You cannot force theism or atheism on people! Belief and non-belief are two very personal things, you either feel them or you don’t. I don’t believe in God and this makes my life tremendously meaningful and tranquil. Throughout history there have been beliefs in thousands of different gods, evident by ancient discoveries of our forefathers looking for gods in deep caves well before the emergence of monotheistic religions. Many ancient beliefs, such as the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, and Mayan religions are extinct and some have slowly evolved into other beliefs. As an atheist, who does not believe in any of these Gods, I can respectfully say, God is based on one’s personal perception. So you believe it, but you cannot expect others to believe it. Forcing them to do so is no longer “belief”. The same goes for atheism. We cannot force people to become atheists! Belief or non-belief is something people must reach themselves.


The chaos of Egypt  (525BC - 30BC)

After the fall of Egypt in 525BC, Egypt was ruled by the Persians of the Achaemenid empire. Its king and founder Cyrus the great, allowed egypt to retain their own laws, customs, and ways of life. Provided that Cyrus and his line were offical pharaohs. He also promised to end the Massacring of Egyptian jews by the Babylonians. 

However the Archaemenid empire was not enought to stand greek might. The persians fought a series of wars against the Greeks in 400BC. The battle of Thermopalaye anyone? The persians were pushed back and the ambitous macedonian prince, a certain Alexander the great. Conquered the Persian empire and ended their line. This included egypt. Alexander refused to let the Egyptians retain their customs and he set up new cities and spread greek culture (Such as math, the phalanx formation, and the olympic games). Alex built a city named ALEXANDRIA, LIKE SERIOUSLY WHO NAMES A CITY AFTER THEMSELVES. However Alexandria was the centerpiece for literary pursuits. However Alexander the great died at 33 and his empire went with him.

A Greek General named Ptolemy declared himself Pharaoh of all of Egypt. However Ptolemy was a stupid man and had no intrest in the actual politics of his kingdom. In 70BC Egypt was conquered by rome. General Mark Anthony was left incharge by julius caesar. However Egypt was allowed to keep its Pharaoh. The famous Cleopatra. Who did the dance with no pants with both mark anthony and caesar. When the emperor octavian came knocking like “What the fuck is going on here”. She committed suicide with Mark anthony, as the last Pharaoh of Egypt. 

Egypt had been in and out of empires for the past 500 years. It was about time they kicked the bucket. Egypt was under roman rule for another 500 years. Until the roman empire collapsed in 550AD. 

littlehobbit13 asked:

Hi there! I had a quick, private question for you. I help admin an SPN blog, and there was a question we got about "What Hebrew letter is the Mark of Cain based off of?" You wouldn't have any insight into that, would you? :)

If you rotate it 90 degrees to the right you’ll get something like this 

This is the 16th letter in hebrew, it called ‘ayin’ which means ‘an eye’ . 

you can take it to whatever sybolism you want ..i never did. The  Gematria ( an Assyro-Babylonian system of numerology) of this letter is 70. 

Tiamat, Nammu, and the Historical Problem of the Matriarchy Myth in the Ancient Near East

(Marduk (first human figure on the left) slays Tiamat from a Babylonian seal)

Warning: Long Post

This post will most likely be one of our most controversial and touchiest due to the subject it focuses.  For those who don’t know, a matriarchy is a society, civilization, or culture where women are the dominant or the most in power making men the minorities or subordinates. In contrast is a patriarchy where the men are dominant.  In terms of ancient history, patriarchal societies existed in practically every culture around the world (an argument could made for the Aztecs as an exception though), the Ancient Near East included.  However, there are ongoing debates as to whether or not certain ancient Near Eastern cultures even started out patriarchal, rather than matriarchal.

When I say that this subject will be controversial, I mean it quite literally.  Debates about whether or not an ancient matriarchal society existed in the Ancient Near East, or elsewhere, are polarizing amongst historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, classicists, and even religious studies scholars. Also, the theory of matriarchy has also found debate amongst feminists, some who support the theory, and gender studies.  I will go out and say, that the two current admins of this blog do not believe that matriarchy ever existed in the Ancient Near East.  BUT in this post I will also include sources of both those who do and who do not believe in the theory of ancient matriarchy.

