Content Warning: Discussion of colonization, parricide, and incest.
In this episode, I tell the myth: "Theogony of Dunnu". The only surviving record of this tale is a broken stone tablet from the city of Sippar. The tablet has been dated to approximately 1900 BCE, placing its writing at a pivotal time for the region of Mesopotamia. The story represents the sole literature attributed to the small city of Dunnu, which seems to have had a relatively minor role in politics and culture, save for the production of this writing and a brief "golden age" just after the first conquering of Babylon by the Assyrians. The story itself relates a series of deities killing or marrying their own close family members in order to construct an origin for the patron gods of Dunnu.
We'll discuss the multiple colonial forces acting on Dunnu related by the myth via deity-based obfuscation, the different implications of agriculture on small city-states compared to the production of empire, the diversity of story in Mesopotamia, and the alternative reading of the tale as a fable hidden within the narratological structure of a theogony.
Thank you for listening!
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