The rise of blood sacrifice and priest-kingship in Mesopotamia: A ‘cosmic decree’?

Religion (1992) 22, 1 0 9-134

THE RISE OF BLOOD SACRIFICE AND PRIEST-I GSHIP IN 1 MSO AMIA: A `COSMIC DECREE'? Gunnar Heinsohn The first stage of civilization appeared in the Bronze Age with templecentred urban settlements . It is not known why priest-kings were suddenly accepted as hierarchically superior rulers entitled to provisions by their fellows who thereby turned themselves into mankind's first commoners . Sophisticated blood rituals became the most prominent activities of the first permanent lords . The origin of these sacred procedures remained equally enigmatic . Though well documented, the textual and archaeological sources, which point to catastrophic preconditions for the emergence of a sacrificial elite, are only rarely taken into consideration by students of religion . This paper tries to show the essential correctness of Mesopotamian myths, which claim the first `cult places' and their priestly personnel to have emerged as institutions for `beclouded' people in need of `counselling' after natural disasters had inflicted `destructions' on their habitats . I. ENIGMAS OF SACRIFICE The debate on the emergence of human and animal sacrifice in Mesopotamia's Early Bronze Age has been well under way for a hundred years . Only recently, a consensus has been slowly forming that these sacred executions were, indeed, common in the Ancient Near East .' This position, however, is not all that new . It was already put forward in the beginning of the controversy when the practice of blood ritual was clearly recognized and openly discussed . 2 Two years after Menant's article of 1887, the very same glyptic evidence was interpreted quite differently . The slaughtering men depicted on the seals were no longer identified as priests, i .e . as sacred executioners (the most concise definition of priests), but as slaughtering deities . 4 This interpretation raised the issue how could one get the idea of a killing deity in human (or animal) form without having seen real humans active in such sacred slaughtering? This question could not be answered satisfactorily . In 1927/8, Mesopotamian human sacrifice was established beyond doubts when Sir Leonard Woolley discovered the Royal Cemetery at Ur : `The ritual of burial included human sacrifice ; the number of victims might vary from a mere half-dozen to seventy or eighty, but a certain number had to accompany the owner of the tomb' . 6 These discoveries at last confirmed the very existence of human sacrifice archaeologically . However, the killed vassals did not allow scholars 0048-721 X/92/020109 + 26 $03 .00/0

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Early Bronze Age seals depicting scenes of human sacrifice . 3

to establish meaningful relations with the scenes shown on the seals because they could not be identified as deities . The slaughtered vassals must have belonged to a different category of blood ritual . The subject moved from the hands of narrow specialists to students of religion . They discovered a worldwide `combat myth of gods and heroes who encounter and defeat dragons, monsters, demons, and giants' . During such duels deities were trying to exterminate each other . Thus, many of the ritualistic scenes could be categorized under the `combat type of sacrifice' (Fontenrose) . Illustrations and sagas were found all over the world, depicting or describing these deities in anthropomorphic, theriomorphic or mixed form . Psychoanalytic explanations were offered . `The primeval precedent' of the bloody cults was located in `a common pattern' of the human soul : So we may look upon the whole combat in all its forms as the conflict between Eros and Thanatos . It is that opposition between life instincts and death instincts that

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Freud was the first to formulate, albeit tentatively, as the central principle of all living organisms from the beginning ; though it was seen dimly and expressed in dramatic or metaphysical terms by poets and philosophers before him . But in life the two kinds of instincts, though opposed, are always mingled . Thus do the fantasies of myth disguise the fundamental truths of the human spirit . 8 Such an overly simplistic adoption of Freudian thought very much reflected the Zeitgeist . It was soon elaborated into a whole school of universal and eternal sacrifice driven by the psyche of man . 9 But why, then, do we not have evidence of human sacrifice being practised everywhere throughout history? Obviously, this variety of a psychoanalytic approach overargued its case : Like Girard, Burkert postulates that the sacred is violence transcended and that sacrifice is a violent act making this transcendence possible . However, while Girard explains violence with a murky metaphysics of desire, Burkert founds it in genetic platitudes . According to him, the biological program acquired by the human species at the hunting stage involved the development of a strong intraspecific violence that originally found its outlet in the violence exerted on game . Sacrifice is thus a `ritualized' equivalent of hunting. to Other voices were also heard . These dissenting thinkers said, the rituals do not only `reflect" common psychic drives but ecological and social circumstances that pre-exist them and exist quite independent from them . Of course, one would like to know more about such circumstances . In Assyriology, the cause of the ritual is vaguely perceived as a `power not of this world' . 1 2 Students of mythology even concede `supernatural objects' 13 or threat of chaos . 14 Are these supernatural causes of fear then supposed to be more powerful than ordinary earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, eclipses, and tidal waves? To answer the question as to the character of a `power not of this world', archaeology proves helpful by coming up with more specific evidence . A bronze relief mounted on the gate of the New Year's Chapel in Assur carried the inscription, `The figure of Assur going to battle against Tiamat is that of Sennacherib' . 1 ' Assyria's Great King Sennacherib playing the celestial God Assur and battling the celestial serpent Tiamat seems to allow for a solution of the above mentioned controversy . The ritualistic scenes, indeed, depicted activities of gods and, yet, these deities were played by humans . There even exist illustrations which might perfectly fit the inscription from Assur . 'Assur against Tiamat' most probably presents other versions of 'Enki against Kur', 17 'Ninurta against Asag', 18 'Marduk against Tiamat' 19 or 'Gilgamesh against Huwawa' 20 etc . These myths may well portray the duel between a cosmic destroyer and a cosmic saviour of the world . The winning hero keeps floods away and puts the sky into order . This is best documented

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Figure 2 . Human being in the guise of a god killing another human being playing a star deity with a long snake or dragon skirt (terracotta plaque from Old-Babylonian Chafadshi) .

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in the Marduk-Tiamat combat of `The Creation Epic' (tablet IV :97-103, 13740 ; tablet V :1-7) : Tiamat opened her mouth to swallow it, And he forced in the imhillu-wind so that she could not close not her lips . Fierce winds distended her belly ; Her insides were constipated and she stretched her mouth wide . He shot an arrow which pierced her belly,

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Split her down the middle and slit her heart, Vanquished her and extinguished her life . [ . . .] He sliced her in half like a fish for drying : Half of her he put up to roof the sky, Drew a bolt across and made a guard hold it . Her waters he arranged so that they could not escape . [ . . .] He fashioned stands for the great gods . As for the stars, he set up constellations corresponding to them . He designated the year and marked out its divisions, Apportioned three stars each to the twelve months . When he had made plans of the days of the year . He founded the stand of Neberu [Jupiter?-G .H .] to mark out their courses, So that none of them could go wrong or stray .21 Since celestial deities also feature prominently in sacrificial drama one has to ask why human (or animal) actors were needed to play non-human powers . Was there an event that caused grown-up people to perform collective, ritualistic procedures very much in the same way children feel compelled to play? Also : Why are gods killed in ritualistic combats? What is a god? Why is the king also a priest? And why do his fellow-men suddenly accept priests as their superiors? These questions have, throughout modern scholarly history, been generally considered unanswerable : `What legal or pious fiction or what economic or social pressure conditioned this attitude, we shall probably never know' . 22 Ancient Greek philosophers were puzzled about the meaning of slaughtering `in honor of the gods . Thus, sacrifice in higher cultures is a survival without meaning' . 23 Is this really true? After all, our best evidence comes from Mesopotamia's higher Bronze Age culture? It rather looks as if the emergence of man's first higher culture is actually defined by the infrastructure of blood sacrifice . Could it be by chance that the Hindu historians literally call `Age of Sacrifice' 24 what western scholarship christened `Bronze Age'? Also in China, this period's main features were `bronze metallurgy, writing, the horse chariot, human sacrifice, and so forth' . 25 The very core of early high culture is formed by grand rituals of blood sacrifice, priesthoods and their temple economies . In the Neolithic (Late Stone Age) `cults and shrines were generally of a domestic kind . Public temples manned by whole-time priests were still something for the future' . 25 Rituals basically focused on reconciliations with the deceased . This practice extended to animals killed for food or in defence . The attempt to shed guilt feelings, which arise after the death of beings close to oneself, indeed represents an eternal and universal propensity of man . These attempts can be traced back to Homo sapiens neanderthalensis known not only for burying his dead, but also for ritually decorating them . 27 Below,

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it will be shown that this universal propensity is also incorporated in the grand blood rituals of the Bronze Age . But it cannot explain their sudden postNeolithic appearance .

II. DESTRUCTIONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF CULT CENTRES `Although scholars have pondered about the beginnings of civilization as long as there has been a concern for history, in terms of empirical information and results, this study is still in its infancy' .28 Though it is generally accepted that priestkings and `temples had the role of catalysts in the formation of cities', 29 the causes of these cult places are described `as various and highly contingent', 30 but not yet sufficiently intelligible . So much for modern researchers! What about the people who lived when civilization, i .e . the Bronze Age with blood sacrifice and its staff of priestly royalty began? They do not leave us uninformed . The earliest extant text on the subject known from Mesopotamia, `The Deluge', relates the emergence of cult-centres to some disaster that had struck the earth : My mankind, in its destruction I will . . . I will return the people to their settlements After the . . . of kingship had been lowered from heaven, After the exalted tiara and the throne of kingship had been lowered from heaven, He perfected the rites and the exalted divine laws . . . . Founded the five cities in . . . pure places, Called their names, apportioned them as cult centres 31 The `destruction', after which `cult-centres' with their sacrificial compounds seem to have emerged and priest - `kingship was lowered from heaven', was by no means the last cataclysm to terrify the Ancient Near East . Soon after the cult-centres were established `the Flood swept thereover . After the flood had swept thereover [ . . .] the kingship was in Kish' . 32 When Kish was systematically excavated between 1923 and 1933, the Anglo-American team discovered a flood stratum upon which the remains of the Early Dynastic I period, i .e . the first period dominated by priestkings, was found . 33 Meanwhile, excavations have `shown that the Archaic Sumerian or Early Dynastic civilization of the early third millennium follows notable flood levels at several important sites : Shuruppak, Kish, and Uruk among them . [ . . .] These levels close the last prehistoric period' . 34 A celestial body called Inanna/Ishtar/Nintu etc . -not always distinguishable from the Great Serpent-was singled out-f.i . i n the 'Atra-Hasis' epic-as the main culprit behind this disaster : `How did I, with them, command total destruction', she wept after the flood's `might came upon the peoples [like a battle array] ' . 35 Ishtar was the most feared and most venerated deity of the

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Ancient Near Eastern pantheon- as depicted in the 'Gilgamesh Epic' (tablet XI ; lines 103-30) : The Annunaki lifted up the torches ; setting the land ablaze with their flare ; Stunned shock over Adad's deeds overtook the heavens and turned to blackness all that had been light . The [ . . .] land shattered like a [. . .] pot . All day long the South Wind blew [ . . .], blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water, overwhelming the people like an attack . No one could see his fellow, they could not recognize each other in the torrent . The gods were frightened by the Flood, retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu . The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall . Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth, the sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed : `The olden days have alas turned to clay, because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods! How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods, ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people?! No sooner have I given birth to my dear people than they fill the sea like so many fish!' The gods-those of the Annunaki-were weeping with her, the gods humbly sat weeping, sobbing with grief (?), their lips burning, parched with thirst. Six days and seven nights came the wind and flood, the storm flattening the land . When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding, the flood was a war-struggling with itself like a woman writhing (in labor)

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Another hymn may suffice to illustrate the catastrophic prominence of Ishtar in ancient Mesopotamia : Proud Queen of the Earth Gods, Supreme Among the Heaven Gods Loud Thundering Storm, you pour your rain over all the lands and all the people . You make the heavens tremble and the earth quake . You flash like lightning over the highlands ; you throw your firebrands across the earth . Your deafening command, whistling like the South Wind, splits apart great mountains . You trample the disobedient like a wild bull ; heaven and earth tremble . Your frightful cry descending from the heavens devours its victims . Holy Inanna, the riverbanks overflow with the flood-waves of your heart . 37 In Hebrew sources, we read about clashes of a deity (Sisera), which most probably was an alter ego of Ishtar: `They fought from heaven ; the stars in their

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courses fought against Sisera' . 38 The Greek philosopher and historian, Aristotle, also conveys that in those days `the planets were gods' . 39 The period termed Bronze Age by modern scholarship, according to Aristotle, was divided by periodic catastrophes that destroyed civilizations .40 His predecessor, Plato, reported three `disastrous floods which preceded the destructive deluge in the time of Deucalion' . 41 In another dialogue, Plato assigned these conflagrations to celestial powers : `There have been and there will be many and diverse destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means . For in truth the story that is told in your country [Greece] as well as ours [Egypt], how once upon a time Phaeton, son of Helios, yoked his father's chariot, and, because he was unable to drive it along the course taken by his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth and himself perished by a thunderbolt-that story, as it is told, has the style of a legend, but the truth of it lies in the occurrence of a shifting of the bodies in the heavens which move around the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals' . 42 A universal flood most probably was not on Plato's mind, After all, there existed no international information network in antiquity which could have confirmed the globality of any event. Only through modern flood research, did it become known that flood sagas were told worldwide . On record are : Iceland, Wales, Lithuania, Finland, Transylvania, Savoy, Persia, India, Mongolia, China, Malaya, Indonesia, Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, South America, Central America and Mexico, North America, Africa . 43 The first truly comprehensive compilation of flood sagas was written a hundred years ago . From Babylonia to Haiti, it listed eighty eight texts . Forty appeared to be genuine pieces created independent of each other . Only twenty myths of this collection seemed to have travelled, i .e . were borrowed via diffusion . The rest were duplicates only exhibiting minor variations from other stories found in the same area. 44 A decade later, seventy three genuine stories could be reported . 45 Soon, the number of flood stories swelled to two hundred and sixty eight.46 Ten years later, five hundred deluge myths coming from two hundred and fifty nine peoples or tribes were estimated .47 Special studies were devoted to parts of the world of which the flood myth was claimed to be absent by the pioneering researchers : Northern Asia, eventually, yielded twenty one texts . 48 In Africa, two dozen myths could be located .49 Cosmic catastrophes as the causes of deluges were already suggested by eminent scientists of the 18th century 50 as, f.i ., William Whiston,5 1 Nicholas-Antoine Boulanger52 and Giovanni-Rinaldo Carli-Rubbi . 53 The first analysis of material taken from flood deposits at Ur in Southern Mesopotamia was initiated by Watelin, the excavator of Kish . It resulted in `fresh-water silt containing just those elements which are to be expected from the water of the Euphrates' . 54 However, the silt caused surprise because of

