August 9, 2020
dream
Calling the Storm God
I am holding an extraordinary stone. It is dark reddish and may be a meteorite. There is the hint of a figure or scene, maybe its natural contours. Its shape reminds me, oddly, of the foreleg of a bull. I want to set it up in its ancient stand. I examine some bits of metal that were used to anchor it. I ask two lovely young priestesses who are assisting me to bring me some wire, figuring that I can bind the object in place. Before they return I have worked out how to get it securely into its bronze base. Power will be generated when the right words are spoken and the right powers evoked.
I have found an ancient text - Mesopotamian or Hittite - of a hymn to the storm god. I have written a free version of the scholarly translations and feel it has real power to move things for the benefit of communities as well as individuals. I share this with the priestesses and they are excited. I am going to read my work aloud for the first time to them.
I consider how to explain my hymn to a broader audience. One of the priestesses has a collection of my previous writings including an essay titled "Words from Ur". Perhaps somethng in this vein.
Now I have the stone standing securely on its plinth, I decide where I will deliver the prayer. There are three doors in the wall before me. I open the middle door. There is a tremendous surge of energy, seeking form, in the sky.
Feelings: keenly interested, excited
Amplification: I knew that a storm god (Hurrian Teshub, Hittite Tarhan) was very important for the Hittites. I was soon reading up on Iškur (Sumerian) or Adad (Akkadian), a Mesopotamian storm god. Adad’s name is said to be derived from the Canaanite Hadad. The root meaning of both names is "Thunderer". He was also called Rammanu, Thunderer, in Akkadian. A text dating from the reign of Ur-Ninurta characterizes Adad/Iškur as both threatening in his stormy rage and generally life-giving and benevolent [1].
I would imagine that meteorites and thunderstones were widely regarded as symbols of the storm gods. Early Hittite inscriptions speak of them as “stars falling from the sky” and the Hittites supposedly worshipped sacred stones set up at many places. A Hittite king sent a meteorite dagger to Tutankhamun.
The Opening of the Mouth ceremony was performed in Egypt to reanimate the spirit of the dead. A distinctive tool was used – an adze with a bent handle resembling the foreleg of a bull. It has been suggested that the actual foreleg of a freshly sacrificed bull may have been used to pump blood to revive a deceased pharaoh. The Egyptians called Ursa Major Msḫtjw, the Foreleg of the Bull .[2]
It seems that statue magic throughout the ancient Near East involved similar arts, to import the spirit of a deity or ancestor into a statue or stone and then bring it alive.
I looked for hymns to the Near Eastern storm gods and copied phrases that might be part of an invocation:
Thunderer
Owner of the House of Abundance
and the House Where Prayers are Answered
Bull Rider|
who leashes and unleashes the Lion Dragon
Guardian of the Tablets
Lord of Divination
Bringer of rain from heaven and floods from underground [3]
By the Old Babylonian period Iškur/Adad was one of the great gods of the Babylonian pantheon with sanctuaries in many cities He is "the bringer of plenty" in Enki and the World Order . In Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta he causes a storm that makes wheat grow on a barren mountainside Elsewhere his violence is featured. In the Old Babylonian version of the creation epic Atrahasis, "Adad was roaring in the clouds" as the Flood began. The deluge "bellowed like a bull" and the wind screamed like an eagle.
Five years on: I note that the priestesses in my dream were modern Americans, perhaps an alert that storm gods will be heard again.
Notes
1. Alberto Green writes that "On a tablet among the adab compositions from the time of Ur-Ninurta of Isin, Iskur is metaphorically described as a howling tempest with flashing bolts of lightning, a butting storm, and a great lion who makes all his enemies tremble, yet he is simultaneously revered as a benevolent lord and warden of heaven and earth who gives life to the land...In this important series of liturgical incantations dated to Ur III, Iskur is the son of Enlil. In addition to being called a lion, he is also represented as an enormous bull-cloud, booming his name across the sky. Here the Storm-god rains destructive hail rather than life-giving showers. He is lauded as the august bull and the great lion, mounting the seven storms like donkeys; he is also the roaring storm, thunder, and lightning. The mythic picture is that of the Storm-god Iskur galloping in his frightful war-chariot, drawn by his steeds, the lion, and the bull." - Alberto R. W. Green, The Storm God in the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2003.) p.54.
2. Gábor W. Nemes, “The mythological importance of the constellation Msḫtjw in mortuary representations until the end of the New Kingdom” Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenn vol. 13 (2020) pp. 1-61.
3. Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: an Anthology of Akkadian Literature. 3rd edition. (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press. 2005) p.784
4. ibid., p249.
Illustration: RM+AI
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