Page 155
308.
Archeological Museum, Naples More Pan teaching a pathic or phallic woman. Page 154 has frozen up - but I have not finished with the Priapea. I call this photo: "Pan and Pathic Matron - 3"
Marble statue of Pan teaching Daphnis to play the pipes.
Roman copy of a 2nd century BC Greek original.
309.
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Pan Teaching Daphnis to play the pipes by sculptor Heliodorus of Rhodes from the 2nd Century BC.
I call this photo:
"Pan and Pathic Matron - 4" I was reading today that the clitoris is mostly invisible - its a vestigial penis that does not develop in the female fetus - The ancient Greco-Roman-Egyptian practice of caging the male penis is a Fibula until 25 probably had the effect of activating the Roman clitoris and turning it into a "Mentule" ... *** In the Satryicon our male heroes are punished for violating the rites of Priapus. In this scene they stumble on a garden and temple where women members of the cult are humming in a cavern holding emblems of Priapus in their hands:
"As it suited our purpose to avoid the public streets, we strolled through the more unfrequented parts of the city, and just at dusk we met two women in stolas, in a lonely spot, and they were by no means homely. Walking softly, we followed them to a temple which they entered, and from which we could hear a curious humming, which resembled the sound of voices issuing from the depths of a cavern. Curiosity impelled us also to enter the temple. There we caught sight of many women, who resembled Bacchantes, each of whom brandished in her right hand an emblem of Priapus. We were not permitted to see more, for as their eyes fell upon us, they raised such a hubbub that the vault of the temple trembled. They attempted to lay hands upon us, but we ran back to our inn as fast as we could go. ... " *** In this scene, our heroes a brought before the chief priestess of the Priapus cult who questions them as to their motives in violating her holy rites:
" ... We were still holding our tongues and refraining from any expression of opinion, when the lady herself entered the room, attended by a little girl. Seating herself upon the bed, she wept for a long time. Not even then did we interject a single word, but waited, all attention, for what was to follow these well ordered tears and this show of grief. When the diplomatic thunderstorm had passed over, she withdrew her haughty head from her mantle and, ringing her hands until the joints cracked, "What is the meaning of such audacity?" she demanded; "where did you learn such tricks? They are worthy of putting to shame the assurance of all the robbers of the past! I pity you, so help me the God of Truth, I do; for no one can look with impunity upon that which it is unlawful for him to see. In our neighborhood, there are so many gods that it is easier to meet one than it is to find a man! But do not think that I was actuated by any desire for revenge when I came here: I am more moved by your age than I am by my own injury, for it is my belief that youthful imprudence led you into committing a sacrilegious crime. That very night, I tossed so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine. I was ordered to seek you out, and to arrest the progress of the disease by means of an expedient to be suggested by your wonderful penetration! The cure does not matter so much, however, for a deeper grief gnaws at my vitals and drags me down, almost to the very doors of death itself. I am afraid that, with the careless impulsiveness of youth, you may divulge, to the common herd, what you witnessed in the shrine of Priapus, and reveal the rites of the gods to the rabble. On this account, I stretch out my suppliant hands to your knees, and beg and pray that you do not make a mockery and a joke of our nocturnal rites, nor lay bare the secrets of so many years, into which scarcely a thousand persons are initiated." ... " *** In this next scene, our heroes agree to a vow of secrecy and to sumbit to the punishment prescribed - a "wonderful penetration" - after being warned that if they refuse they will be violated by a "troop in readiness":
" ... The tears poured forth again, after this appeal, and, shaken by deep sobs, she buried her whole face and breast in my bed; and I, moved by pity and by apprehension, begged her to be of good cheer and to make herself perfectly easy as to both of those issues, for not only would we not betray any secrets to the rabble, but we would also second divine providence, at any peril to ourselves, if any god had indicated to her any cure for her tertian ague. The woman cheered up at this promise, and smothered me with kisses; from tears she passed to laughter, and fell to running her fingers through the long hair that hung down about my ears. "I will declare a truce with you," she said, "and withdraw my complaint. But had you been unwilling to administer the medicine which I seek, I had a troop in readiness for the morrow, which would have exacted satisfaction for my injury and reparation for my dignity!
"To be flouted is disgraceful, but to dictate terms, sublime
Pleased am I to choose what course I will,
Even sages will retort an insult at the proper tune.
Victor most is he who does not kill."
Then she suddenly clapped her hands, and broke into such a peal of laughter that we were alarmed. The maid, who had been the first to arrive, did likewise, on one side of us, as also did the little girl who had entered with the madame herself.
***
In this scene, the chief priestess attempts to inflict the prescribed punishment - "wonderful penetration" of the young men, but is unable to - sending her into a rage and forcibly sending out heroes to a palace:
" ... The whole place was filled with mocking laughter, and we, who could see no reason for such a change of front, stared blankly at each other and then at the women. (Then Quartilla spoke up, finally,) "I gave orders that no mortal man should be admitted into this inn, this day, so that I could receive the treatment for my ague without interruption!" Ascyltos was, for the moment, struck dumb by this admission of Quartilla's, and I turned colder than a Gallic winter, and could not utter a word; but the personnel of the company relieved me from the fear that the worst might be yet to come, for they were only three young women, too weak to attempt any violence against us, who were of the male sex, at least, even if we had nothing else of the man about us, and this was an asset. Then, too, we were girded higher, and I had so arranged matters that if it came to a fight, I would engage Quartilla myself, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl. (While I was turning over this plan in my mind, Quartilla came to close quarters, to receive the treatment for her ague, but having her hopes disappointed, she flounced out in a rage and, returning in a little while, she had us overpowered by some unknown vagabonds, and gave orders for us to be carried away to a splendid palace.) Then our determination gave place to astonishment, and death, sure and certain, began to obscure the eyes of suffering. *** In this scene - the heroes are trussed up in the palace and forced to drink aphrosisiacs:
"Pray; madame," I groaned, "if you have anything worse in store, bring it on quickly for we have not committed a crime so heinous as to merit death by torture." The maid, whose name was Psyche, quickly spread a blanket upon the floor (and) sought to secure an erection by fondling my member, which was already a thousand times colder than death. Ascyltos, well aware by now of the danger of dipping into the secrets of others, covered his head with his mantle. (In the meantime,) the maid took two ribbons from her bosom and bound our feet with one and our hands with the other. (Finding myself trussed up in this fashion, I remarked, "You will not be able to cure your mistress' ague in this manner!" "Granted," the maid replied, "but I have other and surer remedies at hand," she brought me a vessel full of satyrion, as she said this, and so cheerfully did she gossip about its virtues that I drank down nearly all of the liquor, and because Ascyltos had but a moment before rejected her advances, she sprinkled the dregs upon his back, without his knowing it.) When this repartee had drawn to a close, Ascyltos exclaimed, "Don't I deserve a drink?" Given away by my laughter, the maid clapped her hands and cried, "I put one by you, young man; did you drink so much all by yourself?" "What's that you say?", Quartilla chimed in. "Did Encolpius drink all the satyrion there was in the house?" And she laughed delightfully until her sides shook. Finally not even Giton himself could resist a smile, especially when the little girl caught him around the neck and showered innumerable kisses upon him, and he not at all averse to it. *** Then a male catamite is brought in - The next scene seems corrupt but what seems to have happened is our heroes and the catamite were gored by the chief priestess with her "her whalebone wand" (Catamites do not gore, they are gored) - " Quartilla, with her robe tucked high, held up her whalebone wand" - a fearful secret that they promise to keep. Then dress up time for a formal dinner " ... We would have cried aloud in our misery but there was no one to give us any help, and whenever I attempted to shout, "Help! all honest citizens," Psyche would prick my cheeks with her hairpin, and the little girl would intimidate Ascyltos with a brush dipped in satyrion. Then a catamite appeared, clad in a myrtle-colored frieze robe, and girded round with a belt. One minute he nearly gored us to death with his writhing buttocks, and the next, he befouled us so with his stinking kisses that Quartilla, with her robe tucked high, held up her whalebone wand and ordered him to give the unhappy wretches quarter. Both of us then took a most solemn oath that so dread a secret should perish with us. Several wrestling instructors appeared and refreshed us, worn out as we were, by a massage with pure oil, and when our fatigue had abated, we again donned our dining clothes and were escorted to the next room, in which were placed three couches, and where all the essentials necessary to a splendid banquet were laid out in all their richness. We took our places, as requested, and began with a wonderful first course. We were all but submerged in Falernian wine. When several other courses had followed, and we were endeavoring to keep awake Quartilla exclaimed, "How dare you think of going to sleep when you know that the vigil of Priapus is to be kept?" *** Next was sleep and then more food and drink and catamite play - The catamite sings for the pathic or phallic women. Again, the text seems corrupt - what probably happened was the sexual penetration of the catamite and our heroes:
" ... The banquet began all over again, and Quartilla challenged us to a drinking-bout, the crash of the cymbals lending ardor to her revel. A catamite appeared, the stalest of all mankind, well worthy of that house. Heaving a sigh, he wrung his hands until the joints cracked, and spouted out the following verses,
"Hither, hither quickly gather, pathic companions boon;
Artfully stretch forth your limbs and on with the dance and play!
Twinkling feet and supple thighs and agile buttocks in tune,
Hands well skilled in raising passions, Delian eunuchs gay!"
When he had finished his poetry, he slobbered a most evil-smelling kiss upon me, and then, climbing upon my couch, he proceeded with all his might and main to pull all of my clothing off. I resisted to the limit of my strength. He manipulated my member for a long time, but all in vain. Gummy streams poured down his sweating forehead, and there was so much chalk in the wrinkles of his cheeks that you might have mistaken his face for a roofless wall, from which the plaster was crumbling in a rain. ***
The night wears on and our heroes manage to escape a drunken mess - but not without being forced to witness a hieros gamos or "mystical marriage" between a boy and a girl. The chief priestess was herself forced into child marriage at a very young age:
" ... She was still talking when Psyche, who was giggling, came to her side and whispered something in her ear. What it was, I did not catch. "By all means," ejaculated Quartilla, "a brilliant idea! Why shouldn't our pretty little Pannychis lose her maidenhead when the opportunity is so favorable?" A little girl, pretty enough, too, was led in at once; she looked to be not over seven years of age, and she was the same one who had before accompanied Quartilla to our room. Amidst universal applause, and in response to the demands of all, they made ready to perform the nuptial rites. I was completely out of countenance, and insisted that such a modest boy as Giton was entirely unfitted for such a wanton part, and moreover, that the child was not of an age at which she could receive that which a woman must take. "Is that so," Quartilla scoffed, "is she any younger than I was, when I submitted to my first man? Juno, my patroness, curse me if I can remember the time when I ever was a virgin, for I diverted myself with others of my own age, as a child then as the years passed, I played with bigger boys, until at last I reached my present age. I suppose that this explains the origin of the proverb, 'Who carried the calf may carry the bull,' as they say." The Satyricon of Petronius, Vol. 1
*** That was probably the Roman standard - hypersexual women who were sexually initiated very young and penis caged sexually passive men
The 7 year old Giton was probably anally sodomized by the 7 year old Pannychis. From all prior knowledge of the Roman penis - it was caged from a young age - The 7 year old girl was probably the "calf" that later matured into a "bull" ... That was just the Roman or Etruscan way ... And it's not speculative - there is a sculpture on page 150 of a mother hermaphrodite and her young daughter who also has a penis attached ... The sexually aggressive Pan was the Roman "Animus" or female unconsious psyche. - Today Pan is is the devil incarnate - but in Rome he was mostly female sexual pleasure - The heiros gamos is usually a male sky god in sexual congress with a female earth goddess. But in Rome and Egypt that was reversed. The sexual union was between a sexual male earth god - Pan and Priapus and a sky goddess - incarnated by the Roman woman ... Garden of Priapus - 54 Boss lady sodomizing her trussed up husband
In this verse Garlands as praise are promised to Priapus in exchange for the sexual favors of a girl "troubled by piles" - ie Probably meaning having issues with anal sodomy - or "a girl with piles full many piled" - ie a girl who has given a lot of anal sodomy - just not to the supplicant in question who she avoids from sporting with ...
50 To Priapus
Latin:
Quaedam, si placet hoc tibi, Priape,
fucosissima me puella ludit
et nec dat mihi nec negat daturam,
causas invenit usque differendi.
quae si contigerit fruenda nobis,
totam cum paribus, Priape, nostris
cingemus tibi mentulam coronis.
Burton's Translation:
A certain person, an thou please (Priapus!),
Plays me, a girl with piles full many piled;
And nor she gives me nor denies her gift,
While for deferring ever finds she cause.
But, if to 'joy her shall our lot befall,
We will (Priapus!) gird thy total yard
With the twin garlands to thy favours due.
Plain English:
If it like thee, O Priapus, a certain girl, most sorely troubled with the piles, sports with me, and neither gives me nor denies her favours, but hitherto has found pretexts for deferring. If it shall to my lot to enjoy her, we will encircle the whole of thy mentule, O Priapus, with our twin garlands. Garden of Priapus - 55 Boss lady sodomizing a slave over his cage ...The "wonderful medicine" of Quartilla the chief priestess of the Priapus cult in the Satryricon! A Roman inheritance from ancient Greece - the Triabes and the Bacchantes ... And before that almost certainly ancient Egypt and Babylon - wherever the penis was in the Fibula ...
And as Juvenal points out - if Roman husbands were not to be found, slaves were fine too ... And most slaves were castrated - ie sexual passives. But not just slaves, reading between the lines, Roman men seem to have prefered being sodomized by virile young Amazons ! Quartilla to the heroes of the Satyricon:
"That very night, I tossed so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine. I was ordered to seek you out, and to arrest the progress of the disease by means of an expedient to be suggested by your wonderful penetration!"
- So it seems the gods decided who was chosen to administer the "wonderful medicine" of Triabe on male anal sex ...
*** In this verse Apples are offered to Priapus - that's code for balls - or ass and balls - or Roman men offering themselves for the "wonderful medicine" of AmazonTriabe-on-male anal sex -
53 To Priapus
Latin:
Contentus modico Bacchus solet esse racemo,
cum capiant alti vix cita musta lacus,
magnaque fecundis cum messibus area desit,
in Cereris crines una corona datur.
tu quoque, dive minor, maiorum exempla secutus,
quamvis pauca damus, consule poma boni.
Burton's Translation:
Bacchus often is wont with a moderate bunch to be sated,
When the deep brim-full vats hardly the must shall contain;
So when the threshing-floors all fail for the plentiful harvest
Ceres' ringlets to crown only one garland we bring.
Thou too, a minor god, example borrow from the major--
Though few apples we give, take thou our gift in good part.
Plain English:
Bacchus is wont to be content with a modest cluster from the vine, even when the deep vats can barely contain the must. And when the spacious threshing floors are insufficient for the rich harvest, in Ceres' locks a single garland is wreathed. Do thou also, less potent deity, guided by their greater example, although our offering be only a few apples, take it in good part. - In other parts of the Priapea Bacchus is described as lean and feminine as opposed to the pathic of phallic Bacchantes ... The phallic Triabe Amazons have vanished from ancient Greek history Garden of Priapus - 56 The general in red heels sodomizing a hooded penis-caged man ...
In this verse Latin word play encodes secretive Amazon Triabe on male anal sex: according to Burton "The D (Te) stands for the anus to be cleaved by the mentule."
54 Priapus
Latin:
CD si scribas temonemque insuper addas,
qui medium vult te scindere, pictus erit.
Burton's translation:
E, D, an thou write, conjoining the two with a hyphen,
What middle D would bisect this shall be painted to view.
Plain English:
If thou writest E and D then addest a joining line, that which wishes to cleave through the middle of D [thee] will be represented.[1]
[1. If you write the letters E D and place a dash between them, thus E-D, a mentule will be represented, which wishes to cleave through the middle of D. The ambiguity is in writing the letter D, instead of the Latin word Te (thee), in the second verse. The shape of the mentule is not strikingly apparent at first sight, but the top and bottom strokes of the letter E may be taken as forming the testicles, whilst the middle stroke of the E, continued by the dash thus E-, represents the mentule itself. The D (Te) stands for the anus to be cleaved by the mentule.] Garden of Priapus - 57 Buff and tatooed boss lady sodomizing a penis-caged and trussed up man. In this verse disrespectful robbers in a garden of Priapus are warned that they will be irrumated - or forced to give oral sex
56 Priapus
Latin:
Derides quoque, fur, et impudicum
ostendis digitum mihi minanti?
eheu me miserum, quod ista lignum est,
quae me terribilem facit videri.
mandabo domino tamen salaci,
ut pro me velit irrumare fures.
Burton's translation:
Thou too dost mock me, Thief! and the infamous
Finger dost point when menaced by me!
Ah hapless I, that should be only wood
What makes me ever formidable seem!
Yet will I charge my garden's lustful lord
For me deign robber-folk to irrumate.
Plain English:
Thou also mockest, O thief, and when threatened, dost stretch out to me the indecent finger![1] Alas, unhappy I! that the thing is but wood which makes me seem fearsome. But no matter, I will charge the lecherous owner of the garden that he may be willing to irrumate the thieves for me.
