Project Gutenberg's The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, by Morris Jastrow

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

Author: Morris Jastrow

Release Date: March 7, 2007 [EBook #20758]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA ***




Produced by Paul Murray and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was
produced from images generously made available by the
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at
http://gallica.bnf.fr)





[Transcriber's Note: This file was produced from images generously made
available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)
at http://gallica.bnf.fr.]

HANDBOOKS
ON THE
HISTORY OF RELIGIONS

EDITED BY
MORRIS JASTROW, Jr., PH.D.
_Professor of Semitic Languages in the University of Pennsylvania_

VOLUME II




THE RELIGION

OF

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

BY
MORRIS JASTROW, Jr., PH.D.
(LEIPZIG)
PROFESSOR OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

GINN & COMPANY

BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON

COPYRIGHT, 1893
By MORRIS JASTROW, Jr.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

35.11


The Athenæum Press
GINN & COMPANY · PROPRIETORS
BOSTON · USA




TO

H. B. J.

MY FAITHFUL COLLABORATOR




PREFACE.


It requires no profound knowledge to reach the conclusion that the time
has not yet come for an exhaustive treatise on the religion of Babylonia
and Assyria. But even if our knowledge of this religion were more
advanced than it is, the utility of an exhaustive treatment might still
be questioned. Exhaustive treatises are apt to be exhausting to both
reader and author; and however exhaustive (or exhausting) such a
treatise may be, it cannot be final except in the fond imagination of
the writer. For as long as activity prevails in any branch of science,
all results are provisional. Increasing knowledge leads necessarily to a
change of perspective and to a readjustment of views. The chief reason
for writing a book is to prepare the way for the next one on the same
subject.

In accordance with the general plan of this Series[1] of Handbooks, it
has been my chief aim to gather together in convenient arrangement and
readable form what is at present known about the religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians. The investigations of scholars are scattered
through a large variety of periodicals and monographs. The time has come
for focusing the results reached, for sifting the certain from the
uncertain, and the uncertain from the false. This work of gathering the
_disjecta membra_ of Assyriological science is essential to future
progress. If I have succeeded in my chief aim, I shall feel amply repaid
for the labor involved.

In order that the book may serve as a guide to students, the names of
those to whose researches our present knowledge of the subject is due
have frequently been introduced, and it will be found, I trust, that I
have been fair to all.[2] At the same time, I have naturally not
hesitated to indicate my dissent from views advanced by this or that
scholar, and it will also be found, I trust, that in the course of my
studies I have advanced the interpretation of the general theme or of
specific facts at various points. While, therefore, the book is only in
a secondary degree sent forth as an original contribution, the
discussion of mooted points will enhance its value, I hope, for the
specialist, as well as for the general reader and student for whom, in
the first place, the volumes of this series are intended.

The disposition of the subject requires a word of explanation. After the
two introductory chapters (common to all the volumes of the series) I
have taken up the pantheon as the natural means to a survey of the
field. The pantheon is treated, on the basis of the historical texts, in
four sections: (1) the old Babylonian period, (2) the middle period, or
the pantheon in the days of Hammurabi, (3) the Assyrian pantheon, and
(4) the latest or neo-Babylonian period. The most difficult phase has
naturally been the old Babylonian pantheon. Much is uncertain here. Not
to speak of the chronology which is still to a large extent guesswork,
the identification of many of the gods occurring in the oldest
inscriptions, with their later equivalents, must be postponed till
future discoveries shall have cleared away the many obstacles which
beset the path of the scholar. The discoveries at Telloh and Nippur have
occasioned a recasting of our views, but new problems have arisen as
rapidly as old ones have been solved. I have been especially careful in
this section not to pass beyond the range of what is definitely _known_,
or, at the most, what may be regarded as tolerably certain. Throughout
the chapters on the pantheon, I have endeavored to preserve the attitude
of being 'open to conviction'--an attitude on which at present too much
stress can hardly be laid.

The second division of the subject is represented by the religious
literature. With this literature as a guide, the views held by the
Babylonians and Assyrians regarding magic and oracles, regarding the
relationship to the gods, the creation of the world, and the views of
life after death have been illustrated by copious translations, together
with discussions of the specimens chosen. The translations, I may add,
have been made direct from the original texts, and aim to be as literal
as is consonant with presentation in idiomatic English.

The religious architecture, the history of the temples, and the cult
form the subject of the third division. Here again there is much which
is still uncertain, and this uncertainty accounts for the unequal
subdivisions of the theme which will not escape the reader.

Following the general plan of the series, the last chapter of the book
is devoted to a general estimate and to a consideration of the influence
exerted by the religion of Babylonia and Assyria.

In the transliteration of proper names, I have followed conventional
methods for well-known names (like Nebuchadnezzar), and the general
usage of scholars in the case of others. In some cases I have furnished
a transliteration of my own; and for the famous Assyrian king, to whom
we owe so much of the material for the study of the Babylonian and
Assyrian religion, Ashurbanabal, I have retained the older usage of
writing it with a _b_, following in this respect Lehman, whose
arguments[3] in favor of this pronunciation for the last element in the
name I regard as on the whole acceptable.

I have reasons to regret the proportions to which the work has grown.
These proportions were entirely unforeseen when I began the book, and
have been occasioned mainly by the large amount of material that has
been made available by numerous important publications that appeared
after the actual writing of the book had begun. This constant increase
of material necessitated constant revision of chapters; and such
revision was inseparable from enlargement. I may conscientiously say
that I have studied these recent publications thoroughly as they
appeared, and have embodied at the proper place the results reached by
others and which appeared to me acceptable. The work, therefore, as now
given to the public may fairly be said to represent the state of present
knowledge.

In a science that grows so rapidly as Assyriology, to which more than to
many others the adage of _dies diem docet_ is applicable, there is great
danger of producing a piece of work that is antiquated before it leaves
the press. At times a publication appeared too late to be utilized. So
Delitzsch's important contribution to the origin of cuneiform writing[4]
was published long after the introductory chapters had been printed. In
this book he practically abandons his position on the Sumerian question
(as set forth on p. 22 of this volume) and once more joins the opposite
camp. As far as my own position is concerned, I do not feel called upon
to make any changes from the statements found in chapter i., even after
reading Weissbach's _Die Sumerische Frage_ (Leipzig, 1898),--the latest
contribution to the subject, which is valuable as a history of the
controversy, but offers little that is new. Delitzsch's name must now be
removed from the list of those who accept Halévy's thesis; but, on the
other hand, Halévy has gained a strong ally in F. Thureau-Dangin, whose
_special_ studies in the old Babylonian inscriptions lend great weight
to his utterances on the origin of the cuneiform script. Dr. Alfred
Jeremias, of Leipzig, is likewise to be added to the adherents of
Halévy. The Sumero-Akkadian controversy is not yet settled, and
meanwhile it is well to bear in mind that not _every_ Assyriologist is
qualified to pronounce an opinion on the subject. A special study is
required, and but few Assyriologists have made such a study. Accepting a
view or a tradition from one's teacher does not constitute a person an
authority, and one may be a very good Assyriologist without having views
on the controversy that are of any particular value.

Lastly, I desire to call attention to the Bibliography, on which much
time has been spent, and which will, I trust, be found satisfactory. In
a list of addenda at the end of the book, I have noted some errors that
slipped into the book, and I have also embodied a few additions. The
copious index is the work of my student, Dr. S. Koppe, and it gives me
pleasure to express my deep obligations to him for the able and
painstaking manner in which he has carried out the work so kindly
undertaken by him. The drawing for the map was made by Mr. J. Horace
Frank of Philadelphia.

       *       *       *       *       *

To my wife more thanks are due than I can convey in words for her share
in the work. She copied almost all of the manuscript, and in doing so
made many valuable suggestions. Without her constant aid and
encouragement I would have shrunk from a task which at times seemed too
formidable to be carried to a successful issue. As I lay down my pen
after several years of devotion to this book, my last thought is one of
gratitude to the beloved partner of my joys and sorrows.

MORRIS JASTROW, Jr.
University of Pennsylvania,
_June, 1898._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Set forth in the announcement of the series at the back of the book
and in the Editor's Prefatory Note to Volume I.

[2] In the Index, however, names of scholars have only been introduced
where absolutely necessary to the subject.

[3] In his work, _Shamassum-ukin König von Babylonien_, pp. 16-21.
Hence, I also write Ashurnasirbal.

[4] _Die Entstehung des ältesten Schriftsystems_ (Leipzig, 1897).




CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.

[Transcriber's Note: These changes and additions are printed only here;
the main text is as it was in the original.]


Page, Line.

22. See Preface.

35, 10. Isin or Nisin, see Lehmann's _Shamash-shumukin_, I. 77;
Meissner's _Beiträge zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht_, p. 122.

61. Bau also appears as Nin-din-dug, _i.e._, 'the lady who restores
life.' See Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, I. 2, Nos. 95, 106,
111.

74. On Ã, see Hommel, _Journal of Transactions of Victoria Institute_,
XXVIII. 35-36.

99, 24. Ur-shul-pa-uddu is a ruler of Kish.

102, 13. For Ku-anna, see IIIR. 67, 32 c-d.

102, 24. For another U-mu as a title of Adad, see Delitzsch, _Das
Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos_, p. 125, note.

111, 2. Nisaba is mentioned in company with the great gods by
Nebopolassar (Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, I. 1. Pl. 32,
col. II. 15).

165. Note 2. On these proper names, see Delitzsch's "Assyriologische
Miscellen" (_Berichte der phil.-hist. Classe der kgl. sächs. Gesell. d.
Wiss._, 1893, pp. 183 seq.).

488. Note 1. See now Scheil's article "Recueil de Travaux," etc., XX.
55-59.

529. The form Di-ib-ba-ra has now been found. See Scheil's "Recueil de
Travaux," etc., XX. 57.

589. Note 3. See now Hommel, _Expository Times_, VIII. 472, and
Baudissin, _ib._ IX. 40-45.




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introduction      1
II. The Land and the People      26
III. General Traits of the Old Babylonian Pantheon      48
IV. Babylonian Gods Prior to the Days of Hammurabi      51
V. The Consorts of the Gods      104
VI. Gudea's Pantheon      106
VII. Summary      112
VIII. The Pantheon in the Days of Hammurabi      116
IX. The Gods in the Temple Lists and in the Legal and Commercial
    Documents      165
X. The Minor Gods in the Period of Hammurabi      171
XI. Survivals of Animism in the Babylonian Religion      180
XII. The Assyrian Pantheon      188
XIII. The Triad and the Combined Invocation of Deities      235
XIV. The Neo-babylonian Period      239
XV. The Religious Literature of Babylonia      245
XVI. The Magical Texts      253
XVII. The Prayers and Hymns       294
XVIII. Penitential Psalms     312
XIX. Oracles and Omens      328
XX. Various Classes of Omens      352
XXI. The Cosmology of the Babylonians      407
XXII. The Zodiacal System of the Babylonians      454
XXIII.  The Gilgamesh Epic       467
XXIV.  Myths and Legends      518
XXV. The Views of Life After Death      556
XXVI. The Temples and the Cult      612
XXVII. Conclusion      690




[Illustration: MAP OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

(From a drawing by Mr. J. HORACE FRANK.)]




THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTION.

SOURCES AND METHODS OF STUDY.

I.


Until about the middle of the 19th century, our knowledge of the
religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians was exceedingly scant. No
records existed that were contemporaneous with the period covered by
Babylonian-Assyrian history; no monuments of the past were preserved
that might, in default of records, throw light upon the religious ideas
and customs that once prevailed in Mesopotamia. The only sources at
command were the incidental notices--insufficient and fragmentary in
character--that occurred in the Old Testament, in Herodotus, in
Eusebius, Syncellus, and Diodorus. Of these, again, only the two
first-named, the Old Testament and Herodotus, can be termed direct
sources; the rest simply reproduce extracts from other works, notably
from Ctesias, the contemporary of Xenophon, from Berosus, a priest of
the temple of Bel in Babylonia, who lived about the time of Alexander
the Great, or shortly after, and from Apollodorus, Abydenus, Alexander
Polyhistor, and Nicolas of Damascus, all of whom being subsequent to
Berosus, either quote the latter or are dependent upon him.

Of all these sources it may be said, that what information they furnish
of Babylonia and Assyria bears largely upon the political history, and
only to a very small degree upon the religion. In the Old Testament, the
two empires appear only as they enter into relations with the Hebrews,
and since Hebrew history is not traced back beyond the appearance of the
clans of Terah in Palestine, there is found previous to this period,
barring the account of the migrations of the Terahites in Mesopotamia,
only the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates among the streams watering
the legendary Garden of Eden, the incidental reference to Nimrod and his
empire, which is made to include the capitol cities of the Northern and
Southern Mesopotamian districts, and the story of the founding of the
city of Babylon, followed by the dispersion of mankind from their
central habitation in the Euphrates Valley. The followers of Abram,
becoming involved in the attempts of Palestinian chieftains to throw off
the yoke of Babylonian supremacy, an occasion is found for introducing
Mesopotamia again, and so the family history of the Hebrew tribes
superinduces at odd times a reference to the old settlements on the
Euphrates, but it is not until the political struggles of the two Hebrew
kingdoms against the inevitable subjection to the superior force of
Assyrian arms, and upon the fall of Assyria, to the Babylonian power,
that Assyria and Babylonia engage the frequent attention of the
chronicler's pen and of the prophet's word. Here, too, the political
situation is always the chief factor, and it is only incidentally that
the religion comes into play,--as when it is said that Sennacherib, the
king of Assyria, was murdered while worshipping in the temple dedicated
to a deity, Nisroch; or when a prophet, to intensify the picture of the
degradation to which the proud king of Babylon is to be reduced,
introduces Babylonian conceptions of the nether world into his
discourse.[5] Little, too, is furnished by the Book of Daniel, despite
the fact that Babylon is the center of action, and what little there is
bearing on the religious status, such as the significance attached to
dreams, and the implied contrast between the religion of Daniel and his
companions, and that of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, loses some
of its force by the late origin of the book. The same applies, only in a
still stronger degree, to the Book of Judith, in which Nineveh is the
center of the incidents described.

The rabbinical literature produced in Palestine and Babylonia is far
richer in notices bearing on the religious practices of Mesopotamia,
than is the Old Testament. The large settlements of Jews in Babylonia,
which, beginning in the sixth century B.C., were constantly being
increased by fresh accessions from Palestine, brought the professors of
Judaism face to face with religious conditions abhorrent to their souls.
In the regulations of the Rabbis to guard their followers from the
influences surrounding them, there is frequent reference, open or
implied, to Babylonish practices, to the festivals of the Babylonians,
to the images of their gods, to their forms of incantations, and other
things besides; but these notices are rendered obscure by their indirect
character, and require a commentary that can only be furnished by that
knowledge of the times which they take for granted. To this difficulty,
there must be added the comparatively late date of the notices, which
demands an exercise of care before applying them to the very early
period to which the religion of the Babylonians may be traced.

Coming to Herodotus, it is a matter of great regret that the history of
Assyria, which he declares it was his intention to write,[6] was either
never produced, or if produced, lost. In accordance with the general
usage of his times, Herodotus included under Assyria the whole of
Mesopotamia, both Assyria proper in the north and Southern Mesopotamia.
His history would therefore have been of extraordinary value, and since
nothing escaped his observant eye and well-trained mind, the religious
customs of the country would have come in for their full share of
attention. As it is, we have only a few notices about Babylonia and
Assyria, incidental to his history of Persia.[7] Of these, the majority
are purely historical, chief among which is an epitome of the country's
past--a curious medley of fact and legend--and the famous account of the
capture of Babylon by Cyrus. Fortunately, however, there are four
notices that treat of the religion of the inhabitants: the first, a
description of an eight-storied tower, surmounted by a temple sacred to
the god Bel; a second furnishing a rather detailed account of another
temple, also sacred to Bel, and situated in the same precinct of the
city of Babylon; a third notice speaks, though with provoking brevity,
of the funeral customs of the Babylonians; while in a fourth he
describes the rites connected with the worship of the chief goddess of
the Babylonians, which impress Herodotus, who failed to appreciate their
mystic significance, as shameful. We have no reason to believe that
Ctesias' account of the Assyrian monarchy, under which he, like
Herodotus, included Babylonia, contained any reference to the religion
at all. What he says about Babylonia and Assyria served merely as an
introduction to Persian history--the real purpose of his work--and the
few fragments known chiefly through Diodorus and Eusebius, deal
altogether with the succession of dynasties. As is well known, the lists
of Ctesias have fallen into utter discredit by the side of the
ever-growing confidence in the native traditions as reported by Berosus.

The loss of the latter's history of Babylon is deplorable indeed; its
value would have been greater than the history of Herodotus, because it
was based, as we know, on the records and documents preserved in
Babylonian temples. How much of the history dealt with the religion of
the people, it is difficult to determine, but the extracts of it found
in various writers show that starting, like the Old Testament, with the
beginning of things, Berosus gave a full account of the cosmogony of the
Babylonians. Moreover, the early history of Babylonia being largely
legendary, as that of every other nation, tales of the relations
existing between the gods and mankind--relations that are always close
in the earlier stages of a nation's history--must have abounded in the
pages of Berosus, even if he did not include in his work a special
section devoted to an account of the religion that still was practiced
in his days. The quotations from Berosus in the works of Josephus are
all of a historical character; those in Eusebius and Syncellus, on the
contrary, deal with the religion and embrace the cosmogony of the
Babylonians, the account of a deluge brought on by the gods, and the
building of a tower. It is to be noted, moreover, that the quotations we
have from Berosus are not direct, for while it is possible, though not
at all certain, that Josephus was still able to consult the works of
Berosus, Eusebius and Syncellus refer to Apollodorus, Abydenus, and
Alexander Polyhistor as their authorities for the statements of Berosus.
Passing in this way through several hands, the authoritative value of
the comparatively paltry extracts preserved, is diminished, and a
certain amount of inaccuracy, especially in details and in the reading
of proper names,[8] becomes almost inevitable. Lastly, it is to be noted
that the list of Babylonian kings found in the famous astronomical work
of Claudius Ptolemaeus, valuable as it is for historical purposes, has
no connection with the religion of the Babylonians.


II.

The sum total of the information thus to be gleaned from ancient sources
for an elucidation of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion is exceedingly
meagre, sufficing scarcely for determining its most general traits.
Moreover, what there is, requires for the most part a control through
confirmatory evidence which we seek for in vain, in biblical or
classical literature.

This control has now been furnished by the remarkable discoveries made
beneath the soil of Mesopotamia since the year 1842. In that year the
French consul at Mosul, P. E. Botta, aided by a government grant, began
a series of excavations in the mounds that line the banks of the Tigris
opposite Mosul. The artificial character of these mounds had for some
time been recognized. Botta's first finds of a pronounced character were
made at a village known as Khorsabad, which stood on one of the mounds
in question. Here, at a short distance below the surface, he came across
the remains of what proved to be a palace of enormous extent. The
sculptures that were found in this palace--enormous bulls and lions
resting on backgrounds of limestone, and guarding the approaches to the
palace chambers, or long rows of carvings in high relief lining the
palace walls, and depicting war scenes, building operations, and
religious processions--left no doubt as to their belonging to an ancient
period of history. The written characters found on these monuments
substantiated the view that Botta had come across an edifice of the
Assyrian empire, while subsequent researches furnished the important
detail that the excavated edifice lay in a suburb of the ancient capitol
of Assyria, Nineveh, the exact site of which was directly opposite
Mosul. Botta's labors extended over a period of two years; by the end of
which time, having laid bare the greater part of the palace, he had
gathered a large mass of material including many smaller
objects--pottery, furniture, jewelry, and ornaments--that might serve
for the study of Assyrian art and of Assyrian antiquities, while the
written records accompanying the monuments placed for the first time an
equally considerable quantity of original material at the disposal of
scholars for the history of Assyria. All that could be transported was
sent to the Louvre, and this material was subsequently published. Botta
was followed by Austen Henry Layard, who, acting as the agent of the
British Museum, conducted excavations during the years 1845-52, first at
a mound Nimrud, some fifteen miles to the south of Khorsabad, and
afterwards on the site of Nineveh proper, the mound Koyunjik, opposite
Mosul, besides visiting and examining other mounds still further to the
south within the district of Babylonia proper.

The scope of Layard's excavations exceeded, therefore, those of Botta;
and to the one palace at Khorsabad, he added three at Nimrud and two at
Koyunjik, besides finding traces of a temple and other buildings. The
construction of these edifices was of the same order as the one
unearthed by Botta; and as at the latter, there was a large yield of
sculptures, inscriptions, and miscellaneous objects. A new feature,
however, of Layard's excavations was the finding of several rooms filled
with fragments of small and large clay tablets closely inscribed on both
sides in the cuneiform characters. These tablets, about 30,000 of which
found their way to the British Museum, proved to be the remains of a
royal library. Their contents ranged over all departments of
thought,--hymns, incantations, prayers, epics, history, legends,
mythology, mathematics, astronomy constituting some of the chief
divisions. In the corners of the palaces, the foundation records were
also found, containing in each case more or less extended annals of the
events that occurred during the reign of the monarch whose official
residence was thus brought to light. Through Layard, the foundations
were laid for the Assyrian and Babylonian collections of the British
Museum, the parts of which exhibited to the public now fill six large
halls. Fresh sources of a direct character were thus added for the
study, not only of the historical unfolding of the Assyrian empire, but
through the tablets of the royal library, for the religion of ancient
Mesopotamia as well.

The stimulus given by Botta and Layard to the recovery of the records
and monuments of antiquity that had been hidden from view for more than
two thousand years, led to a refreshing rivalry between England and
France in continuing a work that gave promise of still richer returns by
further efforts. Victor Place, a French architect of note, who succeeded
Botta as the French consul at Mosul, devoted his term of service, from
1851 to 1855, towards completing the excavations at Khorsabad. A large
aftermath rewarded his efforts. Thanks, too, to his technical knowledge
and that of his assistant, Felix Thomas, M. Place was enabled more
accurately to determine the architectural construction of the temples
and palaces of ancient Assyria. Within this same period (1852-1854)
another exploring expedition was sent out to Mesopotamia by the French
government, under the leadership of Fulgence Fresnel, in whose party
were the above-mentioned Thomas and the distinguished scholar Jules
Oppert. The objective point this time was Southern Mesopotamia, the
mounds of which had hitherto not been touched, many not even identified
as covering the remains of ancient cities. Much valuable work was done
by this expedition in its careful study of the site of the ancient
Babylon,--in the neighborhood of the modern village Hillah, some forty
miles south of Baghdad. Unfortunately, the antiquities recovered at this
place, and elsewhere, were lost through the sinking of the rafts as they
carried their precious burden down the Tigris. In the south again, the
English followed close upon the heels of the French. J. E. Taylor, in
1854, visited many of the huge mounds that were scattered throughout
Southern Mesopotamia in much larger numbers than in the north, while his
compatriot, William K. Loftus, a few years previous had begun
excavations, though on a small scale, at Warka, the site of the ancient
city of Erech. He also conducted some investigations at a mound Mugheir,
which acquired special interest as the supposed site of the famous
Ur,--the home of some of the Terahites before the migration to
Palestine. Of still greater significance were the examinations made by
Sir Henry Rawlinson, in 1854, of the only considerable ruins of ancient
Babylonia that remained above the surface,--the tower of Birs Nimrud,
which proved to be the famous seven-staged temple as described by
Herodotus. This temple was completed, as the foundation records showed,
by Nebuchadnezzar II., in the sixth century before this era; but the
beginnings of the structure belong to a much earlier period. Another
sanctuary erected by this same king was found near the tower. Subsequent
researches by Hormuzd Rassam made it certain that Borsippa, the ancient
name of the place where the tower and sanctuaries stood, was a suburb of
the great city of Babylon itself, which lay directly opposite on the
east side of the Euphrates. The scope of the excavations continued to
grow almost from year to year, and while new mounds were being attacked
in the south, those in the north, especially Koujunjik, continued to be
the subject of attention.

Rassam, who has just been mentioned, was in a favorable position,
through his long residence as English consul at Mosul, for extracting
new finds from the mounds in this vicinity. Besides adding more than a
thousand tablets from the royal library discovered by Layard, his most
noteworthy discoveries were the unearthing of a magnificent temple at
Nimrud, and the finding of a large bronze gate at Balawat, a few miles
to the northeast of Nimrud. Rassam and Rawlinson were afterwards joined
by George Smith of the British Museum, who, instituting a further search
through the ruins of Koujunjik, Nimrud, Kalah-Shergat, and elsewhere,
made many valuable additions to the English collections, until his
unfortunate death in 1876, during his third visit to the mounds, cut him
off in the prime of a brilliant and most useful career. The English
explorers extended their labors to the mounds in the south. Here it was,
principally at Abu-Habba, that they set their forces to work. The
finding of another temple dedicated to the sun-god rewarded their
efforts. The foundation records showed that the edifice was one of great
antiquity, which was permitted to fall into decay and was then restored
by a ruler whose date can be fixed at the middle of the ninth century
B.C. The ancient name of the place was shown to be Sippar, and the fame
of the temple was such, that subsequent monarchs vied with one another
in adding to its grandeur. It is estimated that the temple contained no
less than three hundred chambers and halls for the archives and for the
accommodation of the large body of priests attached to this temple. In
the archives many thousands of little clay tablets were again found,
not, however, of a literary, but of a legal character, containing
records of commercial transactions conducted in ancient Sippar, such as
sales of houses, of fields, of produce, of stuffs, money loans,
receipts, contracts for work, marriage settlements, and the like. The
execution of the laws being in the hands of priests in ancient
Mesopotamia, the temples were the natural depositories for the official
documents of the law courts. Similar collections to those of Sippar have
been found in almost every mound of Southern Mesopotamia that has been
opened since the days of Rassam. So at Djumdjuma, situated near the site
of the ancient city of Babylon, some three thousand were unearthed that
were added to the fast growing collections of the British Museum. At
Borsippa, likewise, Rawlinson and Rassam recovered a large number of
clay tablets, most of them legal but some of them of a literary
character, which proved to be in part duplicates of those in the royal
library of Ashurbanabal. In this way, the latter's statement, that he
sent his scribes to the large cities of the south for the purpose of
collecting and copying the literature that had its rise there, met with
a striking confirmation. Still further to the south, at a mound known as
Telloh, a representative of the French government, Ernest de Sarzec,
began a series of excavations in 1877, which, continued to the present
day, have brought to light remains of temples and palaces exceeding in
antiquity those hitherto discovered. Colossal statues of diorite,
covered with inscriptions, the pottery, tablets and ornaments, showed
that at a period as early as 3500 B.C. civilization in this region had
already reached a very advanced stage. The systematic and thorough
manner in which De Sarzec, with inexhaustible patience, explored the
ancient city, has resulted in largely extending our knowledge of the
most ancient period of Babylonian history as yet known to us. The Telloh
finds were forwarded to the Louvre, which in this way secured a
collection from the south that formed a worthy complement to the
Khorsabad antiquities.

Lastly, it is gratifying to note the share that our own country has
recently taken in the great work that has furnished the material needed
for following the history of the Mesopotamian states. In 1887, an
expedition was sent out under the auspices of the University of
Pennsylvania, to conduct excavations at Niffer,--a mound to the
southeast of Babylon, situated on a branch of the Euphrates, and which
was known to be the site of one of the most famous cities in this
region. The Rev. John P. Peters (now in New York), who was largely
instrumental in raising the funds for the purpose, was appointed
director of the expedition. Excavations were continued for two years
under Dr. Peters' personal supervision, and since then by Mr. John H.
Haynes, with most satisfactory success. A great temple dedicated to the
god Bel was discovered, and work has hitherto been confined chiefly to
laying bare the various parts of the edifice. The foundation of the
building goes back to an earlier period than the ruins of Telloh. It
survived the varying fortunes of the city in which it stood, and each
period of Babylonian history left its traces at Niffer through the
records of the many rulers who sought the favor of the god by enlarging
or beautifying his place of worship. The temple became a favorite spot
to which pilgrims came from all sides on the great festivals, to offer
homage at the sacred shrines. Votive offerings, in the shape of
inscribed clay cones, and little clay images of Bel and of his female
consort, were left in the temple as witnesses to the piety of the
visitors. The archives were found to be well stocked with the official
legal documents dating chiefly from the period of 1700 to 1200 B.C.,
when the city appears to have reached the climax of its glory. Other
parts of the mound were opened at different depths, and various layers
which followed the chronological development of the place were
determined.[9] After its destruction, the sanctity of the city was in a
measure continued by its becoming a burial-place. The fortunes of the
place can thus be followed down to the ninth or the tenth century of our
era, a period of more than four thousand years. Already more than 20,000
tablets have been received at the University of Pennsylvania, besides
many specimens of pottery, bowls, jars, cones, and images, as well as
gold, copper, and alabaster work.

