mesopotamia. Instead, it was likely a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-laws-of-hammurabi-9780197525401?cc=us&lang=en&">collection</a> of possible legal cases and scenarios assembled by royal scribes. </p>
<p>These cases demonstrate a range of hypothetical legal responses that could ensure maximal justice in society. They may <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-laws-of-hammurabi-9780197525401?cc=us&lang=en&">resemble</a> real law, but they are not a direct representation of what happened in every case. </p>
<p>The laws were placed on a rock monument that contained an image of King Hammurabi seated before the god of justice, Shamash. The presentation of these laws on the inscription was for the purpose of making the king look good through <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-laws-of-hammurabi-9780197525401?cc=us&lang=en&">propaganda</a>, but, as research shows, not in order to codify practiced law. </p>
<p>Scholars believe that the Code of Hammurabi influenced some of the legal collections in the Bible, such as in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-gods-law-9780195304756?cc=us&lang=en&">book of Exodus</a>, the second book of the Bible traditionally attributed to Moses. There is evidence that, like Hammurabi’s law code, laws in the Bible were not necessarily practiced. </p>
<p>For example, a law in the book of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2021%3A18-21&version=NIV">Deuteronomy</a>, the fifth book of the Bible, also believed to have been written by Moses, says that if a son is persistently rebellious against his parents and gets drunk, the parents will bring the son to the town elders. The men of the town then stone the son to death.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/bi/28/1/article-p15_2.xml">what counts</a> as “rebellious,” and how drunk would qualify the son to be deemed guilty? </p>
<p>The Bible does not say. <a href="https://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/assets/Uploads/294/294_neverwas.pdf">Ancient rabbis</a> viewed the passage as not able to be practiced at all. The prophet Jeremiah applied the law <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198266995.001.0001/acprof-9780198266990">metaphorically</a> to Jerusalem’s destruction in 586 B.C., but there is no evidence that the law was actually practiced.</p>
<p>There is another story of one ancient rabbi, <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789047423096/Bej.9789004162921.i-836_044.xml">Hananiah ben Hezekiah</a>, who locked himself in his room, burning 300 barrels of oil to keep his light on in order to figure out how the laws of the Bible worked together. This incredible amount of exertion highlights how different these laws actually are and how they cannot be reconciled into one simple legal vision.</p>
<h2>Laws, the Bible and ancient Israel</h2>
<p>While there is evidence that some sense of legal <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27924979?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">reality</a> in ancient Israel looked like some of the biblical laws, the relationship was not exact.</p>
<p>It seems, instead, that the genre of <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6865/an-introduction-to-biblical-law.aspx">legal collections</a> in the Bible functioned according to the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/theory-and-method-in-biblical-and-cuneiform-law-9780567353214/">literary conventions</a> of its day. </p>
<p>The fact that laws in the Bible look like other ancient Near Eastern laws does not mean that the laws in the Bible have no unique features. Scholars have noted an <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/legal-revision-and-religious-renewal-in-ancient-israel/6C15540D333A89CA590C3F27A4D35692">innovation</a> that occurred in the laws in the Bible: There is no king who acts as the lawgiver.</p>
<p>All of the other laws in the ancient Near East were given by the king. The Mesopotamian god of justice, Shamash, endowed Hammurabi with wisdom, but Hammurabi himself derived the laws. </p>
<p>Yet the earliest legal collection in the Bible, in the book of Exodus, lacks the role of the king as a lawgiver for the first time in the history of the ancient Near East. The biblical laws, instead, come directly from God.</p>
<p>The original intent of some of these legal collections may have been to emphasize the need for freedom against <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-gods-law-9780195304756?cc=us&lang=en&">larger dominant imperial forces</a>. They were used as statements expressing convictions about justice, divinity and society, but without recourse to ancient Near Eastern kings. </p>
<p>In fact, one law in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2017%3A14-20&version=NIV">Deuteronomy</a> relegates the king to a much <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300167511/deuteronomy-and-pentateuch">smaller role</a> than royalty otherwise occupied in ancient society. This law stipulates that the primary job of a king is to study the legal material in the Bible. It also commands that the king not act arrogantly toward other Israelites.</p>
<p>Given these historical observations, “God’s law,” at least in the Bible, limits royal authority and provides a statement against imperialism, all of which would seem to undermine Kirill’s use of divine statutes to promote war and support Putin’s agenda. </p>
<p>But one can only see such functions of these laws when understood in their ancient context.</p>
<h2>How and when the perception changed</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A mosaic showing Roman Emperor Justinian flanked by two men on either side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448626/original/file-20220225-32670-1sj1d3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Byzantine Emperor Justinian brought about legal reforms in the sixth century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/detail-of-byzantine-mosaic-of-emperor-justinian-and-royalty-free-image/583742730?adppopup=true">Richard T. Nowitz/Collection The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The modern sense of legal collections as practiced law derives in some manner from the legacy of the Byzantine Emperor <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-age-of-justinian/AFDFB4B6F50063DE2A3B4A7115E17D6E">Justinian</a>. He inaugurated an expansive <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593309.001.0001/acprof-9780199593309">legal reform</a> in the Roman Empire in the sixth century. </p>
<p>It included precepts such as “innocent until proved guilty,” which would become a maxim for many later legal systems, such as the notion of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” in America. </p>
<p>Modern Christian thinkers tried to identify three enduring uses of the law in the Bible, the <a href="https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/threefold-use-law">second</a> of which applies a civil relevance to these statutes. The idea is that when a civil code that includes God’s laws is used in society, it should, in theory, curb evil.</p>
<p>One can find such sentiments in statements by modern legislators in America, such as Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s comments at The King’s College in New York in a <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/age-of-pelagius-joshua-hawley.html">commencement address</a> in 2019. </p>
<p>There, he blamed what in his view is America’s current moral bankruptcy on a fourth-century Christian belief called Pelagianism that highlights free will in humanity. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Hawley claimed that such a Pelagian attitude was at the root of a 1992 court case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the individual was ruled to have the “right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” </p>
<p>For Hawley, this sentiment contradicts the belief that all humanity should be subject to God’s rule, evidenced in the need for a personal relationship with God.</p>
<p>For Kirill, the use of “God’s law” in the war in Ukraine is an attempt to provide a divine mandate for Putin’s actions. Yet such a claim presupposes that biblical law was enacted in history and should be implemented in modern society. </p>
<p>Moreover, this sort of argument envisions a legal authority over Ukraine from the Russian Orthodox Church, a claim that has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-church-conflict-in-ukraine-reflects-historic-russian-ukrainian-tensions-175818">vigorously contested</a> by many who think that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be independent from oversight in Moscow.</p>
<p>Yet the Bible’s laws and its vision of society were more complex than such a direct application that Kirill in Russia or Hawley in the U.S. advocate. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece that <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-translating-gods-law-to-government-law-isnt-easy-177310">was first published on March 1, 2022</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Bible and its laws were complex and not practiced in the way many of us think about laws today.
Samuel L. Boyd, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/143842
2020-09-15T03:30:47Z
2020-09-15T03:30:47Z
Scarabs, phalluses, evil eyes — how ancient amulets tried to ward off disease
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354995/original/file-20200827-22-10ylmwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=95%2C35%2C1814%2C1065&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Egyptian winged scarab amulet (circa 1070 –945 BC).
</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Throughout antiquity, from the Mediterranean to Egypt and today’s Middle East, people believed that misfortune, including accidents, diseases, and sometimes even death, were caused by external forces.</p>
<p>Be they gods or other types of supernatural forces (such as a <a href="https://greekerthanthegreeks.com/2016/10/lost-in-translation-word-of-day-demon.html">daimon</a>), people — regardless of faith — sought magical means of protection against them. </p>
<p>While medicine and science were not absent in antiquity, they competed with entrenched systems of magic and the widespread recourse to it. People consulted professional magicians and also practised their own forms of folk magic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spells-charms-erotic-dolls-love-magic-in-the-ancient-mediterranean-98459">Spells, charms, erotic dolls: love magic in the ancient Mediterranean</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Possibly derived from the Latin word “amoliri”, meaning “to drive away” or “to avert”, amulets were believed to possess inherent magical qualities. These qualities could be naturally intrinsic (such as the properties of a particular stone) or imbued artificially with the assistance of a spell. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly the use of amulets was an integral part of life. From jewellery and embellishments on buildings, to papyri inscribed with spells, and even garden ornaments, they were deemed effective forms of protection. </p>
<p>Amulets have been around for thousands of years. <a href="https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-mesolithic-period/amulets/">Amber pendants</a> from Denmark’s Mesolithic age (10,000-8,000 BC) seem to have been worn as a form of generic protection. </p>
<p>Jewellery and ornaments referencing the figure of the <a href="https://archaeologicalmuseum.jhu.edu/the-collection/object-stories/ancient-egyptian-amulets/scarabs/">scarab beetle</a> were also popular all-purpose amulets in Egypt, dating from the beginning of the Middle Kingdom (2000 BC). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354996/original/file-20200827-18-5cszn7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A solar scarab pendant from the tomb of Tutankhamen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obamas-necklace-and-the-power-of-political-jewellery-from-suffragettes-to-a-secretary-of-state-144741">Michelle Obama's necklace and the power of political jewellery — from suffragettes to a secretary of state</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Two of the most common symbols of protection are the eye and the phallus. One or both amulet designs appear in many contexts, providing protection of the body (in the form of jewellery), a building (as plaques on exterior walls), a tomb (as an inscribed motif), and even a baby’s crib (as a mobile or crib ornament). </p>
<p>In Greece and the Middle East, for example, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180216-the-strange-power-of-the-evil-eye">evil eye</a> has a history stretching back thousands of years. Today the image adorns the streets, buildings and even trees of villages.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354267/original/file-20200823-24-1j1vh9l.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tree adorned with the evil eye symbol in a Turkish village.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marguerite Johnson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The magic behind the evil eye is based on the belief that malevolence can be directed towards an individual through a nasty glare. Accordingly, a “fake” eye, or evil eye, absorbs the malicious intention in place of the target’s eye.</p>
<h2>Wind chimes</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1833&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354270/original/file-20200823-18-2hpg9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1833&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek ‘herm’ (circa sixth century BC).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The phallus was a form of magical protection in ancient Greece and Rome. The Greek sculpture known as a “herm” in English functioned as <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/genitalia-apotropaic">apotropaic</a> magic (used to fend off evil). Such artefacts, featuring a head and torso atop a pediment — often in the shape of a phallus and, if not, definitely featuring a phallus — were used as boundary markers to keep trespassers out. </p>
<p>The implicit threat is that of rape; come near a space that is not your own, and you may suffer the consequences. This threat was intended to be interpreted metaphorically; namely, a violation of another’s property would entail some form of punishment from the supernatural realm. </p>
<p>The phallus amulet was also popular in ancient Italian magic. In Pompeii, archaeologists have uncovered wind chimes called <em>tintinnabulum</em> (meaning “little bell”). These were hung in gardens and took the form of a phallus adorned with bells.</p>
<p>This phallic shape, often morphing into bawdy forms, presented the same warning as the herm statues in Greece. However, the comic shapes in combination with the tinkling of bells also revealed a belief in the protective power of sound. Laughing was believed to ward off evil forces, as was the sound of chimes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354271/original/file-20200823-24-dcmopt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tintinnabulum from Pompeii (circa first century AD).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One scholarly view of magic is that it functions as the last recourse for the desperate or dispossessed. In this sense, it presents as a hopeful action, interpreted by some modern commentators as a form of psychological release from stress or a sense of powerlessness.</p>
<h2>Contemporary ‘magical thinking’</h2>
<p>In the context of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/happiness-in-world/200911/magical-thinking">“magical thinking”</a>, amulets may be dismissed by critical thinkers of all persuasions, but they remain in use throughout the world.</p>
<p>Often combined with science and common sense, but not always, amulets have made a resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The amulets are equally as diverse, coming in all shapes and sizes, and promoted by politicians, religious leaders and social influencers. </p>
<p>A traditional form of adornment and protection in Javanese culture, now popular with tourists, <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/04/05/wonogiri-residents-turn-to-amulets-to-protect-themselves-from-covid-19.html">“burnt root”</a> bracelets, known as <a href="https://www.indomagic.com/articles/traditional-medicine/akar-bahar/#:%7E:text=In%20the%20Indonesian%20archipelago%2C%20large,grows%20on%20the%20ocean's%20surface.">“akar bahar”</a>, have been sold by community shamans. Indonesia’s Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo, meanwhile, has promoted an <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3092226/coronavirus-can-be-killed-eucalyptus-necklace">aromatherapy necklace</a> containing a eucalyptus potion touted as a preventative against COVID (useless in terms of science but perhaps less dangerous than <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-29/donald-trump-touts-hydroxychloroquine-again-after-viral-video/12501634">hydroxychloroquine</a>). </p>
<p>This necklace prompts the question: where does alternative medicine end and magic begin? It is not a new question, since there has been an intersection between magical lore and medical knowledge for thousands of years.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-murky-cauldron-modern-witchcraft-and-the-spell-on-trump-73830">A murky cauldron – modern witchcraft and the spell on Trump</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Babylon, circa 2000-1600 BC, a condition known as “kuràrum disease” (identified as a ringworm, symptoms of which include facial pustules), was responded to by both magicians and doctors. And in one text there is a “healer” who appears to <a href="https://archaeology.huji.ac.il/people/nathan-wasserman">perform the role of magician and doctor simultaneously</a>. </p>
<p>Other ancient cultures also practised medical magic through amulets. In Greece, magicians prescribed <a href="https://folklorethursday.com/folklife/magic-to-heal-the-wandering-womb-in-antiquity/">amulets</a> to heal the <a href="https://academic.mu.edu/meissnerd/hysteria.html">wandering womb</a>, a condition whereby the womb was believed to dislodge and travel throughout a woman’s body, thus causing hysteria. </p>
<p>These amulets could take the form of jewellery on which a spell was inscribed. Amulets were also used to prevent pregnancy, as evidenced in a recipe written in Greek from around the second century BC, which instructed women to: “take a bean with a bug inside it and fasten it to yourself as an amulet.” </p>
<p>In a contemporary religious context, written amulets replace spells with prayers. In Thailand, for example, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-sg/video/viral/thai-buddhist-monks-give-lucky-charms-to-devotees-to-protect-them-from-covid-19/vi-BB11BITR?ocid=scu2">Phisutthi Rattanaphon</a>, an Abbot at Wat Theraplai Temple in Suphan Buri, has issued people with orange paper inscribed with protective words and pictures. </p>
<p>Designed to ward off COVID-19, the papers represent the crossover between magic and religion; a paradigm as entrenched as the blurring of magic and medicine in numerous historical and cultural contexts. Thankfully, face masks and hand sanitiser are also available at the temple.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143842/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Believed to possess magical qualities, amulets were once widely used. They range from amber pendants worn during Denmark’s Mesolithic age to wind chimes found at Pompeii.
Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/145244
2020-08-31T05:41:07Z
2020-08-31T05:41:07Z
Is mathematics real? A viral TikTok video raises a legitimate question with exciting answers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355476/original/file-20200831-14-174eny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C3449%2C2456&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While filming herself getting ready for work recently, TikTok user <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@gracie.ham/video/6864198263063448837">@gracie.ham</a> reached deep into the ancient foundations of mathematics and found an absolute gem of a question: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How could someone come up with a concept like algebra? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She also asked what the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras might have used mathematics for, and other questions that revolve around the age-old conundrum of whether mathematics is “real” or something humans just made up.</p>
<p>Many responded negatively to the post, but others — including mathematicians like me — found the questions quite insightful.</p>
<h2>Is mathematics real?</h2>
<p>Philosophers and mathematicians have been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Mathematical_realism">arguing over this</a> for centuries. Some believe mathematics is universal; others consider it only as real as anything else humans have invented. </p>
<p>Thanks to @gracie.ham, Twitter users have now vigorously joined the debate. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1298372968838508546"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1299273758256115713"}"></div></p>
<p>For me, part of the answer lies in history.</p>
<p>From one perspective, mathematics is a universal language used to describe the world around us. For instance, two apples plus three apples is always five apples, regardless of your point of view. </p>
<p>But mathematics is also a language used by humans, so it is not independent of culture. History shows us that different cultures had their own understanding of mathematics.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most of this ancient understanding is now lost. In just about every ancient culture, a few scattered texts are all that remain of their scientific knowledge.</p>
<p>However, there is one ancient culture that left behind an absolute abundance of texts.</p>
<h2>Babylonian algebra</h2>
<p>Buried in the deserts of modern Iraq, clay tablets from ancient Babylon have survived intact for about 4,000 years. </p>
<p>These tablets are slowly being translated and what we have learned so far is that the Babylonians were practical people who were highly numerate and knew how to solve sophisticated problems with numbers. </p>
<p>Their arithmetic was different from ours, though. They didn’t use zero or negative numbers. They even mapped out the motion of the planets without using calculus as we do. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/written-in-stone-the-worlds-first-trigonometry-revealed-in-an-ancient-babylonian-tablet-81472">Written in stone: the world's first trigonometry revealed in an ancient Babylonian tablet</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Of particular importance for @gracie.ham’s question about the origins of algebra is that they knew that the numbers 3, 4 and 5 correspond to the lengths of the sides and diagonal of a rectangle. They also knew these numbers satisfied the fundamental relation 3² + 4² = 5² that ensures the sides are perpendicular.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355413/original/file-20200830-14-fbzxlx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No theorems were harmed (or used) in the construction of this rectangle.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Babylonians did all this without modern algebraic concepts. We would express a more general version of the same idea using Pythagoras’ theorem: any right-angled triangle with sides of length <em>a</em> and <em>b</em> and hypotenuse <em>c</em> satisfies <em>a</em>² + <em>b</em>² = <em>c</em>². </p>
<p>The Babylonian perspective omits algebraic variables, theorems, axioms and proofs not because they were ignorant but because these ideas had not yet developed. In short, these social constructs began more than 1,000 years later, in ancient Greece. The Babylonians happily and productively did mathematics and solved problems without any of these relatively modern notions.</p>
<h2>What was it all for?</h2>
<p>@gracie.ham also asks how Pythagoras came up with his theorem. The short answer is: he didn’t.</p>
<p>Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570-495 BC) probably heard about the idea we now associate with his name while he was in Egypt. He may have been the person to introduce it to Greece, but we don’t really know.</p>
<p>Pythagoras didn’t use his theorem for anything practical. He was primarily interested in numerology and the mysticism of numbers, rather than the applications of mathematics.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-was-maths-discovered-who-made-up-the-numbers-and-rules-121509">Curious Kids: how was maths discovered? Who made up the numbers and rules?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Babylonians, on the other hand, may well have used their knowledge of right triangles for more concrete purposes, although we don’t really know. We do have evidence from ancient India and Rome showing the dimensions 3-4-5 were used as a simple but effective way to create right angles in the construction of religious altars and surveying.</p>
<p>Without modern tools, how do you make right angles <em>just right</em>? Ancient Hindu religious texts give instructions for making a rectangular fire altar using the 3-4-5 configuration with sides of length 3 and 4, and diagonal length 5. These measurements ensure that the altar has right angles in each corner.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man sits at a fire altar" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355415/original/file-20200830-20-1fbfao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rectangular fire altar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedi_(altar)#/media/File:Homa_during_Sri_Thimmaraya_swamy_Pratishthapana..jpg">Madhu K / Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Big questions</h2>
<p>In the 19th century, the German mathematician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker">Leopold Kronecker</a> said “God made the integers, all else is the work of man”. I agree with that sentiment, at least for the positive integers — the whole numbers we count with — because the Babylonians didn’t believe in zero or negative numbers.</p>
<p>Mathematics has been happening for a very, very long time. Long before ancient Greece and Pythagoras. </p>
<p>Is it real? Most cultures agree about some basics, like the positive integers and the 3-4-5 right triangle. Just about everything else in mathematics is determined by the society in which you live.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Mansfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What did Pythagoras do with all those triangles, anyway?
Daniel Mansfield, Lecturer in Mathematics, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127781
2019-12-02T03:27:48Z
2019-12-02T03:27:48Z
Rick Perry’s belief that Trump was chosen by God is shared by many in a fast-growing Christian movement
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303779/original/file-20191126-112522-8zoxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Energy Secretary Rick Perry speaks during an event about the environment at the White House on July 8, 2019, as President Trump looks on.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/983581137fd24ea0b522ef8f45694afe/37/0">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-rick-perry-trump-god-1473773">recent interview with Fox News</a>, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry stated that Donald Trump was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/11/25/rick-perry-under-scrutiny-his-ukraine-trip-says-trump-is-gods-chosen-one/">chosen by God</a> to be president. He said throughout history God had picked “imperfect people” such as King David or Solomon to lead their people.</p>
<p>Perry is not alone. A large number of evangelical Christians in the U.S. believe that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/25/why-evangelicals-like-rick-perry-believe-that-trump-is-gods-chosen-one">God has chosen Donald Trump</a> to advance the kingdom of God on Earth. Several high-profile religious leaders have made similar claims, often <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/23/cyrus-prophecy-evangelical-support-donald-trump">comparing Trump to King Cyrus</a> who was asked by God to rescue the nation of Israel from exile in Babylon. </p>
<p>Many of these Christians are part of a movement that we call “Independent Network Charismatic,” or “INC Christianity” in <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-of-network-christianity-9780190635671?cc=us&lang=en&">our 2017 book</a>. </p>
<p>Leaders such Rick Perry are connected to this movement. Eight years ago – in August of 2011 – more than 30,000 people cheered wildly when Perry, who was then a U.S. presidential candidate and Texas governor, came center stage at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/us/politics/07prayer.html">“The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis”</a> at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Perry quoted from the Bible and preached about the need for salvation that comes from Jesus. Many of the leaders who organized this event are the <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/rick-perrys-army-of-god/">same leaders who claim</a> that Trump is God’s chosen to advance the Kingdom of God. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160799/original/image-20170314-10727-8j6dbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worshippers pray with Texas Gov. Rick Perry at Reliant Stadium in Houston in August 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Pat Sullivan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We argue that INC Christianity is significantly changing the religious landscape in America – and the nation’s politics. </p>
<h2>Here is what we found about INC</h2>
<p>INC Christianity is led by a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/11/10/meet-evangelicals-prophesied-trump-win/93575144/">network of popular independent religious entrepreneurs</a>, often referred to by their followers as “apostles.” They have close ties, we found, to some conservative politicians, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry and more recently President Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Charismatic Christians emphasize supernatural miracles and divine interventions, but INC Christianity is different from other charismatics – and other Christian denominations in general – in the following ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>It is not focused primarily on building congregations but rather on spreading beliefs and practices through media, conferences and ministry schools.<br></li>
<li>It is not so much about proselytizing to unbelievers as it is about transforming society through placing Christian believers in powerful positions in all sectors of society. </li>
<li>It is organized as a network of independent leaders rather than as formally organized denominations.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Finding followers</h2>
<p>INC Christianity is the fastest-growing Christian group in America and possibly around the world. Over the 40 years from 1970 to 2010, the number of regular attenders of Protestant churches as a whole shrunk by an average of <a href="http://www.worldchristiandatabase.org/wcd/default.asp">.05% per year</a>, while independent neo-charismatic congregations, the category that includes INC groups, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=uUpIvgAACAAJ&q=world+christian+database#v=snippet&q=world%20christian%20database&f=false">grew</a> by an average of 3.24% per year. </p>
<p>Its impact, however, is much greater than can be measured in church attendance. This is because INC Christianity is not centrally concerned with building congregations, but spreading beliefs and practices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160798/original/image-20170314-10759-1uentpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/28648582@N02/5339151794/in/photolist-98NxPh-4tneYS-S2GSgh-eawUwM-eoHoPd-ejgZTH-oitEEP-dikQ7r-oog9to-7nw8Xj-nRzd1D-ejnPrY-jJBSDz-k9ZqHi-RV6sTA-8S1x6F-ejnN39-6Cms1L-RYFe9V-ib25u9-kfEnoJ-96RUcf-CWqNAW-fvChEL-8XsMEe-731ugM-dF1eoK-qsQST3-8XsMCv-eoCZnL-ejnN4j-eo4mek-4BtR7C-bn77Lk-epfYn7-6CgZYX-hCS4LN-gwv8T1-5uEKPN-hf1YHa-kPSkQF-7GuQC2-DPrSep-9Evhue-6Qm84y-4yXQFB-dF6E3L-6jYdJQ-otzCWr-QY7dMz">Kevin Shorter</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=O9c-DgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=google+pages+the+rise+of+network+Christianity&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju0f6HrdbSAhWLjVQKHZBNAAMQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Table%205.1&f=false">influence of INC Christianity</a> can be seen in the millions of hits on <a href="http://www.gloryofzion.org/">many</a> <a href="http://wagnerleadership.org/">of their</a> <a href="http://www.ihopkc.org/">web-based</a> <a href="http://bethelredding.com/">media</a> <a href="http://www.gloryofzion.org/">sites</a>, large turnouts at stadium rallies and conferences and millions of dollars in media sales. </p>
<p>In interviews, leaders of Bethel, an INC ministry based in Redding, California, claimed to have had an income of US$8.4 million in media sales in 2013. This included music, books, DVDs and web-based content. Another $7 million came from tuition to the <a href="http://bssm.net">Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry</a>.</p>
<p>Sean Feucht, one of Bethel’s popular musicians and worship leaders, is <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/california-congress-worship-leader-sean-feucht">now running for Congress</a> in California’s Third Congressional District.</p>
<h2>Appeal of INC</h2>
<p>As part of our research, we conducted in-depth interviews with senior leaders, staff and current and former participants in INC Christian ministries. We also conducted supplementary interviews with Christian leaders and scholars with knowledge of the changing religious landscape and attended conferences, numerous church services, ministry school sessions, healing sessions and exorcisms. In all, we conducted 41 in-depth interviews. </p>
<p>Our primary conclusion is that the growth of these groups is largely the result of the informal way in which the network is governed. When compared to the oversight and accountability of formal congregations and denominations, the network allows for more experimentation. This includes “extreme” experiences of the supernatural, unorthodox beliefs and practices, and financing as well as marketing techniques that leverage the power of the internet.</p>