[1. The middle finger. It was called 'infamous', according to some writers, on account of the custom of the Jews, who used to wipe the podex when they suffered from bleeding piles. This is not so. It derived its name from its resemblance to the mentule, and it is used in that sense here. When the middle finger is pointing, the other fingers are turned inside, representing a mentule with its accessories; for which reason it was thus pointedly shown in derision to sodomites. Martial: 'Cestus with tears in his eyes often complains to me, Mamurianus, of being teased with your finger.' In an admirable article on pederasty in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: 'Debauchees had signals like Freemasons whereby they recognised one another. The Greek skematizein was made by closing the hand to represent the scrotum and raising the middle finger as if to feel whether a hen had eggs; hence the Athenians called it catapygon or sodomite and the Romans digitus impudicus or infamis, the 'medical finger' of Rabelais and the Chiromantists--though properly speaking medicus is the third or ring-finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses. The modern Italian does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and medius to suggest the clitoris. When the Egyptians wish to represent pederasty, they painted two partridges, who, when bereft of their mates, were supposed to enjoy each other. Pliny supports this statement.
The finger was also pointed at people as a mark of simple contempt. Martial: 'He points with the finger, but with the infamous finger.' Persius says, without any obscene afterthought, 'The grandmother cleanses with infamous finger the infant.'] Garden of Priapus - 58 Boss lady sodomizing a man in a penis cage and humbler. He had a real body shaking orgasm! - Which proves there is a male sex organ in the rectum ...
That was probably a night in the Roman stews under the athletic Tribades ... Greece and Asia Minor too - especially Asia Minor - Trojan men were catamites. In this verse the catamite's apples - ie balls and ass are described as a prize that will be denied to both male and female robbers in the garden of Priapus
58 Priapus
Latin:
Quicumque nostram fur fefellerit curam,
effeminato verminet procul culo;
quaeque hic proterva carpserit manu poma
puella, nullum reperiat fututorem.
Burton's Translation:
Whatever thief shall trick my faith may he
Wither, far banisht from th' effeminate bum!
Whatever damsel plucks with wanton hand
This fruitage, never find she one to strum!
Plain English:
Whatever thief who deceives my faith may he wither away, far from the buttocks of a catamite. And whatso girl who with audacious hand plucks off these apples, may she meet with no futterer. Garden of Priapus - 59 18th dynasty Egyptian family. Like Trojans thats probably a pathic wife on the left, a catamite husband in the middle and a phallic girl on the right - or a Harpocrates. - Although the met caption says those are 3 males! - Metropolitan Museum of Art
These were Akhenaten days and also the days of the Minoan bull jumpers - who are labelled male, but on closer inspection are actually pathic females.
The Egyptian penis cage went on early and stayed on longer - until the 30 year Sed festival - which meant Egyptian men were defacto females for the first half of their lives - and maybe like catamite Roman youths expected to anally service phallic Egyptian women in a ritual group setting. According to the Met this is a: "Statue of two men and a boy that served as a domestic icon ca. 1353-1336 B.C.
New Kingdom, Amarna Period
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 121
All of the individuals in this small group are males, represented according to the conventions of Amarna art. The intriguing group has been variously interpreted as a family comprising a grandfather, a father, and a son, or as one man at three different stages of life. The latter is most unlikely as the multiple representations of a single individual in one statue are not shown interacting as they do here. In fact careful examination of the faces and figures points to the statue's being a kind of domestic icon. The figure at left is a high-status individual and likely the oldest; he is probably a revered relative or the respected overlord of the man and boy who stand closely entwined with one another. The statuette would probably have received veneration in the household of its owner. ..." Met
In this verse the poet laments that Priapus is offered more verse than apples - apples being code for catamite balls and ass 60 To Priapus
Latin:
Si quot habes versus, tot haberes poma, Priape,
esses antiquo ditior Alcinoo.
Burton's Translation:
Hadst thou as many of apples as offers of verses (Priapus!),
Richer than Alcinous ancient of days were thy lot.
Plain English:
If as many verses so many apples thou hast dedicated to
thee, O Priapus, thou wilt be richer than of yore Alcinous.
Garden of Priapus - 60 More Asia action: a young queen with an erect mentule whipping a bound old slave in a basement dungeon/throne room
Service to the pathic phallus was selective - not all qualified for a session with the mentule: In this verse a soft catamite unsuccessfully steals from the garden of Priapus with the intent of being sodomized by a pathic maiden 64 Priapus
Latin:
Quidam mollior anseris medulla
furatum venit huc amore poenae:
furetur licet usque, non videbo.
Burton's Translation:
One than a goose's marrow softer far,
Comes hither stealing for its penalty's sake:
Steal he as please him: I will see him not.
Plain English:
A certain one, more tender than the marrow of a goose, comes hither thieving for love of the punishment.[1] He may steal when he fists, I shall not see him.
[1. The effeminate come, allured by the pleasure of being sodomised]
Garden of Priapus - 61 More Asia action part 2 : a young queen with an erect mentule whipping a bound old slave in a basement dungeon/throne room. With the erect mentule the young maiden becomes Priapus - That's the Pan/Priapus surprise - all that raw sexuality was really female - or the female uncounsious psyche made real - Like the raw sexuality of the Apis bull was female in ancient Egypt.
In this verse, modest maidens are warned off "the virile sip" of the Priapus cult 66 Priapus
Latin:
Tu, quae ne videas notam virilem,
hinc averteris, ut decet pudicam:
nimirum, nisi quod times videre,
intra viscera habere concupiscis.
Burton's Translation
Thou, who lest manly mark thy glances meet,
Hence fain avertest thee as suits the pure;
No wonder 'twere if that to see thou fear'st
Within thy vitals thou desire to feel.
Plain English
Thou who, lest thou behold the virile sip, hence withdrawest, as becomes a maiden of modesty: forsooth, unless what thou fearest to see, in thy bowels to have thou longest.
Garden of Priapus - 62 Three young American amazons whipping a bound older man in a barn.
In this verse stealing sweets from the garden of Priapus will lead to the robbing of the sweets or ass and balls of the thief
72 Priapus
Latin:
Si commissa meae carpes pomaria curae,
dulcia quid doleam perdere, doctus eris.
Burton's Translation:
An thou pluck of this orchard fruit to my guarding committed,
How for losing the sweets grieve I thou quickly shalt learn.
Plain English:
If thou pilferest the orchards entrusted to my care, that I grieve to lose pleasurable things thou wilt be taught.[1]
[1. By being sodomised. The text seems to infer that the god took pleasure in punishing a thief.] Garden of Priapus - 63 Boss lady roughly sodomizing an older slave in a penis cage and humbler. The penis cage and humbler activate the male vagina hidden away in the rectum. Very few men ever experience the anal orgasm - That's the birthplace of the serpent of the Kundalini ... In this verse the continued virility of a rustic and "stiff-nerved" Priapus is prayed for
82 To Priapus
Latin:
Dum vivis, sperare decet: tu, rustice custos,
huc ades et nervis, tente Priape, fave.
Burton's translation:
While there is life 'tis fitting to hope, O rustical guardian!
Here be thou present and thou aid us, Priapus stiff-nerved.
Plain English:
Whilst there is life, 'tis fitting to hope; do thou, O rustic guardian, be present here; and, O stiff-nerved Priapus, be propitious. Garden of Priapus - 64 "Illustration of the Assyrian Sargon legend (1913): The young Sargon, working as a gardener, is visited by Ishtar "surrounded by a cloud of doves". ..."- Wikipedia
According to Freud in "Moses and Monotheism" the founder of Mesopotamia Sargon was the illegitimate son of a Vestal Virgin who like Moses was put out to drown then saved by a humble family. A goddess fell in love with him and made him King. Babylon probably had the same system as Rome - including the Fibula or penis cage - Not much work has been done here for more than 100 years! First time I've heard of Vestal Virgins in Babylon
" ... A Neo-Assyrian text from the 7th century BC purporting to be Sargon's autobiography asserts that the great king was the illegitimate son of a priestess. Only the beginning of the text (the first two columns) is known, from the fragments of three manuscripts. The first fragments were discovered as early as 1850. Sargon's birth and his early childhood are described thus: My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. The brothers of my father loved the hills. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the banks of the Euphrates. My high priestess mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose over me. The river bore me up and carried me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me as his son and reared me. Akki, the drawer of water, appointed me as his gardener. While I was a gardener, Ishtar granted me her love, and for four and ... years I exercised kingship.
Similarities between the Sargon Birth Legend and other infant birth exposures in ancient literature, including Moses, Karna, and Oedipus, were noted by psychoanalyst Otto Rank in his 1909 book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. The legend was also studied in detail by Brian Lewis, and compared with many different examples of the infant birth exposure motif found in European and Asian folktales. He discusses a possible archetype form, giving particular attention to the Sargon legend and the account of the birth of Moses.Joseph Campbell has also made such comparisons.
Sargon is also one of the many suggestions for the identity or inspiration for the biblical Nimrod. Ewing William (1910) suggested Sargon based on his unification of the Babylonians and the Neo-Assyrian birth legend. Yigal Levin (2002) suggested that Nimrod was a recollection of Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin, with the name "Nimrod" derived from the latter.... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 65 Statuette of a hermaphrodite. Babylon, Parthian period, 1st BC-1st AD.
- Babylon female phallus - that's probably the source of the biblical Sodom and Gommorah Not sure of the meaning of this verse - But it's probably a secret religious warning or code to either keep the Priapus fire burning or risk being burned instead 85 To Priapus
By Marcus Valerius Martialis
Latin:
Non horti neque palmitis beati
sed rari nemoris, Priape, custos,
ex quo natus es et potes renasci,
furaces, moneo, manus repellas
et siluam domini focis reserues:
si defecerit haec, et ipse lignum es.
Burton's translation:
Neither of garden nor of blessed vine
But of a little holt (Priapus!) guard,
Wherein wast born and may'st be born again;
I warn thee plundering hand alway repel
And keep the fuel for thy master's fire--
An this be wanting, mind! of wood thou art.
Plain English:
Priapus, guardian not of a garden nor of the sacred vine but of the little grove from which thou wert born and mayst again be born. I warn thee drive off thievish hands and preserve the wood for thy master's hearth. If this be wanting, remember thou too art wooden.[1]
[1. For lack of the stolen wood, his master would burn the image of Priapus.] Garden of Priapus - 66 Boss lady sodomizing her husband in chains ...
In this verse, Priapus reveals a fear of being destroyed by burning when deep winter descends ... ie he fears being burnt for firewood when it gets too cold and vanishing ...
Which is what happened at the end of Rome ...
86 To Priapus
Latin:
Vere rosa, autumno pomis, aestate frequentor
spicis; una mihi est horrida pestis hiemps.
Nam frigus metuo et vereor, ne ligneus ignem
hic deus ignavis praebeat agricolis.
Burton's translation:
Roses in spring in the autumn fruits and in summer they bring me
Wheat-ears, while to my mind winter is horrible pest;
For that the cold I dread lest I being god made of timber
End me as fuel for fire chopped by those ignorant boors.
Plain English:
In spring I am worshipped with roses, in autumn with apples, in summer with corn-wreaths, but winter is one horrid pestilence for me. For I fear the cold, and am apprehensive lest I, a wooden god, should in that season afford a fire for ignorant yokels.
[1. For lack of the stolen wood, his master would burn the image of Priapus.] Garden of Priapus - 67 Boss lady seizing the "apples" or balls and ass of a chained slave
In this closing verse the garden of Priapus is gone - nothing but a marble statue of Priapus for the robbers to steal
92 On a Cilician Thief
by Marcus Valerius Martialis
Latin:
Fur notae nimium rapacitatis
compilare Cilix uolebat hortum,
ingenti sed erat, Fabulle, in horto
praeter marmoreum nihil Priapum.
Dum non uolt uacua manu redire,
ipsum subripuit Cilix Priapum.
Burton's translation:
A robber famed for greed exceeding wonder
(Eke a Cilician) would this garden plunder;
Yet in its vasty space, Fabullus, naught
Save a Priapus stood in marble wrought
So the Cilician, who with hand sans pelf
Scorned departing, stole Priapus' self.
Plain English:
A Cilician thief of but too notorious rapacity wished to rob a certain garden; but large as the garden was, O Fabullus, there was naught in it save a marble Priapus. Not desiring to go back empty-handed, the Cilician stole Priapus himself. Garden of Priapus - 68 The general mounting a penis caged man on the stairs - The Roman reality !
Shot Blocked. Used workaround
Here is the 1890 introduction to the Priapea:
" ... The Priapeia, now for the first time literally and completely translated into English verse and prose, is a collection of short Latin poems in the shape of jocose epigrams affixed to the statues of the god Priapus. These were often rude carvings from a tree-trunk, human-shaped, with a huge phallus which could at need be used as a cudgel against robbers, and they were placed in the gardens of wealthy Romans, for the twofold purpose of promoting fertility and of preventing depredations on the produce.
Most of these facetiae are by unknown authors. Although they appear in early editions of Vergil, and are attributed to that writer by J. M. Catanaeus, it is, to say the least, doubtful that he played any part in their authorship. Politian attributes them to Ovid; others, such as Francois Guiet, hold Domitius Marsus to be their author. The general opinion is that they are the collective work of a group of beaux esprits who formed a reunion at the house of Maecenas (the well known patron of Horace), and who amused themselves by writing these verses in a garden-temple consecrated to Priapus. Subsequently Martial and Petronius added several imitative epigrams, and eventually the whole were collected in one volume by the writer of the opening verses. Catullus, Tibullus, Cinna and Anser are also credited with a share in the work. The cento consists chiefly of laudatory monologues by Priapus himself, jocosely and satirically written, in praise of his most prominent part--the mentule--and of fearful warnings to thieves not to infringe upon the Garden God's domains under pain of certain penalties and punishments, obscene and facetious. At times a witty epigram sparkles from the pages, notably numbers 2, 14, 2 5, 37, 47, 69 and 84, the Homeric burlesque in number 69 being merum sal, whilst numbers 46 and 70 show a degree of pornography difficult to parallel.
That the Priapeia has not hitherto been translated into the English tongue is to be expected: the nature of the work is such that it cannot, be included in a popular edition of the classics. But to the philological and anthropological student this collection is most valuable, and the reason for omitting it from the list of translations is not applicable to a version produced for private circulation and limited to an edition of five hundred copies. Putting aside conventionalities, the translators have endeavoured to produce a faithful reflection of the original Latin, shirking no passages, but rendering all the formidably plain-spoken expressions in a translation as close as the idioms of the two languages allow. Indeed the keynote to the volume will be found in Epigrams 1 and 46, on pages 33 and 70, verses probably scrawled on the temple walls of Priapus or scribbled upon the base of his statue by some libertine poet.
Although the value of the work in illustrating the customs of the old Romans may be small per se, yet when read in conjunction with the legacies of certain writers (Catullus, Petronius, Martial, Juvenal and Ausonius, for example), it explains and corroborates their notices of sundry esoteric practices, and thus becomes a supplement to their writings. With the view of making the work an explanatory guide to the erotic dicta of the authors above-mentioned, the bulk of the notes and the excursus explaining and illustrating the text and exceeding its length by some five times is devoted to articles on pederasty with both sexes, irrumation, the cunnilinges, masturbation, bestiality, various figurae Veneris (modes and postures of coition, particularly that in which the man lies supine under the woman); excerpts from the Latin erotic vocabulary, including exhaustive lists of Latin terms designating the sexual organs, male and female; a list of classical amatory writers, and a host of miscellaneous matters, e.g. the habits of the Roman dancing-girls, eunuchism, tribadism of the Roman matrons, the use of phalli, religious prostitution, aphrodisiacs, the 'infamous' finger, tabellae or licentious paintings, the fibula as a preventive of coition, the crepitus ventris, etc., etc., illustrated by poetical versions of many of the epigrams culled from various sources, by parallel elucidatory passages (many hitherto untranslated) from classical writers, and by quotations from authors, ancient and modern.
English literary students have good reason to congratulate them selves on the collaboration of a certain talented litterateur, the mere mention of whose name would be a sufficient guarantee for the quality of the work. He has most kindly enriched the volume with a complete metrical version of the epigrams, and this is, indeed, the principal raison d'etre of this issue. I have also gratefully to acknowledge obligations of no small weight, not only for his careful and thorough revision of the prose portion of the translation, but also for the liberal manner in which I have availed myself of his previous labours in the preparation of my notes and excursus. The name of Sir Richard F. Burton, translator of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, has been inadvertently connected with the present work. It is, however, only fair to state that under the circumstances he distinctly disclaims having taken any part in the issue.
And here I may state that a complete and literal translation of the works of Catullus, on the same lines and in the same format as the present volume, is now in preparation. Catullus is, of all the Latin poets, the one who has been oftenest paraphrased and traduced, and even yet, in the year of grace 1890, we have no version of him in our tongue which can be regarded by the student as definitive. Of the merits of Catullus's poesy and the desirability of a trustworthy translation there is no need to speak.
A long dissertation on Priapic worship, the Linga-puja of the Hindus, considered as an ancient and venerable faith, would be out of place in this recueil; consequently that subject is merely glanced at in the next few pages, most of the information here presented being drawn from modern volumes which contain a digest of the writings of well-known authorities and specialists.
In the earliest ages the worship of the generative Energy was of the most simple and artless character, rude in manner, primitive in form, chaste in idea, the homage of man to the Supreme Power, the Author of Life, the Sun, as symbolised by the reproductive force.
Afterwards the cult became depraved, a religion of feeling, of sensuousness, corrupted by a priesthood who, not slow to take advantage of this state of affairs, inculcated therewith profligate and mysterious ceremonies, union of gods with women, religious prostitution and other sexual rites. Thus it was not long before the emblems lost their real and original meaning, and became licentious statues and debased art.[1] Hence we have the debauched ceremonies at the festivals of Bacchus, who became, not only the representative of the creative Energy, but the god of pleasure and licentiousness.
