CRADLES OF
CIVILIZATION
Cultural
MESOPOTAMIA
Around the fourth millennium BCE, the peoples in Mesopotamia and Egypt gradually stopped their nomadic ways of life as hunter-gatherers and began to settle. The floodplains of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile Rivers were ideal for agriculture, and with the domestication of animals and edible plants and the invention of granaries in which to store surplus foodstuffs, humans began to grow their own sustenance in a reliable manner. With food in abundance assured by dedicated farmers, it was no longer necessary for everyone to focus their lives on obtaining food for the community, which thus led to the creation of diversified talents, skills, and careers such as masonry, astrology, pottery, military, and bronze working. The combination of everyone’s unique skills contributing to the greater good of the whole of society and the peace necessary to maintain this intricate society became known as civilization.
One specialized career that held great prominence in these ancient empires of the Middle East was the priesthood. For the first time in human history, people could dedicate their entire lives to the study of the Divine and its mysteries since other people were now laboring to supply the food and drink for all. Their initial insights into the nature of the Divine included many gods and goddesses that we would nowadays label as queer.
In Mesopotamia a number of civilizations rose and fell, but their idea of the cosmos and of the Divine were quite similar to one another. While not exactly the same, these various empires often retold similar mythological stories within their own cultural context. While collectively known as Mesopotamian, these peoples are known to the world today as Sumerians, Phoenicians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. A commonality among many of these Mesopotamian civilizations was their belief in the spirituality of third-gender individuals.
In Akkad and Babylon, Ishtar (called Inanna among the Sumerians) was the goddess of fertility, love, sex, and war, and she was known to magically feminize her male priests, known as kurggaru and assinnu, during ritualized possession ceremonies. Some of the male priests who became vessels for the goddess were known to remain forever feminine in mind and manner, while still some others subsequently castrated themselves so as to become a physically feminized vessel to better receive Ishtar.1
Another example of priestly queerness comes from the Sumerian mythologies of Enki, god of mischief, creation, bodies of water, intelligence, and craftspeople. As legend goes, Enki created a special class of androgynous priests, known as the gala, as a gift to the goddess Inanna. Their dedicated purpose was to sing soul-soothing laments to the goddess, a position usually reserved for women. They were known as being gender fluid and ranged the spectrum on sexual orientation. Some were androgynous biological females, some were biological males who adopted female names, some were homosexuals, and so on. In fact, in their native script, the word gala is a portmanteau of “penis” and “anus,” an obvious nod to the widely acknowledged gay homosexuality of the male priests.2
The Sumerian creation myth shows another link between Enki and non-binary beings. According to the tale, in addition to men and women, the goddess of creation and mountains, Ninmah, created an additional gender comprised of women who were biologically barren and individuals who had neither male nor female genitalia. Enki took a liking to this other gender and bestowed upon them the sacred positions of priestesses (known as naditu) and servants to royalty (known as girsequ). In the Akkadian version of this myth, it was Enki himself who requested that this third gender of humans be specifically created and called the gallu (also known as the galla). As opposed to priestesses and royal servants, however, the Akkadian gallu were hellish demons who acted as psychopomps to the underworld.3
These third-gender gallu play a small yet prominent role in the legendary Descent of the Goddess myth from a Sumerian poem. In brief, the story is about how the goddess Inanna descends into the underworld to console her older sister Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, who is mourning the death of her husband. While down there, Inanna is imprisoned by Ereshkigal. Enraged by Inanna’s imprisonment, Enki sends his loyal gallu to rescue her, but they arrive too late as Ereshkigal had already murdered her little sister. Nevertheless, the crafty gallu see that Ereshkigal is in agony (some versions say due to labor pains, others due to guilt from killing her sister) and so they overtly show compassion for the panicked murderess. Soothed by their sympathy, Ereshkigal promises to give them a gift of their choosing, in which the gallu select Inanna’s corpse as the gift. The gallu revive Inanna, thus allowing her to escape from the underworld.4
Aside from the leisure that civilization provided to the pursuit of mysticism, the codification of laws was another advantage that arose with the development of urban societies in Mesopotamia. With so many people living together, there had to be set guidelines on what was and was not permissible, as well as punishment and reparation for damages done. One of the earliest code of laws in human history came be known as the Code of Hammurabi. In his code of laws, the Babylonian king Hammurabi established progressive judicial theory for the times, such as the accused’s presumption of innocence, the necessity of evidence to garner a conviction, and the regulation of preset punishments that befit the crime.5
