Friday, February 18, 2022

THE GODDESS EVE AND HER DIRTY CONSORT ADAM: A DIFFERENT TAKE ON CREATION AND THE LOCATION OF THE GARDEN EAST OF EDEN

Gobleki Tepe, the Garden East of Eden 

“7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”  Genesis, New Revised Standard Version

This one passage has given rise to endless speculation about the true location of the Garden, which is either east of Eden or in Eden, in the east (depending on how the eighth verse is translated).  I do not think that this is such a mystery, and can demonstrate why I think the Garden is rather easy to find – once we start with an identification of Eve with the Hurrian goddess Hebat/Heba.

Readers who wish to research the etymological intricacies of the Eve/Hawwah = Hebat/Heba equivalency are welcome to do so.  There has been a great deal written on the probable correspondence and it is not the aim of the present paper to go over these arguments.  To best summarize a recent scholarly position on the issue, I am quoting Note 30 from I.M. Diakonoff’s “Evidence of the Ethnic Division of the Hurrians”, in Studies on the Civilization and the Culture of the Nuzi and the Hurrians by E. R. Lacheman, 1981:

“It is Heba in all PN (and therefore this form is the more archaic) but Hebat, Hebatu in Bogazkoy, in Ugaritic lists, in the Hieroglyphic Luwian texts and elsewhere.  E.A. Speiser had pointed out that this t does not, contrary to the rules of Hurrian phonetics, develop to *d, and hence is (a) late, (b) Semitic.  He compared West Semitic *Hawwatu, Hebr. Hawwa “Eve”.  The name cannot be borrowed from West Semitic because, first, the form Heba is earlier than the Semitic addition –t- (this is, among other proffs, shown by the existence of Huba in Urartian), and second, because intervocalic *b may develop to West Semitic b > /w(w)/, but Semitic *w cannot be reflected as Hurrian b…  Therefore, although there may have been an identification of Hurr. Heba > Hebatu with West Semitic Hawwa < Hawwatu, either the two mythological figures must have originally been quite separate, or it was Heba who was the original.  The Semitic etymology of Hawwa is not above some suspicions.”

Gary Beckman, Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, at the University of Michigan, passed along this on the goddess Hebat, her name and other goddesses with whom she was identified:

“It has recently been demonstrated that her name developed through some complicated sound changes from *Halabat, “the (female) one of Aleppo.” She became the chief goddess of the western Hurrian pantheon and spouse of the Storm-God Teshshub. Among Hurrians in the east, this position was held by Shaushga, a goddess whose name was usually hidden under the word-sign Ishtar. [At Nippur, Innana/Ishtar was called nin edin "the Lady of Eden"].  Within the syncretistic late pantheon of the Hittite empire, when figures from the earlier Anatolian god world were assimilated to members of the newly-adopted Hurrian pantheon, Hebat was also identified with the Sun-goddess of Arinna. But this was simply because each was the partner of the Storm-god in the respective systems (Anatolian Tarhunt and Hurrian Teshshub). This is most famously illustrated in a prayer of Queen Puduhepa in which she addresses the Sun-goddess, mentioning that “in the Land of Cedars (Syria) they call you Hebat.”

Dr. Mark Weeden of Oxford and other top Assyriologists agree on the derivation of Hebat's name from the city-name Aleppo.

Professor Piotr Taracha on the origin of Hebat:

"The early form of her name, Ha(l)abatu, attested already in the third millenium BCE, connects Hebat with her city: Lady of Halab. As you can read in Archi's, she was originally a goddess of morning dew (in the second millenium she was identified in Ugarit with Pidray). Hence, she has nothing to do with Ishtar/Inanna or Venus-type goddesses (although, Teshub and Shaushka/Ishtar stood at the head of the East Hurrian pantheon, as it is the case in Nuzi. However, they were considered brother and sister rather than a couple. Due to its nature Pidray was identified with both Ishtar and Hebat in multilingual lists of gods from Ugarit). Her 'career' was connected with her being a spouse of Haddu, the stormgod of Halab, who was of supra-regional significance already in the third millenium To sum up, Hebat was originally a West Semitic goddess from Halab. In the early second millenium Halab was the capital of Yamhad, something that further stimulated a further 'career' of Haddu and Hebat. They retained their position in the Hurrianised pantheon. Hebat was still worshipped in the first millenium BCE in such Neo-Hittite centers as Kummaha (Kommagene) and Malida (Melitene). 

The origin of the name Adam will be discussed below.

Some scholars (although to a degree considered "fringe") have made a case for an identification of the four rivers of Eden.  David Rohl (see The Jerusalem Report, February 1, 1999, “Paradise Found”), deriving his material primarily from the earlier independent scholar Reginald Walker, equated the Gihon with the Aras or Araks, and the Pishon with the Uizhon (and alternate spellings, the P showing a supposed Semitic shift; the river is now known as the Qezel Qwzan and is the upper half of the Sefid Rud ).  Unfortunately, he is an archaeologist and not a linguist, and his analysis of the river-names and other place-names has been disputed.  Such identifications rely on late Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian names and therefore cannot be trusted to be accurate forms.

If we "respect" the Biblical account (yes, I know - an exercise fraught with peril!), we need to fulfill some conditions.  First, we cannot opt for a location for the garden that runs directly contrary to the account.  One example of this would be the recent effort to find Eden at the head of the Persian Gulf by identifying the Pishon with the newly discovered dry 'Kuwait' river (see James A. Sauer, "The River Runs Dry," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, July/August 1996, pp. 52-54, 57, 64. Molly Dewsnap, "The Kuwait River," Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 22, No. 4, July/August 1996, p. 55.). Second, the actual river of the garden HAS to have four rivers branching out from it (or seeming to branch out from, or symbolically branching out from it).   Furthermore, we MUST have a verifiable association of the said river of the garden with Heba/Eve and Adam. Rohl neglected to fulfill the last two of these critical requirements.

