Myths and tales of the ancient east.

The book, translated by a professional writer and historian, contains the myths of the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, Indians and Chinese. A significant place is devoted to biblical stories that underlie Christianity. The publication continues the series in which “Myths of Ancient Hellas” was published in 1991.

The book is addressed to middle and high school students, as well as anyone interested in ancient history.

(From the publisher)

A. I. Nemirovsky

Myths and legends of the Ancient East

To the continent of myths

The oldest legends and traditions in the world became known relatively recently. For thousands of years, clay tablets, papyri, bamboo tablets, slabs with inscriptions lay under sand hills, in the ruins of cities, and no one knew what treasures of the human mind and imagination were hidden in them. The little that was known about the myths of the Ancient East before the excavations of these hills and the reading of unknown writings was conveyed by the sacred books of the ancient Jews - the Bible, the ancient Iranians "Avesta", the ancient Indians - "Veda", "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana". However, Europeans became acquainted with these monuments, besides the Bible, only in the 18th–19th centuries.

Nowadays we stand before the Eastern myths in some confusion. What kind of “light from the East” is there? A real avalanche, a raging, unrelenting stream, for almost every decade brings new material, new information that I would like to call the discovery of the century.

In this situation, every book, especially popular ones, is seen as Noah’s ark, which must be filled with the brightest and most significant. And the author is faced with the problem of choice, and choice is always subjective. The reader will have to rely on the author's erudition and artistic taste. Critics need to keep in mind that we had at our disposal not the Titanic, but the ark. However, we tried not to offend any ancient Eastern culture, any mythology of the huge region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean in chronological framework ancient civilization. And if some of them are represented by a larger number of pairs of “pure” and “impure”, then there were good reasons for this, which will be explained in due time.

The creator of the biblical ark had to build partitions so that the animals would not devour each other on the long journey. This danger did not threaten us. But accommodating a huge mass of character passengers still presented certain difficulties. Some of them, the more famous ones, beat their chests and demanded better compartments. To withstand the pressure, they had to use their own principle of primogeniture. The most ancient and venerable gods and heroes were passed forward. At the same time, antiquity was determined not by word of mouth - everyone assured that he was the most ancient - but by seniority, certified by a historical document. Therefore, Moses and Aaron had to let Osiris and Isis, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Telepinus and Ullikume, Balu and Daniel go ahead.

And there is one more difficulty, it seems, the most important one. Those who emerge from the ark find themselves not on deserted Ararat, but in a world deafened by a cacaphony of sounds alien to the society and nature of which they were the product. Should we try to bring the ancients closer to us, scrape and clean them, dress them in modern attire in order to make them more understandable, “ours”? Or, on the contrary, to preserve, to the extent possible, the ancient appearance and ancient figurative speech, let them speak out, and then explain and interpret all this? We chose the latter path, although for this we had to take on board a whole staff of invisible translators and commentators, allocating for them a special, lower compartment of the ark.

Gods and heroes of Ancient Egypt

The ancient Greeks talked about a stone statue of the Egyptian hero Memnon, which began to sing as soon as the rays of the Sun touched it. Such singing stones turned out to be stone statues and slabs covered with writings. When they managed to read them, they sang hymns to the gods who created the heavenly bodies and the earth, told about the fate of those who died in underground world. The sun turned out to be human Reason, glorified by A. S. Pushkin just in those years when Francois Champollion made his great discovery:

The sands, which preserved papyri with writing, added their voices to the songs of the stone. Thus, a picture of a fantastic world was revealed to humanity, in some ways similar to the one that was known to him from the Bible and from the works of Greek poets, but in many ways different from it.

Unfortunately, the songs of stones and sand often end mid-sentence. What we know are fragments of the richest religious and mythological literature Ancient Egypt. Considerable difficulties in recreating a complete picture are caused by the inconsistency of Egyptian stories about the gods, due to the circumstances of the centuries-old history of the Egyptian people. For thousands of years, the Egyptians lived in separate, little connected areas - nomes. Each nome worshiped its own gods. Sometimes these were embodiments of the same forces of nature with different names. Thus, the god of the earth in some nomes was Aker, in others - Geb, the mother goddess in one nome was called Mut, in another - Isis. Ideas about a god with the same name in different nomes were also contradictory. If in the myths of the nome of Heliopolis the god Set is the worst enemy of the solar gods, then in the myths of the nome of Heracleopolis he is the “charming Set” - the assistant of the sun god Ra, saving the solar barge and its “crew” from mortal danger. This extraordinary fluidity of ideas about the gods was also associated with the possibility of changing their pedigree and identifying some gods with others.

Egyptian gods and goddesses often appeared in the form of animals, birds, and reptiles, and this greatly surprised Greek travelers, who were accustomed to thinking of their gods in human form (anthropomorphism). The Greek historian Plutarch, explaining the Egyptians' veneration of the hippopotamus and the crocodile, wrote that they were afraid of these most terrible of wild animals. But in Egypt they also worshiped other animals that did not cause horror, for example, the hare, gazelle, and frog. Therefore, the Greeks came up with another explanation for the appearance of the Egyptian gods that surprised them: frightened by something, the gods in fear put on animal masks and remained in them.

Creation of the world

Heliopolis legend

The text is presented on the Bremner-Rind papyrus from the time of Alexander, son of Alexander the Great, and dates from 312–311. BC e. However, its content dates back to the era of the pharaohs, to the so-called “Pyramid Texts,” which are also partially used in our transcription.

Says the Lord of the Universe after he has come into existence:

I am the one who existed as Khepri

I co-existed, and existences co-existed, and many beings came out of my mouth. There was neither heaven nor earth yet. There was no land yet, no snakes. The boundless Nun stretched out

Coming out of it, I did not find a place to step, and therefore I created the eternal hill Ben-Ben. Standing on it, I thought before my face and created the omnipresent. Being alone, I threw Shu out

from the mouth, Tefnut regurgitated

And my father Nun said: “Let them increase!”

After that they existed as one god in three persons. Me, Shu and Tefnut. From Shu and Tefnut other gods and goddesses were born.

Creation of the world

Memphis legend

This text dates back to the time of the king of the XXV Ethiopian dynasty Shabaki (about 710 BC). At this time, the ancient political and religious center of Memphis again became the capital, “the scales of both lands,” the main religious center, and this required justification in the form of the glorification of Ptah.

In the introductory part of the “Shabaka Stele” it is said that the pharaoh found a half-decayed papyrus in the temple and ordered its text to be reproduced on stone. This is clearly a fiction, just like the report about the discovery of the text of ancient laws - Deuteronomy - in the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Such praise of Ptah could not have happened in ancient times. The innovation is that the world and the gods were created not through a physical act, as is typical for ancient cosmogony and theogony, but through thought and word. The Memphis text makes clear the story of the creation of the world by Yahweh, which appeared around the same time in Palestine.

A thought arose in the heart in the image of Atum, it arose on the tongue in this image. Great and huge is also Ptah

Inherited his power from all the gods and their spirits through this heart, through this tongue.

And it became so that the heart and tongue received power over all members, for they knew that Ptah is in every body, in the mouth of every god, all people, all animals, all worms and everything that lives, for he thinks and commands all things, whatever he wants. The Nine Gods of Atum arose from his seed and fingers, but the Nine Gods of Ptah are the teeth and lips in these lips, which pronounce the names of all things, and from which came Shu and Tefnut. Nine Ptah created the vision of the eyes, the hearing of the ears, the sense of smell of the nose, so that they would convey all this to the heart, for all true knowledge comes from it, while the tongue repeats only what is conceived by the heart.

Creation of the world

Herakleopolis cosmogony

The Heracleopolitan story of the creation of the world is part of a 22nd century work. BC e. “The Instruction of the King of Heracleopolis to his Son,” kept in the Hermitage.

The city of Khensu, known to the Greeks as Heracleopolis, was considered one of the places where the creator first stepped onto land from the primordial ocean. About the main god of Heracleopolis, Hershef, one of the texts said: “Where he rises, the earth is illuminated, his right eye is the Sun, his left is the Moon, his soul is light, a breath comes out of his nose to enliven everything.”

