Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we have returned
Speaker 3: with Part two of our Halloween season series on the
Speaker 3: monsters and demons of ancient Mesopotamian religion. Now, if you
Speaker 3: haven't heard part one yet, this is really one of
Speaker 3: those series where I think you should go back and
Speaker 3: listen to part one first. I would recommend that because
Speaker 3: in that episode we have a general discussion about the
Speaker 3: connotations of the English word demon and the ways it
Speaker 3: both does and does not describe these entities from ancient Mesopotamia,
Speaker 3: and we also get into some general general trends and
Speaker 3: observations about the spirits and supernatural forces of ancient Mesopotamian religions.
Speaker 3: But in that episode we also talk about a number
Speaker 3: of specific horrifying creatures depicted in the literature and artworks
Speaker 3: of this region and time period, including Humbaba or Huahwa,
Speaker 3: whose breath is death and whose face is an omen
Speaker 3: when seen in the spilled intestines of a sheep. We
Speaker 3: talked about the terrifying oppressor Lamashtu, who threatens infants and
Speaker 3: pregnant women, And we talked about Pazuzu, the demon or
Speaker 3: perhaps god, depending on your take of the Southwest Winds,
Speaker 3: known best to modern audiences as the devil that possesses
Speaker 3: Reagan McNeil in the Exorcist. And then finally we talked
Speaker 3: about some actually quite surprising qualities of Pazuzu in his
Speaker 3: original cultural context, in which he was often seen as
Speaker 3: not just a malevolent threat in himself, but as an
Speaker 3: apotropaic protector, warding off other evil beings, the Riddic principle,
Speaker 3: if you will.
Speaker 2: We also talked about how no one really knows for
Speaker 2: sure how to pronounce any of these words or names.
Speaker 2: We have some best practices recommended by scholars, and we
Speaker 2: try to follow that, but ultimately no one can know
Speaker 2: for sure. Like, for instance, inky do, What if it's
Speaker 2: inky do? No one ever says it like that, But
Speaker 2: it's not impossible that that was the original pronunciation, right,
Speaker 2: I think people say it like that, inky do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've heard that inky do.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it just feels wrong.
Speaker 3: It just thinks I've said it that way.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have the same gravitized you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know it sounds a little like preschooler educational program.
Speaker 3: It does sound like a word my daughter would say,
Speaker 3: just one of those words she makes up.
Speaker 2: Now. When I told my wife that we were going
Speaker 2: to do a couple of episodes about ancient Mesopotamian demons,
Speaker 2: she jokingly asked if we were going to talk about Gooser. Ah.
Speaker 2: And you know, readers of Tobin Spirit Guide know all
Speaker 2: too well that Gozer the Gazarian is said to have
Speaker 2: been an ancient extra dimensional entity worshiped in ancient Mesopotamia,
Speaker 2: attended to by two guardians, Vince Clortho the key Master
Speaker 2: and Zeel the Gatekeeper. Ah.
Speaker 3: Yes, who can forget the frantic search of Rick moranis
Speaker 3: for the Gatekeeper. I am Vince Clortho, key Master of Gozer.
Speaker 2: Yes, we are, of course talking about Ghostbusters again. And
Speaker 2: to be very clear, Goser and their attendance are fictional
Speaker 2: creations of Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, and their names
Speaker 2: have no connection to the actual mythologies the actual religions
Speaker 2: of ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, in interviews, Ackroyd has pointed
Speaker 2: to two key inspirations for the name Gozer. In the film,
Speaker 2: he claims there was a Goser Chevrolet dealership in upstate
Speaker 2: New York, and that the name Gozer is somehow connected
Speaker 2: to her involved in an alleged Poltergeist haunting. So I
Speaker 2: don't doubt Akroyd on either of these counts. But I
Speaker 2: also couldn't find any solid evidence of either. But you know,
Speaker 2: it seems very likely on both counts, because I believe
Speaker 2: Gozer or something like it is a relatively common Turkish
Speaker 2: last name, And as far as haunting stories go, I
Speaker 2: mean sure, anything as possible.
Speaker 3: In the realm of ghosts. You can make up whatever
Speaker 3: words you want.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But that being said, Gozer is a pretty great
Speaker 2: fictional demonic god played by Slaves Jovin and voiced by
Speaker 2: Patty Edwards and the original Ghostbusters and Act and then
Speaker 2: in the recent Ghostbusters Afterlife played by Olivia Wilde and
Speaker 2: voice by show ray adashlu. I like both incarnations of
Speaker 2: the deity. Both both awesome in my opinion.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen the new Ghostbusters stuff, but.
Speaker 2: It's worth it for Gozer, worthy for Gozer. Okay, So
Speaker 2: Goser works, especially in the original Ghostbusters, in a large
Speaker 2: part because Akroyd and Ramis really had a lot of
Speaker 2: enthusiasm clearly for weird fiction acroid in particular for the
Speaker 2: occult and spiritualism. I think he said, I have like
Speaker 2: a family connection to some of that stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: to a limited degree, I would say the idea of
Speaker 2: Gozer is a kind of guardian death god, guard of
Speaker 2: the god of the underworld, feels appropriate for ancient Mesopotamia.
Speaker 2: That being said, I believe in the film or supporting
Speaker 2: material they give a date of like six thousand BCE
Speaker 2: for Goser's worship, and that would put this figure well
Speaker 2: outside the historical framework that we've been considering in these episodes.
Speaker 2: So Gozer would in this case be like a firmly
Speaker 2: Neolithic deity.
Speaker 3: It would be from before written sources.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so again no actual grounding in ancient Mesopotamian myth.
