The other day I came across this article: "Inana and Ĺ ukaletuda, a Sumerian Astral Myth" in which Jeff Cooley argues that "Inana and Ĺ ukaletuda" is "A Sumerian Astral Myth describing the annual movement of the planet Venus in the skies above Sumer"...
I would like to disagree...
I would like to propose that the myth "Inana and Ĺ ukaletuda" is indeed "A Sumerian Astral Myth". Describing "annual movement of the star Sirius in the skies above Sumer" and not the "annual movement of the planet Venus in the skies above Sumer"...
Here is Sirius, rising before the sun, pretending to be "the morning star"... Otherwise known as Inanna/Ishtar "The queen of heaven" and "Lioness of heaven"...The one that poses on the lion...In Leo...Girl which has some serious "conflicts of interest" with Nergal, Shamash, Sun in Leo...I first talked about this in my post "Ninshubur"...
I would also disagree that "the only seasonal indicator in the story is that Ĺ ukaletuda was building wells near the plants, which is a summer activity"...There are a lot of seasonal indicators in the story, you just need to know a bit about agriculture and climate in the area...
The myth text can be found in the web archives here. The actual page with the myth text was down when I checked last...
Anyway, the myth's central theme is the rape of Inanna by Ĺ ukaletuda, and Inanna's subsequent search for her rapist and his eventual punishment...
Here are the most important bits:
Ĺ ukaletuda was to water garden plots and build the installation for a well among the plants, but not a single plant remained there, not even one: he had pulled them out by their roots and destroyed them...
Then what did the storm wind bring? It blew the dust of the mountains into his eyes...He raised his eyes to the highlands and saw the exalted gods of the land where the sun sets. He saw a solitary ghost. He recognised a solitary ghost (goddess) by her appearance...
In that plot there stood a single shady tree at that place. The shady tree was a Euphrates poplar with broad shade. After Inana had gone around the heavens, after she had gone around the earth, the mistress became so tired that when she arrived there she lay down by its roots...
Ĺ ukaletuda noticed her from beside his plot. Ĺ ukaletuda undid [Inanna's] loincloth of seven divine powers and got her to lie down in her resting place. He had intercourse with her, after which he went back to beside his plot...
When day had broken and Utu had risen, the woman inspected herself closely, holy Inana inspected herself closely...Then [Inanna] was considering what should be destroyed because of her genitals...
So Inanna is pretty pissed off. She wants is to punish her rapist, but she doesn't know who he is. So Inanna decides to punish the whole of Sumer until the culprit is found...
So she unleashes "three plagues":
1. She filled the wells of the Land with blood...
2. She mounted on a cloud, took her seat there and led a southerly storm flood cross the Land...the dust storm followed her...
3. She took...and blocked the highways of the Land with it...
But it was all in vain. Inanna could not find the man who had intercourse with her
Inanna then went to see her father Enki in Abzu. She demanded from Enki that "someone should pay for what was done to her". And Enki said: "All right!" to her.
With that holy Inana went out from the Abzu. She stretched herself like a rainbow across the sky and reached thereby as far as the earth. She let the south wind pass across, she let the north wind pass across...
From fear, Šukaletuda tried to make himself as tiny as possible, but [Inanna] had found him among the mountains. Holy Inana now spoke to Šukaletuda: "How ......? ...... dog ......! ...... ass ......! ...... pig ......! So! You shall die!" 🙂
The end...
Sooo...If you want to see why Jeff Cooley things all this points at planet Venus, you can read his paper. I will now try to explain why I think this could be all pointing at Sirius...
Here it goes:
Ĺ ukaletuda is portrayed as a terrible gardener, as when Inanna came down to rest under the lone Euphrates poplar tree on his plot, he was building the installation for a well in his garden, which was empty of plants, as everything was dead and uprooted...
As Jeff Cooley states, building/repair of the irrigation infrastructure is a summer job in Mesopotamia, performed after all the irrigated crops are harvested...I talked about this in my post "Canals" about Utu/Shamash in the canals...
The main crops in Sumer which were planted and harvested yearly were:
Grains (grown in fields) : barley and wheat.
