Semiramis
Encyclopedia
Shammuramat
Shammuramat or Sammur-amat was Queen of Assyria 811 BC–808 BC. The widow of King Shamshi-Adad V reigned for three years on the throne of Assyria...
(in Greek, Semiramis), was the Assyrian
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
queen of Shamshi-Adad V
Shamshi-Adad V
Shamshi-Adad V was the King of Assyria from 824 to 811 BC.-Biography:He was the son and successor of Shalmaneser III, the husband of Shammuramat , and the father of Adad-nirari III, who succeeded him as king....
(ruled 824 BC–811 BC), King of Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
and ruler of the Neo Assyrian Empire, and its regent for four years until her son Adad-nirari III
Adad-nirari III
Adad-nirari III was King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC. He was the son and successor of Shamshi-Adad V, and was apparently quite young at the time of his accession, because for the first five years of his reign his mother Shammuramat acted as regent, which may have given rise to the legend of...
came of age.
For the ancient Greeks Semiramis was one of several legendary Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n queens. The most recent was Semiramis II for whom the Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered to be one of the greatest Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one of the Wonders which may in fact have been legendary. They were purportedly built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil, in Iraq...
were built.
The legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
, Justin
Junianus Justinus
Justin was a Latin historian who lived under the Roman Empire. His name is mentioned only in the title of his own history, and there it is in the genitive, which would be M. Juniani Justini no matter which nomen he bore.Of his personal history nothing is known...
and others from Ctesias of Cnidus
Ctesias
Ctesias of Cnidus was a Greek physician and historian from Cnidus in Caria. Ctesias, who lived in the 5th century BC, was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, whom he accompanied in 401 BC on his expedition against his brother Cyrus the Younger....
make a picture of her and her relationship to King Ninus
Ninus
Ninus , according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was accepted as the eponymous founder of Nineveh , Ancient capital of Assyria, although he does not seem to represent any one personage known to modern history, and is more likely a conflation of several real and/or...
, himself a mythical king of Assyria, not attested in the Assyrian King List.
The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
s in Western Asia, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown. Ultimately every stupendous work of antiquity by the Euphrates
Euphrates
The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...
or in Iran seems to have been ascribed to her, even the Behistun Inscription
Behistun Inscription
The Behistun Inscription The Behistun Inscription The Behistun Inscription (also Bistun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون The Behistun Inscription (also Bistun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون...
of Darius
Darius I of Persia
Darius I , also known as Darius the Great, was the third king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire...
. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
ascribes to her the artificial banks that confined the Euphrates and knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered to be one of the greatest Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one of the Wonders which may in fact have been legendary. They were purportedly built in the ancient city-state of Babylon, near present-day Al Hillah, Babil, in Iraq...
, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Seven Wonders of the World refers to remarkable constructions of classical antiquity listed by various authors in guidebooks popular among the ancient Hellenic tourists, particularly in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC...
are also known as the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis.
Various places in Assyria, Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, Medea
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
, Persia and Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
bore the name of Semiramis, but slightly changed, even in the Middle Ages, and an old name of the city of Van
Van, Turkey
Van is a city in southeastern Turkey and the seat of the Kurdish-majority Van Province, and is located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. The city's official population in 2010 was 367,419, but many estimates put this as much higher with a 1996 estimate stating 500,000 and former Mayor Burhan...
was Shamiramagerd. Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
still name female children Semiramis to this day.
Biography according to Diodorus Siculus
Ashkelon
Ashkelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age...
in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by dove
Dove
Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerines. In general terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably...
s until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd.
Afterwards she married Onnes
Onnes
Onnes in legend was one of the generals of the mythological Assyrian king, Ninus. He married Semiramis. He is said to have committed suicide, after which his widow married Ninus....
or Menones, one of the generals of Ninus
Ninus
Ninus , according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was accepted as the eponymous founder of Nineveh , Ancient capital of Assyria, although he does not seem to represent any one personage known to modern history, and is more likely a conflation of several real and/or...
