Chapter 10 Lecture Two of Two Eastern Fertility Myth ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

EASTERN FERTILITY MYTH Inanna and Dumuzi ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Inanna and Dumuzi Babylonian Inanna and Dumuzi Egyptian Isis and Osiris Phrygian Cybele and Attis Aphrodite and Adonis ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Fig A female head from Uruk ©2012 Pearson Education Inc. Iraq Museum, Baghdad/Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich, Germany

Inanna and Dumuzi Pattern of the dying divinity The grieving of the consort The quest Rebirth ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Inanna and Dumuzi Inanna = goddess of sex and war Dumuzi = her shepherd consort ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Inanna and Dumuzi Inanna goes into the underworld to visit her sister Ereshkigal, the Queen of the underworld She must strip naked before she is allowed in She’s put on trial and condemned to death by the Annunaki gods — hung on a hook as a piece of decaying meat ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Inanna and Dumuzi While she’s there, the earth is barren Ninshubur follows her instructions and eventually goes to Enki Enki fashions beings, who trick Ereshkigal into releasing her with their weeping for the death of children But unless she can find someone to die for her, she must return ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Inanna and Dumuzi Dumuzi is seen not mourning her death enough Inanna tells the demons to take him He is allowed to return to earth one day each year to receive ritual honors. ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

OBSERVATIONS The Dying God and the Sacred Marriage ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Dying God, Sacred Marriage The logic of the myth lies in the agricultural cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. It was played out in the ritual "sacred marriage" (hieros gamos) between the king as Dumuzi and an "Inanna." ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

EASTERN FERTILITY MYTH The Egyptian Isis and Osiris ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Isis and Osiris Isis becomes the central Egyptian goddess The Greeks equated her with Demeter Key political charter myth -- the Pharaoh is justified in the myth ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Fig Isis and Osiris ©2012 Pearson Education Inc. Hirmer Fotoarchiv, Munich, Germany

Isis and Osiris Isis and Osiris were fraternal twins They married and become king and queen of Egypt They brought features of civilized life to Egypt Osiris travelled to teach other nations ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Isis and Osiris The monster Typhoeus kills Osiris with the coffin trick It floats out the Nile and to Byblos in Phoenicia A tree grew around it The king of Byblos cut down the tree for his palace and brought the coffin with it ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Isis and Osiris In her quest, Isis comes to Byblos Stops by a well and is met by the daughters of the king and queen She cares for their son -- burning away the mortal parts by night while flying above it as a swallow Discovered, she reveals herself and demands the coffin back ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Isis and Osiris Typhoeus finds where Isis has hidden the coffin and tears the corpse up into fourteen pieces Isis finds all the pieces but one, the penis, and builds where each one was found She fashions a wooden phallus as a replacement ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Isis and Osiris While bringing the coffin back from Byblos, Isis reanimated the penis and became pregnant while flying over it as a hawk Now the hawk god Horus is born ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Isis and Osiris Horus defeats Typhoeus and his allies But Isis lets him go Angered, Horus assaults Isis and tears off her crown Isis is visited by Osiris and another Horus (the baby) is born ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Fig Rebirth of Osiris ©2012 Pearson Education Inc. Author’s photo

Eastern Fertility Myths Cybelê and Attis (Fig A bust of Cybelê) ©2012 Pearson Education Inc. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples; Art Resource, New York

Cybelê and Attis Zeus impregnates a rock near Cybele The hermaphrodite Agdestis is born —so powerful and wild, that the other gods fear him Dionysus gets him drunk and sets a snare that tears off his male sexual organ — the pomegranate tree springs from the genitals ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Cybelê and Attis A local princess, Nana, picks up the fruit and puts it into her dress She becomes pregnant Her father, disgraced, tries to prevent the birth by locking her up and starving her She is supported by Cybele Attis is born ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Cybelê and Attis Attis is about to marry, but Agdestis, his companion, drives the guests insane One guest, Gallus, slices off his own genitals Maddened, Attis also cuts off his own genitals to spite Agdestis and dies ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Cybelê and Attis His intended kills herself where he died, and Cybele buries them in a common grave Zeus allows Attis’s hair and one finger to live on ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

OBSERVATIONS From Blood, Life ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

From Blood, Life The bizarre elements of the myth of Cybelê and Attis are explicable in light of their etiological function, as they explain the origins of ritual human sacrifice and self-castration to perpetuate the cycle of life from blood. ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

APHRODITE AND ADONIS ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Birth of Adonis Pygmalion and Galatea Paphos Cinyras Myrrha Adonis born from the myrrha tree ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Aphrodite Adonis becomes the love-object of Aphrodite Killed in a hunt Becomes the anemone flower ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

PERSPECTIVE 10.2 H.D.'s "Adonis" ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

H.D.'s "Adonis" The twentieth-century poet who went by the initials "H.D." used the figure of Adonis as a symbol for the seasons of our individual lives. "each of us like you has died once, each of us like you stands apart, like you fit to be worshipped." ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Conclusions Behind their common features, the fertility myths we studied have different emphases. Demeter-Persephonê: Death is a part of life. Inanna-Dumuzi: Life must be bought back through sacrifice. Isis-Osiris: New life comes through the pharaoh. ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

Conclusions Cybelê-Dumuzi: Blood is life, and shedding it brings new life. Greek variation differs in the important regard that there is no dying male consort. Fertility is through mother-daughter, where the female seems to beget life without a male. ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

End ©2012 Pearson Education Inc.