[1. Sir R. F. Burton, in his paper read before the Anthropological Society on 'Certain Matters connected with the Dahoman', describes the Dahoman Priapus as 'a clay figure of any size between a giant and the pigmy, crouched upon the ground as if contemplating its own attributes. The head is sometimes a wooden block, rudely carved, more often dried mud, and the eyes and teeth are supplied by cowries. A huge penis, like a section of a broomstick, projects horizontally from the middle.']
This corrupted religion readily found eager votaries, captives to a pleasant bondage compelled by the impulse of physical luxury: such was the case in India and Egypt, and among the Phoenicians, Babylonians, Hebrews and other Eastern races.
Sex-worship once personified became the supreme and governing deity, enthroned as the ruling god over all; and monarchs, complying with the prevailing faith, became willing devotees to the cult of Isis and Venus on the one hand, and on the other of Bacchus and Priapus, appealing, as they did, to the most tyrannical passion of human nature.
The worship of Priapus amongst the Romans was derived from the Egyptians, who, under the form of Apis, the Sacred Bull, adored the generative Power of Nature; and as the syllable pri or pre signifies (we are assured) principle, production, natural or original source, the word Priapus may be translated principle of production or of fecundation of Apis. The same symbol also bore among the Romans the names of Tutenus, Mutinus[1] and Fascinum.[2] According to Macrobius, the corresponding deity amongst the Egyptians was called Horus--a personification of the sun. This Horus is painted as a winged youth, with a quoit lying at his feet, a sceptre in his right hand, and in his left a Phallus[3] equal in size to the rest of his body.
[1. According to Festus, Mutinus or Mutenus is a god differing wholly from Priapus, having a public sanctuary at Rome, where the statue was placed sitting with penis erect. Newly-mated girls were placed in his lap, before being led away to their husbands so that the deity might appear to have foretasted their virginity, this being supposed to render the bride fruitful. In Primitive Symbolism we read, 'The Romans named Mutinus or Tutenus, the isolated Phallus, and Priapus, the Phallus affixed to a Hermes.'
2. Fascinum primarily means a bewitching, an enchantment. It gained its topical meaning from a custom practised by the ancients of hanging a Phallus round the neck of children as a charm or preventive against witchcraft, and hence the word became synonymous with penis.
3. Phallus, or privy member (membrum virile), signifies 'he breaks through or passes into'; German (pfahl); English (pole); of Phoenician origin, the Greek word, pallo--'to brandish preparatory to throwing a missile'; in Sanskrit, phal--'to burst, to produce, to be faithful', 'a ploughshare', and also the names of Shiva and Mahadeva, who are Hindu deities of destruction. The kteis, or female organ, as the symbol of the passive or reproductive powers of nature, generally occurs on ancient Roman monuments as the concha Veneris, a fig, barley, corn and the letter delta.]
The Phallus was the ancient emblem of creation, and representative of the gods Bacchus, Priapus, Hercules, Siva, Osiris, Baal and Asher, who were all Phallic deities, the symbols being used as signs of the all-creative Energy or operating Power of the Demiurgos, from no consideration of mere animal appetite but in token of the highest reverence.[1] [1. Survivals of this worship may be seen in our maypole, the steeple, the ecclesiastical cross, etc.] The tortoise, believed to have been androgynous, was chosen to accompany statues of Venus. The fig was a still more common symbol, the statue of Priapus being made of that tree, and the fruit being carried with the Phallus in the ancient processions to the honour of Bacchus. In conformity with the religious ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Vergil describes the products of the globe as the result of the conjugal act between Jupiter (the sky) and Juno (the earth). Among the Greeks, the membrum virile was borne in procession to the temple of Bacchus and was there crowned with a garland by one of the most respectable matrons of the city. According to St Augustine the sexual organ of man was consecrated in the temple of Liber, that of women in the sanctuaries of Liberia, these two divinities being named father and mother. Payne Knight states that Priapus, in his character of procreative deity, is celebrated by the Greek poets under the title of Love or Attraction, the first principle of Animation, the father of gods and men, the regulator and dispenser of all things. He Is said to pervade the universe with the motion of his wings, bringing pure light, and thence to be called 'the splendid, the self-illumined, the ruling Priapus'. According to Natalis Comes, the worship of Priapus was introduced into Athens by express order of an oracle. The Priapi were of different forms, some having only a human head and the Phallus, some with the head of Pan or of a faun--that is, with the beard and ears of a goat. Among the paintings found in Pompeii there are several representations of hircine sacrifices and offerings of milk and flowers to Priapus. The god is represented as a Hermes on a square pedestal, with the usual characteristic of the deity, a prominent Phallus. Similar Hermae or Priapi were placed at the forkings of two or three roads, and were confounded with the divinities Mercury and Terminus presiding over boundaries. When furnished with arms, in his character of 'Terminus', Priapus held with one hand a reaping hook and, like Osiris, grasped with the other the characteristic feature of his divinity which was always of a monstrous size and in a state of statant energy. One of the paintings discovered at Pompeii represents a sacrifice or offering to Priapus, made by two persons. The first is a young man with a dark skin, entirely naked, except for the animal's skin which is wrapped round his loins, his head being encircled with a wreath of leaves. He carries a basket wherein are flowers and vegetables, the first offerings of his humble farm; and he bends to place them at the foot of a little altar, on which there is a small statue in bronze representing the god of gardens. On the other side is a woman, also wearing a wreath, and dressed in a yellow tunic with green drapery; she holds in her left hand a golden dish and in her right a vase and she appears to be bringing an offering of milk:
Sinium lactis et haec te liba, Priape, quotannis
Expectare sat est; custos es pauperis horti.
VERGIL, Eclogues
Offerings were made to Priapus according to the season of the year:
Vere rosa, autumno pomis, oestate frequentor
Spicis: una mihi est horrida pestis hiems
Epigram 86
In another painting Priapus is represented as placed on a square stone, against which rest two sticks. His head is covered with a cap, he has a small mantle on his shoulder, and exhibits his usual prominent characteristic.[1] According to Herodotus and Pausanias statues of Mercury were represented as ithyphallic,[2] and the latter mentions one in particular at Cyllene. [1. The statue is evidently placed by the roadside, and holds a stick in its hand to point out the way to travellers.
2. Ithyphallus, a piece of wood shaped like the erect virile member, which was carried about in the festivals of Bacchus. Hence, applied to Priapus, who was represented with an erect member. Priapus was also called Triphallus (triphallos), a threefold phallus, an immense phallus, on account of the extraordinary size of his member.]
In the towns Priapus had public chapels, whither devotees suffering from maladies connected with his attributes repaired for the purpose of offering to him ex-votos figuring the parts afflicted; these ex-votos being sometimes paintings and, at others, statuettes made of wax or of wood, and occasionally of metal, stone and marble. Females as superstitious as they were lascivious might be seen offering in public to Priapus as many garlands as they had had lovers. These they would hang upon the enormous phallus of the idol, which was often hidden from sight behind the number suspended by one woman alone. Others presented to the god as many phalli, made of willow-wood, as the men whom they had vanquished in a single night.
St Augustine informs us that it was considered by the Roman ladies a very proper and pious custom for young brides to seat themselves upon the monstrous member of Priapus; and Lactantius says, 'Shall I speak of that Mutinus, upon the extremity of which brides are accustomed to seat themselves in order that the god may appear to have been the first to receive the sacrifice of their modesty?'
These facts prove that the worship of Priapus had greatly degenerated amongst the Romans since, losing sight altogether of the object typified, they attached themselves to the symbol alone, in which they could see only what was indecent; and hence religion became a pretext for libertinism. Respected so long as Roman manners presented their pristine simplicity, but degraded and vilified in proportion as the morals of that people became corrupted, the very sanctuary itself of Priapus failed to protect him from the biting sarcasm of the poets, and the obloquy and ridicule of the wits. Thus his statue[1] was placed in orchards as a scarecrow to drive away superstitious thieves, as well as children and birds. [1. The statue of Priapus was generally chopped roughly out from the trunk of a standing tree. It was usually shaped from fig-tree wood, dry oak or cypress; sometimes of marble or even of wheaten dough. The 'personal' history of Priapus represents him as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. It is said that Aphrodite, who was in love with Dionysus, went to meet him on his return from India, but soon abandoning him, made for Lampsacus, and there gave birth to her child by the god. Hera, who was dissatisfied with her conduct, caused her to bear a babe of extreme ugliness, who was presently named Priapus. The earliest Greek poets, as Homer and Hesiod, do not mention this divinity, and it was only in later times that he was honoured with divine worship. He was adored more especially at Lampsacus on the Hellespont, whence he is sometimes called Hellespondiacus.[2] [2. The enormous size of his member so endeared him to the women of Lampsacus that their husbands banished him from the city, whereupon a fell disease attacked their pudenda and continued until, by the oracle's command, he was recalled and crowned as the garden god.] By some writers Priapus is said to have been the son of Dionysus and a nymph called Chione. He was regarded as the promoter of fertility both in vegetation and in all animals connected with an agricultural life, and in this capacity he was addressed as the protector of sheep and goats, of bees, of the vine, of all garden produce and even of fishing. Like other divinities presiding over agricultural pursuits, he was believed to be possessed of prophetic powers and he is sometimes mentioned in the plural. As Priapus had many attributes in common with other gods of fertility, the Orphics identified him with their mystic Dionysus, Hermes, Helios and others. The Attic legends connect Priapus with such sensual and licentious beings as Conisalus, Orthanes and Tychon; in like manner he was confounded by the Italians with Mutunus or Muttunus, the personification (as has been shown) of Nature's fructifying power. The sacrifices offered to him consisted of the firstlings of gardens, vineyards and fields; of milk, honey, calves, rams, asses and fishes. He was represented by carved images, mostly in the form of Hermae, carrying fruit in the sinus of the garment and either a sickle or cornucopia in the hand; the statues of Priapus in Italy, like those of other rustic divinities, were usually painted red, whence the god is called ruber or rubicundus.[1]
[1. The Hindus follow a similar custom of painting their gods with vermilion.] A chief seat of the worship of this god was Priapus, a city of Mysia, on the Propontis, a colony of the Milesians; in Spain he was worshipped under the name of Hortanes, and in Slavonia under the appellation of Pripe-gala. ... [Christian survivals and sketch of Dionysia] ... " NEANISKOS
July 1890
Garden of Priapus - 69 Phallic Boss lady and friend caning a naked and bound slave. - The "tribadism of the Roman matrons" ...
Shot blocked - used workaround
Reeds or canes were part of the annual rites of Cybele .... They also had a role in Dionysian rites - which in ancient Greece were originally female only drunken orgies- Bacchantes- - Greek men like Roman men were in the penis cage - celebration of the erect phallus and its generative powers was female in the ancient world.
see: Dionysia in Introduction to the Priapea - And in this case figs have a code or secret meaning that is discussed in the Priapea - female-on-male anal sex. All this came out of Egypt - ie out of Africa ......:
" ... I will conclude this hasty sketch of the Priapic cult with a brief description of the Dionysia, or festivals celebrated in honour of Bacchus, which throw considerable fight on this worship. They were brought from Egypt into Greece by Melampus, the son of Amithaon, and the Athenians celebrated them with more pomp than the other Greeks. The principal Archon presided over diem, and the priests who celebrated the religious rites occupied the first places in the theatre and in the public assemblies. Originally these festivals exhibited neither extravagance nor splendour, they were simply devoted to joy and pleasure within the houses; all public ceremonies were confined to a procession, in which there appeared a vase full of wine and, wreathed with vine leaves, a goat, a basket of figs and the Phalli. At a later period this function was celebrated with greater pomp; the number of priests of Bacchus increased; those who took part therein were suitably dressed, and sought by their gestures to represent some of the customs which faith attributed to the god of wine. They dressed themselves in fawn skins; they wore on head a mitre; they bore in hand a thyrsus, a tympanum or a flute and their brows were wreathed with ivy, vine leaves and pine-branches. Some imitated the dress and fantastic postures of Silenus, of Pan and of the Satyrs; they covered their legs with goatskins, and carried the horns of animals; they rode on asses, and dragged after them goats intended for sacrifice. In the town this frenzied crowd was followed by priests carrying sacred vases, the first of which was filled with water, then followed young girls selected from the most distinguished families, and called Canephori, because they bore small baskets of gold full of all sorts of fruit, of cakes and of salt; but the principal object among these, according to St Croix, was the Phallus, made of the wood of a fig tree. (In the comedy of the Acharnians, by Aristophanes, one of the characters in the play says, 'Come forward a little, Canephoros, and you, Xianthias, slave, place the Phallus erect.')
After these came the Periphallia, a troop of men who carried long poles with Phalli[1] hung at the end of them; they were crowned with violets and ivy, and they walked repeating obscene songs.
[1. In the Thesaurus Eroticus Linguae Latinae, four kinds of Phalli are described:
1 Those made of wood, chiefly of the fig tree, used at the festivals of Priapus and Bacchus.
2 Those of glass, ivory, gold and silken stuffs and linen, which Giraldus tells us were used by the Lesbian women to satisfy their passions.
3 Wheaten images shaped like the male pudenda.
4 Drinking vessels of gold or glass of a like shape.]
These men were called Phallophori;[1] these must not be confounded with the Ithyphalli, who, in indecent dresses and sometimes in women's costume, with garlanded heads and hands full of flowers, and pretending to be drunk, wore at their waist-bands monstrous Phalli made of wood or leather; among the Ithyphalli also must be counted those who assumed the costume of Pan or the Satyrs. [1. Herodotus speaks of these Phallophori in the festivals of Bacchus as men who bore statues of a cubit's length, with members almost equal in size to the rest of their bodies.] There were other persons, called Lychnophori, who had care of the mystic winnowing-fan, an emblem whose presence was held indispensable in these kinds of festivals. Hence the epithet 'Lychnite', given to Bacchus. Outside the town, the more respectable persons, the matrons and modest virgins, separated themselves from the procession. But the people, the countless multitude of Sileni, of Satyrs and of Nymph-bacchantes, spread themselves over the open spaces and the valleys, stopping in solitary places to get up dances or to celebrate some festival and making the rocks re-echo with the sound of drums, of flutes, and more especially with cries, constantly repeated, by which they invoked the god: 'Evohe Sabae! Evohe Bacche! O Iacche! Io Bacche!' The first of these words recalls the words with which Jupiter encouraged Bacchus when, in the Giants' War, the latter defended his father's throne.
The description here given applied chiefly to the greater Dionysia, or to the new Dionysia; there were six other festivals of this name, the ceremonies of which must have borne some resemblance to those already mentioned. There were, in the first place, the ancient Dionysia, which were celebrated at Limnae, and in which appeared fourteen priestesses called Geraerae, who, before entering on their duties, swore that they were pure and chaste. There were the lesser Dionysia, which were celebrated in the autumn, and in the country; the Brauronia of Brauron, a village of Attica; the Nyctelia, whose mysteries it was forbidden to reveal; the Theoina; the Lenean festivals of the wine press; the Omophagia in honour of Bacchus Carnivorus, to whom human victims were formerly offered, and whose Priests ate raw meat; the Arcadian, celebrated in Arcadia by dramatic contests; and, lastly, the Trieterica, which were repeated every three years in memory of the period during which Bacchus made his expedition to further Ind.
The Bacchic mysteries and orgies are said to have been introduced from Southern Italy into Etruria, and thence to Rome. Originally they were celebrated only by women, but afterwards men were admitted, and their presence led to the greatest disorders.
In these festivals, the Phallus played a prominent part, and was publicly exhibited. At Lavinium the festival lasted a month, during which time a Phallus, remarkable for its proportions, was carried each day through the streets. The coarsest language was heard on all sides and a matron of one of the most considerable families placed a wreath on this suggestive image.
Pacula Annia, pretending to act under the inspiration of Bacchus, ordered that the Bacchanalia should be held during five days in every month. It was from the time of these orgies being carried on after this plan that, according to the statement of an eye-witness (Livy xxxix, 13), licentiousness prevailed and crimes of every description were committed. Disorder was carried to such an excess that the Senate in 186 B.C. issued a decree to suppress and prohibit these festivals; and it was ordered that no Bacchanalia should be held in Rome or in Italy. Garden of Priapus - 70 The general on the stairs - part 2. The warm wood and red phallus reminds me of the wooden Priapus and his detachable red phallus !
When I first posted the images of the Pan and the Pathic matron on page 153 I received the inner image of an American women - specifically a famous black woman that I was watching on TV - as being "severed" from the goat-man and losing their color ...
In America the goat-man is the dark skinned black man - the archtypal ghetto negro ... I suppose one way to fix that problem is to alter that projection.
The penis cage means that sexual power is transferred from the projection onto the woman - That's probably a partial solution. Black men are already in the penis cage in America - as I've already noted. Anti-miscegenation laws and customs are a form of the penis cage.
The ghetto Negro projection is all of Rap music and culture - but to me that's a demeaning deal for black men - Brazil has a healthier solution for this problem - Samba and Carnaval ... Garden of Priapus - 71 Boss lady in one of her favorite scenes.
Probably what happened to our trussed up heroes in the Satyricon - Quartilla and the "wonderful penetration" of her whalebone wand.
Also probably what happened at the women only Bacchic mysteries of ancient Greece. The drunken orgies cannot have been purely female - like in the Roman Bona Dea celebrations men were probably invited as women - in women's clothes and it goes without saying - in the penis cage ... Garden of Priapus - 72 Another real scene from the boss lady!
My inner dream images are the opposite though - modern American women want men to be men ...