To begin with, the theory of ancient matriarchy was first proposed in 1861 by the anthropologist J. J. Bachofen in his book Myth, Religion, and Mother Right (original German title Das Mutterrecht).  Although Bachofen’s research focused more on the Mediterranean area, it was still the origin point of the matriarchy theory.  Bachofen believed that there were four stages of human culture originating in a state where neither gender was dominate and then transferring into matriarchy and then eventually patriarchy:

Stage 1 – Is often called the Hetaeric Stage (from hetaera, the Greek word for courtesan).  It was described as a pre-agricultural culture with a huge amount of male sexual promiscuity.  Specifically, Bachofen believed that the women were originally chaste and monogamous but the men had massive amounts of sexual intercourse with them which eventually caused the women to rebel against the men’s sexual advances which led the next stage (1).  Due to the excessive amounts of sexual intercourse in this stage, Bachofen believed that some sort of ancient love and fertility goddess was worshiped as the central deity.

Stage 2 - Is considered the official Matriarchal Stage.  In this stage, the women finally rebelled against the constant sexual promiscuity of men.  Upon this rebellion of sorts, women forced men to accept monogamy and made women head of the families and societies.  However, because of the men’s promiscuity they had no concept of paternity and since the mother was the only true parent who could be determined the women, by mother right, were the rightful rulers of society and the family thus creating the true matriarchal society (2).  In this stage, the central deity was an ancient agricultural and vegetation goddess as societies finally became agricultural based.

Stage 3 – Is the Dionysian Stage.  It is considered a transitional stage where the roots of patriarchy begin to appear.  According to Bachofen, in this stage traditions from the matriarchy are masculinized and there is a focus on phallic-based eroticism in religion which drew the women in and was a “reclaiming” of sorts for men.  The central deity of this stage is an ancient male fertility god, similar to the Greek Dionysus (hence the name).

Stage 4 – Is the ultimate establishment of patriarchy and is called the Apollonian Stage.  In this stage, any traces from the matriarchal era are removed.  There is a total focus on the sky, sun, transcendence, and rationality.  The central deity of this stage is a god similar to Apollo (or Apollo himself) who is considered a rational solar deity.        

Although Bachofen believed that most, if not all, cultures started out matriarchal he did not see said matriarchies to be superior to nor equal to patriarchal societies. Specifically, Bachofen believed that Occidental (Western) cultures, notably Ancient Greece and Rome, had passed through all four stages but Oriental (Eastern) and African cultures were stuck in one of the three previous ones; the Greco-Roman world is one of rational patriarchal transcendence blessed by the sun gods whereas the Orient and Africa are of the sensual matriarchal immanence ground in tellurian (chthonian or Earth-based) goddesses (3).  It is here, with Bachofen’s labeling of the Orient, that we find our connection to the Ancient Near East.  In particular, with the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish.  Before I continue, I must stress that the Enuma Elish is the creation myth for only the Babylonians however some of the gods and goddesses mentioned in the myth have similar counterparts in the other Mesopotamian religions.

The entire Enuma Elish can read here (link), however I will only go over the portion between Marduk and Tiamat.  The Enuma Elish teaches that the dragon goddess of the ocean, Tiamat, mated with her consort Abzu (also called Apsu) the god of the fresh waters.  From their copulation came forth the oldest gods and goddesses of Babylonian mythology who subsequently have their own children and descendants.  Tiamat was respected by Abzu, their servants, and some of the gods and goddesses. However, many of the other gods and goddesses rejected her as their primal ruler.

Tiamat and Abzu ultimately decided to fight the gods and goddesses who oppose them.  There are about 30 lines that are unreadable which follow, however after these lines Abzu is dead most likely defeated by another deity (just before the illegible lines the god Ea, called Enki by the Sumerians, is mentioned so he may or may not be involved).  Distraught by the death of Abzu, Tiamat flies into a rage and begins attacking the younger generation of gods and goddesses.  After a long series of battles, the god Marduk finally defeats Tiamat.  He splits her body up and using its parts to create parts of the world and the universe.

Tiamat’s Sumerian counterpart is considered to be the goddess Nammu.  In Sumerian mythology, Nammu is a primordial creator goddess like Tiamat, but unlike Tiamat, Nammu did not go through a series of battles with the younger deities to relinquish her power.  Like Tiamat, Nammu was the goddess of the watery deep and the creator of humanity; however her son Enki eventually took over the role as did some other goddesses “lose their power” to male gods (4).  In the first part of the Myth of Enki and Ninmah (another name for the goddess Ninhursag), the gods and goddesses are shaping the Earth but desire workers to do the work for them.  Nammu awakens Enki who hears the pleas of the other gods and goddesses; he then suggests that Nammu along with Ninmah and some of the other goddesses make the workers. It is then that Nammu creates the first human beings (5). 