The Tigris and Euphrates we know and they are not a problem.  Gihon and the Pishon are quite the opposite.

The Pishon is said to surround the land of Havilah (Hebrew Chaviylah).  This land, mentioned only once in the Bible, is not otherwise known and researchers have sought it all over the place, primarily in southwest Arabia or even in Africa.  However, there is an ancient city that can tentatively be located on the upper Khabur, the largest tributary of the Euphrates.  The name of this place is Hawilum (Hawalum, Hawlum).  A temple at the site was dedicated by the king of Urkesh (Tell Mozan) and Nawar (Tell Brak) - both on the headwaters of the Khabur.  Thus these cities are in the region of the Turkish-Syrian border, pretty much exactly between the Euphrates to the west and the Tigris to the east. I would equate Hawilum with Havilah.

The inscription concerning Hawilum may be found here: http://www.urkesh.org/pages/571.htm.

While Hawilum has not be precisely located, the Syriac lexicographer Bar-Bahlũl (10th century) mentions the toponym HWYL´ (Hwilā, Huwaylā, and in one exemplar of his lexicon H/Kwilā or H/Kuwaylā), which he associates with the city of GWZN (vocalised Gawzan; Lexicon Syriacum ed. R.Duval [1888-1896] col. 426 and n .25). This GWZN is probably Guzana, which we now know to be Tell Halaf.  Thus Hiwalum may have been in the vicinity of the latter ancient city.

I have confirmed the above with Professor Amir Harrak.  He writes (personal communication):

"It is a 10th century AD Syriac source that says literally: GWZN, according to Bar-Saroshway (ca. 900 AD) is a city which is HWYL’. The latter name is not consistent in all manuscripts.  There are 2 issues here: whether or not Syriac GWZN is Guzana and I think it is since Syriac authors were native of the Khabur for centuries if not millennia , and whether or not HWYL’ is Hawilum. Because of the variant spellings of this name found in the Syriac sources I am not sure of the association HWYL’ Hawilum. Ancient names do appear in late Syriac sources and an important one is Edessa near the Upper Euphrates whose Syriac name is Urhay. The same 10th century source gives its ancient name (Adme) known since the 19th century BC in Assyrian sources; see my article on this in JNES 51 (1992) pp. 209-214."

[The city name Adme has been linked to the Biblical name Adam.  This from “Amorite names and old testament onomastics”(https://ur.booksc.org/ireader/29429551) by Ebbe Egede Knudsen:


177+ a-da-mu (fern.), also Rép. 2,49, same spelling 178+, 2004+ hada-mu (both masc.) for /adamu/. In the context of Biblical studies it is of interest to note that the spelling a-da-mu also appears as an ancestor's name at the beginning of the Assyrian King List.31 Presumably the name is distinct from the divine name Admu as in 2443+ i-dindad-mu an Akkadianizing spelling (K 1) for /yantin-adm/ "Admu gave." Or is ad-mu another Akkadianizing spelling with vowel contraction (K 2.6a) from /adamu/ as in the Amorite cognate of ΓΠΒ7Χ q.v.? Admu is common in feminine names like 670 f,(d:]ad-mu-si-imhi

"Admu is my delight," 667 ad-mu-ne-ri (all Mari) "Admu is my light" and others. It may possibly be a name of the sun god (lit. "the red one"), compare below s.v. pb, or it is related to the geographical name Admum as suggested by Birot.32 The name of the Ebla goddess spelled ia-dam-ma and da-dam-tumi3 is likely to be related 

Edessa/Adme was, according to Edward Lipinski (see THE ARAMAEANS, p. 170), within Bit-Adini. Prof. Dr. Ariel M. Bagg (Seminar für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients/Assyriologie,  Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg) agrees with Lipinski, saying 

“In fact, Urfa/Edessa lay most probably in the territory of first millennium Bit-Adini. The ancient Name in Neo-Assyrian times is not known, but it was proposed as a candidate for Ruggulitu (RGTC 7, 204), a city in Bit-Adini. The ancient name of Urfa in early periods is still matter of debate and many identifications were proposed in the literature.”

I will have more on the Bit-Adini kingdom name below.

Just as importantly, Edessa/Adme was also for a time under Hurrian control, and it was the Hurrians who worshipped the goddess Hebat. The Biblical Eve appears to derive from this goddess.]

Other scholars now agree in placing Hawilum in the western part of the Khabur Triangle.  The following, for example, is from G.Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati's "The Great Temple Terrace at Urkesh and the Lions of Tish-atal", SCCNH (Owen Volume), December, 2005:

"The fact that NERGAL is called 'Lord of Hawalum" implies that his temple was in that locality, and the name Hawalum had no known link with Urkesh (its localization remains unknown, though it is assumed to be in the Khabur Triangle, west of Urkesh)."

Allowing for Hawilum = Havilah, "Cush" is pretty plainly a reference to Urkesh, i.e. the City ( = Ur) of Kesh, itself at Tell Mozan on the Upper Khabur.  Urkesh is here a substitution for Sumerian Kish, which was linked to Biblical Nimrod, whose father was Cush (see https://www.jstor.org/stable/1585058?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3Aacf9525c601db894ad869216df956f84&seq=12#page_scan_tab_contents). The Gihon, however, cannot be another name for the Khabur (ancient Hubur or Habur), but must instead be the Wadi Darca, as Urkesh/Tell Mozan is near the headwaters of this stream.  The Khabur's name was known anciently (and will be discussed below), so equating it with Gihon is not something we can allow.

The Pishon (Hebrew Pison), being associated with Hiwalum near/at Guzana/Tell Halaf, has to be the Wadi Djirjib. The name itself could be from Old Babylonian pis, meaning "quay, port; bank, shore, rim; stream, wadi, gorge" (Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary). However, from Old Babylonian on, including Akkadian, there is pisannu, 'drainage passage' or 'drainpipe' (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary).  The Djirjib is to the west of the Wadi Darca of Urkesh and both are within the Khabur Triangle.

