Cosmological Mysteries and Beer

Cosmological Mysteries and Beer

Our ancestors imagined a quaint, tidy, small universe. They were eager to understand the world in which the dominant forces were gods like Anu, Shamash or Ea, but had not quite stumbled upon the method.

In ancient times, humans played an important if not the central role. We were intimately bound up with the nature. In everyday speech and custom, the most mundane happening were connected with the grandest cosmic events. Well, even the treatment of toothache with third-rate beer was tied to the deepest cosmological mysteries.

Universe and its mysteries. Illustration by Elena

A charming example is an incantation against the worm which the Assyrians of 1000 B.C. imagined to cause toothaches. The chant begins with the origins of the Universe and ends with the cure for toothache:

After Anu had created the heaven,

After the Heavens had created the earth,

And the Earth had created the rivers,

And the rivers had created the brooks and canals,

And the canals had created the morass and swamps,

And the morass had created the worm.

The Worm went and cried before Shamash, weeping,

His tears flowing before Ea: –

“What will you give me for my food,

What will you give me for my drink?

“I will give you the dried fig

And scented wood, and the apricot.

“What are these to me? The dried fig and the apricot!

Lift me up, and among the teeth

And the gums let me dwell…

So I can devour the blood of the tooth and destroy their strength.

Then I can build a door within their roots.

You must say: “O Worm! May Ea smite thee with the might of his hand!”

Do the following:

Mix second-grade beer and oil together.

Repeat the incantation three times and put the mixture upon the tooth.

(Incantation of Sa-kil-bir, Sumerian & Cthulhu Mythos its translation is unknown).

(Extract from The Rain, the famous SF novel by Elena and George.)