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By guest blogger Anne O Nomis, author of The History and Arts of the Dominatrix, archaeologist and historian.
Welcome to the first in a six part series on The QURŠU - the ancient sex ritual that we are honoring as part of our Valentine's Day celebrations.
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I will be presenting a talk accompanied by a performance art piece on February 13th in the Passionfruit garden. Here is Part 1 of the ritual. We encourage your own self praise of your sacred vulva in preparation for the modern day love ritual on February 14th.
PART I of series on the Quršu
Sex Songs and the Ballbale
For the last five years, I have been undertaking archaeological and art historical research on the ancient sex Goddess, working out of the British Museum and Berlin Museums and travelling to the island of Cyprus - associated with Aphrodite.
My work will be published in a new book coming out later this year, titled Flight of the Goddess.
And, on February 13th 2018, I am presenting a talk on some of my research on the ancient sex ritual, accompanied by interpretive performance arts relating to the elements of the ritual.
This is the first part in a series of blog posts leading up to the ritual, to share a taste of some of the important research which I hope will get shared and be accessible for the general public.
Quršu = sex ritual
A significant body of clay tablets have been excavated by archaeologists of texts which are believed to have been performed for the sex ritual itself.
The clay tablets vary in size, but if you look down at your mobile phone that will give you some idea of the kind of size and shape. The damp clay was incised with a wedge-shaped stylus, to form cunneiform signs of the writing.
Many of these are recorded as being a "BAL-BAL-E", a categorisation used to refer to the type of song. Many scholars have interpreted this as being a song consisting of a particular type of dialogue or conversation.
In my view, this doesn't adequately convey the erotic association of the term, "BAL-BAL-E".
The sign for "BAL" originated with a loom shuttle, a phallic-shaped object. The shuttle is thrown from side to side, carrying the weft yarn thread through the shed - the space of the loom weaving.
The action of this movement of the BAL / loom shuttle echoes the movement of active sex. "A bit of in-and-out", as we might refer to it in English, as the shuttle moves into the shed, back-and-forth rhythmically. (Anne O Nomis 'Flight of the Goddess' 2018)
There are a number of words in Sumerian which use the term BAL to describe reversing back, changing direction, evoking the loom shuttle as it reaches the end and reverses back the opposite direction. It also has an association of pouring out liquid, from a full jug into a bowl. This itself is also rich with double entendre and meaning when translated into the erotic realm.
Many translators have been somewhat abashed to actually translate accurately the highly erotic prose.
To give but one example, vulva is translated by one prominent translator as "nakedness". So for example lines from a song (known as Dumuzi-Inanna C) is translated as:
"Behold our nakedness has sprouted hair",(1) which should of course read "our vulva has sprouted hair". [Emphasis my own]
The female self-praise of her vulva, breasts and buttocks, abounds through the sex songs.
The images of the naked Goddess also feature a large prominent pubic triangle; "a bush" or "lady garden" as we might refer to it today.
The ancient sex songs have numerous metaphors. It is described as (shape of) a horn, the boat of heaven, to a well-watered mound or ground awaiting to be plowed! (2)
The Goddess praises her vulva and wants a lover to fill her vulva, to lie with her on the sacred bed, to bring her sexual pleasure.
"Let us delight ourselves on the couch!"(3)
The man most often serving her pleasure in ancient mythology, is the shepherd King-God Dumuzi, who is believed to have been dramatically played by the King of the era in many times in later Mesopotamian history.
His duty is to please the sex Goddess. If he does so, he receives a blessing for a prosperous reign, and there will be abundance of flowering, produce, sheep and so forth. The Goddess's domain is of sexual desire, libido, vigour and abundance pouring out into the world.
Aphrodite nude recovered from sea Paphos Museum