" ... Let that word which seldom reaches our ears - I am ashamed to utter it - the name of tribadic licentiousness be paraded freely around, let every one of our women's chambers become Philaenis, disfigured by androgynous desires. ..." The Pseudo-Lucianic Loves (Amores) - Rome. c 3rd century AD
Roman women in contrast wanted to ride their men - a la Philaenis! A lost form of Eros ... It's probably true that you can't understand the long lost "Aryan" civilization without the penis cage and "tribadic licentiousness" ... Ancient India was in the penis cage for religious reasons ... the rising of the Kundalini Garden of Priapus - 73 Boss lady irrumating a hooded and penis-caged slave
This was probably the reason irrumation was a more severe penalty that anal sodomy for violating the garden of Priapus.
Her Mentule down his throat has just finished sodomizing his rectum ...
Odysseus and his crew probably spent their time on the Island of Calypso doing this as her pigs! - There's also probably a link here to the secret annual Eleusinian mysteries that have never been revealed - All participants of the mysteries were required to provide a piglet for sacrifice
- I read a sexual code in that - A female on male sexual orgy - "Tribadic licentiousness" - was probably a basic component of the Eleusinian mysteries ... - Strange to modern ears - but in ancient Greece the "hieros gamos" was always an annual sexual ritual event between the Queen of Athens and a priest of Bacchus.
From reading the Priapea Bacchus was a catamite and the Queen of Athens pathic or phallic: more "Tribadic licentiousness" - Hieros Gamos being the marriage of male and female energies in one body - or a phallus for a woman and a vagina for a man " ...Evohe Sabae! Evohe Bacche! O Iacche! Io Bacche!' The first of these words recalls the words with which Jupiter encouraged Bacchus when, in the Giants' War, the latter defended his father's throne" ..." Introduction to the Priapae - Sabae is probably ancient Saba or Ethiopia
Garden of Priapus - 74 Dmitrys: A black African Amazon sodomizing her blond elf slave while roasting a whole pig in the dead of night
Pig was a code in ancient Rome for the men who were sodomized in the garden of Priapus Garden of Priapus - 75 Boss lady, a friend, the cane and the mentule part 2 ...
The cane was a part of the rites of Cybele - It's also part of the modern naked Swazi reed dance in southern Africa - the last surviving example of an ancient Bantu tradition.
Most Bantu today are Christian - and these dances are absolute taboo ... *** Babylon seems to have been a female phallus only civilization - and sacred prostitution seems to have been common at a Temple level.
In the following blog excerpt I am sure terms like "plowing the furrow" mean the mentule and female-on-male anal intercourse:
" ... 1. Sacred Marriage
... In the ancient Near East sacred prostitution, which is most likely a misnomer, was common as a form of sacred marriage. The ‘marriage’ took place between the king of a Sumerian city-state and the High Priestess of the goddess Inanna. This Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and warfare. There were many temples and shrines, all along the course of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which were dedicated to worship of the goddesses. The temple of Eanna or ‘house of heaven’ was one of the greatest in the city of Uruk, the biblical Erech, and now modern Warka. This temple was the earthly abode of Naditu the priestess of the goddess. During the ritual of the sacred marriage the High Priestess would select for her nubtial couch a young man who represented Inanna’s consort, shepherd god Dumuzi. The Hieros gamos ritual was celebrated during the annual New Year Festival of Akitu at the Spring Equinox. The simulated sexual union of Inanna and Dumuzi was the prototype of the Sumerian ‘sacred marriage’ a ritual that became widespread in other societies including Babylon and Greece (Dening, 2009), and for a long period of time the Sacred Marriage was an important fertility ritual in ancient Mesopotamia (Frayne, 1985). For millennia the sacred marriage was an ancient ritual performed by numerous cultures across the Mediterranean region. The ritual, where the king became the consort of Inanna represented a sharing of her invaluable fertility power and potency (Kramer, 1969).
If the ‘Sacred Marriage Rite’ ever involved human participants the priestess, acting as Inanna, would have engaged in ritual copulation with the king (Stuckey, 2005). In the Sumerian version of the ‘Sacred Marriage’ the High Priestess is known as Entu and, as Inanna personal and actual is identity obscured (Safati, 1998), she would ceremonially copulate with the king or High Priest to ensure the renewal and continuance of fertility. The successful performance of the sacred marriage would henceforth guarantee the revitalised growth of all human, animal, and plant life (Dening, 2009). The Entu was a woman of very high social status and, whatever else she may have been, she was not a prostitute, Stuckey (2005). What imbued the sacred marriage ritual with its spiritual significance was its impersonal and informal nature (Dening, 2009), a rite where the temple priestesses would undertake the sacred marriage or ritual intercourse with any male worshipper who wanted union with the goddess. The Inanna of the ‘Sacred Marriage’ was not improperly named. The goddess was believed to possess, and use therefore, the body of a willing and devout priestess in a state of ecstasy, who was certainly not a cult prostitute. The priestess of the temple came to embody the very essence of the Goddess in sexual union with those who came to pay for the privilege. Scholarship has suffered from the inability of academics to imagine any cultic role for women in antiquity that did not involve the practice of ritualised sexual intercourse. Even if ancient priestesses were involved in ritual sexuality, even if they received offerings for their temples they were not prostitutes, and cannot be considered as such, but devotees worshipping their goddess (Stuckey, 2005). ...
2 - Myth and Sacred Prostitution The so-called ‘sacred prostitute’ or temple priestess was associated with the religions of the Great Mother goddess in ancient times. These temple priestesses became the representatives in physical form of the Goddess and entered into sacred sexual rituals with male worshippers, and this provides evidence of the ‘sacred feminine’ then and now. Sacred or temple ‘prostitution’ was supposedly performed in ancient temples as a fertility ritual that involved the practice of sacred sexual intercourses part of the religious worship of the Goddess. However, with regard to temple prostitution the sequence is at best doubtful because the " ... term ‘sacred prostitution’ for any and all sexual practices connected with temple service keeps us from understanding the meaning of such practices for contemporaries. (Lerner, 1986). It becomes a necessity to distinguish between ‘cultic sexual service’ and commercial prostitution. Cultic sexual service by men and women may date back to the Neolithic age, to various cults of the Mother Goddess, or the so-called Great Goddess in her many manifestations (Gimbutas, 1982). Unfortunately many scholars do not attempt to differentiate between ritual sex as a form of worship, and the use of sexual favours for pay (Henshaw, 1994). Ritual sex would not have been prostitution, even if the act produced an offering to the temple, because it was regarded and performed as a mutually accepted act of worship. Many ritual practices in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean focussed on promoting the fecundity of the land. In early Mesopotamia the "Sacred Marriage" of Hieros gamos, with its focus on fertility, could have possibly involved a ‘sacred prostitute whereby" ...cultic prostitution is a practice involving the female and at times the male devotees of fertility deities, who presumably dedicated their earnings to their deity.” (Yamuchi, 1973). Furthermore, the motives of the ‘Sacred Marriage’ rite in Mesopotamia were where the king had sexual congress with a ‘temple prostitute’ who performed, using a form of role play, as an earthly receptacle for the goddess. Mesopotamian titles for these priestesses or ‘sacred prostitutes’ have been translated and include naditu, qudishtu, qadishtu and entu (Odens, 2000). However, in general, naditu priestesses were of high status and were expected to be chaste (Henshaw, 1994), and there appears to be no actual evidence that the duties of a naditu included having ritual or cultic sexual intercourse. The title of qadishtu meant " ...holy, consecrated, or set apart woman” (Odens, 2000), and derives from the same root as the Hebrew deshah, which implies the qadishtu was not indeed a cultic prostitute. ...Most Mesopotamian priestesses were expected to be chaste with the one exception being the entu whom the Sumerians called Lady deity or Lady who is a Goddess (Frayne, 1985; Henshaw, 1994). Sumerian and Akkadian entu were highly regarded and socially superior priestesses who were distinguished with special ceremonial attire, who owned property, and initiated the Hieros gamos ceremony with priests and kings (Dening, 1996). The naditu served as priestesses in the temples of Inanna in the ancient city of Erech or Uruk. Recruited from high ranking families they were expected to remain childless. The Sumerian word Nin, Eres in Akkadian, means Lady, the Sumerian word Nin-Dingur means Divine Lady. In Sumerian epic texts such as Emmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, the Nu-Gig were priestesses in temples dedicated to Inanna. The qadishtu served in the temples of the Sumerian goddess Qetesh, and the ishtaritsu specialised in dancing, music and singing in the temples of Ishtar. Babylon has often been, somewhat inaccurately and emotionally, equated with and denigrated as the home of sacred prostitution. Nonetheless, often associated with the Sumerian goddess Inanna is the great goddess of Babylon called Ishtar. Ishtar who possessed two main functions or attributes. Firstly she was the goddess of love and sexuality, and secondly she was a fierce war goddess who was sometimes shown riding on a lion. Two of her epithets were Mother of Harlots and the Great Whore of Babylon. The Mesopotamian city of Erech or Uruk was known as, and referred to as, the town of sacred courtesans. Temples to Ishtar were inhabited supposedly by sacred prostitutes and priestesses, called ishtartu or Joy-maidens, dedicated to the service of the goddess. Their sexuality was seen as belonging to Ishtar and used only in sacred rites undertaken in her worship. These women were not common prostitutes which were known in ancient Babylon as harimtu. Ishtar did not differentiate in bestowing her sexual favours and honoured the sexual act howsoever and with whomsoever it was performed. From The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi we find Inanna exclaiming “who will plough my vulva?” and “Who will water the Holy lap?”. These are obvious in their agricultural connotations. In an interesting side note the word fuck is at one with, and comes from, the medieval fork (of Indo-European origin) or plough (Taylor, 1996). In other words to fuck is to plow or furrow. ... The original meaning of the word ‘prostitute’ was to stand on behalf of, that is to represent the power of the goddess This is why the ishtartu were forbidden to marry in the connubial sense and instead were dedicated to the Rite of Sacred Marriage. Sacred sexual intercourse, if and when it occurred, it occurred took place in the temples of Inanna and Ishtar and was an important and common form of sacred sexuality practised in ancient Mesopotamia. The rite was believed to invigorate the land with divine fertile energy
3-Fertility Magic and Ritual
... In ancient Mesopotamia the Sumerians had scant regard for, and little modesty concerning ritual sexuality. In the myth of the supreme goddess Inanna there is unashamed delight in the sexual encounter. Inanna is not solely Mother Goddess but is often shown with her foot on a lion. Lions, when associated with female deities, represent the undomesticated, fierce, and aggressive aspect of the female goddess. In Sumeria both sexual intercourse and sacred, or temple prostitution, were believed to form part of the divine, which governed the universe and known to them as me. In the fertility rituals of Inanna the man could achieve an erection simply by stimulating his penis, or in the actual temple ceremony his reaction could be enhanced by a priestess applying a special mixture of puru-oil. Anal intercourse was not frowned upon or considered taboo. As a practice it was permitted, and perhaps encouraged or suggested, by Entu-priestesses during sexual rituals as a practical means of avoiding pregnancy. In ancient Babylon, during the temple sexual ritual, it was believed sexual union released divine energy which has a modern counterpart in neo-tantric belief. ... " Goddess Worship, Sacred Sexuality, and the Divine Feminine Garden of Priapus - 76
Boss lady working the mentule on a slave...
In Babylon Ishtar the goddess of love has an androgynous nature - to me there is no doubt this meant her ritual hieros gamos sex meant female on male mentule anal sex. Furthermore, like Greeks and Romans, Babylonian men must have been in the penis cage - that's probably the only explanation for the high libido of the Babylonian female sex priests: " ... Inanna-Ishtar
The goddess in Mesopotamia who embodied sexuality in all its aspects was known as Inanna (in the Sumerian language) and Ishtar (in the Akkadian language). Inanna/Ishtar was the manifestation of sex and eroticism - bride of brides, solace of married women, and patron of prostitutes.
It is difficult to evaluate when Inanna was first linked with sexuality. In the fourth millennium bce, Inanna was primarily venerated as the planet Venus. Her two epithets morning and evening describe the two manifestations of the goddess, one shining in the morning and one in the evening. Her dyadic character stemmed from her bipolar astral disposition, which incorporated all extremes of behavior in her complex personality. Thus, over time, she became both the beautiful goddess of love, sexuality, and sexual behavior, and the power hungry goddess of war and violence.
By the latter part of the third millennium bce, 'Ashtar (the earliest form of Ishtar) was invoked in Akkadian love incantations. This aspect became preeminent in the Sumerian corpus of love lyrics from the Neo-Sumerian period (c. 2112 to 2004). The theme of this corpus is the love between the young maiden goddess Inanna and the shepherd god Dumuzi as the archetypal bride and groom.
... The sexual identity of this goddess is controversial. In one late text, Ishtar says of herself: "I am a woman, I am a man." Ishtar could be viewed as a beautiful goddess of love who rules the day and as a bearded god(dess) of war who rules the night. It is claimed that the androgyny of Inanna/Ishtar provided a powerful symbol of the ambiguities of pure sexuality reflected in her cult, and in the transvestism of her cultic personnel (Groneberg 1986).
It is not so clear, however, that Inanna (in contrast to Ishtar) had male or androgynous features. In Sumerian poetry, the goddess repeatedly lauds her own sexual beauty, both in lyric song and mythic narratives. Inanna sings: "These [my] female genitals ...my moored boat of heaven, clothed in beauty like the new crescent moon ... this high well-watered field of mine: my own female genitals, the maiden's, a well-watered opened-up mound - who will be their ploughman?" (Dumuzi-Inanna Song P, ii 16-26).
In the first millennium bce, the two appearances of Venus were attributed to two distinct sexual manifestations: As morning star, Venus was female; as evening star, male. The two aspects are said to correspond to the double character of Inanna/Ishtar as goddess of love and war. Among the thousand prayers, hymns and references to her, there are only scattered mentions of a bearded form of Ishtar among the overwhelming evidence that she was female. In his hymn to Ishtar of Nineveh, Ashurbanipal, the king of Assyria (r. 668 to 627 bc), describes her as "Like the god Ashur, she wears a beard" (line 7). Ishtar of Babylon is once described as bearded and male. The question is whether Ishtar has a completely separate male manifestation or not. The references to her beard may allude to an astronomical phenomenon because her star, Venus, also has a beard. On the other hand, in Semitic cities, such as Mari, in the third millennium, there were several 'Ashtar manifestations, of which one was a male. Ishtar has been considered androgynous because even in her male role she never becomes fully male, but seems to be a female with male gender characteristics. She is nevertheless always referred to as female with feminine grammatical agreement.
... Inanna and Ishtar assumed various gender roles. The proper gender role of Inanna is a theme in various Sumerian narratives. For instance,
"But why did you treat me, the woman, in an exceptional manner? I am holy Inanna - where are my functions?"
Enki answered his daughter, holy Inanna: "How have I disparaged you? Goddess ... How can I enhance you? ... I made you speak as a woman with pleasant voice. I made you go forth ... I covered ...with a garment. I made you exchange its right side and its left side. I clothed you in garments of women's power. I put women's speech in your mouth. I placed in your hands the spindle and the hairpin. I ... to you women's adornment. I settled on you the staff and the crook, with the shepherd's stick [symbols of kingship] beside them."
(Enki and the World Order, 422-436)
The feminine gender roles served by Inanna/Ishtar run the spectrum of possibilities: young girl and bride, wife and mother, prostitute, and mistress.
In the Sumerian love poetry concerning Dumuzi's courtship of Inanna, Inanna is portrayed as a young woman, with her teenage enthusiasms, passionate love, and sexual yearnings for her beloved. Compositions in which the king takes the role of Dumuzi probably had their cultic context in the "sacred marriage" rituals. The royal sobriquet "spouse of Inanna" and the royal love songs for the divine bride are hallmarks of Sumerian kingship.
When Sumerian theologians organized the gods into families, they placed Inanna as a mother of other deities, although her maternity was of no real consequence. The father of the children is not Dumuzi, and her sons play no role in her mythology or worship. In the second millennium and later, however, ordinary individuals appealing to her for clemency addressed her as "mother."
... Further, one hymn puts these words into the mouth of Inanna: "When I sit in the alehouse, I am a woman, and I am an exuberant young man. When I am present at a place of quarrelling, I am a woman, a perfect figure. When I sit by the gate of the tavern, I am a prostitute familiar with the penis; the friend of a man, the girlfriend of a woman" (Inanna Hymn I 16-22).
... The festivals of this goddess involved reversals in categories of age, status, and sex. As articulated in one Sumerian hymn to Inanna:
Inanna was entrusted by Enlil and Ninlil with the capacity to gladden the heart of those who revere her, ...to turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man, to change one into the other, to make young women dress as young men on their right side, to make young men dress as young women on their left side, to put spindles into the hands of men ... and to give weapons to the women; to see that women amuse themselves by using children's language, to see that children amuse themselves by using women's language.
("Hymn to Inanna for Ishme-Dagan" 19-25)
The chief participants and actors in the goddess's cult are well known by name but of uncertain sexual identity. These religious officiants may represent the undefined sexless characters who occur in mythic tales concerning Inanna and Ishtar, although gender ambiguity often has religious connotations. While it is known that these cultic functionaries dressed in distinctive garments and adorned their hair and body in certain peculiar manners, their physical and mental constitution are uncertain. They could have been born with physical abnormalities, such as hermaphrodites, or emasculated into physically castrated persons, or they could have been persons whose mental sexual identity was androgynous, such as transvestites. It is also possible that the inversion of their sexual identity and/or gender roles was maintained only in the performance of rituals. Through symbolic inversion, such beliefs and rituals provided a context for the resolution of conflicts often associated with gender roles and gender identity. ... " Encyclopedia Garden of Priapus - 76 Boss lady with whip and friend sodomizing a slave in the pillory.