From this survey of the work done in the last decades in exploring the
long lost and almost forgotten cities of the Tigris and of the Euphrates
Valley, it will be apparent that a large amount of material has been
made accessible for tracing the course of civilization in this region.
Restricting ourselves to that portion of it that bears on the religion
of ancient Mesopotamia, it may be grouped under two heads, (1) literary,
and (2) archaeological. The religious texts of Ashurbanabal's library
occupy the first place in the literary group. The incantations, the
prayers and hymns, lists of temples, of gods and their attributes,
traditions of the creation of the world, legends of the deities and of
their relations to men, are sources of the most direct character; and it
is fortunate that among the recovered portions of the library, such
texts are largely represented. Equally direct are the dedicatory
inscriptions set up by the kings in the temples erected to the honor of
some god, and of great importance are the references to the various
gods, their attributes, their powers, and their deeds, which are found
at every turn in the historical records which the kings left behind
them. Many of these records open or close with a long prayer to some
deity; in others, prayers are found interspersed, according to the
occasion on which they were offered up. Attributing the success of their
undertakings--whether it be a military campaign, or the construction of
some edifice, or a successful hunt--to the protection offered by the
gods, the kings do not tire of singing the praises of the deity or
deities as whose favorites they regarded themselves. The gods are
constantly at the monarch's side. Now we are told of a dream sent to
encourage the army on the approach of a battle, and again of some
portent which bade the king be of good cheer. To the gods, the appeal is
constantly made, and to them all good things are ascribed. From the
legal documents, likewise, much may be gathered bearing on the religion.
The protection of the gods is invoked or their curses called down; the
oath is taken in their name; while the manner in which the temples are
involved in the commercial life of ancient Babylonia renders these
tablets, which are chiefly valuable as affording us a remarkable insight
into the people's daily life, of importance also in illustrating certain
phases of the religious organization of the country. Most significant
for the position occupied by the priests, is the fact that the latter
are invariably the scribes who draw up the documents.

The archaeological material furnished by the excavations consists of the
temples of the gods, their interior arrangement, and provisions for the
various religious functions; secondly, the statues of the gods,
demigods, and the demons, the altars and the vessels; and thirdly, the
religious scenes,--the worship of some deity, the carrying of the gods
in procession, the pouring of libations, the performance of rites, or
the representation of some religious symbols sculptured on the palace
wall or on the foundation stone of a sacred building, or cut out on the
seal cylinders, used as signatures[10] and talismans.

Large as the material is, it is far from being exhausted, and, indeed,
far from sufficient for illustrating all the details of the religious
life. This will not appear surprising, if it be remembered that of the
more than one hundred mounds that have been identified in the region of
the Tigris and Euphrates as containing remains of buried cities, only a
small proportion have been explored, and of these scarcely more than a
half dozen with an approach to completeness. The soil of Mesopotamia
unquestionably holds still greater treasures than those which it has
already yielded. The links uniting the most ancient period--at present,
_c._ 4000 B.C.--to the final destruction of the Babylonian empire by
Cyrus, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., are far from being
complete. For entire centuries we are wholly in the dark, and for others
only a few skeleton facts are known; and until these gaps shall have
been filled, our knowledge of the religion of the Babylonians and
Assyrians must necessarily remain incomplete. Not as incomplete, indeed,
as their history, for religious rites are not subject to many changes,
and the progress of religious ideas does not keep pace with the constant
changes in the political kaleidoscope of a country; but, it is evident
that no exhaustive treatment of the religion can be given until the
material shall have become adequate to the subject.


III.

Before proceeding to the division of the subject in hand, some
explanation is called for of the method by which the literary material
found beneath the soil has been made intelligible.

The characters on the clay tablets and cylinders, on the limestone
slabs, on statues, on altars, on stone monuments, are generally known as
cuneiform, because of their wedge-shaped appearance, though it may be
noted at once that in their oldest form the characters are linear rather
than wedge-shaped, presenting the more or less clearly defined outlines
of objects from which they appear to be derived. At the time when these
cuneiform inscriptions began to be found in Mesopotamia, the language
which these characters expressed was still totally unknown. Long
previous to the beginning of Botta's labors, inscriptions also showing
the cuneiform characters had been found at Persepolis on various
monuments of the ruins and tombs still existing at that place. The first
notice of these inscriptions was brought to Europe by a famous Italian
traveler, Pietro della Valle, in the beginning of the seventeenth
century. For a long time it was doubted whether the characters
represented anything more than mere ornamentation, and it was not until
the close of the 18th century, after more accurate copies of the
Persepolitan characters had been furnished through Carsten Niebuhr, that
scholars began to apply themselves to their decipherment. Through the
efforts chiefly of Gerhard Tychsen, professor at Rostock, Frederick
Münter, a Danish scholar, and the distinguished Silvestre de Sacy of
Paris, the beginnings were made which finally led to the discovery of
the key to the mysterious writings, in 1802, by Georg Friedrich
Grotefend, a teacher at a public school in Göttingen. The observation
was made previous to the days of Grotefend that the inscriptions at
Persepolis invariably showed three styles of writing. While in all three
the characters were composed of wedges, yet the combination of wedges,
as well as their shape, differed sufficiently to make it evident, even
to the superficial observer, that there was as much difference between
them as, say, between the English and the German script. The conclusion
was drawn that the three styles represented three languages, and this
conclusion was strikingly confirmed when, upon the arrival of Botta's
finds in Europe, it was seen that one of the styles corresponded to the
inscriptions found at Khorsabad; and so in all subsequent discoveries in
Mesopotamia, this was found to be the case. One of the languages,
therefore, on the monuments of Persepolis was presumably identical with
the speech of ancient Mesopotamia. Grotefend's key to the reading of
that style of cuneiform writing which invariably occupied the first
place when the three styles were ranged one under the other, or occupied
the most prominent place when a different arrangement was adopted, met
with universal acceptance. He determined that the language of the style
which, for the sake of convenience, we may designate as No. 1, was Old
Persian,--the language spoken by the rulers, who, it was known through
tradition and notices in classical writers, had erected the series of
edifices at Persepolis, one of the capitols of the Old Persian or, as it
is also called, the Achaemenian empire. By the year 1840 the
decipherment of these Achaemenian inscriptions was practically complete,
the inscriptions had been read, the alphabet was definitely settled, and
the grammar, in all but minor points, known. It was possible, therefore,
in approaching the Mesopotamian style of cuneiform, which, as occupying
the third place, may be designated as No. 3, to use No. 1 as a guide,
since it was only legitimate to conclude that Nos. 2 and 3 represented
translations of No. 1 into two languages, which, by the side of Old
Persian, were spoken by the subjects of the Achaemenian kings. That one
of these languages should have been the current speech of Mesopotamia
was exactly what was to be expected, since Babylonia and Assyria formed
an essential part of the Persian empire.

The beginning was made with proper names, the sound of which would
necessarily be the same or very similar in both, or, for that matter, in
all the three languages of the Persepolitan inscriptions.[11] In this
way, by careful comparisons between the two styles, Nos. 1 and 3, it was
possible to pick out the signs in No. 3 that corresponded to those in
No. 1, and inasmuch as the same sign occurred in various names, it was,
furthermore, possible to assign, at least tentatively, certain values to
the signs in question. With the help of the signs thus determined, the
attempt was made to read other words in style No. 3, in which these
signs occurred, but it was some time before satisfactory results were
obtained. An important advance was made when it was once determined,
that the writing was a mixture of signs used both as words and as
syllables, and that the language on the Assyrian monuments belonged to
the group known as Semitic. The cognate languages--chiefly Hebrew and
Arabic--formed a help towards determining the meaning of the words read
and an explanation of the morphological features they presented. For all
that, the task was one of stupendous proportions, and many were the
obstacles that had to be overcome, before the principles underlying the
cuneiform writing were determined, and the decipherment placed on a firm
and scientific basis. This is not the place to enter upon a detailed
illustration of the method adopted by ingenious scholars,--notably
Edward Hincks, Isidor Löwenstern, Henry Rawlinson, Jules Oppert,--to
whose united efforts the solution of the great problems involved is
due;[12] and it would also take too much space, since in order to make
this method clear, it would be necessary to set forth the key discovered
by Grotefend for reading the Old Persian inscriptions. Suffice it to say
that the guarantee for the soundness of the conclusions reached by
scholars is furnished by the consideration, that it was from small and
most modest beginnings that the decipherment began. Step by step, the
problem was advanced by dint of a painstaking labor, the degree of which
cannot easily be exaggerated, until to-day the grammar of the
Babylonian-Assyrian language has been clearly set forth in all its
essential particulars: the substantive and verb formation is as
definitely known as that of any other Semitic language, the general
principles of the syntax, as well as many detailed points, have been
carefully investigated, and as for the reading of the cuneiform texts,
thanks to the various helps at our disposal, and the further elucidation
of the various principles that the Babylonians themselves adopted as a
guide, the instance is a rare one when scholars need to confess their
ignorance in this particular. At most there may be a halting between two
possibilities. The difficulties that still hinder the complete
understanding of passages in texts, arise in part from the mutilated
condition in which, unfortunately, so many of the tablets and cylinders
are found, and in part from a still imperfect knowledge of the
lexicography of the language. For many a word occurring only once or
twice, and for which neither text nor comparison with cognate languages
offers a satisfactory clue, ignorance must be confessed, or at best, a
conjecture hazarded, until its more frequent occurrence enables us to
settle the question at issue. Such settlements of disputed questions are
taking place all the time; and with the activity with which the study of
the language and antiquities of Mesopotamia is being pushed by scholars
in this country, in England, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway,
and Holland, and with the constant accession of new material through
excavations and publications, there is no reason to despair of clearing
up the obscurities, still remaining in the precious texts that a
fortunate chance has preserved for us.


IV.

A question that still remains to be considered as to the origin of the
cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia, may properly be introduced in
connection with this account of the excavations and decipherment, though
it is needless to enter into it in detail.

The "Persian" style of wedge-writing is a direct derivative of the
Babylonian, introduced in the times of the Achaemenians, and it is
nothing but a simplification in form and principle of the more
cumbersome and complicated Babylonian. Instead of a combination of as
many as ten and fifteen wedges to make one sign, we have in the Persian
never more than five, and frequently only three; and instead of writing
words by syllables, sounds alone were employed, and the syllabary of
several hundred signs reduced to forty-two, while the ideographic style
was practically abolished.

The second style of cuneiform, generally known as Median or Susian,[13]
is again only a slight modification of the "Persian." Besides these
three, there is a fourth language (spoken in the northwestern district
of Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and the Orontes), known as
"Mitanni," the exact status of which has not been clearly ascertained,
but which has been adapted to cuneiform characters. A fifth variety,
found on tablets from Cappadocia, represents again a modification of the
ordinary writing met with in Babylonia. In the inscriptions of Mitanni,
the writing is a mixture of ideographs and syllables, just as in
Mesopotamia, while the so-called "Cappadocian" tablets are written in a
corrupt Babylonian, corresponding in degree to the "corrupt" forms that
the signs take on. In Mesopotamia itself, quite a number of styles
exist, some due to local influences, others the result of changes that
took place in the course of time. In the oldest period known, that is
from 4000 to 3000 B.C., the writing is linear rather than wedge-shaped.
The linear writing is the modification that the original pictures
underwent in being adapted for engraving on stone; the wedges are the
modification natural to the use of clay, though when once the wedges
became the standard method, the greater frequency with which clay as
against stone came to be used, led to an imitation of the wedges by
those who cut out the characters on stone. In consequence, there
developed two varieties of wedge-writing: the one that may be termed
lapidary, used for the stone inscriptions, the official historical
records, and such legal documents as were prepared with especial care;
the other cursive, occurring only on legal and commercial clay tablets,
and becoming more frequent as we approach the latest period of
Babylonian writing, which extends to within a few decades of our era. In
Assyria, finally, a special variety of cuneiform developed that is
easily distinguished from the Babylonian by its greater neatness and the
more vertical position of the wedges.

The origin of all the styles and varieties of cuneiform writing is,
therefore, to be sought in Mesopotamia; and within Mesopotamia, in that
part of it where culture begins--the extreme south; but beyond saying
that the writing is a direct development from picture writing, there is
little of any definite character that can be maintained. We do not know
when the writing originated, we only know that in the oldest
inscriptions it is already fully developed.

We do not know who originated it; nor can the question be as yet
definitely answered, whether those who originated it spoke the
Babylonian language, or whether they were Semites at all. Until about
fifteen years ago, it was generally supposed that the cuneiform writing
was without doubt the invention of a non-Semitic race inhabiting
Babylonia at an early age, from whom the Semitic Babylonians adopted it,
together with the culture that this non-Semitic race had produced. These
inventors, called Sumerians by some and Akkadians by others, and
Sumero-Akkadians by a third group of scholars, it was supposed, used the
"cuneiform" as a picture or 'ideographic' script exclusively; and the
language they spoke being agglutinative and largely monosyllabic in
character, it was possible for them to stop short at this point of
development. The Babylonians however, in order to adapt the writing to
their language, did not content themselves with the 'picture' method,
but using the non-Semitic equivalent for their own words, employed the
former as syllables, while retaining, at the same time, the sign as an
ideograph. To make this clearer by an example, the numeral '1' would
represent the word 'one' in their own language, while the non-Semitic
word for 'one,' which let us suppose was "_ash_," they used as the
phonetic value of the sign, in writing a word in which this sound
occurred, as _e.g._, _ash-es_. Since each sign, in Sumero-Akkadian as
well as in Babylonian, represented some general idea, it could stand for
an entire series of words, grouped about this idea and associated with
it, 'day,' for example, being used for 'light,' 'brilliancy,' 'pure,'
and so forth. The variety of syllabic and ideographic values which the
cuneiform characters show could thus be accounted for.

This theory, however, tempting as it is by its simplicity, cannot be
accepted in this unqualified form. Advancing knowledge has made it
certain that the ancient civilization, including the religion, is
Semitic in character. The assumption therefore of a purely non-Semitic
culture for southern Babylonia is untenable. Secondly, even in the
oldest inscriptions found, there occur Semitic words and Semitic
constructions which prove that the inscriptions were composed by
Semites. As long, therefore, as no traces of purely non-Semitic
inscription are found, we cannot go beyond the Semites in seeking for
the origin of the culture in this region. In view of this, the theory
first advanced by Prof. Joseph Halévy of Paris, and now supported by the
most eminent of German Assyriologists, Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, which
claims that the cuneiform writing is Semitic in origin, needs to be most
carefully considered. There is much that speaks in favor of this theory,
much that may more easily be accounted for by it, than by the opposite
one, which was originally proposed by the distinguished Nestor of
cuneiform studies, Jules Oppert, and which is with some modifications
still held by the majority of scholars.[14] The question is one which
cannot be answered by an appeal to philology alone. This is the
fundamental error of the advocates of the Sumero-Akkadian theory, who
appear to overlook the fact that the testimony of archaeological and
anthropological research must be confirmatory of a philological
hypothesis before it can be accepted as an indisputable fact.[15] The
time however has not yet come for these two sciences to pronounce their
verdict definitely, though it may be added that the supposition of a
variety of races once inhabiting Southern Mesopotamia finds support in
what we know from the pre-historic researches of anthropologists.

Again, it is not to be denied that the theory of the Semitic origin of
the cuneiform writing encounters obstacles that cannot easily be set
aside. While it seeks to explain the syllabic values of the signs on the
general principle that they represent elements of Babylonian words,
truncated in this fashion in order to answer to the growing need for
phonetic writing of words for which no ideographs existed, it is
difficult to imagine, as Halévy's theory demands, that the "ideographic"
style, as found chiefly in religious texts, is the deliberate invention
of priests in their desire to produce a method of conveying their ideas
that would be regarded as a mystery by the laity, and be successfully
concealed from the latter. Here again the theory borders on the domain
of archaeology, and philology alone will not help us out of the
difficulty. An impartial verdict of the present state of the problem
might be summed up as follows:

1. It is generally admitted that all the literature of Babylonia,
including the oldest and even that written in the "ideographic" style,
whether we term it "Sumero-Akkadian" or "hieratic," is the work of the
Semitic settlers of Mesopotamia.

2. The culture, including the religion of Babylonia, is likewise a
Semitic production, and since Assyria received its culture from
Babylonia, the same remark holds good for entire Mesopotamia.

3. The cuneiform syllabary is largely Semitic in character. The ideas
expressed by the ideographic values of the signs give no evidence of
having been produced in non-Semitic surroundings; and, whatever the
origin of the system may be, it has been so shaped by the Babylonians,
so thoroughly adapted to their purposes, that it is to all practical
purposes Semitic.

4. Approached from the theoretical side, there remains, after making
full allowance for the Semitic elements in the system, a residuum that
has not yet found a satisfactory explanation, either by those who favor
the non-Semitic theory or by those who hold the opposite view.

5. Pending further light to be thrown upon this question, through the
expected additions to our knowledge of the archaeology and of the
anthropological conditions of ancient prehistoric Mesopotamia,
philological research must content itself with an acknowledgment of its
inability to reach a conclusion that will appeal so forcibly to all
minds, as to place the solution of the problem beyond dispute.

6. There is a presumption in favor of assuming a mixture of races in
Southern Mesopotamia at an early day, and a possibility, therefore, that
the earliest form of picture writing in this region, from which the
Babylonian cuneiform is derived, may have been _used_ by a non-Semitic
population, and that traces of this are still apparent in the developed
system after the important step had been taken, marked by the advance
from picture to phonetic writing.

The important consideration for our purpose is, that the religious
conceptions and practices as they are reflected in the literary sources
now at our command, are distinctly Babylonian. With this we may rest
content, and, leaving theories aside, there will be no necessity in an
exposition of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians to
differentiate or to attempt to differentiate between Semitic and
so-called non-Semitic elements. Local conditions and the long period
covered by the development and history of the religion in question, are
the factors that suffice to account for the mixed and in many respects
complicated phenomena which this religion presents.

Having set forth the sources at our command for the study of the
Babylonian-Assyrian religion, and having indicated the manner in which
these sources have been made available for our purposes, we are prepared
to take the next step that will fit us for an understanding of the
religious practices that prevailed in Mesopotamia,--a consideration of
the land and of its people, together with a general account of the
history of the latter.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Isaiah, xlv. For the Babylonian views contained in this chapter, see
Alfred Jeremias, _Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben
nach dem Tode_, pp. 112-116.

[6] Book i. sec. 184.

[7] Book I. ("Clio"), secs. 95, 102, 178-200.

[8] An instructive instance is furnished by the mention of a mystic
personage, "Homoroka," which now turns out to be--as Professor J. H.
Wright has shown--a corruption of Marduk. (See _Zeitschrift für
Assyriologie_, x. 71-74.)

[9] The excavations are still being continued, thanks to the generosity
of some public-spirited citizens of Philadelphia.

[10] The parties concerned rolled their cylinders over the clay tablet
recording a legal or commercial transaction.

[11] Besides those at Persepolis, a large tri-lingual inscription was
found at Behistun, near the city of Kirmenshah, in Persia, which,
containing some ninety proper names, enabled Sir Henry Rawlinson
definitely to establish a basis for the decipherment of the Mesopotamian
inscriptions.

[12] The best account is to be found in Hommel's _Geschichte Babyloniens
und Assyriens_, pp. 58-134. A briefer statement was furnished by
Professor Fr. Delitzsch in his supplements to the German translation of
George Smith's _Chaldaean Genesis_ (_Chaldäische Genesis_, pp. 257-262).
A tolerably satisfactory account in English is furnished by B. T. A.
Evetts in his work, _New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land_, pp.
79-129. For a full account of the excavations and the decipherment,
together with a summary of results and specimens of the various branches
of the Babylonian-Assyrian literature, the reader may be referred to
Kaulen's _Assyrien und Babylonien nach den neuesten Entdeckungen_ (5th
edition).

[13] The most recent investigations show it to have been a 'Turanian'
language. See Weissbach, _Achämeniden Inschriften sweiter Art_, Leipzig,
1893.

[14] Besides Delitzsch, however, there are others, as Pognon, Jäger,
Guyard, McCurdy and Brinton, who side with Halévy.

[15] See now Dr. Brinton's paper, "The Protohistoric Ethnography of
Western Asia" (_Proceed. Amer. Philos. Soc._, 1895), especially pp.
18-22.




CHAPTER II.

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

I.


The Babylonians and Assyrians with whom we are concerned in this volume
dwelt in the region embraced by the Euphrates and the Tigris,--the
Babylonians in the south, or the Euphrates Valley, the Assyrians to the
northeast, in the region extending from the Tigris into the Kurdish
Mountain districts; while the northwestern part of Mesopotamia--the
northern half of the Euphrates district--was the seat of various empires
that were alternately the rivals and the subjects of either Babylonia or
Assyria.

The entire length of Babylonia was about 300 miles; the greatest breadth
about 125 miles. The entire surface area was some 23,000 square miles,
or about the size of West Virginia. The area of Assyria, with a length
of 350 miles and a breadth varying from 170 to 300 miles, covered 75,000
square miles, which would make it somewhat smaller than the state of
Nebraska. In the strict sense, the term Mesopotamia should be limited to
the territory lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris above their
junction, in the neighborhood of Baghdad, and extending northwards to
the confines of the Taurus range; while the district to the south of
Baghdad, and reaching to the Persian Gulf, may more properly be spoken
of as the Euphrates Valley; and a third division is represented by the
territory to the east of the Tigris, from Baghdad, and up to the Kurdish
Mountains; but while this distinction is one that may be justly
maintained, in view of the different character that the southern valley
presents from the northern plain, it has become so customary, in popular
parlance, to think of the entire territory along and between the
Euphrates and Tigris as one country, that the term Mesopotamia in this
broad sense may be retained, with the division suggested by George
Rawlinson, into Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. The two streams, as they
form the salient traits of the region, are the factors that condition
the character of the inhabitants and the culture that once flourished
there. The Euphrates, or, to give the more correct pronunciation, Purat,
signifies the 'river' _par excellence_. It is a quiet stream, flowing
along in majestic dignity almost from its two sources, in the Armenian
mountains, not far from the town of Erzerum, until it is joined by the
Tigris in the extreme south. As the Shatt-el Arab, _i.e._, Arabic River,
the two reach the Persian Gulf. Receiving many tributaries as long as it
remains in the mountains, it flows first in a westerly direction, as
though making direct for the Mediterranean Sea, then, veering suddenly
to the southeast, it receives but few tributaries after it once passes
through the Taurus range into the plain,--on the right side, only the
Sadschur, on the left the Balichus and the Khabur. From this point on
for the remaining distance of 800 miles, so far from receiving fresh
accessions, it loses in quantity through the marsh beds that form on
both sides. When it reaches the alluvial soil of Babylonia proper, its
current and also its depth are considerably diminished through the
numerous canals that form an outlet for its waters. Of its entire
length, 1780 miles, it is navigable only for a small distance, cataracts
forming a hindrance in its northern course and sandbanks in the south.
In consequence, it never became at any time an important avenue for
commerce, and besides rafts, which could be floated down to a certain
distance, the only means of communication ever used were wicker baskets
coated within and without with bitumen, or some form of a primitive
ferry for passing from one shore to another.

An entirely different stream is the Tigris--a corrupted form of
'Idiklat.' It is only 1146 miles in length, and is marked, as the native
name indicates, by the 'swiftness' of its flow. Starting, like the
Euphrates, in the rugged regions of Armenia, it continues its course
through mountain clefts for a longer period, and joined at frequent
intervals by tributaries, both before it merges into the plain and after
doing so, the volume of its waters is steadily increased. Even when it
approaches the alluvial soil of the south, it does not lose its
character until well advanced in its course to the gulf. Advancing
towards the Euphrates and again receding from it, it at last joins the
latter at Korna, and together they pour their waters through the Persian
Gulf into the great ocean. It is navigable from Diabekr in the north,
for its entire length. Large rafts may be floated down from Mosul to
Baghdad and Basra, and even small steamers have ascended as far north as
Nimrud. The Tigris, then, in contrast to the Euphrates, is the avenue of
commerce for Mesopotamia, forming the connecting bond between it and the
rest of the ancient world,--Egypt, India, and the lands of the
Mediterranean. Owing, however, to the imperfect character of the means
of transportation in ancient and, for that matter, in modern times, the
voyage up the stream was impracticable. The rafts, resting on inflated
bags of goat or sheep skin, can make no headway against the rapid
stream, and so, upon reaching Baghdad or Basra, they are broken up, and
the bags sent back by the shore route to the north.

The contrast presented by the two rivers is paralleled by the traits
distinguishing Upper from Lower Mesopotamia. Shut off to the north and
northeast by the Armenian range, to the northwest by the Taurus, Upper
Mesopotamia retains, for a considerable extent, and especially on the
eastern side, a rugged aspect. The Kurdish mountains run close to the
Tigris' bed for some distance below Mosul, while between the Tigris and
the Euphrates proper, small ranges and promontories stretch as far as
the end of the Taurus chain, well on towards Mosul.

Below Mosul, the region begins to change its character. The mountains
cease, the plain begins, the soil becomes alluvial and through the
regular overflow of the two rivers in the rainy season, develops an
astounding fertility. This overflow begins, in the case of the Tigris,
early in March, reaches its height in May, and ceases about the middle
of June. The overflow of the Euphrates extends from the middle of March
till the beginning of June, but September is reached before the river
resumes its natural state. Not only does the overflow of the Euphrates
thus extend over a longer period, but it oversteps its banks with
greater violence than does the Tigris, so that as far north as the
juncture with the Khabur, and still more so in the south, the country to
both sides is flooded, until it assumes the appearance of a great sea.
Through the violence of these overflows, changes constantly occur in the
course that the river takes, so that places which in ancient times stood
on its banks are to-day removed from the main river-bed. Another
important change in Southern Babylonia is the constant accretion of
soil, due to the deposits from the Persian Gulf.

This increase proceeding on an average of about one mile in fifty years
has brought it about that the two rivers to-day, instead of passing
separately into the Gulf, unite at Korna--some distance still from the
entrance. The contrast of seasons is greater, as may be imagined, in
Upper Mesopotamia than in the south. The winters are cold, with
snowfalls that may last for several months, but with the beginning of
the dry season, in May, a tropical heat sets in which lasts until the
beginning of November, when the rain begins. Assyria proper, that is,
the eastern side of Mesopotamia, is more affected by the mountain ranges
than the west. In the Euphrates Valley, the heat during the dry season,
from about May till November, when for weeks, and even months, no cloud
is to be seen, beggars description; but strange enough, the Arabs who
dwell there at present, while enduring the heat without much discomfort,
are severely affected by a winter temperature that for Europeans and
Americans is exhilarating in its influence.

From what has been said, it will be clear that the Euphrates is, _par
excellence_, the river of Southern Mesopotamia or Babylonia, while the
Tigris may be regarded as the river of Assyria. It was the Euphrates
that made possible the high degree of culture, that was reached in the
south. Through the very intense heat of the dry season, the soil
developed a fertility that reduced human labor to a minimum. The return
for sowing of all kinds of grain, notably wheat, corn, barley, is
calculated, on an average, to be fifty to a hundred-fold, while the date
palm flourishes with scarcely any cultivation at all. Sustenance being
thus provided for with little effort, it needed only a certain care in
protecting oneself from damage through the too abundant overflow, to
enable the population to find that ease of existence, which is an
indispensable condition of culture. This was accomplished by the
erection of dikes, and by directing the waters through channels into the
fields.

