The River of Blood

The Moon God

No one who has seen it can dismiss the power of the evening sky of Middle East; the planets and innumerable stars hover above the dark earth, forming a protective envelope, horizon to horizon, every part of the human world. Looking up at that embracing illumination of the night, one can easily recognize the comfort and reassurance which can be found in the surety of the fixed stars, in the predictability of the wandering planets, in the gentle and yet powerful majesty of the night. And guarding over all of this is the Moon, who sails across the sky in his crescent-shaped boat, and whose purpose it is to rule over the evening light, to measure time, to act as the eye of the gods, to serve as the tablet upon which their divine decrees are inscribed.

The light of the moon stands in contrast to that of the sun, whose light is often harsh, and whose power can be destructive, cruel and even life-threatening. The sun is always the same: it rules the heaven during the day and is never diminished in a strength which seems to be implacable, and it is only after the sun has disappeared that relief is gained from the oppressive heat of the day. It is for this reason that, although it plays an important role on cosmology, the sun is clearly subordinated to the moon.

Of all the bodies in the evening heaven, the changes in shape and position of the moon are the easiest to observe and chart; it is forever changing. And yet unchanging; it grows, it disappears and is reborn each month, in a never-ending cycle; and as such, it becomes the symbol of every kind of continuity and renewal. It is the symbol of change within nature and within the life of man, but it is not the abrupt change of a catastrophe; rather, the moon represents the regularity of change, and through its cycles, it enables man to recognize and accept his own inherent condition. The moon thus is not merely the heavenly representation of the cycles of vegetative and human life; the waxing and waning of the moon is a metaphor for the circularity of change, of time measured against eternity, of light into darkness and life into death and back again.

The magical power of the moon lies in its limitless ability to recreate itself, "a fruit self-grown;" and this power becomes the key to understanding both time and timelessness. The moon is the organizer of time: it fixes the length of days and months. The moon god is called the "Lord of the month" and "the 30th day is his day," but is also a symbol of eternity. The man in the moon is seen not merely because human features can be discerned, but because the moon, more than any other of the heavenly bodies, is alive; he comes to life, he grows, and then begins to disappear from the visible heavens, only to be recreated anew.

The Moon God and the Demonic World

There are a great many myths that connect the darkness of the moon with the evil and suffering which befall man. Eclipses were interpreted as evil omens: special prayers were offered on the moon's behalf, for they were a sign that the moon had been overpowered by demons. Once Sin, "the luminary of heaven and earth," has vanished from the heavens, evil and chaos have the chance to flourish. Indeed, the motif of the moon struggling continually against the powers of darkness would seem to be central to an understanding of his function.

The Underworld of the Ancient Anatolians

The name for the underworld in Hittie is dankuis daganzipas, `dark earth,' and in Hurrian turi, `the deep.' The location is under the earth and many of the waterways which dry up during the summer are said to be in the underworld. Sources and springs are the natural entrances and some of them were associated with certain disappearing gods and their rituals. There was also the notion of a `meadow,' somewhere in the `west' (cf. the Greek asphodel?). All human beings led a shadowy existence after death and need regular food offerings to stop them from haunting the living. The fate of evil-doers was worse than that of others, they had to eat excrement. The dead Hittite kings became deified and it was thought that they became `farmers' and cattle breeders; this may be the reason why they were given agricultural implements in their burials.

The gods of the underworld were called taknas siunes, `the gods of the earth,' as opposed to the siunes kattares, `the upper gods' (of heaven). the ancient gods dwell there and it is the realm of the chthonic goddesses: the Hattian Wurunsemu, the Hurrian Allani as well as the taknas dUTU, `the sun-goddess of the Earth.' It seems that the infernal goddesses have direct connections with the fertility of the earth and are often invoked for this purpose in incantations and rituals. In this respect we also find that the only important male deity, Kumarbi, the old Hurrian grain-god, is thought to reside in the underworld.