The Burney Relief (neopagan discussion)

Post Reply New Topic

Ive started becoming fascinated with this ancient sculpture believed to have been discovered in the ruins of Mesopotamia.



content://com.sec.android.app.sbrowser/ ... 5808.mhtml


What fascinates me about it is that to this day archeologists are not sure which winged goddess it depicts. There have been theories that it could be Inanna (aka Ishtar) the Sumarian Goddess of Love and War who was known as the Queen of the Heavens. This is strongly hinted at with the two lions she stands on that were personal symbols to Inanna. Plus the rod and rings she holds in each hand would indicate her to be a very powerful and important goddess.

There's also some evidence that she could be Inanna's sister Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the Underworld who rules over the dead. This is because her wings are pointed down instead of outstretched, and the fact that she stands on the submissive lions could be symbolic of the fact that even the greatest of men and beasts all fall to her in death eventually.

There's also the popular theory that she could be Lilith, the demon in Jewish Folklore who preyed on men as they slept and murdered young babies in thr night. This theory was born out of thr fact that the figure is scultped with two owls by her side (Lilith's name means "Screech Owl").

I find it interesting because all three women are connected in a way. Inanna and Ereshkigal were sister goddesses, and there is an old legend about how Inanna grew a tree of life in her garden that she planned to one day cut down and make into a throne. But the tree was filled with three malicious demons, one of then being Lilith herself. She had to request the help of a hero to chase away the evil spirits from her tree.

From my personal ecclectic spiritual beliefs I like to think of Inanna, Ereshkigal, and Lilith as being like a perfect triangle with Inanna at the very top ruling the heavens and Ereshkigal and Lilith at the very bottom sharing a spot as the rulers of the underworld.

That sounds right for the most part. My take on Lilith is a bit more complex, ie. in a lot of ways as the concept has matured she's a bit like the closest western equivalent to Kali, save maybe Crowley's Babalon which has a lot of overlap.

They all sound like they're pointing at different aspects of Shakti / Shekinah. Ishtar's epic task was to rescue Tammuz from the underworld, it's very much built on the wisdom traditions of the 'spheres' of the seven planets (Mercury thru Saturn excluding Earth, sun, and moon) and the various virtues that were associated with these planets, that she strips of her regalia related to each of these spheres, meets her sister in the underworld - Ereshkigal - naked and vulnerable, is slain, hung on a hook, and is resurrected three days later and leads Tammuz out of the underworld. I remember MP Hall talked about this being related to a very particular astronomic window between winter solstice (12/21) and 12/24, where if I remember correctly something is below the horizon and it's thought to be the three day death of the sun.

Someone else whose been digging through religious myth lately in this manner (aside from Peterson, Vervaeke, Pageau, etc.) is an Iranian-American philosopher named Jason Reza Jorjani. He's of course dedicating himself to starting a particular political and philosophic movement, Prometheism, so you have to pick through some of what he says carefully, at other times he has a lot of incisive revelations about deity concepts and their impacts on the given cultures. One thing he said recently that I hadn't heard or thought about before - that reliefs of Perseus beheading Medusa always showed Perseus looking away from the gorgon (no kidding), but interestingly enough Mithra is doing something similar in slaying the bull and that the 'looking away' might have a broader meaning as well.

Something else on Lilith as well - I was listening to a recent Rebel Wisdom podcast, which I believe had a couple ladies on discussing the wisdom of the feminine, and while they were talking about the 'galaxy brain' types of thinkers and the virtues of that they were trying to say a bit more about the warm-data side of things and somewhere in there one of them I think brought up all of Shiva's traits and the more she did I started immediately thinking of Logos, to which yeah - a lot of the myths of Lilith 'taking the top' as well as some of what people have been trying to say about her trying to effectively offer a gnosis. To throw my own speculations about that against the wall - if Shiva represents Logos I think in a lot of ways both Kali and Lilith, especially when they'd say that the Qliphoth is the 'body of Lilith', would represent the more grueling non-cognitive aspects of life and non-cognitive kinds of information as well as initiation such as thinking of the alchemical processes of life described in the Renaissance in various woodcuts which seem to point at epiphanies or new understandings occurring at lower biological levels through quite often a lot of agony.

Very interesting stuff. I've also heard that the Lilith myth may have been created out of the evil Sumerian Goddess Lamashtu who shared many similar traits with her only instead of being regarded as the first human woman and mate of Adam Lamashtu was the deformed daughter of the Sky God Anu.

It seems unlikely to me that such a beautiful busty woman would be Lamashtu though. But Lilith's similarities to her shows that she goes beyond the Jewish myth and has roots in other cultures too.