Assyria, more rugged in character, did not enjoy the same advantages.
Its culture, therefore, not only arose at a later period than that of
Babylonia, but was a direct importation from the south. It was due to
the natural extension of the civilization that continued for the greater
part of the existence of the two empires to be central in the south. But
when once Assyria was included in the circle of Babylonian culture, the
greater effort required in forcing the natural resources of the soil,
produced a greater variety in the return. Besides corn, wheat and rice,
the olive, banana and fig tree, mulberry and vine were cultivated, while
the vicinity of the mountain ranges furnished an abundance of building
material--wood and limestone--that was lacking in the south. The
fertility of Assyria proper, again, not being dependent on the overflow
of the Tigris, proved to be of greater endurance. With the neglect of
the irrigation system, Babylonia became a mere waste, and the same river
that was the cause of its prosperity became the foe that, more
effectually than any human power, contributed to the ruin and the
general desolation that marks the greater part of the Euphrates Valley
at the present time. Assyria continued to play a part in history long
after its ancient glory had departed, and to this day enjoys a far
greater activity, and is of considerable more significance than the
south.


II.

In so far as natural surroundings affect the character of two peoples
belonging to the same race, the Assyrians present that contrast to the
Babylonians which one may expect from the differences, just set forth,
between the two districts. The former were rugged, more warlike, and
when they acquired power, used it in the perfection of their military
strength; the latter, while not lacking in the ambition to extend their
dominion, yet, on the whole, presented a more peaceful aspect that led
to the cultivation of commerce and industrial arts. Both, however, have
very many more traits in common than they have marks of distinction.
They both belong not only to the Semitic race, but to the same branch of
the race. Presenting the same physical features, the languages spoken by
them are identical, barring differences that do not always rise to the
degree of dialectical variations, and affect chiefly the pronunciation
of certain consonants. At what time the Babylonians and Assyrians
settled in the district in which we find them, whence they came, and
whether the Euphrates Valley or the northern Tigris district was the
first to be settled, are questions that cannot, in the present state of
knowledge, be answered. As to the time of their settlement, the high
degree of culture that the Euphrates Valley shows at the earliest period
known to us,--about 4000 B.C.,--and the indigenous character of this
culture, points to very old settlement, and makes it easier to err on
the side of not going back far enough, than on the side of going too
far. Again, while, as has been several times intimated, the culture in
the south is older than that of the north, it does not necessarily
follow that the settlement of Babylonia antedates that of Assyria. The
answer to this question would depend upon the answer to the question as
to the original home of the Semites.[16] The probabilities, however, are
in favor of assuming a movement of population, as of culture, from the
south to the north. At all events, the history of Babylonia and Assyria
begins with the former, and as a consequence we are justified also in
beginning with that phase of the religion for which we have the earliest
records--the Babylonian.


III.

At the very outset of a brief survey of the history of the Babylonians,
a problem confronts us of primary importance. Are there any traces of
other settlers besides the Semitic Babylonians in the earliest period of
the history of the Euphrates Valley? Those who cling to the theory of a
non-Semitic origin of the cuneiform syllabary will, of course, be ready
to answer in the affirmative. Sumerians and Akkadians are the names
given to these non-Semitic settlers who preceded the Babylonians in the
control of the Euphrates Valley. The names are derived from the terms
Sumer and Akkad, which are frequently found in Babylonian and Assyrian
inscriptions, in connection with the titles of the kings. Unfortunately,
scholars are not a unit in the exact location of the districts comprised
by these names, some declaring Sumer to be in the north and Akkad in the
south; others favoring the reverse position. The balance of proof rests
in favor of the former supposition; but however that may be, Sumer and
Akkad represent, from a certain period on, a general designation to
include the whole of Babylonia. Professor Hommel goes so far as to
declare that in the types found on statues and monuments of the oldest
period of Babylonian history--the monuments coming from the mound
Telloh--we have actual representations of these Sumerians, who are thus
made out to be a smooth-faced race with rather prominent cheek-bones,
round faces, and shaven heads.[17] He pronounces in favor of the
highlands lying to the east of Babylonia, as the home of the Sumerians,
whence they made their way into the Euphrates Valley. Unfortunately, the
noses on these old statues are mutilated, and with such an important
feature missing, anthropologists, at least, are unwilling to pronounce
definitely as to the type represented. Again, together with these
supposed non-Semitic types, other figures have been found which, as
Professor Hommel also admits, show the ordinary Semitic features. It
would seem, therefore, that even accepting the hypothesis of a
non-Semitic type existing in Babylonia at this time, the Semitic
settlers are just as old as the supposed Sumerians; and since it is
admitted that the language found on these statues and figures contains
Semitic constructions and Semitic words, it is, to say the least,
hazardous to give the Sumerians the preference over the Semites so far
as the period of settlement and origin of the Euphratean culture is
concerned. As a matter of fact, we are not warranted in going beyond the
statement that all evidence points in favor of a population of mixed
races in the Euphrates Valley from the earliest period known to us. No
positive proof is forthcoming that Sumer and Akkad were ever employed or
understood in any other sense than as geographical terms.

This one safe conclusion, however, that the Semitic settlers of
Babylonia were not the sole occupants, but by their side dwelt another
race, or possibly a variety of races, possessing entirely different
traits, is one of considerable importance. At various times the
non-Semitic hordes of Elam and the mountain districts to the east of
Babylonia swept over the valley, and succeeded, for a longer or shorter
period, in securing a firm foothold. The ease with which these
conquerors accommodated themselves to their surroundings, continuing the
form of government which they found there, making but slight changes in
the religious practices, can best be accounted for on the supposition
that the mixture of different races in the valley had brought about an
interchange and interlacing of traits which resulted in the approach of
one type to the other. Again, it has recently been made probable that as
early at least as 2000, or even 2500 B.C., Semitic invaders entering
Babylonia from the side of Arabia drove the native Babylonian rulers
from the throne;[18] and at a still earlier period intercourse between
Babylonia and distant nations to the northeast and northwest was
established, which left its traces on the political and social
conditions. At every point we come across evidence of this composite
character of Babylonian culture, and the question as to the origin of
the latter may, after all, resolve itself into the proposition that the
contact of different races gave the intellectual impetus which is the
first condition of a forward movement in civilization; and while it is
possible that, at one stage, the greater share in the movement falls to
the non-Semitic contingent, the Semites soon obtained the intellectual
ascendency, and so absorbed the non-Semitic elements as to give to the
culture resulting from the combination, the homogeneous character it
presents on the surface.


IV.

Our present knowledge of Babylonian history reaches back to the period
of about 4000 B.C. At that time we find the Euphrates Valley divided
into a series of states or principalities, parcelling North and South
Babylonia between them. These states group themselves around certain
cities. In fact, the Babylonian principalities arise from the extension
of the city's jurisdiction, just as the later Babylonian empire is
naught but the enlargement, on a greater scale, of the city of Babylon.

Of these old Babylonian cities the most noteworthy, in the south, are
Eridu, Lagash,[19] Ur, Larsa, Uruk, Isin; and in the north, Agade,
Sippar, Nippur, Kutha, and Babylon. The rulers of these cities call
themselves either 'king' (literally 'great man') or 'governor,'
according as the position is a purely independent one, or one of
subjection to a more powerful chieftain. Thus the earliest rulers of the
district of Lagash, of whom we have inscriptions (_c._ 3200 B.C.) have
the title of 'king,' but a few centuries later Lagash lost its
independent position and its rulers became 'patesis,' _i.e._, governors.
They are in a position of vassalage, as it would appear, to the
contemporaneous kings of Ur, though this does not hinder them from
engaging in military expeditions against Elam, and in extensive building
operations. The kings of Ur, in addition to their title as kings of Ur,
are styled kings of Sumer and Akkad. Whether at this time, Sumer and
Akkad included the whole of Babylonia, or, as seems more likely, only
the southern part, in either case, Lagash would fall under the
jurisdiction of these kings, if their title is to be regarded as more
than an empty boast. Again, the rulers of Uruk are known simply as kings
of that place, while those of Isin incorporate in their titles, kingship
over Ur as well as Sumer and Akkad.

For this early period, extending from about 4000 B.C. to 2300,
the chronology is as yet uncertain. Beyond the titles of the rulers
over Babylonian states, there are but few safe indications for
determining the succession of dynasties. So much, however, is now
certain,--that simultaneous with the governors of Lagash and the
older kings of Ur, there was an independent state in Northern Babylonia
with its seat at Agade. Indeed the history of this state can now be
traced back six centuries beyond that of Lagash. Two rulers of Agade,
Naram-Sin (_c._ 3800 B.C.) and Sargon (or to give his fuller name,
Shargani-shar-ali[20]), are the earliest rulers as yet known. These
kings of Agade extended their jurisdiction as far north, at least, as
Nippur on the one side and Sippar on the other. The city of Babylon
itself, if it existed at this period, was therefore included within the
territory of these kings; and it follows that if there existed rulers of
Babylon at this time, which is doubtful (since the city is not
mentioned), they were in the same position of dependency upon the rulers
of Agade as the 'governors' of Lagash were upon some greater power. It
is not until about the middle of the third millennium before this era,
that Babylon comes into prominence.

In the south, as already intimated, the rulers of Lagash and the dynasty
of Ur are the earliest of which we have any record. There is every
reason to believe that further excavations at Mugheir will bring to
light the names of older kings, and the presumption is in favor of
regarding the southern states, or at least some of them, earlier than
any in the north. The climax in the power of the kings of Ur, the period
when they exerted, in fact as well as in name, the sovereignty over all
Sumer and Akkad may be fixed approximately at 3000 B.C. How far we shall
be able to go beyond that, for the beginnings of this state, must, for
the present, remain doubtful, with the chances in favor of a
considerably earlier date; and it may be that prior to Ur and Lagash
there were dynasties established elsewhere,--at Eridu, perhaps,--the
existence of which will be revealed by future discoveries. An
independent state with its seat at Uruk follows upon the culminating
period of the glory of Ur, and may be regarded, indeed, as an indication
that the rulers of Ur had lost their control over the whole of Southern
Babylonia. Isin, whose site has not yet been determined, but which lay
probably to the north of Uruk, was another political center. Its rulers,
so far as we know them, curiously assign the fourth place to the title
'king of Isin,' giving precedence to their control over Nippur, Eridu,
and Uruk. We may conclude from this, that at the time when Isin extended
its supremacy, the greater luster attaching to the old towns of Nippur
and Uruk, was emphasized by the precedence given to these centers over
Isin, although the Isin kings are only 'shepherds' and 'merciful lords'
over Nippur and Uruk, and not kings.

At a subsequent period, the kings of Ur appear to have regained the
supremacy, which was wrested from them by Isin; and the rulers of the
latter acknowledge their dependence upon the kings of Ur. This so-called
second dynasty of Ur includes Nippur. The kings are proud of calling
themselves the guardians of the temple of Bel in Nippur, nominated to
the office by the god himself, and reviving an old title of the kings of
Agade, style themselves also 'king of the four regions.' Another change
in the political horoscope is reflected in the subjection of Ur to a
district whose center was Larsa, not far from Ur, and represented by the
mound Senkereh. There are two kings, Nur-Rammân (_i.e._, light of
Ramman) and Sin-iddina (_i.e._, Sin judges), who call themselves
guardians of Ur and kings of Larsa, showing that the center of this
principality was Larsa, with Ur as a dependent district. That these
rulers take up the dominion once held by the kings of Ur is further
manifest in the additional title that they give to themselves, as 'kings
of Sumer and Akkad,' whereas the omission of the title 'king of the four
regions' indicates apparently the exclusion of Agade and Nippur; and
with these, probably North Babylonia in general, from their supremacy.
The power of Larsa receives a fatal check through the invasion of
Babylonia by the Elamites (_c._ 2350 B.C.).

These variations in official titles are a reflection of the natural
rivalry existing between the various Babylonian states, which led to
frequent shiftings in the political situation. Beyond this, the
inscriptions of these old Babylonian rulers, being ordinarily
commemorative of the dedication to a deity, of some temple or other
construction--notably canals--or of some votive offering, a cone or
tablet, unfortunately tell us little of the events of the time. Pending
the discovery of more complete annals, we must content ourselves with
the general indications of the civilization that prevailed, and of the
relations in which the principalities stood to one another, and with
more or less doubtful reconstructions of the sequence in the dynasties.
In all of this period, however, the division between North and South
Babylonia was kept tolerably distinct, even though occasionally, and for
a certain period, a North Babylonian city, like that of Agade and
Nippur, extended its jurisdiction over a section bordering on the south
and _vice versa_. It remained for a great conqueror, Hammurabi, the
sixth king of a dynasty having its seat in the city of Babylon itself,
who about the year 2300 B.C. succeeded in uniting North and South
Babylonia under one rule. With him, therefore, a new epoch in the
history of the Euphrates Valley begins. Henceforth the supremacy of the
city of Babylon remains undisputed, and the other ancient centers,
losing their political importance, retain their significance only by
virtue of the sanctuaries existing there, to which pilgrimages continued
to be made, and through the commercial activity that, upon the union of
the various Babylonian districts, set in with increased vigor.

Attention was directed a few years ago by Pognon and Sayce to the fact
that the name of Hammurabi, as well as the names of four kings that
preceded him, and of a number that followed, are not Babylonian. Sayce
expressed the opinion that they were Arabic, and Professor Hommel has
recently reënforced the position of Sayce by showing the close
resemblance existing between these names and those found on the
monuments of Southern Arabia.[21] While no evidence has as yet been
found to warrant us in carrying back the existence of the Minean empire
in Southern Arabia beyond 1500 B.C., still since at this period, this
empire appears in a high state of culture, with commercial intercourse
established between it and Egypt, as well as Palestine, the conclusion
drawn by Hommel that Babylonia was invaded about 2500 B.C. by an
Arabic-speaking people is to be seriously considered. Elam, as we have
seen, was constantly threatening Babylonia from the East, and shortly
before Hammurabi's appearance, succeeded in putting an end to the
dynasty of Larsa. It now appears that the inhabitants of the Euphrates
Valley were also threatened by an enemy lodged somewhere in the
southwest. Though Hommel's hypothesis still needs confirmation, and may
perhaps be somewhat modified by future researches, still so much seems
certain: that the great union of the Babylonian states and the supremacy
of the city of Babylon itself was achieved not by Babylonians but by
foreigners who entered Babylonia from its western (or southwestern)
side. The dynasty of which Hammurabi is the chief representative comes
to an end _c._ 2100, and is followed by another known as Shish-Kha,[22]
whose rulers likewise appear to be foreigners; and when this dynasty
finally disappears after a rule of almost four centuries, Babylonia is
once more conquered by a people coming from the northern parts of Elam
and who are known as the Cassites.[23] These Cassites, of whose origin,
character, and language but little is known as yet, ruled over Babylonia
for a period of no less than 576 years; but adapting themselves to the
customs and religion of the country, their presence did not interfere
with the normal progress of culture in the Euphrates Valley. We may
therefore embrace the period of Hammurabi and his successors, down
through the rule of the Cassite kings, under one head. It is a period
marked by the steady growth of culture, manifesting itself in the
erection of temples, in the construction of canals, and in the expansion
of commerce. Active relationships were maintained between Babylonia and
distant Egypt.

This movement did not suffer an interruption through the invasion of the
Cassites. Though Nippur, rather than Babylon, appears to have been the
favorite city of the dynasty, the course of civilization flows on
uninterruptedly, and it is not until the growing complications between
Babylonia and Assyria, due to the steady encroachment on the part of the
latter, that decided changes begin to take place.

About 1500 B.C. the first traces of relationship between Babylonia and
the northern Mesopotamian power, Assyria, appear. These relations were
at first of a friendly character, but it is not long before the growing
strength of Assyria becomes a serious menace to Babylonia. In the middle
of the thirteenth century, Assyrian arms advance upon the city of
Babylon. For some decades, Babylon remains in subjection to Assyria, and
although she regains her independence once more, and even a fair measure
of her former glory, the power of the Cassites is broken. Internal
dissensions add to the difficulties of the situation and lead to the
overthrow of the Cassites (1151 B.C.). Native Babylonians once more
occupy the throne, who, although able to check the danger still
threatening from Elam, cannot resist the strong arms of Assyria. At the
close of the twelfth century Tiglathpileser I. secures a firm hold upon
Babylonia, which now sinks to the position of a dependency upon the
Assyrian kings.


V.

In contrast to Babylonia, which is from the start stamped as a
civilizing power, Assyria, from its rise till its fall, is essentially a
military empire, seeking the fulfillment of its mission in the
enlargement of power and in incessant warfare. Its history may be traced
back to about 1800 B.C., when its rulers, with their seat in the ancient
city of Ashur, first begin to make their presence felt. The extension of
their power proceeds, as in Babylonia, from the growing importance of
the central city, and soon embraces all of Assyria proper. They pass on
into the mountain regions to the east, and advancing to the west, they
encounter the vigorous forces of Egypt, whose Asiatic campaigns begin
about the same time as the rise of Assyria. The Egyptians, abetted by
the Hittites--the possessors of the strongholds on the Orontes--
successfully check the growth of Assyria on this side, at least for a
period of several centuries. In the meanwhile, the Assyrian king gathers
strength enough to make an attack upon Babylonia.

The conflict, once begun, continues, as has been indicated, with varying
fortunes. Occasional breathing spells are brought about by a temporary
agreement of peace between the two empires, until at the end of the
twelfth century, Assyria, under Tiglathpileser I., secures control over
the Babylonian empire. Her kings add to their long list of titles that
of 'ruler of Babylonia.' They either take the government of the south
into their hands or exercise the privilege of appointing a governor of
their choice to regulate the affairs of the Euphrates Valley. From this
time on, the history of Babylonia and Assyria may be viewed under a
single aspect. The third period of Babylonian history--the second of
Assyrian history--thus begins about 1100 B.C., and continues till the
fall of Assyria in the year 606 B.C. These five centuries represent the
most glorious epoch of the united Mesopotamian empire. During this time,
Assyria rises to the height of an all-embracing power. With far greater
success than Egypt, she securely established her sovereignty over the
lands bordering on the Mediterranean. After severe struggles, the
Hittites are overcome, the names of their strongholds on the Orontes
changed, in order to emphasize their complete possession by the
Assyrians, and the principalities of Northern Syria become tributary to
Assyria. Phoenicia and the kingdom of Israel are conquered, while the
southern kingdom of Judah purchases a mere shadow of independence by
complete submission to the conditions imposed by the great and
irresistible monarchy. Far to the northeast Assyria extends her sway,
while Babylonia, though occasionally aroused to a resistance of the
tyrannical bonds laid upon her, only to be still further weakened,
retains a distinctive existence chiefly in name. The culture of the
south is the heritage bequeathed by old Babylonia to the north.
Babylonian temples become the models for Assyrian architecture. The
literary treasures in the archives of the sacred cities of the south are
copied by the scribes of the Assyrian kings, and placed in the palaces
of the latter. Meanwhile, the capital of Assyria moves towards the
north. Ashur gives way under the glorious reign of Ashurnasirbal to
Calah, which becomes the capitol in the year 880 B.C.; and Calah, in
turn, yields to Nineveh, which becomes, from the time of Tiglathpileser
II., in the middle of the eighth century, the center of the great
kingdom. Under Ashurbanabal, who rules from 668 to 626 B.C., the climax
of Assyrian power is reached. He carries his arms to the banks of the
Nile, and succeeds in realizing the dreams of his ancestors of a direct
control over the affairs of Egypt. A patron of science and literature,
as so many great conquerors, Ashurbanabal succeeds in making Nineveh a
literary as well as a military center.

A vast collection of the cuneiform literature of Babylonia is gathered
by him for the benefit of his subjects, as he is at constant pains to
tell us. The city is further embellished with magnificent structures,
and on every side he establishes his sovereignty with such force, that
the might of Assyria appears invincible. The fatal blow, dealt with a
suddenness that remains a mystery, came from an unexpected quarter. A
great movement of wild northern hordes, rather vaguely known as the
Cimmerians and Scythians, and advancing towards the south, set in
shortly after the death of Ashurbanabal, and created great political
disturbances. The vast number of these hordes, their muscular strength,
and their unrestrained cruelty, made them a foe which Assyria found as
hard to withstand, as Rome the approach of the Vandals and Goths. The
sources for our knowledge of the last days of the Assyrian empire are
not sufficient to enable us to grasp the details, but it is certain that
the successful attempt of the Babylonians to throw off the Assyrian yoke
almost immediately after Ashurbanabal's death, was a symptom of the
ravages which the hordes made in reducing the vitality of the Assyrian
empire. Her foes gained fresh courage from the success that crowned the
revolt of Babylonia. The Medes, a formidable nation to the east of
Assyria, and which had often crossed arms with the Assyrians, entered
into combination with Babylonia, and the two making several united
assaults upon Nineveh, under the leadership of Kyaxares, at last
succeeded in effecting an entrance. The city was captured and burned to
the ground. With the fall of Assyria, a feeling of relief passed over
the entire eastern world. A great danger, threatening to extinguish the
independence of all of the then known nations of the globe, was averted.
The Hebrew prophets living at the time of this downfall, voice the
general rejoicing that ensued when they declared, that even the cedars
of Lebanon leaped for joy. The province of Assyria proper, fell into the
hands of the Medes, but Babylonia, with her independence established on
a firm footing, was the real heir of Assyria's spirit. Her most glorious
monarch, Nebuchadnezzar II. (604-561 B.C.), seems to have dreamed of
gaining for Babylon the position, once held by Nineveh, of mistress of
the world. Taking Ashurbanabal as his model, he carried his arms to the
west, subdued the kingdom of Judah, and, passing on to Egypt, strove to
secure for Babylon, the supremacy exercised there for a short time by
Assyrian monarchs. In addition to his military campaigns, however, he
also appears in the light of a great builder, enlarging and beautifying
the temples of Babylonia, erecting new ones in the various cities of his
realm, strengthening the walls of Babylon, adorning the capital with
embankment works and other improvements, that gave it a permanent place
in the traditions of the ancient world as one of the seven wonders of
the universe.

The glory of this second Babylonian empire was of short duration. Its
vaulting ambition appears to have overleaped itself. Realizing for a
time the Assyrian ideal of a world monarchy, the fall was as sudden as
its rise was unexpected. Internal dissensions gave the first indication
of the hollowness of the state. Nebuchadnezzar's son was murdered in 560
B.C., within two years after reaching the throne, by his own
brother-in-law, Neriglissar; and the latter dying after a reign of only
four years, his infant child was put out of the way and Nabonnedos, a
high officer of the state, but without royal prerogative, mounted the
throne. In the year 550 news reached Babylon that Cyrus, the king of
Anzan, had dealt a fatal blow to the Median empire, capturing its king,
Astyages, and joining Media to his own district. He founded what was
afterwards known as the Persian empire.

The overthrow of the Medes gave Cyrus control over Assyria, and it was
to be expected that his gaze should be turned in the direction of
Babylonia. Nabonnedos recognized the danger, but all his efforts to
strengthen the powers of resistance to the Persian arms were of no
avail. Civil disturbances divided the Babylonians. The cohesion between
the various districts was loosened, and within the city of Babylon
itself, a party arose antagonistic to Nabonnedos, who in their
short-sightedness hailed the advance of Cyrus. Under these
circumstances, Babylon fell an easy prey to the Persian conqueror. In
the autumn of the year 539 Cyrus entered the city in triumph, and was
received with such manifestations of joy by the populace, as to make one
almost forget that with his entrance, the end of a great empire had
come. Politically and religiously, the history of Babylonia and Assyria
terminates with the advent of Cyrus; and this despite the fact that it
was his policy to leave the state of affairs, including religious
observances, as far as possible, undisturbed. A new spirit had, however,
come into the land with him. The official religion of the state was that
practiced by Cyrus and his predecessors in their native land. The
essential doctrines of the religion, commonly known as Mazdeism or
Zoroastrianism, presented a sharp contrast to the beliefs that still
were current in Babylonia, and it was inevitable that with the influx of
new ideas, the further development of Babylonian worship was cut short.
The respect paid by Cyrus to the Babylonian gods was a mere matter of
policy. Still, the religious rites continued to be practiced as of old
in Babylonia and Assyria for a long time, and when the religion finally
disappeared, under the subsequent conquests of the Greeks, Romans, and
Arabs, it left its traces in the popular superstitions and in the
ineradicable traditions that survived. But so far as the _history_ of
this religion is concerned, it comes to an end with the downfall of the
second Babylonian empire.

       *       *       *       *       *

The period, then, to be covered by a treatment of the religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians extends over the long interval between about
4000 B.C. and the middle of the sixth century. The development of this
religion follows closely the course of civilization and of history in
the territory under consideration. The twofold division, accordingly,
into Babylonia and Assyria, is the one that suggests itself also for the
religion. The beginning, as is evident from the historical sketch given,
must be made with Babylonia. It will be seen that, while the rites there
and in Assyria are much the same, the characters of the gods as they
developed in the south were quite different from those of the north;
and, again, it was inevitable that the Assyrian influence manifest in
the second Babylonian empire should give to the religion of the south at
this time, some aspects which were absent during the days of the old
Babylonian empire. In Babylonia, again, the political changes form the
basis for the transformation to be observed in the position occupied by
the deities at different periods; and the same general remark applies to
the deities peculiar to Assyria, who must be studied in connection with
the course pursued by the Assyrian empire.

The division of the subject which thus forces itself upon us is twofold,
(1) geographical, and (2) historical.

It will be necessary to treat first of the beliefs and pantheon
developed during the first two periods of Babylonian history, down to
the practical conquest of Babylonia by Assyria. Then, turning to
Assyria, the traits of the pantheon peculiar to Upper Mesopotamia will
be set forth. In the third place, the history of the religion will be
traced in Babylonia during the union of the Babylonian-Assyrian empire;
and, lastly, the new phases of that religion which appeared in the days
of the second Babylonian empire. Turning after this to other aspects of
the religion, it will be found that the religious rites were only to a
small degree influenced by political changes, while the literature and
religious art are almost exclusively products of Babylonia. In treating
of these subjects, accordingly, no geographical divisions are called
for, in setting forth their chief features.

The general estimate to be given at the close of the volume will furnish
an opportunity of making a comparison between the Babylonian-Assyrian
religion and other religions of the ancient world, with a view to
determining what foreign influences may be detected in it, as well as
ascertaining the influence it exerted upon others.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] I may be permitted to refer to a publication by Dr. Brinton and
myself, _The Cradle of the Semites_ (Philadelphia, 1889), in which the
various views as to this home are set forth.

[17] It has been suggested that since the statues of Telloh are those of
the priest-kings, only the priestly classes shaved their hair off.

[18] See an interesting discussion of the question by Professor Hommel,
"Arabia according to the Latest Discoveries and Researches."--_Sunday
School Times_, 1895, nos. 41 and 43.

[19] Also known as Shirpurla which Jensen (_Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, 5) thinks
was the later name.

[20] See Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, i. 16-18. Naram-Sin
signifies 'beloved of the god Sin' (the moon-god); Shargani-shar-ali--
'the legitimate king, king of the city.' The excavations of the
University of Pennsylvania have cast new light upon this most ancient
period of Babylonian history. It is now known that the temple of Bel at
Nippur antedates the reign of Naram-Sin, and in the further publications
of the University, we may look for material which will enable us to pass
beyond the period of Sargon.

[21] _Sunday School Times_, 1895, no. 41.

[22] For various views regarding the name and character of this dynasty
see Winckler, _Geschichte_, pp. 67, 68, 328; Hilprecht, _Assyriaca_, pp.
25-28, 102, 103; Winckler, _Altorientalische Forschungen_, I. 275-277,
and Rogers, _Outlines_, 32, note.

[23] See Delitzsch, _Die Sprache der Kossaer_.




CHAPTER III.

GENERAL TRAITS OF THE OLD BABYLONIAN PANTHEON.


