Mythology

myth is to express in symbolical terms, by means of images, what cannot be otherwise put into human speech. Here myth has become an expansion of symbolism. The Diffusion And Disintegration Of Myths There are two ways in which the presence of myths in any society may be explained; one is by way of diffusion, and the other is through the independent working of imagination when confronted by similar situations. Usener’s researches have shown that the myth of the Flood is to be found in almost every part of the world. We shall see when we come to deal with the Sumerian and Babylonian forms of the Flood myth that its presence in the region of the Tigris-Euphrates valley can be explained as due to the periodical occurrence there of disastrous floods. But when we find the Flood myth in countries where such floods are not possible, as in Greece or Canaan, for instance, it becomes clear that the myth has been brought there from the place of its origin, even if it is no longer possible to trace the method of diffusion. An example of the way in which myths might travel from their source is furnished by the discovery in Egypt of a cuneiform tablet containing the Babylonian myth of Adapa, with which we shall deal later. The tablet had been used by Egyptian scribes for the purpose of learning cuneiform. A similar instance occurred when a fragment of the myth of Gilgamesh was discovered during the American excavation of Megiddo. The legend of Cadmus tells us how the Phoenician alphabet was carried to Greece and became the parent of all our Western alphabets. Thus there are reasonable grounds for assuming that travel, trade movements, migrations of peoples, arid invasions were a means of diffusion by which myths might be carried from one country to another. It can be observed that rituals decayed and disappeared, or were transformed with the decay of the civilization in which they had played such an important part. Then we find that the myths attached to the decaying rituals were freed from their ritual associations and became literary forms, passing into the traditions of other peoples. For example, the myth of the slaying of the dragon which is, as we shall see, a central element in the Babylonian myth of Creation has given birth to the legends of Perseus and Andromeda, Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra, Siegfried and Fafnir, Beowulf and Grendel, and still survives in the mummers’ play of St George and the Dragon. ———————————– Mesopotamian Myths Chapter 1 Before we begin to give an account of the most important myths which have their origin in Mesopotamia, something should be said about the early cultural conditions out of which the myths which we are to examine came into existence in that part of the ancient Near East. Archaeological excavation of the sites of the ancient cities in the Tigris-Euphrates valley has shown that this region, known as Sumer and Akkad, was inhabited as early as 4,000 B.C. by a people known as the Sumerians. Some scholars are of the opinion that there are traces of an earlier settlement but it is certain that the fully developed civilization revealed by excavation of such sites as Ur, Erech, and Kish was the work of the Sumerians. They appear to have come into the delta from the mountainous region to the north-east of Mesopotamia, and their myths show that they came from a very different kind of country from that which they found in their new home. The form of writing called cuneiform was their invention, and it was they

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