Eridu Wall Carving

[Ahman]

The following image is from a wall carving found in Eridu Iraq. It is known to be the oldest Temple known so far to archeologists. (possibly Noahs?) Other images found there show signs that apostacy had set in, but this one is different.

The image is named "The Tree of Life", and points of interest are the placement of the arms, the baskets held in the left hand, the objects beign held aloft (Urim and Thummim?), and the clothing worn. (Notice the third figures hat and the string attached to the shoulder)

Also the deity above the tree has in arms uplifted in the true order of prayer. he is shown in a disc, similar to the one that was presented to Abraham when he had his throne theophany.

Would love to have any of you scholarly types comment on the image.

[jadams_4242]

The following image is from a wall carving found in Eridu Iraq. It is known to be the oldest Temple known so far to archeologists. (possibly Noahs?) Other images found there show signs that apostacy had set in, but this one is different.

The image is named "The Tree of Life", and points of interest are the placement of the arms, the baskets held in the left hand, the objects beign held aloft (Urim and Thummim?), and the clothing worn. (Notice the third figures hat and the string attached to the shoulder)

Also the deity above the tree has in arms uplifted in the true order of prayer. he is shown in a disc, similar to the one that was presented to Abraham when he had his throne theophany.

Would love to have any of you scholarly types comment on the image.

VERY interesting! I would like to very much know what the writing on the bottom says as well? this is a great one indeed. Thank yu!

[Ahman]

I found the image of the wall carving here:

Mesopotamian myth

Eridu information:

The Eridu Temple

Eridu has a nice version of the Book of Genesis, about halfway down is a Flood narative that includes the story of Noah approaching the veil to receive instruction and "swearing by his throat".

Eridu Genesis

[erichard]

The following image is from a wall carving found in Eridu Iraq. It is known to be the oldest Temple known so far to archeologists. (possibly Noahs?) ...

Hi Ahman,

That is interesting. I just today happened to read an article in my friend's ARCHAELOLGY magazine about another place said to be the "oldest Temple".

It is called: G

[maklelan]

Hi Ahman,

That is interesting. I just today happened to read an article in my friend's ARCHAELOLGY magazine about another place said to be the "oldest Temple".

It is called: G

[Bill Hamblin]

The relief is not from the Eridu temple. It is from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimurd from the mid-ninth century BC. The reliefs are in the British Museum.

[Bill Hamblin]

I would hesitate to call it a temple. It's actually a collection of megaliths forming a circle. There are not walls, and there are no settlements or water sources anywhere nearby. Nomadic tribes, by definition, don't build permanent dwelling places. The exact function of the megaliths is still undetermined, but it is definitely a significant find, as it conflicts with the traditional perspective of this kind of ritual structure originating much later and further south in the Levant and spreading northward. In the January 2008 issue of Science there's a wonderful interview with the supervisor of the dig taking place there.

I would classify the Gobekli site as a Temple. It is in a tell, and there are stone walls. Check out the photos on the Wiki page.

[Bill Hamblin]

Here's an abstract of the Archaeology article on Gobekli Tepe.

http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

[maklelan]

I would classify the Gobekli site as a Temple. It is in a tell, and there are stone walls. Check out the photos on the Wiki page.

I saw the walls in the Wikipedia photo, but the Science article says the space was open, and there are several collections of these circles spread across a hillside, with only some of them half-buried in the ground. The rectangular arrangements with the walls are much more recent than the circular megaliths, although I haven't yet dug up a firm date on them. The supervisor says the circular arrangements are not related to fertility cults, since there's no feminine iconography. Most of the artwork depicts predatory animals like "leopards, lions, foxes, and vultures, plus spiders, snakes, and scorpions." He compares it to Stonehenge.

[maklelan]

Here's an abstract of the Archaeology article on Gobekli Tepe.

http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

Interesting. Klaus Schmidt says in the Science article that the pillars did not support roofs, but the Archaeology article says they did. Maybe they found something over the summer that indicated roofing.