The ruler of both lands created for people, his flock that came out of his body, heaven and earth, destroying chaos and creating air for their breathing. He created plants, animals, birds and fish for their food. Fulfilling their desires, he created light and, rising in the sky, floats across it so that they could contemplate it. He created rulers for them, instructing them to support the weak, created spells so that they could protect themselves from what was coming, and erected places for prayer, from where he could hear their cries and pleas.

But he is formidable towards those who plot against him, even if they are his own children, he mercilessly destroys his enemies.

Khnum - creator of the world

The text on which the presentation is based was discovered in the Greco-Roman temple of the village of Esne, but Khnum himself is one of the most ancient Egyptian gods, the centers of his veneration, in addition to Esne, were the island of Elephantine, Antinoe and many places in Nubia. Initially, Khnum was thought of as a ram with curled horns, and later as a man with a ram's head. Khnum was considered the giver of water, the guardian of the sources of the Nile. Drawings depicting him sculpting a man appeared in Egypt in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e.

The divine Khnum, son of Nun, is beneficial. The sweet breath of the north emanates from it. The gods born by him breathed it in, the people he sculpted on the potter's wheel breathed it in, it permeated everything that has a form, moves and lives. Khnum created both lands, built cities and divided the fields.

Tales of the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia

Gods of Mesopotamia

Ancient observers saw Mesopotamia as an earthly paradise, not always realizing the titanic labor that created abundance here. The Tigris and Euphrates flowing from the mountains of Armenia with their numerous tributaries overflowed with meltwater in the spring and turned the lowlands into a continuous swamp. Constant efforts were required to drain excess water into canals and clear silt from canal beds. But the harvest on irrigated lands was fantastically large. Apart from water and soil, Mesopotamia did not have the natural resources that neighboring countries possessed. No stone, no wood, no metals. Dwellings had to be built from clay and reeds, using sun-baked bricks. The oil for which modern Mesopotamia is famous was known in the most distant times. But its use in ancient times was limited.

The most ancient people of Mesopotamia, about whom we know from the written monuments they left behind, were the Sumerians. These monuments were excavated in the last century from sand hills that arose on the site of ancient cities. But only in the 20th century. managed to read and understand Sumerian texts, which opened up the amazing world of Sumerian culture. Now no one doubts that the roots of those who grew up in the territory inhabited by the Sumerians (the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, flowing into Persian Gulf) Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian civilizations, and after them the cultures of all of Western Asia.

Along with economic texts and state acts, the Sumerians left records of their myths. Following the Sumerians, their myths were retold by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. One modern expert on Sumerian culture, who has done a lot to understand them, expressed the meaning of myths in the title of his book, “History Begins in Sumer.” Together with the myths, we dive into the depths of five or more millennia. Myths reveal the Sumerians' ideas about man's place in the world, about his dependence on the powerful forces of nature and on gods created in the image of people. Myths are the sacred history of the Sumerians, where, along with the gods, there are ancestors and progenitors who gave life to the “blackheads” (as the Sumerians called themselves) and, through an oversight, deprived them of the main benefit that they themselves enjoyed - immortality. In myths, religion, philosophy, history, poetry and art exist in an inextricable unity. From these legends and myths we learn what the Sumerians and Akkadians thought about the origin of the universe and the heavenly bodies, mountains, seas, natural phenomena how they imagined the emergence of humanity and the beginning of it economic activity. Myths, unlike fairy tales that are similar in form but later in time, not only develop our imagination, but also enrich us with knowledge about the distant historical past. The most obvious manifestation of the historicism of Sumerian myths is that mythological narratives open with introductions of this type: “in ancient days”, “in ancient nights”, “in ancient nights”, “in ancient years”, “in ancient years”.

The form in which myths conveyed history to us is not entirely clear to modern man, living in a completely different environment and thinking differently than the creators and listeners of ancient myths. Therefore, we need to imagine the environment in which they were created. In the 3rd millennium BC. e. the country of the Sumerians and Akkadians in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates was divided into dozens of communal settlements. The center of each community, the center of economic and administrative activity, was the temple. Before the advent of city-states and royal power, the ruler of each Sumerian and Akkadian community was the high priest of its temple, which was considered the home of a single deity - the patron and ruler of the community. In the name of this god (or goddess) the ruler of the community exercised his administrative and religious authority. In the temple, and not anywhere else, myths were created that were supposed to tell about the patron god of a given community and glorify him. These myths, which had a poetic form that was easier to remember, were solemnly performed during services in churches to the accompaniment of musical instruments.

Mountain of Heaven and Earth

Sumerian myth

This is the oldest Sumerian myth known to us about the appearance of the world, the gods who govern it, life and humanity. The myth that answers the question about the origin of the universe comes from the fact that initially all the elements that form the universe existed in a fused form, like a huge mountain floating in the World Ocean. Development occurs in the form of separation and subsequent combination of male and female principles, which results in the emergence and endless multiplication of new gods who control the elements or are in the service of these gods or heavenly bodies.

Once upon a time, heaven and earth were merged and there was no grass, no reeds, no trees, no fish, no animals, no people. They were like one mountain in a space filled with the eternal waters of the daughter of the ocean Nammu, the mother of all things. She produced from herself Ana (Heaven) and Ki (Earth), a son and daughter, and settled them separately. Ana is at the top of the mountain, and Ki is below, at its foot. When the children grew up, they began to turn their heads and look for each other. And Nammu brought them together, united them as husband and wife. And Ki gave birth to the lord Enlil, who filled everything around with his mighty breath. Then Ki from An produced seven more sons, seven powerful elements, without which there would be no light and warmth, moisture, growth and prosperity. Then, by the will of An, Ki gave birth to the younger gods, assistants and servants of An, the Anunnaki. And they all began to unite with each other, like men and women. And sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters were born to them.

And the mountain on which the numerous descendants of An and Ki settled became too small for him. And the father of the gods, An, decided to expand the habitat of his charges. To do this, he called his eldest youth, his firstborn Enlil, and said to him:

Creation of people

Sumerian myth

Each of the myths related to the cycle of the creation of the world gives an answer to one or another question about the origin of the entire divine order or its individual elements. However, this Sumerian myth answers not only the question of how humanity came to be. Another, secondary question is connected with this question: why is humanity imperfect, why, along with full-fledged individuals who can work, support themselves and the gods, there are weak and sick people who are a burden to society? The gods themselves, who drink beer immoderately, are put forward as the culprits for this imperfection of the human race. The age-old human vice - drunkenness - was transferred to the gods.

In the text of the myth that has come down to us, there are gaps that do not allow us to understand what other monsters, besides the three named, the gods created. The reason for Ninmah's anger at Enki is not clear, because of which the latter was banished to earthly depths, where groundwater was transferred to him. Apparently, the relationship between Ninmah and Enki went beyond the task of creating humanity entrusted to them and they were husband and wife, the fathers of humanity. If this is so, then Enki's withdrawal into his own world seems to be connected with the need to unite the spouses in the lower world.

In the days of yore, when the heavens were separated from the earth, in the nights of yore, when the earth was separated from the heavens, the tribe of the celestials multiplied and suffered from lack of food. The immortal foremothers prayed to Nammu, begging her to satisfy their hunger. Enki woke up Namma:

Wake up, my son! Banish the dream! Deliver the gods from torment!

Enki and the Universe

Sumerian myth

The Sumerian myth attributed the creation of culture to the ruler of the underground freshwater ocean, Enki. This is natural for the people who lived in Mesopotamia, surrounded by deserts, where fresh water is the basis of economic activity, and above all agriculture and cattle breeding.

The father of the gods, An, created life on earth. Enki, the son of the goddess Nammu, ordered it. Before him, the land was covered with impenetrable thickets and swamps - it was impossible to pass through it, not to ride through it. There was no escape from snakes and scorpions. Packs of ferocious beasts prowled everywhere, driving mortals into dark caves. Standing behind the plow, Enki uprooted the bushes, made the first furrows in the ground and sowed them with grains. He built bins to store the harvest. He filled the Tigris and Euphrates with life-giving water and did everything to ensure that they served fertility. He planted their banks with reeds and filled the waters with fish. Then he took up the sea and entrusted its care to the divine overseer.

Enki gave the mountain pastures to the power of the king of the mountains, Sumukan, and entrusted the shepherd god Dumuzi with grazing the cattle, showing him how to milk milk and settle the cream, how to build sheepfolds and stables.