After that, Nammu disappears from any other ancient text.  I won’t continue with the second half of the Myth of Enki and Ninmah as Nammu is no longer focused on; but I will say that the rest of it basically shows Enki becoming dominant over Ninmah in power.  Anyway, it is with these stories of Tiamat and Nammu that the historical problem of matriarchy enters into the Ancient Near East.  Many scholars believe that these myths of Tiamat and Nammu losing their significance or power were a symbol, metaphor, or allegory for the fall of matriarchy and the rise of patriarchal societies.  The reign of Tiamat and Nammu represented the original female rulers and Marduk and Enki’s overtaking of the goddesses represented a rebellion against matriarchal figures.  

Now it is true that in their respective myths Tiamat and Nammu were the original creation deities, although Tiamat did have to copulate with Abzu to bring forth the other gods and goddesses.  Although traditional Sumerian mythology names the sky god An and the earth goddess Ki has the elder gods, Nammu came before them. Chthonic theogony names Nammu as the progenitress of all the deities; the goddess without a spouse (unlike Tiamat) and the inherently fertile and fertilizing waters (6).  Despite all these detailed mythological stories and information, some scholars do not believe that it is enough evidence to proove the existence of an ancient matriarchal society.  It was during the second-wave feminist movement that these goddesses and their myths were examined once more along with Bachofen’s aforementioned research on ancient matriarchies.              

Although the matriarchy theory kicked off during the second-wave of feminism, the suffragette (first-wave feminist) Matilda Joslyn Gage was the first women’s rights to activist to make usage of the theory. In her 1893 work Women, Church, and the State, Gage reverses the gender traits that Bachofen put forth about matriarchal and patriarchal societies in his own work.  To Gage, the ancient matriarchal goddess-centric pagans were more rational and cultured, although men and boys were lower class servants, and overtime as these men and boys were accepted into society it gradually became patriarchal and laid the groundwork for Judaism and Christianity which “blotted out” the divine feminine (with the exception of the Holy Spirit in Christianity and the Jewish Shaddai (“Breasted God)) (7).  Gage was not the only first-wave feminist to believe in ancient matriarchy.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her famous work The Women’s Bible, in her commentary on Genesis 3, believed that for 85,000 years women ruled supreme in a time period called the Matriarchate under the rise of patriarchy (8).  Stanton’s commentary can be read here (link).

It is within the second-wave feminist movement that the ties of the ancient matriarchy theory to the Ancient Near East, Tiamat, and Nammu began to reemerge.  During the second-wave feminist movement, there was a sub-movement that focused on religion and spirituality called the Goddess Movement.  The contents of this sub-movement sought the worship of a supreme Goddess whom they believed was blotted out of history and religion by patriarchy and that the ancient matriarchy was to be reclaimed in history, believing that patriarchal conspiracy kept it from women (9).  In 1971, Elizabeth Gould Davis published The First Sex a book which explicitly detailed the biological, anthropological, and historical origins of the matriarchy and the subsequent rise of patriarchy.  Davis’ tone in the book is very apocalyptic in nature, to the point of being dramatic.

Davis saw that in all world myths the first deity who created the rest of the gods and goddesses and the world was a mother of the gods figure; and she believed that these myths, notable the one of Tiamat in the Enuma Elish, was the sign of women’s once dominant matriarchal rule (10).  Davis claims that the entire Ancient Near East was matriarchal or gynocratic through the supremacy of Tiamat, Nammu, and other mother goddess figures that she saw as other faces of the Great Goddess.  However, Davis believed that this changed when the “cultureless” Hebrews began conquering and destroying Near Eastern city-states and dethroning the reigning goddesses of these city-states and replacing them with Yahweh (11).  Davis furthers this belief by stating that during the Babylonian Exile the Hebrews learned of the Enuma Elish and then created their own creation myth inspired from it (she technically isn’t wrong here). According to Davis, in the original Genesis Eve-Hawwah the Great Earth Goddess- gave birth to Adam which represented the goddess Anat (a.k.a Anath) giving birth to Yahweh; until it was changed to Adam “giving birth” to Eve and becoming dominant over her, making Adam to Eve what Marduk was to Tiamat (12).

