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Tiamat (Dungeons
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, and has—at various points in the epic—a number of anthropomorphic features (such as breasts) and theriomorphic features (such as a tail). In the ''Enûma Elish'', the Babylonian epic of creation, Tiamat bears the first generation of deities after mingling her waters with those of Apsu, her consort. The gods continue to reproduce, forming a noisy new mass of divine children. Apsu, driven to violence by the noise they make, seeks to destroy them and is killed. Enraged, Tiamat also wars upon those of her own and Apsu's children who killed her consort, bringing forth a series of monsters as weapons. She also takes a new consort, Qingu, and bestows on him the Tablet of Destinies, which represents legitimate divine rulership. She is ultim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abzu
Abzû or Apsû ( Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ), also called (Cuneiform:, ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: – recorded in Greek as ), is the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in ancient near eastern cosmology, including Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. It was believed that all lakes, springs, rivers, fountains, rain, and even the Flood, as described in Atrahasis, originated from the Abzû. In Mesopotamian cosmogony, it is referred to as the freshwater primordial ocean below and above the earth; indeed the Earth itself was regarded as a goddess ''Ninhursag'' that was conceived from the mating of male Abzu with female saltwater ocean ''Tiamat''. Thus the divine Mother Earth – on her surface equipped with a bubble of breathable air – was surrounded by Abzû, and her interior harbours the realm of the dead (Irkalla). In Sumerian culture In the city of Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E2-abzû (house of the deep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Akkadian Language
Akkadian ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages''. Ed. Roger D. Woodard (2004, Cambridge) Pages 218–280 was an East Semitic language that is attested in ancient Mesopotamia ( Akkad, Assyria, Isin, Larsa, Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun) from the mid- third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC. Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language, is named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire (–2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script, originally used for Sumerian, but also used to write multiple languages in the region including Eblaite, Hurrian, Elamite, Old Persian and Hittite. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just the cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity, a lengthy span of con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epic Poetry
In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, and are contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech where the performer has the license to recontextualize the story to a particular audience, often to a younger generation. Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homer's ''Iliad'' and '' Odyssey''; Virgil's '' Aeneid''; and the anonymous '' Beowulf'' and '' Epic of Gilgamesh''. The genre has inspired the adjective '' epic'' as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics. Etymology The English word ''epic'' comes from Latin , which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adject ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purports to be an account of the Genesis creation narrative, creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and the Jews#Origins, origins of the Jewish people. In Judaism, the theological importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God in Judaism, God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land. Genesis is part of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Tradition credits Moses as the Torah's author. However, there is scholarly consensus that the Book of Genesis was composed several centuries later, after the Babylonian captivity, Babylonian Babylonian captivity, captivity, possibly in the fifth century BC. Based on the scientific interpretation of Archaeology, archaeological, Genetics, genetic, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tehom
Tehom ( ''təhôm'') is a Northwest Semitic and Biblical Hebrew word meaning "the deep" or "abyss" (literally "the deeps"). It is used to describe the primeval ocean and the post- creation waters of the earth. It is a cognate of the Akkadian words '' tiāmtum'' and ''tâmtum'' as well as Ugaritic '' t-h-m'' which have similar meanings. According to a theological dictionary, ''tehom'' derives from a Semitic root which denoted the sea as a non-personified entity with mythological import. Genesis Tehom is mentioned in Genesis 1:2, where it is translated as "deep": The same word is used for the origin of Noah's flood in : Gnosticism Gnostics used Genesis 1:2 to propose that the original creator deity, called the Pléroma "Totality" or Bythós "Deep" preexisted Elohim and gave rise to such later divinities and spirits by way of emanations, progressively more distant and removed from the original form. In Mandaean cosmology, the Sea of Suf is a primordial sea in the World ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwest Semitic
