Chapter 2 - Earthquake Myths

Abstract

An interdisciplinary approach carried out in this chapter sheds light on the fact that the ancient indigenous people living on and around the Greater Iranian Plateau believed that the imaginary storm-demons/gods/kings/heroes, their spirits, or weapons, enter the Earth, shake the planet, and as a result, the mountain belts are created. At the end of Time, the mountain belts will become leveled again by earthquakes. This seems to be the earliest known perception of the mountain building process called orogeny, followed by erosion, which in modern times and has been attributed to earthquakes. It reveals that the ancient people paid attention to the natural forces and environmental changes caused by large-magnitude earthquakes. Memories of this remote observation has been preserved as metaphors in the religious texts, local myths, folklores, and oral traditions. The chapter covers the following sections: (i) Chashmag-e Div [monster/devil Chashmag] in pagan Iran (pre-1200 BCE); (ii) Subterranean writhing of an evil spirit in conflict with the Earth in proto-Zoroastrian tradition (pre-1200 BCE); (iii) attribution of earthquakes to the movements of animals holding the Earth; (iv) Maruts, Vārunā and Indra (in the Rig Vedā and the Avestā; ca. 1500–1200 BCE); (v) shackled giant/Paqua creating an earthquake at Mount Elbruz [Elbrus, Alborz], Qāf volcano, Caucasus; (vi) earthquakes as fundamental cause of mountain building in the Zoroastrian Iranian creation myth (ca. 1200 BCE); (vii) shaking of the solid sky made of stone (ca. 1200 BCE); (viii) tremors caused by Srosh’s strike; (ix) attribution of earthquakes to the movements of animals holding the Earth; (x) apocalyptic earthquakes and the Iranian image of eschatological leveling of the mountains; (xi) earthquakes in the Sumerian texts (ca. eighteenth century BCE); (xii) earthquakes in the Babylonian texts (ca. 1830–1531 BCE); (xiii) Assyrian belief (934–609 BCE); and (xiv) earthquakes in the Armenian myth: dragons living in a ravine created by an earthquake at mount Māssis (Ārārāt).