As one can see, Davis, although resourceful, seems to have been very influenced by Bachofen’s work but also stretched some myths. There is no myth about the goddess Anat creating the world or giving birth to any other deities.  At most she was the sexual partner of her brother Baal, but no known children were produced from their copulation.  Most anthropologists and archaeologists do not support the contents of The First Sex.  In fact, feminist historian Ginette Castro called The First Sex an example of female chauvinism (13).

The myth of matriarchy in the Ancient Near East is a polarized topic amongst contemporary feminists.  Simone de Beauvoir, the practical founder of second-wave feminism, while believing that the Great Goddess had many faces in different cultures, rejected the theory of matriarchy and ancient women’s equality calling it a myth and believed that men used fertility goddesses to brand women as baby makers (14).  Catholic feminist scholar Rosemary Ruether originally believed that such matriarchal societies and veneration of fertile women existed, but after teaching a course at Harvard Divinity School about the prehistoric Venus figures (i.e. Venus of Willendorf) shifted her view into believing that one cannot really know what was on the minds of the creators of such figures and the goddesses they worshiped (15).  Mary Daly, a radical feminist philosopher from both the second-wave movement and the Goddess Movement, believed in the matriarchy and the ancient worship of the Goddess saying it was the only true time for women’s equality but that Marduk slaying Tiamat was the murder and dismemberment of the Goddess along with Christianity’s spiritual masculinization was the rape of the Goddess, ending matriarchy (16).  Overall though, most historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists (feminist or non-feminists) do not accept the theory of matriarchy and do believe it ever existed.

Lady Xoc already made a post about the status of women under patriarchal society in the Ancient Near East (link).  Other than that link, I will include a list of books besides what is already cited for those interested to do their own research:

 Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986)                             

 Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000)

Jules Cashford and Anne Baring, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image (London: Penguin Books, 1993)

Johann Jakob Bachofen, Myth, Religion, and Mother Right, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992)                                 Anything by Marija Gimbutas

Philip G. Davis, Goddess Unmasked: The Rise of Neopagan Feminist Spirituality (Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing Company, 1998)

Work Cited:

1.      Rosemary Radford Ruether, Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 255.  

2.      Ibid., 255.

3.      Ibid., 256-258.

4.      Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York, NY: Free Press, 1992), 71.

5.      Ibid., 73.

6.      Joan Goodnick Westenholz, “Goddesses of the Ancient Near East 3000-1000 B.C.,” in Ancient Goddesses, ed. Lucy Goodison and Christine Morris (London: British Museum Press, 1998), 68.

7.      Goddesses and the Divine Feminine, 268-269.

8.      Ibid., 270.

9.      Ibid., 274.

10.  Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1972), 33.

11.  Ibid., 141.

12.  Ibid., 142.

13.  Ginette Castro, American Feminism: A Contemporary History, trans. Elizabeth Loverde-Bagwell (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1990), 36.

14.  Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1971), 68-70.

15.  Goddesses and the Divine Feminine, 2-3.

16.  Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1990), 74-89, 110-111.


Show off the new you with a - ̗̀ t-shirt ̖́- ⊟

Recently reinvented yourself in ways that are important to you but seem imperceptible to others? It’s not easy to explain to the everyday person what the difference is between the old you and this improved version with Super Stable 3D. Nor can you show off your built-in NFC support without carrying around an amiibo, smiling desperately at passer-bys, hoping they’ll ask you to demonstrate how you import amiibo data without an additional accessory. 

Now you can let everyone know about the New You XL with this shirt design (it also comes as a women’s fitted tee and a hoodie), inspired by the colored lines on the New 3DS and amiibo logos, available to buy from Teespring for $17.50 until Wednesday. Thanks to @Babylonian for the link – I love all the ideas people came up with for alternate designs using words in the pop!

BUY New Nintendo 3DS XL

The Babylonian Empire was a Mesopotamian Semitic civilization that rose to power under the harsh rule of Hammurabi. While its capital city, Babylon, was the center of Mesopotamian civilization for nearly two millennia, the Empire of Babylonia was short-lived; it rose with Hammurabi in the beginning of the 18th century BC, and it disassembled after his death in 1750 BC.

The Babylonians valued hard work and education, symbolized in the proverb, “he, who would excel in the school of the scribes, must rise with the dawn”. There were libraries in most towns and temples, and both men and women were taught to read. Furthermore, the Babylonians were skilled in astrology and medicine, and believed in rationality and empiricism. However, they also lived under a set of strict and harsh laws implemented by Hammurabi. Death sentences were not rare and were sometimes given as punishment even for theft. It was Hammurabi’s belief that he was sent by God to bring righteousness and prevent the strong from harming the weak.