Also i found it very fascinating that the Greek Goddess of Love Aphrodite was apparently heavily influenced by Inanna/Ishtar. In fact the ancient symbol known as the Star of Ishtar is based off the Morning and Evening Star which is actually the planet Venus (Aphrodite's Roman equivalent).

Here is an interesting website about Lilith btw that has a lot of detailed information and research about her history and stories aswell as the Lamashtu connection.

content://com.sec.android.app.sbrowser/ ... 0711.mhtml

Unlike most of the people I meet who claim to worship Lilith and think they have her figured out, this lady I met who created this blog actually seems to understand her and took time to do actual research.

She's also a critic of the way wiccans have transformed her into something she was never intended to be.

Hmm, let me know if there's a standard version of that website I can look up by name - the link looks like it might have been something specific to your device.

There is a channel that I've been listening to a lot lately on Youtube called 'Jung to Live By', where its Steven and Pauline Richards being interviewed by a grad student. What I really like about Steve's take is it's very much both Jungian and biological, so he takes the tie-out of influences between ego-oriented goals, genome-oriented goals, how various personality complexes and archetypal reflections are involved in the process, and he expounds more on something the South African analyst Mark Solms was saying about the brain - ie. that emotions and many of our sensations in general are homeostasis-seeking, ie. that the brain is always trying to achieve and keep dynamic equilibrium along with trying to keep us alive. He does all of this on one hand by keeping as close to biology as possible while at the same time indicating that when you look at synchronicity (particularly when there's thick banks of really long odds stuff rather than people having ego fantasies or just not being able to do the math) that it is something that occurs in extreme states, typically high internal conflict between things like binary choices, and that it's your own subconscious trying to illustrate certain solutions and options, to which yeah - that does make a suggestion that there's something broader as well implied here than simply neuron on neuron effects, but to be fair we live in a world that feels very much like reductive materialism - until those rare times where it doesn't.

I'm also someone whose had kundalini effects off an on where I'll get warmth at the base of my spine (without gas), sometimes it does shoot upward the way people describe kundalini doing, but the more I listen to Steven Richards the more I do sincerely wonder if what he's talked about with the Pankseppian instincts and that level of biology might be what this is, and when you think about it - if the whole goal of a body is to procreate - that area would be perhaps even more important than our brains, it's just that I don't think we have a good grip, at least medically, on how someone would have a neurochemical turbo or supercharger above their tailbone.

She is not only standing between two owls, she has the same kind of bird feet that the owls have. Implying that she is one of them...a night creature...maybe a 'screech owl'.

She is holding things in her hands ...objects remarkably similar to the modern symbol biologists use for "female".

Our two modern symbols are Greco-Roman (circle with an arrowhead pointed to the upper right for male, and the circle with the cross pointed straight down for female), and come from the "shield and spear" of the god Mars, and "the mirror of Venus" for female. But the Greco-Roman symbol probably has some kinship with the earlier Egyptian 'ank' symbol, and to that motiff in that sculpture (Mesopotamian).

The link to the lilith blog btw is libraryoflilith.com

If you guys are curious see if that works? I found it very insightful.

Another blog post I think you would find interesting about Lilith's history and inspiration around the world is from a website called misanthropicvampire.com

The occultist who wrote thid blog also did a lot of research into her and compared her to many other evil destructive goddesses just like Lamashtu but also bird monsters like the harpies and sirens aswell as the snake women who devour babies and birth monsters like Lamia and Echidna.

What I liked most about this blog was how he points out that Lilith worship is not the best idea nor is trying to reimagine her as some sort of benevolent feminist hero.

She isnt so much about feminism as she is toxic femininity. And ive noticed that many of her female worshipers in the Wiccan community have come to really hate and distrust men while the men who worship her seem very weak-spirited , just as I was when I first jumped on the bandwagon and fell under her spell because I wanted an "edgy" goddess to work with.

I think she's a quite powerful and destructivd force to be reckoned with, but worshipping her is a terrible idea because so many people seem to midunderstand her intentions with humanity. She is not our friend, not even to women who believe her to be on their side.

I feel like personally I'd choose Inanna over Lilith. She's a very strong independent feminine goddess and represents what feminism should be about in my opinion. She's not afraid to stand up for herself or fight for what she wants but she is also free to love whoever she wants.

We need more support for Inanna and less for Lilith in my opinion.

Also here's some random pictures I collected together of beautiful objects modled after the Burney Relief. It's a handcarved wooden statue, a tarot box, and a metal wall sign.

Someday when i save up enough money I plan to order all three of these for my personal spiritual altar.

I really love the craftsmanship.

One of the dark goddesses whom I wouldn't consider Lilith-affiliated is Nephthys. One of the most interesting things about her is that she's seen as a protector of hearth and home as well as a goddess of death and protector of souls in the underworld. It always struck me that something different was going on there, wasn't 100% sure how all of it connected however.