While fascinating from a jurisprudence standpoint, the Code of Hammurabi is worthy of note in our travels here because it makes no mention of homosexual acts. In fact, no Mesopotamian legal systems lay out standards or punishments for queerness. Since it can be safely assumed that LGBT+ individuals and activities were happening in these heavily populated urban centers of early civilization, LGBT+ actions and propensities were either a non-issue to be addressed in codes of law or simply not seen as negative or harmful to society. Modern Mesopotamian scholars now generally believe that these early civilizations saw sexuality as far too natural to write about, let alone regulate through laws.6
Nevertheless, in the legal codes of Middle Assyria, two ancient laws directly mention homosexuality, and though it’s mentioned in a negative light, the reason for punishment is not homosexuality itself if we read between the lines. In brief, the first law dictates that flogging, fines, and castration shall be the punishment for anyone who spreads unsubstantiated rumors of a man who goes around letting other men have sex with him. In this context, the criminal act is technically slander and defamation of character for essentially calling a man a slut (to use modern slang). The second law dictates that if a man forces himself upon another man, the punishment will be for the aggressor to be physically forced upon and then castrated. In this context, the criminal act and punishment is technically rape.7
Mesopotamian Takeaway:
Divine Queerness
Now it’s time for our first takeaway lesson/activity. Unlike the larger rituals and stories that our special guests will share, these cultural takeaways will serve as short, immediate things you can adapt and implement into your own queer daily life and magical practices right away.
It’s amazing to discover how widespread and disproportionately high our queer ancestors were represented in the priestly classes of Mesopotamian society. Making this more impactful is how these are some of the earliest civilizations in human history. This shows that our earliest urban ancestors oftentimes saw queer individuals as especially able to have a connection to the Divine.
Since queerness was a preeminent quality for the clergy at a time when the clergy was intricately tied with magic and special knowledge, it shows that we, as LGBT+ people, have always been seen as magical, special beings. Our inability to perfectly fit in with those around us just might signify that it’s because we are better suited as dual citizens of the physical and spiritual worlds.
So, for your first magical activity, take time in meditation to discover how your queerness gives you a unique insight and outlook within your own magical tradition. Embrace not fully fitting in, and see what kind of uniqueness you can add to your tribe thanks to your divine differentness. Like the ancient Mesopotamians, own your queerness within your own tradition, and know that since earliest history the world has seen a unique magic within us. It’s time you see it within yourself.
ANCIENT EGYPT
This is going to be a controversial leg of our global expedition. You see, when it comes to the ancient Egyptians’ views on homosexuality and queer culture, there is practically no direct information about it in their writings and art.8 There is some talk about it in their mythology, but we’ll save that for later. For now, we’re looking at the day-to-day culture of LGBT+ persons in ancient Egypt. Unlike a people’s physiology or diet, sexuality leaves no trace behind for us to examine. Without direct written or artistic evidence, Egyptologists can only guess the ancients’ attitudes based upon a mix of vague, indirect evidence and personal bias depending upon what the researcher is trying to affirm or disprove.
One of the best places to discover a society’s stance toward a certain subject is in its code of laws. Nowhere in the legal system of the ancient Egyptians is non-heterosexuality either protected or criminalized. Unlike other cultures wherein the documented day-to-day lives of the people could more or less explain why a legal system has such an omission and allow us to read between the lines, the lack of LGBT+ anything in other ancient Egyptian writings prevents us from making such assumptions about them. Even if we look up writings about sex and sexual topics, whether in official documents or artistic literature and poetry, they shed no real light on queer identity and sexuality. This is because, for better or for worse, the way about which sexuality was written involved the use of forced and contrived flowery language as well as talking about the act in a roundabout way without ever mentioning the act itself. So, what we have today is a lot of descriptions that are up to interpretation, without concrete contextual clues to hint one way or the other.9
One of these interpretive and controversial writings about alleged queerness is the fictionalized tale of Pharaoh Neferkare (aka Pepi II) and General Sasenet. Mind you, the tale only survives in fragments, but the gist of it tells how the pharaoh was rumored to steal away into the night by himself to some unknown location. To verify the rumor, a man secretly followed the pharaoh when he slipped out of the palace on a night walk. The pharaoh stopped at the house of General Sasenet and signaled to someone inside, after which a ladder was lowered down from a window and the pharaoh climbed up inside. Then the narrator says that after four hours had passed, “his majesty had done that which he had wanted to do with him,” at which point the pharaoh climbed back down and returned home.10