Compared to its short life, Babylonia left a great legacy. The Babylonian language would be used across the Middle East to communicate across borders. The invention of hanging gardens is attributed to Babylonia. And in Biblical history, Babylonia (and its capital) are often referenced as a symbol of the Antichrist’s evil world system - the quick rise to excess in comfort and power, followed by demise: “The great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.” [Revelation 18:21]

kingsandqueensnet’s weekly series, week III: favorite empires

plantagenista asked:

Do you think that all ancient Egyptians were black? I'm curious b/c I don't know much about the controversy but I always imagined a mix of modern Egyptians and Africans. The cast of Tut seems to mainly be...a lot of ~brown~ actors of various mixed races, some black actors, and some middle-easterners. True, most of them aren't Egyptian, but at least Christian Bale isn't in it.

okay this is the thing

the problem with the ‘were ancient egyptians black’ thing is not that its a question that needs to be answered (which it… really isnt? like, theres a reason why a lot of historians in the latter 20th century just dropped it for irrelevance) but that it’s a question that literally gets raised about almost no other ancient civilization

like, no one ever tries to question that the greeks were not white, that the babylonians and sumerians and assyrians were not middle eastern, or that the yellow river settlements were not chinese-or-whatever-came-before-a-chinese-national-identity

the fact that people question the african-ness of the egyptians is a result of pretty much the notion of eugenics which came to prominence during the enlightenment, that categorized intelligence and evolution on skin colour, and went off the notion that, you know, because egypt had a series of centralized monarchies and like ten dynasties before the foundations had been set in crete, and like twenty before athens developed into a state, there is NO WAY THEY COULD BE AFRICAN IN ORIGIN, BECAUSE AS EVERYONE KNOWS, THE DARKER YOU WERE THE MORE UNEVOLVED YOU WERE

modern egyptians are a mix of countless different ethnicities, oh yeah, definitely, because egypt as a country is like five thousand years old and has been through multiple invasions and multiple settlements and assimilation, that’s no question. but the problem with thinking about ancient egypt as a mix between ‘modern egyptians and africans’ is that… it very neatly sidesteps the fact that ancient egypt is in north africa, and IS most easily accessible by the south through the nile, bordered in the north in the mediterranean sea only by (and im being very generous here, giving it a timeframe of about like, 1000 years, from 2500 bc to 1500 bc) like, the minoans, and in the east by the the akkadians who are over 1000 miles away beyond the euphrates. the easiest approach would be from the south, which would be where Real Ancient Africans lived, and NOT from the north or from the west, so the fact that people seem to scramble to find an origin for egyptians that wasn’t, like you know, in the continent they originated from instead of just applying occam’s razor is a bit suspect, ja feel?

like here is the thing. egypt is old. egypt is old as fuck. egypt is, as the saying goes, old as fucking balls. like, egypt’s first dynasty was set in around 3000 bc. egypt had rudimentary pyramids and irrigation systems and an organized agricultural set up and a centralized monarch in the very very early dawn of the 2nd millenium bc. that’s fucking old, just because you don’t move from nomadic tribe to dynastic monarchy within a century - it just doesn’t happen. so the origin of ancient egypt probably predates the old kingdom by at least a thousand years. and so the earlier back you go, the less likely it is that, you know, everyone just migrated down to the nile from europe for no goddamned reason. so it’s very very likely that the ethnicity of ancient egyptians were original to their continent, even if their language - by the time we get actual records later on - are influenced by a series of different civilizations, just because they sat on such a lucrative spot. in no way was this civilization monocultural, but we need to pay attention to the fact that, hey, theyre so old, and actually kind of xenophobic to a point where historians don’t categorize their periods based on like, form of government, but by the nativity of the monarchy. i don’t doubt that by the time you get to nectanebo, who was the last native egyptian pharaoh who reigned after 3000 years of invasions by hyksos and hurrians and persians and a shittonne of others, that they were probably quite mixed. but in that very beginning? even up until nefertiti and tut’s time? probably still mostly native. casting around for a possible external origin actually says more about the historian than it does about the subject, tbh.

like just fundamentally i’m just pressed that we second guess common sense to the point where casting actual people of african descent to play royals of a country in north africa would be ~groundbreaking~

Goddess of the Day: April 14

Nanshe - Dream Goddess of Babylonia.  Nanshe is a water goddess of prophecy worshipped throughout Mesopotamia.  She is referred to as the Interpreter of Dreams, and blessed Her priests with soothsaying abilities. Nanshe’s symbols include jars of water and fish.