Speaker 2: Though the name, as you and I were discussing off
Speaker 2: Mike the other day, does sound similar to the ancient
Speaker 2: Egyptian pharaoh that is therefore essentially a god, an individual
Speaker 2: by the name of Joser Jesser Zoser. Even often I
Speaker 2: think the primary spelling you run across in English is Djosc,
Speaker 2: but I've also seen it as Zeo z Er.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 2: Okay, his name apparently refers to the ancient Egyptian symbol
Speaker 2: of stability, a kind of terrorist pillar known as the Jed.
Speaker 3: I mainly associate the pharaoh Joser with his his pyramid,
Speaker 3: which is a step pyramid, and it's different from the
Speaker 3: pyramids on the Giza plateau. But this one is really early.
Speaker 3: It was apparently like the first of the big stone
Speaker 3: monuments of ancient Egypt. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So anyway, that's just a brief aside about Gozer.
Speaker 2: But and then when we may come back briefly to
Speaker 2: the idea of Gozer, but let's turn now to some
Speaker 2: more amazing actual demons and monsters from the world of
Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamian myth and religion.
Speaker 3: That's right, so to get to the real ones, but
Speaker 3: not to leave the movie connections. I just had another
Speaker 3: quick note on Pizuzu, which we talked about at length
Speaker 3: in the last episode. I was looking at some artifacts
Speaker 3: pictured photographed in a book that was published by the J.
Speaker 3: Paul Getty Museum that had text by Arian Thomas and
Speaker 3: Timothy Potts. This was published in twenty twenty. This book
Speaker 3: features an image of a full bronze statuette of Pazuzu,
Speaker 3: from the Neo Assyrian period, and it is depicted in
Speaker 3: the statuette much like the common Pazuzu description we talked
Speaker 3: about in the last episode, and there were lots of
Speaker 3: depictions of Pazuzu because of his common use in protective
Speaker 3: household magic. But I thought a really cool thing about
Speaker 3: this is that the statuette has an inscription on the
Speaker 3: back and it like says, here's who I am. It says,
Speaker 3: I am Pazuzu, son of Hanbu, king of the Leelu demons.
Speaker 3: I have scaled the powerful mountains. They trembled the contrary
Speaker 3: winds sometimes seen translated as enemy winds or something like that.
Speaker 3: The contrary winds were headed west one by one. I
Speaker 3: broke their wings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Pazuzu, the breaker of the wings of the wind.
Speaker 3: Once again reminds me of your Godzilla comparison from last time.
Speaker 3: You know that you is like, this is the king
Speaker 3: of monsters in a sense, the breaker of other monsters.
Speaker 2: That's right, but still dangerous in its own right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this inscription mentions that Pazuzu ruled over the
Speaker 3: other demons of the wind. He was strong enough to
Speaker 3: repel and subjugate them, as in the description. One by one,
Speaker 3: I broke their wings and he says he is king
Speaker 3: of the Leelu demons. So who are these demons? Well,
Speaker 3: I decided to look them up as well, because we
Speaker 3: didn't end up talking about them by name in the
Speaker 3: last episode. We may have sort of referred to a
Speaker 3: class of wind associated demons that would include these demons.
Speaker 3: But here I'm going to refer again to a text
Speaker 3: that we brought up that we used in the last
Speaker 3: episode and will refer to again in this episode. This
Speaker 3: is God's Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia and illustrated
Speaker 3: dictionary from British Museum Press, written by these scholars, Jeremy
Speaker 3: Black and Antheon Green and illustrated by Tessa Rickards. So,
Speaker 3: regarding the Leelu demons, Black and Green refer to them
Speaker 3: as a family group of demons. So you got one
Speaker 3: male demon named Leelu and two female demons named Li
Speaker 3: Leitu and our dot lee Lee. The Leelu and Lilitu
Speaker 3: are associated with the wilderness. They are malicious demons who
Speaker 3: haunt the open desert in empty places, and much like
Speaker 3: the demonus lamash Tou, they pray especially on pregnant women
Speaker 3: and young children. The r dot le Lee, on the
Speaker 3: other hand, is interesting because she seems to embody something
Speaker 3: we see in a lot of monstrous imagery throughout the
Speaker 3: ages that seems to embody, especially male anxieties about womanhood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the are dot Lee Lee certainly betrays very strict
Speaker 2: ideals about what a woman's role or roles are in society.
Speaker 2: That she is mother and she is wife, and a
Speaker 2: woman that cannot act in these roles is essentially a
Speaker 2: monster worthy of treatment as such. In these myths Black
Speaker 2: and Green include the translated quote she is not a
Speaker 2: wife a mother, She has not known happiness, she has
Speaker 2: not undressed in front of her husband, has no milk
Speaker 2: in her breasts. And then, you know, the most monstrous
Speaker 2: creature then spreads impudence and infertility to other mortals like
Speaker 2: a curse. So real, really rough stuff. But you know,
Speaker 2: certainly you can use it as a lens to sort
Speaker 2: of see like what were like the accepted roles and
Speaker 2: limitations for people during this age.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the idea of a feminine entity who does
Speaker 3: not fit into any of the socially prescribed roles for
Speaker 3: a woman so such as mother or wife is in
Speaker 3: itself a terrifying thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also looked up the ar dot Lelee in
Speaker 2: one of Carol Rose's books, or Encyclopaedia of Faaries and Leprechauns,
Speaker 2: and she says that the name literally means made of
Speaker 2: desolation and describes it as a wild haired, winged creature
Speaker 2: that will entice mortals to lonely desolate places and then
Speaker 2: attack them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also, you know, in this century, Black and
Speaker 3: Green compare the ar dot Lele to a figure from
Speaker 3: Hebrew folklore known as Lilith, a sort of alternate accounts
Speaker 3: of creation that are parallel to what we see in
Speaker 3: the Book of Genesis. There's this figure of Lilith that
Speaker 3: is also created that. I think there's a lot been
Speaker 3: written about Lilith as well, commenting on the ways that
Speaker 3: it reflects anxiety about socially nonconforming womanhood. I think this
Speaker 3: is not limited to the ancient world, of course. There's
Speaker 3: still a lot of men who are going to see
Speaker 3: women who are not fitting into the social roles that
Speaker 3: they believe women should fit into and thus conclude that
Speaker 3: that woman is some kind of a monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this is always one of the interesting
Speaker 2: things about in particular, but also other trappings of myth
Speaker 2: and religion. It's like, no matter how fantastic the creature,
Speaker 2: the story is like the ideas involved, you know, often
Speaker 2: resonate across the ages, and they often do line up
Speaker 2: with some of the same problems that we have today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean monsters. They may not exist in reality,
Speaker 3: they are made up, but they reflect what people have
Speaker 3: on their minds, so they are actually I think, informative
Speaker 3: about reality. They show people, they show weird sort of
Speaker 3: like cracks and fissures in our categories, in our minds,
Speaker 3: because monsters often occur at the intersection of categories, or
Speaker 3: when we encounter a kind of being or concept that
Speaker 3: doesn't fit into our category matrix very well, then we
Speaker 3: make a monster out of it, or we simply just
Speaker 3: express what's worrying us in some kind of physical form
Speaker 3: in the form of a monster. And those worries can
Speaker 3: of course be in some cases very understandable even universal.
