Elham LEMEUR, Franco-Moroccan, born in 1966 in France. She works as an accountant in Paris. She is a fan of classic films and science-fiction novels.
Fascinated by the mystery of the archaeological site of the Gobekli Tepe temple in Turkey, she created a work of fiction and developed an entire universe, which she completed three years later.
“The Hill of Three Gods” is one of the few fantasy novels about Göbekli Tepe, dominated by the supernatural, adventure and history.
TBE: Your novel weaves together mythology, ancient history, and the supernatural in fascinating ways. What inspired you to blend the ancient myth of Etana with the mysterious archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe to create this rich narrative world?
Elham Lemeur: Etana is said to be a legendary king from Mesopotamian history, and served as the basis for my novel.
Of course, I’ve made some changes to adapt it to my fiction.
Having heard of the archaeological discovery of the Gobekli tepe temple in Turkey, near the town of Sanliurfa, I took the liberty of blending the ancient myth with the famous temple.
On ancient Sumerian cylinder seals, Etana is depicted flying on the back of a giant eagle.
Considering the size of the eagle, my imagination went wild. For me, the giant bird must have been an ancient god on Earth.
TBE: The concept of “birth debt” forms a central spiritual framework in your story. Could you talk about how this idea developed and what it represents to you philosophically?
Elham Lemeur: I assumed that all religions had a common base: the importance of the soul and life after death.
That’s when I thought of a debt or a loan! The idea of the existence of a “supernatural” contract between nature and the living came to me.
We have thus obtained a soul to animate our body for a given period of time. However, the “supernatural” contract provides for the return of the soul after certain rituals have been performed.
So, from the moment we are born, we are indebted to nature. Failure to return souls would have consequences for the family and the Tribe.
I therefore imagined that the temple of Gobekli tepe-which, at the time, did not yet have this name-might have been intended to determine whether the deceased had repaid their “birth debt.”
TBE: I was struck by your portrayal of the Efys, these small, vibrant guardians who bring so much life to the sanctuary
Elham Lemeur: Do you know that African Pygmies are considered the direct descendants of the Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers of the Central African rainforest?
Even more interesting, in ancient Egypt, dwarfs and pygmies were considered to be endowed with celestial gifts. They were highly respected and enjoyed high social status.
I’ve read about their cults and traditions, and in particular about the birth of twins, which they liken to “water genies”! The arrival of twins in a tribe greatly disturbs the normal order of things and gives rise to important ritual practices.
I was very inspired by all this and decided to make this tribe – of little men – the great guardians of the sacred temple.
TBE: Your portrayal of disability through the priestesses is quite powerful. Rather than “fixing” their differences, you elevate them to spiritual significance. How does your personal experience with your son’s autism inform this perspective?
Elham Lemeur: I chose to sublimate disability. In other words, to turn the physically handicapped into “spiritual” heroes, into saviors of souls.
I was inspired by Marvel’s American superheroes. You may remember that they derive their powers from strange phenomena-in Spider-Man’s case, it’s a radioactive spider that bites him.
Well, I’ve done the same thing, but it’s a divine energy that will change my disabled characters- turning them into demigods.
TBE: The complex friendship between Pakousane and Sihiru spans decades and evolves through separation and reunion. What were you exploring through this particular relationship?
Elham Lemeur: Pakousane, the main protagonist and half-orphan, is a tormented young man in need of answers to the questions of his life. To do so, he must leave his dull village to rub shoulders with the world.
Sihiru’s second protagonist is his inseparable childhood friend. He’s a well-balanced, good-natured young man, with a penchant for alcohol, who will later become a sorcerer-healer, a profession for which his father painstakingly trained him long before his great journey.
Both are brothers at heart, from different backgrounds but with complementary temperaments.
For Sihiru, the long journey will reveal his own limits. He has difficulty with the length of the endless journey imposed on him by his friend.
For Pakousane, on the other hand, it’s a rebirth, propelled by the call of the road, of discoveries and encounters.
Their aspirations diverge, and it’s time for them to part ways and fulfill their own destinies.
Sihiru is a bit lazy and unwilling, so the separation will have to be brutal to make him leave. This will take place in India, a faraway land, because I wanted them to be separated by an ocean with no possibility of reunion. Sihiru must return alone to his homeland and let his friend fulfill his own destiny.
But the heart is never at peace after such a separation, and they meet again three decades later. This meeting is a way of reassuring each other, the better to part ways a second time.
TBE: The “long sound” theory that Libaye develops becomes a fascinating element late in the story. What drew you to explore the concept of sound as both spiritual communication and healing power?
Elham Lemeur: According to some scientific studies, there is a frequency emitted by the Earth that has significant effects on the health of living beings.
This wave-like vibration is known as the Schumann resonance, which translates into very low frequencies in the Earth’s electromagnetic field. Some people compare these waves to our planet’s heartbeat, which has a frequency of 7.83 Hz, inaudible to the human eardrum.
It struck me that the human body could be strongly affected by this very strange sound.
And I immediately reacted: “ My godness! What if this resonance were to stop, would we all be dead?”
I therefore imagined that one of my secondary characters, one of the thirty disciples, would play the role of a sound expert, experimenting with prehistoric instruments. The character is firmly convinced of the existence of these magical, inaudible sounds, which he names “long son”, the mysterious sound.
TBE: I’m curious about your research process! How did you balance historical accuracy with the freedom to invent in your worldbuilding, especially regarding ancient cultures like those of Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley?
Elham Lemeur: I spent a lot of time on GALLICA, a major French digital library, delving into ancient archives and documents.
My novel is set in the year 9600 BC. J.-C. I tried to sketch a “probable ancient world” in which my characters would roam a convincing fertile crescent – upper and lower Mesopotamia, the Harran plains, southern Arabia, Egypt and India.
As regards the history and geography of Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, ingenious Andalusian cultivation techniques, primitive cuisine and navigation, my main sources are drawn from the works of the following authors:
GASTON MASPERO (1846-1916), French Egyptologist.
EUGENE NAPOLEON FLANDIN (1809-1889), French Orientalist painter.
IBN AL AWAM is an Arab agronomist and horticulturist who lived in Al-Andalus, Seville, in the 12th century. He wrote a treatise on agronomy called « Le livre de l’agriculture » – Kitab al filaha.
JEAN BOTTERO (1914-2007) is a French historian, Assyriologist, specialist in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, and one of the world’s leading experts on Mesopotamia.
AHMAD IBN MADJID was an Arab poet, navigator and cartographer, born in Ras el Khaïmah (Southeast Arabian Peninsula) in 1432.
The most difficult task in historical fiction set in such a remote era was to make the novel’s locations believable.
I relied mainly on cartographic elements such as mountains, valleys, capes, rocky canyons, palm groves and bays.
Finally, finding the balance between historical accuracy and the freedom to invent was no easy task, which is why it took me three years to write this book.