. Ninus was so struck by her bravery at the capture of Bactra that he married her, forcing Onnes to commit suicide.
She and Ninus had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including the Bactrians
Bactrians
The Bactrians were the inhabitants of Bactria.Several important trade routes from India and China passed through Bactria and, as early as the Bronze Age, this had allowed the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth by the mostly nomadic population. The first proto-urban civilization in the area...
, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis then masqueraded as her son and tricked her late husband's army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. After Ninus's death she reigned as queen regnant
Queen regnant
A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire....
, conquering much of Asia.
Not only was she able to reign effectively, she also added Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
to the empire. She restored ancient Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. She is also credited with inventing the chastity belt
Chastity belt
A chastity belt is a locking item of clothing designed to prevent sexual intercourse. They may be used to protect the wearer from rape or temptation. Some devices have been designed with additional features to prevent masturbation...
. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...
credits her as the first person to castrate a male youth into eunuch-hood: "Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age" (Lib. XIV).
According to Hislop's The Two Babylons
The Two Babylons
The Two Babylons is an anti-Catholic religious pamphlet produced initially by the Scottish theologian and Presbyterian Alexander Hislop in 1853. It was later expanded in 1858 and finally published as a book in 1919...
(1853) in the end, however, her son Zoroaster killed her. This may be derived from the legend of Ishtar and Gilgamesh.
The association of the fish and dove is found at Hierapolis Bambyce (Mabbog), the great temple at which, according to one legend, was founded by Semiramis, where her statue was shown with a golden dove on her head.
Semiramis in Armenian legend
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n tradition portrays her as a homewrecker and a harlot. These facts are partly to be explained by observing that, according to the legends, in her birth as well as in her disappearance from earth, Semiramis appears as a goddess, the daughter of the fish-goddess Atargatis, and herself connected with the doves of Ishtar
Ishtar
Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex. She is the counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate north-west Semitic goddess Astarte.-Characteristics:...
or Astartë.
One of the most popular legends in Armenian tradition involves Semiramis and an Armenian king, Ara the Beautiful
Ara the Beautiful
Ara the Beautiful is a legendary Armenian hero. He is notable in Armenian literature for the popular legend in which he was so handsome that the Assyrian queen Semiramis waged war against Armenia just to get him.He is sometimes associated with the historical king of Ararat known as Arame who...
. In the 20th century, the poet Nairi Zarian
Nairi Zarian
Nairi Zarian was a Soviet Armenian poet and writer, the chairman of Armenian SSR Committee for the Defense of Peace....
retold the story of Ara the Beautiful and Shamiram, in a work considered to be a masterpiece of Armenian literary drama.
According to the legend, Semiramis had heard about the fame of the handsome Armenian king Ara, and she lusted after his image. She asked Ara to marry her, but he refused; upon hearing this, she gathered the armies of Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
and marched against Armenia.
During the battle, which may have taken place in the Ararat valley, Ara was slain. In order to avoid continuous warfare with the Armenians, Semiramis, reputed to be a sorceress, took his body and prayed to the gods to raise Ara from the dead. When the Armenians advanced to avenge their leader, she disguised one of her lovers as Ara and spread the rumor that the gods had brought Ara back to life. As a result, the war ended.
Although many different versions of the legend exist, it is usually accepted that Ara never came back to life.
The historical Semiramis
While the achievements of Semiramis are clearly mythical and metaphorical, there was a historical AssyriaAssyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n queen Shammuramat
Shammuramat
Shammuramat or Sammur-amat was Queen of Assyria 811 BC–808 BC. The widow of King Shamshi-Adad V reigned for three years on the throne of Assyria...
(Semiramis
Semiramis
The real and historical Shammuramat , was the Assyrian queen of Shamshi-Adad V , King of Assyria and ruler of the Neo Assyrian Empire, and its regent for four years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age....