Speaker 3: In other cases, they can be pretty nasty. They can
Speaker 3: reflect nasty attitudes, they can reflect misogyny, they can reflect
Speaker 3: whatever is preoccupying people, understandable or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Joe, why don't we move on to something
Speaker 2: for the men here, specifically the scorpion men.
Speaker 3: Hey, well, I'll give a preview that these next creatures
Speaker 3: that gear tablulu are often referred to as scorpion men,
Speaker 3: but there are scorpion women as well, so we will
Speaker 3: get both. But in the previous episode we talked about
Speaker 3: the various human animal hybrids depicted in Sumerian and Tikadian
Speaker 3: literature and then depicted in artwork from throughout the region
Speaker 3: in the Neosyrian, Neo Babylonian period and so forth. In
Speaker 3: some cases, it could be debated whether it is better
Speaker 3: to call these monsters demons or some other kind of ETag,
Speaker 3: even in some cases a god. But however we classify
Speaker 3: them they are awesome. There are mermaids and mermen with
Speaker 3: the head of a human and the tail and lower
Speaker 3: body of a fish. There are centaurs half human and
Speaker 3: half horse. There are lion centaurs part lion, part human,
Speaker 3: and finally there are the geartablulu, the scorpion men or
Speaker 3: scorpion people. According to Black and Green, a scorpion man
Speaker 3: is usually depicted as follows. So it's got a human
Speaker 3: head with a majestic and luxurious beard on top of
Speaker 3: his head. He often wears a horned cap and sidebar
Speaker 3: on the horned cap because I got interested in this
Speaker 3: and it seems like an important symbol. The horned cap
Speaker 3: appears throughout Mesopotamian art beginning in the early third millennium BCE,
Speaker 3: and seems to be associated with power and godhood in
Speaker 3: different periods of history. It is associated with like different
Speaker 3: primary gods from the pantheons. So it might be be
Speaker 3: that the you know, in one period the horned cap
Speaker 3: is really the symbol of this god, and another periods
Speaker 3: the Southern God. But it remains fairly consistent as a
Speaker 3: symbol of divine status. Now, why does a horned cap
Speaker 3: mean divine status? Black and Green speculate that the godlike
Speaker 3: associations might be derived from the horns of the now
Speaker 3: extinct wild bovine Bose primogeneous, commonly known as the orux.
Speaker 3: Now the orux was a wild ancestor of today's domestic cattle,
Speaker 3: and still existed in its wild form during much of
Speaker 3: human history, probably up until the seventeenth century CE in
Speaker 3: some places, so just a few hundred years ago that
Speaker 3: it finally went globally extinct, and they were still being
Speaker 3: hunted by kings during the Neo Assyrian period in Mesopotamia.
Speaker 3: These beasts were massive and awe inspiring, larger than most
Speaker 3: domestic cattle today, with some bull oryx standing up nearly
Speaker 3: six feet tall at the shoulder and having gigantic thick
Speaker 3: horns more than eighty centimeters or about two point six
Speaker 3: feet long, with each horn having a diameter of up
Speaker 3: to between ten and eighteen centimeters, so huge horns. I
Speaker 3: sometimes mention on the show that, like, if you're not
Speaker 3: a farmer or a rancher and you only ever see
Speaker 3: domestic farm animals like cattle and horses on TV, it
Speaker 3: can be kind of shocking, like their size and power
Speaker 3: when you actually get up close to one. An example
Speaker 3: I've used before is that cattle can seem very docile
Speaker 3: and bulky and slow moving until you see one suddenly
Speaker 3: leap over a fence or start running at full speed,
Speaker 3: and then you're like, WHOA, I did not imagine that
Speaker 3: animal was capable of this. But the wild rix was
Speaker 3: even larger, more powerful, less docile, with horns like tim
Speaker 3: Curry and Legend. So just an awe and firing beast.
Speaker 3: And with that in mind, it's not that hard to
Speaker 3: imagine that the horns of the aurux could be a
Speaker 3: perfect symbol of kingly power, power, strength, and will, and
Speaker 3: thus a cap with horns on it would be a
Speaker 3: marker of divinity in art. But ultimately this is speculative.
Speaker 3: We can't know for sure exactly why this imagery was used,
Speaker 3: but seems to me like a good gas.
