Bull of Heaven

In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, the Bull of Heaven is a mythical beast

fought by the hero Gilgamesh. The story of the Bull of Heaven has two different
versions: one recorded in an earlier Sumerian poem and a later version in the
standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Sumerian poem, the Bull is sent to
attack Gilgamesh by the goddess Inanna for reasons that are unclear. The more
complete Akkadian account comes from Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, in
which Gilgamesh refuses the sexual advances of the goddess Ishtar, the East
Semitic equivalent of Inanna, leading the enraged Ishtar to demand her father
Anu for the Bull of Heaven, so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh in Uruk.
Anu gives her the Bull and she sends it to attack Gilgamesh and his companion,
the hero Enkidu, who slay the Bull together.

After defeating the Bull, Enkidu hurls the Bull's right thigh at Ishtar, taunting
her. The slaying of the Bull results in the gods condemning Enkidu to death, an
event which catalyzes Gilgamesh's fear for his own death, which drives the
remaining portion of the epic. The Bull was identified with the constellation Ancient Mesopotamian terracotta relief
Taurus and the myth of its slaying may have held astronomical significance to (c. 2250 — 1900 BC) showing
the ancient Mesopotamians. Aspects of the story have been compared to later Gilgamesh slaying the Bull of Heaven,[1]
an episode described in Tablet VI of the
tales from the ancient Near East, including legends from Ugarit, the tale of
Epic of Gilgamesh[2][3]
Joseph in the Book of Genesis, and parts of the ancient Greek epics, the Iliad
and the Odyssey.

Contents
Mythology
Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven
Epic of Gilgamesh
Symbolism and representation
Influence on later stories
References
Bibliography

Mythology

Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven

In the Sumerian poem Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the Bull of Heaven, who has been sent to
attack them by the goddess Inanna, the Sumerian equivalent of Ishtar.[4][5][6] The plot of this poem differs substantially from the
corresponding scene in the later Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.[7] In the Sumerian poem, Inanna does not seem to ask Gilgamesh to
become her consort as she does in the later Akkadian epic.[5] Furthermore, while she is coercing her father An to give her the Bull of
Heaven, rather than threatening to raise the dead to eat the living as she does in the later epic, she merely threatens to let out a "cry"
that will reach the earth.[7]
Epic of Gilgamesh
In Tablet VI of the standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, after Gilgamesh repudiates her sexual advances, Ishtar goes to Heaven,
where she complains to her mother Antu and her father Anu.[8] She demands that Anu give her the Bull of Heaven[9][10][11] and
threatens that, if he refuses, she will smash the gates of the Underworld and raise the dead to eat the living.[12][11] Anu at first objects
to Ishtar's demand, insisting that the Bull of Heaven is so destructive that its release would result in seven years of famine.[12][10]
Ishtar declares that she has stored up enough grain for all people and all animals for the next seven years.[12][10] Eventually, Anu
ction.[9][12]
reluctantly agrees to give it to Ishtar, whereupon she unleashes it on the world, causing mass destru

The Bull's first breath blows a hole in the ground that one hundred men fall into and its second breath creates another hole, trapping
two hundred more.[12][11] Gilgamesh and Enkidu work together to slay the Bull;[9][12][10] Enkidu goes behind the Bull and pulls its
tail[12] while Gilgamesh thrusts his sword into the Bull's neck, killing it.[12] Gilgamesh and Enkidu offer the Bull's heart to the sun-
god Shamash.[13][14] While Gilgamesh and Enkidu are resting, Ishtar stands up on the walls of Uruk and curses
Gilgamesh.[13][15][16] Enkidu tears off the Bull's right thigh and throwsit in Ishtar's face.[13][15][16][10]