Enki taught women to take thread out of sheep's wool and weave it into fabric, after which he assigned the goddess of quality, Uttu, to oversee their work.

Enki and Ninsikila

Sumerian myth

Introduction to the country eternal life and eternal happiness is inherent in many peoples. For the ancient Jews it was Eden, for the ancient Greeks it was the Isle of the Blessed. But Tilmun, rising from Sumerian myths, is the oldest of these countries ever created by human imagination. The creators of this myth, dating back to the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e., describing fairyland Tilmun, deprived her of everything that made earthly life bitter and difficult. Tilmun is a “country in reverse”, where there is no disease and death, cruelty and violence, where there is plenty of moisture and greenery. If tragedy can happen here, as happened with the god Enki, then it has a happy ending. Modern scholars identify the country of Tilmun with the Bahrain Islands in the Persian Gulf.

Even before the gods divided the primeval land among themselves, there was the country of Tilmun, surrounded by the leaden waters of the abyss. There were no streams or rivers on this island until Enki opened the mouth of the earth and knocked out through them fresh water. And the lifeless sands turned into emerald fields, interspersed with flowering meadows. Bushes and trees grew. Sweet-voiced birds appeared and sang. The country of Tilmun became a garden, bright, pure and immaculate. Neither the cawing of ravens nor the shrill cry of the Ittidu bird, the harbingers of troubles, could be heard there. There was no ferocious lion stalking there on soft paws. The wild dog did not know how to grab a kid, how to eat grain, and the wild donkey had no idea. Happy were those living in this country, for there were no women living there who would say: “I am an old woman.” There was no man there who would say: “I am an old man.”

The beautiful Ninsikila, the lady of purity, lived on the island. Enki was seduced by her beauty and lay down with the goddess in a spacious place, in a clean place, in solitude. Nine days later she gave birth to the first of her daughters, the goddess of plants Ninsar, she gave birth like clockwork, without pain. Meanwhile, Enki left Ninsikila to the bank of his river. There he met Ninsar, not knowing that she was his daughter. Then Ninsikila gave birth to the daughter of a plant that dyes clothes. She, in turn, gave birth to the goddess of weaving, Utta. Enki also liked her. Then Ninsikila already knew that her husband was unfaithful to her. The grandmother warned her granddaughter not to trust Enki and demand marriage gifts from him. Enki brought cucumbers, apples and grapes as a gift to Uttu, after which he also knew her.

Meanwhile, Ninsikila gave birth to eight more plants, giving birth like clockwork, without pain. She began to think about what names to give the newborns, because without a name there is no life. She came up with these names and, coming to announce them, found that Enki had eaten all eight plants.

Myths about ancestors-heroes

Ninurta - hero-god of Nippur

Sumerian myth

Ninurta, the son of Enlil, is both a god and a cultural hero, the patron of fertility, cattle breeding and fishing, the main branches of the Sumerian economy. The “Teachings of Ninurta”, the oldest of agronomic treatises in poetic form, has been preserved.

In the image of Ninurta, the features of a thunder god are clear, and as such he is an opponent of the dragon, a product of the chthonic forces of nature. But this dragon is also the embodiment of the mountains hostile to Mesopotamia, from where a constant threat came to the agricultural population (historically, conquerors came from these mountains - the Guttians, Kassites, Elamites , Medes, Persians). The myth of Ninurta is clearly older than myths about other Sumerian heroes. This is clear from his connection with Nippur, from the abstract idea of ​​mountains as a hostile element. Later this element is embodied in the city of Aratta.

The cunning Ninurta, the son of Enlil, lived in sacred Nippur. Ninurta wielded Sharur, a weapon whose brilliance is terrible. One day Sharur turned to Ninurta:

Mister, listen to me. An evil demon lives in the mountains, a dragon - the creation of Kuru, a country that knows no return. His name is Asag. Let's fly! Let's fight Asag and defeat him!

The Tale of Lugalbanda

Sumerian myth

The plot basis of the heroic epic about Enmerkar and his son Lugalbanda is the rivalry and struggle between two city-states - Uruk and the city of Aratta, which lies behind seven mountains, which plays the same role in Sumerian myths as in Homer's Iliad of Troy. Perhaps Aratta was a real city somewhere in the mountains of Elam, rich building material and metals. But this reality is so mythologized that the possibility of identifying Aratta with any historical center is reduced to zero. Approximately the same picture is characteristic of Troy, a real city located at the entrance to the Hellespont, in a place that cannot be confused with any other, which did not prevent the Greek heroes from initially mistaking for Troy a city located far from the straits, in Lycia.

The myth describes one of the episodes of the long-term rivalry between Uruk and Aratta - the campaign of Enmerkar, in which the son of this Uruk king Lugalbanda participates. Finding himself in a hopeless situation, he not only escapes, but also, with the help of the wonderful bird Anzud, becomes a walker and provides invaluable assistance to the army that left him to the mercy of fate.

Fantastic birds are present in almost all mythologies of antiquity. Very often these are not birds in their pure form, but combinations of birds with creatures of a different breed - a horse, a lion, a snake, a person. The nesting place of these birds is a giant tree - a prototype of the world (“world tree”). The Sumerian hero managed not only to find such a tree in the remote mountains of Khurrum, not only to climb it, but also to feed the voracious chick abandoned by the mother bird, and thereby earn her favor.

Anzud's promise of wealth and power, rejected by Lugalbanda, characterizes the Sumerian fantastic bird with the same features as the heroic griffins guarding gold in the land of the fabulous inhabitants of the north, the Arimaspi. Anzud's power over fate is a feature that makes it similar to the mythological ideas of other peoples about prophetic birds - crows, owls - and goddesses of wisdom with bird heads. At the same time, Anzud is the patroness of royal power and its symbol. This is clear from the story about the prophetic dream of the ruler of Lagash Gudea, when a certain man appeared to the king.

Adapa fish catcher

Akkadian myth

A copy of the Akkadian myth about Adana, one of the seven sages and ancestors of mortals, was preserved on one of the clay tablets from the Egyptian Amarna archives, as well as in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC). The story has gaps. Fishing was considered an activity particularly pleasing to the gods, since in Sumerian-Akkadian mythology the first man, Oannes, was thought of as a half-man, half-fish.

The purpose of a myth is to explain why people are mortal. It is not Adapa, but his adviser Eya, who is put forward as the culprit for humanity’s loss of immortality, whether out of ignorance or malicious intent. The myth of Adapa corresponds to the Old Testament myth about the first man Adam, who ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

In the city of Eredu, may his name be glorified among the blackheads, lived Adapa, skillful with his hands and pure in spirit

Every day, in any weather, he went fishing. The servants of the temple of Eya were fed with it, all the inhabitants of the city, husbands and wives, old people and children, fed on it.

Flight on an eagle

Akkadian myth

The myth of Etana combines two themes: a childless father praying to God for male offspring, and the struggle of an eagle with snakes. Both of these themes are quite widespread in the myths of the peoples of the Ancient East. We will meet them in Ugaritic, Hittite-Hurrian, Old Testament and Indian mythologies.

The motif of a flying man is present in Mesopotamian glyptics of the 3rd millennium BC. e. It is also characteristic of Aegean art of the 2nd millennium BC. e. and the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus.

The end of the text of the myth about Etana has not been preserved. He is restored based on the message about Balikh, the son of Etana.

In the glorious city of Kish, on the Euphrates, the just and wise Etana ruled

Nicknamed by the blackheads the shepherd of the city. He had everything a mortal could wish for, except sons. And this did not give Etana peace. More than once the light of the world, Shamash, appeared to him in a dream, but as soon as he tried to turn to him with a prayer for a son, he immediately woke up.

The Poem of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh - a treasury of Mesopotamia poetry - was created over thousands of years by two peoples - the Sumerians and the Akkadians. Separate Sumerian songs about Gilgamesh and Enkidu have been preserved. They have the same enemy, Humbaba (Huwava), who guards the sacred cedars. Their exploits are monitored by the gods, who bear Sumerian names in Sumerian songs and Akkadian names in the Epic of Gilgamesh. But the Sumerian songs lack the connecting core found by the Akkadian poet. The strength of character of the Akkadian Gilgamesh, the greatness of his soul, is not in external manifestations, but in his relationship with the natural man Enkidu. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the greatest hymn to friendship in world literature, which not only helps to overcome external obstacles, but transforms and ennobles.