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite language, Amorite in the Middle Bronze Age. The oldest coherent texts are in Ugaritic language, Ugaritic, dating to the Late Bronze Age, which by the time of the Bronze Age collapse are joined by Old Aramaic, and by the Iron Age by Sutean language, Sutean and the Canaanite languages (Hebrew language, Hebrew, Phoenician language, Phoenician/Punic language, Punic, Edomite language, Edomite and Moabite language, Moabite). The term was coined by Carl Brockelmann in 1908,-ṣṭ- in the Dt stem in Hebrew (hiṣṭaddēḳ ‘he declared himself righteous’) suggests backing rather than glottalization. The same assimilation is attested in Aramaic (yiṣṭabba ‘he will be moistened’). Grammar Nouns Three cases can be reconstructed for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the sound and the meaning of a word, cognates may not be obvious, and it often takes rigorous study of historical sources and the application of the comparative method to establish whether lexemes are cognate. Cognates are distinguished from loanwords, where a word has been borrowed from another language. Name The English term ''cognate'' derives from Latin , meaning "blood relative". Examples An example of cognates from the same Indo-European root are: ''night'' ( English), ''Nacht'' ( German), ''nacht'' ( Dutch, Frisian), ''nag'' (Afrikaans), ''Naach'' ( Colognian), ''natt'' ( Swedish, Norwegian), ''nat'' ( Danish), ''nátt'' ( Faroese), ''nótt'' ( Icelandic), ''noc'' ( Czech, Slovak, Polish), ночь, ''noch'' ( Russian), но ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Construct State
In Afro-Asiatic languages, the first noun in a genitive phrase that consists of a possessed noun followed by a possessor noun often takes on a special morphological form, which is termed the construct state (Latin ''status constructus''). For example, in Arabic, Maltese and Hebrew, the word for "queen" standing alone is ''malika'' , ''reġina'' and ''malka'' respectively, but when the word is possessed, as in the phrase "Queen of Sheba" (literally "Sheba's Queen"; or, rather, "Queen-of Sheba"), it becomes ''malikat sabaʾ'' , ''Reġinet Saba'' and ''malkat šəva'' respectively, in which ''malikat'' and ''malkat'' are the construct state (possessed) form and ''malikah'' and ''malka'' are the absolute (unpossessed) form. In Geʽez, the word for "queen" is ንግሥት nəgə''ś''t, but in the construct state it is ንግሥተ, as in the phrase " heQueen of Sheba" ንግሥታ ሣባ nəgə''śta śābā.'' . The phenomenon is particularly common in Semitic languages (such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals) of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address by which the identity of the party spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I don't know, John," ''John'' is a vocative expression that indicates the party being addressed, as opposed to the sentence "I don't know John", in which "John" is the direct object of the verb "know". Historically, the vocative case was an element of the Indo-European case system and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek. In many modern Indo-European languages (English, Spanish, etc.) the vocative case has been absorbed by the nominative, but others still distinguish it, including the Baltic languages, some Celtic languages and most Slavic l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thalassa
Thalassa (; ; Attic Greek: , ''thálatta'') was the general word for 'sea' and for its divine female personification in Greek mythology. The word may have been of Pre-Greek origin and connected to the name of the Mesopotamian primordial sea goddess Tiamat. Mythology According to a scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes, the fifth-century BC poet Ion of Chios had Thalassa as the mother of Aegaeon (Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires). Diodorus Siculus ( 1st century BC), in his ''Bibliotheca historica'', states that "Thalatta" is the mother of the Telchines and the sea-nymph Halia, while in the '' Orphic Hymn to the Sea'', Tethys, who is here equated with Thalassa, is called the mother of Kypris (Aphrodite). The Roman mythographer Hyginus (c. 64 BC – AD 17), in the preface to his ''Fabulae'', calls Mare (Sea, another name for Thalassa) the daughter of Aether and Dies (Day), and thus the sister of Terra (Earth) and Caelus (Sky). With her male counterpart Pontus, she spawns ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berossus
Berossus () or Berosus (; ; possibly derived from ) was an early-3rd-century BCE Hellenistic civilization, Hellenistic-era Babylonia, Babylonian writer, priest of Bel (mythology) , Bel Marduk, and Babylonian astronomy, astronomer who wrote in the Koine Greek language. His original works, including the ''Babyloniaca (Berossus), Babyloniaca'' (, are Lost literary work, lost, but Literary fragment, fragments survive in some quotations, largely in the writings of the fourth-century CE Early Christianity, early Christian writer Eusebius. Berossus has recently been identified with Bēl-reʾû-šunu, a high priest of the Esagila, Esagila Temple in the city of Babylon, as mentioned in a document from 258 BCE. Name The name "Berossus" likely originates from a theophoric name whose first component was Bel (mythology), Bel, meaning "Lord," which was a common title for Marduk. The original name was either either Bēl-rē’ûšunu, meaning "the god Bel is their shepherd," or Bēl- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babylonia
Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as an Akkadian-populated but Amorites, Amorite-ruled state . During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was retrospectively called "the country of Akkad" ( in Akkadian), a deliberate archaism in reference to the previous glory of the Akkadian Empire. It was often involved in rivalry with the older ethno-linguistically related state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia and Elam to the east in Ancient Iran. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (floruit, fl. –1752 BC middle chronology, or –1654 BC, short chronology timeline, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire. The Babylonian Empire rapidly fell apar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