<p>We also witnessed the appeal of INC Christianity, particularly among young people. We saw the thrill of holding impromptu supernatural healing sessions in the emergency room of a large public hospital, the intrigue of ministry school class sessions devoted to the techniques of casting out demonic spirits and the adventure of teams of young people going out into public places, seeking direct guidance from God as to whom to heal or to relay specific divine messages. </p>
<h2>‘Seven mountains of culture’</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060630560/the-religious-history-of-america">Most Christian groups</a> in America have seen the role of the church as connecting individuals to God through the saving grace of Jesus and building congregations that provide communities of meaning and belonging through worship services.</p>
<p>They also believe in serving and providing for the needs their local communities. Such traditional Christian groups believe that although the world can be improved, it will not be restored to God’s original plan until Jesus comes back again to rule the Earth. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160955/original/image-20170315-5354-11zimpi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lou Engle, an American Charismatic Christian leader.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/edenfrangipane/1036678093/in/photolist-2zBfhe">eden frangipane</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>INC beliefs, however, are different. Most INC Christian groups we studied seek to bring heaven or God’s intended perfect society to Earth by placing “kingdom-minded people” in powerful positions at the top of all sectors of society. These <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Invading_Babylon.html?id=GbqaZQS52gcC">“seven mountains of culture”</a> include business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family and religion. In this form of “trickle-down Christianity,” they believe if Christians rise to the top of all seven “mountains,” society will be completely transformed. </p>
<p>“The goal of this new movement is transforming social units like cities, ethnic groups, nations rather than individuals,” one INC leader we interviewed explained. “If Christians permeate each mountain and rise to the top of all seven mountains…society would have biblical morality, people would live in harmony, there would be peace and not war, there would be no poverty.” </p>
<p>We heard <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yZ3MCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT4&lpg=PT4&dq=The+Seven+Mountain+Prophecy:+Unveiling+the+Coming+Elijah+Revolution+creation+house&source=bl&ots=gbaQ4lJKwj&sig=ty55USPoxz7n02hQ6b3frjUcG88&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju-qGHqtbSAhWE3YMKHaX3DoAQ6AEIRjAI#v=onepage&q=The%20Seven%20Mountain%20Prophecy%3A%20Unveiling%20the%20Coming%20Elijah%20Revolution%20creation%20house&f=false">these ideas</a> repeatedly in most of our interviews, at events we attended and in INC media materials. </p>
<p>Most significantly, since the 2016 presidential election, some INC leaders have <a href="http://elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=17420">released public statements</a> claiming that the Trump presidency is part of fulfilling God’s plan to “bring heaven to Earth” by placing believers in top posts, including Perry, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson. </p>
<h2>Changing the landscape</h2>
<p>INC Christianity is a movement to watch. If it continues to draw adherents in large numbers in the future, as we predict, it will produce a growing number of Christians who see their goal not just as saving souls but as transforming society by taking control over its institutions.</p>
<p>While the Ukraine scandal, family separations at the border, and allegations of corruption have made some evangelical Christians <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2018/0618/Family-separation-Evangelicals-add-their-voices-to-opposition">question their support</a> of Donald Trump, most of those steeped in INC Christianity will never abandon their president. </p>
<p>To them, as we found, to oppose Donald Trump is to oppose God who chose him specifically to bring America and the world back to God. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-christian-movement-is-growing-rapidly-in-the-midst-of-religious-decline-73507">first published on March 15, 2017</a>.</em> </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=thanksforreading">Thanks for reading! We can send you The Conversation’s stories every day in an informative email. Sign up today.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Christerson received funding from the John Templeton Foundation for this project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Flory received funding from the John Templeton Foundation for this project.</span></em></p>
A Christian movement led by independent religious entrepreneurs, often referred to as ‘apostles,’ is changing the religious landscape of the US.
Brad Christerson, Professor of Sociology, Biola University
Richard Flory, Senior Director of Research and Evaluation, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127498
2019-11-25T23:42:26Z
2019-11-25T23:42:26Z
Nebuchadnezzar explained: warrior king, rebuilder of cities, and musical muse
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303598/original/file-20191125-74593-12uoe48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C131%2C1494%2C965&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Blake's portrait of the Old Testament Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who in the Book of Daniel 'was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tate Britain</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kanye West’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kanye-west-opera-nebuchadnezzar-hollywood-bowl-913874/">first operatic work</a>, Nebuchadnezzar, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/25/kanye-west-nebuchadnezzar-opera-hollywood-bowl-los-angeles-review">just premiered</a> at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Set in the 6th century BCE, the opera is based on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/an-instagram-worthy-bible-aimed-at-millennials/2019/03/08/5a303cc0-411f-11e9-922c-64d6b7840b82_story.html">the biblical story </a> of Nebuchadnezzar II, a powerful ruler and the longest-reigning king of Babylon.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303599/original/file-20191125-74599-1ksb1js.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kanye West: has spoken of parallels between himself and the Babylonian king.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Etienne Laurent</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nebuchadnezzar was a warrior-king, often described as the greatest military leader of <a href="http://mini-site.louvre.fr/babylone/EN/html/1.4.4.html">the Neo-Babylonian empire.</a> He ruled from 605 – 562 BCE in the area around the Tigris-Euphrates basin. His leadership saw numerous military successes and the construction of building works such as the famous Ishtar Gate. </p>
<p>Thousands of years after his rule, Nebuchadnezzar’s name lives on in his buildings and in ancient literature. Interestingly, his name and life have inspired numerous musical works by artists such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZNpzS9tVn0&list=RDcZNpzS9tVn0&start_radio=1">jazz pianist Marcus Roberts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGhd5kGM7dk">Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi</a>, and now, West.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1198788970299240448"}"></div></p>
<p>The name Nebuchadnezzar in <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brush-your-akkadian-new-online-dictionary-180964725/">Akkadian (an ancient Semitic language that is an early cognate of Hebrew)</a> is Nabu-Kudurri-usur, which means “O Nabu, protect my first-born son.” <a href="http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/nabu/index.html">Nabu</a> was a major Mesopotamian deity associated with literacy and the work of scribes.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303596/original/file-20191125-74557-ook47h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An engraving on an eye stone of onyx with an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The late Iron Age in the Near East saw the end of the mighty Assyrian Empire around 609 BCE - partly fuelled by climate change. </p>
<p>The area became the focus of political manoeuvring between two regional superpowers – the Egyptian and the Babylonian empires. Under Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Neo-Babylonian armies swept through the area, leaving a trail of destruction <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-archaeology-babylon/ancient-tablets-reveal-life-of-jews-in-nebuchadnezzars-babylon-idUSKBN0L71EK20150203">including that of the biblical kingdom of Judah, which was besieged and destroyed</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-fueled-the-rise-and-demise-of-the-neo-assyrian-empire-superpower-of-the-ancient-world-126661">Climate change fueled the rise and demise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, superpower of the ancient world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Redbuilding Babylon</h2>
<p>Nebuchadnezzar appears prominently in the Book of Daniel, as well as in Kings, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and rabbinical literature. The fall of the kingdom of Judah is presented in detail in 2 Kings 24-25. </p>
<p>Many scholars have noted that the historicity of the biblical account is supported by cuneiform sources. Indeed, this biblical account of the destruction is remarkably close to descriptions of the event found in Neo-Babylonian chronicles.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303388/original/file-20191125-74603-1hu4xtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1109&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle. Clay tablet; New Babylonian. Chronicle for years 605-594 BC. © Trustees of the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nebuchadnezzar’s military might looms large in the biblical text, but evidence from Neo-Babylonian sources from around the time of his reign offers a different emphasis. These sources focus on the king’s outstanding record in building and construction, and his religious piety. </p>
<p>Nebuchadnezzar <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-world-heritage-unesco-iraq/ancient-iraqi-city-of-babylon-designated-unesco-world-heritage-site-idUSKCN1U02AW">was committed to rebuilding Babylon</a> (in modern-day Iraq) after it had been freed from Assyrian rule. He turned the city into one that was famed for its opulence and majesty throughout the ancient world. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/ancient-near-east1/babylonian/v/ishtar-gate-and-processional-way-reconstruction-babylon-c-575-b-c-e">The famous Ishtar Gate</a>, part of the processional way leading into the heart of the city, was constructed under Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, and carries his dedication. The walls of the processional way were decorated with images of lions, the sacred animal of Ishtar, goddess of love.</p>
<p>Bricks from the blue-glazed wall bearing Nebuchadnezzar’s inscription have been discovered in their thousands.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303390/original/file-20191125-74580-pn54fn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A reconstruction of the blue Ishtar Gate of Babylon, decorated with extinct aurochs and mythological creatures, at the Pergamon History Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-legend-of-ishtar-first-goddess-of-love-and-war-78468">Friday essay: the legend of Ishtar, first goddess of love and war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Legend has it that the mysterious Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built by Nebuchadnezzar as a gift for his wife, Amuhia.</p>
<p>The story goes that Amuhia was <a href="https://qz.com/1557308/psychoterratica-is-the-trauma-caused-by-distance-from-nature/">homesick for the forested landscape</a> of her homeland Medea (which in the modern-day includes parts of Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), so Nebuchadnezzar built the gardens to provide her with some comforts of home. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/173590">one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,</a> but their exact historical location remains unknown.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303389/original/file-20191125-74562-1huvjhk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, painting by Ferdinand Knab (1834-1902)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nebuchadnezzar’s building works are described in the works of Classical writers such as the 5th century historian, <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-histories-by-herodotus-53748">Herodotus</a>. Several ancient sources, including inscriptions ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar, suggest the king constructed a giant reservoir that was 200km in length. (However, alternate sources suggest the construction was the work of the ancient queens Nitocris or Semiramis.)</p>
<h2>Musical connections</h2>
<p>In a much-quoted interview with DJ Zane Lowe, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrislambert/2019/11/17/who-is-king-nebuchadnezzar-and-why-is-he-the-focus-of-kanye-wests-upcoming-opera/#2eff530a7b24">Kanye West has explained his connection to the Babylonian monarch</a>. West noted parallels between the exceptional successes enjoyed by Nebuchadnezzar and himself, and the relationship between their achievements and their religion.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1198796300151508992"}"></div></p>
<p>He has also observed that Nebuchadnezzar’s mental illness as described in the Bible (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boanthropy">there is a passage where he believes himself to be a cow</a>) has resonated with <a href="https://people.com/music/kanye-west-sprained-brain-mental-illness-stigma/">his own health issues</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303597/original/file-20191125-74557-1s3s590.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nebuchadnezzar Recovering His Reason, Robert Blyth, 1782.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several ancient sources also connect Nebuchadnezzar to hymns and musical performances. In the Book of Daniel, for instance, Nebuchadnezzar builds a giant golden statue in his own image. The king’s attendants decree that when people “hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music” they should fall down and worship this gold image.</p>
<p>Following Nebuchadnezzar’s death around 562 BCE, three different kings held the Babylonian throne in six years.</p>
<p>Two were assassinated - suggesting perhaps that Nebuchadnezzar’s many achievements made him a hard act to follow. While the king’s rule was undoubtedly complicated, his story is still providing inspiration for modern artists and diverse new tellings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127498/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Nebuchadnezzar was a warrior-king of the Neo-Babylonian empire. And now, Kanye West has written an opera inspired by him.
Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate and Lecturer, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108682
2019-01-13T19:12:18Z
2019-01-13T19:12:18Z
Heaven on earth: the ancient roots of your backyard garden
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253340/original/file-20190110-43525-rg3r3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The connection between the gardens of Versailles, and your backyard garden, are closer than you might think. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You don’t have to be an avid gardener or know all the Latin names of plants to appreciate the opportunity for reflection that a stroll in the garden can afford us. The explosion of colours, shapes, and textures in the garden, the tenacity and ingenuity of the plants, so determined to claim their right to life and beauty, can suspend for us the troubling aspects of everyday life. </p>
<p>But gardens are also bound to their political and religious history, traces of which can be found in our ongoing cultural obsession with them. The connection between the famous gardens of <a href="http://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/estate/gardens">Versailles</a>, once the coveted possession of <a href="http://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/great-characters/louis-xiv">Louis XIV</a>, and our humble back garden is deeper than we might imagine.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-what-is-it-about-versailles-69559">Friday essay: what is it about Versailles?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the book of <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/genesis/documents/bible_genesis_en.html">Genesis</a>, our creation begins in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Garden-of-Eden">Eden</a>, the “garden of God” which our ancestors, Adam and Eve, failed to appreciate. Having lost our privileged access to this divine garden because of their sin, we perpetually try to re-create it – in our homes, in our cities, in our heads. The earthly garden as a reflection of the paradise we can hope to experience after death is also a central motif in the <a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=9&verse=72">Qur’an</a>, a promise delivered by Allah himself.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252987/original/file-20190109-32154-p2bill.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=582&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam and Eve Chased out of the Terrestrial Paradise. Jean Achille Benouville, 1841.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adam_and_Eve_Chased_out_of_the_Terrestrial_Paradise_(Jean-Achille_Benouville).jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gods and kings</h2>
<p>In the ancient Near East, in whose fertile soil the Biblical traditions took shape, kings (who often assumed priestly duties) were believed to have the monopoly of communicating with the gods in the royal garden. This was seen as a microcosm of the divine garden. </p>
<p>In the Babylonian <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/gilgamesh/standard/">Epic of Gilgamesh</a> (from around 2000 BCE), the hero-king Gilgamesh travels to the wondrous garden of the sun-god, where flowers boast precious gems instead of leaves, in a quest to claim immortality. Although immortality eludes Gilgamesh, the divine garden offers him wisdom. Thus equipped, he returns to his city, Uruk, also known as “the garden of Gilgamesh,” and builds magnificent walls which will etch his name into the memory of mankind. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444">Guide to the classics: the Epic of Gilgamesh</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="http://jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/ANEmyths/gilgamesh12.html">In another story</a>, despite his uneasy relationship with the fertility goddess Inanna, whose advances he eventually rejects, Gilgamesh poses as her dedicated gardener. He carves a throne and a bed for Inanna from the Huluppu tree while she makes him a magical drum and drumstick from it to summon warriors to battle. When Inanna’s favourite tree is threatened by a serpent nesting at its roots, only Gilgamesh and his companions rush to her aid. </p>
<p>Throughout the Near East, the garden was a place where gods confirmed the legitimacy of kings. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sargon-I">Sargon I</a> (1920-1881 BCE), the founder of the Akkadian-Sumerian empire, poses in the epic <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/article/746/the-legend-of-sargon-of-akkad/">The Legend of Sargon</a> as a humble gardener, and was hand-picked by the goddess to become the king. </p>
<p>Ancient Near Eastern kings invested exorbitant sums of money in building magnificent <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/paradise-on-earth-the-gardens-of-ashurbanipal/">royal gardens</a>, architectural marvels which crystallised in people’s minds their unique communion with the gods. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sennacherib">Sennacherib</a> (704-681 BCE) likely commissioned the famous hanging gardens to be built near his capital Nineveh, although we still commonly refer to them as the <a href="https://www.history.com/news/hanging-gardens-existed-but-not-in-babylon">Hanging Gardens of Babylon</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252990/original/file-20190109-32139-1aho40f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Garden party of Aššurbanipal’ relief, reproduced with the permission of the Trustees of the British Museum. Found in Nineveh, Iraq, dated circa 645 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The notion was also known to the Israelite king <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon">Solomon</a> (circa 970-931 BCE), who proudly announced his construction of lavish, well-irrigated gardens and groves, and was widely used by the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acha/hd_acha.htm">Achaemenids</a> (a Persian dynasty). Indeed the Persian word for an enclosed garden, <em>pairi-daêza</em>, was introduced into Greek as <em>paradeisos</em> (“paradise”) by the historian Xenophon. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1233&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253011/original/file-20190109-32154-uudlyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1233&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A possible image of Prince Mirza Hindal in a Garden from Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (public domain). India, Mughal, 1600-1610.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prince_Mirza_Hindal_(%3F)_in_a_Garden_LACMA_M.89.60.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his biography of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/xenophon/">Xenophon</a> notes with admiration the king’s impeccable gardening skills which matched his royal virtue. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Seleucus-I-Nicator">Seleucus I</a>, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/alexander-the-great">Alexander the Great</a>’s general who came to rule Babylon, also embraced the profile of the king as gardener. His famous garden at <a href="http://romeartlover.tripod.com/Antioc1.html">Daphne</a>, outside Antioch, renowned for its abundance of shady laurel trees, tall cypresses, and perennial fountains, was closely associated with the foundation of the Seleucid dynasty and Apollo, their divine patron. In the east the tradition never lost its appeal.</p>
<h2>From the Middle East to the world</h2>
<p>The Romans, who inherited the kingdoms of Alexander’s successors, adopted the ideology of gardens with renewed zeal, transplanting it in Europe. The <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Empire/">Roman Empire</a> withered, but generations of aspiring aristocrats and rulers, including <a href="https://www.gardenvisit.com/biography/charlemagne">Charlemagne</a>, <a href="https://www.thegoodlifefrance.com/hesdin-in-pas-de-calais/">Count Robert II of Artois</a> (1250-1302), <a href="http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/boboli_garden.html">Cosimo de’ Medici</a> (1389-1464), and <a href="https://www.french-gardens.com/gardens/chenonceau.php">Henri II</a> (1519-1559) never forgot the sense of grandeur and superhuman aura that exotic, exclusive gardens could afford them. </p>
<p>Dating from the Middle Ages, the <a href="http://vaticangardens.org/vatican-gardens-history/">Vatican Gardens</a>, owned by the Pope, continue to evoke the political and religious dimensions of the garden, which were especially celebrated in Britain with the ascension of Henry VIII in 1509. European colonization of the Middle East saw the idea of the garden reintroduced in the places of its origin, but, also imported in the New World. Gardens such as the <a href="https://www.mumbai.org.uk/parks-gardens/victoria-gardens.html">Victoria gardens</a> in Mumbai showed off the legitimacy of British rule.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-is-in-gardening-is-good-for-you-65251">The science is in: gardening is good for you</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253347/original/file-20190111-43541-145ac30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Vatican evokes the political and religious dimensions of gardens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The connection of the garden with politics remains strong. Community gardens are cast as an epitome of democratic values, and the <a href="https://www.anbg.gov.au/botanic-gardens/history-botanic-gardens-in-aust.html">Royal Gardens</a> in all major Australian cities advocate inclusiveness, despite their monarchical titles. Gardens surrounded ancient temples to bring worshippers closer to god; gardens surround war memorials inviting us to reflect on life lost and life gained.</p>
<p>So next time you’re wandering around your own garden, reflect on the fact that you’re walking in the footsteps of the kings and queens of yesteryear, in your own slice of paradise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
From the Bible to Versailles, gardens are bound to their political and religious history.
Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Associate Professor in Ancient History, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/82639
2017-10-05T19:05:23Z
2017-10-05T19:05:23Z
Friday essay: the recovery of cuneiform, the world’s oldest known writing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188297/original/file-20171002-12149-1sdz8wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A relief at the ancient Persian city of Persepolis (now in modern Iran), including inscriptions in cuneiform, the world's oldest form of writing. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Diego Delso/Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a little-known piece of history that Saddam Hussein was a great fan of ancient Mesopotamian literature. His enthusiasm for epics written in cuneiform – the world’s <a href="http://www.archaeology.org/issues/213-1605/features/4326-cuneiform-the-world-s-oldest-writing">oldest known form of writing</a> – can be seen in his own efforts at writing political romance novels and poetry. Hussein’s first novel, Zabibah and the King, blended the <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444">Epic of Gilgamesh</a> with the <a href="https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/leisure/anglo-indian-nights/articleshow/60039407.cms">1001 Nights</a>, and was adapted into a television series and a musical.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188284/original/file-20171002-28506-caxt4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zabibah and the King, 2000, by Saddam Hussein.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, the Iraqi dictator was said to be so immersed in his novel-writing that he left much of the military strategising to his sons leading up to the 2003 war. He <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/06/fiction.iraq">continued writing in prison</a>, using a card table as a writing desk. This example from the modern genre of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/31/dictator-lit-saddam-hussein">dictator literature</a>” provides an unusual insight into the diverse reception of cuneiform literature in the modern day. </p>
<p>The decipherment of cuneiform in the late 18th century, a tale of academic virtuosity and daring, revealed a “forgotten age” and challenged the traditional, biblical view of history. One scholar was even put on trial for heresy for the wonders he uncovered in the translated script. </p>
<p>For over 3,000 years, cuneiform was the primary language of communication throughout the Ancient Near East (roughly corresponding to the Middle East today) and into parts of the Mediterranean. The <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=fHXobmWJ_IwC&pg=PA104&dq=hallo+1971+bahrani&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj915Pi__rVAhWLzLwKHe8YABAQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=hallo%201971%20bahrani&f=false">dominance of the cuneiform writing style</a> in antiquity has led scholars to refer to it as “the script of the first half of the known history of the world”. Yet it disappeared from use and understanding by 400 CE, and the processes and causes of the script’s vanishing act remain somewhat enigmatic. </p>
<p>Cuneiform is composed of wedge-shaped characters and was written on clay tablets (often likened to marks made by a chicken scratching in the mud). Unlike other ancient writing media, such as the papyri or leather scrolls used in Ancient Greece and Rome, cuneiform tablets survive in great abundance. Hundreds of thousands of tablets have been recovered from ruined Mesopotamian cities. </p>
<p>The discoveries yielded from the recovery of cuneiform writing continue to unfold in unexpected and exciting ways. In August this year, mathematicians at an Australian university made international headlines with their discovery involving a <a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/mathematical-mystery-ancient-clay-tablet-solved">3,700-year-old clay tablet</a> containing a trigonometric table. The researchers said the cuneiform table reveals a sophisticated understanding of trigonometry — in some ways <a href="https://theconversation.com/written-in-stone-the-worlds-first-trigonometry-revealed-in-an-ancient-babylonian-tablet-81472">more advanced than in modern-day mathematics</a>!</p>
<h2>Lost in translation</h2>
<p>It is difficult to overstate the influence of cuneiform literature in the ancient world. Many languages throughout a vast geographical span over thousands of years were written in cuneiform, including Sumerian, Hittite, Hurrian and Akkadian. Among these, <a href="http://mymodernmet.com/akkadian-free-dictionary-online/">Akkadian</a> (an early cognate of Hebrew and Arabic) became the lingua franca of the Near East, including Egypt, during the Late Bronze Age. </p>
<p>Cuneiform was used to preserve the official royal correspondences between leaders of empires, but also simple transactions and record-keeping that were part of daily life. Over time, the skill of writing moved outside the main institutions of cities, such as temples and scribal schools, into the hands of citizens, as well as into private homes. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HbZ2asfyHcA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Despite its dominance in antiquity, the use of cuneiform ceased entirely at some point between the first and third centuries CE. The great empires of the Ancient Near East experienced a long decline over many centuries, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Egyptian hieroglyphs and cuneiform as written languages. </p>
<p>Cuneiform’s sphere of influence shrank after the sixth century BCE, before vanishing entirely. The disappearance of cuneiform accompanied, and likely facilitated, the loss of Mesopotamian cultural traditions from the ancient and modern worlds.</p>
<p>There are several schools of thought surrounding the disappearance of cuneiform, including competition with alphabetic languages (where letters correspond to sounds) such as Aramaic and Greek, and the <a href="http://krieger2.jhu.edu/neareast/pdf/jcooper/Redundancy%20Reconsidered%202008.pdf">decline of writing traditions</a>. However, the process of the transition from cuneiform to alphabet is yet to be clearly understood.</p>
<h2>Deciphering the code</h2>
<p>The resurrection of cuneiform writing systems was described by legendary Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer as an “eloquent and magnificent achievement of 19th century scholarship and humanism”.</p>
<p>In the 15th century, cuneiform inscriptions were observed in Persepolis (in modern-day Iran). The script’s patterned dashes were not immediately recognised as writing. The name “cuneiform” (a Latin-based word meaning “wedge-shaped”) was given to the undeciphered writings by Oxford professor Thomas Hyde in 1700. </p>
<p>Hyde viewed the cuneiform markings as decorative rather than conveying language — a widely held view in academic circles of the 18th century. Despite some efforts to popularise the name “arrow writing”, “cuneiform” gained general acceptance. Yet cuneiform remained cryptic, and its ancient masterpieces buried and inscrutable.</p>
<p>The modern-day decipherment of cuneiform owes a great debt to the rulers of the <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acha/hd_acha.htm">Persian Achaemenid dynasty</a>, who reigned in what is modern-day Iran in the first millennium BCE. These rulers made cuneiform inscriptions recording their achievements. </p>
<p>The most important of these inscriptions for the decipherment of cuneiform was the Behistun inscription, which recorded the same message in three languages: Persian, Elamite and Akkadian. This trilingual inscription was carved into the face of a cliff in Behistun in what is now western Iran.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188526/original/file-20171003-12138-r1go5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Behistun inscription, high above the ground in Iran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">KendallKDown/Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Detailing the successes of King Darius I of Persia, the Behistun inscription was inscribed on rock some 100 metres off the ground around 520 BCE. In 1835, Henry Creswicke Rawlinson was training troops of the Shah of Iran when he encountered the inscription. In order to reach the writings and transcribe them, Rawlinson needed to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/fitness/rock-climbing-puts-you-on-top-of-the-world-in-body-and-mind-1.3168467">dangle from the cliffs</a>, or to stand on the very top rung of a long ladder. From these precarious positions, he copied as much of the inscription as possible. </p>
<p>A “Kurdish boy”, whose name seems to be lost to history, assisted the daring endeavour. The boy was said to have used pegs dug into the rock wall as anchors to swing across the cliffs and reach the most inaccessible parts of the writing. Returning home, Rawlinson began working to unlock the secret of the lost script, perhaps with his <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=RMe3AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=rawlinson+lion+cub&source=bl&ots=HalWvyEiQo&sig=yNebXgVuuXE0tvTqxatm1HtvqLc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilqPXYou_VAhVGv7wKHVbtBL4Q6AEIPTAH#v=onepage&q=rawlinson%20lion%20cub&f=false">pet lion cub by his side</a>.</p>
<p>Of the three languages, the Old Persian was the first to be decoded by Rawlinson. Scholars working on deciphering the script gained a sense of the chronological placement of the inscription and recognised some repeated signs, thereby gleaning something of the content and structure of the writings. </p>
<p>The presence of king lists in the Behistun inscription, which could be compared with lists in <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-histories-by-herodotus-53748">Herodotus’ Histories</a>, provided a point of reference for deciphering the signs. Other Greek historians, and the Bible, were also consulted in the process. Through the contributions of a number of scholars in the first half of the 19th century, cuneiform slowly began to reveal its secrets.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185216/original/file-20170908-9538-nzkh60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Behistun inscription in western Iran was key to unlocking cuneiform – and the intellectual riches inside it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dynamosquito/3936190483">dynamosquito/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The significance of the Behistun inscription in the translation of cuneiform is often likened to the importance of <a href="https://www.livescience.com/60154-rosetta-stone.html">the Rosetta Stone</a> for deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. In recent years, the inscription has been the focus of restorative efforts, after sustaining various types of damage — notably when Allied troops used the inscription for target practice during World War II. It is now a <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1222/">UNESCO World Heritage site</a>.</p>
<h2>Cuneiform controversy</h2>
<p>As the deciphering went on, divisions developed in the academic community over whether efforts to unravel cuneiform had proven successful. Part of the controversy stemmed from the extreme intricacy of the writing system. Cuneiform languages are made up of a collection of signs, and the meaning of these signs shows a great deal of variety. </p>
<p>In the Akkadian language, for example, a cuneiform sign may have a phonetic value — but not always the same phonetic value — or it may be a logogram, symbolising a word (such as “temple”), or a determinative sign, such as for a place or an occupation. This gives the translation of cuneiform a puzzle-like quality. The translator must select the value of the sign that appears best suited to the context. </p>
<p>Some scholars probably had sensible reasons for questioning the deciphering of cuneiform. Others held the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-some-controversies-persist-despite-the-evidence-28954">inaccurate view</a> that ancient Assyrians would have lacked the capacity to comprehend such a difficult writing system. To resolve the controversy, the British scientist W.H. Fox Talbot suggested a kind of cuneiform competition. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://royalasiaticsociety.org/">British Royal Asiatic Society</a> held the contest in 1857. Four scholars – Fox Talbot, Rawlinson and a Dr Hincks and a Dr Oppert – made unique translations of a single, previously unseen, cuneiform inscription. Each scholar then sent their translation in strict confidence to the society for comparison. After opening the sealed letters and examining the four translations, the society decided that the similarities between them were sufficiently compelling to declare cuneiform deciphered.</p>
<p>The rediscovery of cuneiform literature was not without further controversy. Fierce debates were conducted in eloquent handwritten letters over who had contributed to the discovery and decipherment of texts, and who deserved credit for the achievement.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188525/original/file-20171003-3782-pksdsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A recently discovered clay tablet telling part of the Epic of Gilgamesh in cuneiform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)/Wikimedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As well as this, the content of the literature caused friction in the academic communities of the 19th century. Prior to the rediscovery of cuneiform, the most prominent source for the Ancient Near East was the Hebrew Bible. The ability of cuneiform literature to provide a new perspective on the rich history of Egypt and Mesopotamia was embraced by many, but viewed with suspicion by others. For some, the translation of the long-forgotten writings raised the possibility of conflict between cuneiform sources and biblical literature.</p>
<p>Perhaps one of the most overt examples of these tensions in scholarly circles can be seen in the career of Nathaniel Schmidt from Colgate University. Schmidt was tried for heresy in 1895, due to the view that many of his translations of cuneiform appeared contrary to biblical traditions. He was dismissed from his position at Colgate in 1896. Following his dismissal, the eminent scholar was recruited by Cornell University (his <a href="https://middleeast.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection">controversial departure</a> from Colgate made his appointment something of a “bargain”), where he taught Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Coptic, Syriac and many other ancient languages.</p>
<h2>From cuneiform to the stars</h2>
<p>The recovery of cuneiform has provided access to an embarrassment of textual riches, including hundreds of thousands of legal and economic records, magico-medical texts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-eclipses-were-regarded-as-omens-in-the-ancient-world-81248">omens and prophecies</a>, wisdom literature and lullabies. </p>
<p>Masterpieces of ancient literature, such as the Gilgamesh Epic, <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-legend-of-ishtar-first-goddess-of-love-and-war-78468">Ishtar’s Descent to the Underworld and Enuma Elish</a>, have found new audiences in the present day. One can now even find <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/science/cuneiform-tablet-cookies.html?mcubz=1">cuneiform cookies</a>. </p>
<p>Cuneiform has also aided scientific mysteries. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/history-eclipse/509891/">Babylonian records</a> of a solar eclipse, written in cuneiform, have helped astronomers figure out how much Earth’s rotation has slowed. </p>
<p>The decipherment of the cuneiform script has reopened a timeless dialogue beyond ancient and modern civilisations, providing continued opportunities to better understand the world around us, and beyond. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Note:</strong> This essay contains details from the article “Comparative Translations”, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18, 1861. My grateful thanks to the Royal Asiatic Society for generously allowing access to their collection.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Cuneiform was used for over 3,000 years in the Ancient Near East, but was only decoded in the 19th century. The writing form is still revealing amazing stories, from literature to mathematics.