The child of nature Enkidu, getting acquainted with the benefits of urban civilization, by the force of fate encounters the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, a selfish man, spoiled by power. Equal to him in physical strength, but integral in character, the unspoiled natural man wins a moral victory over Gilgamesh. He takes him to the steppe and mountains, frees him from everything superficial, turns him into a man in the highest sense of the word.

The main test for Gilgamesh is not a clash with the guardian of the wild, untouched by the ax cedar forest, Humbaba, but overcoming the temptations of the goddess of love and civilization Ishtar. The powerful goddess offers the hero everything he could only dream of before meeting Enkidu - power not in one city, but throughout the world, wealth, immortality. But Gilgamesh, ennobled by friendship with the man of nature, rejects the gifts of Ishtar and motivates his refusal with arguments that Enkidu could put forward: her enslavement of free animals - curbing the freedom-loving horse, invention of traps for the king of beasts lion, transformation of the servant-gardener into a spider, whose destiny becomes hopeless work.

Thus, for the first time, already at the dawn of civilization, an idea was put forward, which poets and thinkers would rediscover over the course of centuries and millennia - the idea of ​​​​the hostility of civilization and nature, the injustice of the god-sanctified relations of property and power, turning a person into a slave of passions, the most dangerous of which were profit and ambition.

Debunking the merits of Ishtar in the development of nature in the interests of civilization, the author of the poem turns the ambitious Gilgamesh into a rebel-god-fighter. Understanding perfectly where the danger comes from, the gods decide to destroy Enkidu. Dying, the child of nature curses those who contributed to his humanization, which brought him nothing but suffering.

Thousand gods of the Hittite kingdom

Children of Queen Kanesa

This is a typical calendar and twin myth. The number “thirty” is associated with the number of days and nights, and more broadly, with the trinity of the structure of the cosmos and the world tree. The entry into incestuous marriage of brothers and sisters is also developed in the Greek myth of the Danaids, where the sisters, not wanting to enter into an incestuous marriage, kill the spouses on their wedding night, except for one who broke the law. The birth of twins was considered a supernatural phenomenon by many peoples. They tried to get rid of them one way or another. The motif of giving newborns to the river is common to Greek and Etruscan myths (the myth of the twins Romulus and Remus, adopted by the Romans).

Queen Kanesa gave birth

in one year alone thirty sons. Surprised by this, she said: “What could this mean? What kind of unprecedented thing is this?” And she filled the jugs with sewage, put the newborns in them and gave them to the river. And the river carried them to the sea of ​​the country of Tsalpa

Here the gods took children from the sea and raised them.

Years passed, and the queen gave birth to thirty daughters. She raised them herself. The sons, meanwhile, went back to the city of Nesa, where they were born. Reaching Tamarmara

They told the townspeople: “We see that you have warmed the palace chambers. Isn’t it for our donkey?”

“No,” said the townspeople, “we were expecting guests from another country. A donkey should come from there too. There, Queen Kanesa gave birth to thirty daughters in one year. She also had thirty sons, but they disappeared.”

So that's who we're looking for! - the young men exclaimed joyfully. - This is our mother! Let's go to the city of Nesu.

Fall of the Moon

Since ancient times, the Moon God was revered by the peoples of Asia Minor and the adjacent Caucasus. His cult is attested in Lydia, Phrygia and Cappadocia. It is also spoken of by names from the Indo-European base “men”, “masn” (compare with the Russian word “month”), widespread throughout Asia Minor, headdresses and attire of the population of the peninsula and immigrants from there (Etruscans). The fall of the moon to the earth - a motif known to many mythologies - in Hittite myth serves as an explanation for a lunar eclipse.

From the description of the ritual attached to the story about the fall of the Moon, it is clear that the myth was told when “the thunder god thundered” and sacrifices were made to him and his assistants (clouds, thunder, rain).

One day, the moon god fell from the sky to earth and ended up in the market square. There was no moon in the sky, and it became completely dark at night. The god of thunder saw the disappearance of the moon. Horror seized him, and he let rain fall on the ground; he let down a heavy downpour.

Then the goddess Habantali walked

Who loved the moon god. She approached the Thunder God and tried to bewitch him. But I couldn't.

Sun and Ocean

The myth explains the observed phenomenon of the disappearance of the Sun in the sea - sunset. The sea was also thought of as the kingdom of the dead. The Thirty Sons and Daughters of the Ocean are the gods of the kingdom of the dead. The matchmaking of the Sun is reminiscent of the matchmaking of the Greek mythological hero of Egypt to his brother Danaus, who had fifty daughters.

The Sun God came to visit his brother Ocean. The red-hot chariot colored the waves crimson. The underwater palace was in turmoil. All thirty sons of Ocean, well done, came to the council. They were alarmed: “Where will we seat the guest? What shall we treat you with?” Servants rushed through the halls, running wild. Throne

prepared for the Lord of Heaven. The table, made of ivory, was covered with dishes.

As soon as the waves hissed, the sons of the Ocean poured out of the gate to meet their uncle. All the paths were sprinkled with incense and covered with carpets. They brought the dear guest into the house and seated him on the throne with honor. The servants brought food: let the guest be satisfied after a long journey. And then, when His Excellency put away the empty dishes, Ocean began a conversation with him:

I received your message, my brother, and sent a servant to you with gifts in return. But my servant returned without finding your home either on earth or in heaven. I sent a priest for him, who was trained in fortune-telling. He didn't come back to me.

Telepinus' Wrath

Telepinus was angry with the whole world, so much so that, leaving the home of the gods, he mixed up his winged shoes: he put the right one on his left foot, and the left one on his right. He slammed the door and was never seen again.

With Telepinus gone, a thick fog enveloped the windows and the house was filled with choking smoke. The logs were crushed in the hearth, each god froze on his own elevation. The sheep in the sheepfold became motionless, and the cows in the barn. The sheep did not let the lamb come to her, the cow did not allow the calf. Grains stopped growing in the fields, trees stopped growing in the forests. The mountains have become impoverished. The springs have dried up. People and gods began to die of hunger and thirst.

To find out about Telepinus, the sun god called to himself a thousand gods and goddesses of the Hittite country. He set the tables for them with food and drink, and after waiting for the gods to be satisfied and drunk, Telepinus’s father, the god of the Storm, addressed them.

My son Telepinus got angry, left our house, and everything that grew stopped. Death came to all living things.

And all the gods, great and small, went in search of Telepinus, but could not find him. Then the Sun God called to him the Eagle, who is faster and more vigilant than all the birds, and ordered him:

Myths and legends of Ugarit

Ugarit, located near the modern Syrian city of Latakia (ancient Laodicea), one of the most ancient cultural centers of the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East, the capital of the small Ugaritic kingdom. This kingdom did not have much political significance, being dependent on one or another great power. The population lived a working life, experiencing a need for food and fear of conquerors. Compared to the cities of Byblos, Tire and Sidon located to the south, Ugarit was a poor city. But we owe him genuine cultural treasures.

During the excavations of Ugarit, starting in 1928, tablets were brought to light, covered with cuneiform signs, each of which denoted a sound, but, unlike our alphabet, only a consonant. The presence of the alphabet made it possible to quickly read the signs. It turned out that they were written in the Amorite language, related to Hebrew and Arabic. The absence of vowel sounds in writing created certain difficulties in correct spelling and understanding of individual proper names and geographical concepts, but over time they were overcome.

Of the texts found, the most attention was drawn to the recordings of Ugaritic myths made in the middle of the 14th century. BC e. by order of King Nikmaddu II of Ugarit. Until this time, myths took the form of epics or sagas, passed down from generation to generation from memory. The set of gods named in the tablets and the occurrence of geographical names indicate that the myths themselves were formed approximately five hundred years before they were recorded. About the same date - 2000–1900. BC e. - the peculiarities of the language of the tablets also speak, which is more ancient than the language that the Ugaritians used in documents and private correspondence of the 14th century. BC e.