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`the absence of fresh-water molluscs as well as by the absence of contemporary marine organisms, and by the presence of terrestrial molluscs in one specimen only' . 55 This curious sterility was not to be expected for the tremendous flood of riverine origin required to accumulate up to 370 cm of silt . When, two decades later, geologists found out that the water of the Shatt el Arab, around which the flood yielding sites are located, is practically silt-free, 56 the riverine theory could no longer be upheld . Even if there had been silt the velocity of a riverine flood `would incidentally inhibit the deposition of silt' .57 `The great recorded depth of the deposits at Ur, over 3 m, and at Shurrupak, probably about 60 cm, are significant as they would require lagoon-like conditions for a fairly long time' . 58 Therefore, an aeolian (wind blown) origin of the deposit was considered . The absence of lamellation seemed to point in that direction . Yet, there was `a complete absence of any larger rounded particles which usually occur in aeolian deposits' .59 In addition, it was found that the flood deposits differed `from the present desert sand' . so Flood research ended in perplexity . Scholars had to go back to the drawing board where they now focus on the `impounding of the water through the operation of some hitherto unidentified phenomenon' . 61 A subsidence of Mesopotamia by `many tens of metres in vertical extent' plus a `subsequent uplift' is a scenario more recently suggested by geology . 62 Such a huge geological catastrophe might account for the depth of the deposits but still falls short of explaining the absence of marine molluscs etc . Therefore, it is cautiously labelled `one of possibly many explanations' .63 With the riverine flood theory more or less debunked the pendulum may swing back64 to the 1920s and 1930s when a cosmic origin of many clay deposits on the Earth was discussed in geology 63 and astronomy . 66 Meanwhile ancient references to repeated cataclysms are impressively confirmed not only by flood layers but by a great wealth of other archaeological evidence . Ishtar's `firebrands' and `split mountains' etc . can no longer be labelled as mere phantasies of ordinary disturbances of nature or of emanations of unconscious images . Apart from strata buried under clay, incinerations seem to have been a common fate of Bronze Age sites outside the great river valleys . Archaeologically, such disasters were first systematically surveyed by Claude F . Schaeffer (1898-1982), the most eminent French archaeologist of our century, who, inter alia, excavated at Ugarit/Lebanon, Enkomi/Cyprus and Malatya/Turkey . His work with allied intelligence at Bletchley-as a member of the `Free French' contingent -provided him with the spare time and opportunity to profit from the facilities offered for research and study by St John's College, Oxford, U .K. The bulk of his Stratigraphie Comparie was written there between 1942 and 1944 . It covered some forty important sites in the Near and Middle East . As early as 1929-39, when he excavated Ugarit, Schaeffer had begun to

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wonder about the causes of destruction levels, of which he found a sequence of four alternating with uneventful levels . Buildings of the destruction layers bore traces of fire . Walls were crumbled and cracked . This damage was obviously not the result of an attacking army . Ancient wars could usually be recognized by arrow points, pieces of armour and intentional breaches of walls which were later repaired . Therefore, Schaeffer opted for local earthquakes . Yet, he already nourished doubts because in Troy, some 900 km away from Ugarit as the crow flies, destruction levels were excavated which belonged to the same periods as in Ugarit . No common or garden earthquake could simultaneously level cities 900 km apart . Troy II, contemporary with Early Ugarit II, `perished in a vast conflagration from which no buildings escaped ruin . What actually happened to bring about the burning of the whole establishment is still an unsolved mystery' . 67 At St John's College in the early forties, Schaeffer could muster a long list of excavation reports whose authors also reported destruction levels which they usually attributed to earth quakes or enemy attacks . From the material then available to him, the longest aerial line between simultaneously destroyed cities he could establish was 2 . 300 km between Troy and Tepe Hissar : `Indeed, there is not for us the slightest doubt that the conflagration of Troy II corresponds to the catastrophe that made an end to the habitations of the Old Bronze Age of Alaca Huyuk (level III), of Alisar (level IA), of Tarsus (level III, 12 to 13 m below surface), and- [some 2 . 300 km east of Troy] -of Tepe Hissar (level IIB) . In Syria this catastrophe incinerated Ancient Ugarit 2, the city of Byblos that flourished under the Old Kingdom of Egypt, as well as the contemporaneous cities of Palestine' .68 Schaeffer, though time and again asking `what is the nature of these events which destroyed the major cities from Anatolian Troy . . . to the lands of the Caucasus?', 69 was not overly concerned with the exact causes of these enormously widespread shatterings . However, he had to rule out human interference . He could not even resort to the largest earthquake possible today because he was not only aware of the 2300 km distance between Troy and Tepe Hissar but also of climate changes around 1700 B .C .E . between the area east of the Caspian Sea and Central Europe . This extended the affected territory to a diameter of nearly 5 . 000 km. How could any earthquake be so powerful and why should it change the climate : `At the same time (1700 .E .C B . ) in the Caucasus and in certain areas of prehistoric Europe, changes of climate have caused, it appears, transformations in the occupation and economy of the countries' .70 Vaguely, he settled for a `seismic explanation' which, however, referred to earthquakes much stronger than the `modern' ones . 7 1 He concluded his gigantic effort : `Our inquiry has shown that these successive crises which opened and closed the principal periods of the 3rd and 2nd millennia were not caused by the action of man . On the contrary, compared with the

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magnitude of these general crises and their profound effects, the exploits of conquerors and the schemes of political leaders seem very insignificant' . 72 The northern edge of the east Mediterranean is on record for a similar sequence of devastations during the Bronze Age : For Anatolian Troy etc . we are told : `Not that the centuries were altogether peaceful : there were periodic catastrophes, hence the division into five clearly marked stages' . 73 Scholars are still puzzled as to their causes : `Archaeology reveals cataclysms, but it cannot tell us the circumstances or even who the participants were' . 74 In addition, both at the start 75 as well as at the end of the Bronze Age, 76 the earth underwent climate changes . Two years after Schaeffer, whose voluminous work on Bronze Age catastrophes most probably remained his least-read publication, the scholarly world felt scandalized 77 by a book titled Worlds in Collision which was written by a medical doctor and psychoanalyst, Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) . He argued that the traditions of ancient people, which spoke of cataclysmic floods and worldwide conflagrations, were essentially correct . 78 The planetary collision scenarios he saw behind Earth-envolving battles of the gods (theomachies) are still being challenged and can be shown to contain numerous errors . Yet, in substance his view of cosmic catastrophies not only gained in reputation for geological time (extinction of dinosaurs etc . 79 ), but also was backed for the Bronze Age, i .e for the time of writing . In 1982 two British astronomers, Victor Clube (University of Oxford) and William Napier (Royal Observatory, Edinburgh) published The Cosmic Serpent: A Catastrophist View of Earth History . Without giving credit to Velikovsky's cosmology, Clube and Napier offered-as they later termed it-'a scientific rationale, a relatively secure astronomical framework' for `the ancient tales of celestial catastrophe' : 80 Short-lived comets have characteristic lifetimes of between a few hundred and a few thousand years . Not only do they break up, they also get driven away by planetary encounters . There are at present approximately one hundred times too many short-period comets relative to the rate at which long-period comets are captured by Jupiter and fed into the observed stock of Apollo asteroids . The present number is probably due to a burst of new short-period comets formed several thousand years ago as a result of a single large comet fragmenting during Jovian capture or perihelion passage . Several myths of the world are interpreted as allegorical descriptions of the break-up of a large comet in an Earth-intersecting orbit . Some fragments struck the Earth during the second and third millennia BC . A number of biblical eposides, in particular the Exodus events and the Flood, describe the consequences of one or more powerful impacts . 81

III. REDEMPTION `FOR THE BECLOUDED PEOPLE' On the basis of the references from `The Deluge' epic on an evolution from `destructions' to `cult-centres' it should be possible to reconstruct the original