Now, it’s easy to immediately assume that the king was off having nightly sexual liaisons with one of his generals because that would be the more scandalous and fun answer, but the reality is that he could’ve been doing almost anything: consulting secret war plans with the general, asking for advice on matters of court intrigue, etc. The description of “that which he wanted to do with him” is so vague that the only evidence of it being at all sexual is our interpretive imagination. To make matters worse, any part of the story that might have revealed the nature of these clandestine encounters has been lost to time as a part of the still-missing fragments of the tale. Those who are on the side of believing these royal rendezvous were not sexual instead believe the whole scene to be a religious reference to Ra, the sun god, visiting Osiris, god of the underworld, for hours every night, thus explaining the phenomenon of nighttime.11
The most prevailing evidence of LGBT+ tendencies in ancient Egypt to date was found in the tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum in Saqqara during the 1960s. The initial clue to the sexuality of these two high officials was the fact that they shared the same tomb together, but the bigger clue was all the artwork covering the walls of the inner sanctums. Throughout the structure there are images of the two men so close together that their pelvises touch, and in one particular depiction their noses touch, which, in ancient Egyptian art, generally symbolized kissing.12
The naysayers were quick to point out that these two high officials couldn’t possibly be queer because they each had wives and children. But because you and I live in the real world and don’t like to delude ourselves, we know that this kind of stuff is actually not uncommon, and marriage doesn’t necessarily mean that a person is heterosexual. Another rationale used to explain away the queerness of the two men is that they are obviously conjoined twins because of how they are always seen as so close and touching one another in the artworks. Again, though, you and I know that this is really reaching for an explanation and goes through too much mental gymnastics for it to be the most likely answer.
The most popular argument against their queerness, however, is that they were simply brothers and nothing more. When it comes down to it, though, let’s look at it this way. If all these intimate Egyptian images were of a man and a woman instead of two men, everyone would automatically assume that the art depicted lovers because it would be the most obvious answer, and if someone started insisting that this man and woman were more likely conjoined twins, it would be a scarcely defended position. So, were these guys ancient Egyptian lovers? Probably, but as of now there’s no definitive proof aside from making assumptions based on the obvious.13
Nevertheless, Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum belonged to a very privileged class, and what is acceptable for the wealthy aristocracy is often not acceptable for the lower classes. Therefore, their elaborate burial chamber still isn’t a good indicator of society-at-large’s attitudes toward LGBT+ people. The ways in which people expressed their queerness and to what extent such expressions were accepted by the culture are the questions that still remain a mystery about ancient Egypt.
But before we wrap things up here and head on over to Israel, it’s interesting to mention that the Egyptians’ contemporaries make specific mention to ancient Egypt’s widespread acceptance of lesbianism. This outside group is the Hebrews, and the mention comes in the Talmud. Meant to be negative, the literature portrays ancient Egypt as a sexually liberal place of debauched decadence, so much so that female-female sexual acts were known to the Hebrews as “the acts of Egypt,” denoting how widespread it was there. This Talmudic evidence should be taken with many, many grains of salt since the Hebrews historically were not too fond of the Egyptians, it was written many centuries after ancient Egypt fell to Greece and Rome, and the Hebrews have had their own biases against queerness. Modern scholars see these references as a way of Judaism linking female homosexuality to an evil society in the same vein as male homosexuality is linked to Sodom and Gomorrah—but more on that when we get to Israel.14
Ancient Egyptian Takeaway:
The Power of the Lens
The uncertain significance of those seemingly homosexual ancient Egyptian artworks we just talked about is an example of “the power of the lens.” Different people have come to different conclusions as to what the artworks signify. This is because, like art, everything depends on the interpretive lens from which it is viewed. You see, everything we hear is actually an opinion, not a fact, and everything we see is a perspective, not the actual truth. All things are inherently neutral; it is our personal lens that gives them their meaning.
I’ll give you a recent and funny queer example of this power of the lens. In 2014 an Australian arthouse horror film premiered called The Babadook. It was a critically acclaimed financial success, but it didn’t rock world culture in any significant way. A few years later a couple of people on social media made a vague claim that the film’s titular monster was gay. At first seen as a joke, the joke kept building, with more and more people defending the queerness of the Babadook in a very tongue-in-cheek way. The more it was talked about online, the more people began watching the film through a queer lens, trying to understand and see the queer meaning behind it. And the more people watched it through the lens of a queer horror film, the more it seemed like a queer horror film. Without any spoilers, it’s about a flamboyantly dressed monster with a flair for the dramatic living in the shadows of a house. His presence and desire to be acknowledged cause chaotic tension within a family that fears him yet doesn’t fully accept his identity. Sounds a lot like growing up in the closet, doesn’t it?
