2700 BCE GILGAMESH:
fifth ruler of the first post-diluvian dynasty of Uruk, Mesopotamia. He
establishes this city and it will become the prototype for others of the
ancient world. Gilgamesh is the basis of the long poem called ‘The Epic of
Gilgamesh’, a story of his wanderings and adventures. At this time, the
city-state of Sumer shows evidence of 3 distinct classes of citizens and keeps
records of health remedies.
GILGAMESH, ENKIDU,
ISHTAR, the earliest written version of this story will be made in the 2nd
millennium BCE, but its origin is believed to be earlier. Ishtar (Sumerian
Inanna) is a Babylonian/Akkadian goddess of love and war and which would be
echoed in the future Greek Venus. Gilgamesh is part human and part divine and a
military hero who refuses to become lover of the goddess. Some suggest that
this may indicate the beginning of the fall of status of the Mother Goddess.
Parts of the Gilgamesh
Epic have been found in Boghazkoy, Anatolia; Megiddo in Palestine and Ugarit in
Syria, thus indicating its widespread nature and therefore the possibility of
its influence on the Hebrews, particularly the flood story. A similar Aegean
Mycenaean poetic tradition seems to have resurfaced in Homeric and later Greek
poetry. Tradition takes the story back into a preliterate age on the borderline
of legend and history, a little later than the Biblical ‘Deluge’, where the
gods were replaced by mortals on the thrones of the city-states in the age of
Archaic Sumerian civilizations. (96.
188)
Gilgamesh
the Hero
2600 BCE Foundation of first dynasty of Ur in
Southern Mesopotamia. This culture demonstrates cuneiform writing and algebraic
equations. The value of a digit is based on its position in a sequence of
numbers. (114) Mesopotamian numerals will exist in the
future as Arabian numerals. (102)
The king of Ur is
sanctified at a holy ritual on ‘New Year’s Day’ when he ascends the principal
ziggurat and takes part in a symbolic marriage to a priestess who represents
Inanna, goddess of fertility. The king represents the chief god.
ENUMA ELISH: Akkadian
creation story believed to come from the 1st Dynasty of Ur, although
the earliest extant copy is found on clay tablets circa 1000 BCE. It is the
story of the struggle between order and chaos, and the story of the creation of
man, which will be built up in the future from fragments of mythology dated
between c1700 and c100 BCE. In this Sumerian myth, Apsu and Tiamat (identified
with the constellation Draco) are called the parents of the gods. One of these
gods, Ea, kills Apsu and, to his mother, Tiamat, fathers Marduk. Marduk will
eventually create the world out of Tiamat’s body by cleaving her in two. Three
regions of the heavens are attributed to the gods Anu, Enlil and Ea. Marduk
also constructed stations for the great gods, by fixing their astral likenesses
as constellations and gave three constellations to each of the 12 months of the
year. The earth goddess Ninhursag is responsible for creating human beings. The
‘Enuma Elish’ story was renewed each year on the fourth day of the New Year
Festival. (192. 9) Each of 7 traditional planetary gods were
given rulership over each of the days of the week.
2560 BCE PYRAMID TEXTS 2560-2420 BCE. The hieroglyphics engraved on the walls of
the inner chambers of the Sakkara pyramid will be given the name of the
‘Pyramid Texts’. These are the oldest known literary compositions on religious
and magical subjects in ancient Egypt, and will become known as the’ Book of
the Dead’. The ‘Book of the Dead’ or the ‘Book of the Coming Forth by Day’ or
the ‘Duat’ is a collection of magic pictures, charms and incantations for the
use of the deceased in their journey through the after-life. It is for the
guidance of the soul through a period of sleep as they move towards a next
incarnation. Later these writing will be written on papyri and enclosed in the
coffin with the deceased body.