In Mesopotamia the male counterparts of the sex priestesses were called Gala - probably related to the Cybele Gallus. My guess is the phallus was entirely female in Babylon due to the penis cage:
" ... Mesopotamia was polytheistic, and one of the many gods worshiped was Inanna. Also known as the Queen of Heaven, Inanna was the goddess of love, beauty, sex, violence, and justice. Although she was the goddess of sex, it’s interesting to note that she was not a goddess of procreation or indeed a mother herself. She was usually portrayed as promiscuous, but this wasn’t a negative thing—as far as Inanna was concerned, sex was a sacred rite to be enjoyed as an expression of love and not exclusively for the purpose of procreation. Sex wasn’t something shameful yet. An all-powerful goddess with a devoted cult, she is often portrayed with lions. Surviving artifacts from later periods, when she evolved into or was combined with Ishtar, even show her riding a chariot being pulled by lions.
If love, beauty, war, and justice aren’t enough for one goddess to handle, Inanna also had another very important ability.
She could change men into women and women into men.
That’s not just awkward phrasing there - that’s a quote. Around 2280 BCE, Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE), the Akkadian High Priestess of the Moon in the Sumerian city of Ur, wrote a number of poems and hymns for Inanna, including “The Great-Hearted Mistress,” “The Exaltation of Inanna,” an “Goddess of the Fearsome Power.” She describes some of this power here:
Without your consent, no destiny is determined, the most ingenious solution finds no favour.
To run fast, to slip away, to calm, to pacify are yours, Inanna,
To dart aimlessly, to go too fast, to fall, to get up, to sustain a comrade are yours, Inanna.
To open high road and byroad, safe lodging on the way, helping the worn-out along are yours, Inanna.
To make footpath and trail go in the right direction, to make the going good are yours, Inanna.
To destroy, to create, to tear out, to establish are yours, Inanna.
To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna.
This isn’t a metaphor, and it isn’t the only source that mentions this.
In the Epic of Erra, a Babylonian poem, there are references to kurgarra and assinnu, classes of servants of the goddess, “whose maleness Ishtar turned to female, for the awe of the people.” The British Museum has a fragment of a five-thousand-year-old statue with a still clear inscription that translates to: “Silimabzuta, hermaphrodite of Inanna.”
But these are only references to the goddess’s ability to transform gender. The most compelling evidence for trans and non-binary identities among her worshipers is the existence of her priests, known as the Gala.
The Gala were a class of priests sacred to Inanna. It was said they were initially created by the god Enki to sing “heart-soothing laments,” for the goddess, and they certainly did that. To begin with, one of their primary roles was to sing hymns and laments to the goddess in eme-sal, a Sumerian dialect spoken primarily by women that was used to render the speech of female gods. They presided over religious rites, healed the sick, predicted the future, made music, raised money for the poor, and “dissolved evil” during lunar eclipses. Akkadian omen texts said that having sex with them was lucky. They were well-known and respected members of their communities, and many of them were what we would think of now as transgender.
While it can be problematic to apply modern terminology to five-thousand-year-old gender identities, I’ll tell you what we know of them. Whether called in a dream, given a vision of the goddess, or driven by devotion, biological males entered into the service of the goddess and became female for all intents and purposes, taking on feminine pronouns and dressing and living as women. While various sources argue that ritual castration was involved, there isn’t a lot of evidence to support that this early, and in any case, surgery is still not necessary to validate gender identity today. As they saw it, Inanna had made them women, and though they didn’t have the same verbiage for it, their society accepted that identity.* After all, this change was a gift of the goddess. ... " dirtysexyhistory. Garden of Priapus - 78 Inanna, lion and chief assistant Ninshubur - Like Cybele and her lions ...
Both goddesses had male manifestations ... I am confident the large number of depictions of anal sex from Babylon are females with beards sodomizing feminized men ...
"Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal depicting Inanna resting her foot on the back of a lion while Ninshubur stands in front of her paying obeisance, c. 2334 to c. 2154 BC" Wikipedia
Ninshubur, also known as Ninshubar, Nincubura or Ninšubur) was the sukkal or second-in-command of the goddess Inanna in Sumerian mythology. Her name means "Queen of the East" in ancient Sumerian. Much like Iris or Hermes in later Greek mythology, Ninshubur served as a messenger to the other gods.
Ninshubur accompanied Inanna as a vassal and friend throughout Inanna's many exploits. She helped Inanna fight Enki's demons after Inanna's theft of the sacred me. Later, when Inanna became trapped in the Underworld, it was Ninshubur who pleaded with Enki for her mistress's release.
.... In later Akkadian mythology, Ninshubur was syncretized with the male messenger deity Papsukkal. In older sources, Ninshubur herself is usually referred to as a male god as well; more recent sources have recognized this portrayal as erroneous. The gender of a sukkal always matches the gender of the deity it serves. Thus, Enki's sukkal Isimud is male, but Ninshubur is female.[ In her primary aspect as the sukkal to Inanna, Ninshubur was female, but, when she served as the sukkal to An, he was male. Garden of Priapus - 79 Inanna And The Huluppu Tree
Inanna -kneeling under tree and talking to a dead relative in the garden of the Huluppu tree.
To me those are three women with erections or mentules on either side of the tree ...
" ... Inanna[a] is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, war, justice and political power. She was originally worshiped in Aratta and Sumer under the name "Inanna", and was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name Ishtar. She was known as the "Queen of Heaven" and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid (later known as Tammuz) and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur (who later became the male deity Papsukkal).
Inanna was worshiped in Sumer at least as early as the Uruk period (c. 4000 BC to c. 3100 BC), but she had little cult before the conquest of Sargon of Akkad. During the post-Sargonic era, she became one of the most widely venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon, with temples across Mesopotamia. The cult of Inanna/Ishtar, which may have been associated with a variety of sexual rites, was continued by the East Semitic-speaking people (Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians) who succeeded and absorbed the Sumerians in the region. She was especially beloved by the Assyrians, who elevated her to become the highest deity in their pantheon, ranking above their own national god Ashur. Inanna/Ishtar is alluded to in the Hebrew Bible and she greatly influenced the Phoenician goddess Astoreth, who later influenced the development of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Her cult continued to flourish until its gradual decline between the first and sixth centuries AD in the wake of Christianity, though it survived in parts of Upper Mesopotamia among Assyrian communities as late as the eighteenth century.
Inanna appears in more myths than any other Sumerian deity. Many of her myths involve her taking over the domains of other deities. She was believed to have stolen the mes, which represented all positive and negative aspects of civilization, from Enki, the god of wisdom. She was also believed to have taken over the Eanna temple from An, the god of the sky. Alongside her twin brother Utu (later known as Shamash), Inanna was the enforcer of divine justice; she destroyed Mount Ebih for having challenged her authority, unleashed her fury upon the gardener Shukaletuda after he raped her in her sleep, and tracked down the bandit woman Bilulu and killed her in divine retribution for having murdered Dumuzid. In the standard Akkadian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ishtar asks Gilgamesh to become her consort. When he refuses, she unleashes the Bull of Heaven, resulting in the death of Enkidu and Gilgamesh's subsequent grapple with his mortality.
Inanna/Ishtar's most famous myth is the story of her descent into and return from Kur, the ancient Sumerian Underworld, a myth in which she attempts to conquer the domain of her older sister Ereshkigal, the queen of the Underworld, but is instead deemed guilty of hubris by the seven judges of the Underworld and struck dead. Three days later, Ninshubur pleads with all the gods to bring Inanna back, but all of them refuse her except Enki, who sends two sexless beings to rescue Inanna. They escort Inanna out of the Underworld, but the galla, the guardians of the Underworld, drag her husband Dumuzid down to the Underworld as her replacement. Dumuzid is eventually permitted to return to heaven for half the year while his sister Geshtinanna remains in the Underworld for the other half, resulting in the cycle of the seasons. ... " Wikpedia Garden of Priapus - 80 Anal sex on a terra cotta plaque from Mesopotamia, early 2nd millennium BCE (The Israel Museum)
- My guess is that is a bearded priestess of Innana wearing a Mentule sodomizing a penis caged paying male customer in the Temple of Inanna ... Garden of Priapus - 81 Boss lady in red, buff and in tattoos working the mentule on the couch in the rectum of a slave in the penis cage.
Some urgency from the "jinns" on the Babylon stuff! That was once their sweet spot! Last night felt an overwhelming drowsiness when I decided to stop on print 76 - but I did not have enough good enough material to work with!
The urgency followed me in my sleep ... Something urgent trying to get through ...
Like I wrote before - not everyone can do this and do it well ... Garden of Priapus - 82 The large blue Mentule and the tight steel Fibula on butterfly boy - in pre-flight chains ...
I do not think I am mistaken - the phallus was female in Mesopotamia. When you see that - you can expect a bee-hive and torrid sexuality and a queen Bee ...
" ... consider that “The Lady of Largest Heart” which is literally one of the oldest works of literature in the world, written by the first named author in human history (a woman) describes a ritual in which Inanna removes the symbols of womanhood and “consecrates [a] maiden’s heart as male,” then does the same with a man, granting each the role and status of another gender by divine fiat and simultaneously inducting them into her priesthood. She herself appears as whatever gender she pleases, and pays no regard to expectations while doing so. Inanna is no minor deity; she is Queen of Heaven, Priestess of the Gods, winner of the holy me from Enlil, pre-eminent Goddess of sexuality, battles, and all of the arts and sciences and skills of rulership and the social order. ... "Inanna, the Sacred B and the Sacred T, Sara Amis (2015) - patheos Garden of Priapus - 83 Female bearded priestess sodomizing a man drinking beer from a straw - Sumerian or Babylonian terracotta - 2nd to 1st millenium BC.
Labelled male on female, but based on the previous religious poem - “The Lady of Largest Heart” - that's a mentule penetrating the rectum of a man in a fibula or penis cage.
This was probably an everyday experience from men paying to be sodomized in the Temples of the Euphrates. Garden of Priapus - 84 Butterfly boy in tight steel penis cage being sodomized with a large blue mentule ...
What was good for the Inanna priesthood was probably also good for the Babylonian people - So you had men in the penis cage "working the spindle" and women with strap on mentules waging war - as another Sumerian poem declares ...
There are images of normal Sumerian coitus - but given the intensity of Mentule sex and the anal orgasm - most men probably preferred remaining in the penis cage even in their mature years ... *** " ... Inanna in the Ancient World
For the people of Sumer, some three to four thousand years ago, Inanna was already an ancient goddess. Although her origins are still unclear, there are two possible theories as to where she came from before she was adopted by Sumerians. The first possibility is that she emerged as a deity within the polytheistic Semitic groups of the Near East around 3500-4000 B.C.E., and then was eventually adopted by the Sumerians to fill in some gaps in their pantheon, taking on roles that hadn't already been designated as the domain of existing gods and goddesses. The second theory is that Inanna was a syncretic goddess - one who formed as a blend of the characteristics of several already existing deities in the Sumerian world.
Regardless of how she came to be, over time Inanna merged with the figure of Ishtar in the ancient world, and they are often portrayed as one and the same. She was widely venerated all over Mesopotamia, and her cult's primary temple was located in the city of Uruk, near the Euphrates River in what is present-day Iraq. She became known as a queen of both heaven and earth, and soon evolved into a goddess associated not only with war and the underworld, but also with sex and power; much of this is reflected in her mythologies.
Many of Inanna's early priests were androgynous men, and those who were what we today would view as transgender. Her priests were believed to dress in women's clothing, take traditionally female names, and sing lamentations that were historically the domain of feminine worshipers. Some scholars have theorized that the priests of Inanna were similar to those the people of India refer to as hijra. Although there was once a theory that these priests engaged in sacred prostitution, modern scholars have rejected this idea
... Inanna appears in a number of myths and legends that explain her various roles. A Sumerian hymn details how she became a goddess of sexual love, particularly for women. In the story, Inanna asks her twin brother Utu to accompany her to a magical place called the kur, where sacred plants grow; she is forbidden from traveling alone. When they arrive, she wants to eat a sacred fruit of knowledge so that she can learn the secrets of intimacy, telling Utu, What concerns women - namely, men - I do not know. What concerns women - lovemaking - I do not know. Utu relents, allowing her to eat the fruit, and so Inanna becomes aware of the power of her own sexuality.
Her connection to the underworld is portrayed in the myth of her descent into the "great below." When she decided that heaven and earth weren't quite enough, and it was time to expand her domain, Inanna packed up all of her things and traveled to the underworld, where she demanded entrance. As she passed through the seven gates, she was stripped of both her finery and her power, and once arriving at the center, her sister Ereshkigal condemned her to death. Inanna was later revived and restored to life by the magic of her priests.
She was also honored by Sumerians as a violent and bloody war goddess, and one of her hymns reveals that
In her joyful heart she performs the song of death on the plain... Axes smash heads, spears penetrate and maces are covered in blood... On their first offerings she pours blood, filling them with death. ... " Inanna, Goddess War, Sex, and Justice - learnreligions Garden of Priapus - 85 Aspects of Inanna's power: - prancing goats with erect phalli - a submissive lion under her foot, weapons of war and her assistant Ninshubur - also armed. Above them are the double headed Labrys or Amazon axe and the eight pointed star. The palm tree is probably a forbidden garden of Priapus where the sacred fruit is eaten by women - or in other words the rectums of penis caged men are sodomized. Garden of Priapus - 86 Topless boss lady sodomizing a slave in a penis cage - over his cage ...
That's the meaning of the erect goats in the print above - Inanna and her assistant Ninshubur were the goatish and phallic avatars of the Sumerian woman.
***
The Times of Israel, 17 January 2014,: " .. The first plaque shows a man penetrating a woman from behind, while standing. The second, slightly smaller one, depicts a man and woman in a similar position, with the woman drinking beer through a straw from a jug.
According to Dr. Julia Assante, a Near Eastern social historian, the woman drinking beer from a straw was not just a reflection of lifelike sexual encounters, but was “undoubtedly a [visual pun].” The straw in the woman’s mouth and the man raising a cup of wine to his lips were symbolic of performing oral sex on their respective partners. The Babylonians, Assante writes, held “an exalted cultural view of sex as inducing an altered state of wonder.”
Museums are often misconstrued as dusty and lifeless - the least likely place to find something hot and steamy. But the Ancient Near East section in The Israel Museum’s Archaeology Wing features rare erotic art from the land between the rivers (Tigris and Euphrates), which predates India’s Kama Sutra by over 1,500 years. Such astonishingly intimate works reveal a side to the ancient Near East that contrasts sharply with the modesty prevalent in the modern Middle East.
Two clay plaques, small enough to hold in your palm, depict couples copulating in remarkable detail. Dating from the early second millennium BCE, the Old Babylonian period, they come from a 300-year window when mass-produced terra cotta plaques were popular, including those that exhibit sexual acts.
Mesopotamian erotica was “really something racy,” Laura A. Peri, curator of Western Asiatic Antiquities, said when we met in the labyrinthine bowels of the museum. “It’s not all, you know, missionary and that’s it.”
The first plaque shows a man penetrating a woman from behind, while standing. The second, slightly smaller one, depicts a man and woman in a similar position, with the woman drinking beer through a straw from a jug.
According to Dr. Julia Assante, a Near Eastern social historian, the woman drinking beer from a straw was not just a reflection of lifelike sexual encounters, but was “undoubtedly a [visual pun].” The straw in the woman’s mouth and the man raising a cup of wine to his lips were symbolic of performing oral sex on their respective partners. The Babylonians, Assante writes, held “an exalted cultural view of sex as inducing an altered state of wonder.”
The terra cotta plaques from Mesopotamia yield numerous different sexual positions, but one of the most popular was what’s referred to technically by the Latin: coitus a tergo - from behind. While erotic Mesopotamian art doesn’t detail a specific means of entry, anal sex was deemed a popular means of contraception by ancient couples before the invention of prophylactics. The depiction of couples engaging in rear entry may be indicative of that practice. Other plaques show partners side-by-side, standing up (aka llevame) and plain old missionary; some depict women with legs spread, squatting over a comically large phallus.
That the erotic clay plaques were found in temples, graves and private homes makes it difficult to generalize about their intended use, but is testament to their popularity. That excavators found the erotic artwork in high-traffic rooms of homes leads Assante to infer that they were accessible to men, women and children.
“It’s a kind of pop art, because it’s very cheap material and easy to make,” curator Peri said. She explained that sexuality was very prominent in ancient Sumerian and Babylonian art and literature, particularly in the late-third and early-second millennia. Cylinder seals - small cylinder-shaped stones etched with figures and cuneiform used as a signet - occasionally featured men and women in erotic poses. Peri, an expert in understanding the symbolism of the seals, noted that erotic scenes usually weren’t the central image, nor did those seals belong to the king or officials.
Ancient Mesopotamian texts were so graphic in their detailing of the erotic arts that “you can really reenact the actions - what they did between the sheets - according to the descriptions,” Peri explained when we met at her office in The Israel Museum.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia’s great literary work, lauds sex as one of the carnal pleasures humans ought to indulge in during our brief tenure on this planet. Siduri, a divine alewife, tells the eponymous king of Uruk to “let your belly be full, your clothes clean, your body and head washed; enjoy yourself day and night, dance, sing and have fun; look upon the child who holds your hand, and let your wife delight in your lap! This is the destiny of mortals.” Peri explained that “delight in your lap” was a common euphemism for sex in ancient Akkadian, the language in which Gilgamesh was written.
