Mountains and Trees, Rivers and Springs: Animistic Beliefs and Practices in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion (Leipziger Altorientalische Studien)

The animated picture of myths and magic, prayers and offerings in ancient Mesopotamian Religion, is a reflection of a world where gods and humans were part of a much more complex and multi-layered system, where every single part was closely connected with each other in a dense network of symbolic and ritual meanings. Mountains, rivers, trees, and plants were regarded as cosmic entities, deeply entangled with the sacred landscape, as "other-than-human" persons, and sometimes as deities, who engaged in a multitude of ways with the life of ancient Mesopotamians, and partook of their divine and relational cosmos. Anna Perdibon explores the modalities of the human-environmental relationships by studying how mountains, rivers, and trees were embedded within the ancient Mesopotamian religious framework. The analysis is based on reading the ancient myths, rituals, incantations, and other textual evidence dealing with religious life, together with iconographical sources, through the lens of the current debate about animism and anthropology of religions, in order to investigate and further explain the connection between nature, the sacred, and the materiality of an ancient religion. The book suggests different understandings of divinity, personhood, and nature on the part of ancient Mesopotamians, and sheds new light onto their emic worldviews regarding nature, the cosmos, and the divine. These notions are considered in order to draw a picture of the sacred landscape of the ancient Mesopotamians, while highlighting the actual fluidity and sensuous reality of those ancient polytheisms. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Cover 1 Title Pages 3 Contents 8 Table of Illustrations 11 List of Abbreviations 12 Acknowledgments 16 Introduction 18 1 Introduction 18 2 Scope of this study and the current state of research 19 3 Sources and methodology 21 4 Synopsis and findings 24 Chapter I - Animism and Mesopotamian Religion 27 1 What is animism? –History of the term in anthropological literature 27 1.1 Classical theories of animism 27 1.1.1 Tylor and the belief in spiritual beings 27 1.1.2 Frazer and the worship of trees 31 1.1.3 Durkheim, and totemism as the most elementary form of religious life 32 1.1.4 Lévi-Strauss and totemism 34 1.2 The current debate over animism 36 1.2.1 Hallowell, the animate world of the Ojibwa and the “other-than-human” persons 36 1.2.2 Bird-David and animism as relational epistemology 38 1.2.3 Descola and the modes of interaction between humans and nature 39 1.2.4 Viveiros de Castro and Amerindian perspectivism 42 1.2.5 Harvey and the new animism 43 2 The state of research into Mesopotamian religion 47 2.1 Bottéro and the predominant view of an anthropomorphic divine 47 2.2 Jacobsen and the concepts of immanence and intransitiveness 48 2.3 Lambert and the non-anthropomorphic gods 49 2.4 Wiggermann, van Binsbergen and the “embedded holistic elements” 51 2.5 Anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic deities in Mesopotamia 52 Chapter II - Sacred Mountains and Mountain Deities 58 1 The mountain: an entangled sacred being in Mesopotamia and beyond 58 2 The mountain 60 2.1 The cosmic mountain in mythical literature and iconography 61 2.2 Liminal places and origin of pure and threatening entities in incantations 66 2.3 The Mountain-person and the Mountain-god in incantations, rituals andiconography 70 3 Specifically named mountains 78 3.1 Mountains in the Lipšur Litanies as healing “other-than-human” persons 78 3.2 Mount Ebiḫ, Aratta and the Zagros 80 3.3 Mounts Šaššar and Bašār 86 3.4 Mount Labnanu and the Cedar Forest, mountain of Ḫuwawa 93 3.5 The cosmic mountains Māšu, Ḫašur and Nimuš 97 3.6 Aššur: divine mound and god 101 Chapter III - River Deities, Cosmic Rivers and Sacred Springs 103 1 Bodies of flowing water: places, persons and gods 103 2 The divine River: mother, healer and judge 105 2.1 Duality and gender fluidity of the River 105 2.2 Life giving and purifying attributes of the River 108 2.3 Id, Nāru and the divine River Ordeal 111 2.4 The divine River and its cult 119 2.5 Sulphur, offspring of the River 122 3 Waters, springs and the Apsû 123 4 Specifically named rivers 128 4.1 The Tigris and the Euphrates 128 4.1.1 The divine creation of the Tigris and of the Euphrates in myths 128 4.1.2 Life-generating beings: the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Ḫalḫalla, mother of the mountains 130 4.1.3 The divine Tigris and Euphrates 134 4.1.4 The Source of the Tigris 137 4.2 The rivers Id-sala and Id-kura in Sumerian myths 140 4.3 Rivers and channels as life-giving and healing persons and deities in the Lipšur Litan ies and beyond 141 4.4 The cosmic and netherworld rivers Baliḫ, Ḫubur and Ulāya 143 4.4.1 The Baliḫ 143 4.4.2 The Ḫubur and the divine Ḫabur 145 4.4.3 The Ulāya 147 5 Rivers as borders, ritual settings and communication channels 148 Chapter IV - Sacred Trees and Plant Persons 151 1 Trees as sacred animate beings worldwide and in ancient Mesopotamia 151 2 Cosmic trees, sacred trees and tree-persons 154 2.1 The cosmic tree, the flesh of the gods, and the tree of life 154 2.2 The Sumerian mēsu-, ḫuluppu-, and eagle-trees 156 2.3 The Tamarisk and the Date Palm 161 2.4 The Cedar and the ḫašurru-tree 170 2.5 The kiškanû-tree 173 2.6 The Juniper, the Boxwood and the Cypress 176 2.7 The eʾru-wood 177 3 The animate and relational universe of plants, wood and trees in the antiwitchcraft incantations and healing rituals 179 Chapter V - Nature, Divinity and Personhood in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion 187 1 How animism can contribute to assess some emic notions of nature, divinity and personhood 187 2 From myths to magic: animism, analogism and the community of living beings 192 3 Mountains, rivers and trees: an entangled relationship 199 3.1 Cosmic, sacred and animate landscapes 199 3.2 “Other-than-human” persons and deities 201 3.2.1 Mountains: rebellious deities, protectors and mighty persons 201 3.2.2 Deities of flowing waters 205 3.2.3 Trees and plants: bones of the gods, healers and brothers 210 Conclusions 213 Bibliography 216 Index 234 The animated picture of myths and magic, prayers and offerings in ancient Mesopotamian Religion, is a reflection of a world where gods and humans were part of a much more complex and multi-layered system, where every single part was closely connected with each other in a dense network of symbolic and ritual meanings. Mountains, rivers, trees, and plants were regarded as cosmic entities, deeply entangled with the sacred landscape, as ?other-than-human? persons, and sometimes as deities, who engaged in a multitude of ways with the life of ancient Mesopotamians, and partook of their divine and relational cosmos. 0Anna Perdibon explores the modalities of the human-environmental relationships by studying how mountains, rivers, and trees were embedded within the ancient Mesopotamian religious framework. The analysis is based on reading the ancient myths, rituals, incantations, and other textual evidence dealing with religious life, together with iconographical sources, through the lens of the current debate about animism and anthropology of religions, in order to investigate and further explain the connection between nature, the sacred, and the materiality of an ancient religion. The book suggests different understandings of divinity, personhood, and nature on the part of ancient Mesopotamians, and sheds new light onto their emic worldviews regarding nature, the cosmos, and the divine. These notions are considered in order to draw a picture of the sacred landscape of the ancient Mesopotamians, while highlighting the actual fluidity and sensuous reality of those ancient polytheisms