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connection between the catastrophes suffered by Bronze Age man and the deadly sacrificial rituals he performed under the guidance of priests during this first period of high culture . 82 `Destruction', according to `The Deluge' epic, preceded the lowering of kingship from heaven. After this disaster, according to a late (Old-Babylonian) version of the `Epic of Etana' (A-I :1-14), the `gods' considered an innovative remedy for man : The great Annunaki, who decree the fate, Sat down, taking counsel about the land . They who created the regions, who set up the establishment, The Igigi were too lofty for mankind, A stated time for mankind they decreed . The beclouded people, in all, had not set up a king . At that time, no tiara had been tied on, nor crown, And no scepter had been inlaid with lapis ; The shrines had not been built altogether . The Seven [Igigi] had barred the gates against the settlers [settlements] . Scepter, crown tiara, and [shepherd's] crook Lay deposited before Anu in heaven, There being no counseling for its people . [Then] kingship descended from heaven . 83 The best minds devoting their analytical skill to this myth somehow sensed that the somewhat enigmatic statement on `the beclouded people' in want of `counseling', must provide a clue to the rationale behind Bronze Age man's readiness to accept priest kings : `The first line of the quotation intimates that the people were lost, lacking all direction, moving, as it were, in a fog, because there was no king' . $4 This attempt to comprehend the origin of kingship is insufficient . We are not told that people were beclouded `because there was no king' . A `destruction' had `beclouded' the people . They were not confused because they lacked a king . Instead, some `power not of this world' (Jacobsen), so to speak, had caused their confusion and, therefore, put them in need of a kind of counselling for which they saw no use before . Students of Mesopotamian religion were painfully hampered in their analysis of priest-kingship, i .e . the emergence of urban civilization, because they could not bring themselves to connect the `destruction' (from `The Deluge' epic) with the destruction layers found right underneath the earliest Bronze Age settlements . They acknowledged `the thunderstorm and the yearly flood 85 as possible vexations of nature . But they could not recognize the catastrophic `black cloud' of Gilgamesh's Ishtar flood (tablet XI, 9786 ) as a real and most terrifying phenomenon and, therefore, could not make any sense of the `decree' for the `beclouded people' . Seasonal disturbances of nature could not figure

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as Bronze Age innovations which alone could have assigned them explanatory power for the emergence of post-Neolithic cult-centres . Myths about great men inventing sacrifice, prayers, and gods after they had survived destructive floods etc . are by no means restricted to Mesopotamia . This area, however, is rich in written material . In Chaldaea, Ziusudra is such a hero sacrificing after a flood ." Assyrians have Utnapishtim 88 and Hebrews Noah89 in a similar role . In India, Manu invents sacrifice after the flood . 90 In Greek traditions Perseus, Deucalion, Megaros, Aiakos, etc . started to sacrifice after a flood . 91 Also the transformation of the poor hut of Philemon and Baucis into a temple after the flood 92 represents a way in which Greek memory kept the connection between priesthood and sacrifice on the one hand, and an overwhelming cataclysm on the other . Even the Algonquins of North America have their hero Nanaboush start the practice of praying after a flood . 93 In China, fighting dragons in the sky are seen as responsible for a flood after which the first dynasty of the Shang priesthood emerged . 94 Since there is evidence of floods, destructions, and climatic change one may well ask what human impact they have had? How did people react to them? Can we imagine their 'becloudedness'? Though answers have to remain somewhat speculative we have a body of psychiatric and psychological scholarship to direct us . Those who survive the mechanical impact of disaster could still die from fear . Those who managed to transform fear into fury were still helpless because of the absence of meaningful adversaries to turn to . Those who were not struck dumb by events and did not try to commit suicide resorted to flight that achieved nothing . Men cried out against the sky like wild animals ; they threatened the forces of nature with outstretched fists . During storms with thunder and lightning, even male chimpanzees rush up hillsides with sticks in their hands and rage against the celestial attack . 95 Survivors might even try to release tension by indecent exposure to the heavens . It seems quite probable that the defensive erection of certain primates, which may be repeated in statues of Hermes with erect phalluses, indicates that it must have been part of the rituals . 96 In the hopelessness of their anger the survivors of catastrophe also attack one another . A community spared from destruction by cosmic power, thus, is threatened with destruction by a breakdown of social laws . Even after the cataclysm has abated, communities cannot recover unless they find freedom from fear, and end to mass frenzy and release from traumatic and persistent tension . No way can be found, by negotiation or direct action, to compensate for the destruction or to ward off its feared recurrence . Obviously some remedy is desperately needed to soothe the soul-destroying panic, one which will bring calm to the strife-ridden, clarity to the `beclouded people' . Like children who try to master an overwhelming trauma by re-enacting it in their play, the terror-stricken communities of the Bronze Age-this author

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claims-produced heroes who introduced the sacrificial dramas for their `beclouded' kinsmen in a very similar manner . In 1920, Sigmund Freud described a young boy's activity and, thereby, the first convincing theory of child's play as follows : He was greatly attached to his mother, who had not only fed him herself but had also looked after him without any outside help . This good little boy, however, had an occasional disturbing habit of taking any small objects he could get hold of and throwing them away from him into a corner, under the bed, and so on, so that hunting for his toys and picking them up was often quite a business . As he did this he gave vent to a loud, long-drawn-out 'o-o-o-o', accompanied by an expression of interest and satisfaction . His mother and the writer of the present account were agreed in thinking that this was not a mere interjection but represented the German word `fort ('gone') . I eventually realized that it was a game and that the only use he made of any of his toys was to play `gone' with them . One day I made an observation which confirmed my view . The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string tied round it . It never occurred to him to pull it along the floor behind him, for instance, and play at its being a carriage . What he did was to hold the reel by the string and very skilfully throw it over the edge of his curtained cot, so that it disappeared into it, at the same time uttering his expressive 'o-o-o-o' . He then pulled the reel out of the cot again by the string and hailed its reappearance with a joyful `da' ('there') . This, then, was the complete game-disappearance and return . [ . . .] The child cannot possibly have felt his mother's departure as something agreeable or even indifferent . How then does his repetition of this distressing experience as a game fit in with the pleasure principle? [ . . .] On an unprejudiced view one gets an impression that the child turned his experience into a game from another motive . At the outset he was in a passive situation-he was overpowered by the experience ; but, by repeating it, unpleasurable though it was, as a game, he took an active part . [ . . .] It is clear that in their play children repeat everything that has made a great impression (note the element `pressure' in this term, G .H .) on them in real life, and that in doing so they abreact the strength of the impression and, as one might put it, make themselves master of the situation . [ . . .] The unpleasurable nature of an experience does not unsuit it for play . If the doctor looks down a child's throat or carries out some small operation on him, we may be quite sure that these frightening experiences will be the subject of the next game ; but we must not in that connection overlook the fact that there is a yield of pleasure from another source . As the child passes over from the passivity of the experience to the activity of the game ; he hands on the disagreeable experience to one of his playmates and in this way revenges himself on a substitute . 79 The first priestly counsellors provided healing power to their infantile, regressed fellow-men through a similar kind of play . The play had to do with sacrifice . These redeemers, by inventing the sacrificial drama and its deities,

