Surpu Masu

Where the Anunnaki created Ai Suru, a giant scapegoat, to carry the regrets of the world back to the perdition from which they belong.

Loosely translated from the Sumerian (if we are incorrect in our grammar we humbly apologize, it is difficult to find one of the 40 or so people who actually speak the Sumerian language), Surpu Masu translates to "Goat of Burning Exorcism". Based upon the nailing of evils and other ancient forms of banishing, Surpu Masu was a foundation project for The Anunnaki, exploring the facets of ancient scapegoat behavior.

Taking the scapegoat from the Semitic Yom Kippur practice, we explored the origins of the goat.

The darker origins of Yom Kippur contained a ritual where a pair of goats were chased through town by a priest of YVHV. During this ceremony, the crowd would whip the goat with their switches and thus "nail their sins" to the creature. Of these two goats, one would be slain and sacrificed by fire, the other would be chased out into the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem, a place that later became known as Gehenna.

In the Semitic, this goat was representative of Azazel, one of the fallen angels in Exodus. Azazel was known as "The Accuser" to god, and in the Apocryphal books of Enoch we see Azazel as the leader of the Watchers, the Sons of God who watched over the human race at its origin.

We had discovered some powerful archetypes and imagery, and from here the creative forces began to branch out through time from Pre-Sumerian principles all the way up to the modern individuals interaction with e-commerce.

The relationship with Azazel to Yehweh sparked an interesting observation in its similarity to the relationship Cabalistically of Ain Soph to Ain Soph Aur, and from there from the Demiurge to the divine, and thus, loosely from the Sumerian to Enki. Finding this parallel we began to look for a part for a feminine Ereshkigal character in this. Seeking to stay away from the Lilith character we opened the possibility of the Chaldean Hekate as the leader of the procession.

The initiation of the Hekate character opened the doorway to quite literally into sacred architecture and the divine proportion. All angles and ratios of the structure were required to be trinary or of the Phi proportion.

Realizing we would be playing to a modern audience, we decided to use the principles of the seven deadly sins as a metaphor for what we needed to let go. Using the standard practice of The Anunnaki, we had our performers create the manifestations of the sins. Two performers were allotted to each sin giving many faces to the image.

The goat was a 13' high wicker goat that was placed upon a 10' altar. The goat was made of plywood with a skin of blackberry vines. The Stage was created using the divine proportion of Phi. This altar was placed out in the Black Rock Desert during the '98 Burning Man Festival.

The Characters of the procession were made up of Azazel leading the goat, with a phalanx of the 7 deadly sins soliciting confessions. Leading the procession was the character Hekate, following the goat was the persecutor.

The burn was a representation of a ritual burn of the crossroads. The goat was placed back upon the stage. Azazel walked around the goat clockwise lighting ritual torches as 7 magi characters circled the goat counterclockwise spinning fireballs representing Iynges. Finishing the circles, the Magi took up the torches and lit the goat. The goat burst into the flame climaxing with the Surpu effect, a 30' fireball reaching 4200 degrees symbolizing an opening of the gateway to the underworld.

A retrospect video is being directed at this time by Leo Mayberry.