But for years no one thought of The Babadook as a queer film, and it certainly wasn’t intended to be one. However, once viewed through a queer lens, the Babadook monster became a queer icon all over the world. So, for your next magical activity, take a neutral magical spell and convert it into a queer spell via seeing it through a queer lens. I suggest starting with a spell you’ve done many times before; don’t try to get all fancy. Do nothing different except change the lens and notice the different result that will manifest.
Deities & Legends
Gilgamesh & Enkidu
Gilgamesh was a hero king of Sumer believed to have actually lived sometime around 2800–2500 BCE. Stories of his greatness passed through the generations until he eventually gained the status of a demigod and cultural legend. The story of his divine heroism is known to posterity as The Epic of Gilgamesh, widely agreed to be humankind’s first literary epic.
Featured prominently in this epic is the special relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The two men are described as polar opposites: Gilgamesh is the brutish yet arrogant leader of civilization and Enkidu is the cunning yet irreverent wild man of the rural lands. Their relationship’s story arc commences with them being at odds with one another; specifically, Enkidu is created by the mother goddess Aruru in response to prayers of the people of Uruk (Sumer’s capital city) because Gilgamesh has become a tyrant who uses his strength to bully the weak and force himself on people in the city. Enkidu and Gilgamesh fight each other, but it ends in a draw, each recognizing the other as an equal and sealing their respect with a kiss.15
As the epic goes on, their relationship deepens, forming the stereotyped masculine-feminine roles of equality between gay male lovers: Gilgamesh as the brash alpha male, ultra-masc “top” and Enkidu as the smart, sensitive, femme “bottom.” Their love for one another eventually changes them for the better. Enkidu sensitizes Gilgamesh and tames his brutish ways, and Gilgamesh makes Enkidu more assertive and gives him a sense of stability from his wandering ways.
Their story arc is a tragic one, though, as Enkidu is sentenced to death for protecting Gilgamesh and killing the Bull of Heaven. Although the beast was sent by Inanna specifically to kill Gilgamesh for spurning her sexual advances, the gods agreed that someone had to be punished for killing the sacred bull, and Enkidu took the fall. The death of Enkidu then becomes the impetus for the other story arcs of the epic wherein a distraught and mourning Gilgamesh searches for the secret of eternal life.16
Traditionally, Gilgamesh had been associated with shades of blue and purple and with water elements due to his tempestuous emotional nature and the necessity of rivers for Sumerian civilization. Enkidu, on the other hand, has traditionally been associated with shades of green and earth elements due to his reputation as a wild man of the woods and fields. Also, the way the Sumerians worshipped their deities is a lot like how modern Pagans worship theirs. A singular patron deity was chosen based on their magical domain, and continued contact was made between the individual and the deity. Home altars, incense burning, and daily prayers were common, especially written prayers in praise of their patron deity.
Hapi
Hapi is the Egyptian god of the flooding of the Nile, which was the annual lifeblood for the civilization’s agriculture. Generally depicted as an overweight, false-bearded male with female breasts, Hapi is usually regarded as an intersex deity. Even in Hapi’s Gemini-esque dual-gender twins form, Hapi is regarded as neither man nor woman, yet both. The plants sacred to Hapi were aquatic in nature, such as the lotus and papyrus, and the conquering Romans even linked Hapi to the astrological sign Aquarius due to Hapi’s position as bearer of life-giving water. Unsurprisingly, Hapi developed a strong following made up primarily of gay and gender-variant priests, but in the fourth century CE Emperor Constantine formally abolished Hapi’s following due to a mix of his queerphobic nature and his conversion to Christianity.17
Natural waterways are the places most sacred when worshipping Hapi. Again, aquatic elements are preferred, and animals that can dually cohabit water and land, such as amphibians and crocodiles, are often associated as sacred, emphasizing Hapi’s inner and outer duality.