The Gilgamesh epic also describes sexuality as a potent force that distinguishes humans from beasts. Enkidu, the wild man who becomes Gilgamesh’s comrade-in-arms, is tamed by a temple prostitute who ensnares him with her sexual wiles: “She was not restrained, but took his energy.
She spread out her robe and he lay upon her,
She performed for the primitive the task of womankind.”
Israelite and Canaanite artwork, by comparison, typically had very little overt sexuality, only nude female figures that disappeared after the institutionalization of early Judaism in the eighth century BCE. A mid-second millennium BCE Canaanite scarab seal found at Tel el-Far’a - near the junction of the Israeli border with Egypt and the Gaza Strip - shows the figures of a man and woman in a standing posture similar to the clay plaque at The Israel Museum. Both figures are fully clothed, however, and there is no latent intercourse, only the suggestion of it.
Siduri’s advice finds its way into the biblical literature, appearing in a toned-down version in Ecclesiastes 9:7-9. “Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart,” Kohelet says among his many iterations of “under the sun.” But whereas the Mesopotamians spoke of enjoying sex, the Bible enjoins man to “Enjoy life with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity.”
The similarity between the two passages comes as little surprise. Ancient Israel was the land bridge connecting the two major civilizations of the ancient Near East, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and its culture was influenced heavily by both. A stark difference, however, was the difference in ancient Babylonian and Israelite perspectives on male homosexuality. The Babylonians, writes Prof. Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat in her book Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, “didn’t condemn this practice” and observed a live-and-let-live attitude in regard to male-male sex. The Book of Leviticus, on the other hand, bans lying “with mankind, as with womankind” as “an abomination.”
Artifacts from ancient Babylon exhibit latent - even shockingly graphic - sexuality, but the exact purpose of the plaques remains unclear. Dr. Ilan Peled of The Hebrew University said there’s a scholarly debate over what purpose the erotic art served, with some contending they were votive objects for the veneration of Ishtar, the love goddess. Assante argues they were apotropaic, like other terra cotta amulets from the era, meant to keep away evil spirits. Others say that the clay plaques “portrayed prostitution, sexual relations conducted within a tavern, or sexual intercourse between a husband and wife,” with no particular context.
“It is possible that we merely face here a very early version of Playboy, Middle-Eastern style,” Peled said. ... " 4,000-year-old erotica depicts a strikingly racy ancient sexuality, by Ilan Ben Zion (2014) Garden of Priapus - 87 Nude and penis caged man offering a fruit basket to a robed Inanna - on the Uruk Vase, c. 3200-3000 BC.
- That's a pure Garden of Priapus scene. The "fruits" are his sodomized rectum ...
"She was not restrained, but took his energy." - Temple prostitute in the Epic of Gilgamesh *** " ... The Warka Vase, is the oldest ritual vase in carved stone discovered in ancient Sumer and can be dated to round about 3000 B.C. or probably 4th-3rd millennium B.C. It shows men entering the presence of his gods, specifically a cult goddess Innin (Inanna), represented by two bundles of reeds placed side by side symbolizing the entrance to a temple. ... It is over one meter (nearly 4 feet) tall. On the upper tier is a figure of a nude man that may possibly represent the sacrificial king. He approaches the robed queen Inanna. Inanna wears a horned headdress. The Queen of Heaven stands in front of two looped temple poles or "asherah," phallic posts, sacred to the goddess. A group of nude priests bring gifts of baskets of gifts, including, fruits to pay her homage on the lower tier. This vase is now at the Iraq Museum in Bagdad. ... " crystalinks
Garden of Priapus - 88 Young Asian in leather and wearing a mentule finising up a flogging of a restrained young slave
- Flogging is another basic of the Garden of Priapus although it is not in all versions of the Satyricon - That's how Enkidu the wild man was tamed by a temple prostitute in Gilgamesh - "She was not restrained, but took his energy." Garden of Priapus - 89 More young Asian with a mentule whipping a naked and bound man ... Shot partly blocked or altered - In Babylon the Temple prostitutes were a central feature of civilized life - based in Sumerian myth and artefacts they used their mentules in the rectums of paying men in the penis cage:
" ... Shamhat ... is a female character who appears in Tablets I and II of the Epic of Gilgamesh and is mentioned in Tablet VII. She is a sacred prostitute who plays a significant role in bringing the wild man Enkidu into contact with civilization.
... Shamhat plays the integral role in Tablet I, of taming the wild man Enkidu, who was created by the gods as the rival to the mighty Gilgamesh. Shamhat was a sacred temple prostitute or harimtu. She was asked to use her attractiveness to tempt Enkidu from the wild, and his 'wildness', civilizing him through continued sacred love-making. She was brought to a water source where Enkidu had been spotted and exposed herself to Enkidu. He enjoyed Shamhat for "six days and seven nights" (a fragment found in 2015 and read in 2018, disclosed that they had two weeks of sexual intercourse, with a break spent in discussion about Enkidu's future life in Uruk).
Unfortunately for Enkidu, after this long sexual workshop in civility, his former companions, the wild animals, turned away from him in fright, at the watering hole where they congregated. Shamhat persuades him to follow her and join the civilized world in the city of Uruk, where Gilgamesh is king, rejecting his former life in the wild with the wild animals of the hills. Henceforth, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become the best of friends and undergo many adventures (starting with the Cedar Forest and the encounter with Humbaba).
When Enkidu is dying, he expresses his anger at Shamhat for making him civilized, blaming her for bringing him to the new world of experiences that has led to his death. He curses her to become an outcast. The god Shamash reminds Enkidu that Shamhat fed and clothed him. Enkidu relents and blesses her, saying that all men will desire her and offer her gifts of jewels.
... Shamhat's name means literally "the luscious one".
Shamhat's role in bringing Enkidu from nature to civilization through sex has been widely discussed. Rivkah Harris argues that "the intermediate role of the prostitute in transforming Enkidu from one at home with nature and wild animals into a human being is crucial".
According to classicist Paul Friedrich, Shamhat's sexual skills establish "the connection between artful, or sophisticated sensuousness and civilization". Her sexual arts lead Enkidu to understand how basic animal urges can be transformed into something sophisticated, or "civilized". Mesopotamians believed that prostitution was one of the basic features of civilization: "a prime representative of urban life". Shamhat then becomes Enkidu's urbane "mother", teaching him the basics of civilized life, eating, drinking wine, and dressing himself. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 90 Temple prostitute wearing a beard and mentule sodomizing a man bent over and drinking from a straw.
Following poem is given as proof that this is a male-male sexual encounter. I disagree though. In Babylon, men were women thanks to the penis cage and women were men thanks to the mentule ... The double axe or Labrys above- plate 85 - is proof that Babylon was an Amazon civilization ... See: A Male Prostitute’s Incantation (KAR 144/K 3464) July 6, 2016 - mostlydeadlanguages “An incantation for profit to the innkeeper of the docks”
Ishtar of the nations, most heroic of the goddesses,
this is your sanctum. Be happy and rejoice!
Come, enter our house.
Let your handsome bed-partner enter with you,
your seducer or your temple-boy. [1]
May my lips be sugar-syrup;
may my hands be sensual;
may the lips of my “hole” be honeyed lips. [2]
Just like birds flutter over a snake as it emerges from its pit,
may people fight each other over me! [3]
From the sanctum of Ishtar or the abode of Ninlil,
even from the herds of Ningizzida: [4]
seize him and bring him to me, so I can please him!
If he is faraway, may he return; if he is upset, may he come back.
May his heart come back to me, good as gold.
Just like the sky fertilizes the earth, so that plants became abundant,
so may I overflow with my bounty! [5]
[1] “Seducer” (habbubu) is a very rare word in Akkadian, but it comes from a verb (to caress, make love) that most famously describes Gilgamesh’s behavior toward his lover Enkidu. In all the verb’s appearances, it describes active male sexual behavior. In contrast, “temple-boy” (kulu’u) described one group of Ishtar’s priests, men who were frequently identified with sexual, feminine behavior. Thus, both terms describe a male sexual partner, but they portray the range from an active, “masculine” man to a passive, “feminine” man.
[2] “Hole” (kipattu) is a notoriously difficult word to translate, because it only appears in this one place. Because “lips” are a common description of the female vulva, most translators suggest that meaning. However, the word may be connected to kippatu, a term for “circle, hoop, loop.” “Circle, loop” could potentially describe the vulva, but it seems more appropriate as a metaphor for the anal sphincter. It also rhymes nicely with qinnatu, a term for the buttocks that was used to describe anal sex. While this translation must remain speculative until another instance of the word is found, it is certainly at least as plausible as “vulva.”
[3] Almost all translators note the phallic connotations of the snake emerging from its hole, and its double entendre is further bolstered by a wordplay: “flutter” can refer to birds chirping and tweeting, but it’s also the same verb for sexual caresses (habubu) that appeared earlier. The meaning of this metaphor is thus crystal-clear: the subject is the emerging snake, and the clients are the birds, vying with each other to lavish sexual attention. But if the snake is a phallic metaphor, then the obvious conclusion is that the subject, like the clients, is male.
[4] The “sanctum” of Ishtar was a space where sacred sexual rites took place, and Ninlil was the wife of Enlil, so her abode would also be a cultic space. In contrast, Ningizzida was a god who guarded the underworld. His invocation represents a hyperbolic extreme: Ishtar should bring the subject new suitors, even if she has to dredge them up from the legions of the dead.
[5] The meaning of this last line is unclear, and I have translated it rather vaguely. The most common understanding is “may my malt-baskets abound”; malt-baskets were used in brewing beer. In this case, the baskets could be literal (more clients would result in higher demand for alcohol) or metaphorical (either for general economic success, or as a sexual connotation of the fecund sprouting malt).
I have not translated the ritual instructions here, but they involve gathering dust from various urban locations, providing ritual offerings to Ishtar, and repeating the incantation several times. Notably, the instructions are in the second-person masculine (“you should recite the incantation seven times,” etc.). This does not preclude a female subject for the spell, since sometimes male priests would recite incantations intended for a female client. However, it does mean that a man would have recited these words, “honeyed lips” and all.
For a recent, exhaustive study that includes the original text, check out Panayotov’s “A Ritual For A Flourishing Bordello.” Garden of Priapus - 91 Nude penis caged men and devotional malt-baskets presented for a robed goddess Inanna. The Warka Vase.
- From the King on down men are naked and penis caged in front of a robed high priestess of Inanna. Female on male anal sex and drinking of beer would follow - as in the Roman Garden of Priapus.
May his heart come back to me, good as gold.
Just like the sky fertilizes the earth, so that plants became abundant,
so may I overflow with my bounty!
- “An incantation for profit to the innkeeper of the docks Garden of Priapus - 92 Asian soldier sodomizing a slave in a pillory while boss lady whips him
What happened to the nude and penis caged basket bearers above - from King on down ... King Gilgamesh resisted anal sex with Inanna - to check his unlawful ambition the gods created Enkidu - the wild man ... and a mad bull too " ... Mesopotamian Views of Culture and Civilization: Enkidu and the Harlot, January 16, 2017 by Abhijeet Pratap
What does the story of Enkidu’s education by the prostitute tell us about Mesopotamian views of culture and civilization?
Sex is like a rite of passage for Enkidu. It is the harlot that introduces him to the society and the civilization. She educates Enkidu about several things and not just sex. The prostitute tells him about the Uruk society and how it is controlled by a mighty king. The first thing that gets clear from the prostitute’s education of Enkidu is that the royalty held enormous power in the Mesopotamian society and that it could act unrestrained. It shows how the ancient Mesopotamian culture equated the royalty with God. The harlot brings Enkidu to challenge Gilgamesh.
She says, “‘Let us go, and let him see your face. I know very well where Gilgamesh is in great Uruk. O Enkidu, there all the people are dressed in their gorgeous robes, every day is a holiday, the young men and the girls are wonderful to see. How sweet they smell! All the great ones are roused from their beds. O Enkidu, you who love life, I will show you Gilgamesh, a man of many moods; you shall look at him well in his radiant manhood. His body is perfect in strength and maturity; he never rests by night or day. He is stronger than you, so leave your boasting. Shamash the glorious sun has given favours to Gilgamesh, and Anu of the heavens, and Enlil, and Ea the wise has given him deep understanding. I tell you, even before you have left the wilderness, Gilgamesh will know in his dreams that you are coming”.
In the Mesopotamian view of culture and civilization, the divinity was at the top, then were the royalty. The common man was at the lower rung and at the lowest step were the poor and the outlaws. There are three very important things that the Prostitute educates Enkidu about. The first is the enormous clout of the royalty. She tells Enkidu how Gilgamesh lords it over all the others. Next is the divinity. She tells of the Gods and Goddesses that were worshiped and revered by the Mesopotamian society. In this way she also clarifies the special relationship between divinity and royalty to Enkidu. The royalty is blessed by the divinity and exercises the special powers granted to it. The ancient Mesopotamian culture and civilization as they reflect in her words show a strong faith in the Sun God and a depiction of the heavens and other minor Gods and Goddesses that serve as a link between humanity and the higher divinity.
Readers also get some demonstration of the way of life in ancient Mesopotamia and that of its colorfulness. People wear colorful robes and lead happy lives. It shows that ancient Mesopotamia was wealthy where people wore perfumed clothes and led cheerful lives. Both culture and civilization were flourishing in ancient Mesopotamia and this picture gets clear from the advice the harlot gives to Enkidu. Moreover, this culture revered the divinity greatly and royalty was considered to have divine rights. The rest of the society was inferior to it and therefore under its control. The strong walled Uruk and the blessed temple of Ishtar and Anu are examples of great Mesopotamian architecture. Gilgamesh’s palace has been compared to heavens. It all shows that as a culture and civilization Mesopotamia was flourishing where people were happy signifying economic strength. The temples and palaces depicted in the story show a culture rich in arts and architecture. ... " notesmatic Garden of Priapus - 93 Boss lady as a Nazi sodomizing a slave on a cross ...
An Inanna rite of passage and day to day reality for all penis caged Babylonian men.
- The Nazi regalia is not out of place - Babylon was next door the mythical Sanskrit "Aryan" civilizaition that almost certainly had a similar female on male anal sex requirement ... And Inanna had a dual aspect - Venus as sex goddess but also Venus as bloodthirsty destroyer Tweet By Cheryl Morgan on May 2, 2017 in Ancient World
" .. To destroy, to create, to tear out, to establish are yours, Inanna.
To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inanna.
Those are the words of Enheduanna, High Priestess of the Moon in the Sumerian city of Ur. They are part of her poem, Passionate Inanna, which she wrote in the 23rd Century BCE. Enheduanna is the earliest known example of someone signing their name to a literary work.
Inanna, who became, or merged with, Ishtar in the successor civilizations of Babylon and Assyria, is a fascinating character who is often described as liminal, paradoxical or contradictory. Some commentators have even described her as androgynous, though this appears to be a misunderstanding of the source material made by people unfamiliar with gender theory.
There have been suggestions that Inanna has been described as bearded. In some cases this is probably no more than gender performance, an indication of her might. In others it is a misunderstanding of references to the appearance of Inanna’s astronomical aspect, the planet Venus.
Translators of ancient languages wisely tend towards literal renderings so as to avoid interpretation, but Enheduanna’s words might be referring to gender stereotypes. A possible interpretation might be simply, “To make a man meek and a woman brave are yours, Inanna.” Besides, the actions of gods belong in the realm of myth, not real life. Do we have any evidence of actual gender transition in Sumerian society?
One well known text of similar antiquity to Enheduanna’s work describes a religious festival held in honour of Inanna. It describes the celebrants as follows:
The people of Sumer parade before you.
[ - ]
The male prostitutes comb their hair before you.
They decorate the napes of their necks with coloured scarfs.
[ - ]
The women adorn their right side with men’s clothing.
[ - ]
The men adorn their left side with women’s clothing.
[ - ]
The ascending kurgarra priests raise their swords before you.
This has led commentators to state that Inanna’s temples employed “transvestites.” Can we cite these comments as evidence for the existence of trans people in the earliest human civilization? That rather depends upon what we mean by “trans people.” In modern parlance the term “transvestite” would usually refer to people who identify as male but wear women’s clothing at times for various reasons. However, many of these commentators, especially those from the twentieth century and earlier, may not have seen any difference between such cross-dressers and other trans people who identify strongly as female and seek to live as such for their entire lives.
We must be careful not to impose modern ideas of identity on the ancient world. The Western concept of the transsexual relies in part on medical technology not available to the ancients. However, people such as two spirits from North America and hijra from India have traditions dating back into antiquity. And even modern non-binary people often don’t identify as transsexual. The use of trans as an umbrella term allows us to encompass a variety of identities, including those from history.
The description of the festival appears to show the people of the city cross-dressing specifically for the purpose of the celebration. Indeed the whole thing sounds very like a gay pride parade, with lots of people just dressing up for the party. We must be careful to exclude any recreational cross-dressing, but look instead for evidence of lives lived outside of the narrow gender binary.
Gwendolyn Leick speculates that some of Inanna’s gender variant cult workers may have played a role similar to that of the hijra in Indian society. There is certainly evidence to support the suggestion. To find it we need to look for other references to the gender of Inanna’s followers. The myth of Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld, thought to be a mythic explanation of where Venus goes in between being the morning star and evening star, survives in different versions from different periods of Mesopotamian history. In all of them Inanna is captured by Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, and has to be rescued by the other gods.
