Did You Know Even the Dead Need to Be Herded?

Liminality

Hermes (Roman Mercury), like Hekate, is a liminal god -- a god of thresholds, connected with the crossing over between the living and the dead. Lugulbanda is a Mesopotamian hero who is also associated with crossing over from life to a death-like state and then back again into the land of the living, but there is even more that connects the Mesopotamian hero and Hermes. Here are some quick notes to provide a bit of background.

For full details, be sure to read the articles listed.

Association With cattle

Lugalbanda is called the father of the famous epic hero of Mesopotamian literature, Gilgamesh. The wife of Lugalbanda and mother of Gilgamesh is the goddess Ninsuna. Thorkild Jacobsen says her name means "Queen of the wild cows." In his own legends (where the cow motif also appears), Lugalbanda is a mortal who goes through a life-altering near-death rite of passage.

The Names of the Legend(s)

The name of this Lugalbanda legend (LB I) may be either Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave or Lugalbanda in Hurrumkurra. A following (or connected) legend (LB II), where he profits from a magical gift from a bird, is known as Lugalbanda and the Imdugud Bird or Lugalbanda and Enmerkar. You may read a translation of these at Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave and The Lugalbanda Epic. [Enmerkar appears in the Sumerian kings list as the founder and first king of Uruk, who was succeeded by Lugalbanda. In the Lugalbanda legends, Enmerkar, laying siege to Aratta, dispatches Lugalbanda to deliver a message to the goddess Inanna, who is in Uruk. See Sumerian Timeline.

]

A Pair of Cattle Thieves

Jennifer Larson relates the Lugalbanda epic to the Homeric Hymn to the Greek god Hermes, especially the early adventures of Hermes where he makes a lyre and steals the cattle of his half-brother Apollo. She suggests the writer of the Hymn to Hermes may have used elements from the story of Lugalbanda.

Lugalbanda Hermes Parallels Expanded

Like Hermes, Lugalbanda is also a youngest son. He has 7 brothers who are important members of Enmerkar's army. When their young sibling becomes ill and immobile en route, they leave him with some provisions, food and weapons, planning to return when they can, presumably to bury him with what would have amounted to grave goods they'd left him with.

Like Hermes, Lugalbanda

captures a cow,
comes up with a way of making fire, and
initiates animal sacrifice to/meals for the gods.

Lugulbanda Prepares the Sacrificial Meal for the Gods

"... Lugalbanda, invoking the name of Enlil, made An, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursaja sit down to a banquet at the pit, at the place in the mountains which he had prepared. The banquet was set, the libations were poured -- dark beer, alcoholic drink, light emmer beer, wine for drinking which is pleasant to the taste. Over the plain he poured cool water as a libation. He put the knife to the flesh of the brown goats, and he roasted the dark livers there. He let their smoke rise there, like incense put on the fire. As if Dumuzid had brought in the good savours of the cattle pen, so An, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursaja consumed the best part of the food prepared by Lugalbanda....
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave
Copyright © Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Fluckiger-Hawker, E, Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G., The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/), Oxford 1998- .

Hermes Prepares the Sacrifice

(ll. 115-137) And while the strength of glorious Hephaestus was beginning to kindle the fire, he dragged out two lowing, horned cows close to the fire; for great strength was with him. He threw them both panting upon their backs on the ground, and rolled them on their sides, bending their necks over (17), and pierced their vital chord. Then he went on from task to task: first he cut up the rich, fatted meat, and pierced it with wooden spits, and roasted flesh and the honourable chine and the paunch full of dark blood all together. He laid them there upon the ground, and spread out the hides on a rugged rock: and so they are still there many ages afterwards, a long, long time after all this, and are continually (18). Next glad-hearted Hermes dragged the rich meats he had prepared and put them on a smooth, flat stone, and divided them into twelve portions distributed by lot, making each portion wholly honourable. Then glorious Hermes longed for the sacrificial meat, for the sweet savour wearied him, god though he was; nevertheless his proud heart was not prevailed upon to devour the flesh, although he greatly desired (19). But he put away the fat and all the flesh in the high-roofed byre, placing them high up to be a token of his youthful theft. And after that he gathered dry sticks and utterly destroyed with fire all the hoofs and all the heads.
Homeric Hymn to Hermes

Blog Posts on Hermes

The Staff of Hermes, the Caduceus, and a Babylonian Snake God
Another connection between Mesopotamian myths and Hermes.
Hermes the Argus-Slayer
Hermes was sent to kill the creature watching the heifer Io.

Articles on Lugalbanda

"Lugalbanda and Hermes," by Jennifer Larson; Classical Philology (2005) pp.1-16.
"Heroes of Sumer: A New Heroic Age in World History and Literature," by Samuel Noah Kramer; Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, (1946), pp. 120-130.
"Lugalbanda and Ninsuna," by Thorkild Jacobsen; Journal of Cuneiform Studies, (1989), pp. 69-86.
"Notes on 'Lugalbanda and Enmerkar,'" by Robert S. Falkowitz; Journal of the American Oriental Society, (1983), pp. 103-114.

This was originally a blog post with URL: http://ancienthistory.D106/b/2010/10/18/myth-monday-lugalbanda.htm

For your convenience, here is the complete list of 2010 Myth Monday topics: