At the Origins of Demonology. The Inferno of Ancient Mesopotamia (video lecture)
Лекция рассматривает древнешумерские представления об обитателях “нижнего мира”, их природу, классификацию и попытки противостоять им.
Originally published in Russian: Enmerkar.com
Hello. Thank you for your lecture.
I have a few questions:
1. Can the 12 children of Tiamat be related to the monsters from the myth about the 12 labors of Hercules?
2. How did the Sumerians diagnose the presence of rabishu? By divination or otherwise?
3. What is the essential difference between male and female demonic manifestations? If when considering gods it makes sense to divide into male and female principles, into ordering and overflowing activity, how is this in the case of demons?
Hello.
1. If such correlation is appropriate, then with very considerable reservations – Hercules’s monsters are much less harmless.
2. Yes, there were many diagnostic approaches – both divination, and by the cup with water, and by sprouting seeds.
3. Usually, it was thought that male demons tend to the female, while female ones to the male.
Although, it is not excluded that on more esoteric levels they also found their own distinguishing characteristics.