Speaker 2: Okay, so not actual horns growing out of the scorpion
Speaker 2: man's head, but something more akin to a crown.
Speaker 3: Right the horned cap. So back to the scorpion man
Speaker 3: usually depicted as I said, with the human head, thick beard,
Speaker 3: and the horned cap of divinity. The scorpion man typically
Speaker 3: had a human's upper body, so it would be kind
Speaker 3: of human shaped from the diaphragm up. This seems pretty
Speaker 3: consistent throughout representations, but then going down from here there
Speaker 3: is some variation. Sometimes you'd get what looks like a
Speaker 3: human abdomen, human pelvis, human thighs, but then going down
Speaker 3: in the lower lege into bird legs and bird feet
Speaker 3: with the talons of a raptor.
Speaker 2: As we discussed in the last episode, this is pretty
Speaker 2: common in a lot of different demons and godlike beings
Speaker 2: in ancient Mesopotamia, and as we've talked about on the
Speaker 2: show too, like this idea of demons having the legs
Speaker 2: of a bird, this doesn't quite go away. We see
Speaker 2: perhaps the reverberations of this on through like medieval and
Speaker 2: post medieval times.
Speaker 3: That's right now. Another variation is that sometimes beneath the chest,
Speaker 3: sort of from the bottom of the ribs on down,
Speaker 3: you would instead get a more horizontal body, kind of
Speaker 3: egg shaped body that I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 3: supposed to represent a scorpion's body enlarged or maybe a
Speaker 3: bird's body. It looks almost in some depictions, kind of
Speaker 3: like a duck with instead of a duck's neck, just
Speaker 3: a human's upper body from the chest up. And then
Speaker 3: this also descends into feet with bird claws. I don't know, Rob,
Speaker 3: you look at this, do you do you see scorpion
Speaker 3: body or bird body?
Speaker 2: I mean it feels more bird body to me.
Speaker 3: So whether the midsection is human or avian or iraqanid,
Speaker 3: in any case, you will get a scorpion tail. This
Speaker 3: is the promise of the premise, right. It is raised
Speaker 3: in a threatening pose, and it is ready to strike
Speaker 3: with its deadly sting.
Speaker 2: And to be clear it does not look like the
Speaker 2: Scorpion King has portrayed by Dwayne Johnson in one of
Speaker 2: the Scorpion King sequels.
Speaker 3: Which is a real shame. Some of the best cgi
Speaker 3: of all time.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Also, sometimes you get wings in an X shape, like
Speaker 3: we discussed with representations of Pazuzu and other wind demons,
Speaker 3: these X shaped wings. And sometimes you get also, like
Speaker 3: we discussed with Pazuzu, a penis that has a snakehead.
Speaker 3: What is the meaning of the snakehead penis. It is
Speaker 3: hard to say exactly, but I feel like I get
Speaker 3: the gist. So scorpion men are mentioned in several of
Speaker 3: the best known works of ancient Mesopotamian literature. First of all,
Speaker 3: they appear among a catalog of demons and monsters in
Speaker 3: the inuma Aleish, the Babylonian Epic of Creation. So in
Speaker 3: the text, there is a character Tiamot, who is the
Speaker 3: personification of the primordial ocean the salt waters, and Tiamot
Speaker 3: is seeking revenge for the slaughter of her consort Opsu,
Speaker 3: who is the personification of fresh water. These two are
Speaker 3: kind of the original primordial deities. And then kind of
Speaker 3: like in the kind of like in the In the
Speaker 3: Greek stories, we get different generations of gods descending from them.
Speaker 3: In this story, Opsu gets really mad at the younger
Speaker 3: generations of gods because they are creating a commotion. I
Speaker 3: think they're being too loud and boisterous, and he wants
Speaker 3: to destroy them, but the gods kill Apsu first. And
Speaker 3: then in preparing for vengeance, Tiamat creates or gathers a
Speaker 3: bunch of monsters to her side to serve under her
Speaker 3: son and new consort, Kingu. And then I'm going to
Speaker 3: read from the inuma Elish. This is the Leonard William
Speaker 3: King translation talking about these monsters serving Tiamot with poison
Speaker 3: instead of blood. She hath filled their bodies fierce monster vipers.
Speaker 3: She hath clothed with terror, with splendor. She hath decked them.
Speaker 3: She hath made them of lofty stature. Whoever beholdeth them
Speaker 3: is overcome by terror. Their bodies rear up, and none
Speaker 3: can withstand their attack. She hath set up vipers and
Speaker 3: dragons and the monster Lehamu, and hurricanes and raging hounds
Speaker 3: and scorpion men and mighty tempests and fish men and rams.
Speaker 3: They bear cruel weapons without fear of the fight. Okay,
Speaker 3: so from this Acadian source from the second millennium BCE,
Speaker 3: we can sort of see the company they keep, right,
Speaker 3: they're among all of these monstrous beings who might run
Speaker 3: out to fight against Marduk, but other we don't get
Speaker 3: a lot of description here. However, the scorpion beings also
Speaker 3: appear in the epic of Gilgamesh, where they play a
Speaker 3: more active role in the plot, and they also, in
Speaker 3: this case appear in both male and female forms. So
Speaker 3: the scorpion beings show up in tablet nine of the
Speaker 3: Gilgamesh epic, where a lot of the text of the
Speaker 3: epic has been lost, leaving us with fragmentary and missing
Speaker 3: lines throughout, but they still make quite an impression even
Speaker 3: if some of their part of the story is gone. Now.
