United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He reached the mountain Mashu, Whose exit is daily guarded, ... Whose back extends to the dam of heaven, And whose breast reaches to Aralû; Scorpion-men guard its gate, Of terror-inspiring aspect, whose appearance is deadly, Of awful splendor, shattering mountains. At sunrise and sunset they keep guard over the sun. It will be recalled that the earth is pictured by the Babylonians as a mountain.
Gilgamesh is terrified at the sight of these scorpion-men but the latter have received notice of his coming and permit him to pass through the gate. A scorpion-man addresses his wife: "He who comes to us is of divine appearance." The wife of the scorpion-man agrees that Gilgamesh is in part divine, but she adds that in part he is human.
But the text is too mutilated to warrant further conjectures. After escaping from the danger occasioned by the lions, Gilgamesh comes to the mountain Mashu, which is described as a place of terrors, the entrance to which is guarded by 'scorpion-men.
Aralû is situated under the earth, and Mashu, reaching down to Aralû, must be again coextensive with the earth in this direction. The description of Mashu accordingly is a reflex of the cosmological conceptions developed in Babylonia. The scorpion-men pictured on seal cylinders belong to the mythical monsters, half-man, half-beast, with which the world was peopled at the beginning of things.
The description of Mashu is dependent upon this conception. The mountain seems to be coextensive with the earth. The dam of heaven is the point near which the sun rises, and if the scorpion-men guard the sun at sunrise and sunset, the mountain must extend across to the gate through which the sun passes at night to dip into the great Apsu.
Word Of The Day