The fact that the found religious and mythological poems of Ugarit arose as monuments of oral folk art, is also evidenced by their artistic techniques, typical of folklore of almost all times and peoples. One of these techniques is persistent speech expressions that pass from poem to poem, similar to those that we find in Russian fairy tales. The nameless creators of Ugaritic epics used the same expressions when repeating situations, without bothering to look for new ones, which is considered mandatory for written literature. Thus, regardless of who reaches the residence of the supreme deity of Ugarit, he finds himself “at the mouth of the River, at the source of both Oceans.” Although each person experiences grief in his own way, in myths the feeling of grief and loss is conveyed by the same speech formula.

Another folk art technique used by the creators of Ugaritic epics is the repetition of the same thought expressed in the first verse, with some additions in the second and third verses, creating a kind of rhythmic pattern. So, the god of Thunder and Lightning, turning to the god - the ruler of the Sea, says to him:

Baloo and Mutu

The action of this poetic story unfolds in two worlds: the upper, in the domain of the creator of all creatures, Ilu, and the lower, in the kingdom of the dead, ruled by the son of Ilu, the god of death and drought Mutu. Communication between these worlds is carried out with the help of messenger gods carrying out the instructions of Ilu or Mutu.

Messengers from Mutu the Mighty, Ilu the Favorite, Gipar and Ugar came to Balu on Mount Tsapana

and they reported the words that the gentleman said:

You have a command from Mutu, Ilu's favorite. Baloo, clear your mind. The lamb runs away from the lioness, fearing her revenge. It is also true that a dolphin cannot live without water. It is also true that the buffalo comes to water. The doe strives for the source. The limit of all donkey desires is grass, a lot of grass. But I hold everything alive in my fist. Before I eat each one, I tear it into seven pieces.

The servants prepare the drink and serve it in a goblet. I invite you and your brothers to my gorge, Bala. You will sit at the feast next to my relatives. But no matter what you eat, no matter what you drink, you will have to vomit. For I will pierce you, just as you did when you overthrew Latana, killed the flexible serpent, the ruler of the seven heads.

Having heard these words, Mutu Balu answered the messengers:

Palace for Balu

The story reveals the contradictions between the younger generation god Balu the Mighty and the older generation god Ilu. In fear of the power of the young god, Ilu for a long time refuses him own home, in his heavenly residence, to which the temple corresponds in the city. Apparently, Baloo, like the Jewish god Yahweh, had to live in a tent. This diminished his dignity as the “prince of the earth.” The myth was supposed to explain the ritual of moving Balu from the tent to the newly built temple. This ritual is known from the description in the Bible of David’s transfer of the ark to Mount Zion.

Seven maidens anointed Anata, rubbing incense into her skin, and a fragrance emanated from her body. It combines the smells of game and honey

Having closed the gates of the palace, Anatu went out onto the field, where the youths, the army of the mountain goddess, and with them the sons of the cities were waiting for her. She crushed Anatu in the valley of her enemies and exterminated the people. She struck the townspeople and people who came from the sea, and destroyed those who came from the East

She made her way through the enemy formation. On both sides there were heads as if they were alive, arms above her flew up like locusts, the hands of the brave fell into heaps. She threw the heads of the fallen behind her back, sent her hands into her womb, stood knee-deep in blood, and in the blood of the brave she washed the leg chains. She drove the elders with her rod like sheep, putting her bow to her thigh, she threw arrows.

Then she returned to the palace, but her heart was not satisfied with the deaths, it was not satisfied with the massacres that she inflicted on her enemies. She threw chairs at brave men, tables at warriors, and benches at mighty heroes. Having defeated many, she looked back. At the sight of the corpses, she was overcome with bliss, her liver swelled, for she immersed her knees in the blood of the brave men, and washed her leg chains in it.

Then she washed her hands in a bowl, cleansing them in the heavenly dew, as well as in the rain of the One Jumping on the Clouds. And, having completed the purification, she called seven maidens. They anointed Anata's skin. And a scent emanated from the body. It combines the smells of game and honey. The aroma of incense went a thousand ways throughout the day.

Baloo and Anatu

Ilu did not fulfill his promise to build a house for Balu. This was prevented by the god of the sea, Yammu, who was given preference. Anatu and Shapash, who sympathizes with her, are outraged by this. Ilu gathers a council of gods, with whom he apparently wants to coordinate his decision to build a house for Yammu. Feeling Ilu's support, Yammu sends envoys demanding that Bala be handed over as a slave and captive. This presupposes the conclusion of a special agreement between Ilu and Yammu, similar to the agreement between Egypt and the king of the Hittites on the extradition of defectors.

And again Anatu comes to Balu’s aid. With the help of a magical weapon made by the Handsome and Wise at the request of Anatu, Balu deals with his enemies and unites in sacred marriage with his savior.

Handsome-and-Wise, builder and craftsman, was in a hurry as never before. Turning from his path, he headed to the sources of two streams, the headwaters of both Oceans, climbed Mount Ilu, reached his father’s domain, stepped onto the peak of the father of times, bowed before him and, like a servant, prostrated himself.

And Ilu said to him:

Magic bow

In the poem about Akhita, unlike other Ugaritic religious and mythological texts, heroes act alongside the gods - the wise king Danilo, his son Akhita, whose birth was a reward to the king for his piety, and Akhita's ally, his sister Pagata, who loves her brother, just like Anatu Balu, not sisterly love. Pagatu is Anatu's rival, for the goddess also offers love to Akhita in exchange for the bow. Pagatu also opposes her as the patroness of agriculture and the goddess of the hunt.

Thus, the poem about Akhita is an epic work that has all the characteristics of a love story with its characteristic situations of love, jealousy, despair and revenge, sympathy for the loving and suffering person, interest in family and private relationships. The Ugaritic myth-novel is a whole millennium older than the works of this genre among the ancient Greeks. It cannot be considered an accident that Greek novels appeared during the years of close contact between ancient and ancient Eastern societies, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, in the Hellenistic era.

He was king in the land of Canaan, in a city whose name was Harnam, to Daniel, a man of Rapait.

Daniel had everything his soul could desire, but he did not know happiness. For he was lonely for many years dreaming about a son in vain. And finally, he turned to Il Bull with a prayer. He made a vow to the ruler of the years to eat only pure things and drink pure things, if the creator of creation would give him a son.

The night passed. The day began, the first, the second. Daniel ate clean and drank clean. The third day began and passed, the fourth followed, the fifth, the sixth, on the seventh he came out to meet the prayer of Daniil Bal and said the following words:

Going for the bride

The beginning of the "Poem of Karatu" is as follows: main character, the king of the city of Ditanu, left without a home, wife and children, has lost the respect of his subjects and cannot find a place for himself. Ilu, who appeared in a dream, gives the king detailed instructions on how to get the beautiful princess Huraya (a Hurrian maiden) as his wife.

The house of King Karatu, one of eight brothers from the same mother, fell into disarray. His line was cut off, and people turned away from him. He did not find a legitimate wife to whom his soul lay. He took the woman, and she retired to the land without return. He had blood relatives: a third died in the prime of life, a fourth were killed by illness, a fifth were carried away by plague, a sixth were destroyed by a storm, a seventh fell by the sword

Seeing that his house was in disarray, that his nest was empty, Karatu walked away from the servants, burst into tears, and screamed. He washed his bed with his tears, leaned against the wall and began to fall asleep, he gave himself up to sleep.

And Ilu came down to him in a dream, the Creator of man appeared in a vision and, approaching, turned to him.

Dzerzhinsky Pedagogical College

Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines

Abstract on the topic:

"Mythology of the Ancient East and the Ancient World"

Completed by a student

specialties 050303

groups 303-1A

Korotkova N.V.

Checked by: Komleva O. Yu.

Dzerzhinsk 2006

Introduction

Chapter I. What is mythology

1.1 The concept of mythology

1.2 What are the myths about?

2.1 Egyptian mythology

2.2 Chinese mythology

2.3 Indian mythology

Chapter III. Myths of the ancient world

3.1 Myths Ancient Greece

3.2 Mythology of Ancient Rome

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Myths and legends in books and encyclopedias are understood quite broadly: not only the names of gods and heroes of all times, but also everything wonderful, magical, with which the life of ancient people was connected - a spell word, the magical power of herbs and stones, concepts about heavenly bodies, phenomena nature and so on.