Louise Pryke, Lecturer, Languages and Literature of Ancient Israel, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81472
2017-08-24T19:15:03Z
2017-08-24T19:15:03Z
Written in stone: the world’s first trigonometry revealed in an ancient Babylonian tablet
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179387/original/file-20170724-29149-m14dlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=723%2C305%2C2764%2C1934&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Plimpton 322 tablet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UNSW/Andrew Kelly</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ancient Babylonians – who lived <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Babylonia">from about 4,000BCE in what is now Iraq</a> – had a long forgotten understanding of right-angled triangles that was much simpler and more accurate than the conventional trigonometry we are taught in schools.</p>
<p>Our new research, published in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086017300691">Historia Mathematica</a>, shows that the Babylonians were able to construct a trigonometric table using only the exact ratios of sides of a right-angled triangle. This is a completely different form of trigonometry that does not need the familiar modern concept of angles. </p>
<p>At school we are told that the shape of a right-angled triangle depends upon the other two angles. The angle is related to the circumference of a circle, which is divided into 360 parts or degrees. This angle is then used to describe the ratios of the sides of the right-angled triangle through sin, cos and tan. </p>
<hr>
<p>
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Read more:
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</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But circles and right-angled triangles are very different, and the price of having simple values for the angle is borne by the ratios, which are very complicated and must be approximated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=184&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=231&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=231&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179754/original/file-20170726-30134-1p9cdem.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=231&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The three ratios of a modern trigonometric table, rounded to six decimal places, with auxiliary angle <em>Θ</em> in degrees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Mansfield</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This approach can be traced back to the Greek astronomer and mathematician <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hipparchus-Greek-astronomer">Hipparchus of Nicaea</a> (who died after 127 BCE). He is said to be the father of trigonometry because he used his table of chords to calculate orbits of the Moon and Sun.</p>
<p>But our new research shows this was not the first, or only, or best approach to trigonometry. </p>
<h2>Babylonian trigonometry</h2>
<p>The Babylonians discovered their own unique form of trigonometry during the Old Babylonian period (1900-1600BCE), more than 1,500 years earlier than the Greek form. </p>
<p>Remarkably, their trigonometry contains none of the hallmarks of our modern trigonometry - it does not use angles and it does not use approximation.</p>
<p>The Babylonians had a completely different conceptualisation of a right triangle. They saw it as half of a rectangle, and due to their sophisticated sexagesimal (base 60) number system they were able to construct a wide variety of right triangles using only exact ratios.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=325&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179735/original/file-20170726-30108-1mubbik.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Greek (left) and Babylonian (right) conceptualisation of a right triangle. Notably the Babylonians did not use angles to describe a right triangle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Mansfield</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The sexagesimal system is better suited for exact calculation. For example, if you divide one hour by three then you get exactly 20 minutes. But if you divide one dollar by three then you get 33 cents, with 1 cent left over. The fundamental difference is the convention to treat hours and dollars in different number systems: time is sexagesimal and dollars are decimal. </p>
<p>The Babylonians knew that their sexagesmial number system allowed for many more exact divisions. For a more sophisticated example, 1 hour divided by 48 is 1 minute and 15 seconds.</p>
<p>This precise arithmetic of the Babylonians also influenced their geometry, which they preferred to be exact. They were able to generate a wide variety of right-angled triangles within exact ratios b/l and d/l, where b, l and d are the short side, long side and diagonal of a rectangle. </p>
<p>The ratio b/l was particularly important to the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians because they used this ratio to measure steepness.</p>
<h2>The Plimpton 322 tablet</h2>
<p>We now know that the Babylonians studied trigonometry because we have a fragment of a one of their trigonometric tables.</p>
<p>Plimpton 322 is a broken clay tablet from the ancient city of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Larsa">Larsa</a>, which was located near Tell as-Senkereh in modern day Iraq. The tablet was written between 1822-1762BCE. </p>
<p>In the 1920s the archaeologist, academic and adventurer Edgar J Banks sold the tablet to the American publisher and philanthropist <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/george-arthur-plimpton-9442850">George Arthur Plimpton</a>. </p>
<p>Plimpton bequeathed his entire collection of mathematical artefacts to Columbia University in 1936, and it resides there today in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It’s available online through the <a href="http://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P254790">Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative</a>.</p>
<p>In 1945 the tablet was revealed to contain a highly sophisticated sequence of integer numbers that satisfy the Pythagorean equation a<sup>2</sup>+b<sup>2</sup>=c<sup>2</sup>, known as <a href="https://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagorean_triples.html">Pythagorean triples</a>.</p>
<p>This is the fundamental relationship of the three sides of a right-angled triangle, and this discovery proved that the Babylonians knew this relationship more than 1,000 years before the Greek mathematician <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pythagoras">Pythagoras</a> was born.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182675/original/file-20170820-7959-9aaq6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fundamental relation between the side lengths of a right triangle. In modern times this is called Pythagoras’ theorem, but it was known to the Babylonians more than 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Plimpton 322 has ruled space on the reverse which indicates that additional rows were intended. In 1964, the Yale based science historian <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0498.1964.tb00385.x/abstract">Derek J de Solla Price</a> discovered the pattern behind the complex sequence of Pythagorean triples and we now know that it was originally intended to contain 38 rows in total. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183252/original/file-20170824-25621-vruqay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The other side of the Plimpton 322 tablet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UNSW/Andrew Kelly</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tablet also has missing columns, and in 1981 the Swedish mathematics historian <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0315-0860(81)90069-0">Jöran Friberg</a> conjectured that the missing columns should be the ratios b/l and d/l. But the tablet’s purpose remained elusive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179755/original/file-20170726-30125-1pg45y8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first five rows of Plimpton 322, with reconstructed columns and numbers written in decimal.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The surviving fragment of Plimpton 322 starts with the Pythagorean triple 119, 120, 169. The next triple is 3367, 3456, 4825. This makes sense when you realise that the first triple is almost a square (which is an extreme kind of rectangle), and the next is slightly flatter. In fact the right-angled triangles are slowly but steadily getting flatter throughout the entire sequence.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aL9Q0fyTKxA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Watch the triangles change shape as we go down the list.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So the trigonometric nature of this table is suggested by the information on the surviving fragment alone, but it is even more apparent from the reconstructed tablet. </p>
<p>This argument must be made carefully because modern notions such as angle were not present at the time Plimpton 322 was written. How then might it be a trigonometric table?</p>
<p>Fundamentally a trigonometric table must describe three ratios of a right triangle. So we throw away sin and cos and instead start with the ratios b/l and d/l. The ratio which replaces tan would then be b/d or d/b, but neither can be expressed exactly in sexagesimal. </p>
<p>Instead, information about this ratio is split into three columns of exact numbers. A squared index and simplified values of b and d to help the scribe make their own approximation to b/d or d/b.</p>
<h2>No approximation</h2>
<p>The most remarkable aspect of Babylonian trigonometry is its precision. Babylonian trigonometry is exact, whereas we are accustomed to approximate trigonometry. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-we-count-to-10-78034">Curious Kids: Why do we count to 10?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Babylonian approach is also much simpler because it only uses exact ratios. There are no irrational numbers and no angles, and this means that there is also no sin, cos or tan or approximation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i9-ZPGp1AJE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It is difficult to say why this approach to trigonometry has not survived. Perhaps it went out of fashion because the Greek approach using angles is more suitable for astronomical calculations. Perhaps this understanding was lost in 1762BCE when Larsa was captured by Hammurabi of Babylon. Without evidence, we can only speculate.</p>
<p>We are only beginning to understand this ancient civilisation, which is likely to hold many more secrets waiting to be discovered.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A 3,700-year old Babylonian clay tablet reveals an ancient method of constructing right-angled triangles that makes it the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table.
Daniel Mansfield, Associate Lecturer in Mathematics, UNSW Sydney
Norman Wildberger, Associate Professor in Mathematics, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/81248
2017-08-08T21:10:26Z
2017-08-08T21:10:26Z
How eclipses were regarded as omens in the ancient world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181225/original/file-20170807-25556-1lixvch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A solar eclipse observed over Grand Canyon National Park in May 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/grand_canyon_nps/7245482574/in/photolist-c3fZxm-c3fXdW-c3fWx7-c3epum-c3eqTy-c3fY4y-57163S-c3epM9-c3fYVE-c3fXwy-C5XxB-c3g3CG-c3eqhY-fCVGm6-c3fZSh-fDdfNN-6F5DmM-c3g1tA-c3eoRU-c3fZdY-fPPjmU-aYNkx6-c3g3XC-aYNupX-aAEsP-pejVdz-c3g1a7-c3g2Fm-c3er2b-iKxDU4-c3g1RQ-c3g3iu-fF8ZAi-VXgGtY-zaEMKZ-z8mWNC-z8mWQb-7qMunB-ym8ku1-VXgSNA-VL4BXE-yT9Zdt-zaEPmV-VRwoZc-UJqhU9-UJqnCC-VqBEXm-VXgL2Q-VXgLD1-UJtxeq">Grand Canyon National Park </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/future-eclipses/eclipse-2024/">April 8</a>, millions of Americans will be able to see the magic of a total solar eclipse.</p>
<p>Humans have been alternatively <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=t_hnvgAACAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=strange%20behavior&f=false">amused, puzzled, bewildered and sometimes even terrified</a> at the sight of this celestial phenomenon. A range of social and cultural reactions <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/totality-the-great-american-eclipses-of-2017-and-2024-9780198795698?cc=us&lang=en&">accompanies the observation of an eclipse</a>. In ancient Mesopotamia (roughly modern Iraq), eclipses were in fact regarded as omens, as signs of things to come. </p>
<h2>Solar and lunar eclipses</h2>
<p>For an eclipse to take place, three celestial bodies must find themselves in a straight line within their elliptic orbits. This is called a syzygy, from the Greek word “súzugos,” meaning yoked or paired. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181229/original/file-20170807-25556-99aycz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Solar lunar eclipse diagram.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASolar_lunar_eclipse_diagram.png">Tomruen (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From our viewpoint on Earth, there are two kinds of eclipses: solar and lunar. In a solar eclipse, the moon passes in between the sun and Earth, which results in blocking our view of the sun. In a lunar eclipse, it is the moon that crosses through the shadow of the Earth. A solar eclipse can completely block our view of the sun, but it is usually a brief event and can be observed only in certain areas of the Earth’s surface; what can be viewed as a total eclipse in one’s hometown may just be a partial eclipse a few hundred miles away.</p>
<p>By contrast, a lunar eclipse can be viewed throughout an entire hemisphere of the Earth: the half of the surface of the planet that happens to be on the night side at the time. </p>
<h2>Eclipses as omens</h2>
<p>More than two thousand years ago, the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TjiVXdSMRu4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+heavenly+writing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3laXx06TVAhUBWz4KHb2yBQwQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=223%20months&f=false">Babylonians</a> were able to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7hnTZ8tdOS0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=223%20months&f=false">calculate</a> that there were 38 possible eclipses or syzygys within a period of 223 months: that is, about 18 years. This period of 223 months is called a <a href="https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros.html">Saros cycle</a> by modern astronomers, and a sequence of eclipses separated by a Saros cycle constitutes a Saros series. </p>
<p>Although scientists now know that the number of <a href="https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEsaros/LEperiodicity.html#section103">lunar</a> and <a href="http://www.solar-eclipse.de/en/saros/active/">solar</a> eclipses is not exactly the same in every Saros series, one cannot underplay the achievement of Babylonian scholars in understanding this astronomical phenomenon. Their realization of this <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ih8LAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">cycle</a> eventually allowed them to <a href="http://www.oocities.org/hazarry/astronomy/eclipse_predction.pdf">predict</a> the occurrence of an eclipse. </p>
<p>The level of astronomical knowledge achieved in ancient Babylonia (southern Mesopotamia) cannot be separated from the astrological tradition that regarded eclipses as omens: Astronomy and astrology were then two sides of the same coin. </p>
<h2>Rituals to preempt royal fate</h2>
<p>According to Babylonian scholars, eclipses could foretell the death of the king. The conditions for an omen to be considered as such were not simple. For instance, according to a famous astronomical work known by its initial words, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JimYncnzaOkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=letters+from+assyrian+scholars+parpola&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_6quU2KTVAhWG4D4KHa3EBz0Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=substitute%20king&f=false">“Enūma Anu Enlil”</a> – “When (the gods) Anu and Enlil” – if Jupiter was visible during the eclipse, the king was safe. Lunar eclipses seem to have been of particular concern for the well-being and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TjiVXdSMRu4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+heavenly+writing&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3laXx06TVAhUBWz4KHb2yBQwQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=substitute%20king&f=false">survival of the king</a>.</p>
