Dumuzid the Shepherd, the fifth predynastic Sumerian king... was said to have reigned in the legendary time before the flood, around five thousand years ago. According to tradition, Dumuzid was the husband of the goddess Inanna, with whom he lived in an erotic idyll followed by a tragic outcome, as recorded anonymously in cuneiform characters on ancient clay tablets. At the start of the poem The Dream of Dumuzid he calls, weeping and desperate, for his wise sister Gestinanna so that she might interpret the fearsome vision he has just had:

A dream, my sister! A dream! In my dream, rushes were rising up for me, rushes kept growing for me, a single reed was shaking its head at me; twin reeds--one was being separated from me. Tall trees in the forest were rising up together over me. Water was poured over my holy coals for me, the cover of my holy churn was being removed, my holy drinking cup was torn down from the peg where it hung, my shepherd's stick disappeared from me. An owl took a lamb from the sheep house, a falcon caught a sparrow on the reed fence, my male goats were dragging their dark beards in the dust for me, my rams were scratching the earth with their thick legs for me. The churns were lying on their side, no milk was poured, the drinking cups were lying on their side, Dumuzid was dead, the sheepfold was haunted.

My brother, your dream is not favourable, don't tell me any more of it! Dumuzid, your dream is not favourable, don't tell me any more of it! The rushes rising up for you, which kept growing for you, are bandits rising against you from their ambush. The single reed shaking its head at you is your mother who bore you, shaking her head for you. The twin reeds of which one was being separated from you is you and I--one will be separated from you. The tall trees in the forest rising up together over you are the evil men catching you within the walls. That water was poured over your holy coals means the sheepfold will become a house of silence.

"My brother, your demons are coming for you! Duck down your head in the grass!"

He begs: "My sister, I will duck down my head in the grass! Don't reveal my whereabouts to them! I will duck down my head in the short grass! Don't reveal my whereabouts to them!"

Gestinanna replies: "If I reveal your whereabouts to them, may your dog devour me! The black dog, your shepherd dog, the noble dog, your lordly dog, may your dog devour me!"

"Those who came for the king . . . who know not food, who know not drink, who eat no sprinkled flour, who drink no poured water, who accept no pleasant gifts, who do not enjoy a wife's embraces, who never kiss dear little children..."

Ten men from five different cities surround the house, shouting: "Man run after man." In reality these are demons that have come to carry Dumuzid off to the underworld of the dead. The demons try to bribe Gestinanna to reveal Dumuzid's hiding place, but she refuses to help them.

Then they try to corrupt one of the fugitive's friends, who ends up betraying him and revealing his whereabouts. Captured, tied up, and wounded, Dumuzid weeps and begs for clemency from his brother-in-law Utu, the sun god, Inanna's brother, that he might transform his hands and feet into gazelle legs so that he can run away from his captors. Utu accepts the tears as an offering and grants the request. Dumuzid flees to another city, but once again the demons find him.

This misfortune is repeated three times until Dumuzid hides in his sister Gestinanna's holy sheepfold, where each part of the prophecy then comes true and Dumuzid meets his sorry end. When the final demon enters the story, "the drinking cups lay on their side. Dumuzid was dead, the sheepfold was haunted."

A bull man fighting four quadrupeds, c. 2600 BCE. Inscription: "Ama-Ushumgal", namesake of the mythical shepherd king Dumuzi.
Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels.

EDITOR'S NOTE

This is, and always will be, the oldest dream record on Earth; for this is when and where written records began. Dumuzid the Shepherd apparently led a city-state (this far back, likely just a small town) well before 3000 BCE; the chronology's unclear, but enough generations passed so (as with Aesklepios the Greek healer or Imhotep the Egyptian architect) he became the archetype of his profession--the god of shepherds and dairy farming. His name streamlined; the Bible calls him Tammuz, the Greeks, Adonis.

Ribeiro, always practical, thinks this oldest of all written dreams is typical of prehistoric ones; through most of our evolution, we were hunted quite as often as hunters, and nightmares made us plan what to do if attacked; so dreams weren't psychological or spiritual advisors but survival training. Nightmares, then, aren't signs of emotional stress or dysfunction, their function's just a bit archaic--for those of us not in war zones, at least.

I agree dreams are practical. I just don't think this earliest dream account is a mere dramatization of some small-town grudge, or a reminder that lions can eat your sheep (or you). Dumuzid's nemeses track him across the known world! And we experience the terror from Dumuzid's viewpoint--it makes the later tale of Cain and Abel look like a bland knock-off.

And the dream's eerie; a psychic foreboding that turns out to be horribly accurate. The poem (such texts full of repetition were clearly meant to be chanted or sung) takes for granted that dreams are oracles, but implies we can't avoid what we foresee--that fate always wins. Dumuzid can run like a gazelle, but his friend betrays him.

Not that I agree with the Mesopotamians. Fate isn't fated to win. Learn to interpret dream metaphors--find (or become) a Jestinanna, a dream interpreter, and you can navigate the timescape ahead--change your fate. Not enough to avoid all risk, for enemies too can dream; and friends can turn. "Man hunts man". But dreamwork gives you a fighting chance.

Fate is not simple. Nor is this dream--the first dream.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Sidarta Ribeiro's The Oracle of Night: the History and Science of Dreams p. 270-72. Primary source: the full text of The Dream of Dumuzid is in Oxford's cuneiform archive at etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr143.htm.

DATE: the Chronicle of Kings claims its earliest rulers lived thousands of years each, so it's worthess as a literal timeline; but the earliest king confirmed as historical dates to 2900 BCE, and Dumuzid the Shepherd is two dozen kings before him. Some may be rivals in various towns just shoehorned into a linear sequence, but he's certainly several centuries older, perhaps many; long enough to deify (archetypify?) in an oral tradition. So Dumuzid was a prehistoric small-town mayor (these weren't nations, or even cities) at least 52-5300 years ago. The first dream indeed.

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