So together the Pishon and Gihon designate streams associated with the Khabur River. 

And what of the river that actually flows from the Garden?

Well, we need to begin at Tell Ahmar, the site of ancient Aramaean Til Barsip (Hittite Masuwari) and the capital of the small kingdom of Bit-Adini, Biblical Beth-Eden (Amos 1:5). 

Til Barsip is on the Euphrates a dozen miles to the southeast of Carchemish, and Carchemish is roughly 75 miles west of Abraham's Haran.  Bit-Adini/Beth-Eden stretched from the Sajur River, a tributary of the Euphrates whose mouth was approximately opposite the capital to the west, to the Balikh River, another tributary of the Euphrates further south.  Scholars now believe it embraced some territory to the west of the Euphrates as well. 

It appears fairly obvious, then, that the Balikh, which formed a boundary for Bit-Adini/Beth Eden, is the actual river that flowed from the Garden.

The following wonderful description of Til-Barsip is courtesy peeters-leuven.be/boekoverz_print.asp?nr=8841:

“Tell Ahmar, ancient Til Barsib, on the east bank of the Euphrates River, close to the confluence of the Sajur River, was ideally placed to function as a crossing point from upper Mesopotamia to northern Syria. To a large extent the prominent and strategic location of Tell Ahmar determined the Assyrian interest in the site and its apparent that Tell Ahmar reached its maximum size under the Assyrians.”

While the location of Eden in the Bible has been intentionally mystified, no verse better than 2 Kings 19:12-13 shows better where it is to be found:

"Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my predecessors destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar (Tell Assur, 'Hill of the god Assur' of the Assyrians)?  Where is the King of Hamath, the king of Arpad, etc."

All these places are known to be in northern Mesopotamia and Syria.  2 Kings 19:12-13 is repeated in Isaiah 37:12-13.

Rivers of the Garden of Eden

 

1) Balikh, coming from and watering the Garden

2) Pishon/Wadi Djirjib of Hiwalum/Tell Halaf (Khabur River)

3) Gihon/Wadi Darca of Urkesh/Tell Mozan (Khabur River)

4) Euphrates

5) Tigris

 

More exciting than the identification of the rivers is the presence at Til Barsip/Tell Ahmar of inscriptions bearing the name of the goddess Hebat/Hepat, as well as theophoric personal names containing her name.  To quote from THE DICTIONARY OF DEITIES AND DEMONS IN THE BIBLE on Hebat:

“In the Hurrian pantheon. the goddess Hebat occupies a high rank: she is the wife of the weather-god Teshub and the mother of Sharruma (DANMANVlLLE 1972-75:326). Her epithet 'Lady of heaven' or - "Queen of Heaven' underscores her celestial character. In the course of tradition, she has been assimilated to the sun-goddess of Arinna. The theologians of Ugarit equated her with Pidraya. one of the daughters of -'Baal (Ug. 5 [1968] 503.525). She may have been associated more particularly with Venus, as she corresponds rather closely to Ishtar. In Nuzi, the spouse of Teshub is called Ishtar (R. F. S. STARR, Nuzi, Vol. I [Cambridge MA 1939] 529), and elsewhere Pidraya (dpi-id. di-rf;·)'a» is assimilated to Ishtar (Cf 25, PI. 17 ii 12).

Also found at Til Barsip is the goddess Adamma. Francesco Domponio (in "Adamma Paredra Di Rasap") gives as the various forms of Adamma's name Adamma, Adama, Adamaum, Adammaum and Adamtum.

In E. Lipinski’s “Resheph. A Syro-Canaanite Deity. (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, 181, Editions Peeters, Leuven 2009)”, the author rejects the association of the name of the goddess Adamma with the similar looking word in Semitic languages for ‘earth’. More likely in his opinion is the relation to ‘blood’ (Hebrew dam).  Adamma was the consort of Rasap (Resheph).

According to Alfonso Archi ("The Gods of Ebla", NIT Annual Report, 2010):

"A common epithet of Rashap was "of-the-garden" [rsp gn, with gn being the Canaanite equivalent of Hebrew gn, the word used to describe the Garden of Eden], which does not seem to refer to "the cemetery", neither at Ebla, nor at Ugarit.  At Ebla the spouse of Rashap was Adamma - there is also an "Adamma-of-the-garden."  In the second millenium this goddess was no longer associated with Rashap, but was included in the Hurrian pantheon and associated with the goddess of Karkamish, Kubaba."

[It will be admitted that some scholars do not read GN as 'garden', but as a place-name GUNUM. The following is from Mary Seeley, Subject Librarian (History & Religions; Ancient Near East, Semitics & Judaica), Teaching and Research Support (Library), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London: "SOAS Library has a copy of Lipinksi's book Resheph: a Syro-Canaanite deity (classmark QK929.4 / 738142).

I have had a quick look at the contents, and in Chapter 1 (Resheph in the Ebla Archives) Lipinski transcribes the GN epithet of both Resheph and Adamma as "Gunu". He states that this is possibly derived from the suffix - kunu, and may represent a derivative of the root kun (to be firm).

Lipinski states categorically that the gu-nu qualifier in the name of Resheph is not "garden" (gann in all the Semitic languages that provide a vocalization).

In Chapter 2 (Resheph and Adamma) he mentions the following places associated with the worship of Adamma - Emar, Boghazkoy, Ugarit and Alakh. The goddess frequently carries a topographical epithet. Adamma of Adani, Gunu, DU-anir, Du-lum and Tunip are among those noted in the original sources."]