[Bill Hamblin]

I saw the walls in the Wikipedia photo, but the Science article says the space was open, and there are several collections of these circles spread across a hillside, with only some of them half-buried in the ground. The rectangular arrangements with the walls are much more recent than the circular megaliths, although I haven't yet dug up a firm date on them. The supervisor says the circular arrangements are not related to fertility cults, since there's no feminine iconography. Most of the artwork depicts predatory animals like "leopards, lions, foxes, and vultures, plus spiders, snakes, and scorpions." He compares it to Stonehenge.

I'd say that Stonehenge is a temple too. I guess it all depends on how you define temple, which is an important and interesting question.

[maklelan]

I'd say that Stonehenge is a temple too. I guess it all depends on how you define temple, which is an important and interesting question.

True. I tend to fall on the side of some manner of sanctuary or shrine representing the presence of deity, but I suppose any space delineated as sacred or intended for sacred ritual could be called a temple.

I guess everyone will just have to come to our Symposium on November 7th to find out.

[Bill Hamblin]

Interesting. Klaus Schmidt says in the Science article that the pillars did not support roofs, but the Archaeology article says they did. Maybe they found something over the summer that indicated roofing.

I think it is a matter of interpretation of ambiguous evidence. The later 8000 BC temple at Nevali Cori in Turkey has similar T-shaped columns but with clearer walls and roof.

True. I tend to fall on the side of some manner of sanctuary or shrine representing the presence of deity, but I suppose any space delineated as sacred or intended for sacred ritual could be called a temple.I guess everyone will just have to come to our Symposium on November 7th to find out.

So, is the Tabernacle a temple?

[ttribe]

True. I tend to fall on the side of some manner of sanctuary or shrine representing the presence of deity, but I suppose any space delineated as sacred or intended for sacred ritual could be called a temple.

Okay, so now that you guys have decided that this MAY be a temple...can someone comment on the carving itself? That imagery looks awfully familiar and I'd like to know more about it.

[Bill Hamblin]

The supervisor says the circular arrangements are not related to fertility cults, since there's no feminine iconography.

I've seen an illustration of what appears to be a woman giving birth that was "incised roughly into the hard plaster floor" (Wightman, Sacred Spaces, (2007) 201, with drawing). I have not, however, seen any feminine iconography on the pillars.

[maklelan]

So, is the Tabernacle a temple?

Clearly. Permanence isn't necessarily a requirement. I think the symbolism of the cosmic mountain is just as legitimate as the location on a mountain or near a sacred spot.

[maklelan]

Okay, so now that you guys have decided that this MAY be a temple...can someone comment on the carving itself? That imagery looks awfully familiar and I'd like to know more about it.

About the Ashurnasirpal Tree of Life?

[Bill Hamblin]

Okay, so now that you guys have decided that this MAY be a temple...can someone comment on the carving itself? That imagery looks awfully familiar and I'd like to know more about it.

You mean the Ashurnasirpal relief from the OP?

Clearly. Permanence isn't necessarily a requirement. I think the symbolism of the cosmic mountain is just as legitimate as the location on a mountain or near a sacred spot.

So was the Israelite stone circle at Gilgal at temple?

[ttribe]

About the Ashurnasirpal Tree of Life?

Yes.

You mean the Ashurnasirpal relief from the OP?

And Yes.

[maklelan]

So was the Israelite stone circle at Gilgal at temple?

Where Samuel hewed Agag in pieces "before the Lord," or where Israel camped after crossing the Jordan? I think "before the Lord" is a clear indication of a temple, but the stone pillars by the Jordan is less clear to me.

[Bill Hamblin]

Where Samuel hewed Agag in pieces "before the Lord," or where Israel camped after crossing the Jordan? I think "before the Lord" is a clear indication of a temple, but the stone pillars by the Jordan is less clear to me.

I think they are the same place. They took the twelve stones from the Jordan and set them, forming a sacred open-air enclosure. I suspect they kept the Ark and Tabernacle there for a while. The Byzantines built a church commemorating the site that can be seen on the Madaba Map. I suspect it is the old question of form vs. function. If Jacob's raised maṣṣeba could be a beth-el, then I suspect a circle of raised pillars could be as well.