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were capable of actively overcoming the paralysing and agitating effects of catastrophes . They helped bring their fellow-men back to their senses . The cult founders-rising above their kin because of superior psychic stabilityrestore the power of action to their terrorized communities by becoming sacred executioners . 98 The play worked like this : For spiritual recovery of the community, in which enormous tension is released and the terror-inflicting catastrophe turned from passive suffering into active reenactment, blood has to be spilled . At the end of the sacrificial therapy the conscience-stricken community, therefore, cannot help but offer the victims a passionate plea for pardon . The community divests itself from its guilt feeling through gestures of reconciliation with the killed victims . In this very act it transforms the natural powers into gods . The form of the sacrificial victim influences the form taken by the god in human or animal images, or in a combination of the two, with or without appropriate masks or costumes . There are students of sacrifice who claim that the primeval performances of blood rituals were only concerned with natural powers ." These students tend to identify these powers with winter and storm alone, and fail to relate the rituals with their animal and human actors to cosmic deities in human, animal or monster shape. On the other hand, it was occasionally seen that `the imitation or representation of a power in the cult rite by a human actor actually made the power present' . loo Even the transformation of a victim into a god is recognized, e .g . when a pole (tropaon) turns into a statue of the Goddess Athena after being adorned with skull and skin of a sacrificed goat .' ° ' Yet, the logical line from the `supernatural power' (Kirk) via its ceremonially killed `human agent' (Jacobsen) to this victim's deification cannot be drawn . This is admitted by an eminent student of sacrifice : We still hate our victims, if you will, but we no longer worship them . This diminished mythical transfiguration certainly accounts for the readability of persecution in our world and the unreadability of myth stricto sensu . We can read persecution because it is objectively easier and we still cannot read myth even though or rather because it amounts to nothing else, in the end, than a more extreme transfiguration of the persecuted victim . 101 Vaguely sensing `extreme' preconditions for sacrifice, but not being able to acknowledge them in myth and archaeological evidence, characterizes conventional studies of Bronze Age ritual . Celestial `wars' with their fallout of ash, clay and flooding are not taken into consideration . Yet, they make myth readable . Where the survivors remember a catastrophe as a battle or collision between cosmic powers (Marduk/Assur against Tiamat, Zeus against Typhon, Apollo against Python, etc .) this battle has to be recreated in the healing play . Like the child who has to replay what impressed him most, the surviving communities can only find relieffrom pressure if their ritual includes

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the experiences which impressed them most . They just cannot do without the celestial side of their earthly calamity if the therapy is to be credible . Therefore, both the primeval priests and their victims impersonate the power of the cosmos . The power seen as `defeated' in the sky is represented by the person or animal killed by the heroic priest who himself plays the natural power anthropomorphically perceived as `victorious' . Together with these celestial events the community acts out afresh one or several aspects of the event so that, at least temporarily, the tension caused by the traumatic cataclysm can be released . The extreme catastrophes from above as well as the extremely regressive behaviour of man under their impact created the frightening impression that the survivors could not overcome without renacting them. Thus, aside from the climactic celestial battle with its bloody outcome, there had to be scattering of ash, yelling, shaking, collapsing, indecent exposing, and, yes, urinating and defecating with the latter assisted by `powerful laxatives' 103 whose use in ritual remained entirely enigmatic and awkward to students of sacrifice . To this author, it looks as if the healing recapitulation of traumatically experienced catastrophes also accounts for the origin of the professional arts . Music-vocal and instrumental-arises from a ritual reproduction of the frightening sound of the catastrophes and of the people acting in panic . Drama arises from the need to repeat reliably the extreme human behaviour and observed cosmic forces . The most extraordinary dramatic text is the 'Ramesseum Dramatic Papyrus' 104 which focuses on a celestial combat and even includes the words to be spoken by the actors who represent deities . The connection, though no longer understood, between blood sacrifice and the singing of theogonies-dramatic stories on the emergence of celestial deities is also preserved in Herodotus' account of the Persian bull sacrificer : When he has cut in pieces the sacrificial animal, he stews the meat and, spreading a layer of the softest grass (clover, chiefly), puts all of the meat on this layer . When he has done this, a Magian stands by and chants a hymn of the birth of the gods-for such, they say, is their incantation . Without a Magian they may not offer any sacrifice . 105 The dances-and also athletic contests-have to be carried out in exact accordance with the formalized ritual and, therefore, require rehersal and choreography . Finally, the plastic arts begin with the costume and masks people or animals wear when they impersonate celestial bodies . All this done, there remain the corpses of the victims . In this author's view, they were freshly slaughtered `idols' . Such `statues' of gods quickly decomposed . Therefore, it is not by chance that, e .g . Mycenaean archaeology failed to deliver these religious items expected by excavators . 106 Instead, poles and pillars were found whose function was never really understood . Nevertheless,

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Figure 3 . `Sacrificial Tree' of Diana of Tauris with skulls of animal and human victims . 108 in the early sixties the link between corpses that are tied to trees and the earliest statues of the dangerous `Queen of Heaven' was recognized by a student of religion . 107 Unfortunately concluding that the `Queen of Heaven' was a tree goddess he missed the point that the victim whose corpse was tied to the tree had played a cosmic deity . The cosmic connotations of the cults in which this goddess figured so prominently could not be dismissed entirely . A disciple of Karl Meuli tried to accommodate them in a way which would keep catastrophism out of mainstream religious studies . According to him the cosmic dimension is not the prerequisite of sacrifice, but its result : `What is set in motion in sacrifice is not the order of nature, but that of the community and its corresponding spiritual

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life . The resulting vibration is so enormous that the cosmos seems to swing in the same rhythm' . 109 This reversal of a cosmically created shock with its subsequent human ritual to a ritual sending shockwaves to the cosmos somehow takes the cosmic dimension of myth into account . However, the question why the sacrificers were obsessed with celestial bodies and why they spilled the blood of living beings, remains unanswered . Cosmic powers of dead matter were turned into deities in animal or human shape . Living impersonators performed the deadly task of playing them in ritually healing dramas . After their demise, these pitiable members of the human race received reconciliatory gestures from their fellow-men whom they had assisted in releasing unbearable tension . This is where the above mentioned universal human propensity to seek reconciliation with the deceased enters the Bronze Age rituals . Worship of ancestors and worship of victims stood on common ground . For the purpose of reconciliation, the corpses-or parts of them-were elevated. This was often done by fettering or chaining them to pillars, posts, crosses etc . Those asking forgiveness in front of the raised victims turned themselves into worshippers of idols representing cosmic powers . Simultaneously, they also sanctified the supports to which the corpses were fixed . The supports formed a constant element of the holy precinct whereas the carcasses sooner or later had to be removed to make room for fresh victims . (It cannot be ruled out, of course, that victims were tied to the supports from the very beginning of the ritual bringing about their death .) After the termination of disastrous and widespread catastrophes at the beginning of the Iron Age, movements arose which propagated the abolition of human sacrifice . Wherever they succeeded, to the chagrin of the faithful, freshly slaughtered idols were no longer available . Conservative forces replaced them by more durable images like carved tree-trunks or stone sculptures still retaining the shackles which had been necessary to hold up dead victims . In front of such idols rituals were performed for the release of any unbearable tension, whether its source was cosmic or not . Occasionally, ritual sacrifice was even carried out in front of such statues . These regressions-falling back on fresh victims in front of `petrified' ones-add to the difficulty of explaining the origin of idols . Because of their shackles carved into wood or stone they were identified as a peculiar brand of `fettered gods' .' 10 In actual fact, the earliest sculptors of dead or even hollow idols only seem to have tried to reproduce the slaughtered ones as unadulterated as possible . It is not by chance therefore, that post-Babylonian Judaism with its radical criticism of blood sacrifice also turned against its petrified version, i .e . prohibited idols . I I I One understands now that god and victim are not identical, as many authors suspect : `A steer and seven sheep are thrown alive into a pit : they are Kingu and his seven sons . Somebody throws a dove into the air and cuts it in two with his sword : the dove is Tiamat who was cut in two by 1Vlarduk' . 112