( text from Brandi Auset, The Goddess Guide. )

I’m sure some of you have been waiting for another time that Ishtar popped up. So here she is, the Easter Bunny (Because of the misconception of her association with Easter, she sorta got stuck with the Job, it pays the godly bills)
She’s a very naughty easter bunny though, a side she shows to select victims. Cyrus seems to hav the unfortunate luck of being the apple of any goddess with animal ear’s eye. They all desire to tear him away from his mother Bast. Some sort of dominance thing between Goddesses.

Sekky even takes a crack at him, though she’s more interested in gutting him. Tefnut doesn’t seem to care much for her ‘nephew’ but it looks like Ishtar wants him for her own.

Ishtar is an example of the non Trio Pantheon gods, She’s from Babylon, and not Egyptian, Norse, nor Greece lore. Her association with Easter is more of a misconception, but as CFA plays on Belief of what a god is at the CURRENT time. The belief that she’s associated with the Origin of Easter makes that association exist in Chaos for All, and thus she adopts the job of Easter Bunny, as being a forgotten Goddess doesn’t pay her monthy rent.

Also she’s a goddess of Sex. Which is why she hunts poor Cyrus.

She’s also like.. 7 feet tall. cause gods are o a taller stature than humans, with 7 feet being an average for them. Though the Trio shrink their heights to blend in, those who don’t care, are pretty tall. Zeus tends to stand at 8 feet tall, and Hera at 7 and a half feet.


TREASURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: The Ishtar Gate (Babylon/Iraq) 

THE Ishtar Gate was constructed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II (c.575 BCE.) It was the eighth gate of the city of Babylon (Iraq) and was the main entrance into the city. The Ishtar Gate was part of Nebuchadnezzar’s plan to beautify his empire’s capital and during the first half of the 6th century BCE. 


The Ishtar Gate is named so, because it was dedicated to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Nebuchadnezzar also pays homage to other Babylonian deities through various animal representations. 

Read More 

Info by Brittany Garcia on Ancient History Encyclopedia 

Name: Lamassu, Shedu, Alad
Area of Origin: Ancient Mesopotamian cultures

The Lamassu, or less commonly referred to as Shedu or Alad, were ancient Assyrian and Sumerian protective deities, depicted with the body of a bull or lion, eagle’s wings and a human head, usually male. They are celestial beings and were household protective spirits of the Babylonians, but were later associated as royal protectors, usually placed as sentinels at the entrances to palaces in the form of colossal sculptures. They may have influenced the look of Sphinxes and other chimeric creatures found in future civilizations. Recently, a large statue of one of these was found destroyed at a historical archeological site demolished by ISIS. 

هذا اللوح الطيني هو أقدم كتاب طبخ في العالم
يعود الى الحضارة البابلية ..
ويشمل على 25 وصفات طبخ، 21 هي لطبخ اللحم و 4 لطبخ الخضار ويسرد فيه صفات المكونات والترتيب الذي ينبغي أن يضاف، ولكن لا يعطي التدابير أو وقت الطهي و يهدف بشكل واضح لاستخدامه من الشيف ذوي الخبرة .
1750 قبل الميلاد ..

The Oldest Cookbooks in the World“ This tablet includes 25 recipes for stews, 21 are meat stews and 4 are vegetable stews. The recipes list the ingredients and the order in which they should be added, but does not give measures or cooking time - they were clearly meant only for experienced chefs.
from the Old Babylonian
Period, ca. 1750 BC”

Of Myth and Legend →   Inanna

Inanna, which means “Queen of Heaven,” is the Sumerian Great Goddess and forerunner of the Babylonian Ishtar, with Whom She shares similar legends. Sumer was a culture located in what is now the southern half of Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, known as the “Cradle of Civilization,” for its early start on things. Inanna is the first daughter of the moon, and the Star of Morning and Evening. Like Anat and Aphrodite (Who is believed to have an eastern origin) She is linked to the planet Venus and is a love Goddess. Her wedding to the Shepard Dumuzi was celebrated on the first day of the new year as a sacred marriage rite, and Her legends show Her to be a woman of powerful sexuality. (x)