2449-50 The Chinese record a close grouping of
the bright planets around this time. (81) Another source says there was a conjunction
of planets near the star Scheat in the constellation Pegasus. A conjunction is
also noted in the constellation Capricorn, (11) the sign of the Greek gods Bacchus and Pan
and linked to the Babylonian god Oannes and the god Egyptian Khnum. A cuneiform
script designates the constellation of Capricorn as the ‘Father of Light’.
c2500 SRI KRISHNA (Krsna) (Vedic period 2500-500 BCE) author of the Bhagavad-Gita
(Gitopanisad) which contains the essence of Vedic knowledge and is one of the
most important Upanishads in Vedic literature. Sri Krsna is the Supreme
Personality of the Godhead or Bhagavan. In chapter IV, the Lord Sri Krsna tells
Arjuna, his disciple, ‘I instructed this imperishable science of yoga to the
sun-god, Vivasvan, and Vivasvan instructed it to Manu, the father of mankind,
and Manu in turn instructed it to Iksvaku.’ Sri Krsna is the original Visnu,
the ultimate end of all knowledge and of all seeking knowledge. (187)
According to astrologer Dane Rudhyar, an avatar or seed man, appears at a
time of crisis or decision making time for humanity. An avatar is a focal point
for transformation initiated by a descent of cosmic energy, and meets his
‘shadow’ in the consciousness of the human race. Thence a battle commences
between the strong inertial resistance of the past and the transforming action
of future possibility. Thus, the Avatar Krishna appeared at a time of intense
fighting between the clans of ancient India. As a statesman of consummate skill
Krishna managed the rival armies to meet in the ‘Battle of Kurukshetra’ where
they destroyed each other. This act allowed the rise of the ‘Great Age of
Philosophy’ under the Brahmins; a philosophy which lasted until after Gautama
the Buddha. On the eve of the battle,
the Bhagavad-Gita was given to Arjuna, a soldier and disciple of Krishna. The Bhagavad-Gita
establishes a first complete statement of an all-inclusive theistic and
devotional religious philosophy, which foreshadowed the spiritual needs of a
humanity about to experience a gradual process of individualization and ego
centralization arising out of the battle of the clans. (141)
2473 Sun Temples arise south of Giza,
built by the rulers of Egyptian Dynasty V. Some examples of names of the
temples are: ‘Pleasure of Re’, ‘Horizon of Re’, ‘Field of Re’ and thus they
indicate a predominant worship of the great sun god Re. (240)
Two years later in 2471,
there is an estimated total Eclipse over Pe/Buto, a Dynasty V center in the
Egyptian Delta. (240. 241) Astrologically, eclipses are said to
indicate a major shift in Earth events and for its inhabitants.
Egyptian Sun god Ra/Re.
c2450 QUEEN KU-BABA becomes ruler of Kish, Sumeria. She is the first
known woman ruler in the history of Sumeria whose ruling goddess is Inanna.
Women of this time have equal rights with men in inheritance, owning property,
doing business etc. Priests and
Priestess’ serve the deities and the temple is the center of city life and its
economic business. (9)
c2400BC PTAH-HOTEP
Grand Vizier (Minister of State) to Pharaoh Snefru of VI Dynasty and to
Pharaoh Isesi of V Dynasty. Ptah-hotep’s writings are known as ‘The Precepts of
Ptah-hotep’ and constitute a series of pragmatic moral aphorisms, similar to
those found in such books of wisdom as the apocryphal Ecclesiasticus or the
Biblical Book of Proverbs. (6) Is this evidence that Moses carried the
Ancient Egyptian wisdom into Canaan and on which he founded a new religion?
c2400 KING UNAS, last Egyptian ruler of Dynasty V has a pyramid built at
Saqqara near the southwest corner of the Zozer complex. This pyramid contains
some of the oldest known religious texts recorded in wall paintings and which
depict the need of the soul to return to mother Nut the sky. (67)
These wall texts are the
forerunners of later papyri texts that came to be collated as ‘The Book of the
Dead’ in which 453 chapters of prayers and rites are used as a guide to the
dead spirit along the hazardous journey through the twelve regions of the
‘Duat-n-Ba’, that part of the night sky more commonly known as the ‘Netherworld
of the soul’. (209)