The Babylonian religion in the oldest form known to us may best be
described as a mixture of local and nature cults. Starting with that
phase of religious beliefs known as Animism, which has been ascertained
to be practically universal in primitive society, the Babylonians, from
ascribing life to the phenomena of nature, to trees, stones, and plants,
as well as to such natural events, as storm, rain, and wind, and as a
matter of course to the great luminaries and to the stars--would, on the
one hand, be led to invoke an infinite number of spirits who were
supposed to be, in some way, the embodiment of the life that manifested
itself in such diverse manners; and yet, on the other hand, this
tendency would be restricted by the experience which would point to
certain spirits, as exercising a more decisive influence upon the
affairs of man than others. The result of this would be to give a
preponderance to the worship of the sun and moon and the water, and of
such natural phenomena as rain, wind, and storms, with their
accompaniment of thunder and lightning, as against the countless sprites
believed to be lurking everywhere. The latter, however, would not for
this reason be ignored altogether. Since everything was endowed with
life, there was not only a spirit of the tree which produced the fruit,
but there were spirits in every field. To them the ground belonged, and
upon their mercy depended the success or failure of the produce. To
secure the favor of the rain and the sun was not sufficient to the
agriculturist; he was obliged to obtain the protection of the guardian
spirits of the soil, in order to be sure of reaping the fruit of his
labors. Again, when through association, the group of arable plots grew
into a hamlet, and then through continued growth into a town, the
latter, regarded as a unit by virtue of its political organization under
a chief ruler, would necessarily be supposed to have some special power
presiding over its destinies, protecting it from danger, and ready to
defend the rights and privileges of those who stood immediately under
its jurisdiction. Each Babylonian city, large or small, would in this
way obtain a deity devoted to its welfare, and as the city grew in
extent, absorbing perhaps others lying about, and advancing in this way
to the dignity of a district, the city's god would correspondingly
increase his jurisdiction. As it encroached upon the domain of other
local deities, it would by conquest annihilate the latter, or reduce
them to a subservient position. The new regime would be expressed by
making the conquered deity, the servant of the victorious, or the two
might be viewed in the relation of father to son; and again, in the
event of a peaceful amalgamation of two cities or districts, the
protecting deities might join hands in a compact, mirroring the
partnership represented by the conjugal tie. In this way, there arose in
Babylon a selection, as it were, out of an infinite variety of
personified forces, manifest or concealed, that at one time may have
been objects of worship. The uniformity of the spirit world, which is
the characteristic trait of primitive Animism, gave way to a
differentiation regulated by the political development and the social
growth of Babylonia. The more important natural forces became gods, and
the inferior ones were, as a general thing, relegated to the secondary
position of mere sprites, like the _jinns_, in Arabic beliefs. Only in
the case of the guardian spirit of an entire city or district, would
there result--and even this not invariably--an elevation to the grade of
deity, in the proper sense of the word. In many cases, however, this
guardian deity might be a heavenly body, as the moon or sun or stars,
all of which were supposed to regulate the fate of mankind or some force
of nature, as the rain or the storm; and even if this were not
originally the case, the protecting deity might, in the course of time,
become identified with one of the forces of nature; and, if for no other
reason, simply because of the prominence which the worship of the force
in question acquired in the place. As a consequence, the mixture of
local and nature cults is so complete that it is often impossible to
distinguish the one from the other. It is hard in many cases to
determine whether the deity which is identified with a certain city was
originally a mere local spirit watching over a certain restricted
territory, or a personification of a natural force associated in some
way with a certain section of Babylonia.




CHAPTER IV.

BABYLONIAN GODS PRIOR TO THE DAYS OF HAMMURABI.


With these preliminary remarks, we may turn, as the first part of our
subject, to a consideration of the oldest of the Babylonian gods. Our
main sources are the inscriptions of the old Babylonian rulers, above
referred to. These are, in most cases, of a dedicatory character, being
inscribed on statues, cylinders, or tablets, placed in the temples or on
objects--cones, knobs, stones--presented as votive offerings to some
god. Besides the inscriptions of the rulers, we have those of officials
and others. Many of these are likewise connected directly or indirectly
with religious worship.

The advantage of the historical texts over the purely religious ones
consists in their being dated, either accurately or approximately. For
this reason, the former must be made the basis for a rational theory of
the development of the Babylonian pantheon through the various periods
above instanced. The data furnished by the religious texts can be
introduced only, as they accord with the facts revealed by the
historical inscriptions in each period.

Taking up the group of inscriptions prior to the union of the Babylonian
States under Hammurabi, _i.e._, prior to 2300 B.C., we find these gods
mentioned: Bel, Belit, Nin-khar-sag, Nin-girsu, also appearing as
Shul-gur, Bau, Ga-tum-dug, Ea, Nin-a-gal, Nergal, Shamash, under various
forms Â, who is the consort of Shamash, Nannar or Sin, Nanâ, Anunit,
Ishtar, Innanna or Ninni, Ninâ, Nin-mar, Dun-shagga, Gal-alim, Anu,
Nin-gish-zida, Nin-si-a, Nin-shakh, Dumu-zi, Lugal-banda and his consort
Nin-gul, Dumuzi-zu-aba, Nisaba, Ku(?)anna, Lugal-erima(?), Dagan, Ishum,
Umu, Pa-sag, Nin-e-gal, Nin-gal, Shul(or Dun)-pa-uddu, and
Nin-akha-kuddu.

Regarding these names, it may be said at once that the reading, in many
cases, is to be looked upon as merely provisional. Written, as they
usually are, in the ideographic "style," the phonetic reading can only
be determined when the deity in question can be identified with one,
whose name is written at some place phonetically, or when the ideographs
employed are so grouped as to place the phonetic reading beyond doubt.
The plan to be followed in this book will be to give the ideographic
reading[24] as provisional wherever the real pronunciation is unknown or
uncertain. The ideographic designation of a deity is of great value,
inasmuch as the ideographs themselves frequently reveal the character of
the god, though of course the additional advantage is obvious when the
name appears in both the ideographic and the phonetic writing. It will,
therefore, form part of a delineation of the Babylonian pantheon to
interpret the picture, as it were, under which each deity is viewed.


En-lil or Bel.

Taking up the gods in the order named, the first one, Bel, is also the
one who appears on the oldest monuments as yet unearthed--the
inscriptions of Nippur. His name is, at this time, written invariably as
En-lil. In the Babylonian theology, he is 'the lord of the lower world.'
He represents, as it were, the unification of the various forces whose
seat and sphere of action is among the inhabited parts of the globe,
both on the surface and beneath, for the term 'lower world' is here used
in contrast to the upper or heavenly world. Such a conception manifestly
belongs to the domain of abstract thought, and it may be concluded,
therefore, that either the deity belongs to an advanced stage of
Babylonian culture, or that the original view of the deity was different
from the one just mentioned. The latter is the case. Primarily, the
ideograph Lil is used to designate a 'demon' in general, and En-lil is
therefore the 'chief demon.' Primitive as such a conception is, it
points to some system of thought that transcends primitive Animism,
which is characterized rather by the equality accorded to all spirits.
The antiquity of the association of En-lil with Nippur justifies the
conclusion that we have before us a local deity who, originally the
protecting spirit merely, of a restricted territory, acquires the
position of 'chief demon' as the town of Nippur grows to be the capitol
of a large and powerful district. The fame and sanctity of Nippur
survives political vicissitudes; and, indeed, in proportion as Nippur
loses political prestige, the great deity of the place is released from
the limitations due to his local origin and rises to the still higher
dignity of a great power whose domain is the entire habitable universe.
As the 'lord of the lower world,' En-lil is contrasted to a god Anu, who
presides over the heavenly bodies. The age of Sargon (3800 B.C.), in
whose inscriptions En-lil already occurs, is one of considerable
culture, as is sufficiently evidenced by the flourishing condition of
art, and there can therefore be no objection against the assumption that
even at this early period, a theological system should have been evolved
which gave rise to beliefs in great powers whose dominion embraces the
'upper' and 'lower' worlds. It was because of this wide scope of his
power that he became known as Bel, _i.e._, the lord _par excellence_;
and it is equally natural to find his worship spread over the whole of
Babylonia. In the south, the patron deity of Lagash is designated by
Gudea as "the mighty warrior of Bel," showing the supremacy accorded to
the latter. A temple to En-lil at Lagash, and known as E-adda, 'house of
the father,' by virtue of the relationship existing between the god of
Nippur and Nin-girsu, is mentioned by Uru-kagina. The temple is
described as a lofty structure 'rising up to heaven.' In the north,
Nippur remains the place where his worship acquired the greatest
importance, so that Nippur was known as the "land of Bel." The temple
sacred to him at that place was a great edifice, famous throughout
Babylonian history as E-Kur, _i.e._, mountain house, in the construction
of which, a long line of Babylonian rulers took part. From Naram-Sin,
ruler of Agade, on through the period of Cassite rule, the kings of
Nippur proudly include in their titles that of 'builder of the Temple of
Bel at Nippur,' measuring their attachment to the deity by the additions
and repairs made to his sacred edifice.[25] Besides the kings of Agade,
the rulers of other places pay their devotions to Bel of Nippur. So, a
king of Kish, whose name is read Alu-usharshid by Professor
Hilprecht,[26] brings costly vases of marble and limestone from Elam and
offers them to Bel as a token of victory; and this at a period even
earlier than Sargon. Even when En-lil is obliged to yield a modicum of
his authority to the growing supremacy of the patron deity of the city
of Babylon, the highest tribute that can be paid to the latter, is to
combine with his real name, Marduk, the title of "Bel," which of right
belongs to En-lil. We shall see how this combination of En-lil, or Bel,
with Marduk reflects political changes that took place in the Euphrates
Valley; and it is a direct consequence of this later association of the
old Bel of Nippur with the chief god of Babylon, that the original
traits of the former become obscured in the historical and religious
texts. Dimmed popular traditions, which will be set forth in their
proper place, point to his having been at one time regarded as a
powerful chieftain armed with mighty weapons, but engaged in conflicts
for the ultimate benefit of mankind. On the whole, he is a beneficent
deity, though ready to inflict severe punishment for disobedience to his
commands. We must distinguish, then, in the case of En-lil, at least
four phases:

1. His original rôle as a local deity;

2. The extension of his power to the grade of a great 'lord' over a
large district;

3. Dissociation from local origins to become the supreme lord of the
lower world; and

4. The transfer of his name and powers as god of Nippur to Marduk, the
god of Babylon.

The last two phases can best be set forth when we come to the period,
marked by the political supremacy of the city of Babylon. It is
sufficient, at this point, to have made clear his position as god of
Nippur.


Nin-lil or Belit.

The consort of En-lil is Nin-Lil, the 'mistress of the lower world.' She
is known also as Belit, the feminine form to Bel, _i.e._, the lady _par
excellence_. She, too, had her temple at Nippur, the age of which goes
back, at least, to the first dynasty of Ur. But the glory of the goddess
pales by the side of her powerful lord. She is naught but a weak
reflection of Bel, as in general the consorts of the gods are. Another
title by which this same goddess was known is


Nin-khar-sag.[27]

which means the 'lady of the high or great mountain.' The title may have
some reference to the great mountain where the gods were supposed to
dwell, and which was known to Babylonians as the 'mountain of the
lands.' Bel, as the chief of the gods, is more particularly associated
with this mountain. Hence his temple is called the 'mountain house.'
From being regarded as the inhabitant of the mountain, he comes to be
identified with the mountain itself. Accordingly, he is sometimes
addressed as the "great mountain,"[28] and his consort would therefore
be appropriately termed 'the lady of the great mountain.' Besides the
temple at Nippur, Belit, as Nin-khar-sag, had a sanctuary at Girsu, one
of the quarters at Lagash (see under Nin-girsu), the earliest mention of
which occurs on an inscription of Ur-Bau. The latter calls the goddess
'the mother of the gods,' which further establishes her identity with
the consort of Bel. Entemena, another governor of Lagash, places his
domain under the protection of Nin-khar-sag. The worship at Nippur,
however, remained most prominent. The continued popularity of her cult
is attested by the fortress Dur-zakar, which a later king, Samsu-iluna
(_c._ 2200), erected in her honor.


Nin-girsu.

In the inscriptions of Gudea and of his time, the god most prominently
mentioned is the "Lord of Girsu." Girsu itself, as the inscriptions
show, is one of the four sections into which the capitol city of Lagash
was divided. It was there that the temple stood which was sacred to the
patron deity, and we may conclude from this that Girsu is the oldest
part of the city. Afterwards, Lagash became the general name for the
capitol through being the quarter where the great palace of the king was
erected. That Girsu was once quite distinct from Lagash is also evident
from the title of "king of Girsu," with which a certain Uru-kagina, who
is to be placed somewhat before Gudea, contents himself. The other three
quarters, all of which were originally independent cities, are
Uru-azagga, Ninâ, and apparently Gish-galla.[29]

Nin-girsu is frequently termed the warrior of Bel,--the one who in the
service of the 'lord of the lower world,' appears in the thick of the
fight, to aid the subjects of Bel. In this rôle, he is identical with a
solar deity who enjoys especial prominence among the warlike Assyrians,
whose name is provisionally read Nin-ib, but whose real name may turn
out to be Adar.[30] The rulers of Lagash declare themselves to have been
chosen for the high office by Nin-girsu, and as if to compensate
themselves for the degradation implied in being merely _patesis_, or
governors, serving under some powerful chief, they call themselves the
patesis of Nin-girsu, implying that the god was the master to whom they
owed allegiance. The temple sacred to him at Girsu was called E-ninnu,
and also by a longer name that described the god as the one 'who changes
darkness into light,'--the reference being to the solar character of the
god Nin-ib with whom Nin-girsu is identified. In this temple, Gudea and
other rulers place colossal statues of themselves, but temper the vanity
implied, by inscribing on the front and back of these statues, an
expression of their devotion to their god. To Nin-girsu, most of the
objects found at Tell-loh are dedicated; conspicuous among which are the
many clay cones, that became the conventional objects for votive
offerings. There was another side, however, to his nature, besides the
belligerent one. As the patron of Lagash, he also presided over the
agricultural prosperity of the district. In this rôle he is addressed as
Shul-gur or Shul-gur-an, _i.e._, the "god of the corn heaps"; Entemena
and his son Enanna-tuma in erecting a kind of storehouse which they
place under the protection of Nin-girsu, declare that their god is
Shul-gur;[31] and an old hymn[32] identifies him with Tammuz, the
personification of agricultural activity. Such a combination of
apparently opposing attributes is a natural consequence of the
transformation of what may originally have been the personification of
natural forces, into local deities. Each field had its protecting
spirit, but for the city as a whole, a local deity, whose rule mirrored
the control of the human chief over his subjects, alone was available.
To him who watched over all things pertaining to the welfare of the
territory coming under his jurisdiction, various attributes, as occasion
required, were ascribed, and quite apart from his original character,
the god could thus be regarded, as the warrior and the peaceful
husbandman at the same time.


Bau.

Perhaps the most prominent of the goddesses in the ancient Babylonian
period was Bau. One of the rulers of Lagash has embodied the name of the
goddess in his name, calling himself Ur-Bau. It is natural, therefore,
to find him more especially devoted to the worship of this deity. He
does not tire of singing her praises, and of speaking of the temple he
erected in her honor. Still, Ur-Bau does not stand alone in his
devotion; Uru-kagina, Gudea, and others refer to Bau frequently, while
in the incantation texts, she is invoked as the great mother, who gives
birth to mankind and restores the body to health. In the old Babylonian
inscriptions she is called the chief daughter of Anu, the god of heaven.
Among her titles, the one most frequently given is that of 'good lady.'
She is the 'mother' who fixes the destinies of men and provides
'abundance' for the tillers of the soil. Gudea calls her his mistress,
and declares that it is she who "fills him with speech,"--a phrase whose
meaning seems to be that to Bau he owes the power he wields. Locally,
she is identified with Uru-azagga (meaning 'brilliant town'), a quarter
of Lagash; and it was there that her temple stood. As a consequence, we
find her in close association with Nin-girsu, the god of Girsu. We may
indeed go further and assume that Girsu and Uru-azagga are the two
oldest quarters of the city, the combination of the two representing the
first natural steps in the development of the principality, afterwards
known as Lagash, through the addition of other quarters[33]. She is
indeed explicitly called the consort of Nin-girsu; and this relation is
implied also, in the interesting phrase used by Gudea, who presents
gifts to Bau in the name of Nin-girsu, and calls them 'marriage
gifts'.[34] It is interesting to find, at this early period, the
evidence for the custom that still prevails in the Orient, which makes
the gifts of the bridegroom to his chosen one, an indispensable
formality.[35] These gifts were offered on the New Year's Day, known as
Zag-muk, and the importance of the worship of Bau is evidenced by the
designation of this day, as the festival of Bau.

The offerings, themselves, consist of lambs, sheep, birds, fish, cream,
besides dates and various other fruits. When Uru-azagga becomes a part
of Lagash, Bau's dignity is heightened to that of 'mother of Lagash.' As
the consort of Ningirsu, she is identified with the goddess Gula, the
name more commonly applied to the 'princely mistress' of Nin-ib, whose
worship continues down to the days of the neo-Babylonian monarchy.

It is quite certain, however, that Bau is originally an independent
goddess, and that the association of Uru-azagga and Girsu[36] lead to
her identification with Gula. Regarding her original nature, a certain
index is her character as "daughter of Anu." Anu being the god of
heaven, Bau must be sought in the upper realm of personified forces,
rather than elsewhere; but exactly which one she is, it is difficult to
say. Hommel, indeed,[37] is of opinion that she is the personified
watery depth, the primitive chaos which has only the heavens above it;
but in giving this explanation, he is influenced by the desire to
connect the name of Bau with the famous term for chaos in Genesis,
_Tohu-wa-bohu_. There is, however, no proof whatsoever that Bau and Bohu
have anything to do with one another. A goddess who can hardly be
distinguished from Bau is


Ga-tum-dug.[38]

Indeed, from the fact that she is also the 'mother of Lagash,' it might
seem that this is but another name for Bau. However, elsewhere, in two
lists of deities invoked by Gudea (Inscr. B, col. ii. 17), Ga-tum-dug is
given a separate place by the side of Bau, once placed before and once
after the latter; and it is clear therefore that she was originally
distinct from Bau. For Gudea, Ga-tum-dug is the mother who produced him.
He is her servant and she is his mistress. Lagash is her beloved city,
and there he prepares for her a dwelling-place, which later rulers, like
Entena, embellish. She is called the 'brilliant' (_Azag_), but as this
title is merely a play upon the element found in the city, Uru-azagga,
sacred to Bau, not much stress is to be laid upon this designation.
Unfortunately, too, the elements composing her name are not clear,[39]
and it must be borne in mind that the reading is purely provisional. So
much, at least, seems certain: that Bau and Ga-tum-dug are two forms
under which one and the same natural element was personified. Bau is
called in the incantation texts, the mother of Ea. The latter being
distinctly a water god, we may conclude that in some way, Bau is to be
connected with water as a natural element. The conjecture may be
hazarded that she personifies originally the waters of the upper
realm--the clouds. Since Ea, who is her son, represents the waters of
the lower realm, the relation of mother and son reflects perhaps a
primitive conception of the origin of the deep, through the descent of
the upper waters. When we come to the cosmogony of the Babylonians, it
will be seen that this conception of a distinction between the two
realms of waters is a fundamental one. This character as a spirit of the
watery elements is shared by others of the goddesses appearing in the
old Babylonian inscriptions.[40]


En-ki or Ea.

This god, who, as we shall see, becomes most prominent in the developed
form of Babylonian theology, does not occupy the place one should expect
in the early Babylonian inscriptions. Ur-Bau erects a sanctuary to Ea,
at Girsu. Another of the governors of Lagash calls himself, priest of
Ea, describing the god as the "supreme councillor." From him, the king
receives "wisdom."[41] A ruler, Rim-Sin, of the dynasty of Larsa,
associates Ea with Bel, declaring that these "great gods" entrusted Uruk
into his hands with the injunction to rebuild the city that had fallen
in ruins. The ideograms, with which his name is written, En-ki,
designate him as god of that 'which is below,'--the earth in the first
place; but with a more precise differentiation of the functions of the
great gods, Ea becomes the god of the waters of the deep. When this
stage of belief is reached, Ea is frequently associated with Bel, who,
it will be recalled, is the 'god of the lower region,' but who becomes
the god of earth _par excellence_. When, therefore, Bel and Ea are
invoked, it is equivalent, in modern parlance, to calling upon earth and
water; and just as Bel is used to personify, as it were, the unification
of the earthly forces, so Ea becomes, in a comprehensive sense, the
watery deep. Ea and Bel assume therefore conspicuous proportions in the
developed Babylonian cosmogony and theology. In the cosmogony, Bel is
the creator and champion of mankind, and Ea is the subterranean deep
which surrounds the earth, the source of wisdom and culture; in the
theology, Ea and Bel are pictured in the relation of father and son,
who, in concert, are appealed to, when misfortune or disease overtakes
the sons of man; Ea, the father, being the personification of knowledge,
and Bel, the practical activity that 'emanates from wisdom,' as
Professor Sayce,[42] adopting the language of Gnosticism, aptly puts it;
only that, as already suggested, Marduk assumes the rôle of the older
Bel.

Confining ourselves here to the earlier phases of Ea, it seems probable
that he was originally regarded as the god of Eridu,--one of the most
ancient of the holy cities of Southern Babylonia, now represented by
Abu-Shahrein, and which once stood on the shores of the Persian Gulf.
Ur-Bau expressly calls the god the 'king of Eridu.' The sacredness of
the place is attested by Gudea, who boasts of having made the temple of
Nin-girsu as sacred as Eridu.[43] It is over this city that Ea watches.
The importance of the Persian Gulf to the growth of the city, would make
it natural to place the seat of the god in the waters themselves. The
cult of water-deities arises, naturally, at places which are situated on
large sheets of water; and in the attributes of wisdom which an older
age ascribed to Ea, there may be seen the embodiment of the tradition
that the course of civilization proceeds from the south. The superiority
of the Persian Gulf over the other waters of Babylon--over the two great
rivers with their tributary streams and canals--would be another factor
that would lead to the god of the Persian Gulf being regarded as the
personification of the watery element in general. For the Babylonians,
the Persian Gulf, stretching out indefinitely, and to all appearances
one with the great ocean whose ulterior shores could not be reached, was
the great 'Okeanos,' that flowed around the earth and on which the earth
rested. Ea, accordingly (somewhat like En-lil), was delocalized, as it
were, and his worship was maintained long after the recollection of his
connection with Eridu had all but disappeared. At the same time, for the
very reason that he was cut loose from local associations, no place
could lay claim to being the seat of the deity. Ur-Bau, when erecting a
sanctuary to Ea at Girsu, significantly calls the god 'the king of
Eridu.' The sanctuary is not, in this case, the dwelling-place of the
god.

We are justified, therefore, in going back many centuries, before
reaching the period when Ea was, merely, the local god of Eridu. Whether
Ea is to be regarded as the real name of the god, or is also an
ideograph like En-ki, is again open to doubt. If Ea is the real
pronunciation, then the writing of the name is a play upon the character
of the deity, for it is composed of two elements that signify 'house'
and 'water,'--the name thus suggesting the character and real seat of
the deity. A point in favor of regarding Ea as the real name, albeit not
decisive, is the frequent use of the unmistakable ideographic
description of the god as En-ki. The consort of Ea who is Dam-kina also
occurs in the historical texts of the first period.

The origin of Babylonian civilization at the Persian Gulf, together with
the dependence of Babylonia for her fertility upon the streams and
canals, account for the numerous water-deities to be found in the
ancient Babylonian pantheon, some of which have already been discussed.
We will meet with others further on. Every stream, large or small,
having its special protecting deity, the number of water-deities
naturally increases as the land becomes more and more dissected by the
canal system that conditioned the prosperity of the country.

Ea, as we shall see, appears under an unusually large number of
names.[44] One of these is


Nin-a-gal,

which, signifying 'god of great strength,' is given to him as the patron
of the smith's art.[45] A god of this name is mentioned by Ur-Bau,[46]
who speaks of a sanctuary erected in honor of this deity. But since the
king refers to Ea (as En-ki) a few lines previous, it would appear that
at this period Nin-agal is still an independent deity. The later
identification with Ea appears to be due to the idea of 'strength'
involved in the name of Nin-agal. In the same way, many of the names of
Ea were originally descriptive of independent gods who, because of the
similarity of their functions to those of the great Ea, were absorbed by
the latter. Their names transferred to Ea, are frequently the only trace
left of their original independent existence.


Nergal.

Nergal, the local deity of Cuthah (or Kutu), represented by the mound
Tell-Ibrahim, some distance to the east of Babylon, was of an entirely
different character from Ea, but his history in the development of the
Babylonian religion is hardly less interesting. The first mention of his
famous temple at Cuthah is found in an inscription of Dungi (to be read
Ba'u-ukin, according to Winckler[47]) who belongs to the second dynasty
of Ur (_c._ 2700 B.C.). Its origin, however, belongs to a still earlier
period. Such was the fame of the temple known as E-shid-lam, and the
closeness of the connection between the deity and his favorite seat,
that Nergal himself became known as shid-lam-ta-ud-du-a, _i.e._, the god
that rises up from E-shid-lam. It is by this epithet that the same Dungi
describes him in one of his inscriptions.[48] Down to the latest period
of Assyro-Babylonian history, Nergal remains identified with Kutu, being
known at all times as the god of Kutu.[49] When Sargon, the king of
Assyria, upon his conquest of the kingdom of Israel (_c._ 722 B.C.),
brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, and so forth, across to the
lands of the Jordan to take the place of the deported Israelites, the
Hebrew narrator (II Kings, xvii. 24-35) tells us in an interesting
manner of the obnoxious foreign worship which these people brought to
the land, each division bringing the gods of their place with them. The
men of Cuthah, he adds (v. 30), made a statue of Nergal. Singamil, of
the dynasty, having its capital at Uruk (_c._ 2750 B.C.), likewise
testifies to his devotion to Nergal by busying himself with improvements
and additions to his temple at Cuthah. His worship, therefore, was not
confined to those who happened to reside at Cuthah; and closely as he is
identified with the place, the character of the god is a general and not
a special one. The full form of his name appears to have been
Ner-unu-gal, of which Nergal, furnished by the Old Testament passage
referred to, would then be a contraction or a somewhat corrupt form. The
three elements composing his name signify "the mighty one of the great
dwelling-place," but it is, again, an open question whether this is a
mere play upon the character of the god, as in the name of Ea (according
to one of the interpretations above suggested), or whether it is an
ideographic form of the name. The Old Testament shows, conclusively,
that the name had some such pronunciation as Nergal. Jensen, from other
evidences, inclines to the opinion that the writing Ner-unu-gal is the
result of a species of etymology, brought about by the prominence given
to Nergal as the god of the region of the dead. It is in this capacity
that he already appears in the inscription of Singamil, who calls him
'king of the nether world.' The "great dwelling-place," therefore, is
clearly the dominion over which Nergal rules, and when we come to the
cosmogony of the Babylonians,[50] it will be found that this epithet for
the nether world--the great dwelling-place--accords with their
conception of the life after death. But while Nergal, with a host of
lesser demons about him, appears as the Babylonian Pluto, particularly
in the religious texts, his functions are not limited to the control of
the dead. He is the personification of some of the evils that bring
death to mankind, particularly pestilence and war. The death that
follows in his path is a violent one, and his destructive force is one
that acts upon large masses rather than upon the individual. Hence, one
of the most common ideographs used to express his name is that which
signifies 'sword.'

War and pestilence are intimately associated in the mind of the
Babylonians. Among other nations, the sword is, similarly, the symbol of
the deity, as the plague-bringer as well as the warrior.

