Sumerian Mythology
Not all peoples have regarded the rainbow’s power as solely benevolent. A rather ambiguous perception of the rainbow strikes a vein in all world culture, through its entire storied past.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, who was an ancient Sumerian king (ca.3000 BC), is our first detailed written evidence of human civilization. In a Victorian translation of a Gilgamesh variant, Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton's Epic of Ishtar and Izdubar, King Izdubar sees "a mass of colors like the rainbow’s hues" that are "linked to divine sanction for war." Later in the epic, Izdubar sees the "glistening colors of the rainbow rise" in the fountain of life next to Elam’s Tree of Immortality.
The Sumerian farmer god Ninurta defends Sumer with a bow and arrow, and wore a crown described as a rainbow.
Read more about this topic: Rainbows In Mythology
Famous quotes containing the word mythology:
“Through the mythology of Einstein, the world blissfully regained the image of knowledge reduced to a formula.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)