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The victim is not the god, but without a guilt-generating sacrificial execution the inorganic cosmic force represented by the executed cannot become a god . Each blood sacrifice is the `killing of a god' only insofar as it is this sacrifice which makes the faithful fear reprisal and seek forgiveness, i .e . turns them into worshippers . (Of course, the most popular human being turned into a god after having been `sacrificed' in the role of a boy-like deity is Jesus . His crown of thorns most probably is derived from the type of star mask shown in Figure 2 . His corpse nailed to a pole or cross resembles the `Sacrificial Tree' of Diana reproduced in Figure 3 .) The lion's share of guilt for the sacred execution, however, falls on the priest . He has nobody to resort to for redeeming the guilt which weighs heavily on him . Self-flagellation and ascetic, penitential renunciation which went as far as self-mutilation, 113 were therefore techniques used by priests as a means of expiation . The latter found its extreme expression in self-castration which is not only known for priests of the Syrian Great Goddess Cybele, 114 but also for the sacred executioners in the Aztec cult of Quetzalcoatl . 11s The first priests able to provide release from collective frenzy were considered heroic not only for their innovative mind, but also because initially the sacrificial act was dangerous . The victim did not necessarily co-operate . It was no easy matter to dispatch a representative of raging cosmic forces . The victim virtually had to be defeated in the sacred ritual . The cult founderspresumably at a later date sacrificial victims received training and status or entered the arena in shackles-had to kill unwilling partners . Even where the natural forces were represented by a wild beast, whose capture supplied a wealth of material for myths, the outstanding courage of the cult founders was unquestionable . Above all, the early heroic priests' acceptance of guilt feelings for the act of killing elevated them above the community . The community which had been relieved from emotional confusion-had truly been healed-was in debt to them . In this author's view, the payment of this debt was decisive in bringing about feudal, i .e . full-time, priestship which became the core of Bronze Age civilization : the Mesopotamian En or Lugal was a priestking who sacrificed,' 18 as was the Mycenaean Basileus . 119 Early priesthood did not succeed by fooling the people with tricks . It had a legitimate basis : the priesthood provided healing power through rituals for terror-stricken communities . The priests' second great service-oracles-was no less in demand . When will it happen again?, was the question frightened people would have asked throughout the Bronze Age . The priestly legitimacy began to crumble the very moment the catastrophes were over . Thus, the beginning of the Iron Age brings the `Age of Discord' as Hindu historians label i t . 120 The bloody rituals were not really needed any

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Figure 4 . Late Bronze Age Mycenaean gold ring/Ashmolean Museum, Oxford ."' Lion flanked column of gibbet type with two animal headstied to its top . The-as yet enigmatic-sacredness of columns, pillars, posts etc . may have been due to reconciliatory rites performed before victims fastened to them after-or whilst-being killed in sacrificial rituals, in which the victims may have played celestial deities `defeated' in a cosmic combat (theomachy) . Asking forgiveness from these freshly slaughtered idols the members of the sacrificially healed communities turned themselves into idol worshippers who could not help but also sanctify the pillars, crosses e tc . t o which the victims were fettered, chained, pulled up or attached to in some other manner . The decline of blood sacrifice after the termination of the Bronze Age with its series of cataclysms eventually brought about the idols so numerous in the Iron Age . They were made of wood, clay, stone or metal and originally exhibited shackles -the enigmatic `fettered gods' 117 In this paper it is suggested that the early manufacturers of statues merely copied freshley slaughtered victims thereby producing petrifications of living beings who-up to the most recent Bronze Age past-were killed as players of celestial deities in a `combat type of sacrifice' (Fontenrose) . As before-with fresh victims no longer available-rituals in front of idols are now performed to release unbearable tension-whatever its source . This shift from spilling real blood brought about man made idols and created the type of religion still in practice to this day, e .g . in the Christian worship of crucifixes which depict the corpse of a crowned man-nailed to a beam or a cross-who is considered to represent the son of a heavenly deity .

more . The frightening disasters reproduced in ritualistic play had ceased to occur. They became unsuitable and much too powerful a medicine for the usual fears of children and the ordinary suffering of adults such as diseases, bad harvests or miscarriages etc . Therefore, the monstrous ceremonies became redundant . In Greece there evolved `a new view of the cosmos which stressed 121 Movements against blood symmetry and regularity in natural processes' . sacrifice sprang up in several areas . The Jewish prophet Hosea, f .i . coined his famous programme of Judaism opening the path towards full-fledged Jewish monotheism : `I desired loyal love, and not sacrifice' . 122

The Rise of Blood Sacrifice 129 Under this imperative a people emerged that `shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations' . 123 The `non-believers were shown in Judaism something quite unique . Those elements of religion and cult that are elsewhere in the centre, had been completely omitted : it knew neither temples nor images of the gods, nor sacrifice . The abolition of sacrificial service, the central element of all local cults, with the exception of the Temple in Jerusalem, was valid for the majority of the Jews . For this reason, the temple with all its details of the sacrificial service [also terminated with its destruction in 70 CE] made an enormous impression on Jews who came to Jerusalem; contrary to other peoples, they had never seen anything like it elsewhere' . 124 The opponents, on the other hand, resorted to apocalyptic preaching to keep the fear alive through education . Bronze Age catastrophes were depicted as future events, became the `prototype of the Final judgement" 25 which kept the fearful faithful in need of priests and their sacrificial reliefs as, f.i ., the eucharist . IV. SUMMARY The priestly blood sacrifice of the Bronze Age emerged in response to global catastrophes recognized by present-day scholars in destruction layers, climate changes and divisions of ages, but attributed to erratic celestial bodies by ancient peoples . Priest-kingship offers the sacrificial drama as a collective therapy-analoguous to the healing power of a child's play-for the panicstricken communities of mankind's most catastrophic age . This development of a priestly hierarchy would be incomprehensible if it were only a clever aristocratic plot . The temples received tribute from the peasants in exchange for a service of healing (or salvation) by the elimination of panic and anger through sacrificial release of catastrophe-inflicted aggression . Typically, the ritual was arranged as a combat with living impersonators of colliding celestial bodies . Between the catastrophes the priests also functioned as prognosticators of the next disaster . Because the sacrifice, which brought inner peace to its attendants, was thought of as a necessary answer to the terrifying catastrophes, feudal priest-kingship was not only tolerated but venerated and defended as a true means of healing . Certainly, the tribute for the priest was felt as a burden but the believer-resembling a patient billed by his doctor-felt well compensated . This changed completely when, at the beginning of the Iron Age, the catastrophes were replaced by peace and order among the celestial bodies . A controversy between critics and proponents of sacrifice arose that lasted until today . A CKNO WLED CEMENTS An earlier version of this paper was read at the Conference CATASTROPHISM 2000, University of Toronto/Ontario, August 17-19, 1990. For corrections and suggestions

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the author expresses his gratitude to Karl Fruchtmann (Bremen) and David Rothberg (Toronto) .