To this day, a pestilence is the general accompaniment of war in the
East, or follows in its wake. Different from Nin-ib, who is also a god
of war, Nergal symbolizes more particularly the _destruction_ which
accompanies war, and not the strong champion who aids his subjects in
the fight. Nergal is essentially a destroyer, and the various epithets
applied to him in the religious texts, show that he was viewed in this
light. He is at times the 'god of fire,' again 'the raging king,' 'the
violent one' 'the one who burns'; and finally identified with the
glowing heat of flame. Often, he is described by these attributes,
instead of being called by his real name.[51] Dr. Jensen has recently
shown in a satisfactory manner, that this phase of his character must be
the starting-point in tracing the order of his development. As the
'glowing flame,' Nergal is evidently a phase of the sun, and Jensen
proves that the functions and aspects of the sun at different periods
being differentiated among the Babylonians, Nergal is more especially
the hot sun of midsummer or midday, the destructive force of which was
the chief feature that distinguished it. The hot sun of Babylonia, that
burns with fierce intensity, brings pestilence and death, and carries on
a severe contest against man. From being the cause of death, it is but a
step, and a natural one, to make Nergal preside over the region,
prepared for those whom he has destroyed. The course taken by Babylonian
theology is responsible for the prominence given to the latter rôle of
Nergal, which finally overshadows his other phases to the extent of
suggesting the fanciful interpretation of his name as the 'ruler of the
great dwelling place for the dead.' In the light of the facts set forth,
another explanation for his name must be looked for that would connect
the god with solar functions. The name may in fact be divided into two
elements, the first having the force of chief or ruler, the second
'great.' The combination would be an appropriate designation for the
sun, in the rôle of a destructive power. But Nergal, after all,
represents only one phase of the sun-god. The god who was worshipped as
the personification of the sun _par excellence_ and the sun as a whole,
was


Shamash.

Written with an ideograph that describes him as the 'god of the day,'
there is no deity whose worship enjoys an equally continued popularity
in Babylonia and Assyria. Beginning at the earliest period of Babylonian
history, and reaching to the latest, his worship suffers no
interruption. Shamash, moreover, maintains his original character with
scarcely any modification throughout this long period. For all that, he
bears a name which signifies 'attendant' or 'servitor,' and which
sufficiently shows the subsidiary position that he occupied in the
Babylonian pantheon. One of the rulers belonging to the dynasty of Isin
calls the sun-god, the offspring of Nannar,--one of the names of the
moon-god,--and the last king of Babylonia, Nabonnedos, does the same. In
combination with the moon-god, the latter takes precedence of
Shamash,[52] and in the enumeration of the complete pantheon, in the
inscriptions of both Assyrian and Babylonian kings, the same order is
preserved. Other evidence that points to the superior rank accorded to
Sin, the moon-god over the sun deity in Babylonia, is the reckoning of
time by the moon phases. The day begins with the evening, and not with
sunrise. The moon, as the chief of the starry firmament, and controlling
the fate of mankind, was the main factor in giving to the orb of night,
this peculiar prominence. The 'service,' accordingly implied in the name
of Shamash appears to have been such as was demanded by his subsidiary
position to the moon-god. Beyond the general recognition, however, of
this relationship between the two, it does not appear that the worship
paid to Shamash, was at all affected by the secondary place, that he
continued to hold in the theoretically constructed pantheon. Less than
is the case with the other gods, is he identified with any particular
city, and we therefore find in the most ancient period, two centers of
Southern Babylonia claiming Shamash as their patron saint,--Larsa,
represented by the mound of Senkereh, and Sippar, occupying the site of
the modern Abu-Habba. It is difficult to say which of the two was the
older; the latter, in the course of time, overshadowed the fame of the
former, and its history can be traced back considerably beyond the
sun-worship at Larsa, the first mention of which occurs in the
inscriptions of rulers of the second dynasty of Ur (_c._ 2900 B.C.).
Since Ur, as we shall see, was sacred to the moon-god, it is hardly
likely that the Shamash cult was introduced at Larsa by the rulers of
Ur. The kings of Ur would not have forfeited the protection of Sin, by
any manifestation of preference for Shamash. When Ur-Gur, therefore,
tells us that he 'built' a temple to Shamash at Larsa, he must mean, as
Sin-iddina of the dynasty of Larsa does, in using the same phrase, that
he enlarged or improved the edifice. What makes it all the more likely
that Ur-Gur found sun-worship at Larsa in existence is, that in the
various places over which this ruler spread his building activity, he is
careful in each case to preserve the status of the presiding deity. So
at Nippur, he engages in work at the temples of En-lil and of Nin-lil;
while at Uruk he devotes himself to the temple of Nanâ. In thus
connecting their names with the various sacred edifices of Babylonia,
the rulers emphasized, on the one hand, their control of the territory
in which the building lay, and on the other, their allegiance to the
deity of the place, whose protection and favor they sought to gain.

The mention of a temple to Shamash at Sippar reverts to a still earlier
period than that of its rival. Nabonnedos tells us that it was founded
by Naram-Sin. Sargon has put his name on some object[53] that he
dedicates to the sun-god at Sippar. That there was an historical
connection between the two temples may be concluded from the fact that
the name of the sacred edifices was the same in both,--E-babbara,
signifying the 'house of lustre.' Such a similarity points to a
dependence of one upon the other, and the transfer or extension of the
worship directly from one place to the other; but, as intimated, we have
no certain means of determining which of the two is the older. In view
of the general observation to be made in what pertains to the religion
of the Babylonians, that fame and age go hand in hand, the balance is in
favor of Sippar, which became by far the more famous of the two,
received a greater share of popular affection, and retained its
prominence to the closing days of the neo-Babylonian monarchy. We shall
have occasion in a succeeding chapter to trace the history of the
sun-temple at Sippar so far as known. It is interesting to note that
Nabonnedos, feeling the end of his power to be near, undertakes, as one
of the last resorts, the restoration of this edifice, in the hope that
by thus turning once more to the powerful Shamash, he might secure his
protection, in addition to that of Marduk, the head of the later
Babylonian pantheon.

In Ur itself, Shamash was also worshipped in early days by the side of
the moon-god. Eannatum, of the dynasty of Isin (_c._ 2800 B.C.), tells
of two temples erected to him at that place; and still a third edifice,
sacred to both Nannar (the moon god) and Shamash at Ur, is referred to
by a king of the Larsa dynasty, Rim-Sin (_c._ 2300 B.C.). The titles
given to Shamash by the early rulers are sufficiently definite to show
in what relation he stood to his worshippers, and what the conceptions
were that were formed of him. He is, alternately, the king and the
shepherd. Since the kings also called themselves shepherds, no especial
endearment is conveyed by this designation. In the incantations, Shamash
is frequently appealed to, either alone, or when an entire group of
spirits and deities are enumerated. He is called upon to give life to
the sick man. To him the body of the one who is smitten with disease is
confided. As the god of light, he is appropriately called upon to banish
'darkness' from the house, darkness being synonymous with misfortune;
and the appeal is made to him more particularly as the 'king of
judgment.' From this, it is evident that the beneficent action of the
sun, was the phase associated with Shamash. He was hailed as the god
that gives light and life to all things, upon whose favor the prosperity
of the fields and the well-being of man depend. He creates the light and
secures its blessings for mankind. His favor produces order and
stability; his wrath brings discomfiture and ruin to the state and the
individual. But his power was, perhaps, best expressed by the title of
"judge"--the favorite one in the numerous hymns that were composed in
his honor. He was represented as seated on a throne in the chamber of
judgment, receiving the supplications of men, and according as he
manifested his favor or withdrew it, enacting the part of the decider of
fates. He loosens the bonds of the imprisoned, grants health to the
sick, and even revivifies the dead. On the other hand, he puts an end to
wickedness and destroys enemies. He makes the weak strong, and prevents
the strong from crushing the weak. From being the judge, and, moreover,
the supreme judge of the world, it was but natural that the conception
of justice was bound up with him. His light became symbolical of
righteousness, and the absence of it, or darkness, was viewed as
wickedness. Men and gods look expectantly for his light. He is the guide
of the gods, as well as the ruler of men.

While there are no direct indications in the historical texts known at
present, that this conception of the sun-god existed in all its details
before the days of Hammurabi, there is every reason to believe that this
was the case; the more so, in that it does not at all transcend the
range of religious ideas that we have met with in the case of the other
gods of this period. Nor does this conception in any way betray itself,
as being due to the changed political conditions that set in, with the
union of the states under Hammurabi. Still, the age of the religious
texts not being fixed, it is thus necessary to exercise some caution
before using them without the basis of an allusion in the historical
texts.


Utu.

It but remains, before passing on, to note that the same deity appears
under various names. Among these are Utu[54] and apparently also
Babbar[55] in the old Babylonian inscriptions. For the latter, a Semitic
etymology is forthcoming, and we may therefore regard it as representing
a real pronunciation, and not an ideographic writing. Babbar, a
contracted form from Barbar, is the reduplication of the same stem
_bar_[56] that we have already met with, in the name of the temple
sacred to Shamash. Like E-babbara, therefore, Babbar is the "brilliantly
shining one,"--a most appropriate name for the sun, and one frequently
applied to him in the religious texts. As to Utu, there is some doubt
whether it represents a real pronunciation or not. My own opinion is
that it does, and that the underlying stem is _atû_, which in Babylonian
has almost the same meaning as _bar_ or _barû_, viz., 'to see.' 'Utu'
would thus again designate the sun as 'that which shines forth.'

It will be recalled, that other instances have been noted of the same
god appearing under different names. The most natural explanation for
this phenomenon is, that the variation corresponds to the different
localities where the god was worshipped. The identification would not be
made until the union of the various Babylonian states had been achieved.
Such a union would be a potent factor in systematizing the pantheon.
When once it was recognized that the various names represented, in
reality, one and the same deity, it would not be long before the name,
peculiar to the place where the worship was most prominent, would set
the others aside or reduce them to mere epithets.

It may well be that Shamash was the name given to the god at Sippar,
whereas at Ur he may have been known as Utu. Ur-Bau (of the first Ur
dynasty) calls him Utu also, when speaking of the temple at Larsa, but
it would be natural for the kings of Ur to call the sun-god of Larsa by
the same name that he had in Ur. That Hammurabi, however, calls the
sun-god of Larsa, Utu, may be taken as an indication that, as such he
was known at that place, for since we have no record of a sun-temple at
Babylon in these days, there would be no motive that might induce him to
transfer a name, otherwise known to him, to another place. The testimony
of Hammurabi is therefore as direct as that of Sargon, who calls the
sun-god of Sippar, Shamash. It is not always possible to determine, with
as much show of probability, as in the case of the sun-god, the
distribution of the various names, but the general conclusion, for all
that, is warranted in every instance, that a variety of names refers,
originally, to an equal variety of places over which the worship was
spread,--only that care must be exercised to distinguish between
distinctive names and mere epithets.


Â.

A consort of the sun-deity, appearing frequently at his side in the
incantation texts, is Â. It is more particularly with the Shamash of
Sippar, that  is associated. She is simply the 'beloved one' of the
sun-deity, with no special character of her own. In the historical
texts, her rôle is quite insignificant, and for the period with which we
are at present concerned she is only mentioned once by a North
Babylonian ruler, Ma-an-ish-tu-su,[57] who dedicates an object to her.
The reading of the ideogram Â, or Nin-Â (_i.e._, Lady Â), is doubtful.
Malkatu ("mistress" or "queen") is offered as a plausible
conjecture.[58] Lehman (_Keils Bibl._ iii. I, 202) suggests _A-Ja_, but
on insufficient grounds. In any case  has the force of mistress, and
Nin-Â simply designates the goddess as the lady, mistress, or queen. It
is likely that  was originally an independent deity, and one of the
names of the sun-god in a particular locality. It occurs in proper names
as a title of Shamash. Instead, however, of becoming identified with
Shamash, Â degenerated into a pale reflection of Shamash, pictured under
the relationship of consort to him. This may have been due to the union
of Shamash with the place where  was worshipped. If, as seems likely,
that near Sippar, there was another city on the other side of the
Euphrates, forming a suburb to it (as Borsippa did to Babylon), the
conclusion is perhaps warranted that  was originally the sun-god
worshipped at the place which afterwards became incorporated with
Sippar.[59] Such an amalgamation of two originally male deities into a
combination of male and female, strange as it may seem to us, is in
keeping with the lack of sharp distinction between male and female in
the oldest forms of Semitic religions. In the old cuneiform writing the
same sign is used to indicate "lord" or "lady" when attached to deities.
Ishtar appears among Semites both as a male[60] and as a female deity.
Sex was primarily a question of strength. The stronger god was viewed as
masculine; the weaker as feminine.


Nannar and Sin.

Nannar, a reduplicated form like Babbar, with the assimilation of the
first r to n (nar-nar = nannar), has very much the same meaning as
Babbar. The latter, as we have seen, is the "lustrous one," the former,
the "one that furnishes light." The similarity in meaning is in keeping
with the similarity of function of the two deities, thus named: Babbar
being the sun and Nannar, the moon. It was under the name of Nannar that
the moon-god was worshipped at Ur, the most famous and probably the
oldest of the cities over which the moon-god presided. The association
of Nannar with Ur is parallel to that of Shamash with Sippar,--not that
the moon-god's jurisdiction or worship was confined to that place, but
that the worship of the deity of that place eclipsed others, and the
fame and importance at Ur led to the overshadowing of the moon-worship
there, over the obeisance to him paid elsewhere.

What further motives led to the choice of the moon-god as the patron of
Ur, lies beyond the scope of our knowledge. Due allowance must be made
for that natural selection, which takes place in the realm of thought as
much as in the domain of nature. Attention has already been called to
the predominance given by the Babylonians to the moon over the sun. The
latter is expressly called the "offspring of the lord of brilliant
beginning," that is, the moon-god (Delitzsch, _Assyr. Hdw._, p. 234
_a_). It is needless, therefore, to do more, at this place, than to
emphasize the fact anew. The moon serving much more as a guide to man,
through the regular character of its constant changes, than the sun, was
connected in the religious system with both the heavenly and the
terrestrial forces. In view of Nannar's position in the heavens, he was
called the "heifer of Anu." Anu, it will be recalled, was the god of
heaven (and heaven itself), while the "heifer"[61] is here used
metaphorically for offspring, the picture being suggested probably by
the "horn" that the moon presents at a certain phase. This 'horn'
constitutes his crown, and he is frequently represented on seal
cylinders with a crescent over his head, and with a long flowing beard,
that is described as having the color of lapislazuli. A frequent title
is the 'lord of the crown.' On the other hand, by virtue of its
influence on the earth, regulating, as the ancients observed, the tides,
the moon was connected by the Babylonians with the reckoning of time.
Because of this connection with the 'lower world,' it seems, he was also
regarded as the first-born of Bel. His sacred edifice at Ur was one to
which all rulers of the place devoted themselves. Ur-Gur, Nur-Rammân,
Sin-iddina, and Kudur-mabuk tell of their embellishment of the temple,
each one appropriating to himself the title of 'builder,' in which they
gloried. So close, again, was the identification of the city with the
deity, that the latter was frequently known simply as the god of Ur, and
the former, as the city of Nannar.

Another name of the moon-god was Sin,--the meaning of which escapes us.
At the side of Ur, Harran is the place most celebrated by reason of its
moon-worship, and there is every reason to believe that the name Sin was
originally attached to Harran. The migrations of the ancient Hebrews
were connected as we now know with political movements in Babylonia.
They proceed from Ur--or Ur-Kasdim, _i.e._, Chaldean Ur--northward to
Harran, which, by virtue of its position, became a town of much
importance. This association of Ur with Harran furnishes an indication
for historical relations of some sort, existing between the two places.
It is therefore not accidental, that the patron deity of both places was
the same. As yet, no excavations have been made at Harran, and we are,
therefore, dependent upon incidental notices for our knowledge of its
history. These sufficiently show that the place continued through a long
period to preserve its sacred character. The old temple there, was one
of the many that stirred up the religious zeal of Nabonnedos; and
previous to this, we find several Assyrian kings occupied in
embellishing and restoring the structure. An interesting reference to
Harran, bearing witness to its ancient dignity, is found in an
inscription of Sargon II. of Assyria (722-706 B.C.), who enumerates
among his claims to the favor of the gods, that he restored the "laws
and customs of Harran," by which he evidently means that he was
instrumental in giving the place, the dignity it once enjoyed. A curious
feature connected with Sin, is the occurrence of the name in Mount
Sinai, in the wilderness of Sin, as well as in an inscription of
Southern Arabia. May not this be a further testimony to the association
of Harran with Sin, since it is from Harran that the departure of the
Hebrews for the west took place? What more natural than that in the
migrations which carried the Hebrews to the west, the worship of Sin
should have been transferred to Arabia?[62] Important as Ur and Harran
are as sacred towns, politically they do not retain their prominence
after the days of Hammurabi. The amalgamation of Nannar with Sin, and
the almost exclusive occurrence of the latter name in later times, does
not of necessity point to a preponderating influence of Harran over Ur,
but may be due to the greater fame which the former place acquired as
the goal of religious pilgrimages. The situation of Harran--the name
itself signifies 'road'--as the highway leading to the west, must have
been an important factor, in bringing this about. However this may be,
Sin and Nannar are as thoroughly identical in the period following
Hammurabi, as Babbar and Shamash. The attributes of the one are
transferred to the other so completely, that a separation of the two is
no longer possible.

The ideographs with which the name of Sin is written show him to have
been regarded as the god of wisdom, but while wisdom and light may be
connected, it is Nannar's character as the "illuminator" that becomes
the chief trait of the god. No doubt the preëminence of Ea in this
respect, who is the personification of wisdom, _par excellence_, made it
superfluous to have another deity possessing the same trait. It is,
accordingly, as the god of light, that Sin continues to be adored in the
Babylonian religion; and when he is referred to, in the historical texts
and hymns, this side of his nature is the one dwelt upon. Through his
light, the traps laid by the evil spirits, who are active at night, are
revealed. In later times, apparently through Assyrian influence, the
reckoning of time was altered to the extent of making the day begin with
sunrise, instead of with the approach of night; and this, together with
the accommodation of the lunar cycle to the movements of the sun,
brought about a partial change of the former conditions, and gave
somewhat greater prominence to Shamash. As a consequence, the rôle of
Sin is not as prominent in the hymns that belong to a later period as in
those of earlier days.

The oracles of the Assyrian kings are addressed to Shamash, and not to
Sin. Moreover, the personal factor in the case of Sin, if one may
express oneself thus, is not as strong as in that of some other gods.
His traits are of a more general kind. He is supreme; there is none like
him, and the spirits are subservient to his will. But terms of
endearment are few, while on the mythological side, comparatively little
is made of him. He is strong and he is holy. He is called upon to clothe
the evil-doer with leprosy, as with a dress. In a robe, befitting his
dignity, he stalks about. Without him, no city is founded, no district
restored to former glory. Sin is called the father of the gods, but in a
metaphorical rather than in a real sense. The only one of his children
who takes an important part in the later phases of Babylonian-Assyrian
worship is his daughter Ishtar. She seems to have taken to herself some
of the traits of right belonging to Sin, and the prominence of her
worship may be regarded as an additional factor in accounting for the
comparative obscurity to which Sin gradually is assigned. At all events,
Sin is a feature of the earlier period of the Babylonian religion rather
than of the later periods.


Innanna.

The secondary position held by the female deities in the Babylonian
pantheon has been repeatedly referred to. This trait of the religion
finds an illustration not only in the 'shadowy' character of the
consorts of the gods, but also in the manner in which goddesses,
originally distinct from one another and enjoying an existence
independent of any male consort, lose their individuality, as it were,
and become merely so many forms of one and the same deity. Indeed, as we
approach the moment when the gods of the Babylonian pantheon are ranged
into a system, the tendency becomes pronounced to recognize only _one_
goddess, representative of the principle of generation--one 'great
mother,' endowed with a variety of traits according to the political and
social conditions prevailing at different times in Babylonia and
Assyria. In the earliest period which we are now considering, we can
still distinguish a number of goddesses who afterwards became merged
into this one great goddess. These are Ninni (or Innanna), Nanâ, and
Anunit.

Ninni and Innanna are names that appear to have a common origin.[63]
Both embody the notion of 'ladyship.' The worship of this goddess
centers in the district of Lagash. Ur-Bau (c. 3000 B.C.), who addresses
her as 'glorious and supreme,' builds a temple in her honor at
Gishgalla, and Gudea refers to a temple known as E-anna, _i.e._,
heavenly house in Girsu.[64] For Gudea, Ninni is the "mistress of the
world." Another ruler of Lagash whose name is doubtfully read as
E-dingir-ra-na-gin,[65] but who is even earlier than Ur-Bau, declares
that he has been 'called' by Innanna to the throne. She is mentioned by
the side of Nin-khar-sag. We are still in the period where local
associations formed a controlling factor in ensuring the popularity of a
deity, and while the goddesses attached to the gods of the important
centers are still differentiated, the tendency already exists to
designate the female consorts simply as the 'goddess,'--to apply to all,
the traits that may once have been peculiar to one. As we pass from one
age to the other, there is an increasing difficulty in keeping the
various local 'goddesses' apart. Even the names become interchangeable;
and since these goddesses all represented essentially the same principle
of generation and fertility, it was natural that with the union of the
Babylonian states they should become merged into one great
mother-goddess. A 'local' goddess who retains rather more of her
individuality than others, is


Nanâ.

Her name is again playfully interpreted by the Babylonians--through
association with Nin--as 'the lady' _par excellence_. She was the chief
goddess of the city of Uruk. Her temple at Uruk is first mentioned by
Ur-Gur, of the second dynasty of Ur. It is restored and enlarged by
Dungi, the successor of Ur-Bau, and so thoroughly is she identified with
her edifice known as E-anna (again a play upon her name), that she
becomes known as the Lady of E-anna.[66] She appears to have had a
temple also at Ur, and it is to this edifice that later rulers of
Larsa--Kudur-Mabuk and Rim-Sin, as well as the kings of the Isin
dynasty, Gamil-Ninib, Libit-Ishtar, and Ishme-Dagan--refer in their
inscriptions.

The members of the Isin dynasty pride themselves upon their control over
Uruk, and naturally appear as special devotees to Nanâ, whose chosen
"consort" they declare themselves to be, wielding the sceptre, as it
were, in union with her. Already at this period, Nanâ is brought into
connection with the moon-god, being called by Kudur-Mabuk the daughter
of Sin. The relationship in this case indicates, primarily, the
supremacy exercised by Ur, and also a similarity in the traits of the
two deities. In the fully developed cosmology, Nanâ is the planet Venus,
whose various aspects, as morning and evening star, suggested an analogy
with the phases of the moon.

Venus, like the moon, served as a guide to man, while her inferiority in
size and importance to the former, would naturally come to be expressed
under the picture of father and daughter. In a certain sense, all the
planets appearing at the same time and in the same region with the moon
were the children of the latter. Sin, therefore, is appropriately called
the father of gods, just as Anu, the personification of the heaven
itself, is the supreme father of Sin and Shamash, and of all the
heavenly bodies. The metaphorical application of 'father' as 'source,'
throughout Oriental parlance, must be kept in mind in interpreting the
relationship between the gods. Still another name of the goddess is
Anunit, which appears to have been peculiar to the North Babylonian city
Agade, and emphasizes her descent from "Anu," the god of heaven. Her
temple at Agade, known as E-ul-mash, is the object of Sargon's devotion,
which makes her, with Bel and Shamash, the oldest triad of gods
mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions. But the name which finally
displaces all others, is


Ishtar.

Where the name originated has not yet been ascertained, as little as its
etymology,[67] but it seems to belong to Northern Babylonia rather than
to the south.

In time, all the names that we have been considering--Innanna, Nanâ, and
Anunit--became merely so many designations of Ishtar. She absorbs the
titles and qualities of all, and the tendency which we have pointed out
finds its final outcome in the recognition of Ishtar as the one and only
goddess endowed with powers and an existence independent of association
with any male deity, though even this independence does not hinder her
from being named at times as the associate of the chief god of
Assyria--the all-powerful Ashur. The attempt has been made by Sayce and
others to divide the various names of Ishtar among the aspects of Venus
as morning and evening star, but there is no evidence to show that the
Babylonians distinguished the one from the other so sharply as to make
two goddesses of one and the same planet.

It is more in accord with what, as we have seen, has been the general
character of the Babylonian pantheon, to account for the identification
of Ninni, Nanâ, and Anunit with Ishtar on the supposition that the
different names belonged originally to different localities. Ishtar was
appropriately denominated the brilliant goddess. She is addressed as the
mother of gods, which signals her supreme position among the female
deities. 'The mistress of countries' alternating with 'the mistress of
mountains,'[68] is one of her common titles; and as the growing
uniqueness of her position is one of the features of the
Babylonian-Assyrian religion, it is natural that she should become
simply _the_ goddess. This was especially the case with the Assyrians,
to whom Ishtar became a goddess of war and battle, the consort, at
times, of the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon. At the same time it is
important to note that the warlike character of the goddess goes back to
the time of Hammurabi (_Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, 113), and is dwelt upon by
other Babylonian kings (_e.g._, Nebuchadnezzar I., c. 1130 B.C.) prior
to the rise of the Assyrian power. How Ishtar came to take on so violent
a character is not altogether clear. There are no indications of this
rôle in the incantation texts, where she is simply the kind mother who
is appealed to, to release the sufferer from the power of the
disease-bringing spirits. In the prayers, as will be shown in the proper
place, she becomes the vehicle for the expression of the highest
religious and ethical thought attained by the Babylonians. On the other
hand, in the great Babylonian epic,[69] dealing with the adventures of a
famous hero, Gilgamesh, Ishtar, who makes her appearance at the summer
solstice, is a raging goddess who smites those who disobey her commands
with wasting disease. Starting with this phase of the goddess'
character, one can at least understand the process of her further
development into a fierce deity presiding over the fortunes of war. The
epic just referred to belongs to the old Babylonian period. It embodies
ancient traditions of rivalry between the Babylonian principalities,
though there are traces of several recastings which the epic received.
The violent Ishtar, therefore, is a type going back to the same period
as the other side of her character that is emphasized elsewhere. Since,
moreover, the Ishtar in the Gilgamesh epic is none other than the chief
goddess of Uruk, all further doubt as to the union of such diverging
traits in one and the same personage falls to the ground. In this same
epic, Ishtar appears as sympathizing with the sufferings of mankind, and
bewailing the destruction that was at one time decreed by the gods. It
is noteworthy that the violent Ishtar appears in that portion of the
epic which, on the assumption of a zodiacal interpretation for the
composition, corresponds to the summer solstice, whereas, the
destruction which arouses her sympathy takes place in the eleventh
month. It is quite possible, therefore, that the two aspects of Venus,
as evening and morning stars, corresponding, as they do, to the summer
and winter seasons, are reflected in this double character of the
goddess. We are not justified, however, in going further and assuming
that her double rôle as daughter of Sin and daughter of Anu is to be
accounted for in the same manner. In the Gilgamesh epic, she is found in
association with Anu, and to the latter she appeals for protection as
her father, and yet it is as the daughter of Sin that she enters the
world of the dead to seek for the waters that may heal her bridegroom,
Tammuz.[70] Evidently, the distinction between Ishtar as the daughter of
Anu and as the daughter of Sin is not an important one, the term
daughter in both cases being a metaphor to express a relationship both
of physical nature and of a political character. Of the various forms
under which the goddess appears, that of Anunit--a feminine form
indicating descent from and appertaining to Anu--attaches itself most
clearly to the god of heaven, and it may be that it was not until the
assimilation of Anunit and Nanâ with Ishtar that the goddess is viewed
as at once the daughter of Anu and of Sin. If this be so, there is
surely nothing strange in the fact that a planet like Venus should be
regarded in one place as the daughter of heaven and in another brought
into relationship with the moon. She actually belongs to both.

Just as in Babylonia, so in Assyria, there were various Ishtars, or
rather various places where the goddess was worshipped as the guardian
spirit, but her rôle in the north is so peculiar that all further
consideration of it must be postponed until we come to consider, in due
time, the Assyrian pantheon. There will be occasion, too, when treating
of the Gilgamesh epic, to dwell still further on some of her traits. All
that need be said here is to emphasize the fact that the popularity of
the Babylonian Ishtar in Assyria, as manifested by Esarhaddon's zeal in
restoring her temple at Uruk, and Ashurbanabal's restoration of Nanâ's
statue (_c._ 635 B.C.) which had been captured by the Elamites 1635
years before Ashurbanabal's reign, is largely due to the effected
identity with the goddess who, for the Assyrians, was regarded chiefly
as the goddess of war and strife. In worshipping the southern Ishtars,
the Assyrian kings felt themselves to be showing their allegiance to the
same deity to whom, next to Ashur, most of their supplications were
addressed, and of whom as warriors they stood in dread.


