The Babylonian and Greek/Roman creation stories both feature a male deity overthrowing a female deity at the beginning of time. As we talked about yesterday, this transition can be seen as a transition from living as part of nature (with the female archetype representing nature) to living in a civilization separate from nature (with the male archetype representing order and civilization).
Today, in class we looked at these stories in their geographic and historic context. To do this, we looked at where the stories were first told (Greece, Rome and then Babylon/Sumeria) and then how these locations factored into human migration across the globe. Maps of the regions for Greece/Rome and Babylon/Sumeria are below.
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The Babylonian creation stories were created and told by the Babylonians living (roughly) in the area of present day Baghdad, Iraq.
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The Greek and Roman creation story was told by people living in the area living (roughly) in the area from present-day Rome to Athens.
Next, we went through the interactive map of human migration created by the Bradshaw Foundation and Stephen Oppenheimer. You can view this interactive map here.
The final step of this map occurs at the agricultural revolution which was about 10,000 years ago (or 8,000 BCE). The Babylonian/Sumerian creation story would have been written at this time or a few thousand years later. Our first reference of it is by Hammurabi around 4,000 BCE and it is likely the story existed for some time before then.
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Since these stories were written at around the time of the agricultural revolution, the time spoken of as being "before" in the time of the Mother goddess figure is the 140,000 years where people were living in hunter/gatherer societies and migrating across the planet.
While the stories we are reading are old and date back to the beginning of human civilization, the science behind this research shows us that the time of the "Mother" archetype stretches back 140,000 years and the time of the "Father" (civilization) archetype begins in the last 10,000-8,000 years.
With the remaining time in the period, everyone began reading the Norse creation story.
Handouts:
Norse creation story (also available in the World Mythology text, pages 205-213)
Creation story note sheet
Creation story note sheet instructions
Homework:
If you did not finish reading the Norse creation story in class and completing the note sheet, do so for class.
Creation story note sheet instructions
Homework:
If you did not finish reading the Norse creation story in class and completing the note sheet, do so for class.
Complete missing work and revise any assignment that scored below a 92.
In school: 192.168.8.7/Pinnacle/PIV
Outside of school: http://pinweb.lisbonschoolsme.org/pinnacle/pin
