Beshur Bes

Bes
From Cows of Gold

Other Names: Bisu, Aha (fighter)
Meaning of Name:“Little Warrior.” The word Bes also appears to be connected to the Nubian word for “cat” (besa.)
Family: Bes’ wife was thought to be Taweret. Beginning during the late Middle Kingdom, he was paired with a female form, named Beset or Besit.
Titles: “Lord of Punt”

“Great Dwarf with a Large Head and Short Thighs”
“The Fighter”

Hieroglyphics:

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Bes was a deity originally African in origin who was absorbed into the Egyptian pantheon. Bes frightened off bad spirits with his fearsome face, but was fiercely loyal to his family, and comforted them in times of sickness or childbirth. A popular household idol, the ancient Egyptians believed that Bes protected against snake and scorpion bites. He was called “The Fighter” because of his ferocity – Bes was thought to have been able to strangle lions, antelopes (thought to be agents of chaos), and cobras with his bare hands.

Sons of Satan

Enki and Enlil
By Dan Ward

According to the ancient Sumerian texts, the Sumerian god, Anu, the “supreme Lord of the Sky”, the currently reigning titular head of the Sumerian Family Tree, had two sons. They were Enki (Ea), Lord of the Earth and Waters (whose mother was Antu), and Enlil (Ilu), Lord of the Air and Lord of the Command (whose mother was Ki). These two half-brothers — surprise, surprise — did not get along.

Hand of Fatima

Hamsa

The hamsa (Arabic: خمسة‎ khamsah, meaning lit. “five”) is a palm-shaped amulet popular throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and commonly used in jewelry and wall hangings. Depicting the open right hand, an image recognized and used as a sign of protection in many societies throughout history, the hamsa is believed to provide defense against the evil eye. The symbol predates Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

In Islam, it is also known as the hand of Fatima, so named to commemorate Muhammad’s daughter Fatima Zahra (c. 605 or 615 – 633). Levantine Christians call it the hand of Mary, for the Virgin Mary. Jews refer to it as the hand of Miriam in remembrance of the biblical Miriam, sister of Moses and

Ziggurats

The reconstructed facade of the Neo-Sumerian Great Ziggurat of Ur, near Nasiriyah, Iraq

Ziggurat

Ziggurats (Akkadian ziqqurat, D-stem of zaqāru “to build on a raised area”) were massive structures built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.

Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, Iraq; the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad,

Enuma Elish – The Second Rock

ENUMA ELISH – THE EPIC OF CREATION
L.W. King Translator
(from The Seven Tablets of Creation, London 1902)

THE SECOND TABLET

Tiamat made weighty her handiwork,
Evil she wrought against the gods her children.
To avenge Apsu, Tiamat planned evil,
But how she had collected her forces, the god unto Ea divulged.
Ea harkened to this thing, and
He was grievously afflicted and he sat in sorrow.
The days went by, and his anger was appeased,
And to the place of Ansar his father he took his way.
He went and, standing before Ansar, the father who begat him,
All that Tiamat had plotted he repeated unto him,

Enuma Elish – The First Rock

ENUMA ELISH – THE EPIC OF CREATION
L.W. King Translator
(from The Seven Tablets of Creation, London 1902)

THE FIRST TABLET

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being…

Mesophy Lords and Myth

Lords of Heaven and Earth

Mesopotamia was an ancient civilization positioned between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. Today, this area is known as Iraq. The myth describes the structure of the pantheon and the political upheaval, is the Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation story that describes the battle between the old and young gods.

The Enuma elish tells of a beginning when all was a watery chaos and only the sea, Tiamat, and the sweet waters under ground, Apsu, mingled their waters together. Mummu, the personified original watery form, served as Apsu’s minister. In their midst the gods were born. The first pair, Lahmu and Lahamu, represented the powers in silt; the next, Anshar and Kishar, those in the horizon. They created the god of heaven, An, and he in turn the god of the flowing sweet waters, Ea.

A list of gods of An: Anum, gives a different beginning, Lahmu and Lahamu give rise to Duri and Dari, “the time-cycle”; and these in turn give rise to Enshar and Ninshar, “Lord and Lady Circle.”

For the Shema Girl

Gilgamesh

By Joshua Mark (edited)

Gilgamesh is the mythic King of Uruk, best known from The Epic of Gilgamesh, the great Sumerian/Babylonian poetic work which pre-dates Homer’s writing. Gilgamesh rescues a powerful & potent woman from a difficult situation and shows his high regard.

The motif of the quest for the meaning of life is first fully explored in Gilgamesh as the hero-king leaves his kingdom following the death of his best friend, Enkidu, to find the mystical figure Utnapishtim and gain eternal life. Gilgamesh’s fear of death is actually a fear of meaninglessness and, although he fails to win immortality, the quest itself gives his life meaning. This theme has been explored by writers and philosophers from antiquity up to the present day.

Gilgamesh’ father is said to have been the Priest-King Lugalbanda  and his mother the goddess Ninsun (or Ninsumun). Accordingly, Gilgamesh was to be possessed of super-human strength.

Elam Arna Tablets

The El-Amarna Tablets

The El-Amarna tablets archive mostly diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration of Kemet and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru [=Amarna and capital Elam] during the New Kingdom. The letters were found in Egypt, to be found again in Kemet at the former capital of Akhetaten (Eighteenth dynasty).

The known tablets total 382.The correspondence spans a period of at most thirty years. Some of these letters, comprising cuneiform tablets mostly written in Akkadian – the regional language of diplomacy in Mesopotamia for the period – were first discovered circa 1887 by local Arabs.

The tablets have been scattered among museums: 202 or 203 are at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin; 80 in the British Museum; 49 or 50 at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo; seven at the Louvre; three at the Pushkin Museum; and one in the collection of the Oriental Institute in Chicago.

Still Looking For Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was the dominant city of Mesopotamia. The name was linked to the Pr-Hapi-n-Iwnw (Nile house of Heliopolis) in Kemet, the dwelling of deity Hapi in Heliopolis city. Heliopolis lay northeast of Memphis, near the commencement of the Pharaonic Canal, connecting the Nile to the Red Sea.

Babylon Fortress was an ancient fortress city or castle in the Delta of Egypt, located at Babylon. It was at the boundary between Mesopotamia and Lower Egypt.

Diodorus ascribes the erection of the first fort to rebel Assyrian captives in the reign of Sesostris, and Ctesias (Persica) dates it to the time of Semiramis. The first fort was built by the Persians in about the 6th century BCE. When the Romans took possession of Mesopotamia and Lower Egypt,