The tree of human life stretches its roots into the depths of primitive eras, the Paleolithic and Mesozoic.

First millennium BC - the time of the emergence of the heroic epic, myths and tales that have come down to us in the form of fairy tales, legends, beliefs and legends.

The oldest system of mythological ideas of the ancestors of modern peoples of the world is reconstructed through a comparative historical study of the reflections of this system in historically attested individual traditions.

For traditions that have maintained continuity until recently, folklore texts, especially those including mythological names and corresponding motifs, can be a source of information about the mythology of the peoples of the world; For fragmentarily preserved traditions, the mention of individual mythological words and especially names is also important.

This topic has been fairly well studied in the literature. It is relevant because at all times people have studied myths, legends, tales, and other forms of oral folk art, and this study contributes to the development of a culture of speech, enriching the language with various words, phrases, aphorisms and other components.

Chapter I. What is mythology

1.1 The concept of “mythology”

What are myths? In the “school” understanding, these are ancient, biblical and other ancient “fairy tales” about the creation of the world and man, as well as stories about the deeds of the ancients, mainly Greek and Roman heroes - poetic, naive, and often bizarre. This “everyday” idea of ​​myths, which sometimes still exists today, is to some extent the result of the earlier inclusion of ancient mythology in the circle of knowledge of European people. The word “myth” itself is Greek and means “tradition”, “legend”. It is about ancient myths that highly artistic literary monuments have been preserved, the most accessible and known to the widest circle of readers.

Indeed, until the 19th century in Europe, only ancient myths were the most widespread - stories of the ancient Greeks and Romans about their gods, heroes and other fantastic creatures. The names of heroes and gods have been known especially widely since the Renaissance (15th-16th centuries), when interest in antiquity revived in European countries.

Around the same time, the first information about the myths of the Arabs and American Indians penetrated into Europe. In the educated environment of society, it became fashionable to use the names of ancient gods and heroes in an allegorical sense: when saying “Mars” they meant war, by “Venus” they meant love, by “Minerva” - wisdom, by “muses” - various arts, sciences, etc. .d. This usage has survived to this day, in particular in the poetic language, which has absorbed many mythological images.

In the first half of the 19th century, myths of a wide range of Indo-European peoples (ancient Indians, Iranians, Germans, Slavs) were introduced into scientific circulation. The subsequent identification of the myths of the peoples of America, Africa, Oceania, and Australia shows that mythology at a certain stage of historical development existed among almost all peoples of the world.

A scientific approach to the study of “world religions” (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) has shown that they are also “filled” with myths. Literary adaptations of myths of different times and peoples were created, a huge scientific literature appeared devoted to the mythology of individual peoples and regions of the world and the comparative historical study of myths; At the same time, not only narrative literary sources were involved, which are already the result of a later development than the original mythology, but also data from ethnography and linguistics.

1.2 What are the myths about?

A comparative historical study of a wide range of myths has made it possible to establish that in the myths of various peoples of the world - despite their extreme diversity - a number of basic themes and motifs are repeated. Among the oldest and most primitive myths, obviously, are myths about animals. The most elementary of them represent only a naive explanation of individual animal characteristics. Myths about the origin of animals from people (Australians have many such myths) or mythological ideas that people were once animals are deeply archaic. Myths about the transformation of people into animals and plants are known to almost all peoples globe. The ancient Greek myths about hyacinth, narcissus, cypress, laurel tree (the nymph girl Daphne), the spider Arachne, etc. are widely known.

Very ancient myths about the origin of the sun, moon, stars: solar myths, lunar myths, astral myths. In some myths they are often depicted as people who once lived on earth and for some reason rose to heaven; in others, the creation of the sun (not personified) is attributed to some supernatural being.

The central group of myths, at least among peoples with developed mythological systems, consists of myths about the origin of the world, the universe and man: cosmogonic myths and anthropogonic myths.

Culturally backward peoples have few cosmogonic myths. Thus, in Australian myths the idea that the earth’s surface once had a different appearance is only rarely encountered, but questions about how the earth, sky, etc. appeared are not raised. Many myths talk about the origin of people. But there is no motive of creation here: either the transformation of animals into people is spoken of, or the motive of “finishing” appears. Among comparatively cultural peoples, developed cosmogonic and anthropogonic myths appear. Very typical myths about the origin of the world and people are known among the Polynesians, North American Indians and among the peoples of the Ancient East and the Mediterranean.

Chapter II. Myths of the Ancient East

The myths of the Ancient East include almost all the myths of the peoples of the world, such as:

Egyptian mythology

Indian mythology

Chinese mythology

Mythology of Mesopatamia and Mesopotamia

Hindu mythology

Indo-European mythology

Let's look at a few of them.

2.1 Egyptian mythology

The sources for studying the mythology of Ancient Egypt are characterized by incomplete and unsystematic presentation. The nature and origin of many myths are reconstructed on the basis of later texts. The main monuments representing the Egyptians are various religious texts: hymns and prayers to the gods, records of funeral rites on the walls of tombs. The most significant of them are the “Pyramid Texts” - the oldest texts of funeral royal rituals, carved on the walls interior spaces pyramids of the pharaohs of the V and VI dynasties of the Old Kingdom (26-23 centuries BC); “Texts of sarcophagi”, preserved on sarcophagi from the Middle Kingdom era (21-18 centuries BC), “Book of the Dead” - compiled from the period of the New Kingdom to the end of the history of Ancient Egypt, collections of funeral texts.

Mythological ideas are also reflected in such texts as “The Book of the Cow”, “The Book of the Underworld”, “The Book of Breathing” and others. Significant material is provided by recordings of dramatic mysteries that were performed during religious holidays and coronation celebrations. Of great interest are magical texts, conspiracies and spells, which are often based on episodes from legends about the gods, inscriptions on statues, and iconographic material.

The source of information about Egyptian mythology is also the works of ancient authors: Herodotus, Plutarch.

Egyptian mythology began to take shape in the 6th-4th millennium BC, long before the emergence of class society.

Each region has its own pantheon and cult of gods, embodied in heavenly bodies, stones, trees, animals, birds, snakes, etc. The region itself is personified in the image of a special deity; for example, the goddess of the Hermopolis region was considered Unut, revered in the form of a hare. Later, local deities were usually grouped in the form of a triad led by the demiurge god, the patron of the nome (region), around whom cycles of mythological legends were created, for example, the Theban triad - the sun god Amon, his wife Mut - the sky goddess, their son Khonsu - the moon god.

Female deities, as a rule, had the functions of a mother goddess.

The firmament was usually represented as a cow with a body covered in stars, but sometimes it was personified as a woman. There were ideas that the sky is a water surface, the heavenly Nile, along which the sun flows around the earth during the day. There is also the Nile underground, along which the sun, having descended beyond the horizon, floats at night. The embodiment of the earth in some nomes was the god Geb, in others - Aker. The Nile, which flowed on earth, was personified in the image of the god Hapi, who contributed to the harvest with his beneficial floods. The Nile itself was also inhabited by various good and evil deities in the form of animals: crocodiles, hippos, frogs, scorpions, snakes and others.

The fertility of the fields was controlled by the goddess - the mistress of bins and barns, Renenutet, who was revered in the form of a snake that appears on the field during the harvest, monitoring the thoroughness of the harvest. The grape harvest depended on the vine god Shai.

well known from the ideas of the societies of Ancient Egypt and Sumer. There was a whole pantheon of gods here, each of which was “responsible” for a certain area, category of natural phenomena or human activity.

Among them, one with outstanding abilities and qualities gradually stands out. At certain points in history, he begins to claim absolute supremacy among other deities. The emergence of a pantheon of gods, the formation of certain relationships and hierarchies between them, often interpreted as relationships of dominance and subordination, reflected changes in the structure of society and ideas about the world. From now on, relations within the community are extrapolated to the natural world, and not vice versa, as was the case before. Man finally highlights his active transformative role, which is expressed in anthropomorphization religious ideas. Egyptian gods, for example, were depicted with the body of a man and the heads of various animals. The latter can be considered not only an echo of previous beliefs, but also simply a way of illustrating the character, individual traits of a particular deity.