NOTES 1 A . R . W . Green, The Role of Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East, Missoula, MT, Scholars Press 1975 . 2 J. Menant, `Le sacrifice humain', in Recherches sur la Glyptique Orientate, vol . 1, 1887, pp . 150ff. 3 All illustrations but bottom right from P . Amiet, La glyptique Misopotamienne archaique, Paris, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 1980, passim ; bottom right from D . Collon, First Impressions . Cylinder Seals in the Ancient Near East, London, British Museum Publications 1987, p . 176. 4 W . H . Ward, `Human sacrifice on Babylonian seals', American Journal of Archaeology (1888), pp. 34f. 5 Cf. L . Woolley, Ur Excavations, vol . II . The Royal Cemetery, Oxford, Oxford University Press 1934 ; F. M . T . de Liagre Bohl, `Das Menschenopfer bei den alten Sumerern' (1929), in Idem, Opera Minora, Groningen, J . B . Wolters 1953 . 6 L . Woolley, Ur `of the Chaldees'. The Final Account, Excavations at Ur, revised and updated by P . R . S . Moorey, London, The Herbert Press 1982, p . 60 . 7 J . Fontenrose, Python. A Study of Delphic Myth and its Origins (1959), Berkeley, CA, University of California Press 1980, pp . 9, 1 . 8 Fontenrose, op . cit ., pp. 3, 474. Cf., e's.g., W . Burkert, Homo Necans, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter 1972 ; R. 9 Girard, La violence et le Sacre, Paris, Bernard Grasset 1972 ; J . Gould, `On making sense of Greek religion', in P . E . Easterling, J . V . Muir (ed), Greek Religion and Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1985 . 10 V . Valeri, Kingship and Sacrifice, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press 1985, p . 70. 11 G . Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience. The Religion of the Dinka, Oxford, U .K ., Clarendon Press 1961, p . 170 . 12 T . Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness . A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press 1976, p . 3 . G . S . Kirk, Myth . Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures, 13 Berkeley, CA, University of California Press 1970, p . 283 . 14 C . Geertz, `Religion as a culture system', in M . Banton (ed .), Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, London, Tavistock 1966 . 15 A . L . Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, revised edition completed by Erica Reiner, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press 1977, p . 185 . 16 M . V . Seton-Williams, Babylonien . Kunstschdtze zwischen Euphrat and Tigris, Hamburg, Hoffmann and Campe 1981, p . 132 . 17 S. N . Kramer, History Begins at Sumer. Thirty-Nine Firsts in Man's Recorded History, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press 1981, pp . 169f. 18 Kramer, op . cit ., pp . 170f. 19 J . B . Pritchard (ed .), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press 1969, pp . 64ff. 20 Pritchard, op . cit ., pp . 78ff. 21 S . Dailey, Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford, U .K ., Oxford University Press 1989, pp . 253, 255, emphasis added .

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28

29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43

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Oppenheimer, op . cit ., p . 97 . J . de Vries, Perspectives in the History of Religion, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press 1977, pp . 198, 205 . G . B . Walker, The Hindu World: An Encyclopedic Survey of Hinduism, New York, Praeger 1968 . K . Chang, The Archaeology of China, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press 1963, p . 136, emphasis added . G . Clark, World Prehistory in New Perspective, Cambridge, U .K ., Cambridge University Press 1977, pp . 63, 72 . Cf., e's .g ., H . Muller-Karpe, Geschichte der Steinzeit, Munich, Beck 1974, pp . 249ff. ; M . Julien, `Burial in the palaeolithic', in C . Flon (ed .), The World Atlas of Archaeology, London, Portland House 1985, pp . 28f. C . L . Redman, The Rise of Civilization . From Early Farmers to Urban Societies in the Ancient Near East, San Francisco, CA, W. H . Freeman and Company 1978, p . 278 . C . K . Maisels, The Emergence of Civilization, London, U .K ., Routledge 1990, p . 155 . Maisels, op . cit., p. 302 . Kramer, op . cit ., p . 149 ; cf. also Pritchard, op . cit ., p . 43, emphasis added . T . Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press 1939, pp . 71/77 . M . Gibson, 'Kis . B . Archaologisch', in Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol . 5, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter 1976-80, p . 618 . N . K . Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh, revised edn ., Harmondsworth, Penguin Books 1972, p . 14; cf. also the stratigraphic situation at Kharabeh Shattani, North Iraq, Z . Watkins, 'Kharabeh Shattani : an Halaf culture exposure in Northern Iraq', Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (ed .), Prehistorie de la Mesopotamie, Paris, Edition du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 1987 . W . G . Lambert and A . R . Millard, Atra-Hasis. The Babylonian Story of the Flood, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1969, p . 95 . M . G . Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Stanford, CT, Stanford University Press 1989, pp . 100f. D . Wolkstein and S . N . Kramer, Inanna . Queen of Heaven and Earth Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer, New York, Harper & Row 1983, p . 95 . Judges 5 :20 . Metaphysics, 1074 bl . Fragments, 18 . Critias, 112A . Timaeus, 22 C-D . An exhaustive summary in English may be found in J . G . Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament. Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law, vol . I,

44 45 46 47 48

London, Macmillan 1919, pp . 104-361 . R. Andree, Die Flutsagen, Braunschweig, Friedrich Vieweg 1891 . M . Winternitz, `Die Fluthsagen des Altertums and der Naturvolker', Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellsehaft, Wien vol . XXI, 1901 . J . Riem, Die Sintflut in Sage and Wissenschaft, Hamburg, Rauhes Haus 1925 . H . S . Bellamy, Moons, Myths and Man, London, Faber and Faber 1936 . W . Andersen, 'Nordasiatische Flutsagen', Acta and Commentationes Universitatis Dorpatensis . B . Humaniora (1923) .

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67 68 69 70 71 72

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H . Baumann, Schopfung and Urzeit des Menschen im Mythus der afrikanischen Volker, Berlin, Dietrich Reimer 1936 . Cf. for a detailed chronology of post-medieval catastrophist s cientists-A . d e Grazia, Chaos and Creation, Princeton, NJ, Metron Publications 1981, p . 3 . W . Whiston, Astronomical Principles of Religion, Natural and Revealed, London, J . Senex 1717 . N . A. Boulanger, `Deluge', in D . Diderot et al . (eds), L'Encyclopedie (1751-80), vol . 4, Paris, Briasson 1764 . G .-N . Carli, Lettres Americaines, 2 vols, Paris, Buisson 1788 . L . Woolley, Ur Excavations, vol . IV . The Early Periods, Oxford, Oxford University Press 1955, p . 15 . V . Malycheff, `Analyse des Limons de Kish et d'Ur', L'Anthropologie XLI (1931), p . 271 . G . M . Lees and M . L . Falcon, `The geographical history of the Mesopotamian plains', Geographical Journal CXVIII, Part 1 (1952) . R. L . Raikes, `The physical evidence of Noah's Flood', Iraq XXVIII (1966), p . 60 . Raikes, op . cit, p . 53 . M . Mallowan, 'Noahs flood reconsidered', Iraq, XXVI (1964), p . 73 . Forbes in appendix VI of Woolley, op . cit ., 1955, pp . 160f. Raikes, op. cit ., p . 62 . Raikes, op. cit ., p . 62 . Raikes, op. cit ., p . 62 . R . J . Huggett, (ed), Cataclysms and Earth History : the Development of Diluvialism, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1990 . K . Keilhack, `Das Ratsel der Lolbildung', Zeitschrift der deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft 72 :617 (1920) . J . B . Penniston, `Note on the origin of loess', Popular Astronomy 39, pp . 429ff. ; J . B . Penniston, `Additional note on the orgin of loess', Popular Astronomy, 51 (1943), pp . 170ff. C . Blegen, Troy and the Trojans, London, Thames and Hudson 1963, pp . 69, 70 . C . F . Schaeffer, Stratigraphie comparee et chronologie de l'Asie Occidentale (IIIe et Ile millenaires), Oxford, U .K ., Oxford University Press 1948, p . 225 . Schaeffer, op . cit ., p . 535 . Schaeffer, op . cit ., pp . 555f. Schaeffer, op . cit ., p . X ; cf. also pp. XIf. and lff. Schaeffer, op . cit ., p . 565 . ; for greater detail cf. G. Heinsohn, `Destruction layers in archaeological sites : the stratigraphy of Armageddon', in M . Zysman and C . Whelton, (eds), Catastrophism 2000, Toronto, Heretic Press . M . I . Finley, Early Greece : The Bronze and Archaic Ages, London, Chatto and Windus 1981 ; p . 59 . Finley, op . cit ., p . 10 . W . Niitzel, `The climate changes of Mesopotamia and bordering areas', Sumer, XXXII . 1-2 (1976) . J . Dayton, Minerals, Metals, Glazing and Man, London, Harrap 1978, p . 191 . A . de Grazia, The Velikovsky Affair, London, Abacus 1978 . I . Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, New York, Macmillan 1950 . L . W . Alvarez, W . Alvarez, F . Asaro and H . V . Michel, `Extraterrestrial cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction', Science 208 (1980) ; D . M . Raup and J . J . Sekopski, `Periodicity of extinctions in the geologic past', Proceedings of the

