Origins of the Tarot de Marseille?

Yes - I have mandrake images too... and they have before also been related to the Fool, partly on the ground that one of the ways that mandrakes were removed was to attach them to a dog that uprooted them - presumably because the screams of the uprooted man-drake would render its hearer mad.

Rosanne said:

The fruit of the male plant was called Devil's Balls for obvious reasons and the female flower was called something totally unmentionable on here.~Rosanne

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The plants are called Genies Eggs in Arabic beid el-jinn, probably in relation to the fruit; the Hebrew word duduim (love plants) in Gen 30:14 and Ca 7:13 is considered by most biblical scholars to refer to the mandragore, an ingredient of love philtres. It was thought to inadvertently touch the root without special preparations would lead to death:

"A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the root must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this the root can be touched without fear." Josephus BJ VII.VI.3.

"The ancients also believed that this root gave of a demoniac shriek as it was pulled up. The 'smell' of the mandrakes (Ca 7:13) is the heavy narcotic odour of the Solanaceous plants. The allusion to it in this connection doubtless refers to its specific virtues."

Source: James Hasting Dictionary of the Bible.

Kwaw

The posts relating to the mandrake and the Sumerian image (not Lilitu I am sure - I tend to think she is Ereshkigal; the number of horns indicates a very high deity) remind me of my hunch, that the TdM image represents the Devil of the Witches Sabbat.

I am sure that cognates can be found in engravings from the 16-17th century.

The Devil of the TdM is different from the Bolognese, Ferrarese, and Belgian Tarot Devils - these latter, I think, come from other traditions than the Witches Sabbat; specifically, ecclesiatical depictions of Satan and Hell.

Now to throw another spanner in the works...

The "horns" of the Diable are in fact - antlers. And they are troubling in their similarity with these, in a Gallo-Roman image of Cernunnos on the Gundestrup cauldron (confusingly, this artefact, dated to 200 years before Christ, was found in Denmark). Cernunnos - in imagery and popular imagination - survived well into the Christian Middle Ages.

It's long been my belief that the TdM Diable is a composite of various images of "demon"-like creatures - what would have appeared as demons to a craftsman of the Renaissance - and selected among available iconography. It is very different from the gargoyles and demons that fill churches and scenes of damnation in European art and architecture. This suggests that the first one to draw or engrave the TdM Devil either wanted to say something different from those scenes, or wanted an image striking in its difference, but recognisably demonic.

My instinct is still to place that kind of imagery in what is now the South of France (but was not then) - either Provence or Languedoc, my preference going to Provence - with its proximity to Italy, and its two great Mediterranean ports, Marseille and Aigues-Mortes, through which so many exotic images from the Eastern Mediterranean must have passed.

Hi Ross I know nothing of the Witches Sabbat, so I will be interested in looking. My image of Lilitu, is the same as prudence and comes from a mythology book. Ereshkigal did not have sacred Owls as her Familiars- nor did she have wings. The hat is made of Lunar Horns. ~Rosanne

Hi Roseanne,

Rosanne said:

Hi Ross I know nothing of the Witches Sabbat, so I will be interested in looking. My image of Lilitu, is the same as prudence and comes from a mythology book. Ereshkigal did not have sacred Owls as her Familiars- nor did she have wings. The hat is made of Lunar Horns. ~Rosanne

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I think most scholars don't accept that this plaque is a representation of the demoness Lilitu. There is so much that is unclear about Mesopotamian mythology, and this sculpture's identity is far from certain.

For a good discussion, see -
http://www.history.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/Lilith/
(and follow the first few links for more details)

A very similar image, from Babylonian (not Sumerian) times, shows no owls, and she stands on a pair of ibexes.

It is a very old sculpture and there is no inscription. It is hard to associate her to any specific mythological background, I think. The multiple crowns always indicated high divinity in Mesopotamian iconography. The lions would belong to Inanna. Her clawed feet indicate a bird of prey, and the owls are nocturnal. Isaiah 34:14 uses "lilith", usually translated "screech-owl", and this is the basis for this association with the owls in this sculpture.

But the sculpture is at least a thousand years older than Isaiah, and (as you have read at the link above) Samuel Noah Kramer's translation of "lilith" in part of the Gilgamesh story is very questionable (the name is "kiskililu" or "lilake" (most likely the former)), mostly because of the associations it brings up with Jewish folklore, first wife of Adam, etc.