Ninâ.

A goddess who, while sharing the fate of her sister goddesses in being
overshadowed by Ishtar, yet merits a special treatment, is one whose
name is plausibly conjectured to be read Ninâ. The compound ideogram
expressing the deity signifies 'house of the fish.' The word 'house' in
Semitic parlance is figuratively extended to convey the idea of
'possessing or harboring.' Applied to a settlement, the ideogram would
be the equivalent of our 'Fishtown.' It is with this same ideogram that
the famous capitol of Assyria, Nineveh, is written in the cuneiform
texts, and since the phonetic reading for the city, Ni-na-a, also
occurs, it is only legitimate to conclude that the latter is the correct
reading for the deity as well. As a matter of course, if the goddess
bears a name identical with that of a city, it cannot be the Assyrian
city which is meant in the old Babylonian inscriptions, but some other
place bearing the same name. Such a place actually occurs in the
inscriptions of Gudea. It is, in fact, one of the three towns that
combined with Shirpurla to create the great capitol bearing the latter
name; and Jensen[71] has called attention to a passage in one of Gudea's
inscriptions in which the goddess is brought into direct association
with the town, so that it would appear that Ninâ is the patron of Ninâ,
in the same way that Nin-girsu is the protector of Girsu. In keeping
with this we find the mention of the goddess limited to the rulers of
Lagash. Several of them--En-anna-tuma, Entemena, and Gudea--declare
themselves to have been chosen by her. She is said to regard Gudea with
special favor. She determines destinies. Another king, Ur-Ninâ, embodies
the name of the goddess in his own, and devotes himself to the
enlargement of her temple. From the manner in which she is associated
with Nin-girsu, aiding the latter in guarding his temple E-ninnu, and
uniting with the god in granting the sceptre to Gudea, one is tempted to
conclude that the two towns, Girsu and Ninâ, were amalgamated before
their absorption into Lagash, so that the god and goddess acquired the
relationship to one another of husband and consort. As for the
connection between this Babylonian Ninâ and the late Assyrian capital,
it is quite possible that the origin of the latter is to be traced to a
settlement made by inhabitants of the former, although it should be
added that there is no positive evidence that can be adduced in support
of this proposition. It accords, however, with the northward movement of
culture and civilization in Mesopotamia. If this connection between the
two Ninevehs be accepted, the question suggests itself whether, in time,
Ninâ did not become merely another form of Ishtar. The Assyrian capital
is frequently spoken of as the 'beloved city' of Ishtar, and unless it
be supposed that this epithet simply reflects the comparatively late
popularity of the distinctively Assyrian Ishtar, the most natural
explanation would be to propose the equation Ninâ = Ishtar.

In the incantation texts, Ninâ is frequently appealed to as the daughter
of Ea,--the god of the deep. This relationship, as well as the
interpretation of the ideogram above set forth, points to the original
character of the goddess as a water-deity. This goddess, therefore,
would be of an entirely different form from the ones discussed in the
previous paragraphs. Instead of being a member of the heavenly pantheon,
her place is with the kingdom over which Ea presides, and whose
dwelling-place is the watery deep. In any case, Ninâ is originally
distinct from Ishtar, Nanâ, and Anunit; and she retains an independent
existence to a later period than most of the other great goddesses that
have been discussed. In an inscription of the days of Belnâdinaplu (_c._
1100 B.C.), published by Hilprecht,[72] Ninâ appears as the patron deity
of Dêr,--a city of Southern Babylonia. There too she is called the
'daughter of Ea,' the creator of everything. She is 'the mistress of
goddesses.' Attached to her temple there are lands that having been
wrongfully wrested from the priests are returned upon royal command,
under solemn invocation of the goddess. How her worship came to be
transferred to Dêr we do not know. She appears in the inscription in
question by the side of a goddess who--following Hommel--is none other
than Bau. Dêr is called the city of the god Anu, and we can only suppose
that it must at one time have risen to sufficient importance to harbor
in its midst a number of deities. It is presumably[73] the place whence
Nebuchadnezzar I. sets out in the twelfth century to drive the Cassites
off the throne of Babylonia. May it be that, during the days of the
foreign rule, priests attached to the service of various of the old gods
and goddesses transferred the worship of these deities to places more
secure from interference?

Be this as it may, if our Ninâ has any connection with the goddess of
Nineveh, it is certain that Ishtar has retained none of Ninâ's traits.
The fusion in this case has been so complete that naught but the
faintest tradition of an original and independent Ninâ has survived in
the North.


Anu.

This god, who, from a theoretical point of view (as will be shown in a
subsequent chapter), was regarded as standing at the head of the
organized Babylonian pantheon, figures only incidentally in the
inscriptions prior to the days of Hammurabi. Ur-Gur of the second
dynasty of Ur, in invoking Nannar, calls the latter 'the powerful bull
of Anu.' The reference is interesting, for it shows that already in
these early days the position of Anu, as the god of the heavenly
expanse, was fixed. The moon appearing in the heavens, and the
resemblance of its crescent to a bull's horn,[74] are the two factors
that account for the expressive epithet used by Ur-Bau. That the worship
of the god of heaven _par excellence_ should not have enjoyed great
popularity in the early days of the Babylonian religion might seem
strange at first sight. A little reflection, however, will make this
clear. A god of the heavens is an abstract conception, and while it is
possible that even in an early age, such a conception may have arisen in
some minds, it is not of a character calculated to take a popular hold.
As we proceed in our attempt to trace the development of the Babylonian
religion, we will find the line of demarcation separating the
theological system, as evolved by the schoolmen, from the popular phases
of the religion, becoming more marked. In the inscriptions of the old
Babylonian rulers, comparatively little of the influence of the
Babylonian theologians is to be detected. Even the description of the
moon as the bull of heaven falls within the domain of popular fancy. It
is different in the days after Hammurabi, when political concentration
leads to the focussing of intellectual life in the Euphrates Valley,
with all the consequences that the establishment of a central
priesthood, with growing powers over ever-increasing territory,
involves. It is to be noted, moreover, that the manner in which in the
old Babylonian inscriptions _Anu_ is written,[75] indicates that the
abstraction involved in the conception of a god of heaven had not yet
been reached, though some measure of personification was of course
inevitable at a time when animistic notions still held sway. A direct
indication of this personification of heaven without the deification
appears in the epithet 'child of Anu,' bestowed upon the goddess Bau.
The reference to the heavens in this connection is an allusion to Bau's
position as the patroness of that quarter of Lagash known as the
'brilliant town,'[76] and where Bau's temple stood. The transference of
the quality of 'brilliancy' from the town to the goddess would be
expressed by calling the latter the offspring of that part of visible
nature which is associated in the mind with 'brilliancy.' Somewhat
mysterious, and still awaiting a satisfactory explanation, is the title
'sacrificer,' or 'priest of Anu,' which one of the rulers of Lagash,
Ur-Nin-girsu, assumes. It is scarcely possible that the god of heaven
can be meant; and, on the other hand, if we are to assume merely a
personification of heaven, we encounter fresh difficulties. It seems to
me that the use of Anu[77] here is purely metaphorical for 'high' or
'lofty,' and that the king merely wishes to emphasize the dignity of his
station by declaring himself to be the heavenly priest, somewhat as we
should say 'priest by divine grace,' or 'supreme priest.'


Nin-si[78]-a.

Ur-Bau and Gudea alone of the ancient rulers refer to this god. The
former erects a temple in honor of the god in some quarter of his
capitol city, while the latter emphasizes the strength that the god has
given him. These references, however, show that the god must have been
of considerable importance, and in this case, his disappearance from the
later pantheon is probably due to the absorption of his rôle by the
greater god of Lagash,--Nin-girsu. Like Nin-girsu, Nin-si-a was a god of
war, and his worship, imported perhaps from some ancient site to Lagash,
falls into desuetude, as the attribute accorded to him becomes the
distinguishing trait of the chief deity of the place.


Gal-alim.

Among the various deities to whom Gudea gives praise for the position
and glory which he attains is Gal-alim.[79] From him he has received
great rule and a lofty sceptre. The phrase is of a very general nature
and reveals nothing as to the special character of the god in question.
An earlier king, Uru-kagina, refers to the temple of the god at Lagash.
Gal-alim may have been again a merely local deity belonging to one of
the towns that fell under Gudea's rule, and whose attributes again were
so little marked that this god too disappeared under the overshadowing
importance of Nin-girsu. He and another god, Dun-shagga, are viewed as
the sons of Nin-girsu.

       *       *       *       *       *

Coming to some of the deities that we may designate as minor, it is to
be noted that in the case of certain ones, at least, it will be found
that they may be identified with others more prominent, and that what
seem to be distinct names are in reality descriptive epithets of gods
already met with. This remark applies more particularly to such names as
begin with the element Nin, signifying either 'lord' or 'lady,' and
which, when followed by the name of a place, always points to its being
a title, and, when followed by an ideographic compound, only diminishes
that probability to a slight degree. We have already come across several
instances; thus Nin-girsu, the lord of Girsu, has been shown to be a
form of Ninib, itself an ideogram, the reading of which, it will be
recalled, is still uncertain; and again, Nin-khar-sag has been referred
to, as one of the titles of the great goddess Belit. Similarly,
Nin-gish-zida, whose name signifies 'the lord of the right-hand (or
propitious) sceptre,' becomes a title and not a name, and when Gudea
speaks of this god as the one who leads him to battle, and calls him
'king,' he is simply describing the same god who is elsewhere spoken of
as Nin-girsu. By the side of Nin-girsu and Nin-gish-zida appears
Nin-shakh, who, as Oppert[80] has shown, is like Nin-girsu the prototype
of the well-known god of war, Ninib. However, Nin-shakh occupies, in
contradistinction to Nin-gish-zida and others, a position in the old
Babylonian pantheon of an independent character, so that it is hardly
justifiable, in such a case, to identify him completely with Ninib, and
place the name on a par with the epithets just referred to. The dividing
line between the mere title and an independent god thus becomes at times
very faint, and yet it is well to maintain it whenever called for. In
the following enumeration of the minor gods of the old Babylonian
pantheon, the attempt will be made to bring out this distinction in each
instance.

Beginning with


Nin-shakh

the element _Nin_, as has several times been mentioned, points to an
ideographic form. The second element signifies 'wild boar,' and from
other sources we know that this animal was a sacred one in Babylonia, as
among other Semitic nations.[81] Its flesh, on certain days of the
Babylonian calendar, was forbidden to be eaten, from which we are
permitted to conclude that these days were dedicated to the animal, and
the prohibition represents perhaps the traces of some old religious
festival. May Nin-shakh therefore have been a 'swine deity,' just as
Nergal is symbolized by the 'lion'? In both cases the animal would be a
symbol of the violent and destructive character of the god.

The ferocious character of the 'swine' would naturally result in
assigning to Nin-shakh warlike attributes; and as a matter of fact he is
identified at times with Ninib. His subordinate position, however, is
indicated by his being called the 'servant,' generally of En-lil,
occasionally also of Anu, and as such he bears the name of
Pap-sukal,[82] _i.e._, 'divine messenger.' Rim-Sin builds a temple to
Nin-shakh at Uruk, and from its designation as his 'favorite dwelling
place' we may conclude that Rim-Sin only restores or enlarges an ancient
temple of the deity. In the light of this, the relationship above set
forth between Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-shakh becomes somewhat
clearer. The former, the local deity of Girsu, would naturally be called
by the kings 'the lord of the true sceptre,' while the subordination of
Girsu as a quarter of Lagash finds its reflection in the relationship of
master and servant pictured as existing between En-lil and Nin-girsu.
Again, the warlike character of the patron deity of Girsu would lead to
an identification with Nin-shakh of Uruk, possessing the same traits;
and the incorporation of Uruk as a part of the same empire which
included Lagash and its quarters, would be the last link bringing about
the full equation between the three. With Ninib--the solar deity--coming
into prominence as the god of war, all three names, Nin-girsu,
Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-shakh, would be regarded by a later age as merely
descriptive of one and the same god.


Dun-shagga.

Gudea makes mention in one of his inscriptions, by the side of
Nin-gish-zida, of a god Dun-shagga,[83] whose name signifies the 'chief
hero,' but the phonetic reading of which it is impossible to
determine.[84] Like Nin-gish-zida, he is a warlike god, and from that
one might suppose that he too is only another form of Nin-girsu-Ninib.
At all events, he did not differ materially from the latter. It is from
him, that Gudea again declares his power to be derived, just as
elsewhere he accords to Nin-girsu this distinction. The element 'Dun,'
which is very much the same as 'Nin,' speaks in favor of regarding
Dun-shagga as a title; but, in default of positive evidence, it will not
be out of place to give him an independent position, and to regard his
identification with Nin-girsu as a later phase due to the extension of
Nin-girsu's jurisdiction and his corresponding absorption of a varying
number of minor gods. This tendency on the part of the greater gods to
absorb the minor ones is as distinctive a trait in the development of
the Babylonian religion, as is the subordination of one god to the
other, whether expressed by making the subordinate god the consort, the
chief, or the servant of a superior one. We have seen that such terms of
relationship correspond to certain degrees of political conditions
existing between the conquering and the conquered districts.
Amalgamation of two cities or districts is portrayed in the relation of
the two patron deities as husband and wife, the stronger of the two
being the former, the more subservient pictured as the latter. The more
pronounced superiority of the one place over the other finds expression
in the relation of father to child, while that of master and servant
emphasizes the complete control exercised by the one over the other.
Lastly, the absorption of one deity into another, is correlative either
with the most perfect form of conquest, or the complete disappearance of
the seat of his worship in consequence of the growing favor of one
possessing sufficiently similar qualities to warrant identification with
the other.


Lugal-banda.

Sin-gashid of the dynasty of Uruk makes mention of this deity at the
beginning of one of his inscriptions. To him and to his consort,
Nin-gul, a temple as 'the seat of their joy' at that place is devoted.
This association of the god with the town points again to a local deity,
but possessing a character which leads to the absorption of the god in
the solar god, Nergal, whom we have already encountered, and who will
occupy us a good deal when we come to the period after Hammurabi. The
identification of the two is already foreshadowed in an inscription of
another member of the same dynasty, Sin-gamil, who places the name of
Nergal exactly where his predecessor mentions Lugal-banda. The first
element in his name signifies 'king,' the second apparently 'strong,' so
that in this respect, too, the god comes close to Nergal, whose name
likewise indicates 'great lord.' The consort of Lugal-banda is


Nin-gul.

Her name signifies 'the destructive lady,'--an appropriate epithet for
the consort of a solar deity. It is Sin-gashid again who associates
Ningul with Lugal-banda, and emphasizes his affection for the goddess by
calling her his mother. In one inscription, moreover, Sin-gashid
addresses himself exclusively to the goddess, who had an equal share in
the temple at Uruk.


Dumuzi-zu-aba.

Among the deities appealed to by Ur-Bau appears one whose name is to be
interpreted as the 'unchangeable child of the watery deep.' The great
god of the deep we have seen is Ea. Dumuzi-zu-aba therefore belongs to
the water-deities, and one who, through his subordinate rank to Ea,
sinks to the level of a water-spirit. Ur-Bau declares himself to be the
darling of this deity, and in the town of Girsu he erects a temple to
him. Girsu, however, was not the patron city of the god, for Ur-Bau
gives Dumuzi-zu-aba, the appellation of 'the lord of Kinunira,'[85] a
place the actual situation of which is unknown. Dumuzi-zu-aba,
accordingly, is to be regarded as a local deity of a place which,
situated probably on an arm of the Euphrates, was the reason for the
watery attributes assigned to the god. The comparative insignificance of
the place is one of the factors that accounts for the minor importance
of the god, and the second factor is the popularity enjoyed by another
child of the great Ea, his child _par excellence_, Marduk, who is best
known as the patron god of the city of Babylon. By the side of Marduk,
the other children of Ea, the minor water-deities, disappear, so that to
a later generation Dumuzi-zu-aba appears merely as a form of Marduk.
With Dumuzi-zu-aba, we must be careful not to confuse


Dumu-zi,

who in the old Babylonian inscriptions is mentioned once by
Sin-iddina,[86] in connection with the sun-god. Dumu-zi, signifying
'child of life,' has a double aspect--an agricultural deity and at the
same time a god of the lower world. He plays an important part in the
eschatological literature of the Babylonians, but hardly none at all in
the historical and incantation texts. A fuller treatment may therefore
be reserved for a future chapter.


Lugal-erima.

A purely local deity, if the reading and interpretation offered by
Jensen, 'King of the city Erim,' is correct. The mention of the deity in
an inscription of Ur-Bau, who calls himself the 'beloved servant' of
this god, would be due to the circumstance that the district within
which the city in question lay was controlled by the rulers of Lagash.
To invoke as large a number of deities as possible was not only a means
of securing protection from many sides, but was already in the early
days of Babylonian history indulged in by rulers, as a means of
emphasizing the extent and manifold character of their jurisdiction.


Nin-e-gal and Ningal.

A temple was erected to Nin-e-gal by the wife of Rim-Sin, of the dynasty
ruling in Larsa. Her name as interpreted in the tablet dedicated to her,
signifies again, as in several cases already noted, 'great lady.' She
was probably therefore only the consort of some patron deity; and Nannar
being the most prominent god invoked by Rim-Sin, it would seem that the
goddess to whom the queen pays her respects is again one of the consorts
of the moon-god.[87] This conclusion is supported by the direct
association of Nannar of Ur and Ningal in an inscription emanating from
an earlier member of the same dynasty to which Rim-Sin belongs.
Nur-Rammân speaks of building temples to these deities in the city of
Ur. Hence the goddess is also represented as interceding with Sin on
behalf of those who appeal to her. The form Nin-e-gal is but a variant
of Nin-gal, so that the identification of the two lies beyond doubt, and
it may very well be that the temple erected by the consort of Rim-Sin is
the same as the one referred to by Nur-Rammân. In a land where polygamy
was a prevailing custom, the gods too might be represented as having a
number of consorts. There would of course be, just as in human
relations, one chief consort, but there might be others ranged at the
side of the latter.[88] Some of these may have been consorts of other
minor deities, worshipped in the same district, and who were given to
the more important divinity as he gradually overshadowed the others. In
this way, we may account for the large variety of 'ladies' and 'great
ladies' met with in the Babylonian pantheon, and who, being merely
'reflections' of male deities, with no sharply marked traits of their
own, would naturally come to be confused with one another, and finally
be regarded as various forms of one and the same goddess. A member of
the dynasty ruling in Isin, En-anna-tuma, earlier even than Nur-Rammân,
invokes Nin-gal in an inscription found in the ancient capital, Ur.
Here, too, the goddess appears in association with Nannar; but,
curiously enough, she is designated as the mother of Shamash. It will be
borne in mind that in the city of Ur, the sun-god occupied a secondary
place at the side of the moon-god. This relationship is probably
indicated by the epithet 'offspring of Nin-gal,' accorded to Shamash in
the inscription referred to. The moon being superior to the sun, the
consort of the moon-god becomes the mother of the sun-god.

Reference has several times been made to


Nin-gish-zida,

who, originally a distinct solar deity, becomes scarcely distinguishable
from Nin-girsu, and is eventually identified with the great Nin-ib.[89]
It is noticeable that these four deities, Nin-girsu, Nin-shakh,
Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-ib, who are thus associated together, all contain
the element _Nin_ in their names,--a factor that may turn out to be of
some importance when more abundant material shall be forthcoming for
tracing their development in detail. One of Gudea's inscriptions[90]
begins with the significant statement, 'Nin-gish-zida is the god of
Gudea'; and elsewhere when speaking of him, he is 'my god,' or 'his
god.' None of the ancient Babylonian rulers make mention of him except
Gudea, though in the incantation texts he is introduced and
significantly termed 'the throne-bearer' of the earth. The purely local
character of the deity is, furthermore, emphasized by the reference to
his temple in Girsu, on a brick and on a cone containing dedicatory
inscriptions, inscribed by Gudea in honor of the god.[91]


Shul (or Dun)-pa-uddu.

The wife of the famous Gudea, Gin-Shul-pa-uddu, bears a name in which
one of the elements is a deity, the phonetic reading of whose name is
still uncertain.[92] The elements comprising it, namely, 'lord' (?),
'sceptre,' and 'radiant,' leave little doubt as to the solar character
of the god. Besides Gudea's wife, a ruler, Ur-Shul-pa-uddu,[93]
belonging apparently to a somewhat earlier period, embodies this deity
in his name. The worship of the deity, therefore, belongs to a very
early epoch, and appears at one time to have enjoyed considerable
popularity within a certain district of Babylonia. To what region of
Babylonia he belongs has not yet been ascertained. Judging from
analogous instances, he represented some phase of the sun worshipped in
a particular locality, whose cult, with the disappearance of the place
from the surface of political affairs, yielded to the tendency to
concentrate sun-worship in two or three deities,--Shamash and Ninib more
especially. In the astronomy of the Babylonians the name survived as a
designation of Marduk-Jupiter.[94]


Nin-Mar.

A local deity, designated as the lady of Mar, is invoked by Ur-Bau, from
whom we learn that she was the daughter of Ninâ. _Mar_, with the
determinative for country, _Ki_, appears to have been the name of a
district extending to the Persian Gulf.[95] The capital of the district
is represented by the mound Tel-Id, not far from Warka. Her subsidiary
position is indicated in these words, and we may conclude that Nin-Mar
at an early period fell under the jurisdiction of the district in which
Ninâ was supreme. For all that, Nin-Mar, or the city in which her cult
was centralized, must have enjoyed considerable favor. Ur-Bau calls her
the 'gracious lady,' and erects a temple, the name of which,
Ish-gu-tur,[96] _i.e._, according to Jensen's plausible interpretation,
'the house that serves as a court for all persons,' points to Mar as a
place of pilgrimage to which people came from all sides. Gudea,
accordingly, does not omit to include 'the lady of Mar' in his list of
the chief deities to whom he pays his devotions; and on the assumption
of the general favor in which the city of Mar stood as a sacred town, we
may account for the fact that a much later ruler, Dungi, of the dynasty
of Ur,[97] erects a temple to her honor.


Pa-sag.

A deity, the phonetic reading of whose name is unknown, or at all events
uncertain,[98] is mentioned once by Gudea in the long list of deities
that has been several times referred to. The ideographs with which his
name is written designate him as a chief of some kind, and in accord
with this, Gudea calls him 'the leader of the land.' Pa-sag is mentioned
immediately after the sun-god Utu, and in view of the fact that another
solar deity, I-shum, whom we shall come across in a future chapter, is
designated by the same title[99] as Pa-sag, it seems safe to conclude
that the latter is likewise a solar deity, and in all probability, the
prototype of I-shum, if not indeed identical with him.


Nisaba (or Nidaba).

In a dream which the gods send to Gudea, he sees among other things, a
goddess, whose name may be read Nisaba or Nidaba.[100] Ninâ, who
interprets the dream to the ruler of Shirpurla, declares that Nisaba is
her sister. In a text belonging to a still earlier age, the deity is
mentioned as the begetter of a king whose name is read Lugal-zaggisi.[101]
From the manner in which the name of the goddess is written, as well as
from other sources, we know that Nisaba is an agricultural deity. In
historical texts she plays scarcely any rôle at all, but in incantations
she is often referred to; and from the fact that Nisaba is appealed to,
to break the power of the demons in conjunction with Ea, it would appear
that the position once occupied by her was no insignificant one.
Nin-girsu, it will be recalled, has also traits which connect him with
agricultural life, and Ninâ being the daughter of Nin-si-a, one of the
forms under which Ningirsu-Ninib appears, we may connect Nisaba directly
with the cults of which Lagash formed the center. Nisaba must have been
the consort of one of the agricultural gods, whose jurisdiction falls
within Gudea's empire. Lugal-zaggisi, as the king of Uruk, assigns to
the goddess a first place. Her origin must, therefore, be sought in this
region. In later days the name of the goddess is used to describe the
fertility of the soil in general. So Ashurbanabal, describing the
prosperity existing in his days, says that grain was abundant through
the 'increase of Nisaba.'[102]


KU(?)-Anna.

A goddess of this name--reading of the first sign doubtful--is mentioned
by Ur-Bau, who builds a temple to her in Girsu. If Amiaud is correct in
his reading of the first sign, the goddess was identified at one time by
the Babylonians with the consort of Ramman--the storm-god. This would
accord with the description that Ur-Bau gives of the goddess. She is the
one who deluges the land with water--belonging therefore to the same
order as Bau.

In a list of deities enumerated by a ruler of Erech, Lugal-zaggisi,[103]
are found (1) a local goddess,


Umu,

designated as the 'priestess of Uruk,'[104] and occupying an inferior
rank to (2) a goddess,


Nin-akha-kuddu,[105]

who is called 'the mistress of Uruk.' The importance of Erech in the
early history of Babylonia is emphasized by the inscriptions from
Nippur, recently published by Dr. Hilprecht. It is natural, therefore,
to find several deities of a purely local type commemorated by kings who
belong to this region. The goddess Umu is not heard of again. The great
goddess of Uruk, Nanâ, absorbs the smaller ones, and hence
Nin-akha-kuddu survives chiefly in incantation texts as 'the lady of
shining waters,' of 'purification,' and of 'incantations.'[106]

       *       *       *       *       *

Lastly, a passing reference may be made to several deities to whom
sanctuaries are erected by Uru-Kagina in the great temple of Bau at
Uru-azaga, and whom Amiaud regards as sons of Bau.

Uru-Kagina enumerates three, Za-za-uru, Im-pa-ud-du, and
Gim-nun-ta-ud-du-a.[107] The element _ud-du_ in the last two names
signifies 'radiant' or 'rising up'; while _pa-ud-du_ (like in
Shul-pa-ud-du, p. 99) means 'radiant sceptre.' If to this, we add that
_Im_ is 'storm,' it will appear plausible to see in the second name a
form of a raging solar deity and perhaps also in the third; _gim nun_ in
the latter name may mean 'creating lord.' To these Amiaud[108] adds from
other sources, Khi-gir-nunna, Khi-shaga, Gurmu, and Zarmu. He takes
these seven deities as sons of Bau, but he offers no conclusive evidence
for his theory. Some of these deities may turn out to be synonymous with
such as have already been met with.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Indicated by separating the syllables composing the name.

[25] At the period when the kings of Ur extend their rule over Nippur,
they, too, do not omit to refer to the distinction of having been called
to the service of the great god at his temple.

[26] The name signifies, 'He has founded the city,' the subject of the
verb being some deity whose name is omitted.

[27] Jensen, _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, p. 23, proposes to read Nin-Ur-sag, but
without sufficient reason, it seems to me. The writing being a purely
ideographic form, an _epitheton ornans_, the question of how the
ideographs are to be read is not of great moment.

[28] We may compare the poetic application 'rock' to Yahweh in the Old
Testament, _e.g._, Job 1. 12, and frequently in Psalms,--lxii. 3, 7;
xcii. 16, 18, etc.

[29] Reading doubtful. Jensen suggests Erim. Hommel (_Proc. Soc. Bibl.
Arch._ xv. 37 _seq._) endeavored to identify the place with Babylon, but
his views are untenable. If Gish-galla was not a part of Lagash, it
could not have been far removed from it. It was Amiaud who first
suggested that Shir-pur-la (or Lagash) was the general name for a city
that arose from an amalgamation of four originally distinct quarters.
("Sirpurla" in _Revue Archéologique_, 1888.) The suggestion has been
generally, though not universally accepted.

[30] That Ninib is only an ideographic form is sufficiently clear from
the element NIN-, lord. The proof, however, that Ninib is Adar, is still
wanting. See Jensen, _Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 457, 458.

[31] From the context (De Sarzec, _Découvertes_, pl. 6, no. 4, ll.
13-21, and pl. 31, no. 3, col iii. ll. 2-6), there can be no doubt that
Shul-gur (or Shul-gur-ana) is an epithet of Nin-girsu. The ideographs
descriptive of the edifice suggest a corn magazine of some kind. One is
reminded of the storehouses for grain in Egypt. See Jensen's Notes,
_Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, pp. 15, 18, 73. A comparison of the two texts in
question makes it probable that Ab-gi and E-bi-gar are synonymous.

