World’s Oldest Cosmogony. Bronze Age goblet may feature earliest depiction of the cosmos (Nathan Steinmeyer, Bible History Daily).
The Ain Samiya goblet has been an enigma since it was first discovered in 1970, near the West Bank city of Nablus. Now, a study published in the Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society proposes that the goblet’s famous decorative relief is, in fact, the world’s oldest cosmogony—a story about the origins of the cosmos. According to the study’s authors, the goblet shows the chaos of the early cosmos followed by a scene of an ordered universe. Dating to the Intermediate Bronze Age (c. 2650–1950 BCE), this depiction of the ordering of the universe far predates the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic. It would be the earliest written or artistic representation of a cosmogony anywhere in the world.The underlying JOEL article is readable online for free:[...]
The Earliest Cosmological Depictions: Reconsidering the Imagery on the ˁAin Samiya GobletIn addtion the authors have published a non-technical summary essay:Zangger, Eberhard (Project leader); Sarlo, Daniel (Researcher); Haas Dantes, Fabienne (Researcher)
Description
The ˁAin Samiya goblet, an 8 cm tall silver goblet from the Intermediate Bronze Age (2650–1950 BCE), was discovered in the tomb of a high-ranking individual in the Judean Hills. Its unique decoration features two mythological scenes involving chimeras, snakes, and celestial symbols. This study challenges the prevailing interpretation linking these scenes to Enuma Elish. By comparing the goblet’s iconographic elements with known motifs from neighboring cultures, we propose that the goblet’s decoration represents the creation and maintenance of cosmic order, a recurring theme in ancient Near Eastern cosmology. The scenes depict a transition from chaos to a structured universe, protected from chaotic disturbances by deities. There is a particular focus on the birth of the sun deity and its subsequent journey through the cosmos, which in the context of the tomb may serve to facilitate the rebirth of the soul of the dead. Our interpretation is supported by another cosmological depiction that has not been published until now: the Lidar Höyük prism.
Lifting the Sky: The Cosmic Program on the ˁAin Samiya Goblet (Eberhard Zangger, Daniel Sarlo and Fabienne Haas Dantes, The Ancient Near East Today)
The ˁAin Samiya goblet is small enough to sit in the palm of a hand — barely eight centimeters tall — yet its imagery reaches for the architecture of the cosmos. Discovered in 1970 in a sealed shaft tomb of the Intermediate Bronze Age (c. 2650-1950 BCE) near the Palestinian town of Kafr Malik in the West Bank, the silver cup carries two compact scenes crowded with a chimera, snakes, rigid plants, and a radiant disk. For decades many readers linked these scenes to Enūma Eliš, the Babylonian creation epic. That neat solution turns out to be both too late and too narrow. What the goblet depicts, we argue, is the creation and maintenance of cosmic order – above all the birth of the sun and its daily journey – rendered in a visual language that traveled widely across the ancient Near East.Also, in the Times of Israel, Rossella Tercatin covers the story with an interview with the project leader. That article also touches on a parallel with the Genesis 1 creation story:[...]
A 4,300-year-old silver goblet featuring the earliest depiction of the Creation narrative from the Near East tradition echoes the struggle between chaos and order from the book of Genesis, a new study published on Thursday suggests.[...]
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