Adamma's primary cult center (according to Robert R. Stieglitz in "Divine Pairs in the Ebla Pantheon", Eblaitica Volume 4 and Pelio Alfonso Archi in Semitic and Assyriological Studies, ed. by Pelio Fronzaroli, 2003) was Adani or Ataanni, thought to possibly be Tell 'Asharneh on the Orontes not far from Hama.

The name Adam, of course, has been derived from various words in the languages of the region, in addition to the Hebrew: Sumerian adama "a dark-colored bodily discharge", e.g. blood, to which we may compare Akkadian adamu, “blood”, adamatu, “black blood”, [as plural only] “dark red earth (used as a dye)”.  But a similarly spelled word in Akkadian also means “an important, noble person” (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary).  Thus is it not difficult to see how the notion of a man made out of earth came to be a popular one.

Adamma came to be associated with Kubaba (Cybele) in Hurrian religion.  From Alfonso Archi’s “The West Hurrian Pantheon and Its Background”, in  BEYOND HATTI: A Tribute to Gary Beckman, ed. by Billie Jean Collins and Piotr Michalowski (Lockood Press, 2013):

“According to the texts from Ebla, Adamma was the spouse of Rašap, while in the Hurrian pantheon from Kizzuwatna she forms a dyad with Kubaba, sometimes enlarged to include Hašuntarhi. Adamma gave the the name to the ninth month of the local calendar: dA-dam-ma-(um).88 Kubaba does not appear, instead, in the Ebla text, although she is attested as the goddess of Karkamiš already from the eighteenth century…

In the kaluti of Teššub,94 the bulls Šerri and Hurri are followed by (nos. 18–19): “the gods of the father of Teššub; the gods of the father of the sacrificer (DINGIRMEŠna attanni=wena ašḫušikkunni=na); similarly, in the kaluti of Hebat,95 the goddesses Adamma, Kubaba, Hašuntarhi are followed by (nos. 15–16): “the gods of the father of Hebat; the gods of the father of the sacrificer.”

Kubaba, in turn, is found with Hebat at Til-Barsip, the capital of Bit-Adini/Beth-Eden. 

We have, then, in Bit-Adini or Beth-Eden a goddess Hebat (= Eve) and a goddess Kubaba, who was associated with one called Adamma (a feminine form of the masculine name Adam). The town of Adme (later Edessa, now Sanliurfa) may have, for a time, been in Beth-Eden.

THE GARDEN AND GOBEKLI TEPE 

Sanliurfa or Adme, which I have very tentatively linked to Adam, is only a half dozen miles from the amazing archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe.  While Gobekli is not unique in some of its characteristics (see, for example, https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/05/08/the-current-distribution-of-sites-with-t-shaped-pillars/, which discusses other such sites in the Balikh and adjacent Khabur valleys), it lies at the headwaters of the Balikh River and so perfectly fits the description of the Biblical Garden of Eden.

Research at Gobekli Tepe has demonstrated that the people responsible for building the temple complex were transitioning from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society.  This change may well be represented in the Adam and Eve story, where humans are expelled from Nature to live in cities.

What exactly Gobekli Tepe and surrounding sites were used for is not yet understood – and may never be, as archaeology can tell us only so much.  But many misconceptions regarding the temple complex continue to be promulgated.  The most persistent is the mistaken notion that the Gobekli enclosures were open-air astronomical observatories.  I asked the chief archaeologist of the site, Professor Doctor Mehmet Ozdogan about this, and he set me straight:

“Concerning any supposed astronomical alignments you need first to understand that for the culture that was there we at present have over 30 excavated cult buildings and each has a different orientation. Second, and more importantly, all of these buildings are sub-surface buildings entered through a narrow ramp-like tunnel.  They all had some sort of roofing which bound the standing stones. These huge central pillars were necessary to support the roofing system; that is why they are so much higher then the ones along the wall. The entrances are through a narrow ramp and a port hole. Passages arranged in rings around the main chamber were walled in, making the proposed sighting of celestial objects impossible.  The restitution drawing at NGS was totally misleading, showing all free standing structures like Stonehenge. Even from the first building of that type recovered as early as 1964 at Çayönü, we knew that these were sunken, subterranean structures.

The earliest date for Gobekli is 9.800 cal.BC, but most other sites begin more or less together, at about 10.300 cal.BC. [The cal prefix indicates that the dates are the result of radiocarbon calibration using tree ring data. These values should correspond exactly to normal historical years BC and AD.]

Each special building has its own story of burial, so it is a continuous process. But the Göbeklitepe site itself ends before Prepottery Neolithic B, roughly around 8.000 BC. Some of the other sites continue on after that. When the Gobekli cult buildings had fulfilled their function, they were buried together with some materials considered sacred (“Humanization of Buildings. The Neolithic Ritual of Burying the Sacred,” M. Ozdogan, ORIGINI, XVI, 2018-1:7-24).

Göbeklitepe culture did not suddenly spring out of nothing. We can more or less follow its evolutionary stages. It lasted for several thousands of years. No miracles needed to account for the culture’s appearance or development; instead, it is a socio-cultural process that took place where environmental conditions were optimal at the time.”

[NOTE -

From https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700564:

"Monumental buildings at Göbekli Tepe were “buried” with enormous amounts of detritus material in ancient times. This deposit, commonly referred to as backfill, is composed of extensive amounts of fist-sized limestone rubble interspersed with archaeological artifacts, primarily lithics and animal bone. An intentional (ritually charged) burial of buildings was previously posited (36–38); more recently, however, other explanations appear increasingly likely, including inundation from building collapse and eroded deposits from higher-lying and adjacent parts of the mound. These latter processes (collapse and erosion) would also account for the highly fragmented nature of human (and animal) bone contained in the backfill (11), thus providing first indications of a potential (formerly unknown) provenance for this material."]

For more on Gobekli and its possible significance for the Adam and Eve story, see my blog article at https://newatlantistheory.blogspot.com/2021/08/gobekli-tepe-sirius-and-vela-supernova.html.