A Sumerian version of the myth explains how the god Enki sends two emissaries, a kurgarra and a galatur, to rescue the goddess by tricking Ereshkigal into granting them a boon. There is a temptation to assume that these are simply types of demon, except that both are known from other texts as names for people associated with Inanna’s cult. The kurgarra march in the festival brandishing swords, so they are not meek and girly, but then they do serve a goddess who is often shown bristling with weapons and riding on a lion. We shouldn’t make gender-normative assumptions about anything to do with Inanna.
The gala, on the other hand, appear more effeminate. A gala is a temple employee whose job it is to sing lamentations, and a galatur is simply a junior gala. They appear to have spoken a Sumerian dialect called Emesal which was possibly reserved for women.
One well-known statuette of a person named Ur-Nanshe was found in the Sumerian city of Mari. An inscription on the back describes this person as a master singer and includes a dedication to a version of Inanna. The statuette has a soft face, a suggestion of eye make-up, is clean-shaven, has long hair and a suggestion of breasts. Although Ur-Nanshe is a male name, the statuette has variously been gendered as female and a eunuch as well. The original dig report has a lengthy section on the gender of the person depicted. Singers of lamentations, of course, might well be required to have a high-pitched voice, suggesting possible castration in childhood. Then again, the inscription states that Ur-Nanshe is a “naru,” a singer, not specifically a “gala.” Also we can’t be certain that the Sumerians followed our own conventions for gendered representation of people. Man-boobs do exist, and the statuette’s maker might simply have shown them honestly. All of this makes precise interpretation very difficult.
Another clue might be the mention of male sex workers in the description of the festival. One Sumerian proverb refers to a gala wiping “that which belongs to my mistress” from his backside. That’s presumably a reference to semen as Inanna is a fertility goddess. A possible literal translation of the word “gala” is “penis-anus.”
In an Assyrian version of the story the kurgarra and galatur are replaced by an assinnu. Stephanie Dalley coyly translates this as “Good-looks the playboy,” but the word “assinnu” is often translated as “feminine man” and there are references in other documents that have been taken to indicate assinnu doing sex work.
Further evidence comes from the Babylonian poem, The Epic of Erra. This also references kurgarra and assinnu, of whom the poet says, “Whose maleness Ishtar turned female, for the awe of the people.”
A complication is that some Sumerian sources refer to women who are the wives of gala, and even a few gala that have children (ironically one of the best known examples is a gala called Dada). Possible explanations for this include that gala are associated with more than one god, and only Inanna requires castration; or that we are seeing a change in the status and function of gala over time.
I note also that it is probable, given a sizeable population of gala, that they would have exhibited a range of gender identities and sexualities. Babylonian law has extensive provision governing adoption, so the concept is likely to have been known in Sumer. Therefore queer families were not out of the question.
Possibly the clearest evidence, however, comes from a fragment of a statue held in the archives of the British Museum, dating probably from the late third millennium BCE. It is only the right shoulder and arm, but it bears an inscription. The British Museum’s Dr. Irving Finkel translated this as: “Silimabzuta, hermaphrodite of Inanna.”
The term hermaphrodite is, of course, of post-Sumerian invention, and these days carries a specific biological meaning. The literal translation is more like, “person-man-woman.” The term “man-woman” is found in many cultures when referring to trans people. It doesn’t necessarily mean that Silimabzuta was a eunuch or intersex. It may simply indicate social gender transition. What it does say very clearly is that someone in Sumer recognized the existence of people who were neither man nor woman.
The presence of people living outside of the gender binary in the ancient world doesn’t necessarily imply social acceptance, and over thousands of years attitudes can change. In the Assyrian version of The Descent, Ereshkigal curses the assinnu to be shunned by the rest of society. This is an addition to the Sumerian text, implying a possible downgrading of the status of gender diverse people in Assyria as compared to Sumer. What does seem probable is that in the cradle of human civilisation people were not only living lives outside of the gender binary, but in doing so played a key role in important religious ceremonies. ... " notchesblog Garden of Priapus - 94 Boss lady grabbing the "apples" or balls of a caged slave that she is sodomizing
Inanna was Venus with a penis! - All sex, all the time ... Garden of Priapus - 95 Inanna with a beard and a strap on mentule sodomizing her shepard lover Dumuzdi - The archetype of Sumerian sacred sex!
Terracotta votive plaque dating to the Old Babylonian Period(c. 1830 BC to c. 1531) Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing, Israel Museum, Jerusalem The western model of this was Aphrodite and Adonis - and Aphrodite is famous for having a phallus! " ... The myth of Inanna and Dumuzid later became the basis for the Greek myth of Aphrodite and Adonis. The Greek name Adonis, is derived from the Canaanite word adon , meaning "lord". The earliest known Greek reference to Adonis comes from a fragment of a poem by the Lesbian poetess Sappho, dating to the seventh century BC, in which a chorus of young girls asks Aphrodite what they can do to mourn Adonis's death. Aphrodite replies that they must beat their breasts and tear their tunics. Later rescensions of the Adonis legend reveal that he was believed to have been slain by a wild boar during a hunting trip. According to Lucian's De Dea Syria, each year during the festival of Adonis, the Adonis River in Lebanon (now known as the Abraham River) ran red with blood. ... " Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 96 More Asian female on male sodomy - She roughly brought an orgasm to the man locked in the penis cage and humbler - That's the rare male ass orgasm!
That was Sumerian sex ... Especially in the ritual form when the goddess Inanna in the form of the Temple prostitute penetrated the male supplicant with a mentule - The Hieros Gamos ... The images from the excerpt below call to mind the breaking of a horse - the only way to do that is to ride it while locking up or cutting off its genitals! The inner images are backed up by Sumerian myth and poetry ... New Gilgamesh Fragment: Enkidu's Sexual Exploits Doubled, by Sophus Hellem 28 November 2018
" ... The Epic of Gilgamesh is a Babylonian story about the eponymous hero Gilgamesh, the legendary king of the city of Uruk, in what is now Iraq. Thousands of years before Homer, the people of ancient Iraq composed poetry, debated the meaning of life, and studied the movement of the stars. These cultures - the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian - wrote their texts in the cuneiform script on tablets made of clay. Unlike the papyrus of the ancient Egyptians, clay can easily endure the passage of time, and so cuneiform tablets have survived in huge numbers. Archaeologists have uncovered around half a million texts written in cuneiform. But unbaked clay is also quite brittle, so the tablets usually do not come to us intact, but in bits and pieces. Today, philologists like Kleinerman, Gadotti, and George are hard at work piecing the fragments back together, but there is a long way to go. We are still just beginning to explore the treasure trove that is Babylonian literature.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is undoubtedly the most famous of these cuneiform texts. It is not, as is often claimed, the earliest known work of literature, in fact there are literary texts that are almost a thousand years older than the epic. But Gilgamesh is still a remarkable text. The fact that it continues to captivate readers from all the world, millennia after its original composition, tells you just how extraordinary the epic really is.
In the course of eleven tablets, we are told the story of Gilgamesh's friendship with the wild man Enkidu, and his failed search for immortality after Enkidu dies. As a young king, Gilgamesh is afflicted by a powerful restlessness. There is “a storm in his heart”, an abundance of energy that leads him to abuse the citizens of Uruk. Exhausted by his constant excess, the Urukeans pray for help. The gods decide to create Enkidu as a friend for Gilgamesh, hoping that the new playmate will keep the king occupied.
Enkidu grows up among the animals of the steppe, until one day he comes face to face with a hunter. Terrified by this savage creature the hunter asks his father what to do, and he is told to go to Uruk and present the problem to Gilgamesh. The king tells the hunter to bring a woman named Shamhat to the steppe. She will seduce Enkidu and thereby separate him from his animal companions. The hunter and Shamhat journey out into the wild, where they find Enkidu by a watering hole. Shamhat strips off her clothes and lures Enkidu into having sex with her for six days and seven nights. After this marathon of love, Enkidu finds that he has lost his raw animal strength, having instead gained the consciousness and intellect of a human being.
One or two scenes?
The Epic of Gilgamesh exists in a number of different versions. First, it was told as a cycle of independent poems in the Sumerian language. Then, the various threads of the story were woven together to form a single epic, in the Akkadian language. This is known as the Old Babylonian version, and it was composed c. 19th - 17th century BCE. Later, the epic was reworked, expanded, and updated to create what is known as the Standard Babylonian version. This is the version that is most often read today, and it was most likely composed around the 11th century BCE.
Sometimes the same episode is preserved in both an Old Babylonian and a Standard Babylonian version, allowing us to compare the different recensions. For example, Gilgamesh has two dreams that foreshadow his friendship with Enkidu, and though the gist of the episode is the same, the Standard Babylonian recension is more schematic and repetitive, as opposed to the livelier Old Babylonian text. Scholars used to think that the scene where Enkidu becomes human by having sex with Shamhat also existed in both an Old Babylonian and a Standard Babylonian version. Though there are slight differences between them, the sequence of events is essentially the same: the two make love for a week, and then Shamhat invites Enkidu to come to Uruk.
But the new tablet shows that this cannot be the case. The fragment gives us relatively little text, but it does provide us with a missing link between other, more fully preserved manuscripts. However, it joins these manuscripts in a way that is not at all what we expected. The new tablet contains both the end of the Old Babylonian episode, and the beginning of the Standard Babylonian one. Accordingly, the two episodes cannot be different versions of the same scene. Instead, both versions preserve one part of the same sequence: Enkidu and Shamhat have sex for a week, Shamhat invites Enkidu to Uruk, they have sex for a second week, and then Shamhat invites Enkidu to Uruk again.
How to be human
The discovery makes Enkidu and Shamhat's sexual marathon all the more impressive: two weeks of sex in a row is a daunting (if not unappealing) prospect. But the new tablet is also important for another reason. The two versions of the episode are slightly different, and since we now know these episodes to be part of the same story, the differences become all the more important.
In a nutshell, the differences between the two episodes reflect different stages of Enkidu's transition from an animal to a human being. The discovery allows us to study this transition in more detail: What does it mean to become human? What steps lead from a life among the animals to a full human consciousness? What did humanity entail for the ancient Babylonians?
The first time Shamhat invites Enkidu to come to Uruk she describes Gilgamesh as superb in strength and horned like a bull. Enkidu readily accepts her invitation, saying that he will come to Uruk - but only to challenge Gilgamesh and usurp his power. “I shall change the order of things”, he declares. “The one born in the wild is mighty, he has strength.” Though Enkidu has learned to plan and speak like a human being, his way of thinking is still very much that of a wild animal: he immediately sees Gilgamesh as an alpha male, a rival bull to be defeated. The only thing that matters to him at this point is strength and domination.
But the second time Shamhat invites him to Uruk, after they have had sex for yet another week, he sees things differently. Shamhat says that she will lead him to the temple, home of Anu, the god of heaven. Rather than change the order of things, Enkidu is to find a place for himself in society: “Where men are engaged in labours of skill, you, too, like a true man, will make a place for yourself.” Enkidu, now wiser after a second bout of civilizing sex, is ready to accept this invitation. “He heard her words, he consented to what she said: a woman's counsel struck home in his heart.” He has understood the value of urban life, accepting the fact that human society is not all about domination and strength, but also about cooperation and skill. Each human being is part of a larger social fabric, where everyone must find their own place.
What is interesting about this is that the epic tells that becoming human is a two-step process. First, one must learn to think like a human being, and second, one must learn to think like a member of society. After the first week of sex Enkidu may have acquired human language and a capacity for reflection, but he is still stuck in the world of animals: he thinks only in terms of challenging rivals and locking horns. To become fully human, he must learn to see himself not as an individual who has to assert his own strength, but as a social being who must participate in the life of the city. ... " worldhistory Garden of Priapus - 97 Asian female on male sodomy part 2
The ass orgasm over the locked penis - Sumeria was an Amazon civilization. - And sex was out in the open. The part that's left out is what kind of sex. I am certain it was Amazon sex - or the female Mentule in the male Anus.
The Roman Priapea almost certainly originates in ancient Babylon - although the same thing also occured in ancient Egypt - the phallic but female Sekhmet -Min and Hathor and Horus and the penis caged Egyptian man ... *** Sacred female on male sex in Sumeria was not restricted to prostitutes - all women were required to have sex in the temple with a paying customer at least once in their lives. This practice continued in the Roman temple of Aphrodite - who had a female phallus: Love, Sex, and Marriage in Ancient Mesopotamia, by Joshua J. Mark - 16 May 2014 " ... Herodotus reports that every woman, at least once in her lifetime, had to sit outside the temple of Ishtar (Inanna) and agree to have sex with whatever stranger chose her. This custom was thought to ensure the fertility and continued prosperity of the community. As a woman's virginity was considered requisite for a marriage, it would seem unlikely that unmarried women would have taken part in this and yet Herodotus states that `every woman' was required to. The practice of sacred prostitution, as Herodotus describes it, has been challenged by many modern-day scholars but his description of the bride auction has not. Herodotus writes:
Once a year in each village the young women eligible to marry were collected all together in one place; while the men stood around them in a circle. Then a herald called up the young women one by one and offered them for sale. He began with the most beautiful. When she was sold for a high price, he offered for sale the one who ranked next in beauty. All of them were then sold to be wives. The richest of the Babylonians who wished to wed bid against each other for the loveliest young women, while the commoners, who were not concerned about beauty, received the uglier women along with monetary compensation ...All who liked might come, even from distant villages, and bid for the women. This was the best of all their customs but it has now fallen into disuse. (Histories I: 196) ... " worldhistory
Garden of Priapus - 98 Asian female on male sodomy part 3 *** More data on sex in Mesopotamia - but this is through the anglo female sexual eye. The carnal nature of female sex during the penis caged Greco-Roman era is missing - also the hieros gamos between Inanna and the King is seen as purely symbolic not physical ...
In ancient Mesopotamia, sex among the gods shook heaven and earth, by Louise Pryke April 22, 2018
" ....Sexuality was central to life in ancient Mesopotamia, an area of the Ancient Near East often described as the cradle of western civilisation roughly corresponding to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, and parts of Syria, Iran and Turkey. It was not only so for everyday humans but for kings and even deities.
Mesopotamian deities shared many human experiences, with gods marrying, procreating and sharing households and familial duties. However when love went wrong, the consequences could be dire in both heaven and on earth.
Scholars have observed the similarities between the divine “marriage machine” found in ancient literary works and the historical courtship of mortals, although it is difficult to disentangle the two, most famously in so-called “sacred marriages”, which saw Mesopotamian kings marrying deities.
Divine sex
Gods, being immortal and generally of superior status to humans, did not strictly need sexual intercourse for population maintenance, yet the practicalities of the matter seem to have done little to curb their enthusiasm.
Sexual relationships between Mesopotamian deities provided inspiration for a rich variety of narratives. These include Sumerian myths such as Enlil and Ninlil and Enki and Ninhursag, where the complicated sexual interactions between deities was shown to involve trickery, deception and disguise.
In both myths, a male deity adopts a disguise, and then attempts to gain sexual access to the female deity - or to avoid his lover’s pursuit. In the first, the goddess Ninlil follows her lover Enlil down into the Underworld, and barters sexual favours for information on Enlil’s whereabouts. The provision of a false identity in these myths is used to circumnavigate societal expectations of sex and fidelity.
Sexual betrayal could spell doom not only for errant lovers but for the whole of society. When the Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal, is abandoned by her lover, Nergal, she threatens to raise the dead unless he is returned to her, alluding to her right to sexual satiety.
The goddess Ishtar makes the same threat in the face of a romantic rejection from the king of Uruk in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is interesting to note that both Ishtar and Ereshkigal, who are sisters, use one of the most potent threats at their disposal to address matters of the heart.
The plots of these myths highlight the potential for deceit to create alienation between lovers during courtship. The less-than-smooth course of love in these myths, and their complex use of literary imagery, have drawn scholarly comparisons with the works of Shakespeare.
Love poetry
Ancient authors of Sumerian love poetry, depicting the exploits of divine couples, show a wealth of practical knowledge on the stages of female sexual arousal. It’s thought by some scholars that this poetry may have historically had an educational purpose: to teach inexperienced young lovers in ancient Mesopotamia about intercourse. It’s also been suggested the texts had religious purposes, or possibly magical potency.
Several texts write of the courtship of a divine couple, Inanna (the Semitic equivalent of Ishtar) and her lover, the shepherd deity Dumuzi. The closeness of the lovers is shown through a sophisticated combination of poetry and sensuousness imagery - perhaps providing an edifying example for this year’s Bad Sex in Fiction nominees.
In one of the poems, elements of the female lover’s arousal are catalogued, from the increased lubrication of her vulva, to the “trembling” of her climax. The male partner is presented delighting in his partner’s physical form, and speaking kindly to her. The feminine perspective on lovemaking is emphasised in the texts through the description of the goddess’ erotic fantasies. These fantasies are part of the preparations of the goddess for her union, and perhaps contribute to her sexual satisfaction.
Female and male genitals could be celebrated in poetry, the presence of dark pubic hair on the goddess’ vulva is poetically described through the symbolism of a flock of ducks on a well-watered field or a narrow doorway framed in glossy black lapis-lazuli.
The representation of genitals may also have served a religious function: temple inventories have revealed votive models of pubic triangles, some made of clay or bronze. Votive offerings in the shape of vulvae have been found in the city of Assur from before 1000 BC.
