SEE SITCHIN’S EARTH CHRONICLES, ETC.:

 

(Texts: All Artifacts, Color Coding, & Writings in Bold Type With Italics Inside Parenthesis, are Added by Editor R. Brown, not the Authors, Translators, or Publishers!)

(gods in blue …mixed-breed demigods in teal…)

 

Farther north, in the grazing plateau of the Sudan, the youngest son, DUMU.ZI (“Son Who Is Life”), whose nickname was “The Herder” was given reign…

        “When he came up to heaven,

        When he approached the Gate of An,

         Dumuzi and Gizzida were standing in the Gate of An.

         They saw Adapa and cried, “Heaven help him!

         Young man, on whose behalf do you look like this Adapa, …”

        “Dumuzid (Dumuzi) is the one who makes the upper land fertile (allumlum) …”

Tablets tell that Ishtar, coming home from out of town, found her husband playing around. He was banished to the Lower World, and stayed with Inanna’s sister Ereshkigal and her consort, Nergal. Inanna later went to the Abzu to find him and make up.

That Inanna had gone to visit Dumuzi (“The Herder”) in his faraway rural district, we know from a Sumerian text:

         “The young lad stood waiting;

         Dumuzi pushed open the door

         Like a moonbeam she came forth to him…

         He looked at her, rejoiced in her,

         Took her in his arms and kissed her,

         The Herder put his arms around the maiden;

         ‘I have not carried you off into slavery,’ (he said)

         ‘Your table will be a splendid table,

         the splendid table where I myself eat …”

In the bedroom she found

         “a bed of gold, adorned with lapis lazuli,

         which Gibil had refined for her in the abode of Nergal …”

After the war, and their marriage consumated,they spent many days and nights in ecstacy.

         “As sweet as your mouth are your parts, they befit a princely status!

         Subdue the rebellious country let the nation multiply;

         I will direct the country rightly! …”

Another time she confessed to him her version:

         “I had a vision of a great nation choosing Dmuzi as God of its country…

         For I have made Dumuzi’s name exalted, I gave his status …”

Many songs celebrate the love affair between Inanna…and Dumuzi:

         “O that they put his hand in my hand for me.

         O that they put his heart next to my heart for me.

         Not only is it sweet to sleep hand in hand with him,

         Sweetest of sweet is also the loveliness of joining heart to heart with him …”

The tragic tale is recorded on a tablet CT.15.28-29. By prearrangement his sister, “the song-knowing sister was sitting there.” She thought she was invited for a picnic. As they were

         “eating the pure food, dripping with honey and butter,

         as they were drinking the fragrant divine beer,” and were spending the time in a happy mood…

         Dumuzi took the solemn decision to do it …”

To prepare his sister for what he had in mind, Dumuzi took a lamb and copulated it with its mother, then had a kid copulate with its sister lamb. Dumuzi was touching his sister in emulation,

         “but his sister still did not understand …”

As Dumuzi’s actions became more and more obvious, Geshtinanna

         “screamed and screamed in protest …”

but

         “he mounted her… his seed was flowing into her vulva …”

           “Halt!” she shouted, “it is a disgrace!” But he did not stop. Having done his deed,

         “the Shepherd, being fearless, being shameless, spoke to his sister …”

Inanna was in on the plan: Dumuzi, prior to leaving,

         “’spoke to her of planning and advice’ and Inanna

         to her spouse answered about the plan to him she gave her advice …”

Dumuzi was soon there-after seized with a premonition that he was to pay for his deed with his life…Waking up, he asked his sister Geshtinanna to tell him the meaning of the dream.

         “My brother, your dream is not favorable, it is very clear to me …”

It foretold

         “bandits rising against you from ambush…

         your hands will be bound in handcuffs,

         your arms will be bound in fetters …”

No sooner had Geshtinanna finished talking than the evil ones appeared…and caught Dumuzi. Bound…Dumuzi cried out an appeal to Utu / Shamash:

         “O Utu, you are my brother-in-law, I am your sister’s husband…

         Change my hands into a gazelle’s hands, change my feet into a gazelle’s feat,

         let me escape the evil ones! …”

Hearing his appeal, Utu enabled Dumuzi to escape…Dumuzi was captured again, and again escaped. ..A strong wind was blowing, the drinking cups were overturned; the evil ones closed in on him, all as he had seen in his dream: And in the end:

         “The drinking cups lay on their side; Dumuzi was dead.

         The sheepfold was thrown into the wind …”

In another version of the events, a text titled “The Most Bitter Cry”…makes it clear that they had come on higher authority:

         “My master has sent us for you, …”

the chief deputy announced to the awakened god. They proceed to strip Dumuzi of his divine attributes:

         “Take the divine headress off your head, get up bareheaded;

         Take the royal robe off your body, get up naked;

         Lay aside the divine staff which is in your hand, get up empty-handed;

         Take the holy sandals off your feet, get up berefooted! …”

The seized Dumuzi manages to escape and reaches the river

         “at the great dike in the desert of E.MUSH …”

(Home of the Snakes)…the place where nowadays the great dam of Aswan is located. But the swirling waters did not let Dumuzi reach the other riverbank where his mother and Inanna were standing…

         “there did the boat-wrecking waters carry the espoused of Inanna …”

Having disapproved of the Dumuzi–Inanna love match from the beginning, Marduk no doubt was even more opposed to the union after the Pyramid Wars. The rape of Geshtinanna by Dumuzi—was thus an opportunity for Marduk to block the designs Inanna had on Egypt, by seizing and punishing Dumuzi.

As far as she (Inanna) was concerned, Marduk had caused her beloved’s death. And as the (Akkadian) text makes clear

        “What is in holy Inanna’s heart?

         To Kill!

         To kill the Lord Bilulu.(Marduk) …”

Inanna armed herself with an array of weapons to attack the god in his hiding place…she confidently approached The Mountain, which she called E.BIH (Abode of Sorrowful Calling”). Haughtily she proclaimed:

         “Mountain, thou art so high, thou art elevated above all others…

         Thou touchest the sky with thy tip…

         Yet I shall destroy thee,

         To the ground I shall fell thee..

         Inside thine heart pain I shall cause …”

As Inanna continued to challenge Marduk, now hiding inside the mighty structure (pyramid), her fury rose…

        “For the second time, infuriated by his pride,

         Inanna approached (the pyramid) again and proclaimed:

         ‘My grandfather Enlil has permitted me to enter inside The Mountain! …”

Flaunting her weapons, she haughtily announced:

         “Into the heart of the Mountain I shall penetrate…

         Inside the Mountain, my victory I shall establish! …”

She began to attack:

         “She seized not striking the sides of E-Bih and all its corners, even its multitude of raised stones.

         But inside…the Grest Serpent who had gone in his poison ceased not to spit. …”