The Theology of Dunnum (1)

Summary
A fragmentary Babylonian mythological text speaks of parricide and incest. In this, the myth reminds us of similar motifs in Phoenician and Greek myths.

Text
The Theology of Dunnum, a creation myth from Babylonia, reads as follows:
(1) In the first [beginnings, Plough (= Ha-rab) married Earth and he longed for fa]mily and lord[ship]. [Thus he said:] “We will strike (deep) furrows in the wasteland of the country (ha-rab ma-ti)”. By the (deep) stroke of their plough they organised the creation of Sea. [ … ] they begot from themselves Amagandu.
(6) They both created Dunnu-Sâtu, his … [Plou]gh established for himself title of lordship in Dunnu and [Earth] cast an eye on Amagandu, his (!) son and said to him: “Come here; I want to love you”. Amagandu married Earth, his mother, and Plough, [his father], he killed [and] in Dunnu which he loves he put him to rest.
(13) And Amagandu took the lordship of his father. He married Sea, his ‘big’ sister. Ewe, the son (!) of Amagandu, came [and] killed Amagandu and put him to rest in Dunnu in the House of Silence of his father. He married [Sea], his mother. And Sea destroyed / confined / turned back (?) Earth, her mother. In month IX on day 16, he took lordship and kingship. (21) [ … (= a god)], the son of Ewe, married River, his own sister and [ … ] … and Sea his mother he killed and he put him to rest in the House of Silence, crouching (?). [In month X] (?), on day 1, [he took] kingship and lordship for himself.
(25) [ … ] … Ewe (?) married U-a-a-am, his sister and he made sprout the green grass of the earth (?).
(27) [ … ...],
(28) [ … ], the fathers and [ … ], … creation (tab-shi-it) of the gods [ … ],
(30) [ … ] killed River, his mother, [and] let them dwell [in the House of Silence (?)]. In month XI … (?)] he took lordship and kingship for himself. [ … ] ma[rried] Ningeshtina, his sister, [and] [ … ] killed U-a-a-am, his mother, [and] let them dwell [in the House of Silence (?)]. [In month XII], day 16 (variant: 29), [he took] kingship and lordship.
(37) [Hajashum (?)], the little one of Hamurnu, married [ … ], his own sister. [ On New Year (?)] he took the lordship of his father [and] killed him [not (?)]; a[live he seized him (??)] and for his city he was under arrest [ … ]

Incest is also found in the Greek Derveni papyrus. This is a commentary on an Orphic poem, written in about 420-400 B.C. (see Burkert 2003). We find here an Orphian cosmogony (p. 97-98): Night – Heaven (the first king) – Kronos (performs a Great Deed on his father: castration) - Zeus (swallows the fallus). This can be compared with the Hittite Kumarbi myth: Zeus and Kronos are pregnant with springs and rivers. Otherwise Hesiod, where Zeus swallows Metis (“Klugheit”). In a late Orphian source Meter helps Hipta at the birth of Dionysos; compare the name of the Hurrian goddess Hepat (p. 100). Motifs that we find back in the East are notably the castration and the swallowing of the fallus by Zeus (compare the Hittite myth Kingship in Heaven) (p. 98-100).

Examples of incest in the Phoenician theogony as told by Philo of Byblos:
(1) “And Ouranos (…) takes his sister Gè to wife, and has four children by her: El or Kronos, and Baitylos, and Dagon (who is sitôn), and Atlas” (Baumgarten 15, 181).
(2) Astarte, Rhea en Dione: “Kronos having captured them made them his wedded wives, even though they were his sisters” (Baumgarten 16, 200).
Promiscuity:
“And (…) they called themselves after their mothers, since the women of that time united freely with anyone upon whom they chanced” (Baumgarten 14, 156; Ebach 156: Sememrumos =Semiramis?). Compare the beginning of Genesis 6.
Parricide:
“El (that is Kronos), having ambushed [this also in Hesiod, Theogony 174] his father Ouranos in a certain inland spot and getting him in his power, cuts off his genitals near springs and rivers [by that they colour red]. Ouranos was there sacrificed and his spirit was finished off” (Baumgarten 17, 211-212).

Some notes on the Theology of Dunnum:
Translation by Stol. For other readings, cf. Lambert and Walcot 1965, Jacobsen 1984 (followed by Dalley 1989, Hecker 1994, Hallo 1997). For further interpretations, see Röllig 1967, Albright 1968, Wiggermann 2000. According to Wiggermann, Dunnum is not the name of a city but means “agricultural production centre”. The myth is about the origin of agriculture. If this is correct, Stol suggests to see in the god U-a-a-am (by Jacobsen etc. read as Ua-ildak) in this myth the word ujûm, “barley” (R. Borger, Mesopotamische Zeichenliste no. 579). And J. van Dijk saw in the god ama.gan.du not the herder god Sumukan, but the first farmer, Enkimdu (Handbuch der Religionswissenschaft 1, 449). Note that Phoenician theogony speaks of Dagon = Sitôn (“cereals”). Röllig saw in the city Dunnu-Sâtu a corruption of Old Babylonian Dunnu-sa’idi (Röllig 1967, 58b). We can translate this name as “fortification of the hunters”. Note that in Phoenician theogony Agreus and Halieus, “hunter” and “fisher”, occur together.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
CT 46 43
Derveni Papyrus
Genesis 6
Hesiod, Theogony 174
Philo of Byblos, Phoenician History

Bibliography

Marten Stol

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