Legumes (grown in gardens): peas, beans, lentils
Vegetables (grown in gardens): onions, leeks, garlic, lettuce
These are harvest times for Sumerian crops:
Barley/Wheat harvests Apr/May/Jun
Peas harvest Apr/May
Broad beans harvest Apr/May
Lentils harvest Apr/May
Garlic harvest May
Onion harvest Feb/Mar/Apr/May
Lettuce harvest Jan/Feb
So we can see that by May, all the garden crops were already harvested and pulled out of the ground...The fact that Ĺ ukaletuda's garden had no plants in it, is not a sign that he was a bad gardener. It is one of those elusive "seasonal indicator" Jeff Cooley didn't spot...
So Ĺ ukaletuda raped Inanna at some stage after all the crops were harvested...But when? This depends how you interpret the description of the rape scene...There are two possible interpretations. I first leaned towards the first, but now I think the second fits the story better...
First possible interpretation:
After all the garden crops were harvested, storm wind blew the dust of the mountains into Ĺ ukaletuda's eyes...
Mountains are located in the East, North and (far) West of Mesopotamia. The mountains from which the storm wind could have blown dust into Ĺ ukaletuda's eyes, have to be the Northern mountains...
The only dusty wind that blows from the direction of any mountains in Mesopotamia is Shamal, the hot and dry, dusty wind which blows between May-Sep and Dec-Feb, from the north southwards towards the Arabian gulf. The wind causes great dust storms...
And so, right on time, after all the garden crops are harvested, Ĺ ukaletuda is working on his irrigation system, and his eyes are full of mountain dust brought by the first Shamal wind. He looks to the west and sees shimmering (ghostly) Inanna/Sirius setting with the sun...
In 2500 BC Mesopotamia, Sirius set just before the sun (Inanna went to sleep) around the 1st of May...Until the 15th of May, Sirius set, up to an hour before the sun, which is the the time when you can just about see Sirius as faint (ghostly) star in the western sky...
Anyway, Inanna lies down to sleep under a solitary Euphrates poplar tree, with great shade...
I talked about this amazing tree in my post "Euphrates poplar", in which I talked about the golden leaves used to make the amazing diadem of the Sumerian Queen Puabi who was buried in the royal cemetery in Ur, Iraq, around 2600BC...
During Inanna's sleep (Sirius is in the sky during the day with the sun, and therefore invisible), she gets raped by Ĺ ukaletuda...Interestingly, Inanna says:
"I poured out plants from my womb...I poured out grain before my womb...For my husband Dumuzi"...
I talkd about this in my post "Mother of grain"...
Could the fact that someone else took (out of her womb) what was meant only for Dumuzi be considered as rape? I think so...Which leads to the question: Was Ĺ ukaletuda's rape a real rape or just a symbol for something else?
Then sun (Utu) rises, and Inanna (Sirius) rises...In 2500 BC Mesopotamia, this happens in the middle of Leo, at the end of Jul beginning of Aug...When Sirius pretends to be the Morning star...This is why Inanna/Ishtar stands on a lion...
Inanna inspects herself and realised that she was violated...She gets mightily pissed off, and goes out looking for the perpetrator of this terrible crime...
Second possible interpretation:
Jeff Cooley believes that "Inana, spends some time on earth, sleeping under a poplar tree exhausted from her travels. The gardener rapes the goddess in the brief period after she disappears in the light of dawn and when the sun actually rises"...
Which would mean that if Inanna is indeed Sirius and not Venus, the raping of Inanna happens at the end of Jul beginning of Aug. Middle of Leo. When Sirius rises with the sun...
This is the time when ALL the annual crops planted in fields and gardens are definitely already harvested and or dead, and this is the best time when irrigation systems are built and repaired...I explain why in my post "Canals"...
End of Jul beginning of Aug is still the time when Northerly Shamal winds blow from the mountains bringing dust...So Ĺ ukaletuda's eyes can get filled with it...
Regardless of when Inanna "lied down to sleep", she definitely got up with the sun (Utu). Which is in the middle of Leo...
She inspects herself and realised that she was violated...She gets mightily pissed off, and goes out looking for the perpetrator of this terrible crime...
And so, Inanna unleash the collective punishment (the three "plagues") on the land of Sumer. Why? To punish the whole of Sumer for taking what wasn't meant to be theirs, the fruits of her womb, which were meant for Dumuzi only?
The tree "plagues" are actually depictions of natural events that (can) happen after Inanna wakes up with Utu (Sirius rises with the sun at the end of Jul beginning of Aug, in Leo...I will here map the plagues to these events...