Ideas about the otherworldly existence of the soul are becoming more complex, as a result of which the understanding of space and time has expanded in human consciousness. The ordering, hierarchization of the sometimes extremely inflated (as in Sumer) pantheon of gods, the gradual schematization of their images, abstract reflections on extra-experimental phenomena (the afterlife, the world of the gods) speak of the development of abstract thinking. Thus, the categories of space and time in human consciousness expand and become multifaceted.

In Eastern mythology, the idea of ​​evil and its struggle with good appears, while ancient mythology postulated the principle of harmony and completeness of the world. The word, which is understood both as a designation of a phenomenon, and as knowledge, and as a process of cognition, and as a specific form of existence of a phenomenon, acquires important significance. At the same time, the idea of ​​space as a structured, ordered world is limited to the boundaries of the community’s habitat. Beyond these limits, the world turns into nothing, that is, into chaos. A textbook example is the idea of ​​the ancient Greeks that a ship, going out to sea beyond the limits of visibility, would disappear completely.

Space in mythological thinking becomes wider and more multifaceted, time acquires a more complex rhythm, returning to the source and becoming cyclical. The world is therefore thought to be infinite. From isolating parts of the world during the period of primitive cults, humanity moved on to synthesizing these parts and creating a whole, harmonious and complete picture of the world. In the previous era, man mastered space, now he began to master time.

Mythology is being replaced by more complex religious teachings. So, in the VI - V centuries. BC Buddhism arose in India. According to this teaching, human life invariably represents suffering. Suffering is a consequence of man's never-ending and ever-increasing desires that cannot be satisfied. Final and endless bliss comes only with the achievement of nirvana (enlightenment). Nirvana was understood as liberation from the endless chain of rebirths and dissolution into space. Rebirths occur as a result of a constant flow of interlocking different shapes elementary particles of matter and consciousness - dharmas. A person’s current life is determined by the entire complex of his previous existence, or karma. Everything in this world is doomed to an endless and meaningless chain of rebirths (samsara). Buddha proclaimed the “middle way” of achieving nirvana - a rejection of both the extremes of asceticism and self-deception by the delights of this world, which was considered illusory. Space in Buddhism has expanded even more, embracing the world of elementary invisible particles, but this reality

became unsteady. Time has retained cyclicality and infinity.

More on the topic Mythology of the Ancient East:

1. Part one. History of the state and law of the ancient world Section I. State and law of the countries of the Ancient East

A. I. Nemirovsky

Myths and legends of the Ancient East

To the continent of myths

The oldest legends and traditions in the world became known relatively recently. For thousands of years, clay tablets, papyri, bamboo tablets, slabs with inscriptions lay under sand hills, in the ruins of cities, and no one knew what treasures of the human mind and imagination were hidden in them. The little that was known about the myths of the Ancient East before the excavations of these hills and the reading of unknown writings was conveyed by the sacred books of the ancient Jews - the Bible, the ancient Iranians "Avesta", the ancient Indians - "Veda", "Mahabharata" and "Ramayana". However, Europeans became acquainted with these monuments, besides the Bible, only in the 18th–19th centuries.

Nowadays we stand before the Eastern myths in some confusion. What kind of “light from the East” is there? A real avalanche, a raging, unrelenting stream, because almost every decade brings new material, new information, which one would like to call the discovery of the century.

In this situation, every book, especially popular ones, is seen as Noah’s ark, which must be filled with the brightest and most significant. And the author is faced with the problem of choice, and choice is always subjective. The reader will have to rely on the author's erudition and artistic taste. Critics need to keep in mind that we had at our disposal not the Titanic, but the ark. However, we tried not to offend any ancient Eastern culture, any mythology of the vast region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean within the chronological framework of ancient civilization. And if some of them are represented by a larger number of pairs of “pure” and “impure”, then there were good reasons for this, which will be explained in due time.

The creator of the biblical ark had to build partitions so that the animals would not devour each other on the long journey. This danger did not threaten us. But accommodating a huge mass of character passengers still presented certain difficulties. Some of them, the more famous ones, beat their chests and demanded better compartments. To withstand the pressure, they had to use their own principle of primogeniture. The most ancient and venerable gods and heroes were passed forward. At the same time, antiquity was determined not by word of mouth - everyone assured that he was the most ancient - but by seniority, certified by a historical document. Therefore, Moses and Aaron had to let Osiris and Isis, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Telepinus and Ullikume, Balu and Daniel go ahead.

And there is one more difficulty, it seems, the most important one. Those who emerge from the ark find themselves not on deserted Ararat, but in a world deafened by a cacaphony of sounds alien to the society and nature of which they were the product. Should we try to bring the ancients closer to us, scrape and clean them, dress them in modern attire in order to make them more understandable, “ours”? Or, on the contrary, to preserve, to the extent possible, the ancient appearance and ancient figurative speech, let them speak out, and then explain and interpret all this? We chose the latter path, although for this we had to take on board a whole staff of invisible translators and commentators, allocating for them a special, lower compartment of the ark.

Without these people, to be honest, there would not be this book, and if we, as a rule, do not give names and do not note merit, it is not out of human ingratitude, but out of a natural desire to spare the memory of our readers, who are not prepared for such information. In compensation for this concession, we earnestly ask you not to consider everything that follows before and after the presentation of myths as unnecessary ballast, but to use it, at least selectively, so that our voyage is not just exciting, but also useful.

The voyage on Noah's Ark, as is known, ended with a landing on the famous Mount Ararat. You can see everything better from the mountain. And at the end of our journey we will have to look around in order to comprehend all the collected facts, the images imprinted in our memory, compare them with each other and outline the prospects for further travel across the continents of myths. After all, there are still myths of Greece and Rome ahead.

This is the program of our journey through the world of Eastern myths, on which I have the honor to invite you.

Gods and heroes of Ancient Egypt

Let us remember the Egyptian poet.
He helped us believe in eternity.
The songs that he threw to the wind
Preserved by the Sun and the sand.
And roads to the past opened,
The dark ages have receded,
Pagan gods come to life
In the reflection of a foreign language.

The ancient Greeks talked about a stone statue of the Egyptian hero Memnon, which began to sing as soon as the rays of the Sun touched it. Such singing stones turned out to be stone statues and slabs covered with writings. When they were able to read them, they sang hymns to the gods who created the heavenly bodies and the earth, and told about the fate of the dead in the underworld. The sun turned out to be human Reason, glorified by A. S. Pushkin just in those years when Francois Champollion made his great discovery:

Long live the muses
Long live reason!..
Long live the Sun,
Let the darkness disappear!

The sands, which preserved papyri with writing, added their voices to the songs of the stone. Thus, a picture of a fantastic world was revealed to humanity, in some ways similar to the one that was known to him from the Bible and from the works of Greek poets, but in many ways different from it.

Unfortunately, the songs of stones and sand often end mid-sentence. What we know are fragments of the richest religious and mythological literature of Ancient Egypt. Considerable difficulties in recreating a complete picture are caused by the inconsistency of Egyptian stories about the gods, due to the circumstances of the centuries-old history of the Egyptian people. For thousands of years, the Egyptians lived in separate, little connected areas - nomes. Each nome worshiped its own gods. Sometimes these were embodiments of the same forces of nature with different names. Thus, the god of the earth in some nomes was Aker, in others - Geb, the mother goddess in one nome was called Mut, in another - Isis. Ideas about a god with the same name in different nomes were also contradictory. If in the myths of the nome of Heliopolis the god Set is the worst enemy of the solar gods, then in the myths of the nome of Heracleopolis he is the “charming Set” - the assistant of the sun god Ra, saving the solar barge and its “crew” from mortal danger. This extraordinary fluidity of ideas about the gods was also associated with the possibility of changing their pedigree and identifying some gods with others.

Egyptian gods and goddesses often appeared in the form of animals, birds, and reptiles, and this greatly surprised Greek travelers, who were accustomed to thinking of their gods in human form (anthropomorphism). The Greek historian Plutarch, explaining the Egyptians' veneration of the hippopotamus and the crocodile, wrote that they were afraid of these most terrible of wild animals. But in Egypt they also worshiped other animals that did not cause horror, for example, the hare, gazelle, and frog. Therefore, the Greeks came up with another explanation for the appearance of the Egyptian gods that surprised them: frightened by something, the gods in fear put on animal masks and remained in them.

