Akkadian Stories

Creation of Man:

"Mix the heart of the clay that is over the abyss,
 The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay,
 You, [Nammu] do you bring the limbs into existence;
 Ninmah [earth-mother or birth goddess] will work above you,
 The goddesses [of birth] .  . . will stand by you at your fashioning;
 O my mother, decree its [the newborn's] fate,
 Ninmah will bind upon it the image (?) of the gods,
 It is man . . . ."    (Kramer, History Begins 109)

Poetry and Stories have been hard to find for the Akkadian empire mostly because it was so intertwined with other cultures of the day. The Akkadian and Sumerian civilizations were very influential upon each other and they shared many of their myths with each other.

Watch from about 20 seconds to 53 Seconds

This is a poem written by Enheduanna, the daughter of the first king of the Akkadian empire. She was the high priestess of Inanna. Many of her hymns and poems have been found and translated. Below is a hymn for the Goddess Inanna written by Enheduanna:

She makes perfect the great me's, she holds a halter in her hand, she is their (the gods') first.
She is a huge neckstock clamping down upon the gods of the land,
Her radiance covers the great mountain, silences the road,
The gods of the land are panic-stricken by her heavy roar.

Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth

Going back to the first quote that I put in the post, the people of the Akkadian civilization believed that man came from the mud of the Earth. This may seem like a weird substance for man to be birthed from, but look at Genesis 2:7. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground..." It seems like man being made from dust is a myth that was used in a few cultures.

In an earlier post (First Look at Akkadian Civilization) I wrote how Sargon became the first king of Akkadia. This made me wonder if we have any of our own stories about how something came to be. 

Then it hit me! George Washington! There are definitely some George Washington stories that may or may not be true, but that we like because it shows what amazing qualities the man had. The story of the Cherry tree for example. Is it true? Does anyone care if it's true? Not really. The people of the United States know the story because it shows how fantastic their first president was and how much integrity he had. That's like the story of Sargon. Did a Goddess really take a fancy to the man and save him? I'm going to say it's unlikely, but it did show how favored the King was of the Gods giving him a reason (divine right of kings) to be on the throne.