<p>In order to preempt the monarch’s fate, a mechanism was devised: the “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JimYncnzaOkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=letters+from+assyrian+scholars+parpola&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_6quU2KTVAhWG4D4KHa3EBz0Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=substitute%20king&f=false">substitute king ritual</a>,” or “šar pūhi.” There are over 30 mentions of this ritual in various letters from <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111871816X.html">Assyria</a> (northern Mesopotamia), dating to the first millennium B.C. Earlier references to a similar <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_4NSAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA208&dq=hittites+%22substitute+king%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE3JH5zrHVAhWJez4KHb9LB8MQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=hittites%20%22substitute%20king%22&f=false">ritual</a> have also been found in <a href="https://secure.aidcvt.com/sbl/ProdDetails.asp?ID=061707P">texts in Hittite</a>, the Indo-European language for which we have the earliest written records, dating to second-millennium Anatolia – modern-day Turkey. </p>
<h2>Saving the king</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JimYncnzaOkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=letters+from+assyrian+scholars+parpola&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_6quU2KTVAhWG4D4KHa3EBz0Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=substitute%20king&f=false">In this ritual</a>, a person would be chosen to replace the king. He would be dressed like the king and placed on the throne. To avoid confusion with a real coronation, all this would occur alongside the recitation of the negative omen triggered by the observation of the eclipse.</p>
<p>The real king would keep a low profile and avoid being seen. If no additional negative portents were observed, the substitute king was put to death, therefore fulfilling the prophetic reading of the celestial omen while saving the life of the real king. This ritual would take place when an eclipse was observed or even <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JimYncnzaOkC&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=%22substitute+king%22+eclipse+predict&source=bl&ots=bgfVsOicV4&sig=YoNxzkQjXjw1wRun_hQkPGkPpFo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHl7z25rHVAhWD1CYKHQJiBngQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=%22substitute%20king%22%20eclipse%20predict&f=false">predicted</a>, something that became possible to do in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7hnTZ8tdOS0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=predict&f=false">later periods</a>. </p>
<p>The presence of this ritual among the corpus of Hittite texts in second-millennium Anatolia has led to the assumption that it must have existed already in Mesopotamia during the first half of the second millennium B.C. </p>
<h2>A legend</h2>
<p>Although omens predicting the death of the king are already known for this earlier
period, the truth is that the main basis for such an assumption is an interesting story preserved only in a much later, first-millennium composition known by modern scholars as the <a href="http://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-20-chronicle-of-early-kings/">“Chronicle of Early Kings</a>.” </p>
<p>According to this <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NGwYAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA334&lpg=PA334&dq=%22erra-imitti%22+%22enlil-bani%22+chronicle+isin&source=bl&ots=tPoVh86MF_&sig=dG7kHKpKYQlXB5N1fkUG3dQPdxw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir7MHX4qTVAhWDNT4KHafzAwYQ6AEINDAD#v=onepage&q=%22erra-imitti%22%20%22enlil-bani%22%20chronicle%20isin&f=false">late chronicle</a>, a king of the city of Isin (modern Išān Bahrīyāt, about 125 miles to the southeast of Baghdad), Erra-imitti, was replaced by a gardener called Enlil-bani as part of a substitute king ritual. Luckily for this gardener, the real king died while eating hot soup, so the gardener remained on the throne and became king for good. </p>
<p>The fact is that these two kings, Erra-imitti and Enlil-bani, did exist and reigned successively in Isin during the 19th century B.C. The story, however, as told in the late “Chronicle of Early Kings,” bears all the trademarks of a legend. The story was probably devised to explain a dynastic switch, in which the royal office passed from one family or lineage to another, instead of following the usual father-son line of succession.</p>
<h2>Looking for meaning in the skies</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181236/original/file-20170807-25500-1euuy6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lunar eclipse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nsaunders/15298803219/in/photolist-piUnci-Caqqo-9TRc5w-4tvD3z-9TMW7i-CbjUN-4uXRdv-4vnQYS-93Km6N-cbAJLo-4tvsvc-9YzeKV-4tzkmj-4tMwJD-5dDoQa-4tRumf-4w4Zxp-9Zz58F-9rFvro-4tzjvW-dDmiBU-pApZyi-9rCxh2-D6bJg-5esUbp-4tv5na-5esUgn-4tyS1j-4tv6zD-4viMF8-2V6TTC-9TVYRJ-2VX6qr-4tz8eL-2VaKBf-CbjGD-2V8xKY-pifSiD-5dPPWw-4tvdgR-nbXQeb-baDGZx-9rFvRN-2VQVBd-9G9PX5-Cecor-baDGWV-n8q5e6-baDH2n-93yiu1">Neil Saunders</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mesopotamia was not unique in this regard. For instance, a chronicle of early China known as the “Bamboo Annals” (竹書紀年 Zhúshū Jìnián) refers to a total lunar eclipse that took place in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=wUuyAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=pankenier+astrology+china&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDzqWU6KTVAhUTID4KHb4EB2gQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=1059&f=false">1059 B.C.</a>, during the reign of the last king of the Shang dynasty. This eclipse was regarded as a sign by a vassal king, Wen of the Zhou dynasty, to challenge his Shang overlord.</p>
<p>In the later <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=wUuyAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=pankenier+astrology+china&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDzqWU6KTVAhUTID4KHb4EB2gQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=1059&f=false">account</a> contained in the “Bamboo Annals,” an eclipse would have triggered the political and military events that marked the transition from the Shang to the Zhou dynasty in ancient China. As in the case of the Babylonian “Chronicle of Early Kings,” the “Bamboo Annals” are a history of earlier periods compiled at a later time. The “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2JNV_j-q64IC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=the%20editing%20and%20editions&f=false">Bamboo Annals</a>” were allegedly found in a tomb about A.D. 280, but they purport to date to the reign of the King Xiang of Wei, who died in 296 B.C.</p>
<p>The complexity of human events is rarely constrained and determined by one single factor. Nevertheless, whether in ancient Mesopotamia or in early China, eclipses and other omens provided contemporary justifications, or after-the-fact explanations, for an entangled set of variables that decided a specific course of history. </p>
<p>Even if they mix astronomy and astrology, or history with legend, humans have been preoccupied with the inescapable anomaly embodied by an eclipse for as long as they have looked at the sky.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gonzalo Rubio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
More than 2,000 years ago, the Babylonians understood the cycle of eclipses. They also regarded them as signs that could foretell the death of a king.
Gonzalo Rubio, Associate Professor of Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies, History, and Asian Studies, Penn State
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78468
2017-06-22T20:03:04Z
2017-06-22T20:03:04Z
Friday essay: the legend of Ishtar, first goddess of love and war
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175079/original/file-20170621-30161-19y1ok4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ishtar (on right) comes to Sargon, who would later become one of the great kings of Mesopotamia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14783163205/">Edwin J. Prittie, The story of the greatest nations, 1913</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As singer Pat Benatar once noted, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjY_uSSncQw">love is a battlefield</a>. Such use of military words to express intimate, affectionate emotions is likely related to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/04/26/heartbreak-placebo-effect_n_16261856.html">love’s capacity to bruise and confuse</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175088/original/file-20170622-25561-115v9mc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ishtar holding a symbol of leadership. Terracotta relief, early 2nd millennium BC. From Eshnunna. Held in the Louvre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marie-Lan Nguyen</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So it was with the world’s first goddess of love and war, Ishtar, and her lover Tammuz. In ancient Mesopotamia - roughly corresponding to modern Iraq, parts of Iran, Syria, Kuwait and Turkey - love was a powerful force, capable of upending earthly order and producing sharp changes in status. </p>
<p>From Aphrodite to <a href="https://theconversation.com/wonder-women-have-been-smashing-the-patriarchy-since-classical-times-77695">Wonder Woman</a>, we continue to be fascinated by powerful female protagonists, an interest that can be traced back to our earliest written records. Ishtar (the word comes from the Akkadian language; she was known as Inanna in Sumerian) was the first deity for which we have written evidence. She was closely related to romantic love, but also familial love, the loving bonds between communities, and sexual love. </p>
<p>She was also a warrior deity with a potent capacity for vengeance, as her lover would find out. These seemingly opposing personalities have raised scholarly eyebrows both ancient and modern. Ishtar is a love deity who is terrifying on the battlefield. Her beauty is the subject of love poetry, and her rage likened to a destructive storm. But in her capacity to shape destinies and fortunes, they are two sides of the same coin.</p>
<h2>Playing with fate</h2>
<p>The earliest poems to Ishtar were written by Enheduanna — the <a href="http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4072.htm">world’s first individually identified author</a>. Enheduanna (circa 2300 BCE) is generally considered to have been an historical figure living in Ur, one of the <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160311-ur-iraq-trade-royal-cemetery-woolley-archaeology/">world’s oldest urban centres</a>. She was a priestess to the moon god and the daughter of Sargon of Akkad (“Sargon the Great”), the first ruler to unite northern and southern Mesopotamia and found the powerful Akkadian empire. </p>
<p>The sources for Enheduanna’s life and career are historical, literary and archaeological: she commissioned an alabaster relief, the <a href="https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/ur-digitization-project-item-of-the-month-june-2012/">Disk of Enheduanna</a>, which is inscribed with her dedication.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175082/original/file-20170621-19084-1h0x7a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Disk of Enheduanna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Object B16665. Courtesy of the Penn Museum.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In her poetry, Enheduanna reveals the diversity of Ishtar, including her superlative capacity for armed conflict and her ability to bring about abrupt changes in status and fortune. This ability was well suited to a goddess of love and war — both areas where swift reversals can take place, utterly changing the state of play. </p>
<p>On the battlefield, the goddess’s ability to fix fates ensured victory. In love magic, Ishtar’s power could alter romantic fortunes. In ancient love charms, her influence was invoked to win, or indeed, capture, the heart (and other body parts) of a desired lover.</p>
<h2>Dressed for success</h2>
<p>Ishtar is described (by herself in love poems, and by others) as a beautiful, young woman. Her lover, Tammuz, compliments her on the beauty of her eyes, a seemingly timeless form of <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/flattery-will-get-you-far/">flattery</a>, with a literary history stretching back to around 2100 BCE. Ishtar and Tammuz are the protagonists of one of the world’s first love stories. In love poetry telling of their courtship, the two have a very affectionate relationship. But like many great love stories, their union ends tragically. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=859&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174880/original/file-20170621-8977-jqhc90.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ishtar’s Midnight Courtship, from Ishtar and Izdubar, the epic of Babylon, 1884.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11170021403">The British Library/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most famous account of this myth is Ishtar’s Descent to the Underworld, author unknown. This ancient narrative, surviving in <a href="http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr141.htm">Sumerian and Akkadian versions</a> (both <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39870485">written in cuneiform</a>),
was only deciphered in the 19th Century. It begins with Ishtar’s decision to visit the realm of her sister, Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld. </p>
<p>Ostensibly, she is visiting her sister to mourn the death of her brother-in-law, possibly the Bull of Heaven who appears in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444?sr=1">Epic of Gilgamesh</a>. But the other gods in the story view the move as an attempt at a hostile takeover. Ishtar was known for being extremely ambitious; in another myth she storms the heavens and stages a divine coup.</p>
<p>Any questions over Ishtar’s motives are settled by the description of her preparation for her journey. She carefully applies make-up and jewellery, and wraps herself in beautiful clothing. Ishtar is frequently described applying cosmetics and enhancing her appearance before undertaking battle, or before meeting a lover. Much as a male warrior may put on a breast plate before a fight, Ishtar lines her eyes with mascara. She’s the original power-dresser: her enrichment of <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dress-for-success-how-clothes-influence-our-performance/">her beauty and her choice of clothes</a> accentuate her potency.</p>
<p>Next, in a humorous scene brimming with irony, the goddess instructs her faithful handmaiden, Ninshubur, on how to behave if Ishtar becomes trapped in the netherworld. First, Ninshubur must clothe herself in correct mourning attire, such as sackcloth, and create a dishevelled appearance. Then, she must go to the temples of the great gods and ask for help to rescue her mistress. Ishtar’s instructions that her handmaiden dress in appropriately sombre mourning-wear are a stark contrast to her own flashy attire.</p>
<h2>‘No one comes back from the underworld unmarked’</h2>
<p>But when Ereshkigal learns that Ishtar is dressed so well, she realises she has come to conquer the underworld. So she devises a plan to literally strip Ishtar of her power.</p>
<p>Once arriving at Ereshkigal’s home, Ishtar descends through the seven gates of the underworld. At each gate she is instructed to remove an item of clothing. When she arrives before her sister, Ishtar is naked, and Ereshkigal kills her at once. </p>
<p>Her death has terrible consequences, involving the cessation of all earthly sexual intimacy and fertility. So on the advice of Ishtar’s handmaiden, Ea - the god of wisdom - facilitates a plot to revive Ishtar and return her to the upper world. His plot suceeds, but there is an ancient Mesopotamian saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No one comes back from the underworld unmarked.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Once a space had been created in the underworld, it was thought that it couldn’t be left empty. Ishtar is instructed to ascend with a band of demons to the upper world, and find her own replacement. </p>