THE REAL MOUNTAIN OF NOAH AND HIS ARK

Shak-I-Pira Magrun, Noah's Mountain in Iraq

For quite a long time now, people have been trudging up mountains in search of Noah’s ark.  This a vain quest, of course, because the story of the Flood is a myth*, and no pieces of wood will be found atop any of the traditional candidates for Noah’s mountain.  However, we may be able to narrow down our search to the “prototypical” mountain, which then became relocated in the usual way through folk movements and folklore development.

To begin, it is important we know two things.  First, the story of Noah as we have it betrays all kinds of problems with proper names and aetiologically explained place-names.  Second, we do actually already know where the first Flood mountain is to be found.  For those who would like to familiarize themselves with the Mesopotamian Flood story, the precursor of the Biblical version, as well as the parallels that exist between the former and the latter, I refer you to the following excellent links.  There is no longer any doubt among scholars that the different versions of the story are related, and that they betray an original source.

http://www.livius.org/fa-fn/flood/flood3.html

http://www.livius.org/fa-fn/flood/flood6-parallels.html

Noah, Hebrew Noach, it might surprise people to know, it not a real personal name.  It is said to mean “rest” in Hebrew and to be from a root meaning “resting place”.  Lots of theological thought has been put into accounting for the name, but we need not waste our time here with that.  Suffice it to say that its cognate in Akkadian, nahu, is not a personal name, either.  There it means not only “rest”, but interestingly enough ‘to abate, subside’, in the sense of the subsiding of flood-waters.  It is even found in the Gilgamesh Epic’s story of the Flood, where we are told, for example, “the sea subsided [i-nu-uh], the destructive storm calmed, the flood ceased”, and “let the vast sea subside together with you [li-nu-uh].”

We encounter the same oddness with the Hebrew word used for the ark, tebah.  This word is so rare that it is used in the Bible only one other time – to describe the flotation device contrived for the baby Moses.  I would trace this, rather solidly, to Akkadian tebu, used in the context of floods, as in “a flood will arise and sink the boats”.  The word means “sunken, submerged”, or “to sink, to down, to submerge”. Tibu is the rising of water, high waters rise and the like, while tubbu is to submerge or immerse boats, e.g. “the flood waters will rise and swamp the boats”.  What has happened here is that the Jews, during the Babylonian Captivity, learned of the Mesopotamian Flood story and made it their own.  However, in the process of converting it to their own sacred story, they took in some loanwords from Akkadian that they either did not properly understand or, more likely, these words gradually changed meaning over time.  Hence a word that meant “submerged” or “sunken” in Akkadian took on the meaning of the OBJECT of the action of sinking or submerging, i.e. a boat.

The most important clue we have to the real name of the mountain of Noah is not found in our Bible, but in very early sacred scriptures that did not make the cut.  In “The Book of Jubilees” and a few other sources, the mountain in Ararat, ancient Urartu, modern Armenia, is given a name: Lubar.  This name is found in what appears to be the truncated form of Baris in the works of the Jewish historian Josephus.  He claims the mountain is in Armenia, and this agrees with the placement of Lubar.

The secret to the true whereabouts of Noah’s mountain as always lies in the unlocking of such place-name riddles.  First, I am providing here two full extracts from the ancient sources that actually name the specific mountain in Ararat, ancient Urartu, modern Armenia, where the ark supposedly came to rest.

From the Book of Jubilees, Chapter 7:

    “And in the seventh week in the first year [1317 A.M.] thereof, in this jubilee, Noah planted vines on the mountain on which the ark had rested, named Lubar, one of the Ararat Mountains, and they produced fruit in the fourth year, [1320 A.M.] and he guarded their fruit, and gathered it in this year in the seventh month.
    And he made wine therefrom and put it into a vessel, and kept it until the fifth year, [1321 A.M.] until the first day, on the new moon of the first month.
    And he celebrated with joy the day of this feast, and he made a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord, one young ox and one ram, and seven sheep, each a year old, and a kid of the goats, that he might make atonement thereby for himself and his sons.
    And he prepared the kid first, and placed some of its blood on the flesh that was on the altar which he had made, and all the fat he laid on the altar where he made the burnt sacrifice, and the ox and the ram and the sheep, and he laid all their flesh upon the altar.
    And he placed all their offerings mingled with oil upon it, and afterwards he sprinkled wine on the fire which he had previously made on the altar, and he placed incense on the altar and caused a sweet savour to ascend acceptable before the Lord his God.
    And he rejoiced and drank of this wine, he and his children with joy.
    And it was evening, and he went into his tent, and being drunken he lay down and slept, and was uncovered in his tent as he slept.
    And Ham saw Noah his father naked, and went forth and told his two brethren without.
    And Shem took his garment and arose, he and Japheth, and they placed the garment on their shoulders and went backward and covered the shame of their father, and their faces were backward.
    And Noah awoke from his sleep and knew all that his younger son had done unto him, and he cursed his son and said: 'Cursed be Canaan; an enslaved servant shall he be unto his brethren.'
    And he blessed Shem, and said: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.
    God shall enlarge Japheth, and God shall dwell in the dwelling of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.'
    And Ham knew that his father had cursed his younger son, and he was displeased that he had cursed his son. and he parted from his father, he and his sons with him, Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.
    And he built for himself a city and called its name after the name of his wife Ne'elatama'uk.
    And Japheth saw it, and became envious of his brother, and he too built for himself a city, and he called its name after the name of his wife 'Adataneses.
    And Shem dwelt with his father Noah, and he built a city close to his father on the mountain, and he too called its name after the name of his wife Sedeqetelebab.
    And behold these three cities are near Mount Lubar; Sedeqetelebab fronting the mountain on its east; and Na'eltama'uk on the south; 'Adatan'eses towards the west.”

From Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews - Book I, Chapter 3:

“5. When God gave the signal, and it began to rain, the water poured down forty entire days, till it became fifteen cubits higher than the earth; which was the reason why there was no greater number preserved, since they had no place to fly to. When the rain ceased, the water did but just begin to abate after one hundred and fifty days, (that is, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month,) it then ceasing to subside for a little while. After this, the ark rested on the top of a certain mountain in Armenia; which, when Noah understood, he opened it; and seeing a small piece of land about it, he continued quiet, and conceived some cheerful hopes of deliverance. But a few days afterward, when the water was decreased to a greater degree, he sent out a raven, as desirous to learn whether any other part of the earth were left dry by the water, and whether he might go out of the ark with safety; but the raven, finding all the land still overflowed, returned to Noah again. And after seven days he sent out a dove, to know the state of the ground; which came back to him covered with mud, and bringing an olive branch: hereby Noah learned that the earth was become clear of the flood. So after he had staid seven more days, he sent the living creatures out of the ark; and both he and his family went out, when he also sacrificed to God, and feasted with his companions. However, the Armenians call this place Apobahtayreon, The Place of Descent; for the ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this day.

6. Now all the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood, and of this ark; among whom is Berosus the Chaldean. For when he is describing the circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus: "It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs." Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and a great many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them; where he speaks thus: "There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator of the Jews wrote.

NOTE 16: This Apobahtayreon (Greek) or Place of Descent, is the proper rendering of the Armenian name of this very city. It is called in Ptolemy Naxuana, and by Moses Chorenensis, the [5th century A.D.] Armenian historian, Idsheuan; but at the place itself Nachidsheuan, which signifies The first place of descent, and is a lasting monument of the preservation of Noah in the ark, upon the top of that mountain, at whose foot it was built, as the first city or town after the flood. See Antiq. B. XX. ch. 2. sect. 3; and Moses Chorenensis, who also says elsewhere, that another town was related by tradition to have been called Seron or, The Place of Dispersion, on account of the dispersion of Xisuthrus's or Noah's sons, from thence first made. Whether any remains of this ark be still preserved, as the people of the country suppose, I cannot certainly tell. Mons. Tournefort had, not very long since, a mind to see the place himself, but met with too great dangers and difficulties to venture through them.”

Lubar is the result of a standard Hebrew attempt to provide a place-name origin.  The Bible is full of such stories, and rarely do they have anything to do with the real etymologies of the names they treat of.  Lubar, given the tale of Noah’s sons covering him with a garment, is a clear reference to Akkadian lubaru, clothing, garments, lubartu, clothing, garment.  The word used in the Hebrew account is simlah, but this does not disguise the lubar word particularly well.  Now, Akkadian also has barru, a piece of apparel, barsillu, a garment, bura’u, an adjective describing a garment, and Sumerian has barim, garment, barsig, a garment, bur, a garment and bardul, a garment.  Some of these last words remind us of Josephus’s Baris.

Certainly, we cannot take seriously the notion that the mountain was called “Garment”.  Instead, what we have here is a fairly typical aetiological story concocted in an attempt to explain the place-name.  The etymology of the mountain name is actually quite different.

Fortunately, the Mesopotamian Flood mountain, called Mt. Nisir and Kinipa in the Assyrian records, was in a kingdom called Lullu or Lullubi or Lullumu.  And one of the main cities of this kingdom was called Bara.  The language of the Lullubi is not known, so we cannot offer an etymology for Bara.  We might guess at something akin to Sumerian or Old Akkadian barag, ‘dais, seat’, Akkadian parakku, dais, pedestal, socle, sanctuary, shrine, divine throne room, also found as ba-ra/BARA.  But we would probably be wrong!

Professor Karen Radner of University College, London, who is working on an Assyrian geography project in this part of Iraq, says this about Bara and Mt. Numush:

"The fullest discussion of the historical geography of Ma-zamua is still Speiser 1927 and I attach that paper (see p. 19 and his maps). On the basis of the itinerary of Assurnasirpal II, he locates the place next to the Pira Magrun = Mt. Nimush and that seems acceptable."

The following on Bara is from "Southern Kurdistan in the Annals of Ashurnasirpal and Today", Ephraim A. Speiser, The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. 8 (1926 - 1927), pp. 1-41:

"As Bara is captured by Ashurnasirpal in his first campaign against Nur-Adad, it should be sought near the western entrance into the Sulaimania valley, not far from Tasluja... Bara may be located at Girdabor, the "Mound of Bor", which lies five miles south of the peak of Gudrun [= Shak-i Pira Magrun]."

Assyrian geography expert Professor Mario Liverani adds:

"I think that Speiser’s location of Bara is most probably correct. I adopted it in my book on the topograhy of Ashurnasirpal’s campaigns (1992). By the way, if you give me your postal address I can send it to you (I still have some copies). But note that the “deluge” mount is to be read Nisir, not Nimuš (the same sign can be read muš or sir), and means ”(Mount of) protection / shelter” (hinting at the deluge story)."

My conclusion would be, simply, that Lubar, from Akkadian lubaru, was a later development from the Mountain of Bara (= Nimush/Kinipa), as Bara itself had been wrongly interpreted in Hebrew tradition as a word for clothing or garment. Thus ALL the flood heroes can be placed on the same mountain.  This might make the peak a bit crowded, what with all those arks jockeying for grounding rights, but it does make a great deal more sense than continuing to chase after pieces of wood in Armenia.

We have seen above that the ‘Place of Descent’ from the mountain of the ark is traditionally said to be Nakhchivan.  Conventional logic, which identifies the purely modern name Nakhchivan with the Nachidsheuan  of Moses, chooses Agri Dagi to the northwest, i.e. the traditional Mount Ararat.  I don’t think this is correct.  Why?