All we know about lilitu in Mesopotamian mythology is that she was a demon of the wilderness who stole babies at birth. Then Assyriology-studen Renee Rosen wrote a good letter about her on the Ancient Near East discussion list way back in 1997 -
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/ANE/ANE-DIGEST/1997/v1997.n145

(scroll about half-way down)

But there is no doubt for me that our figure is a goddess, and not a demon. In addition to the horns, she holds the "line and measure" symbols of rule (as "rule" literally means - to lay down the law, circumscribe the perimeter).

Helvetica said:

It's long been my belief that the TdM Diable is a composite of various images of "demon"-like creatures - what would have appeared as demons to a craftsman of the Renaissance - and selected among available iconography. It is very different from the gargoyles and demons that fill churches and scenes of damnation in European art and architecture. This suggests that the first one to draw or engrave the TdM Devil either wanted to say something different from those scenes, or wanted an image striking in its difference, but recognisably demonic.

My instinct is still to place that kind of imagery in what is now the South of France (but was not then) - either Provence or Languedoc, my preference going to Provence - with its proximity to Italy, and its two great Mediterranean ports, Marseille and Aigues-Mortes, through which so many exotic images from the Eastern Mediterranean must have passed.

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I agree, I think that the TdM Devil is saying something "different" from the other Tarot Devils. I suspect it comes from France, because it is only found in French decks (and not even the Cary Sheet, with all its similarities to TdM trumps, has a similar Devil), and because I believe its origin is to be found in a depiction of the Sabbat, which was a major French concern in the 16th and well into the 17th century (more than it appears to have been in Italy as far as I can tell; might have had something to do with Protestants and Jews, as well as folk religion).

In the same way that the image of Captain Fracasse in the Belgian Tarot was borrowed from Lasne's engraving, I hope that the source of the TdM Devil can be found in an earlier engraving. It could have been original, of course. But there is no harm in looking, and a lot to be learned along the way.

But instead of Provence, I am looking to Lyon, which had such a big printing industry - and the Tarot de Marseille might well have come from there. But, it might have been Avignon as well, and so in Provence.

What the heck - I'm just looking for images right now. I've found a couple with suggestively similar Devils and the damned in chains, but I can't find them on the web yet.

Ross G Caldwell said:

But there is no doubt for me that our figure is a goddess, and not a demon. In addition to the horns, she holds the "line and measure" symbols of rule (as "rule" literally means - to lay down the law, circumscribe the perimeter).

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Most likely I am misunderstanding what is being said, but to me it seems that a depiction of a Goddess from any other religious belief system would make a great Devil symbol to those who subscribe to a Judeo-Christian system. Take their God/dess and make it the Devil.


~and, thanks, jmd, for the reminder, I thought I had seen someone mention this here at Aeclectic (as well as the other forum where I first happened upon it).

Helvetica said:

My instinct is still to place that kind of imagery in what is now the South of France (but was not then) - either Provence or Languedoc, my preference going to Provence - with its proximity to Italy, and its two great Mediterranean ports, Marseille and Aigues-Mortes, through which so many exotic images from the Eastern Mediterranean must have passed.

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I also wonder about Genoa, with it's trade routes to the East. Rembering too that Genoa was part of France from 1394-1409. And the connections to the Visconti family from 1421-1435.

prudence said:

Most likely I am misunderstanding what is being said, but to me it seems that a depiction of a Goddess from any other religious belief system would make a great Devil symbol to those who subscribe to a Judeo-Christian system. Take their God/dess and make it the Devil.

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Yes, you're right, pagan gods were made into Jewish, Christian and Muslim demons.

But this particular statue couldn't have been the model for the Devil card - its overall similarity in posture notwithstanding - because it was only discovered in the late 19th century (or thereabouts) buried deep in the ground in an archeological dig.

The iconography of the Christian Devil changes over the centuries and comes from many sources, of course, and Mesopotamian influences helped shape it. They are distant ancestors.

Even more strikingly similar is a much more common and "popular" *actual* Sumerian-Babylonian demon, Pazuzu -
http://www.anunnaki.org/productions/pazuzu.php
(and also google image "pazuzu" for many others - this one shows the bird-feet best). Pazuzu was a "devil", but he was used for protection - worn as a charm, or hung in the house (much like the charms you can still buy with the "sign of the horns" made with the hand - using the devil to fight evil).