And since the dragon-slaying theme was an important motif in the Sumerian mythology of the third millennium B. But that at least some of the incidents go back to a more original and central source, is more than likely. The names are different and the details vary from story to story and from place to place. George and the Dragon" and its numerous and ubiquitous parallels. With the rise of Christianity, the heroic feat was transferred to the saints witness the story of "St. There was hardly a Greek hero who did not slay his dragon, although Heracles and Perseus are perhaps the best known dragon-killers. In Greece, especially, these tales, involving both gods and heroes, were legion. Almost all peoples and all ages have had their dragon stories. Obviously enough the dragon-slaying motif is not confined to the myths of Mesopotamia. The third has been known to a certain extent for a number of decades, but the new material in Istanbul and Philadelphia adds considerably to its contents and clarity. Two of these are almost entirely unknown their contents have been reconstructed and deciphered by me in the course of the past several years. It is therefore deeply gratifying to be in a position to present the contents of what are probably three distinct Sumerian versions of the dragon-slaying myth. What prevented scholars from making any effective comparisons, is the fact that so little was known of any original Sumerian tales involving the slaying of a dragon. The very names of its protagonists are in large part Sumerian.
But even a surface examination of its contents clearly reveals Sumerian origin and influence. Millennium than our Sumerian literary inscriptions-it is quoted and cited in the major works concerned with mythology and religion as an example of Semitic myth-making. C.-tablets that are therefore later by more than a Inscribed in Accadian, a Semitic language, on tablets dating from the first millennium B.
It is now more than half a century since the Babylonian "Epic of Creation," which centers largely about the slaying of the goddess Tiamat and her host of dragons, has been available to scholar and layman. THE DESTRUCTION OF KUR: THE SLAYING OF THE DRAGON In three of four "Myths of Kur," it is one or the other of these cosmic aspects of the word kur which is involved. Moreover, it is not improbable that the monstrous creature that lived at the bottom of the "great below" immediately over the primeval waters is also called Kur if so, this monster Kur would correspond to a certain extent to the Babylonian Tiamat. Kur thus cosmically conceived is the empty space between the earth's crust and the primeval sea. Thus it seems to be identical to a certain extent with the Sumerian ki-gal, "great below." Like ki-gal, therefore, it has the meaning "nether world" indeed in such poems as "Inanna's Descent to the Nether World" and "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Nether World," the word regularly used for "nether world" is kur. Kur also came to mean "land" in general Sumer itself is described as kur-gal, "great land."īut in addition the Sumerian word kur represented a cosmic concept. From the meaning "mountain" developed that of "foreign land," since the mountainous countries bordering Sumer were a constant menace to its people. That one of its primary meanings is "mountain" is attested by the fact that the sign used for it is actually a pictograph representing a mountain. One of the most difficult groups of concepts to identify and interpret is that represented by the Sumerian word kur. Sacred Texts Ancient Near East Index Previous Next
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