20 - Utu/Shamash
10 - Ishkur/Adad
6 male deities
Female
55 - Antu
4.5 - Ninlil
35 - Ninki
25 - Ningal
15 - Inanna/Ishtar
- Ninhursag
female deities
Ninurta, we should not be surprised to learn, was assigned the number 50, like his father. In other words, his dynastic rank was conveyed in a cryptographic message: If Enlil goes, you, Ninurta, step into his shoes; but until then, you are not one of the Twelve, for the rank of "50" is occupied.
Nor should we be surprised to learn that when Marduk usurped the Enlilship, he insisted that the gods bestow on him "the fifty names" to signify that the rank of "50" had become his.
There were many other gods in Sumer - children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews of the Great Gods; there were also several hundred rank-and-file gods, called Anunnaki, who were assigned (one may say) "general duties." But only twelve made the Great Circle.
THE NEFILIM: PEOPLE OF THE FIERY ROCKETS
SUMEHIAN AND AKKADIAN texts leave no doubt that the peoples of the ancient Near East were certain that the Gods of
Heaven and Earth were able to rise from Earth and ascend into the heavens, as well as roam Earth's skies at will.
In a text dealing with the rape of Inanna/Ishtar by an unidentified person, he justifies his deed thus:
One day my Queen,
After crossing heaven, crossing earth -
Inanna,
After crossing heaven, crossing earth - After crossing Elam and Shubur, After crossing . . .
The hierodule approached weary, fell asleep. I saw her from the edge of my garden; Kissed her, copulated with her.
Inanna, here described as roaming the heavens over many lands that lie far apart- - feats possible only by flying - herself spoke on another occasion of her flying. In a text which S.- Langdon (in Revue d'Assyriologie et d'Archeologie Orientale) named "A Classical Liturgy to Innini," the goddess laments her expulsion from her city. Acting on the instructions of Enlil, an emissary, who "brought to me the word of Heaven," entered her throne room, "his unwashed hands put on me," and, after other indignities, Me, from my temple, they caused to fly; A Queen am I whom, from my city, like a bird they caused to fly.
Such a capability, by Inanna as well as the other major gods, was often indicated by the ancient artists by depicting the gods - anthropomorphic in all other respects, as we have seen - with wings. The wings, as can be seen from numerous depictions, were not part of the body - not natural wings - but rather a decorative attachment to the god's clothing. Inanna/Ishtar, whose far-flung travels are mentioned in many ancient texts, commuted between her initial distant domain in Aratta and her coveted abode in Uruk. She called upon Enki in Eridu and Enlil in Nippur, and visited
her brother Utu at his headquarters in Sippar. But her most celebrated journey was to the Lower World, the domain of her sister Ereshkigal. The journey was the subject not only of epic tales but also of artistic depictions on cylinder seals - the latter showing the goddess with wings, to stress the fact that she flew over from Sumer to the Lower World.
The texts dealing with this hazardous journey describe how Inanna very meticulously put on herself seven objects prior to the start of the voyage, and how she had to give them up as she passed through the seven gates leading to her sister's abode. Seven such objects are also mentioned in other texts dealing with Inanna's skyborne travels:
The SHU.GAR.RA she put on her head.
"Measuring pendants," on her ears.
Chains of small blue stones, around her neck.
Twin "stones," on her shoulders.
A golden cylinder, in her hands.
Straps, clasping her breast.
The PALA garment, clothed around her body.
Though no one has as yet been able to explain the nature and significance of these seven objects, we feel that the answer has long been available. Excavating the Assyrian capital Assur from 1903 to 1914, Walter Andrae
and his colleagues found in the Temple of Ishtar a battered statue of the goddess showing her with various "contraptions" attached to her chest and back. In 1934 archaeologists excavating at Mari came upon a similar but intact statue buried in the ground. It was a life-size likeness of a beautiful woman. Her unusual headdress was adorned with a pair of horns, indicating that she was a goddess. Standing around the 4,000-year-old statue, the archaeologists were thrilled by her lifelike appearance (in a snapshot, one can hardly distinguish between the statue and the living men). They named her The Goddess with a Vase because she was holding a cylindrical object.
Unlike the flat carvings or bas-reliefs, this life-size, three-dimensional representation of the goddess reveals interesting features about her attire. On her head she wears not a milliner's chapeau but a special helmet; protruding from it on both sides and fitted over the ears are objects that remind one of a pilot's earphones. On her neck and upper chest the goddess wears a necklace of many small (and probably precious) stones; in her hands she holds a cylindrical object which appears too thick and heavy to be a vase for holding water.
Over a blouse of see-through material, two parallel straps run across her chest, leading back to and holding in place an unusual box of rectangular shape. The box is held tight against the back of the goddess's neck and is firmly attached to the helmet with a horizontal strap. Whatever the box held inside must have been heavy, for the contraption is further supported by two large shoulder pads. The weight of the box is increased by a hose that is connected to its base by a circular clasp. The complete package of instruments - for this is what they undoubtedly were - is held in place with the aid of the two sets of straps that crisscross the goddess's back and chest.
The parallel between the seven objects required by Inanna for her aerial journeys and the dress and objects worn by the statue from Mari (and probably also the mutilated one found at Ishtar's temple in Ashur) is easily proved. We see the "measuring pendants" - the earphones - on her ears; the rows or "chains" of small stones around her neck; the "twin stones" - the two shoulder pads - on her shoulders; the "golden cylinder" in her hands, and the clasping straps that crisscross her breast. She is indeed clothed in a "PALA garment" ("ruler's garment"), and on her head she wears the SHU.GAR.RA helmet - a term that literally means "that which makes go far into universe."
All this suggests to us that the attire of Inanna was that of an aeronaut or an astronaut.
The Old Testament called the "angels" of the Lord malachim - literally, "emissaries," who carried divine messages and carried out divine commands. As so many instances reveal, they were divine airmen: Jacob saw them going up a sky ladder, Hagar (Abraham's concubine) was addressed by them from the sky, and it was they who brought about the aerial destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The biblical account of the events preceding the destruction of the two sinful cities illustrates the fact that these emissaries were, on the one hand, anthropomorphic in all respects, and, on the other hand, they could be identified as "angels" as soon as they were observed. We learn that their appearance was sudden. Abraham "raised his eyes and, lo and behold, there were three men standing by him." Bowing and calling them "My Lords," he pleaded with them, "Do not pass over thy servant," and prevailed on them to wash their feet, rest, and eat.
Having done as Abraham had requested, two of the angels (the third "man" turned out to be the Lord himself) then proceeded to Sodom. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, "was sitting at the gate of Sodom; and when he saw them he rose up to meet them and bowed to the ground, and said: If it pleases my Lords, pray come to the house of thy servant and wash your feet and sleep overnight." Then "he made for them a feast, and they ate." When the news of the arrival of the two spread in the town, "all the town's people, young and old, surrounded the house, and called out to Lot and said: Where are the men who came this night unto thee?"