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Tiamat: Difference between revisions
→Menstruation References
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the originator Tiamat, who brought forth them both --- | the originator Tiamat, who brought forth them both --- | ||
their waters were mingled together. | their waters were mingled together. [p.8]'' | ||
In this version, dated by scholarly agreement to the early part of the second millennium B.C.E.; though the story itself must reach back much further, to a beginning of human consciousness, heaven and earth are imagined as "waters" mingling in an undifferentiated state. The images of heaven and earth, of the originator goddess, Tiamat, and of Apsu (apsu),her male mate, constantly overlap. Tiamat mingles her waters with the primal ocean. She herself has been identified as the ocean, as "bitter waters," that is, salty waters, menstrual fluids. Apsu, the Abyss, is the "sweet waters," that is, semen. Tiamat has also been called "the Great Watery Abyss." | In this version, dated by scholarly agreement to the early part of the second millennium B.C.E.; though the story itself must reach back much further, to a beginning of human consciousness, heaven and earth are imagined as "waters" mingling in an undifferentiated state. The images of heaven and earth, of the originator goddess, Tiamat, and of Apsu (apsu),her male mate, constantly overlap. Tiamat mingles her waters with the primal ocean. She herself has been identified as the ocean, as "bitter waters," that is, salty waters, menstrual fluids. Apsu, the Abyss, is the "sweet waters," that is, semen. Tiamat has also been called "the Great Watery Abyss." | ||
As "bitter waters," Tiamat describes the salty nature of menstrual blood carried to its greatest earthly denominator, the sea. She is the Red Sea; the Arab name for the eastern shore of the Red Sea is Tihamat. She has been called "Ocean of Blood." Tiamat is menstruation externalized, a complex metaphor about the nature of the earth and other elements. In Egypt, she was Temu or Te Mut, oldest of deities. In Greek, her name is "Goddess Mother," in Latin dia mater. She ismeasurement/mother/originator by means of dia, two; that is to say, she is creation through separation. Her name is Diameter, horizon, the line that separates heaven and earth, sky and ocean. | |||
The idea of Tiamat as original water occurs in the creation story in Genesis, chapter 1, as tehom, "the deep." This | The idea of Tiamat as original water occurs in the creation story in Genesis, chapter 1, as tehom, "the deep." This | ||
creation story is believed to have its roots in the older, Babylonian version. | creation story is believed to have its roots in the older, Babylonian version. | ||
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. | In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. | ||