Speaker 3: So the context is that Gilgamesh's friend, the wild man
Speaker 3: in key Dou, has been killed by a curse from
Speaker 3: the gods in punishment for the fact that together Gilgamesh
Speaker 3: and in key Dou killed the monster Humbaba, who we
Speaker 3: talked about at the beginning of the last episode. You know,
Speaker 3: the big scary monster the guards the Cedar forest. Gilgamesh
Speaker 3: and key Dou go in there and they fight Humbaba
Speaker 3: and they kill him, and so in revenge for that,
Speaker 3: the gods kill in key Dou with a curse. And
Speaker 3: then Gilgamesh is distraught over the death of his friend,
Speaker 3: and he embraces in Keydu's body, refusing to believe that
Speaker 3: he has died, until finally maggots begin to fall from
Speaker 3: in Keyedu's face. So Gilgamash is horrified not only by
Speaker 3: the loss of his friend, but by the realization that
Speaker 3: he is going to have to die one day himself.
Speaker 3: It's in a lot of ways, it's a kind of
Speaker 3: almost humorously self focused reaction to that. He starts thinking,
Speaker 3: I can't this can't happen to me, because you know,
Speaker 3: it means he would be taken down to the gloomy,
Speaker 3: horrible nether world where dust is your food and clay
Speaker 3: is your meat, and it's just horrible to think about
Speaker 3: how this fate is unavoidable. Unavoidable that is for most mortals.
Speaker 3: But there is one man within the story who knows
Speaker 3: the secret to eternal life, and that is the aged Utnapishtim,
Speaker 3: the son of Ubaratutu, who, along with his family, was
Speaker 3: granted eternal life by the gods. Now, Utnapishtim is the
Speaker 3: protagonist of another story. He is the survivor of the
Speaker 3: Mesopotamian flood myth, of which Noah's flood story in the
Speaker 3: Book of Genesis seems to be a very close analog,
Speaker 3: so you can think of Utnapishtim and Noah as similar characters. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Utnapishtim and his family they have the gift of immortality,
Speaker 3: and so Gilgamash is going to try to get to
Speaker 3: Utnapishtim to figure out how to live forever himself. But
Speaker 3: to reach the old Man, Gilgamash has to go on
Speaker 3: along and perilous journey, and at one point in his
Speaker 3: journey he comes to the peaks of Mount Mashu, the
Speaker 3: mountain of the horizon, and there, nestled in the belly
Speaker 3: of the mountain is a great, yawning tunnel which he
Speaker 3: must pass through to meet the immortal One. But it's
Speaker 3: not just any tunnel. This tunnel is the path of
Speaker 3: the Sun. So every at sunset, the sun god Shamash
Speaker 3: must descend into one end of this tunnel and then
Speaker 3: emerge out the other side at dawn. Anyway, guarding the
Speaker 3: entrance of the path of the sun tunnel are two
Speaker 3: monstrous beings. You've got a scorpion man and a scorpion woman.
Speaker 3: So here I'm going to read from the Epic of
Speaker 3: Gilgamesh Tablet. Nine. This is the Stephanie Dally translation. And
Speaker 3: to be clear, there are some gaps in the text
Speaker 3: here and speculative words filled in. I'll try to make
Speaker 3: it smooth so it reads the name of the mountain
Speaker 3: is Mashu. When he reached the mountain Mashu, which daily
Speaker 3: guards the coming out of Shamash, their upper parts touch
Speaker 3: the sky's foundation. Below their breasts reach Aralu, meaning the underworld.
Speaker 3: They guard its gate. Scorpion men, whose aura is frightful
Speaker 3: and whose glance is death. They're terrifying. Mantles of radiance
Speaker 3: drape the mountains. They guard the sun at dawn and dusk.
Speaker 3: Gilgamesh looked at them, and fear and terror clouded his face.
Speaker 3: He took the initiative and gestured to them in greeting.
Speaker 3: A scorpion man shouted to his woman, someone has come
Speaker 3: to us. His body is the flesh of gods. The
Speaker 3: scorpion man's woman answered him to thirds of him is
Speaker 3: divine and one third of him is mortal, so I
Speaker 3: like that there. The scorpion woman is a bit more
Speaker 3: discerning in detecting mortality. Now, after this there is a
Speaker 3: section where a lot is missing. But it seems that
Speaker 3: what happens is the scorpion beings question Gilgamesh and where
Speaker 3: he's going, and he tells them he is traveling to
Speaker 3: meet his ancestor Napisht him they warn him not to
Speaker 3: try it because to reach it Napishtim, Gilgamesh has to
Speaker 3: pass through the tunnel under the mountain, which is filled
Speaker 3: with the thickest darkness. No man has ever made the
Speaker 3: journey alive, and missing text prevents us from knowing exactly
Speaker 3: what happens. But it seems that maybe the scorpion beings
Speaker 3: take pity on Gilga and then allow him to pass
Speaker 3: into the deep and he has to travel a full
Speaker 3: day in this hot, pitch blackness, but he does survive
Speaker 3: the journey and he makes it out to the other side,
Speaker 3: where he emerges into the garden of Shamash, where the
Speaker 3: trees are made of stone and they bear jewels as
Speaker 3: their fruits. So you can see different roles here in
Speaker 3: the Alish The scorpion people seem to be simply grouped
Speaker 3: among other poisonous monstrosities, the fighters of the primordial Sea,
Speaker 3: mother of Chaos, and they're going to do battle against
Speaker 3: Marduk and the younger generation of gods. But in Gilgamesh,
Speaker 3: while they are still presented as deadly and terrifying, they're
Speaker 3: more human and more humane. And though this part is speculative,
Speaker 3: one interpretation of the fragmentary text is that they allow
Speaker 3: Gilgamesh to pass the Gate of the Sun because they
Speaker 3: take pity on him. And according to Black and Green,
Speaker 3: you can see this duality in the way the image
Speaker 3: of the scorpion person is used for artistic and magical purposes.