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National Academy of Sciences in the USA 81 (1984) ; J . J . Sepkoski, `Periodicity in extinction and the problem of catastrophism in the history of life', journal of the Geological Society 146 (1989) . 80 S . V . M . Clube and W . M. Napier, The Cosmic Winter, Oxford, Basil Blackwell 1990, pp . 153f. 81 S . V . M . Clube and W . M . Napier, The Cosmic Serpent. A Catastrophist View of Earth History, London, Faber & Faber 1982, p . 131/190 ; cf. also S . V . M. Clube and W . M . Napier, `The microstructure of terrestrial catastrophism', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 211 (1984) . 82 Cf. for the following G. Heinsohn, Was ist Antisemitismus, Der Ursprung von Monotheismus and Judenhass .-Warum Antizionismus?, Frankfurt/M ., EichbornScarabaus, pp . 24ff. 83 Pritchard, op . cit., p . 114, emphasis added . 84 H . Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods . A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (1948), Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press 1978, p . 237 . 85 T . Jacobsen, `Mesopotamia', in H . Frankfort et al. (eds), The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press 1972, p . 127 . 86 Kovacs, op . cit ., p . 100. 87 Pritchard, op . cit., p . 44 . 88 Pritchard, op . cit., p . 95 . 89 Genesis 8 :20 . 90 D . Shulman, `The Tamil flood myths and the Cankam legend' (1978), in A . Dundes (ed .), The Flood Myth, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press 1988, p . 296. 91 H . Usener, Die Sintuthsagen, Bonn, Friedrich Cohen 1899, pp . 51f ; Frazer, op . cit., pp . 146ff. 92 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8 :62-74 . 93 Andree, op . cit ., pp . 71 f / 153 . 94 Fontenrose, op . cit ., pp. 419ff. 95 J . v . Lawick-Goodall, Wilde Schimpansen, Reinbek, Rowohlt 1971, pp . 48f. 96 W . Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press 1979, pp . 40f. 97 S . Freud, `Beyond the pleasure principle' (1920), The Pelican Freud Library . vol . 11 . On Metapsychology, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books 1984, pp . 284ff. 98 For that term cf H . Maccoby, The Sacred Executioner . Human Sacrifice and the Legacy of Guilt, London, Thames and Hudson 1982, p . 21 . 99 T . H . Gaster, Thespis : Ritual, Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East, New York, Schuman 1950, pp . 35ff. 100 Jacobsen, op . cit ., 1978, p . 18; cf. earlier S . A . Pallis, The Babylonian Akitu Festival, Copenhagen, Host 1926, passim . 101 Burkert, op . cit., 1972, p . 79 . 102 R . Girard, Diacritics, March, 1978, p . 46 . 103 Gould, op . cit ., p . 20 . 104 K . Sethe, Dramatische Texte zu altagyptischen Mys erienspielen, Part 2, Leipzig, Hinrichs 1928 . 105 Herodotus, Histories, 1 :132 . 106 A. J . Evans, `The Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and its Mediterranean relations', The Journal of Hellenic Studies 21 (1901), pp . 99-204 ; E . Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press 1972, p . 291

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K . Meuli, `Die Baumbestattung und die Ursprunge der griechischen Gottin Artemis', Gesammelte Schriften, vol . II, Basel, Schwabe & Co . 1975 (b), pp . 1083ff. C . Botticher, Der Baumkult der Hellenen, Berlin, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung 1856, plate 31 . Burkert, op . cit ., 1972, pp . 131f. K. Meuli, `Die gefesselten Gutter', Gesammelte Schriften, vol . II, Basel, Schwabe & Co . 1975 (a), pp . 1034ff. Cf. Heinsohn, op . cit ., 1988, pp . 47ff. Fontenrose, op. cit ., p . 443, emphasis added ; cf, similar W . Burkert, (1977), Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer 1977, pp . 47, 95 . L . Schele and M . E . Miller, The Blood of Kings . Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum 1986, passim . Burkert, op . cit ., 1979, pp. 104ff. A. Taladoire, Les terrain de jeu de balle, Mexico City, Mission archeologique et ethnologique francaise au Mexique 1981, p . 542 . H . Muller-Karpe, Handbuch der Vorgeschichte . Vierter Band. Bronzezeit, Munchen, Beck, vol. 3, table 205, no . 17 . Meuli, op . cit., 1975a, p . 1034. P . Charvat, `Early Ur', in Archiv Orientalni 47 (1979), p . 18 . Burkert, op . cit ., 1977, pp . 94, 158 . Walker, op . cit . S . C . Humphreys, `Dynamics of the Greek breakthrough : the dialogue between philosophy and religion', in S . N. Eisenstadt (ed .), The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations, New York, State University of New York Press 1986, p . 93 . On the elements of Jewish monotheism cf . G . Heinsohn, `Was ist Judentum?', Zeitschrift fur Religions-und Geistesgeschichte 43 :4 (1991) . Numbers 23 :9 . E . Meyer, Ursprunge und Anfdnge des Christentums, vol . II, Part 1, Berlin, Cotta 1921, pp . 26f. A . M . Rehwinkel, The Flood in the Light of the Bible, Geology and Archaeology, St . Louis, Concordia 1951, p . XIX .

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GUNNAR HEINSOHN studied sociology, history, psychology and religious studies at the Freie Universitat Berlin . He holds a university diploma in

(1971) and doctorates in the social sciences (1973) and in economics (1982) . Since 1984 he has been a tenured professor at the Universitat Bremen, sociology

Germany . His research focuses on the history and theory of civilization . On the emergence of the rate of interest and money he has published Private-

igentum, Patriarchat, Geldwirtschaft . Eine sozialtheoretische Rekonstruktion Zur Antike, Frankfurt/M ., Suhrkamp 1984 . On the origin of Jewish monotheism he wrote Was ist Antisemitismus? Der Ursprung von Monotheismus und Judenhaf . Warum Antizionismus?, Frankfurt/M ., Eichborn-Scarabaus 1988 . The Great European Witch Hunt became the subject of Die Vernichtung der weisen Frauen (co-authored with O . Steiger), Munchen, Heyne 3rd edition, 1989 . Universitat Bremen, Fachbereich 12, Postfach 33 04 40, D-2800 Bremen 33, Germany .