An Ancient Day of Mystery and Violence

Lives and futures balanced often on the skill of the warrior's blade and the daring heart of the brave. Swords are bathed in blood as Evil rises on the horizon...who will stand and fight?

1/22/11

THE 'REAL' ANATH



Ancient deities from Sumerian religion inspired the main characters of this series, Anath, Asherah, Dagon and Hadad. It is thought these are some of the oldest such figures in human history and come from what is thought to be one of the first civilizations.
On the surface, the figure of Anath reflects the confusing goddess who will later merge with the Greek Athena and the Roman Diana. She is on one hand a bloody temptress killer and the other a virgin/Mother figure.
 
Sometimes she is depicted as a sister of Bael (Hadad) and sometimes his consort and at other times a confusing combination of both.  I say "on the surface" because often there is a fine screen of pre-suppositions applied to interpreting ancient texts and their corresponding societies.  One of those is the role of patriarchy in ancient people.  Women depicted as warriors, this line of thought argues, must be an anomaly or fictional creation.  Often too is the application of modern prejudices on ancient people.


Writers like to start out with “what if” and for me the question was “what if these were based on real people? What if these people over time, and as various successive generations of patriarchal cultures reshaped them, became the conflicted and confusing deities seen today in these ancient records?”


The nucleus of what would become the Warriors of Anath Cycle was born.









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A woman, a sword and a destiny...