Speaker 3: Much like Pazuzu, this horrifying entity can not only attack,
Speaker 3: he can also protect. So they chart the history of
Speaker 3: this imagery, saying that the scorpion person first appears in
Speaker 3: the Akkadian period in the third dynasty of Ur, and
Speaker 3: then the scorpion people images became more widespread during the
Speaker 3: Neo Assyrian and Neo Babylonian times, and in accordance with
Speaker 3: their role in Gilgamesh, they're often depicted as servants of
Speaker 3: the sun god Shamash, sometimes even bearing the up the
Speaker 3: image of the solar disc up on their bodies, and
Speaker 3: in the Neo Assyrian period, the image of the scorpion
Speaker 3: person in the form of a little wooden figurine serves
Speaker 3: for apotropaic magic, just like Pazuzu, warding off the malice
Speaker 3: of predatory demons and protecting the bearer's home from harm.
Speaker 3: So it seems interesting that this theme recurs with multiple
Speaker 3: horrible demons we've talkedalked about. Humbaba, Pazuzu, and the scorpion
Speaker 3: people are apparently all apotropaic shields at some point. While
Speaker 3: they're like some of the scariest monsters and demons that
Speaker 3: people can think of, they're also serving as protective magic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's so so fascinating to think about this again,
Speaker 2: within the trappings, and even just not in the trappings,
Speaker 2: but in the shadow cultural shadow of monotheistic religions. This
Speaker 2: is not something you tend to think about, you know.
Speaker 2: It tends to be the kind of thing that monotheistic
Speaker 2: religions have put a lot of effort into squashing, the
Speaker 2: idea that you can turn to any figure except for,
Speaker 2: you know, the supreme God, or maybe certain agents have
Speaker 2: said Supreme God but you certainly can't turn to any
Speaker 2: of the villains and ask for their help in matters.
Speaker 3: I'm going to recruit biels above to protect me against Belisle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you get into a nuanced conversation about well,
Speaker 2: I mean, one's far worse than the other. It makes
Speaker 2: sense to use the lesser evil against the greater ema.
Speaker 2: All right. Now moving on to a couple of other
Speaker 2: demons from ancient Mesopotamia. These are the two we're going
Speaker 2: to discuss here. Are both connected to some really striking imagery.
Speaker 2: Imagery from bass relief slabs found in the ancient Assyrian
Speaker 2: city of Nimrud in what is now Iraq now. Back
Speaker 2: in the ninth century BCE, this city was known as Kalhu,
Speaker 2: and the Assyrian king Ashur Nasirpal the second had them erected,
Speaker 2: I think, to either side of the main entrance to
Speaker 2: the Temple of Minurta. According to Black and Green, one
Speaker 2: particular image from these slabs is so evocative that you
Speaker 2: just find it all over the place, and if not,
Speaker 2: you know the actual image like a recreation of it,
Speaker 2: and you'll even find it on the Wikipedia page for
Speaker 2: Ancient Mesopotamian religion. One I've seen it on the cover
Speaker 2: of textbooks. I've seen it as like a striking image
Speaker 2: for museum displays that have to do with this time
Speaker 2: and or region. And it basically depicts two figures. One
Speaker 2: is a winged, bearded humanoid with thunderbolts or some sort
Speaker 2: of like Vodra type weapons in both of his hands,
Speaker 2: like double bladed, and he's battling or chasing after some
Speaker 2: sort of fearsome monster or demon. At least in my eyes,
Speaker 2: it's uncertain how many feet this creature walks on, like
Speaker 2: is it rearing up or does it just walk on
Speaker 2: those rear feet, which of course look like the feet
Speaker 2: of a bird. This thing is sometimes described as a
Speaker 2: kind of winged lion or a monstrous griffin of some sort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's got bird talons on its feet.
Speaker 3: It looks like but then also clawed for Paul, like
Speaker 3: maybe a lion's pause, though I don't know. Actually they
Speaker 3: look more like hands with fingers, and then scales all
Speaker 3: over the body and what looks kind of like a
Speaker 3: lion's head, but weirdly, the neck doesn't look very leonine.
Speaker 3: It looks more like a snake rising up like a
Speaker 3: you know, venomous snake rising up and hissing with its
Speaker 3: mouth open and then feathery wings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a doubt, it is fearsome looking. And apparently
Speaker 2: this is another case where we don't one hundred percent
Speaker 2: know who these entities are. There seem to be some
Speaker 2: best guesses and some some solid hypotheses, but sometimes they're
Speaker 2: just presented as chaos demon and sun god or something
Speaker 2: you know, generic like that British Museum sources. It should
Speaker 2: be pointed out the British Museum this is where you'll
Speaker 2: currently find the slabs, basically just as the god would
Speaker 2: have been. The local thunder deity Nenurta. Black and Green
Speaker 2: also present the god Adad as a possibility, but seem
Speaker 2: to focus more on this character of Nunurta and what
Speaker 2: is he battling. Well, British Museum sources suggest possibly the
Speaker 2: monster Anzu, also known as the bird Imdigod. This is
Speaker 2: a great lion headed bird that steals the Tablet of
Speaker 2: Destinies from Inki or Inlil and the pictured god then
Speaker 2: slays the monster in order to retrieve this sacred artifact.
Speaker 2: Now you might be wondering, well, okay, what's the deal
Speaker 2: with the tablet of destinies. The name like that, it's
Speaker 2: got to be important, and yes, it is important. It
Speaker 2: is essentially the most important binding legal document in the universe.
Speaker 2: According to this mythology, as Black and Green point out,
Speaker 2: the tablet was essentially a tablet of uniform writing impressed
Speaker 2: also with cylinder seals, and it would give the possessor
Speaker 2: power and authority to determine the destinies of the world
Speaker 2: everyone in the world, and linked heaven to the underworld.