1. Inanna filled the wells and canals of the Land with blood...There are two possible natural explanations for this "plague"...
First one is that the Shamal dust storms which blew during the summer, dumped a lot of orange/red dust into the wells which turned the water orange/red...Does this ever happen? Anyone from Iraq to confirm this or deny it?
We know that when orange/red desert dust clouds merge with rain clouds we get orangey, so called "blood" rain. And that when orange/red desert dust clouds merge with snow clouds we get orangey snow...So this is a possibility...But would need confirmation from Iraq...
The second explanation is red algal and bacterial bloom, which can occur in stagnant waters, like slow flowing rivers, swamps, lakes and wells, during extreme heat and when water is full of nutrients, like after Shamal dust storms dumped pile of dust into it...
Red lake Iraq
You can read about this in these articles about lakes in Iraq and Iran turning red in "Iraq lake bounces back" and "Red lake Urmia"...
And this article, "Ten plagues, Egypt", about Nile turning red. might be interesting too
2. Inanna mounted on a cloud and led a southerly storm flood cross the Land...the dust storm followed her...
Sharqi is the southern and southeasterly dry, dusty wind with occasional gusts of 80 kilometers per hour, which blows from Apr to Jun...and from Sep to Nov...
The second Sharqi period falls right after the driest and hottest part of the year, where we are most likely to see blood water...
And ends right when the first rains arrive in Oct/Nov. Rains which can sometimes be torrential and cause severe flooding.
Just when Sharqi stops blowing, in Nov, winter Shamal season (Dec to Feb) begins, bringing dust storms. Which can be devastating: "Oman corals suggest that a stronger winter shamal season caused the Akkadian Empire (Mesopotamia) collapse"...
3. Inanna took...and blocked the highways of the Land with it...The bit telling us what Inanna used to block the roads is missing...But we know that Shamal winds cary so much dust and sand, that they always block the roads by sand/dust piles/dunes...
So here we have 3 naturally occurring (annual) events, which chronologically follow the rising of Sirius (Inanna) with the sun (Utu) in the exact order depicted in the myth: blood water (Jul/Aug/Sep), South wind (Sep/Oct/Nov), storm flood (Oct/Nov), dust storm (Dec/Jan/Feb)...
Neat, right? So what's left? Inanna then went to see her father Enki in Abzu. She demanded from Enki that "someone should pay for what was done to her". Jeff Cooley, like basically everyone else, takes that Abzu is underground water source...
I have, I think successfully argued that Abzu is actually the source of Tigris and Euphrates, the mountains located North-East of Mesopotamia...I talked about this in this in many of my posts. You can start here, in my post "Problems with Abzu"...
Now Enki is (the god of) Fresh flowing water, which is during the winter trapped in the snow and ice in the North-Eastern mountains...
Majority of the water from Tigris and Euphrates comes from the snowmelt from these mountains...
Snowmelt runoff
Tigris and Euphrates flow
It is in Jan/Feb that young spring sun (Utu/Shamash) starts climbing these mountains to release the waters (Enki/Ea) trapped in the ice and snow (Snowmelt starts)...
I talked about this in these posts: "Shamash young and old", "When Utu steps up into heaven", "Utu or Enki"...
So if Inanna wanted to catch Enki in Abzu, the best time would be during winter (Nov/Dec/Jan) and spring (Feb/Mar/Apr)...Which is what she did.
Interestingly, after meeting Enki, Inana "stretched herself like a rainbow across the sky, and reached thereby as far as the earth"...
This is the only time when you can see a rainbow stretched across the Iraqi sky is during rain season, winter/spring...This is also the only time when you can see Sirius rising in the East in the evening, traveling across the night sky, and setting in the West in the morning...
According to the myth, after Inanna "stretched like a rainbow across the sky", she let the south wind pass across, she let the north wind pass across. After which she found Ĺ ukaletuda...
Interestingly, during that time, when Inanna/Sirius is "stretched like a rainbow across the sky" and when real rainbows are stretched across the sky, first southerly winter Sharqi winds blow (Sep-Nov), and then northerly winter Shamal winds blow (Dec-Feb) below Inanna/Sirius...
Again, chronologically, this fits perfectly...That's it...
Jul/Aug - Inanna gets raped
Sep/Oct/Nov/Dec - three plagues
Nov/Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr - visiting Abzu, rainbow stunt, finding Ĺ ukaletuda
Soooo...What do you think?