[maklelan]

Yes.And Yes.

As I understand it, the tree is a date palm and represents the axis mundi. The base sits on earth, while the top reaches to Ashur. It may represent the fertility of the land. The outside figures are holding buckets and fir cones. They represent deities protecting the king, who, if I remember correctly, is worshipping Ashur. The king is mirrored on each side of the tree. The deities may be anointing the king or sprinkling him with water.

[Ron Beron]

Okay, so now that you guys have decided that this MAY be a temple...can someone comment on the carving itself? That imagery looks awfully familiar and I'd like to know more about it.

I checked a few sources and the consensus is simply there isn't a consensus. Some have described as representative of world order and the king which is flanked by protective semi-deities is acting as the personification of the world order. This might make some sense since the reliefs were found in the Assyrian throne room in Nimrud.

the Tree here represents the divine world order maintained by the king as the representative of the god ASSur, embodied in the winged disk hovering above the Tree. Secondly, it was observed some time ago that in some reliefs the king takes the place of the Tree between the winged genies. Whatever the precise implications of this fact, it is evident that in such scenes the king is portrayed as the human personification of the Tree.32 Thus if the Tree symbolized the divine world order, then the king because part of the textual evidence he quotes is not pertinent and none of it demonstrably pertains to a "Tree of Life."

(Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3. (Jul., 1993), pp. 161-208. Thu Apr 26 22:27:17 2007 THE ASSYRIAN TREE OF LIFE: TRACING THE ORIGINS OF JEWISH MONOTHEISM AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY* SIMO PARPOLA, University of Helsinki

As I understand it, the tree is a date palm and represents the axis mundi. The base sits on earth, while the top reaches to Ashur. It may represent the fertility of the land. The outside figures are holding buckets and fir cones. They represent deities protecting the king, who, if I remember correctly, is worshipping Ashur. The king is mirrored on each side of the tree. The deities may be anointing the king or sprinkling him with water.

Are you sure it is a date palm? I thought it was a ficus or fig tree.

[Bill Hamblin]

The winged figures on the far left and right are probably aladlammu. They appear in different forms, sometimes with an eagle head. They probably have four wings, of which only two are visible in profile. (They are probably the Assyrian equivalent of the Hebrew four-winged cherub.) In the right hand they hold what is thought to be a pine-cone, called a millilu (purifier) in Assyrian, in the left a bucket (banduddu), probably of water (but perhaps some other liquid). They are performing a purification ritual of aspersion, which is sprinkling. They probably dipped the pine cone in the water in the bucket, and then sprinkled things with the water to purify them. We have no detailed texts which describe the Assyrian ritual, so it is kind-of guess work. It is probably broadly parallel to the Israelite aspersion rituals in which a hyssop branch was used to sprinkle blood in Israelite purification rituals (Lev 14:4, 6, 49-52).

I believe the two middle figures are both king Ashurnasirpal II, represented in mirror image, probably in two stages of the ritual. Both have the same small scepter-like object in their left hands, and both have the braided cord attached to the belt. The central item is a stylized sacred tree. The winged disk above the tree is the god Ashur. The cuneiform text in these types of scenes are generally historical accounts of the king.

[maklelan]

I think they are the same place. They took the twelve stones from the Jordan and set them, forming a sacred open-air enclosure. I suspect they kept the Ark and Tabernacle there for a while. The Byzantines built a church commemorating the site that can be seen on the Madaba Map. I suspect it is the old question of form vs. function. If Jacob's raised maṣṣeba could be a beth-el, then I suspect a circle of raised pillars could be as well.

Menahem Haran argues that one Gilgal is in the hill country of Ephraim, citing 2 Kings 2:2, where Elisha and Elijah go from Gilgal down to Bethel, and from there to Jericho and then to the Jordan (Menahem, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel, 31, 32).

As to the other part of your post, Bethel seems to me to be the trump card if we conclude that his massebah elicited the name Bethel. I can't argue with that.