Speaker 2: So I suppose you could almost think of it as
Speaker 2: the world tree in a legal document form, no doubt,
Speaker 2: you know, driving home the importance of writing in the
Speaker 2: cultures of ancient Mesopotamia. So normally inlel or Inky holds
Speaker 2: the tablet close to his chest, clutching it as the
Speaker 2: guarantee of his rule. You don't want this to fall
Speaker 2: into the wrong hands after all, or the wrong clause,
Speaker 2: because that's exactly what happens, and then Ninuta has to
Speaker 2: reclaim them and then return them to their rightful owner.
Speaker 2: So in and of itself, pretty tremendous story and pretty
Speaker 2: great role for a monster or demon. But Black and
Speaker 2: Green also suggested the creature in this image could be
Speaker 2: the great demon, a sag or a Saku. Carol Rose
Speaker 2: describes the sog as a demon of disease who spreads pestilence,
Speaker 2: poisons the earth, and causes wells to dry up. Black
Speaker 2: and Green describe a demon so hideous and powerful that
Speaker 2: the fish boil alive in the rivers at his approach. Whoa,
Speaker 2: He is the offspring of the sky god, and he
Speaker 2: himself has mate it with the mountains to produce monstrous offspring,
Speaker 2: presumably the Stone warriors who follow him into battle. And
Speaker 2: this kind of ties back in with the Zagros Mountains
Speaker 2: because they write on one level the defeat of Nnuta.
Speaker 2: In this myth of the Asag and the Stones expresses
Speaker 2: the unease felt by the inhabitants of the Mesopotamian Plain
Speaker 2: about the inhabitants of the Zagros Mountains. As you'll remember
Speaker 2: in the last episode, these mountains to the west were
Speaker 2: thought to produce winds of pestilence that would roll down
Speaker 2: into the region in question.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and you know when we see like what
Speaker 3: actually are the effects that demons, like malevolent demons tend
Speaker 3: to produce on human beings. It is often described in
Speaker 3: Mesopotamian texts as as like winds sort of weather phenomena
Speaker 3: and disease, and disease I think was often thought to
Speaker 3: ride on the winds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will have to add a note here
Speaker 2: that is a common occurrence when we're researching mythologies that
Speaker 2: you'll encounter some sort of like monstrous entities or a
Speaker 2: monstrous race and you're like, oh, these are really fascinating.
Speaker 2: I wonder what the origin is, and then you'll look
Speaker 2: into it and it's like, oh, it's because one people
Speaker 2: distrusted in other people and describe them as monster. One
Speaker 2: people wiped out another people and described them as monsters. So, uh,
Speaker 2: you know again it's you know, we see this in
Speaker 2: like certain aspects of Irish mythology if I recall correctly.
Speaker 2: So again you know that the shadows of humanity's failings
Speaker 2: certainly color even even some of our more fantastic and
Speaker 2: uh and and captivating myths. But uh anyway, Zog was
Speaker 2: also frequently mentioned in spells against illness, especially head fevers,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know this is this is because I
Speaker 2: guess you need to name the demon that you are saying,
Speaker 2: don't come in, don't come in here, head fever demon.
Speaker 2: And in some traditions, the asaku are said to be
Speaker 2: a group of seven demons, not so much an individual
Speaker 2: but a group of seven.
Speaker 3: Now, rob one thing we ended up talking about in
Speaker 3: the last episode was the sort of proposed timeline of
Speaker 3: the changing role of demons in ancient Mesopotamian religions and cosmologies,
Speaker 3: and also how that affected views of the afterlife, because
Speaker 3: of course, you know, the modern Christian vision of Hell
Speaker 3: is one that is populated by demons often, but this
Speaker 3: is not necessarily the case with all visions of an
Speaker 3: embodied afterlife. You could imagine another world that doesn't really
Speaker 3: have any demons running around in it, but at least
Speaker 3: some versions of the ancient Mesopotamian underworld of the dead
Speaker 3: did have a demonic population.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's sometimes the case that they're not so
Speaker 2: much just evil things that happen to live there, but
Speaker 2: they have a job, they have a role, they're kind
Speaker 2: of part of the overall cosmic order. Of course, we
Speaker 2: see shades of this when we consider sort of the
Speaker 2: wider loose and you know, it's the amorphous ideas about
Speaker 2: even you know, the Christian cosmology and heaven and hell like, okay,
Speaker 2: are the devils imprisoned in hell or do they work there,
Speaker 2: like if they torment human souls there, in which some
Speaker 2: of these beliefs would would have. What have you believe then?
Speaker 2: Is it like who signs their paycheck? Is that a
Speaker 2: Satan thing? Is that a God thing?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: How does it work? You know, I don't know, big, big,
Speaker 2: tough problems of religion and theology. Certainly you get into
Speaker 2: if you follow this thread enough.
Speaker 3: The idea of a hell with demons working in it,
Speaker 3: by the way, is as we talked about it in
Speaker 3: the last episode, that's not in the Hebrew Bible at all.
Speaker 3: That does emerge in Christian theology, but it's actually that
Speaker 3: specific idea with demons working in hell to torture the
Speaker 3: damned is not even in the Christian New Testament.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it looks good. It looks really cool in
Speaker 2: a wood cut, but you know, for my money, you
Speaker 2: can kind of leave that on the table. Anyway, This
Speaker 2: comes to a particular type of demon though in the
Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamian world that did have a job. So the
Speaker 2: demons in question here are the Gala or the Galu
Speaker 2: underworld demons charged with dragging people off to the underworld,
Speaker 2: they were said to number seven, and there were numerous
Speaker 2: spells that might be used to ward them away. So
Speaker 2: there's another case where at least some spells are saying
Speaker 2: like no, no, no, do not come here, Gala, We
Speaker 2: do not want you. Do not drag me into the underworld.