Modern researchers have proven that the veneration of animals among all peoples is more ancient than the veneration of gods in human form. Thus, it became clear that Egyptian mythology retained the features of extreme antiquity. However, this does not at all indicate its primitiveness. The religious and mythological system of Egypt is distinguished by such a sophisticated thoroughness that none of the developed religions of antiquity knows.

Egypt was a country of ancient agricultural culture, and the heroes of Egyptian myths were the gods who patronized agriculture: the “breadwinner Nile”, the solar deities Ra, Amon, Aten - hostile to the gods of the deserts surrounding the Nile Valley, from where destructive, drying winds blew and tribes came, greedy for Egyptian wealth.

Like other peoples of the Near East, the Egyptians revered the young dying and resurrecting god of vegetation, calling him Osiris. The love of Osiris and his wife Isis is the theme of one of the main cycles of Egyptian myths, reflecting the natural cycle (birth, withering, death, rebirth). The resurrection of Osiris was associated with the possibility of returning the dead to life, subject to the preservation of the body as a container for the soul. Hence the desire, which has no parallels in terms of development and expenditure of funds, to protect human remains from rotting through mummification and the construction of tombs from eternal stone. The cult of eternity left its mark on all aspects of Egyptian ideology and culture, including mythology.

Anna Ovchinnikova

Legends and myths of the Ancient East

INSTEAD OF A FOREWORD

“Older than the Egyptian pyramids” - this expression is used when the word “antediluvian” seems too inexpressive and pale to denote an antiquity that goes back to the very beginning of the existence of human civilization. To the beginning of the existence of what we now call the meaningfully proud word “civilization.”

Perhaps the habit of relating any hoary antiquity specifically to the civilization of Egypt has its origins in ancient times, or more precisely in Ancient Greece, which had such a huge influence on Ancient Rome, and later - on medieval Europe and all modern culture.

It was the ancient Greeks, with their greedy receptivity to everything new, with their irrepressible curiosity and passion for knowledge, who never missed the opportunity to learn from the sages of the country of Ta-Kemet, in comparison with which their Hellas could seem like just a foolish, playful child next to an important gray-bearded sage . Hippocrates, Solon, Plato, the “father of mathematics” Pythagoras, the “father of history” Herodotus - they all visited Ta-Kemet, or the Black Earth, seeking to join the wisdom of millennia.

Now we call Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates “ancient sages,” but they themselves probably called the legendary great Egyptians in exactly the same way: the builder of the first Egyptian pyramid Imhotep, the sage Snefru and the scientist Djedefhor, the son of Pharaoh Khufu. For that period of history, which seems to us such a hoary antiquity (twenty-four centuries separate us from the time of Plato!), is separated by an even greater abyss of time from the beginning of the history of Egypt. And the same Plato was separated, say, from the architect Imhotep, again, by twenty-four centuries, that is, for Plato, the time when the brilliant Egyptian architect lived was as venerable and difficult to imagine antiquity as the time of Plato himself or his teacher is for you and me Socrates.

Moreover! According to Plato, when Solon visited the Egyptian city of Sais, this city had already existed for eight thousand years, which means that (according to the ideas of the then Greeks and Egyptians) Sais arose in the 9th millennium BC. e. In Plato’s “Dialogues,” the teaching of the Egyptian priests is raised to the religion of the legendary Atlantis, which, according to Plato, existed in the 10th millennium BC. e.

Visited Egypt in the 5th century BC. e. Herodotus wrote that the Egyptians were the first to erect altars, statues and temples to the gods... But being, unlike Plato, not a philosopher, but a completely conscientious historian, Herodotus did not dare to name the date of the appearance of the first people and the first temples in the Nile Valley .

So when did this actually happen?

In ancient times, the Sahara was not at all the sandy desert that it is now, but was a fertile steppe; however, by the 4th millennium BC. e.

The climate of North Africa changed - and now a people related to the Berbers, whom modern scientists call the Hamites, moved from the parched, barren highlands to the flowering Nile Valley. When it merged with the tribes of proto-Semites, the Egyptians were formed - flexible, dark-skinned people with straight black hair...

And after the first people, the first gods appeared in the Nile Valley.

The eternal questions of people: “Where did all things come from? When did our world appear and how? Who controls the world order? What awaits a person on the other side of earthly life? - worried the Egyptians in the same way as all other peoples. And like other peoples, the Egyptians sooner or later found answers to these difficult questions. However, in the country of Ta-Kemet it often happened that one riddle had several different solutions at once.

This is not surprising: although work on the land, every year flooded by the waters of the capricious Nile, required the joint efforts of many people, and the first irrigation canals in the valley of this river began to be built back in the 5th millennium BC. e., Egypt for a long time remained fragmented into many small principalities - nomes. And in each of these nomes they traditionally worshiped their gods and offered their answers to the questions: “Where from?”, “How?”, “When?” and “Who was first?”

However, time passed - as slowly and majestically as it could only go in Egypt, and gradually the small nomes united into two kingdoms - Upper and Lower Egypt. A little more time passed (very little, no more than a thousand years!) - and around 2900 BC. e. the legendary pharaoh Less united these two kingdoms into one. Since then, the Egyptian pharaohs began to wear a crown, symbolizing the unification of the country: white Upper Egyptian and red Lower Egyptian crowns inserted into each other.

True, there were still numerous unrest ahead, there were difficult times when Egypt had to again experience fragmentation and decline, but this will happen later... In the meantime, Pharaoh Less founded the capital of his new powerful kingdom on the border of the Two Lands - the city of Mennefer, that is, “Beautiful Harbor ", or "Beautiful Abode". This city, also called Het-Ka-Pta - “House of the Soul of Ptah,” was called Memphis by the Greeks, but in the Bible all of Egypt is often designated by the word Memphis.

Memphis was destined to become the capital of the Old Kingdom; but even after the capital was transferred to Thebes, it remained the religious center of the god Ptah and the official residence of some Egyptian rulers.

So, how did they imagine the creation of the world and man in the Beautiful Harbor, in Memphis, in the capital of the most ancient Egyptian pharaohs?

AT THE BEGINNING OF TIME

... And then one of the priests, a man of very respectable years, exclaimed: “Ah, Solon, Solon! You Hellenes always remain children, and there is no elder among the Hellenes!” “Why do you say that?” - asked Solon. “You are all young in mind,” he replied, “for your minds do not retain in themselves any tradition that has passed from generation to generation from time immemorial, and no teaching that has grown gray with time.<…>Meanwhile, the antiquity of our city institutions is determined by sacred records of eight thousand years.

Plato, Timaeus

IN THE BEGINNING IT WAS...

(MEPHISH COSMOGONY)

At first, the cold, lifeless ocean of Nun stretched everywhere, the priests of Memphis said, just a boundless ocean - and nothing more. The priests are silent about how long this vast, cold melancholy lasted, and that’s not the main thing. And the main thing is that although the Nuna Ocean did not have shores, it probably had a bottom, and this bottom consisted of earth.

Ptah - the Earth - differed from the ocean Nuna by a much more active and creative nature, and finally such a dull state of affairs ceased to satisfy him. Ptah decided to exist; moreover, he decided to become a god!

Planned - done: with a powerful effort of will, Ptah created his flesh, his body from the earth and, in accordance with the plan, became a god, the very first god that ever existed.

Being the first, of course, is nice, but being the only one is just as sad as not being at all! And Ptah’s creative nature could not be content with just creating himself. Therefore, Ptah decided to call other gods to life so that they would help him in creation and so that he would have someone with whom to share the joy of his newly acquired existence.

This time Ptah tried another creative method, namely: creation with Thought and Word. The thought of Atum arose in his heart, and the word “Atum” appeared on his tongue; Ptah uttered the newly found word - and at that same moment the god Atum emerged from the ocean of Nun. (Something similar can be found in the Orphic theogony, where the prototype of the world is the Word-Logos, or in the biblical story of the creation of the world by God Yahweh: “In the beginning was the Word...”)

Ptah's son, Atum, immediately began to help his father in his work and first of all created the great Nine Gods - the Great Ennead. However, it was Ptah who endowed them with power and divine wisdom, erected sanctuaries and temples, and established festivals and sacrifices.