<p>In the world above, Ishtar sees Tammuz dressed regally and relaxing on a throne, apparently unaffected by her death. Enraged, she instructs the demons to take him away with them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=158%2C134%2C3784%2C2512&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=158%2C134%2C3784%2C2512&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174876/original/file-20170621-4662-ap6nig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Ishtar Gate to the city of Babylon, was dedicated to the Mesopotamian goddess. Reconstruction in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/danielmennerich/14269318954/in/photolist-nJVZoA-iKzbN-pJEhzP-SxCEvG-7S7oBC-hsBd1V-DpJ4N-DpJHX-nDNppx-9cyc7j-4MHms9-3VNhLD-jwYBs-847gkt-4MHkqb-jFrAzg-z7md5-nKW7LE-nuWJgj-nxLsSc-UVvx8a-obntFg-oa1L4C-nU1xnx-nNDLVn-UgKq-e8zY23-oaGd32-3VNi1g-2jS23n-o8DT7o-zTasT2-76dVv6-zzCmz3-Co1av-hx2mEz-arZpTK-8Kj5jv-oejCVr-9LBYRa-eng9X-5ZT2Vk-aoUXBr-nQUsVs-giYos-opXNJc-oayhuU-7kYmuN-ggQtu7-eng9Z">Daniel Mennerich/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A goddess scorned</h2>
<p>Ishtar’s role in her husband’s demise has earned her a reputation as being somewhat fickle. But this assessment does not capture the complexity of the goddess’s role. Ishtar is portrayed in the myth of her Descent and elsewhere as capable of intense faithfulness: rather than being fickle, her role in her husband’s death shows her vengeful nature.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/books/review/house-of-names-colm-toibin-bright-air-black-david-vann.html">Women and vengeance</a> proved a popular combination in the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, where powerful women such as Electra, Clytemnestra and Medea brought terrible consequences on those who they perceived as having wronged them. This theme has continued to fascinate audiences to the present day. </p>
<p>The concept is encapsulated by the line, often misattributed to Shakespeare, from <a href="http://archives.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner_092914.php">William Congreve’s The Mourning Bride</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before she sees her husband relaxing after her death, Ishtar first encounters her handmaiden Ninshubur, and her two sons. One son is described as the goddess’s manicurist and hairdresser, and the other is a warrior. All three are spared by the goddess due to their faithful service and their overt expressions of grief over Ishtar’s death — they are each described lying in the dust, dressed in rags. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175089/original/file-20170622-30227-125o8ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, depicting the Roman goddess of love.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The diligent behaviour of Ishtar’s attendants is juxtaposed against the actions of Tammuz, a damning contrast that demonstrates his lack of appropriate mourning behaviour. Loyalty is the main criteria Ishtar uses to choose who will replace her in the underworld. This hardly makes her faithless. </p>
<p>Ishtar’s pursuit of revenge in ancient myths is an extension of her close connection to the dispensation of justice, and the maintenance of universal order. Love and war are both forces with the potential to create chaos and confusion, and the deity associated with them needed to be able to restore order as well as to disrupt it.</p>
<p>Still, love in Mesopotamia could survive death. Even for Tammuz, love was salvation and protection: the faithful love of his sister, Geshtinanna, allowed for his eventual return from the underworld. Love, as they say, never dies — but in the rare cases where it might momentarily expire, it’s best to mourn appropriately.</p>
<h2>Ishtar’s legacy</h2>
<p>Ishtar was one of the most popular deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon, yet in the modern day she has slipped into almost total anonymity. Ishtar’s legacy is most clearly seen through her influence on later cultural archetypes, with her image contributing to the development of the most famous love goddess of them all, <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Summary/Aphrodite.html">Aphrodite</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174883/original/file-20170621-30161-1d0jpuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are intriguing similarities between Ishtar and Wonder Woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279/mediaviewer/rm1936796160">Atlas Entertainment</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ishtar turns up in science fiction, notably as a beautiful yet self-destructive stripper in Neil Gaiman’s comic <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25105.Brief_Lives">The Sandman: Brief Lives</a>. Gaiman’s exceptional command of Mesopotamian myth suggests the “stripping” of Ishtar may involve a wink to the ancient narrative tradition of her Descent. </p>
<p>She is not directly referenced in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093278/">1987 film</a> that carries her name (<a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ishtar-1987">received poorly</a> but now something of a <a href="http://flavorwire.com/605847/bad-movie-night-the-unsung-charms-of-ishtar">cult classic</a>), although the lead female character Shirra, shows some similarities to the goddess. </p>
<p>In the graphic novel tradition, Aphrodite is credited with shaping the image of Wonder Woman, and Aphrodite’s own image was influenced by Ishtar. This connection may partially explain the intriguing similarities between Ishtar and the modern superhero: both figures are represented as warriors who grace the battlefield wearing bracelets and a tiara, brandishing a rope weapon, and demonstrating love, loyalty and a fierce commitment to justice.</p>
<p>Ishtar, like other love goddesses, has been linked to in <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/sacred-prostitution-overview-120992">ancient sexual and fertility rituals</a>, although the evidence for this is up for debate, and frequently overshadows the deity’s many other fascinating qualities. </p>
<p>Exploring the image of the world’s first goddess provides an insight into Mesopotamian culture, and the enduring power of love through the ages. In the modern day, <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-six-styles-of-love-which-one-best-describes-you-72664">love is said to conquer all</a>, and in the ancient world, Ishtar did just that.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author’s book, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Ishtar/Pryke/p/book/9781138860735">Ishtar</a>, will be published this month by Routledge.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Love, it is said, is a battlefield, and it was no more so than for the first goddess of love and war, Ishtar. Her legend has influenced cultural archetypes from Aphrodite to Wonder Woman.
Louise Pryke, Lecturer, Languages and Literature of Ancient Israel, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60867
2016-11-20T12:13:10Z
2016-11-20T12:13:10Z
An open letter to Bob Marley: it’s time to create reggae dialogues
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144359/original/image-20161103-25349-1jdv0b3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bob Marley is still reggae's most iconic figure, 35 years after his death at the age of 36.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dredrk/2386832426/">Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dear Bob, </p>
<p>It’s been 35 years since your <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bob-marley-mn0000071514/biography">death</a>, yet no other singer or songwriter has articulated both the condition of the marginalised and the humanistic potentials of psychic decolonisation more than you. And, arguably, no other public intellectual has illuminated the role racism and classism play in shoring up the neocolonial political economy as poetically as you have. </p>
<p>When people gathered together to resist not being seen as people, as they did in Tahrir Square in Egypt, or at the beginning of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12813859">Arab Spring</a> in <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/feature/157412-feelheartbeat-feel-an-interview-with-kevin-macdonald/">Tunisia</a>, they <a href="http://grantland.com/features/a-qa-kevin-macdonald-director-new-bob-marley-documentary/">called on your rhythms</a>, singing “Get up, stand up”. When the agony of <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=downpression">downpression</a> – the rest of the world outside Rastafarianism know it is as “oppression” – exceeds me, when images of social equality recede, I draw from your beats. Some say your oeuvre has become cliché.</p>
<p>This is more reflective of the way in which people listen over the meaning of your words than of your ideas becoming irrelevant. Still, what remains after all these years is your spirit. A spirit able to use words as transport. A spirit able to use the sound of poetry set to music to create images. Most importantly, a spirit able to shift affect from numbness to something near empathy, so that thought and recognition may rise in tandem with the concrete jungles you expose. </p>
<p>In spite of what you left us with, Bob, I am growing weary of backward steps in consciousness, of political regressions that grow the System – <a href="https://islandpen.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/what-does-babylon-mean-in-reggae/">“Babylon”</a> as Rastafarians call it – and by the daily slaughter of unprivileged people’s lives and bodies. I am, increasingly, relentlessly, thinking about psychic revolt, a distinctive way of thinking and feeling that fuels our acting against Babylon. </p>
<p>It is imperative for us to interrogate the world by going into our interior with integrity, made possible by scrutinising our relationship to social realities. I think this is what you meant when you implored us to emancipate ourselves mentally in “Redemption Song”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QrY9eHkXTa4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bob Marley singing ‘Redemption Song’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>French feminist philosopher <a href="http://www.kristeva.fr/english.html">Julia Kristeva</a> characterises revolt as a fusion of “psychic revolt, analytic revolt, artistic revolt”. Together it produces:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a state of permanent questioning, of transformation, change, an endless probing of appearances. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But she pushes this idea further, Bob. She proposes that real revolt, not revolutionary movement which so often stalls, requires “unveiling, returning, discovering, starting over” through a process of “permanent questioning that characterises psychic life and, at least in the best of cases, art”.</p>
<h2>Growing psychic life</h2>
<p>This brings me to why I’m writing you so late in the day of our <a href="http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/02/bob-marley-lyrics/">exodus</a>. It’s time to put ideas from <a href="http://www.pacifica.edu/degree-programs/ma-phd-community-psychology-liberation-psychology-ecopsychology/community-ecological-fieldwork-research/what-is-liberation-psychology">liberation psychology</a>, specifically those about how to grow psychic life, together with roots or <a href="http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_conscious_reggae?#slide=1">conscious reggae</a> music to carry on the unfinished business of decolonisation. </p>
<p>Such a pairing could help us enter into the state of mind where we question our social world unrelentingly and, most importantly, our contribution to its production. </p>
<p>We can create reggae dialogues, new ways of engaging psychological defences to liberation, which could evolve the work conscious reggae music set out to do. This form of dynamic dialogue could also aid our recognition that on their own neither inquiry nor socially conscious art (decoupled from analyses of realities it critiques) are ample responses to the traumas people face. Together, theory and art may cultivate conditions in which psychic space opens up allowing us to squarely confront Babylon’s harms.</p>
<p>I see this as a contribution to the development of psycho-aesthetic scholarly activism, the kind of work <a href="https://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/name/Barbara_Duarte_Esgalhado_PhD_New+York_New+York_88036">Barbara Duarte Esgalhado</a> is starting to do. This <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269871610_Psycho-Aesthetic_Visual_and_Literary_Activism">work advocates</a> a kind of perceptual engagement that synthesises the different ways in which we come to know, to perceive and source the power to stand up. </p>
<p>Also think of the work of Brazilian theatre director <a href="http://ptoweb.org/aboutpto/a-brief-biography-of-augusto-boal/">Augusto Boal</a>. Imagine Boal’s <a href="https://brechtforum.org/abouttop">Theatre of the Oppressed</a>, which is a participatory theatre that fosters democratic and cooperative forms of interaction among participants, taking place in people’s minds, Bob. You know how reggae music fosters what philosopher Frantz Fanon promotes as <a href="http://www.thecritique.com/articles/why-frantz-fanon-still-matters/">disalienating shifts</a> in consciousness. Incorporating the affective charge of your art might make people’s social and political engagement all the more powerful.</p>
<h2>Wise but incomplete strategy</h2>
<p>Given your <a href="http://socialistreview.org.uk/292/bob-marley-roots-revolutionary">ideological commitments</a>, I believe that using the entertainment industry as your cultural intervention was a wise strategy but an incomplete one. Had you lived longer I would have hoped, given the importance and reach of your work, that you, like intellectuals in the academy, would gift your work to the cultural commons. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PGYAAsHT4QE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">One of Bob Marley’s ‘Three little birds’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ballads such as “One Love”, “No Woman No Cry”, “Three Little Birds”, “Could You Be Loved”, “Waiting in Vain” and “Turn Your Lights Down Low” could remain in the commercial catalogue benefiting the Marley Estate financially. Poetry and philosophy such as “So Much Things to Say”, “Running Away”, “We and Dem”, “War”, “So Much Trouble in the World”, “Guiltiness”, “Babylon System”, “Zimbabwe”, “Coming in From the Cold” and “Redemption Song” could be released immediately into the creative commons (public domain) available for collaboration with other cultural workers, gratis.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about this, Bob, because I’d like to create a reggae opera to tell the story of how downpressors – middle class people who don’t walk with the downpressed – turn a blind eye to their experience in Jamaica and elsewhere. I’m imagining hosting intimate groups where we encounter audio-visualscapes of the voice of the downpressor paired with images created by your music. If done right, the reggae opera experience could arouse psychic revolt catalysing conversations not routinely had in the (post)colonial world. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qP3VsZ7QD08?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Guiltiness’ from the Bob Marley album ‘Exodus’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the past eight years I’ve listened to contemporary reggae music searching for the consciousness of Rastafarian ideology, a voice that hammers home anti-racist, anti-classist possibilities. I have yet to find the equivalence in tone, image and feel to what you produced, for example, in “Guiltiness”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These are the big fish (These are the big fish)</p>
<p>Who always try to eat down the small fish (Just the small fish)</p>
<p>I tell you again. </p>
<p>They would do anything</p>
<p>To materialise their every wish </p>
<p>Oh yeah. </p>
<p>But wait!</p>
<p>Woe to the downpressers. </p>
<p>They’ll eat the bread of sorrow</p>
<p>Woe to the downpressers. </p>
<p>They’ll eat the bread of sad tomorrow</p>
<p>Woe to the downpressers.</p>
<p>They’ll eat the bread of sorrow</p>
<p>Oh yeah. Oh yeah</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bob, juxtaposing your song against narratives of downpressing could, if perceived deeply, crack open collective consciousness about the psychic underpinnings of Babylon, dismantling our denial of its structures.</p>
<p>From there we can start to build a humanising world. The question is: How can we release your radical thought into open space where it can work, in solidarity, with others?</p>
<p>In hope, Deanne</p>
<p><em>“An Open Letter to Bob Marley: Time to Create Reggae Dialogues” by Deanne Bell, was originally published in Obsidian: Literature & Art in the African Diaspora Vol. 41, No. 1&2 (2015): 107-110.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deanne Bell receives funding from the Antioch College Faculty Fund. </span></em></p>
More than three decades after his death reggae icon Bob Marley’s music remains meaningful. It still has the potential to catalyse conversation not often had in the postcolonial world.
Deanne Bell, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Antioch College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.