Observations placeholder
Kutha
Identifier
022247
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Kutha, Cuthah, or Cutha (Sumerian: Gudua, modern Tell Ibrahim) is an archaeological site in Babil Governorate, Iraq. Archaeological investigations have revealed very few remains of what was a city state dedicated to Nergal. Nergal is the lord of the underworld – or the netherworld and roughly equivalent to Pluto, though the description of the Intelligences should be read to understand what the underworld and netherworld were in very ancient cosmology.
Kutha lies on the right bank of the eastern branch of the Upper Euphrates, north of Nippur and around 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Babylon. The site consists of two tells or settlement mounds. The larger main mound is 0.75 miles (1.21 km) long and crescent-shaped. A smaller mound is located to the west. The two mounds, as is typical in the region, are separated by the dry bed of an ancient canal, the Shatt en-Nil. As a purely speculative thought they could have been temples to the Sun, Moon and Milky way [stars].
Sites like this were often used for rebirth ceremonies, as such the mounds may have been more ‘barrows’ – substitute caves, whose purpose was to provide sensory deprivation. It is rather interestingly one of the few old Sumerian city states that lie some distance from the centre in the south, thus adding to the sense of doom necessary for such ceremonies!
Kutha is also the name of the capital of the Sumerian underworld, Irkalla. Shulgi (formerly read as Dungi), King of Ur III, built the temple of Nergal at Cuthah, which fell into ruins. There is also a Biblical statement that the men of Cuthah served Nergal.
Given the purpose, Kutha would have been as important as all the other city states, possibly more important to some because of its key role in propelling people along the spiritual path. They would also have to have been very proficient priests and magicians, as rebirth is not at all safe, it can result in madness and even death. Many a hunched up figure in the barrows in Europe died from asphyxiation and terror.
One of the more fascinating things to emerge from study of Kutha is that there were links with the Nabateans [see below]. The Nabataeans, or Nabateans were a group of people whose capital city of Raqmu, is now called Petra. “Their loosely controlled trading network, which centered on strings of oases that they controlled, where agriculture was intensively practiced in limited areas, and on the routes that linked them, had no securely defined boundaries in the surrounding desert.”
Jane Taylor, a writer, describes them as "one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world".
A description of the experience
The Last Pagans of Iraq: Ibn Waḥshiyya and His Nabatean Agriculture - Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila:
"One might also mention the rather surprising story, traced back to 'Alì, the first Imam of the Shiites, where he is made to identify himself as “one of the Nabateans from Kùthà” (see Yàqùt,Mu'jamIV: 488, s.v. Kùthà).
It goes without saying that the story is apocryphal [sic], but it shows that among the Shiites there were people ready to identify themselves with the Nabateans. Thus it comes as no surprise that especially in the so-called ghulàt movements (extremist Shiites) a lot of material surfaces that is derivable from Mesopotamian sources (cf. Hämeen-Anttila 2001), and the early Shiite strongholds were to a great extent in the area inhabited by Nabateans.
Of course, as also Yàqùt notes, the identification of Kùthà as the original home of the Shiites/Muslims testifies to the Abrahamic roots of Islam. Yet the identification of Kùthà, and by extension also Abraham, with the Nabateans is remarkable."
NOTE: We can ignore the somewhat dismissive tone here of Mr Hämeen-Anttila and remember that the flood affected Kutha. So possibly they ended up in Petra and recreated their temples here.