Edward Lipinksy (ibid) discusses the likely identification of Agri Dagi/Mt. Ararat with the Mount Masu (“Twins”) of the Gilgamesh Epic.  The Armenian name for Agri Dagi is, indeed, Masis, and while this is sometimes said to be either Moses by the Arabs or a legendary hero Amaysis by the Armenians, if Mt. Ararat IS Masu, then the name Lubar or Baris would not seem to apply to it.

Mount Judi or Cudi Dagi, another favored location for Noah’s mountain, was picked for only one reason: as photos of it make clear, the mountain itself has a remarkable natural rock formation upon it which perfectly resembles the shape of an ark!  We can thus dispense with this mountain.

Another place-name we’ve just seen associated with the ark is Seron, the Place of Dispersion.  This word can clearly be associated with words like Hebrew zarah, “disperse”.  The Biblical Sirion, Akkadian Si-ra-ra, i.e. Mt. Hermon, is unlikely.  We must remember that Moses Chorenensis was an Armenian.  Thus his Seron, like Nahkchivan, must have been in Armenia.  Unless, of course, we are once again dealing with the fairly standard migration of legendary place-names.

We would not know where to look for Seron were it not for the reference to Xisuthrus. This is the Mesopotamian Zuisudra, equated in the ancient sources with Utnapishtum.  Both heroes brought their arks down on Mt. Nimush, now firmly identified with Shak-I Pira Magrun in As Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.

This mountain was in the lands of the Lullubi, whose territory was centered about the Sharazor Plain.  Their capital of Lullubum has been identified with Halabja in the southern part of the plain. Later called Zamua, this kingdom lay between the source of the Lower Zab and the source of the Turnat River/Diyala.  According to Mario Liverani (“Studies in the Annals of Ashurnasirpal II, Volume 2, Topographical Analysis”, 1992), Zamua corresponds to the modern province of Sulaymaniya, the valley of the upper course of Diyala, and to the valleys of the left tributaries of the upper Lesser Zab.  The kingdom was delimited on the southwest by Qara Dagh (dagh = mountain).

As it happens, on the very north of Sharazor Plain, butted up against the mountains not far SE of Shak-I Pira Magrun, is a place called Seran.  Although the name is doubtless Kurdish, Turkish or Arabic in its present form, it may preserve an earlier name.  One would expect the Mesopotamian Flood heroes of the primary mountain of Lullubum to descend onto the plain of the Lullubi – and Seran is here perfectly positioned to receive them.

We know that at least some of the Lullubi were of Urartu: the country of Him(m)e, for example, which lay on the borderland between NE Mesopotamia and NW Iran, was inhabited by Lullubi groups, yet it belonged to Urartu (see Trevor Bryce’s The Near East from the Early Bronze Age to the Fall of the Persian Empire).   

So where is Noah’s mountain?  Where the other Mesopotamian Flood heroes were placed: Shak-I Pira Magrun next to Bara.

Just for fun, I’m appending a comparison chart of the antediluvian patriarchs from both the Mesopotamian and Biblical traditions.  Not surprisingly, the number of one category matches perfectly that of the other.

From THE SUMERIAN KING LIST by Thorkild Jacobsen, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1973, and the NRSV of the Bible:

Alulim(ak)                              Adam

Alalgar                                   Cain  

Bad-Tibira(k)                          Abel  

En-men-lu-anna(k)                 Seth   

En-men-gal-anna(k)                Enosh

Dum-zi(d)                                Kenan

Bad-tibira(k)                           Mahalalel  

En-sipa(d)-zi(d)-anna(k)           Jared

En-men-dur-anna(k)               Enoch                                                                                              

Ubar-Tutu(k) of Shuruppak/   Methuselah

SU.KUR.LAM [= Shuruppak]   Lamech from LAM?                                                                                 

Utnapishtum/Zi-u-sud-ra       Noah

THE FLOOD

ADDENDUM:

THE THREE CITIES OF NOAH’S MOUNTAIN

Well, we are left with three additional clues as to the location of Noah’s mountain, none of which have heretofore proven to be of any value: the cities said in the Song of Jubilees to surround the said mountain.  While these city-names may be literary creations only, it may help us to see if we can do anything with them.

To the east of the mountain – and AT the mountain – Sedeqetelebab (Shem)

To the south of the mountain, Ne’eltama’uk (Ham)

To the west of the mountain, ‘Adatan’eses (Japheth)

The only important site is that belonging to Shem, as we are specifically told he stayed with his father at the mountain.  The other two sites may be ANY distance south and west of the mountain.  And, indeed, as the three sons are given sons who are merely geographical and/or ethnic designations, and as Shem is the only one whose sons “fit” into the scheme of the mountain’s location, we will concentrate on Sedeqetelebab.

Sons of Shem:

Elam, a personification of the Elamites, whose kingdom lay in southern Mesopotamia.

Asshur, a personification of the Assyrians, who were again a Mesopotamian-centered empire.

Arpachshad, a personification of the city of Arrapha, modern Kirkuk in Iraq in northeastern Mesopotamia.

Lud, a personification NOT of Lydia, which has no connection at all with Shem’s other sons geographically, but with a place called Ludbu in the Assyrian record of Adad-Nirari II.  The place is mentioned as being in the lands of the Kassites, Kuti, Lullumu and Shubari , with Rapiku between itself and Eluhat.  Once again, we are talking about Mesopotamia, including the northeastern region.

Aram, a personification of the Aramaeans, for whom Aram Nahrin or Aram “Between the Rivers” of the Tigris and the Euphrates was named.

It goes without saying that Mesopotamia was the location of the Flood stories.  So we should not be surprised that Shem, whose sons describe a map of various Mesopotamian territories and kingdoms, should be the one to remain with his father at the mountain.