[32] Rawlinson, iv. 27, no. 6; 11, 45-46.

[33] It is noticeable that there is no mention made of a special god of
Lagash, which points to the later origin of the name.

[34] Inscr. D, col. li. 13; G, col. ii. ll. 1-8; iii. 4 _seq._

[35] See Gen. xxiv. 53. Burkhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins_, i. 109,
gives an example of the custom.

[36] The two names are used by Gudea (Inscr. G, col. iii. 12) in a way
to indicate that they embrace the whole district of Lagash.

[37] _Semit. Völker_, p. 382.

[38] See Jensen, _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, 28, note 2.

[39] The first signifies 'to make,' the third means "good, favorable,"
but the second, upon which so much depends, is not clear. Amiaud reads
_tum_ instead of _sig_.

[40] _E.g._, Ninâ (see below).

[41] De Sarzec, pl. 7, col. i. 12.

[42] _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 104.

[43] Inscr. D, col. iv. ll. 7, 8.

[44] In Rawlinson, ii. 58, no. 6, there is a list of some seventy names.

[45] Rawlinson, ii. 58, no. 6, 58.

[46] De Sarzec, pl. 8, col v. ll. 4-6.

[47] _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, 80, note 3.

[48] Rawlinson, iv. 35, no. 2, 1.

[49] See a syllabary giving lists of gods, Rawlinson, ii. 60, 12. Dungi,
indeed, calls Nergal once the king of lawful control over Lagash
(Rawlinson, iv. 35, no. 2, ll. 2, 3). The exact force of the title is
not clear, but in no case are we permitted to conclude as Amiaud does
(_Rec. of the Past_, N.S., i. 59) that Shid-lam-ta-udda is identical
with Nin-girsu.

[50] See Jensen, _Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 476-87.

[51] See Jensen, _Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 476-87.

[52] So in the inscription of Rim-Sin (_Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, p. 97).

[53] Perhaps the knob of a sceptre. _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._ viii. 68.

[54] _E.g._, Hammurabi (_Revue d'Assyriologie_, ii. col. i. 21); but
also Gudea and a still earlier king.

[55] So Amlaud; and there seems some reason to believe that the name was
used by the side of Utu, though perhaps only as an epithet.

[56] Compare _birbiru_, 'sheen,' and the stem _barû_, 'to see,' etc.

[57] See _Keils Bibl._ 3, I, 100. Reading of name uncertain.

[58] Suggested by Rawlinson, ii. 57, 10. See Schrader, _Zeits. f.
Assyr._ iii. 33 _seq._

[59] On Sippar, see Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, etc., 168-169, who finds
in the Old Testament form "Sepharvayim" a trace of this double Sippar.
Dr. Ward's suggestion, however, in regard to Anbar, as representing this
'second' Sippar, is erroneous.

[60] _E.g._, in Southern Arabia. See W. Robertson Smith, _The Religion
of the Semites_, I. 59.

[61] In Rabbinical literature, the moon is compared to a 'heifer'
(Talmud Babli Rosh-hashana 22 _b_).

[62] That the name of Sin should have been introduced into Mesopotamia
through the 'Arabic' dynasty (see above, p. 39) is less probable, though
not impossible in the light of recent discoveries.

[63] Innanna may be separated into _In_ = lord or lady, and _nanna_;
_in_ and _nanna_ would then be elements added to "lady," conveying
perhaps the idea of greatness. See Jensen's remarks, _Keils Bibl._ 3, I,
20, note 4.

[64] _Rec. of the Past_, N.S., ii. p. 104.

[65] _Keils Bibl._ 3, I, 16. See Jensen's note on the reading of the
name.

[66] The fame of this temple outlasts the political importance of the
place, and as late as the days of the Assyrian monarchy is an object of
fostering care on the part of the kings.

[67] That the name is Semitic is no longer seriously questioned by any
scholar. The underlying stem suggests etymological relationship with the
god Ashur. If this be so, Ishtar may mean 'the goddess that brings
blessing' to mankind, but all this is tentative, as are the numerous
other etymologies suggested.

[68] The ideographs for 'country' and 'mountain' are identical Assyrian.
The alternation in the title of Ishtar must not be taken to point to a
mountainous origin of the goddess.

[69] A full account of this epic will be given at its proper place.

[70] Again, in the incantation texts she appears only as the daughter of
Anu, coördinate with Sin and Shamash.

[71] _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, 72, note. Some scholars, as Hommel (_Gesch. d.
alt. Morgenlandes_, p. 68), propose to identify this place with the
Assyrian Nineveh, but the conjecture lacks proof and is altogether
improbable.

[72] _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, I. pls. 30, 31. (See now Peiser,
_Keils Bibl._ 4, pp. 64-66.)

[73] Questioned by Peiser, _ib._

[74] Among many nations the moon is pictured as a horned animal. See
Robert Brown's interesting monograph on _The Unicorn_, pp. 27 _seq. et
passim_; also above, p. 76.

[75] Simply the sign AN (= god, heaven) and the phonetic complement
_na_.

[76] See above, p. 59.

[77] Written An-na, without the determinative for deity. De Sarzec,
_Découvertes en Chaldée_, pl. 37, no. 8.

[78] The second element may also be read _dar_. See Jensen, _Keils
Bibl._ 3, 1, p. 24, note 1.

[79] Inscription B, col. ii. 19.

[80] See Hommel, _Semitische Kulturen_, p. 389.

[81] For the sacred character of the swine among the Semites, see W.
Robertson Smith's _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 201, 272, 332, 457.
Rawlinson, iii. 68, 22, occurs a deity, 'swine of the right hand,'
_i.e._, propitious.

[82] Rawlinson, ii. 59, 23. The second element in Pap-sukal is the
common Babylonian word for 'servant,' or 'messenger;' other deities
therefore standing in a subsidiary position are also called Pap-sukal.
So _e.g._, Nebo and Nusku. See further on and compare Hommel, _Semiten_,
pp. 479, 480.

[83] Inscription B, col iii. 2.

[84] Uru-kagina, earlier than Gudea (de Sarzec, pl. 32), appears to have
built a temple to Dun-shagga, but the passage is not altogether clear.
The element also appears in the name of the ruler of Ur, _Dungi_,
_i.e._, 'the legitimate hero,' as Sargon is the 'legitimate king.'

[85] Signifying, according to Jensen, _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, p. 25,
'fighting-place'.

[86] Published by Delitzsch, _Beiträge zur Assyr._ I. 301-311.

[87] So also Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 14, note 3.

[88] So Anu appears to have concubines.

[89] See above, pp. 92, 93.

[90] Inscription C.

[91] De Sarzec, pl. 37, no. 5; _Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch._ vi. 279.

[92] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 127, proposes to read Umun-pauddu.

[93] Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, i. 2, no. 93. The name
also appears in syllabaries as Shul-pa-ud-du-a. For the element
_pa-udda_, see p. 103. In Nergal's name Shid-lam-ta-uddu-a (p. 65), the
same final elements are found which appear to be characteristic epithets
of solar deities. The first element in the name has also the value Dun
(as in Dun-gi).

[94] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, pp. 125, 126.

[95] See _Journal Asiatique_, September-October, 1895, p. 393.

[96] De Sarzec, pl. 8, col. v. ll. 8-12.

[97] IR. pl. 2, no. 4.

[98] Jensen regards Pa-sag as a possible phonetic form, but his view is
hardly tenable.

[99] See Zimmern, _Busspsalmen_, pp. 60, 61.

[100] Cylinder A, cols. iv. and v. Amiaud read the name _Nirba_.

[101] Just published by Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, i. 2,
pls. 38-47. _Cf._ p. 52

[102] VR. col. i. 48.

[103] See at close of chapter vi.

[104] Hilprecht, _ib._ no. 87, col i. 30.

[105] _Ib._ i. 32. Hilprecht reads Nin-a-gid-kha-du, but this can hardly
be correct.

[106] The two ideas, 'water' and 'incantation,' are correlated. The
'waters' meant are those used for purification purposes in connection
with the magic formulas.

[107] De Sarzec, pl. 32, col. ii. 9-11.

[108] _Records of the Past_, N.S., i. 59. Amiaud reads the second name
Im-ghud-êna and the third Gim (or Ur)-nun-ta-êna. The publication in De
Sarzec favors my readings.




CHAPTER V.

THE CONSORTS OF THE GODS.


Attention has already been directed to the comparatively small number of
female deities that appear in the inscriptions of the first period of
Babylonian history. We must, however, not conclude from this, that such
deities did not exist in larger numbers. On the contrary, we may feel
certain that every god had his consort, and in some cases more than one.
Several instances of such consorts have been furnished in this chapter;
but if the consorts of the larger number of these gods are unknown, it
is because of the insignificant rôle that these consorts played. The
goddesses of Babylonia, with few exceptions, become mere shadowy
reflections of the gods, with but little independent power, and in some
cases none at all. They owe what popularity they enjoyed to their
association with their male companions. In consequence of this inferior
rôle played by the female deities, the tendency becomes more pronounced,
as we pass from the first to the second period of Babylonian history, to
reduce by assimilation the small number that have independent
attributes, until we reach a condition in which we have practically only
one goddess, appearing under many forms. It is only in the religious
texts, and in some phases of the popular beliefs, that goddesses retain
a certain degree of prominence. So, a goddess Allat, as we shall see,
plays an important part as the chief goddess of the subterranean cave
that houses the dead. Allat appears to have been originally a consort of
the famous Bel of Nippur, but through association with Nergal, who
becomes the chief god of the lower world, almost all traces of the
original character of the goddess disappear. Again, Gula, the consort of
Nin-ib, while occasionally mentioned in the historical texts of the
second and third period, and under the form Ma-ma, as an element in a
proper name belonging to the oldest period,[109] is more frequently
invoked in incantations as the healer of disease. The same is the case
with other goddesses; so that we may conclude that from the earliest
times, the Babylonian religion shared the trait so marked in all Semitic
cults, of a combination of the male and female principle in the
personification of the powers that controlled the fate of man. In part,
no doubt, the minor importance of women, so far as the outward aspects
of social and political life were concerned, is a factor in the
altogether secondary importance attaching to the consorts of the gods;
but we may feel certain that there was no god, however restricted in his
jurisdiction, or however limited in the number of his worshippers, who
had not associated with him a female companion, who follows him as the
shadow follows the substance.

FOOTNOTES:

[109] According to Hilprecht, _ib._ p. 48, note 6. For _Ma-ma_ and
_Me-me_, as names of Gula, see chapter viii.




CHAPTER VI.

GUDEA'S PANTHEON.


Gudea manifests a fondness for giving to his pantheon as large a compass
as possible. In this respect, he follows earlier examples, and also sets
an example which is followed by many of the rulers of Babylonia and
Assyria, who felt that the larger the number of gods invoked by them,
the more impressive would their own position appear in the eyes of their
subjects. Moreover, by incorporating in their pantheon the gods
associated with districts that they controlled, they would not only
secure the protection of these deities, but would emphasize their own
claim to an extended sovereignty. The beginning and the close of
dedicatory and commemorative inscriptions were the favorite
opportunities, seized upon by the kings, for parading the list of the
powers under whose patronage they wished to appear. These lists are both
interesting and valuable, as furnishing in a convenient form a summary
of the chief gods included in the Babylonian pantheon at the various
historical periods. At the close of one of his inscriptions,[110] Gudea
furnishes a list of no less than eighteen deities. In rapid succession
he enumerates Anu, En-lil (Bel), Nin-khar-sag, En-ki (Ea), En-zu (Sin),
Nin-girsu, Ninâ, Nin-si-a, Ga-tum-dug, Bau, Ninni, Utu (Shamash),
Pa-sag, Gal-alim, Dun-shagga, Nin-Mar, Dumuzi-zuaba, Nin-gish-zida.
These deities may be taken as indicative of the territorial extent of
Gudea's jurisdiction. They are called upon to punish him who attempts to
alter the decrees of the ruler, or to efface the memory of his deeds.
Again, at the beginning of one of his inscriptions, he appeals to
Nin-girsu, En-lil, Ninâ, Bau, Ga-tum-dug, Gal-alim, and Dun-shagga. He
recounts what he has done to promote the cults of these deities, and
upon his conduct he grounds his hope that they will aid him in his
undertakings. The lists, as will be observed, vary in the number and in
the order of the gods enumerated. In the second list, the position of
Nin-girsu at the head is due to the fact that the inscription
commemorates the dedication of a sanctuary to that god. But Nin-girsu,
despite his rank as the chief god of Lagash, belongs to a second class
of deities. Standing far above him is the triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, the
gods that personify, as we have seen, the great divisions of the
universe,--heaven, earth, and water. These gods, accordingly, take
precedence of Nin-girsu in the first list. In a succeeding chapter, the
significance of this triad for the Babylonian religion will be fully set
forth. For the present, it is sufficient to note that the
systematization of popular beliefs, involved in the distinctions thus
emphasized in the groupings of deities into classes, begins at so early
a period. This systematization, however, has not yet assumed final
shape. True, the moon-god has already been given the place, immediately
following upon the triad, that he will hold in the developed form of
Babylonian theology; but while, as we have seen, Sin properly takes
precedence of the sun-god, the latter should follow in the wake of his
associate. Not only, however, does Nin-girsu precede, but two other
deities who are closely related in general character to the 'warrior
deity' of Gudea's dominion. Then, the two great goddesses, Bau and
Ninni, are introduced, and it is not until they are disposed of that the
sun-god, together again with Pa-sag as a kind of lieutenant,[111] is
invoked. In the arrangement of the five remaining deities, no special
principle can be recognized. They, evidently, occupy a minor rank. It is
possible, then, to distinguish no less than four classes in the old
Babylonian pantheon: (1) the great triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea; (2) a second
group, as yet incomplete, but which will eventually include Sin,
Shamash, and Ramman, representing the great powers of nature--moon, sun,
and storm; (3) the great gods, the patron deities of the more important
political centers of the country; and (4) the minor ones, representing
the local cults of less important places. Naturally, the dividing line
between the two last-named classes is not sharply marked, and in
accordance with the ever-varying political kaleidoscope, local deities
will rise from the rank of minor gods to a higher place in the pantheon;
while such as once enjoyed high esteem will, through decline in the
political fortunes of their worshippers, be brought down from the higher
to an inferior rank.[112] It is this constant interaction between the
political situation and the relationship of the gods to one another,
that constitutes one of the most striking features of the religion of
Babylonia and Assyria. In the course of time, as an organized pantheon
leads to greater stability in the domain of theological speculation, the
influence of the politics of the country on the religion becomes less
marked, without, however, disappearing altogether. The various classes
into which the gods are divided, are definitely fixed by the schools of
theology that, as we shall see, take their rise in the Euphrates Valley.
The rivalry, on the one hand, between the Babylonian empire united under
one head, and the Assyrian empire on the other, alone remains to bring
about an occasional exchange of places between the two gods who stand at
the head of the great gods of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon
respectively. The attempt has been made by Amiaud[113] to arrange the
pantheon of this oldest period in a genealogical order. In Gudea's long
list of deities, he detects three generations,--the three chief gods and
one goddess, as the progenitors of Sin, Shamash, Nin-girsu, Bau, and
others. The gods of this second division give rise to a third class,
viewed again as the offspring of the second. Professor Davis, taking up
this idea of Amiaud, has quite recently maintained[114] that the family
idea must form our starting-point for an understanding of the pantheon
of Lagash. The theory, however, does not admit of consistent
application. There are gods, as Amiaud recognized, who cannot be brought
under his scheme, so far at least as present testimony is concerned; and
others can only by an arbitrary assumption be forced into accord with
the theory. Moreover, we should expect to find traces of this family
idea in the later phases of the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon. Such,
however, is not the case. A more reasonable and natural explanation of
the relationship existing between many--not all--of the gods of Gudea's
pantheon has already been suggested. In part, we must look to the
development of a theological system of thought in the Euphrates Valley
to account for the superior position accorded to certain gods, and in
part, political conditions and political changes afford an explanation
for the union of certain deities into a family group. So far, indeed,
Amiaud is correct, that the relationship existing between the various
deities, was as a rule expressed in terms applicable to human society.
The secondary position occupied, _e.g._, by Sin when compared with a god
whose domain is the entire 'lower regions,' would be aptly expressed by
calling the moon-god the eldest son of En-lil or Bel; and, similarly, a
goddess like Bau would be called the daughter of Anu. It is a mistake,
however, to interpret the use of 'daughter' and 'son' literally. Such
terms are employed in all Semitic languages in a figurative sense, to
indicate a dependent position of some sort. Again, we have seen that the
union of a number of cities or states under one head would be followed
by a union of the deities proper to these cities or states. That union
would be expressed, according to circumstances, either by placing the
deities on a footing of equality--in which case they would be consorts,
or brothers and sisters, _offsprings_ therefore of one and the same
god--or, the superior rank of one patron god would be indicated by
assigning to the god of a conquered or subordinate territory the rank of
offspring or attendant.

In studying such a list as that presented by Gudea, we must, therefore,
make due allowance for what may be called local peculiarities and local
conditions. It is only by comparing his list with others that we can
differentiate between the general features of Babylonian cults and the
special features due to political and local associations. We are in a
position now to institute this comparison for a period which is
certainly some centuries earlier than Gudea. The date of the reign of
Lugal-zaggisi, king of Uruk, who has been several times referred to in a
previous chapter, is fixed by Hilprecht at _c._ 4500 B.C., but it is
doubtful whether so high an age will be accepted by scholars. The
chronology for the period beyond Gudea is still in a very uncertain
condition. Lugal-zaggisi, in a long list of deities at the beginning of
an important inscription, enumerates in succession Anu, the goddess
Nisaba, the gods En-lil (or Bel), En-ki (=Ea), En-zu (Sin), Utu (the
sun-god), the goddess Ninni (or Nanâ(?)), Nin-khar-sag, Umu, and
Nin-akha-kuddu. As for Anu, the king introduces the name, as Ur-Ningirsu
of Lagash does (see above, p. 90), in calling himself 'priest of Anu,'
and which, according to the explanation suggested, means simply 'divine
priest.'

Bel, Ea, Sin, and Shamash (or Utu) are common to Gudea and
Lugal-zaggisi. These constitute, then, the great gods whose worship is
no longer limited to any particular district. They have become common
property, in part through the sanctity attached to the places where the
gods were worshipped, in part through the antiquity of these places, and
in part, no doubt, as the result of a political development lying behind
the period under consideration. The prominence given by Lugal-zaggisi to
Nisaba is rather surprising. He calls himself and also his father,
'hero' of Nisaba. If, however, it be borne in mind that of the goddesses
at least two, Umu and Nin-akha-kuddu, are of a local character, the
conclusion appears justified that Nisaba was a goddess associated more
particularly with the district in which Uruk lay. The goddess Ninni
(written simply as 'the goddess') is no doubt identical with the great
Nanâ of Uruk, and Nin-khar-sag is introduced as the consort of En-lil.

As a result of this comparison, we may note the tendency towards a
general recognition of certain great gods, which is more fully developed
in the period of Hammurabi. At the same time, the loyalty of the rulers
to the gods, peculiar to their own district, is manifested by the
prominent place assigned in the several cases to gods who otherwise play
an insignificant rôle, and who eventually are absorbed by others; and
lastly, as between Lugal-zaggisi and Gudea, the observation may be made
of the disposition to emphasize local gods, less for their own sake,
than because of the éclat furnished by the enumeration of a large
pantheon, which shall be coequal in extent and dignity to the district
claimed by the rulers and to the rank assumed by them.

FOOTNOTES:

[110] Inscr. B, cols. viii. ix.

[111] See above, p. 101.

[112] See Winckler's excellent remarks on the relationship between the
city and the god in ancient Babylonia (_Altorientalische Forschungen_,
III. 232-235).

[113] _Records of the Past_, N.S., i. 57-59.

[114] In a paper on "The Gods of Shirpurla," read before the American
Oriental Society in April, 1895. (_Proceedings_, ccxiii-ccxviii.)




CHAPTER VII.

SUMMARY.


We have thus passed in review the old Babylonian pantheon, so far as the
discovered texts have revealed their names and epithets. The list does
not claim to be exhaustive. That future texts will add to its length, by
revealing the existence at this early period of many known to us at
present only from later texts or from the religious literature,[115] is
more than likely. The nature of the old Babylonian religion entails, as
a necessary consequence, an array of gods that might be termed endless.
Local cults would ever tend to increase with the rise of new towns, and
while the deities thus worshipped would not rise to any or much
importance, still their names would become known in larger circles, and
a ruler might, for the sake of increasing his own lustre, make mention
of one or more of them, honoring them at the same time by an epithet
which might or might not accurately define their character. As long as
the various districts of Babylonia were not formally united under one
head, various local cults might rise to equally large proportions, while
the gods worshipped as the special patrons of the great centers, as
Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Nippur, and the like, would retain their prominence,
even though the political status of the cities sacred to them suffered a
decline. The ruler of the district that claimed a supremacy over one
that formerly occupied an independent position, would hasten to
emphasize this control by proudly claiming the patron deity as part of
his pantheon. The popularity of Sin at Ur suffered no diminution because
the supremacy of Ur yielded to that of Uruk. On the contrary, the god
gained new friends who strove to rival the old ones in manifestations of
reverence; and when, as happened in several instances, the patron
deities were personifications of natural phenomena, whose worship
through various circumstances became associated with particular
localities, there was an additional reason for the survival, and,
indeed, growing importance of such local cults, quite independent of the
political fortunes that befell the cities in which the gods were
supposed to dwell.

As a consequence, there are a considerable number of deities who are met
with both at the beginning and at the end of the first period of
Babylonian history--a period, be it remembered, that, so far as known,
already covers a distance of 2,000 years. These are of two classes,
(_a_) deities of purely local origin, surviving through the historical
significance of the places where they were worshipped, and (_b_)
deities, at once local in so far as they are associated with a fixed
spot, but at the same time having a far more general character by virtue
of being personifications of the powers of nature. The jurisdiction of
both classes of deities might, through political vicissitudes, be
extended over a larger district than the one to which they were
originally confined, and in so far their local character would tend to
be obscured. It would depend, however, upon other factors, besides the
merely political ones, whether these cults would take a sufficiently
deep hold upon the people to lead to the evolution of deities, entirely
dissociated from fixed seats, who might be worshipped anywhere, and
whose attributes would tend to become more and more abstract in
character. Such a process, however, could not be completed by the silent
working of what, for want of a better name, we call the genius of the
people. It requires the assistance, conscious and in a measure pedantic,
of the thinkers and spiritual guides of a people. In other words, the
advance in religious conceptions from the point at which we find them
when the union of the Babylonian states takes place, is conditioned upon
the infusion of the theological spirit into the mass of beliefs that
constituted the ancient heritage of the people.

On the other hand, various circumstances have already been suggested
that coöperated, already prior to the days of Hammurabi, in weeding out
the superfluity of deities, at least so far as recognition of them in
the official inscriptions of the rulers were concerned. Deities,
attached to places of small and ever-diminishing importance would, after
being at first adopted into the pantheon by some ruler desirous of
emphasizing his control over the town in question, end in being entirely
absorbed by some more powerful god, whose attributes were similar to
those of his minor companion. Especially would this be the case with
deities conceived as granting assistance in warfare. The glory of the
smaller warrior gods would fade through the success achieved by a
Nin-girsu. The names and epithets would be transferred to the more
powerful god, and, beyond an occasional mention, the weaker would
entirely pass out of consideration. Again, the worship of the moon or of
the sun, or of certain aspects of the sun,--the morning sun, the noonday
sun, and the like,--at localities of minor importance, would yield to
the growing popularity of similar worship in important centers. As a
consequence, names that formerly designated distinct deities or
different phases of one and the same deity, would, by being transferred
to a single one, come to be mere epithets of this one. The various names
would be used interchangeably, without much regard to their original
force.

All the essential elements of the Babylonian religion are already to be
found in the conditions prevailing during the period that we have been
considering. Some new deities are met with in the periods that followed,
but there is no reason to believe that any profound changes in the
manner of worship, or in the conceptions regarding the gods, were
introduced. The relations, however, which the gods bear to one another
are considerably modified, their attributes become more sharply defined,
the duties and privileges pertaining to each are regulated. Hand in hand
with this systematization, the organization of the cult becomes more
perfect, the ritual enters upon further phases of development,
speculations regarding the unknown have their outcome in the
establishment of dogmas. Finally the past, with its traditions and
legends, is viewed under the aspect of later religious thought. The
products of popular fancy are reshaped, given a literary turn that was
originally foreign to them, and so combined and imbued with a meaning as
to reflect the thoughts and aspirations of a comparatively advanced age.
What may be called the flowering of the theological epoch in the history
of the Babylonian religion, viewed as a unit, is so directly dependent
upon the political union of the Babylonian states, brought about by
Hammurabi (_c._ 2300 B.C.), that it may be said to date from this event.

FOOTNOTES:

[115] Quite recently there have been found at Telloh some thirty
thousand clay tablets, chiefly lists of sacrifices, temple inventories,
and legal documents. These tablets will probably furnish additional
names of deities, and perhaps throw further light on those known.
Further excavations at Nippur will likewise add to the material. But
after all, for our main purpose in this chapter, which is the
illustration of the chief traits of the Babylonian pantheon in early
days, these expected additions to the pantheon will not be of paramount
significance.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE PANTHEON IN THE DAYS OF HAMMURABI.


Marduk.

The immediate result of Hammurabi's master-stroke in bringing the
various states of the Euphrates Valley under a single control, was the
supremacy secured for his capital, of the city of Babylon over all other
Babylonian cities, and with this supremacy, the superior position
henceforth assumed by the patron deity of the capital, Marduk.[116] It
is needless for our purposes to enter upon the question as to the age of
the city of Babylon,[117] nor as to its political fortunes prior to the
rise of the dynasty of which Hammurabi was the sixth member. That its
beginnings were modest, and that its importance, if not its origin, was
of recent date in comparison with such places as Eridu, Nippur, Lagash,
Ur, and the like, is proved by the absence of the god Marduk in any of
the inscriptions that we have been considering up to this point. The
first mention of the god occurs in the inscriptions of Hammurabi, where
he appears distinctly as the god of the city of Babylon. No doubt the
immediate predecessors of Hammurabi regarded Marduk in the same light as
the great conqueror, so that we are justified in applying the data,
furnished by the inscriptions of Hammurabi to such of his predecessors,
of whom records are still lacking. It is to Marduk, that Hammurabi
ascribes his success. The king regards himself as the beloved of Marduk.
The god rejoices his heart and gives him power and plenty. Even when
paying his homage at the shrines of other deities, he does not forget to
couple the name of Marduk with that of the deity whose protection he
invokes. So at Sippar, sacred to Shamash, and where the king deposits a
cylinder recording the improvements that he instigated in the city, he
associates the sun-god with Marduk, whereas in contradistinction to the
rulers of the old Babylonian cities or states, when addressing Marduk,
he does not find it necessary to make mention at the same time of an
entire pantheon. Marduk's protection suffices for all purposes. This, of
course, does not exclude the worship of other gods. A reference has
already been made to the king's care for the city of Shamash. In this
respect, he was but following the example of his predecessors, who,
while regarding Babylon as their capital, were zealous in doing honor to
ancient centers of worship. So one of these predecessors, Zabu, restores
the temple of Shamash at Sippar, and that of Anunit at Agade. Hammurabi,
besides his work at Sippar, builds a temple to Innanna at Hallabi.[118]
Babylon, however, is the beloved city of Marduk, and upon its
beautification and improvement Hammurabi expends his chief energy. Such
are the endearing terms in which he speaks of his god, as to give one
the impression that, when thinking of Marduk, the king for the moment
loses sight of the existence of other gods. The most striking tribute,
however, that is paid to Marduk in the period of Hammurabi is his
gradual assumption of the rôle played by the old En-lil or Bel of
Nippur, once the head of the Babylonian pantheon. This identification is
already foreshadowed in the title _bêlu rabu_, _i.e._, 'great lord,'
which Hammurabi is fond of bestowing upon Marduk. It is more clearly
indicated in an inscription of his son, Samsu-iluna, who represents Bel,
'the king of heaven and earth,' as transferring to Marduk, the
'first-born son of Ea,' rulership over 'the four regions,'--a phrase
that at this time had already assumed a much wider meaning than its
original portent. In the religious literature of this age, which
reflects the same tendency, Bel expressly transfers his title 'lord of
the lands'[119] to Marduk, while Ea likewise pays homage to his son,
declaring that the latter's 'name' shall also be Ea. The transference of
the name, according to Babylonian notions, is equivalent to a
transference of power. As a consequence, Bel and Marduk are blended into
one personage, Marduk becoming known as Bel-Marduk, and finally, the
first part of the compound sinking to the level of a mere adjective, the
god is addressed as 'lord Marduk,' or 'Marduk, the lord.' The old Bel is
entirely forgotten, or survives at best in conventional association with
Anu and Ea, as a member of the ancient triad.

