BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

World’s Oldest Cosmogony

Bronze Age goblet may feature earliest depiction of the cosmos

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.

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Ordering the Cosmos

Measuring just 3 inches tall, the Ain Samiya goblet was discovered in a Bronze Age tomb, part of a large necropolis that served several major settlements in the area. The silver cup bears two skillfully hammered artistic scenes in relief. Among the objects depicted are a chimera, snakes, deities, and celestial symbols. The goblet is unlike anything else discovered in the necropolis and is also unique within the archaeology of the southern Levant, making it difficult to interpret.

When first excavated by Zeev Yeivin in 1970, Yigael Yadin proposed that the scenes were an early depiction of the Enuma Elish creation epic, with one scene depicting Marduk’s battle with Tiamat and the other depicting the organization of the universe using Tiamat’s slaughtered body. However, as many scholars later pointed out, the Ain Samiya goblet predates the Enuma Elish by hundreds of years, possibly even a millennium. Additionally, many of the goblet’s motifs do not align with the details of the Enuma Elish story.

Now, a new study claims to have finally unlocked the mystery of the Ain Samiya goblet. According to the study’s authors, the key is to be found in the second scene, specifically the crescent shape that stretches between two anthropomorphic figures. This crescent closely resembles the boat of heaven, a well-known artistic motif from the ancient Near East. Such boats typically represented the travel of the sun or moon across the heavens. Once this identification was made, the meaning of the goblet’s other symbols became clear.

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According to the authors, the depiction on the goblet is a cosmogony, a story describing the origins of the cosmos. The first scene (on the left in the above reproduction) depicts the primordial chaos from which the cosmos arose. This scene includes a deity, in the form of a chimera, fusing together the gods with the plant and animal world. Across from the chimera rises a large snake, a well-known representation of chaos (Genesis 3). Below the chimera is a newborn sun, not yet fully formed. The next scene depicts two deities, no longer fused as a chimera, holding the boat of heaven between them. Upon the boat rests the sun, which here has a face that identifies it as both the physical sun and also the sun god. Below the boat lies the snake, banished from the overworld by the power of the sun god.

“The goblet does not tell of a violent struggle between gods, but of a peaceful process of cosmic ordering,ˮ said study co-author Daniel Sarlo. “It shows how the sun is born, banishes chaos, and renews the world—a vision of creation that predates the Babylonian Enuma Elish by over a thousand years.ˮ

But how did the goblet end up in a Bronze Age burial in Canaan? Analyzing the cup’s various artistic motifs, the study’s authors have a suggestion. While some of the motifs, such as the boat of heaven and the snake, were well known across the ancient Near East, others were common to a specific region, most notably Mesopotamia. The chimera, for example, takes the form of a two-bodied, human-bull hybrid, a being which is of Mesopotamian origin. Similarly, the clothes worn by the goblet’s deities match the styles worn by Mesopotamian deities from the third millennium. Other elements are also well known in Mesopotamian artwork from this period. According to the researchers, these details suggest that either the goblet’s owner or its maker was from Mesopotamia. Additionally, since finely crafted silver was unavailable in the southern Levant, the goblet was likely fashioned elsewhere and then brought to the area through trade or the migration of an outside people into the region.

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Ed. Note: Articles on Bible History Daily may reference sites or artifacts from contested, annexed, or occupied regions, which may be subject to international laws and conventions on the protection of cultural property.

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