Speaker 2: When the goddess in Anna returns from her descent into
Speaker 2: the underworld, she's accompanied by the Gala. And while again
Speaker 2: they're generally perceived as horrific beings with a horrific purpose
Speaker 2: from our standpoint, they're also not necessarily evil, just more
Speaker 2: of a harsh part of the cosmic order, and so
Speaker 2: they could also be invoked in a positive sense. So
Speaker 2: there are references to both good Gala and evil God,
Speaker 2: you know, like good Gala, come on in, Evil Goala
Speaker 2: stay away, and and yeah, so I did wonder, like
Speaker 2: you know how much of this is about individual natures
Speaker 2: and or just their intentions, like just saying like Gala,
Speaker 2: if you're here for me, please keep on moving. But
Speaker 2: if you're here for souls that are not supposed to
Speaker 2: be here, for ghosts or whatever, then come on come
Speaker 2: on in. Do you do your job now? You might wonder, well,
Speaker 2: how often does this occur? Like, what are the stories?
Speaker 2: And there is one key story where they have a
Speaker 2: major role, and it is the story of Ananna and
Speaker 2: her descent into the underworld, which if I am understanding correctly,
Speaker 2: we don't necessarily know why she goes into the underworld.
Speaker 2: I think there have been a number of hypotheses as to,
Speaker 2: you know, why this would be. And certainly you can
Speaker 2: look at other descent into the underworld stories from other
Speaker 2: traditions that come later and you know, get some idea about,
Speaker 2: you know, why this would work. But it's essentially she
Speaker 2: finds herself in a situation where she cannot leave without
Speaker 2: some one taking her place, and so what did the
Speaker 2: Gala do? Will they venture back to our world? And
Speaker 2: they drag her young husband, Dumuzi, the shepherd god, away
Speaker 2: in the night, so she's allowed to go free. But
Speaker 2: Dumuzie dies and becomes a god of the underworld. And
Speaker 2: there are accounts of the sheep skin that he slept
Speaker 2: in was found empty, you know, because they dragged him
Speaker 2: out of it in the night and took him off
Speaker 2: to the underworld. But you know, he's a god, so
Speaker 2: it gets to be a god in the underworld, and
Speaker 2: you know, he ends up. I was reading some descriptions
Speaker 2: in Black and Green where they talk about I believe
Speaker 2: it was Black and Green talking about like his role
Speaker 2: in the underworld is kind of guardian, kind of a shepherd,
Speaker 2: and then he's you know, and then we have these
Speaker 2: these gala around him as well. And this kind of
Speaker 2: reminded me a little bit of what we're presented with
Speaker 2: with Goser and Ghostbusters. You know, some sort of entity
Speaker 2: that is supposed to you know, that is attended by
Speaker 2: monstrous beings and perhaps has some role regarding the flow
Speaker 2: in and out of the underworld, which you know in Ghostbusters,
Speaker 2: the Ghostbusters have interrupted this, they have messed with things
Speaker 2: with their ghostbusting and ghost capturing technology.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's very good. But you know, I was actually
Speaker 3: thinking of another comparison that tied into some older episodes
Speaker 3: we did, and that would be while acknowledging many of
Speaker 3: the differences, some similarities there with the story of Osiris,
Speaker 3: who dies, goes into the underworld, and you know, is
Speaker 3: sometimes I think dubiously called like a god who dies
Speaker 3: and rises again. O Cyrus actually stays in the underworld,
Speaker 3: so sort of stays in this dead state, but is
Speaker 3: transformed and in a way transforms the underworld himself becomes
Speaker 3: an authority there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I'm not sure. There's a lot
Speaker 2: deeper one could go into, looking at like what does
Speaker 2: it mean to have a shepherd God become a major
Speaker 2: figure in the afterlife? And what does it say Tatus's
Speaker 2: line up too, with the emergence of this concept of
Speaker 2: a shadowy afterlife and our expectations for it, and the
Speaker 2: things we might want for ourselves in it, and the
Speaker 2: things we can do here for ourselves or for our
Speaker 2: loved ones. Certainly this idea of the divine as a
Speaker 2: shepherd does not go away, and it's with us still
Speaker 2: today in some traditions.
Speaker 3: All right, well, you know what I promised in the
Speaker 3: last episode that we were going to come back and
Speaker 3: talk about Humbaba some more. But it seems like we're
Speaker 3: really out of time on this series, So maybe we'll
Speaker 3: have to return to Humbaba in the future, and in
Speaker 3: fact to the general category of ancient Mesopotamian demons. There's
Speaker 3: some whole other tangents I got really interested in but
Speaker 3: didn't have time to fully develop or research, maybe having
Speaker 3: to do with some connections to the Asiatic lion so
Speaker 3: maybe we'll come back and do more ancient Mesopotamian demons
Speaker 3: in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm totally downd for that. There's a lot we
Speaker 2: could discuss, and really there's even a lot more with
Speaker 2: the epic of Gilgamesh that we eat into. Yeah, we've
Speaker 2: covered aspects of it in the past, but it's certainly
Speaker 2: something we could do a deep dive on. All right,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and close it out. Then, just a reminder,
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and
Speaker 2: culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We
Speaker 2: don't always talk about demons and monsters and so forth,
Speaker 2: but it is October, so you're going to find mostly that,
Speaker 2: if not only that, during the month of October, and then,
Speaker 2: like you know, thirty forty percent of the time the
Speaker 2: rest of the year. On Fridays, we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. You'll again find those episodes on Fridays,
Speaker 2: and during the month of October they are all going
Speaker 2: to be you know, horror and Halloween related.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.
Speaker 3: You can email us at contact stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
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