As for Sedeqetelebab, the first component Sedeq or Zedeq could be from Hebrew  s.d.q., ‘righteousness’.  However, as is made clear in the entry for ZEDEQ in “The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible”, it was also the name of a West Semitic and Mesopotamian deity, possibly an aspect of the sun god Shamash (Akkadian shamash, Syriac shemsha, Hebrew shemesh and Arabic shams). The comparable Akkadian deity was named Kittu.  The word’s connection with Shem’s wife is obvious, as Shem was the “righteous” son of Noah, and thus the one who stayed closest to his father on the mountain.  We have many ancient personal names where sdq is used either as a first or last component.

And what of (e)telebab?

Well, we have several ancient names beginning with Til (Akkadian “mound”, especially the mound upon which a city stands).  This would leave us with a Til ‘Ebab’ or some such – which is easy!  This is similar (or identical) to the Tel Abib homeland of Ezekial during the Babylonian Captivity.  The name is from Akkadian Til Abubi, “Mound of the Deluge”.  Abubi is from abubu, meaning a Deluge as a cosmic event.  So a Til Abubi was a ‘hill of ruins made by the Deluge’ (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary).

Do we know specifically where Tel Abib was in Babylonia?  Well, yes, we do.  From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

“CHEBAR

The river by the side of which his first vision was vouchsafed to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:1). It is described as in "the land of the Chaldeans," and is not, therefore, to be sought in northern Mesopotamia. This rules out the Habor, the modern Chabour, with which it is often identified. The two names are radically distinct: chabhor could not be derived from kebhar. One of the great Babylonian canals is doubtless intended. Hilprecht found mention made of (naru) kabaru, one of these canals large enough to be navigable, to the East of Nippur, "in the land of the Chaldeans."

Bible-history.com adds an important detail:

“The "river" has been identified as the "Naru Kabari" because of two cuneiform inscriptions from Nippur. According to these tablets there was an irrigation canal that brought the water of the Euphrates River from Nippur to Babylon and looped around to the River near Erech. The canal’s modern name is Shatt en-Nil.”

I say important because Erech is the earlier Uruk, and this was the city over which the famous Gilgamesh of the Flood story was king.  Even better, the city Shuruppak or modern Tall Fa'rah was located SOUTH OF NIPPUR and originally on the bank of the Euphrates River! The Flood heroes Utnapishtum/Ziusudra built their arks at Shuruppak.

It is possible the ‘ZEDEQ-Tel-Abib’ may represent a different ‘Mound of the Deluge’, the first component here being a sort of qualifier meant to distinguish this particular mound from that of the Babylonian Captivity.  In the Akkadian records, the term is used of any site that resembled a flood-destroyed city.  The phrase was often used by kings as an expression of the thoroughness with which they destroyed an enemy’s town.  The storm god Adad was frequently blamed for creating such flood-ravaged mounds.

However, Zedeq as wife of Shem may say even more about the latter.  First, to quote from The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible:

“The West Semitic god Zedek seemingly corresponds to the deity known as Kittu in the Babylonian pantheon and as Isar in the Amorite pantheon. In Mesopotamia the preservation of truth and justice was considered to be the particular domain of the sun god Shamash. Truth or Right was personified and deified as the god Kittu ('Truth', 'Right'; from Akk root kanu, cf. Heb root KWN). Kittu was often invoked together with the god Misharu ('Justice') (see CAD K 471 s.v. kittu A 1b4; MI2 118 S.". misaru A 2d; cf. Heb root YSR). One or both of these deities were described as 'seated before Shamash', i.e. Shamash's attendant, or as 'the minister of (Shamash's) right hand'. While Misharu wall always considered a male deity, Kittu was identified sometimes as the daughter of Shamash, sometimes as the son of Shamash. Meanwhile, at Mari offerings were made to the divine pair Isar u Mesar (ARM 24.210.24-25: cf. 263.5-6 where these same gods are listed separately but contiguously; see P. TALON, Un nouveau pantheon de Mari, Akkadica 20 [1980] 12-17). As a theophoric element Isar is common in both Akk and Amorite personal names (HUFFMON 1965:216). From the interchangeability of the names Kittu, Isar, and Sidqu/Zedek in the pairing with Misar(u), it appears that the deity known as Kittu in Babylonia was known further to the West under the names Isar and Sidqu/Zedek Zedek-all three names having essentially the same meaning but operative in different linguistic communities. Additional support for the identification of Sidqu and Kittu comes from the Amorite royal name Ammi-saduqa, which was translated in the Babylonian King List as Kimtum-kittum, showing an equivalence between the West Semitic root SDQ and Akk kittu (cf. BAUMGARTEN 1979:235).”

It will be noted here that Kittu, the Akkadian goddess who equates with Zedeq, could be FEMININE IN FORM, a daughter of the sun god.  This suggests to me, quite strongly, that Shem (Hebrew sm), which means literally “name”, is a substitute for the sun god Shamash (Hebrew semes).  The author of the entry on Shamash in the dictionary says “… the element sm in the [theophoric] names does not refer to a deity Shem, but functions as a substitution for a godhead.”  The godhead he is referring to in this context is, of course, Yahweh, but as I’ve made a case of Yahweh being Amun-Re (see my The Real Moses and His God), Shamash would do just as well.

Zedeq, wife of Shem, who hails from a Mound of the Deluge in Mesopotamia, is Kittu daughter of Shamash.

*The Flood is likely an exaggerated historical event.  Archaeologists excavating the ancient cities of Sumer on the Euphrates did find a significant 'flood layer', and this proves that at about the time the Flood was supposed to have occurred, there indeed was a major flood OF THE RIVER.  Not OF THE WORLD.  Obviously, people caught in such a flood - including the king of a city - would seek high ground either on their own ziggurat-mountain or on a nearby hill, which they would have to reach by boat.  Over time, this event became "mythologized" into the Mesopotamian and Biblical accounts of the Flood.