), wife of Shamshi-Adad V
Shamshi-Adad V
Shamshi-Adad V was the King of Assyria from 824 to 811 BC.-Biography:He was the son and successor of Shalmaneser III, the husband of Shammuramat , and the father of Adad-nirari III, who succeeded him as king....
of Assyria. After her husband's death, she served as regent from 810 - 806 BC for her son, Adad-nirari III
Adad-nirari III
Adad-nirari III was King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC. He was the son and successor of Shamshi-Adad V, and was apparently quite young at the time of his accession, because for the first five years of his reign his mother Shammuramat acted as regent, which may have given rise to the legend of...
. Semiramis would thus have been briefly in control of the vast Neo Assyrian Empire which ruled Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
, western Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
(Persia and Media), Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, much of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
and Arabia, Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
among others. Georges Roux
Georges Roux
Georges Roux was a French artist and book illustrator. His best-known works today are a large number of illustrations he created for the science-fiction novels of Jules Verne, in the series Les voyages extraordinaires...
has speculated that the many later Indo-Iranian
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Iranian can refer to:* Indo-Iranian languages* Prehistoric Indo-Iranians * Indo-European languages* Proto-Indo-Iranian religion* Proto-Indo-Iranian language...
(Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
, Median
Median
In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the numerical value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to...
and Urartian/Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
) flavoured myths surrounding Semiramis stem from successful campaigns waged by her against these peoples, and the novelty of a woman ruling such an empire.
Some have claimed that her legends were created so that she could be worshiped as a goddess to further solidify her reign and power, but this is not borne out by the Assyrian
Assyrian
-In antiquity:*ancient Assyria**the Old Assyrian period **the Middle Assyrian period **the Neo-Assyrian period *Either of two provinces of the Persian Empire:**Achaemenid Assyria...
documents of the time.
Recent developments in forensic archeology and historic inquiry reveal the possibility of a single individual having been in position to have done the majority of acts traditionally ascribed to Semiramis. Further, it is apparent from linguistic and mythologic evidence that this individual may be responsible for the institutions of several diverse religious practices, including many predominate practices in the occident.
In later traditions
- In The Divine ComedyThe Divine ComedyThe Divine Comedy is an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature...
, Dante sees Semiramis among the souls of the lustful in the Second Circle of HellHellIn many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
:
And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
Making in air a long line of themselves,
So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,
Shadows borne onward by the aforesaid stress.
Whereupon said I: "Master, who are those People, whom the black air so castigates?"
"The first of those, of whom intelligence Thou fain wouldst have", then said he unto me,
"The empress was of many languages. To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
That lustful she made licit in her law,
To remove the blame to which she had been led.
She is Semiramis. . .
She succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;
She held the land which now the Sultan rules.
She married her son after Ninus' death and lived with him.
Semiramis appears in many plays and operas, for example Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's tragedy Semiramis and operas with the title Semiramide by Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
, Marcos Portugal
Marcos Portugal
Marcos António da Fonseca Portugal was a Portuguese classical composer, who achieved great international fame for his operas in Italian....
, Josef Mysliveček
Josef Myslivecek
Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...
, and Gioachino Rossini. Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
composed music for Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
's eponymous 'ballet-pantomime' in 1934 that was only revived in 1992 after many years of neglect. In Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
's play The Chairs, the Old Woman is referred to as Semiramis.
In 1910 Camille de Morlhon directed a film about Semiramis for Pathé, starring Yvonne Mirval.
She has also appeared in several sword and sandal
Sword and sandal
The Peplum , also known as Sword-and-Sandal, is a genre of largely Italian-made Historical or Biblical Epics that dominated the Italian film industry from 1957 to 1965, eventually being replaced in 1965 by the "Spaghetti Western"...
films, including the 1954 film Queen of Babylon
Queen of Babylon
Queen of Babylon is a 1954 film set in the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the year 600 BC.This film was directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia.-Cast:*Rhonda Fleming as "Semiramis"*Ricardo Montalban as "Amal"*Roldano Lupi as "Assur"*Carlo Ninchi as "Sibari"...
in which she was played by Rhonda Fleming
Rhonda Fleming
Rhonda Fleming , is an American film and television actress.She acted in more than 40 films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most beautiful and glamorous actresses of her day...