Ishtar calls together "the crimped courtesans, prostitutes and harlots"[13] and orders them to mourn for the Bull of Heaven.[13][15]
Meanwhile, Gilgamesh holds a celebration over the Bull of Heaven's defeat.[17][15] Tablet VII begins with Enkidu recounting a
dream in which he saw Anu, Ea, and Shamash declare that either Gilgamesh or Enkidu must die as punishment for having slain the
Bull of Heaven.[2] They choose Enkidu, who soon grows sick,[2] and dies after having a dream of the Underworld.[2] Tablet VIII
describes Gilgamesh's inconsolable grief over his friend's death[2][18] and the details of Enkidu's funeral.[2] Enkidu's death becomes
[19][20]
the catalyst for Gilgamesh's fear of his own death, which is the focus of the remaining portion of the epic.

Symbolism and representation

Numerous depictions of the slaying of the Bull of Heaven occur in extant works of
ancient Mesopotamian art.[21][10] Representations are especially common on
cylinder seals of the Akkadian Empire (c. 2334 – 2154 BC).[10] These show that the
Bull was clearly envisioned as a bull of abnormally large size and ferocity.[11] It is
unclear exactly what the Bull of Heaven represents, however.[11] Michael Rice
speculates that the Bull may represent an earthquake, since bulls in general were
widely associated with earthquakes in ancient cultures.[11] He also posits that the
Bull may represent summertime, which was a period of drought and infertility for
people in ancient Mesopotamia.[11] Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green
observe that the Bull of Heaven is identified with the constellation Taurus[9] and
argue that the reason why Enkidu hurls the bull's thigh at Ishtar in the Epic of
Gilgamesh after defeating it may be an effort to explain why the constellation seems
to be missing its hind quarters.[9]

Rice also argues for an astronomical interpretation of the slaying of the Bull,[21]
noting that the constellation Canis Major was sometimes iconographically
represented in ancient Egyptian texts as a bull's thigh, though he notes that there is
no evidence of this identification inSumer.[21] He also observes that thigh was often The Bull of Heaven was identified
with the constellation Taurus.[9]
used in ancient Near Eastern texts as a substitute for the genitals.[21] Gordon and
Rendsburg note that the notion of flinging a bull's leg at someone "as a terrible
insult" is attested across a wide geographic area of the ancient Near East[10] and that it recurs in the Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic
poem.[10] Some scholars consider the Bull of Heaven to be the same figure as Gugalanna, the husband of Ereshkigal mentioned by
Inanna in Inanna's Descent into the Underworld.[22]

Influence on later stories

Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg note that the Near Eastern motif of seven
years of famine following the death of a hero is attested in the Ugaritic myth of the
death of Aqhat[10] and that the theme of someone predicting seven years of famine
in advance and storing up supplies is also found in the Hebrew story of Joseph from
the Book of Genesis.[10] According to the German classical scholar Walter Burkert,
the scene in which Ishtar comes before Anu to demand the Bull of Heaven after
being rejected by Gilgamesh is directly paralleled by a scene from Book V of the
Iliad.[8] In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ishtar complains to her mother Antu, but is mildly
rebuked by Anu.[8] In the scene from the Iliad, Aphrodite, the later Greek
development of Ishtar, is wounded by the Greek hero Diomedes while trying to save
her son Aeneas.[23] She flees to Mount Olympus, where she cries to her mother
Dione, is mocked by her sister Athena, and is mildly rebuked by her father Zeus.[23]
Not only is the narrative parallel significant,[23] but so is the fact that Dione's name Ishtar's storing up of seven years'
worth of grain is paralleled byJoseph
is a feminization of Zeus's own, just as Antu is a feminine form of Anu.[23] Dione
in the biblical Book of Genesis, which
does not appear throughout the rest of the Iliad, in which Zeus's consort is instead was written after the Epic of
the goddess Hera.[23] Burkert therefore concludes that Dione is clearly a calque of Gilgamesh.[10]
Antu.[23]