Set
Set is the Egyptian god of storms, the desert, war, disorder, violence, and foreigners. Often depicted as a pansexual deity, his wife is Anat, a transgender female Amazonian warrior goddess, and together the couple’s favorite expression of intimacy is anal sex. Among his worshipers, he was viewed with ambivalence in the sense that the ancient Egyptians disliked him for murdering and usurping the throne of his brother Osiris, god of the underworld, but they also loved him for being the protector of Ra, the sun god, both of which have homoerotic overtones.
Following the killing of Osiris, the mythology tells us that Osiris’s son, Horus, the sky god, time and again battles his uncle Set for the throne of Egypt. Eventually the gods tire of this family squabble and demand that the two of them settle things. Set decides to prove his dominance once and for all by sexually “topping” Horus, but when Set ejaculates onto Horus, Horus catches the semen in his hand and throws it in the Nile. Isis (Horus’s mother) then steps in and cuts off Horus’s hand to make sure no trace of semen is left on him. She then takes some of Horus’s own ejaculate and rubs it onto Set’s sacred plant (lettuce), which Set then unknowingly eats.
When the council of the gods calls the two of them to make their final case of who should have the throne, Set boasts of how he is more dominant because he ejaculated all over Horus, but looking at Horus’s body, the gods find no evidence of this and dismiss his claim. In turn, Horus lies and claims he is more dominant since not only did he ejaculate in Set’s mouth, but also Set swallowed. The gods look into Set’s body, see Horus’s semen (which got there from Isis’s lettuce trick), and uphold Horus’s claim on the throne. But, of course, Set feels cheated and refuses to comply with the ruling, and the in-fighting continues anyway.
Nevertheless, the queerness of this story continues when Set’s semen swallowing results in him giving birth to Horus’s child. The myths vary as to who this child of homoerotic conception was. Some say that he grew up to be the moon deity Khonsu, others say that he turned out to be Thoth, and still others make no special mention of the child other than him being the son of Set and Horus.18
The winter solstice is Set’s celebrated feast day. Being a sky god, he is associated with air correspondences and has the falcon as his sacred animal. But in terms of the queer lens, Set represents that “total top” segment of society. Always wanting to prove to everyone how he’s “the man,” he is that guy who sees “bottoming” as shameful. Ironically, though, for all his boasting, he is the one who gets impregnated and gives birth to a child after ingesting another male’s semen. In this way, the magical image and story of Set can be utilized more as a curse of karmic retribution against those in the queer community who look down on their own kind or somehow feel that they’re better than the rest because they only “top.”
1. Stephen O. Murray, Homosexualities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
2. Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature (New York: NYU Press, 1997).
3. Ernest L. Abel, Death Gods: An Encyclopedia of Rulers, Evil Spirits, and Geographies of the Dead (Westport, Greenwood Press, 2009).
4. Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth (New York: Harper & Row, 1983).
5. Ann Wolbert Burgess, Albert R. Roberts, and Cheryl Regehr, Victimology: Theories and Applications (Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2009).
6. Jean Bottéro, Everyday Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, trans. Antonia Nevill (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
7. James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).
8. George Haggerty and Bonnie Zimmerman, Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2015).
9. Richard Parkinson, “Homosexual Desire and Middle Kingdom Literature,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 81 (1995): 57–76.
10. André Dollinger, “King Neferkare & General Sasenet,” An Introduction to the History and Culture of Pharaonic Egypt, Oct. 2006, http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/sasenet.htm (accessed Sept. 30, 2016).
11. Emma Brunner-Traut, Altägyptische Märchen: Mythen und Andere Volkstümliche Erzählungen, 10th ed. (Munich: Diederichs, 1991).
12. John Noble Wilford, “A Mystery, Locked in Timeless Embrace,” New York Times, Dec. 20, 2005.
13. Alissa Lyon, “Ancient Egyptian Sexuality,” Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, Oct. 23, 2014, http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp455-fs14/2014/10/23/ancient-egyptian-sexuality/ (accessed Sept. 30, 2016).
14. Rebecca T. Alpert, Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
15. Will Roscoe, Queer Spirits: A Gay Men’s Myth Book (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995).
16. H. N. Wolff, “Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Heroic Life,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 89:2 (1969) 392–398.
17. Linda Alchin, “Hapi, God of Egypt,” Egyptian Gods: The Mythology of Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses for Kids, March 2015, http://www.landofpyramids.org/hapi.htm (accessed Aug. 18, 2017).
18. Randy P. Connor, David Hatfield Sparks, and Mariya Sparks, Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol, and Spirit (London: Cassell & Co., 1997).