Happy goddess, happy kingdom
Divine sex was not the sole preserve of the gods, but could also involve the human king. Few topics from Mesopotamia have captured the imagination as much as the concept of sacred marriage. In this tradition, the historical Mesopotamian king would be married to the goddess of love, Ishtar. There is literary evidence for such marriages from very early Mesopotamia, before 2300 BC, and the concept persevered into much later periods.
The relationship between historical kings and Mesopotamian deities was considered crucial to the successful continuation of earthly and cosmic order. For the Mesopotamian monarch, then, the sexual relationship with the goddess of love most likely involved a certain amount of pressure to perform.
Some scholars have suggested these marriages involved a physical expression between the king and another person (such as a priestess) embodying the goddess. The general view now is that if there were a physical enactment to a sacred marriage ritual it would have been conducted on a symbolic level rather than a carnal one, with the king perhaps sharing his bed with a statue of the deity.
Agricultural imagery was often used to describe the union of goddess and king. Honey, for instance, is described as sweet like the goddess’ mouth and vulva.
A love song from the city of Ur between 2100-2000 BC is dedicated to Shu-Shin, the king, and Ishtar:
In the bedchamber dripping with honey let us enjoy over and over your allure, the sweet thing. Lad, let me do the sweetest things to you. My precious sweet, let me bring you honey.
Sex in this love poetry is depicted as a pleasurable activity that enhanced loving feelings of intimacy. This sense of increased closeness was considered to bring joy to the heart of the goddess, resulting in good fortune and abundance for the entire community - perhaps demonstrating an early Mesopotamian version of the adage “happy wife, happy life”.
The diverse presentation of divine sex creates something of a mystery around the causes for the cultural emphasis on cosmic copulation. While the presentation of divine sex and marriage in ancient Mesopotamia likely served numerous purposes, some elements of the intimate relationships between gods shows some carry-over to mortal unions.
While dishonesty between lovers could lead to alienation, positive sexual interactions held countless benefits, including greater intimacy and lasting happiness. ... " theconversation Garden of Priapus - 99 The phallic Min left - Middle, a nude goddess and standing on a lion -maybe Astrate a biblical version of Inanna. 19th dynasty Egypt.
" ... British Museum EA 191, upper register of limestone stele of chief craftsman Qeh. Naked goddess identified as ‘Ke(d)eshet, lady of heaven’ flanked by the ithyphallic Egyptian god Min and Syro-Palestinian god Reshep. Deir el-Medina (Dynasty 19). Photograph - Trustees of the British Museum.
“Her name Qds(-t) simply means ‘holy’. As such, it can be attached to almost any goddess, including the whole of the A-team: Anat, Astarte, Asherah and Athirat. The question is: did there exist an independent goddess named Qedeshet at all? She is not known from any Canaanite or Ugaritic texts or inscriptions. Rather, she only appears as a named goddess in Egypt. There, she is honoured with such typical titles as ‘Lady of heaven’ and ‘Mistress of all the gods’ - which are not specific to her but could equally apply to any goddess in Egypt.” ... " therealsamizdat.
King Solomon was rumoured to be a follower of Astrate.: " ...In Israel, her worship is associated with the Sidonians, but Solomon in his later years went after "Ashtoreth, goddess of the Sidonians" (i Kings 11:5), and *Josiah destroyed the cult places which Solomon had built on the "Mount of Corruption (see: *Mount of Olives) for Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Sidonians" (ii Kings 23:13). ... " Ashtoreth, encyclopedia In Greece she bacame the phallic Aphrodite - who with the catamite Bacchus gave birth to Priapus. - At midnight in the cult of Aphrodite the sexes switched clothes and the women became men sexually ... An import from the Babylon Inanna/King of Sumeria sex cult ***
" ... Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess Astoreth (Northwest Semitic), a form of Ishtar (East Semitic), worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name is particularly associated with her worship in the ancient Levant among the Canaanites and Phoenicians. She was also celebrated in Egypt following the importation of Levantine cults there. The name Astarte is sometimes also applied to her cults in Mesopotamian cultures like Assyria and Babylonia.
Astarte is one of a number of names associated with the chief goddess or female divinity of both Canaanite and Phoenicians. She is recorded in Akkadian as As-dar-tu , the feminine form of Ishtar. The name appears in Ugaritic as Athtart or Attart , in Phoenician as Ashtart or Ashtart , in Hebrew as Ashtoret The Hebrews also referred to the Ashtarot or "Astartes" in the plural. The Etruscan Pyrgi Tablets record the name Uni-Astre
Astarte was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Pictorial representations often show her naked. She has been known as the deified morning and/or evening star. The deity takes on many names and forms among different cultures, and according to Canaanite mythology, is one and the same as the Assyro-Babylonian goddess Ishtar, taken from the third millennium BC Sumerian goddess Inanna, the first and primordial goddess of the planet Venus. Inanna was also known by the Aramaic people as the god Attar, whose myth was construed in a different manner by the people of Greece to align with their own cultural myths and legends, when the Canaanite merchants took the First papyrus from Byblos (the Phoenician city of Gebal) to Greece sometime before the 8th century by a Phoenician called Cadmus the first King of Thebes.
Astarte was worshipped in Syria and Canaan beginning in the first millennium BC and was first mentioned in texts from Ugarit. She came from the same Semitic origins as the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, and an Ugaritic text specifically equates her with Ishtar. Her worship spread to Cyprus, where she may have been merged with an ancient Cypriot goddess. This merged Cypriot goddess may have been adopted into the Greek pantheon in Mycenaean and Dark Age times to form Aphrodite. It has been argued, however, that Astarte's character was less erotic and more warlike than Ishtar originally was, perhaps because she was influenced by the Canaanite goddess Anat, and that therefore Ishtar, not Astarte, was the direct forerunner of the Cypriot goddess. Greeks in classical, Hellenistic, and Roman times occasionally equated Aphrodite with Astarte and many other Near Eastern goddesses, in keeping with their frequent practice of syncretizing other deities with their own.
Other major centers of Astarte's worship were the Phoenician city states of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos. Coins from Sidon portray a chariot in which a globe appears, presumably a stone representing Astarte. "She was often depicted on Sidonian coins as standing on the prow of a galley, leaning forward with right hand outstretched, being thus the original of all figureheads for sailing ships." In Sidon, she shared a temple with Eshmun. Coins from Beirut show Poseidon, Astarte, and Eshmun worshipped together.
Other centers were Cythera, Malta, and Eryx in Sicily from which she became known to the Romans as Venus Erycina. A bilingual inscription on the Pyrgi Tablets dating to about 500 BC found near Caere in Etruria equates Astarte with Etruscan Uni-Astre, that is, Juno. At Carthage Astarte was worshipped alongside the goddess Tanit.
The Aramean goddess Atargatis may originally have been equated with Astarte, but the first element of the name Atargatis appears to be related to the Ugaritic form of Asherah's name: Athirat.
Allat the pre-Islamic Arabian deity and Astarte may have been assimilated to each other, and the two were closely linked. On one of the tesserae used by the Bel Yedi'ebel for a religious banquet at the temple of Bel the deity Allat was given the name Astarte. The assimilation of Allat to Astarte is not surprising in a milieu as much exposed to Aramaean and Phoenician influences as the one in which the Palmyrene theologians lived. Similar to Astarte, Allat was as well associated with morning star (Venus),] war, prosperity, and lions.
In the Baal Epic of Ugarit, Athirat, the consort of the god El, plays a role. She is clearly distinguished from Ashtart in the Ugaritic documents, although in non-Ugaritic sources from later periods the distinction between the two goddesses can be blurred; either as a result of scribal error or through possible syncretism.
Astarte arrived in ancient Egypt during the 18th dynasty along with other deities who were worshipped by northwest Semitic people. She was especially worshipped in her aspect as a warrior goddess, often paired with the goddess Anat.
In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Ra and are given as allies to the god Set, here identified with the Semitic name Hadad. Astarte also was identified with the lioness warrior goddess Sekhmet, but seemingly more often conflated, at least in part, with Isis to judge from the many images found of Astarte suckling a small child. Indeed, there is a statue of the 6th century BC in the Cairo Museum, which normally would be taken as portraying Isis with her child Horus on her knee and which in every detail of iconography follows normal Egyptian conventions, but the dedicatory inscription reads: "Gersaphon, son of Azor, son of Slrt, man of Lydda, for his Lady, for Astarte." See G. Daressy, (1905) pl. LXI (CGC 39291).
Plutarch, in his On Isis and Osiris, indicates that the King and Queen of Byblos, who, unknowingly, have the body of Osiris in a pillar in their hall, are Melcarthus (i.e. Melqart) and Astarte (though he notes some instead call the Queen Saosis or Nemanūs, which Plutarch interprets as corresponding to the Greek name Athenais). ... Ashteroth Karnaim (Astarte was called Ashteroth in the Hebrew Bible) was a city in the land of Bashan east of the Jordan River, mentioned in Genesis 14:5 and Joshua 12:4 (where it is rendered solely as Ashteroth). The name translates literally to 'Ashteroth of the Horns', with 'Ashteroth' being a Canaanite fertitility goddess and 'horns' being symbolic of mountain peaks. Figurines of Astarte have been found at various archaeological sites in Israel, showing the goddess with two horns.
Astarte's most common symbol was the crescent moon (or horns), according to religious studies scholar Jeffrey Burton Russell, in his book The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity ... ." Wikipedia Garden of Priapus - 100 Astrate on a late Roman empire coin - Augusta Julia Soaemias of the Severan dynasty - which was mainly from Syria The Augusta was the Inanna to the Emperor! - and the Roman nation. At midnight Roman men were catamites to the phallic Augusta ... That's the penis cage and all those phallic goddesses on page 150 of this site... A.D. 218-224 Roman coin of Carriage of Astarte on two wheels with four columns supporting roof; above, two palms to left and right; baetyl within
"Obv : IVLIA SAEMIA AVGV
Draped bust right
Rev : COL AVR PIA METRO SID
Carriage of Astarte on two wheels with four columns supporting roof; above, two palms to left and right; baetyl within" coinproject Garden of Priapus - 101 The return of Bacchus from India. In the chariot is the female Dionysos - maybe Ampelus. That was probably a trip to Babylon, not India - a trip to Inanna
Bacchus was a catamite to Inanna or the phallic Aphrodite - producing Priapus Sarcophagus with triumph of Dionysos. Roman, Imperial Period, about A.D. 215-225. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Garden of Priapus - 102 Boss lady in a rough and passionate scene sodomizing a slave in a penis cage ... Shot blocked. Used work aroud ... Burton on ancient female on male sex: Braccae - " supposing them to have come from Media immediately after the confusion of Babel" [ie the fall of Babylon]- my guess is this is knowledge passed on in ancient secret societies!
Braccae
The braccae (translated as 'hose' in Epigram 46, page 70) were a kind of loose trousers, covering little save the pudenda, in use amongst the Medes, Indians and Scythians. [ Medes being : "Medes: a member of an Iranian people who inhabited ancient Media, establishing an extensive empire during the 7th century BC, which was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 550 BC." google
- Ancient Persia was in the Penis-cage!]
The following passage from Smollett's curious satirical novel, The Adventures of an Atom, deserves quotation in extenso, although somewhat lengthy-- Here I intended to insert a dissertation on trousers or trunk breeches, called by the Greeks, brakoi, et perisdomata; by the Latins, braccae laxae; by the Spaniards, bragas anchas; by the Italians, calzone largo; by the French, haut de chausses; by the Saxons, braecce; by the Swedes, brackor, by the Irish, briechan; by the Celtae, brag, and by the Japanese, bra-ak. I could make some curious discoveries touching the analogy between the perisdomata and zonion gunaikion, and point out the precise time at which the Grecian women began to wear the breeches. I would have demonstrated that the cingulum muliebre was originally no other than the wife's literally wearing the husband's trousers at certain orgia, as a mark of dominion transferred, pro tempore, to the female. I would have drawn a curious parallel between the zonion of the Greek, and the shim or middle cloth worn by the black ladies in Guinea. I would have proved that breeches were not first used to defend the central parts from the injuries of the weather, inasmuch as they were first worn by the Orientals in a warm climate; as you may see in Persius, Braccatis illita medis--porticus. I would have shown that breeches were first brought from Asia to the northern parts of Europe by the Celtae, sprung from the ancient Gomanaus; that trousers were worn in Scotland long before the time of Pythagoras; and indeed we are told by Jamblychus that Abaris, the famous Highland philosopher, contemporary and personally acquainted with the sage of Crotona, wore long trousers. I myself can attest the truth of that description, as I well remember the person and habit of that learned mountaineer. I would have explained the reasons that compelled the posterity of these mountaineers to abandon the breeches of their forefathers, and expose their posteriors to the wind. I would have convinced the English antiquaries that the inhabitants of Yorkshire came originally from the Highlands of Scotland, before the Scots had laid aside their breeches, and wore this part of dress long after their ancestors, as well as the southern Britons, were unbreeched by the Romans. From this distinction they acquired the name of Brigantes, quasi Bragantes, and hence came the word to brag or boast contemptuously; for the neighbours of the Brigantes, being at variance with that people, used, by way of contumelious defiance, when they saw any of them passing or repassing, to clap their hands on their posteriors and cry Brag-Brag. I would have drawn a learned comparison between the shield of Ajax and the sevenfold breeches of a Dutch skipper. Finally, I would have promulgated the original use of trunk-breeches, which would have led me into a discussion of the rites of Cloacina, so differently worshipped by the southern and northern inhabitants of this kingdom. These disquisitions would have unveiled the mysteries that now conceal the origin, migration, superstition, language, laws and connections of different nations-- sed nunc non erit his locus. I shall only observe that Linscot and others are mistaken in deriving the Japanese from their neighbours the Chinese; and that Dr Kempfer is right in his conjecture, supposing them to have come from Media immediately after the confusion of Babel. It is no wonder, therefore, that being Braccatorum filii, they should retain the wide breeches of their progenitors. ... " Priapea Garden of Priapus - 103 The general in action - on a hooded but not penis caged slave! Sometimes Amazons let the penis free ...
In the ancient world that was not possible in a bronze fibula ...Powerful gladiators who were sex magnets for rich roman matrons did not get to have erections! In bed they were women - anally sexed by pathic Roman matrons who helped drain down their energy ...
Shot blocked. Used workaround. Photo also slightly altered.
My guess is this heat is in another incompatible space than the consensus space - hence the automatic blocking ... *** The sexual heat of Babylon was almost certainly due to the penis cage which required a foreskin: Babylon did not circumcise according to biblical writers:
" ... According to Genesis, the practice of circumcision among the Hebrews began with Abraham, who was told to circumcise all males, including slaves, in his household (Gen 17:10-14). The cut around the penis became a signifying mark of all descendants of Abraham and later served as a physical marker for the nation of Israel.
The biblical authors were well aware that some of Israel’s neighbors practiced circumcision while others did not. The book of Jeremiah lists “Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all those with shaven temples who live in the desert” as circumcised (Jer 9:25-26). The Philistines, who lived in the land of Canaan but had migrated from western areas, however, did not circumcise and were often called “the uncircumcised” as a derogatory epithet (e.g., 1Sam 14:6; 1Sam 31:4; 2Sam 1:20). Circumcision was apparently not practiced in Assyria and Babylonia. ... " bibleodyssey
Not sure about Egyptian circumcision - I have read that some mummies are not circumcised Garden of Priapus - 104 Parthian (Mesopotamian) priests with "dog-leash" tans from 3rd century AD Mesopotamia (Syria today). To me that's a sign of goddess worship and the penis cage - probably Astrate or Inanna - The 3rd caentury AD Roman Severan dynasty was from Syria which is probably the same thing - Mesopotamia! - They could also be black Africans - specifically Egyptians ! Queen of Sheba mythology flows from here - last days of Rome ... (The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was founded by shipwrecked Syrian Christians) "Detail from a 3rd century Ad frieze from Dura-Europas in which Palmyrene priests are shown sacrificing to their sun god" - Cover of "The Gnostic Jung" by Robert Segal
" ... Dura-Europos ..., was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres (300 feet) above the right bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiye, in today's Syria. In 113 BC, Parthians conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission (114 AD), until 165 AD. Under Parthian rule, it became an important provincial administrative centre. The Romans decisively captured Dura-Europos in 165 AD and greatly enlarged it as their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia, until it was captured by the Sasanian Empire after a siege in 256 - 257 AD. Its population was deported, and after it was abandoned, it was covered by sand and mud and disappeared from sight. ... " Wikipedia" Garden of Priapus - 105 More young Asian mentule and whip action on an older bound man
Images of the sacred prostitute in Babylon - my belief is the key to understanding here is the penis cage or binding of Sumerian men and the mentule or female phallus for women:
In the excerpt below insatiable desire is Ishtar and female - and expressed through her sacred prostitutes. Ishtar's "loins" are probably a mentule - and "bent over the wall" probably means female on male anal sex:
" ... And it is precisely “to the shadow of the city-wall,” that Ishtar, the divine harlot, beckons young men to appease her insatiable desire according to an Old Babylonian song: “Seven for her midriff, seven for her loins (...), Sixty and sixty satisfy themselves in turn upon her vulva (...) The young men have tired, yet Ishtar never tires.” (Foster 2005: 678)
The only explicit Mesopotamian evidence for actual payment for sex is in a Sumerian literary text where Inana, the Sumerian equivalent of Ishtar, advertises that her fee when standing against a wall is one shekel, but bending over it is one and a half shekels - a not inconsiderate sum if we realize that a hired man’s salary in the Old Babylonian period was one shekel per month. However, Inana doesn’t tell us if the wall she leans against is interior or exterior.
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