, and the 1963 film I am Semiramis
I am Semiramis
Io Semiramide is a 1963 film about Semiramis, a semi-legendary queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.This film was directed by Primo Zeglio.-Cast:*Yvonne Furneaux as "Semiramis"...
in which she was played by Yvonne Furneaux
Yvonne Furneaux
Yvonne Furneaux is a French film actress.-Personal life:Yvonne Furneax started her acting career in England in 1952. At first she started with a few minor productions...
. An Italian progressive rock group named Semiramis released one album in 1973.
In literature Semiramis often stands as an icon of beauty.
In William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
's Snopes Trilogy Eula Varner is her modern incarnation. Faulkner quite likely got the name from Inferno V where she appears in the same list as Helen of Troy as those punished for uncontrolled passion.
Hislop's goddess claim
Protestant minister Alexander HislopAlexander Hislop
Alexander Hislop was a Free Church of Scotland minister infamous for his outspoken criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the son of Stephen Hislop , a mason by occupation and an elder of the Relief Church...
in The Two Babylons (1853) claims that Semiramis was an actual person in ancient Mesopotamia who invented polytheism
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
and, with it, goddess worship
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
.
Hislop believed that Semiramis was a consort
Queen consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...
of Nimrod
Nimrod
Nimrod means "Hunter"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations; an eponym for the city of Nimrud.Nimrod can also refer to any of the following:*Nimród Antal, a director...
, builder of the Bible's Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
, though Biblical mention of consorts to Nimrod is lacking.
According to Hislop, Semiramis invents polytheism
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
in an effort to corrupt her subjects' original faith in the God of Genesis. She deified herself as Ishtar and her son as Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...
as well as various members of her court and her then deceased husband.
In support of his claim, Hislop talked about legends of Semiramis being raised by doves. He referred to the writings by the church's Ante Nicene Fathers to suggest that these stories began as propaganda invented and circulated by Semiramis herself so her subjects would ascribe to her the status of virgin birth and view her child as the fulfillment of the "seed" prophecy in Genesis 3:15. Making her son the child of Inaanna (seed of the woman)
Hislop believed Semiramis' child to be the Akkadian deity Tammuz, a god of vegetation as well as a life-death-rebirth deity
Life-death-rebirth deity
A dying god, also known as a dying-and-rising or resurrection deity, is a god who dies and is resurrected or reborn, in either a literal or symbolic sense. Male examples include the ancient Near Eastern and Greek deities Baal, Melqart, Adonis, Eshmun, Attis Tammuz, Asclepius, Orpheus, as well as...
.
He maintained that all divine pairings in world myths and religions depicted in art e.g. Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
/Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
, Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
/Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
, Asherah
Asherah
Asherah , in Semitic mythology, is a Semitic mother goddess, who appears in a number of ancient sources including Akkadian writings by the name of Ashratum/Ashratu and in Hittite as Asherdu or Ashertu or Aserdu or Asertu...
/EL, Mary/Jesus and others are retellings of the tale of Semiramis and Tammuz. Semiramis goes on to become the Blessed Virgin Mary according to Hislop's book. This attempts to support Hislop's claim that Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
is in fact paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
.
Hislop took literary references to Osiris and Orion as "seed of woman" as evidence in support of his thesis. The legends already existing in his day about Semiramis he claimed were distortions of history.
Hislop's claims continue to be circulated among some fundamentalist Christians today in the form of Jack Chick
Jack Chick
Jack Thomas Chick is an American publisher, writer, and comic book artist of fundamentalist Christian tracts and comic books...
tracts, comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, and related media.
Primary sources
- Paulinus Minorita, Compendium
- Eusebius, Chronicon 20.13-17, 19-26
- Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos i.4, ii.2.5, 6.7
- Justinus, Epitome Historiarum philippicarum Pompei Trogi i.2
- Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri ix.3, ext 4