British classical scholar Graham Anderson notes that, in the Odyssey, Odysseus's men kill the sacred cattle of Helios and are
condemned to death by the gods for this reason, much like Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh.[24] M. L. West states that the similarities
run deeper than the mere fact that, in both cases, the creatures slain are bovines exempt from natural death.[25] In both cases, the
person or persons condemned to die are companions of the hero, whose death or deaths force the hero to continue his journey
alone.[25] He also notes that, in both cases, the epic describes a discussion among the gods over whether or not the guilty party must
die[25] and that Helios's threat to Zeus if he does not avenge the slaughter of his cattle in the Odyssey is very similar to Ishtar's threat
to Anu when she is demanding the Bull in the Epic of Gilgamesh.[25] Bruce Louden compares Enkidu's taunting of Ishtar
immediately after slaying the Bull of Heaven to Odysseus's taunt of the giant Polyphemus in Book IX of the Odyssey.[26] In both
[26]
cases, the hero's own hubris after an apparent victory leads a deity to curse him.

References
1. Powell 2012, p. 342. 14. Fontenrose 1980, pp. 168–169.
2. Black & Green 1992, p. 90. 15. Fontenrose 1980, p. 169.
3. Powell 2012, pp. 341–343. 16. Jacobsen 1976, p. 202.
4. Black & Green 1992, p. 89. 17. Dalley 1989, p. 82-83.
5. Tigay 2002, p. 24. 18. Fontenrose 1980, p. 171.
6. ETCSL 1.8.1.2 (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1 19. Gordon & Rendsburg 1997, pp. 46–47.
812.htm) 20. Rice 1998, pp. 100–101.
7. Tigay 2002, pp. 24–25. 21. Rice 1998, p. 100.
8. Burkert 2005, pp. 299–300. 22. Pryke 2017, p. 205.
9. Black & Green 1992, p. 49. 23. Burkert 2005, p. 300.
10. Gordon & Rendsburg 1997, p. 46. 24. Anderson 2000, p. 127.
11. Rice 1998, p. 99. 25. West 1997, p. 417.
12. Jacobsen 1976, p. 201. 26. Louden 2011, p. 194.
13. Dalley 1989, p. 82.

Bibliography
Anderson, Graham (2000).Fairytale in the Ancient World. New York City, New York and London, England:
Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-23702-4.
 Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992),Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated
Dictionary, The British Museum Press,ISBN 978-0714117058
Burkert, Walter (2005), "Chapter Twenty: Near Eastern Connections", in Foley, John Miles, A Companion to Ancient
Epic, New York City, New York and London, England: Blackwell Publishing,ISBN 978-1-4051-0524-8
Dalley, Stephanie (1989), Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others
, Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press,ISBN 978-0-19-283589-5
Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy (1980) [1959],Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins
, Berkeley, California, Los
Angeles, California, and London, England: The University of California Press,
ISBN 978-0-520-04106-6
Gordon, Cyrus H.; Rendsburg, Gary A. (1997) [1953],The Bible and the Ancient Near East, New York City, New
York and London, England: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-31689-6
Jacobsen, Thorkild (1976),The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven,
Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-02291-9
Louden, Bruce (2011),Homer's Odyssey and the Near East, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
ISBN 978-0-521-76820-7
Powell, Barry B. (2012) [2004], "Gilgamesh: Heroic Myth",Classical Myth (Seventh ed.), London, England: Pearson,
pp. 336–350, ISBN 978-0-205-17607-6
Pryke, Louise M. (2017),Ishtar, New York and London: Routledge,ISBN 978-1-138--86073-5
Rice, Michael (1998), The Power of the Bull, New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge, ISBN 978-
0-415-09032-2
Tigay, Jeffrey H. (2002) [1982], The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, Wauconda, Illinois: Bolchazzy-Carucci
Publishers, Inc., ISBN 978-0-86516-546-5
West, M. L. (1997), The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford, England:
Clarendon Press, ISBN 978-0-19-815221-7

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