It has been satisfactorily shown[120] that Marduk was originally a solar
deity. His association with Babylon, therefore, must be viewed in the
same light as the association of Sin, the moon-god, with the city of Ur,
and the association of Shamash, the sun-god, with Larsa and Sippar. Just
as in the latter places, other cults besides that of the patron deity
prevailed, so in Babylon it was merely the prominence which, for some
reason, the worship of the sun-god acquired, that led to the closer
identification of this particular deity with the city, until he became
viewed as the god _par excellence_ of the city, and the city itself as
his favorite residence. As long as Larsa and Sippar retained a
prominence overshadowing that of Babylon, the sun cult at the latter
place could attract but little attention. Only as Babylon began to
rival, and finally to supersede, other centers of sun-worship, could
Marduk be brought into the front rank of prevailing cults. It may appear
strange, in view of this original character of Marduk, that neither in
the inscriptions of Hammurabi, nor in those of his successors, is there
any direct reference to his qualities as a solar deity. However, in the
ideographs composing his name, which are to be interpreted as 'child of
the day,'[121] and in the zodiacal system, as perfected by the
Babylonian scholars, there lurk traces of the god's solar origin, and
beyond this, perhaps, in certain set phrases, surviving in prayers
addressed to him. The explanation for this absence of solar traits is to
be sought in the peculiar political conditions that resulted in bringing
Marduk into such prominence. Hammurabi was preëminently a conquering
king. He waged war on all sides, and carried on his campaigns for many
years. When he finally succeeded in bringing both North and South
Babylonia under his sway, it still required constant watching to keep
his empire together. His patron god, therefore, the protector of the
city, whose jurisdiction was thus spread over a larger extent of
territory than that of any other deity, must have appeared to Hammurabi
and his followers, as well as to those vanquished by him, essentially as
a warrior. It is he who hands over to kings the land and its
inhabitants. The fact that he was a solar deity would become obscured by
the side of the more potent fact that, as god of the city of Babylon,
his sway was supreme. He therefore became Marduk, the 'great lord.' The
epithets bestowed upon him naturally emphasized the manner in which he
manifested himself, and these epithets, therefore, referred to his
power, to his supremacy over other gods, to his favor shown to his
worshippers by granting them unprecedented glory; and since the
political supremacy remained undisputed for many centuries, no
opportunity was afforded for ever reverting to the attributes of the god
as a solar deity. He remained--if one may so express it--a political
deity. The political significance of Babylon permitted only one phase of
his nature to be brought forward.

In the religious texts, however, preserving as they do the more
primitive conceptions by the side of the most advanced ones, some traces
of other attributes besides prowess in war are found. By virtue of his
character as a solar deity, Marduk, like the orb personified through
him, is essentially a life-giving god. Whereas Shamash is viewed as the
'judge of mankind,' Marduk becomes the god who restores the dead to
life, though he shares this power with Shamash, Gula, Nebo, and Nergal.
But after all, even in the religious texts, his more prominent rôle is
that of a ruler,--a magnified king. He protects the weak, releases the
imprisoned, and makes great the small. He controls by his powerful hand
the mountains and rivers and fountains. He is the counsellor who guides
the decrees, even of the great gods, Anu and Bel. On his head rests a
crown with high horns, as the symbol of rulership. As the supreme ruler,
life and death are in his hands. Blessings flow from him; and of
awe-inspiring appearance, his wrath inflicts severe punishment on the
evil-doer.

It is a noteworthy circumstance, and characteristic of the phase of the
Babylonian religion which we are considering, that the extension of
Marduk's political sway did not lead to the establishment of Marduk
cults outside of Babylon. One reason for this was that, in accordance
with the political conceptions, dwelt upon in the introductory chapter,
the empire of Babylonia was regarded simply as an extension of the city
of Babylon. Babylonia, therefore, being identified in theory with the
city of Babylon, there was no need of emphasizing the power of Marduk by
establishing his cult elsewhere. Within the limits of Babylon, however,
there might be more than one shrine to Marduk, and accordingly, when the
city was extended so as to include the place known as Borsippa, a temple
to Marduk was also erected there. The temple on the east side of the
Euphrates, known as E-Sagila, 'the lofty house,' was the older, and
dates probably from the beginnings of Babylon itself; that in Borsippa,
known as E-Zida, 'the true house,' seems to have been founded by
Hammurabi.[122] While it was not in accord with the dignity attaching to
Marduk that his cult should be established outside of the precincts of
the city of Babylon, it would only add to his glory to have the worship
of other deities grouped around his own sanctuary. Such a course would
emphasize the central position of Marduk among the gods, and
accordingly, we find that the chief gods of Babylonia are represented by
shrines within the sacred precincts of his great temples at Babylon and
Borsippa. First among these shrines is that of Marduk's consort,


Sarpanitum.

Neither Hammurabi nor his immediate successor make mention of
Sarpanitum, and at no time does she appear independently of Marduk. The
glory of Marduk did not permit of any rival, and so his consort becomes
merely his shadow,--less significant than most of the consorts of the
male deities. Her name, signifying the 'silvery bright one,' evidently
stands in some connection with the solar character of her consort.
Popular etymology, by a play upon the name, made of Sarpanitum (as
though Zer-banit) the 'offspring-producing' goddess. She had her shrine
within the precincts of the great temple E-Sagila, but we are not told
of any special honors being paid her, nor do we find her invoked to any
extent in incantations or in votive inscriptions. Agumkakrimi, or Agum
(as he is also called), who rules about five centuries after Hammurabi,
speaks of having recovered the image of Sarpanitum, and that of Marduk,
out of the hands of a mountainous people living to the northwest of
Babylonia, in the district between the Bay of Iskenderun and the
Euphrates. The capture of the statues of the patron gods points to a
great humiliation which Babylon must have encountered. Upon receiving a
favorable omen from the sun-god, Agum undertakes the task of bringing
Marduk and Sarpanitum back to their seats. Their temples, too, at
Babylon appear to have suffered damage during the invasion of the city,
and accordingly the statues are placed in the temple of Shamash pending
the restoration of E-Sagila. Agum dwells at length upon the handsome
garments and head-dress, studded with precious stones, that he prepared
for the god and his consort. In all this description, one feels that it
is Marduk for whom the honors are intended, and that Sarpanitum is of
less than secondary importance,--shining merely by the reflected glory
of her great liege, whose presence in Babylon was essential to a
restoration of Babylon's position.

There are reasons for believing, however, that Sarpanitum once enjoyed
considerable importance of her own, that prior to the rise of Marduk to
his supreme position, a goddess was worshipped in Babylon, one of whose
special functions it was to protect the progeny while still in the
mother's womb. A late king of Babylon, the great Nebuchadnezzar, appeals
to this attribute of the goddess. To her was also attributed the
possession of knowledge concealed from men. Exactly to what class of
deities she belonged, we are no longer able to say, but it is certain
that at some time, probably about the time of Hammurabi, an amalgamation
took place between her and another goddess known as Erua,[123]--a name
that etymologically suggests the idea of 'begetting.'[124] She is
represented as dwelling in the temple of E-Zida at Borsippa, and was
originally the consort of Nabu, the chief god of this place.[125] A late
ruler of Babylon--Shamash-shumukin--calls her the queen of the gods, and
declares himself to have been nominated by her to lord it over men.

A factor in this amalgamation of Erua and Sarpanitum was the close
association brought about in Babylon between Marduk and a god whose seat
was originally at the Persian Gulf--Ea. The cult of this god, as we
shall see, survived in Babylonia through all political vicissitudes, and
so did that of some other minor water-deities that belong to this
region. Among these was Erua, whose worship centered in one of the
islands in or near the gulf. Wisdom and the life-giving principle were
two ideas associated in the Babylonian mind with water. As inferior in
power to Ea, Erua appears to have been regarded as the daughter of Ea,
and such was the sway exercised by Ea over men's minds, that even the
Babylonian schoolmen did not venture to place Marduk over Ea, but
pictured him as Ea's son. Erua, however, was not prominent enough to
become Marduk's mother, and so she was regarded as his consort. In this
capacity she was associated with Sarpanitum, and the two were merged
into one personality. It rarely happens that all the links in such a
process are preserved, but in this case, the epithets borne by
Sarpanitum-Erua, such as 'lady of the deep,' 'mistress of the place
where the fish dwell,' 'voice of the deep,' point the way towards the
solution of the problem involved in the amalgamation of Erua and
Sarpanitum.[126]


Nabu.

The god Nabu (or Nebo) enjoys a great popularity in the Babylonian cult,
but he owes his prestige to the accident that, as god of Borsippa, he
was associated with Marduk. Indeed, his case is a clear instance of the
manner in which Marduk overshadows all his fellows. Only as they are
brought into some manner of relationship with him do they secure a
position in the pantheon during this second period of Babylonian
history. Since Nabu's position in the pantheon, once established, incurs
but little change, it will be proper, in treating of him, to include the
testimony furnished by the historical records of the Assyrian kings. The
most prominent attribute of Nabu, at least in the later phases of the
Babylonian religion, is that of wisdom. He is the wise, the all-knowing.
He embodies in his person all the wisdom of the gods. To him the
Assyrian kings are particularly fond of ascribing, not merely the
understanding that they possess, but the thought of preserving the
wisdom of the past for future ages; and in doing this the Assyrians were
but guided by examples furnished by the south. Wisdom being associated,
in the minds of the Babylonians, with the watery deep, one is tempted to
seek an aqueous origin for Nabu. Such a supposition, although it cannot
be positively established, has much in its favor. It is not necessary,
in order to maintain this proposition, to remove Nabu from Borsippa. The
alluvial deposits made by the Euphrates yearly have already demonstrated
that Babylon lay much nearer at one time to the Persian Gulf than it
does at present. The original seat of Ea, whose worship continued
through all times to enjoy great popularity at Babylon, was at Eridu,
which, we know, once lay on the Persian Gulf, but does so no longer. The
similarity of the epithets bestowed in various texts upon Ea and Nabu
point most decidedly to a similar starting-point for both; and since in
a syllabary[127] we find the god actually identified with a deity of
Dilmun,--probably one of the islands near Bahrein,--there are grounds
for assuming that a tradition survived among the schoolmen, which
brought Nabu into some connection with the Persian Gulf. Sayce[128] has
already suggested that Borsippa may have originally stood on an inlet of
the Persian Gulf. Nabu is inferior to Ea, and were it not for the
priority of Marduk, he would have become in Babylonian theology, the son
of Ea. Since this distinction[129] is given to Marduk, no direct
indication of an original relationship to Ea has survived.

But besides being the god of wisdom and intelligence, Nabu is a patron
of agriculture, who causes the grain to sprout forth. In religious and
historical texts, he is lauded as the deity who opens up the
subterranean sources in order to irrigate the fields. He heaps up the
grain in the storehouses, and on the other hand, the withdrawal of his
favor is followed by famine and distress. Jensen[130] would conclude
from this that he was originally (like Marduk, therefore) a solar deity.
This, however, is hardly justified, since it is just as reasonable to
deduce his rôle as the producer of fertility from his powers as lord of
some body of water. However this may be, in the case of Nabu, there are
no grounds for supposing that he represents the combination of two
originally distinct deities. A later--chiefly theoretical--amalgamation
of Nabu with a god Nusku will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.[131]
Hammurabi and his immediate successors, it is noteworthy, do not make
mention of Nabu. A sufficient number of inscriptions of this period
exists to make it probable that this omission is not accidental. This
dynasty was chiefly concerned in firmly establishing the position of
Marduk. Other deities could, indeed, be tolerated at his side, provided
they were subservient to him; but Nabu, the god of a place so near
Babylon, might prove a dangerous rival because of this proximity. The
city on the west bank of the Euphrates was probably as old as that on
the east, if not, indeed, older. It did not seem consistent with this
devotion to Marduk that Hammurabi and his successors should also
recognize Nabu. Policy dictated that Nabu should be ignored, that the
attempt must be made to replace his worship, even in Borsippa, by that
of Marduk. Viewed in this light, Hammurabi's establishment of the Marduk
cult in Borsippa assumes a peculiar significance. It meant that Borsippa
was to be incorporated as part of Babylon, and that Marduk was
henceforth to take the place occupied by Nabu. In order to emphasize
this, Hammurabi actually transfers the name of Nabu's temple in
Borsippa, E-Zida, to the one erected by him at that place to Marduk. Did
he perhaps entirely suppress the worship of Nabu at Borsippa? It would
almost appear so from Agum's utter omission of Nabu. Only the statues of
Marduk and Sarpanitum seem to have been robbed by the Hani. Not a word
is said as to Nabu. Either there was no statue at the time at Borsippa,
or the cult was of such insignificance that the capture of the god was
not considered of sufficient moment to occupy the thoughts of the enemy,
as little as it did that of the rulers of Babylon at the time. In the
inscription in which Hammurabi recounts the building of E-Zida in
Borsippa, there are certain expressions which go to substantiate the
proposition that Nabu is intentionally ignored.[132] He calls Marduk the
lord of E-Sagila and of E-Zida; he speaks of Borsippa as the beloved
city of Marduk, just as though it were Babylon. Taking unto himself the
functions of Nabu, he even appears to play upon the name, which
signifies 'proclaimer,' and styles himself the _nabiu Anu_, 'the
proclaimer of Anu.' However this may be, the attempt to suppress Nabu
did not succeed,--a proof that in early times he had gained popular
favor. He had to be readmitted into the Babylonian pantheon, though in a
subordinate position to Marduk. He took his place in the theological
system as the son of Marduk, and on the great festival--the New Year's
day--celebrated in honor of the great god of Babylon, the son shared
some of the honors accorded to the father. In time, his sanctuary at
Borsippa was again recognized. The former rivalry gave way to a cordial
_entente_. Nabu was even granted a chapel in E-Sagila at Babylon, to
which likewise the name of E-Zida was given. Every New Year's day the
son paid a visit to his father, on which occasion the statue of Nabu was
carried in solemn procession from Borsippa across the river, and along
the main street of Babylon leading to the temple of Marduk; and in
return the father deity accompanied his son part way on the trip back to
E-Zida. In this way, due homage was accorded to Marduk, and at the same
time the close and cordial bonds of union between Babylon and Borsippa
found satisfactory illustration. E-Sagila and E-Zida become, and remain
throughout the duration of the Babylonian religion, the central
sanctuaries of the land around which the most precious recollections
cluster, as dear to the Assyrians as to the Babylonians. The kings of
the northern empire vie with their southern cousins in beautifying and
enlarging the structures sacred to Marduk and Nabu.

In view of the explanation offered for the silence maintained by
Hammurabi and his successors regarding Nabu, we are justified in
including Nabu in the Babylonian pantheon of those days. In later times,
among the Assyrians, the Nabu cult, as already intimated, grows in
popularity. The northern monarchs, in fact, seem to give Nabu the
preference over Marduk. They do not tire of proclaiming him as the
source of wisdom. The staff is his symbol, which is interpreted in a
double sense, as the writer's stylus and as the ruler's sceptre. He
becomes, also, the bestower of royal power upon his favorites. Without
his aid, order cannot be maintained in the land. Disobedience to him is
punished by the introduction of foreign rule. Political policy may have
had a share in this preference shown for the minor god of Babylon. The
Assyrian kings were always anxious to do homage to the gods of Babylon,
in order to indicate their control over the southern districts. They
were particularly proud of their title 'governor of Bel.'[133] On the
other hand, they were careful not to give offence to the chief of the
Assyrian pantheon,--the god Ashur,--by paying too much honor to Marduk,
who was in a measure Ashur's rival. In consequence, as Hammurabi and his
successors endeavored to ignore Nabu, the Assyrian rulers now turned the
tables by manifesting a preference for Nabu; and obliged as they were to
acknowledge that the intellectual impulses came from the south, they
could accept a southern god of wisdom without encroaching upon the
province of Ashur, whose claims to homage lay in the prowess he showed
in war. Marduk was too much like Ashur to find a place at his side. Nabu
was a totally different deity, and in worshipping him who was the son of
Marduk, the Assyrian kings felt that they were paying due regard to the
feelings of their Babylonian subjects. The cult of Nabu thus became
widely extended in Assyria. Statues of the god were erected and
deposited in shrines built for the purpose, although the fact was not
lost sight of that the real dwelling-place of the god was in Borsippa.
At the end of the ninth century B.C. this cult seems to have reached its
height. We learn of a temple at Calah, and of no less than eight statues
of the god being erected in the days of Ramman-nirari III., and the
terms in which the god is addressed might lead one to believe that an
attempt was made to concentrate the cult in Assyria on him.[134] This,
however, was an impossibility. As long as Assyria continued to play the
rôle of the subduer of nations, Ashur--the god of war _par
excellence_--necessarily retained his position at the head of the
Assyrian pantheon. The popularity of Nabu, which continued to the end of
the Assyrian empire, and gained a fresh impetus in the days of
Ashurbanabal, who, as a patron of literature, invokes Nabu on thousands
of the tablets of his library as 'the opener of ears to understanding,'
reacted on his position in the Babylonian cult. In the new Babylonian
empire, which continued to so large a degree the traditions of Assyria,
it is no accident that three of the kings--Nabupolassar, Nebuchadnezzar,
and Nabonnedos--bear names containing the deity as one of the elements.
While paying superior devotion to Marduk, who once more became the real
and not merely the nominal head of the pantheon, they must have held
Nabu in no small esteem; and indeed the last-named king was suspected of
trying actually to divert the homage of the people away from Marduk to
other gods, though he did not, as a matter of course, go so far as to
endeavor to usurp for the son, the position held by the father. It is
probably due to Assyrian influence that even in Babylonia, from the
eighth century on, Nabu is occasionally mentioned before Marduk. So
Marduk-baladan II. (721-710) calls himself the "worshipper of Nabu and
Marduk," and similarly others. In official letters likewise, and in
astronomical reports, Nabu is given precedence to Marduk, but this may
be due to Nabu's functions, as the god of writing and the patron of
science.

The Neo-Babylonian kings are not sparing in the epithets they bestow on
Nabu, though they emphasize more his qualities as holder of the
'sceptre' than as lord of the 'stylus.' So Nebuchadnezzar declares that
it is he 'who gives the sceptre of sovereignty to kings to rule over all
lands.' In this capacity he is 'the upholder of the world,' 'the general
overseer,' and his temple is called 'the house of the sceptre of the
world.'

His name signifies simply the 'proclaimer,' or herald, but we are left
in doubt as to what he proclaims,--whether wisdom or sovereignty.
Sometimes he appears as the 'herald' of the gods. In this rôle he
receives the name of Papsukal (_i.e._, supreme or sacred messenger), and
it may be that this function was a very old one. But, again, as god of
fertility he could also be appropriately termed the 'proclaimer.' The
question must, accordingly, be left open as to the precise force of the
attribute contained in his name. Finally, an interesting feature
connected with Nabu, that may be mentioned here, is that in the name
borne by a famous mountain in Moab, Nebo, where Moses--himself a
'proclaimer'[135]--died, there survives a testimony that the worship of
this popular deity extended beyond the Euphrates and the Tigris, to
Semites living considerably to the west. To Nabu, as to Marduk, a
consort was given. Her name was


Tashmitum.

The name Tashmitum appears for the first time in the days of Hammurabi.
Attention has already been called to the king's ignoring of the god of
Borsippa. While his attempt to suppress the cult of Nabu was not
successful, he did succeed in causing the old consort of Nabu to
disappear. This consort appears to have been no other than Erua. It will
be recalled that up to very late times the tradition survived that her
dwelling-place was Borsippa.[136] This is never said of Sarpanitum.
Despite, therefore, the amalgamation of Sarpanitum and Erua, the
association of the latter with Nabu's dwelling-place remains impressed
upon the memory of the Babylonian scholars, at least. Nabu's consort
having thus been transferred to Marduk, a new mate had to be found for
the former, when once his rivalry was no longer to be dreaded, and his
cult again rose to prominence. 'Tashmitum' is an abstract noun in
Assyrian, signifying 'revelation.' As such, it is bestowed in historical
texts upon Nabu himself, who is called _itu tashimêti_, 'god of
revelation.' Nabu is, above all, a 'revealing' god,--revealing
knowledge, the art of writing, and the method of ruling. The appellation
is therefore a most appropriate one, and there seems little reason to
question that Tashmitum was originally nothing but one of the terms by
which Nabu was designated, just as he was called Papsukal in his rôle as
'messenger' of the gods,--the messenger of his father Marduk and of his
grandfather Ea, in particular. But Tashmitum, being feminine in gender,
as an abstract noun, seemed appropriate as the designation of a goddess.
It would appear, then, that 'Revelation,' from being so constantly
associated with Nabu, was personified, dissociated from him, as it were,
through the conception of a distinct goddess bearing the name of
'Tashmitum.' This process of thought, in giving rise to a new goddess,
may have been, in part, a popular one. The translation of a metaphor
into reality is a phenomenon that may be observed in almost all
religions of antiquity. But the process, whatever its course in detail
may have been, was not uninfluenced by the theological dogma whereby a
god was supposed to have a 'reflection' who was pictured as his consort.
Through this conception, as we have already seen, many a goddess once
ruling in her own right, and enjoying an independent existence,
degenerated into a mere shadow of some male deity, though, on the other
hand, it must be borne in mind that these female deities would have
disappeared altogether but for the opportunity thus afforded them of
becoming 'attachées' to some male deity. This theory of the
_quasi_-artificial character and origin of Tashmit finds support in the
manner in which the mention of her name is entwined with that of Nabu.
Sarpanitum, bound up as the goddess is with Marduk, has at least a
shrine of her own, and occasionally she is spoken of in the texts
without her husband Marduk.[137] The mention of Tashmitum, however,
invariably follows that of Nabu. It is always 'Nabu and Tashmitum,' and
it is never Tashmitum without Nabu. While the creation of Tashmitum may
be a product of Babylonian religious thought, it is in Assyrian texts
that her name is chiefly found. The great Ashurbanabal, in the
conventional subscript attached to his tablet, is particularly fond of
coupling Tashmitum with Nabu, as the two deities who opened his ears to
understanding and prompted him to gather in his palace the literary
treasures produced by the culture that flourished in the south. Tashmit
has no shrine or temple, so far as known, either in Borsippa or in any
of the places whither the Nabu cult spread. She has no attributes other
than those that belong to Nabu, and, what is very remarkable, the later
Babylonian kings, such as Nebuchadnezzar II., when they deem it proper
to attach a consort to Nabu call her Nanâ,[138] _i.e._, simply the lady,
and not Tashmitum, a proof, how little hold the name had taken upon the
Babylonian populace. If to this it be added, that in by far the greater
number of instances, no reference whatsoever to a consort is made when
Nabu is spoken of, an additional reason is found for the unreal, the
shadowy character of this goddess.


Ea.

In treating of the position occupied by Ea in the oldest period of
Babylonian history (see above, pp. 61-64), it has already been mentioned
that he grows to much larger proportions under the influence of a more
fully developed theological system. Indeed, there is no god who shows
such profound traces of having been submitted to a theological
treatment, and indirectly, therefore, furnishes so distinct a proof of
the existence of theological schools in the ancient centers of
Babylonian culture, as Ea. The question may with propriety be here
discussed, to what period we are to attribute the completion of the
process, which, to summarize his position, made Ea the special god of
humanity, the father of Marduk, the third in a great triad, of which the
other two members were Anu, the god of heaven, and Bel, the god of
earth. Already, in the days preceding the union of the Babylonian states
under one head, we have had occasion to see traces of an attempt to
systematize the relations existing between the gods. A high degree of
culture, such as the existence of a perfected form of writing, an
advanced form of architecture, and commercial enterprise reflect, cannot
be dissociated from a high degree of activity in the domain of
philosophic or religious thought. Accordingly, we are in no danger of
attributing too great an antiquity to the beginnings of theological
speculation in Babylonia. Be it remembered that from the earliest to the
latest days, the priests were the scribes and that in their capacity as
writers of the texts, they would be enjoying the advantages of an
intellectual impulse. But they were also the composers of the texts, as
well as the writers, and the prominence given to the gods in texts of
whatever description, would inevitably lead their thoughts to
speculations regarding the attributes of the gods. The attempt would at
an early period be made to find some unifying principles in the tangled
mass of gods. By the time that Hammurabi appears on the scene, we have
every reason to believe that some of the ancient libraries of the south,
whither Ashurbanabal sent his scribes, were already well stocked, and
that a goodly portion of the Babylonian literature known to us already
existed. What these portions were, we will have occasion to point out
when we come to discuss the literature of Babylonia. On the other hand,
this literature would not only necessarily increase as long as any
degree of intellectual activity existed in the country, but this
activity would also manifest itself in transforming this literature, so
as to adapt it to the thoughts and aspirations of a later age.
Especially would this be the case in the purely religious divisions of
literature. The ancient traditions, legends, and myths, once committed
to writing, would serve as a point of departure for further
speculations. The existence of a text to which any measure of value is
attached, is bound to give rise to various attempts at interpretation,
and if this value be connected with the religion of a people, the result
is, invariably, that the ancient words are invested with a meaning
conformable to a later age. Each generation among a people characterized
by intellectual activity has a signature of its own, and it will seek to
give to the religious thoughts of the time its own particular impress.
Since, however, the material upon which any age works is not of its own
making, but is furnished by a preceding one, it follows that much of the
intellectual activity of an age manifests itself in a transformation of
its literary or speculative heritage. This process was constantly going
on in Babylonia, and had we more material--and older material--at our
disposal, we would be able to trace more clearly than we can at present,
the various stages that led to the system of theology, as embodied in
the best productions of the ancient Babylonian schoolmen.

The days of Hammurabi, as they were politically of great importance,
also appear to have ushered in a new era in the religious life of the
people. Stirring political events are always apt to bring in their wake
intellectual movements, and in a country like Babylonia, where politics
react so forcibly on religious conditions, the permanent establishment
of the supremacy of the city of Babylon would be fraught with important
consequences for the cult. The main change brought about by this new
epoch of Babylonian history was, as we have seen, the superior position
henceforth accorded in the pantheon to Marduk as the patron deity of
Babylon; but this change entailed so many others, that it almost merits
being termed a revolution. In order to ensure Marduk's place, the
relations of the other deities to him had to be regulated, the legends
and traditions of the past reshaped, so as to be brought into consistent
accord with the new order of things, and the cult likewise to be, at
least in part, remodelled, so as to emphasize the supremacy of Marduk.
This work, which was an inevitable one, was primarily of an intellectual
order. We are justified, then, in looking for traces of this activity in
the remains that have been recovered of ancient Babylonian literature.
We know from direct evidence that the commercial life of Babylonia had
already, in the period preceding Hammurabi, led to regulated legal forms
and practices for the purpose of carrying out obligations and of
settling commercial and legal difficulties. The proof has been furnished
by Dr. Meissner[139] that syllabaries prepared for the better
understanding of the formulas and words employed in preparing the legal
and commercial tablets, date, in part, from the period which we may
roughly designate as that of Hammurabi,--covering, say, the three
centuries 2300 to 2000 B.C. With this evidence for the existence of
pedagogues devoted to the training of novices in the art of reading and
writing, in order to fit them for their future tasks as official
scribes, we are safe in assuming that these same schoolmen were no less
active in other fields of literature. If, in addition to this, we find
that much of the religious literature, in the shape that we have it,
reflects the religious conditions such as they must have shaped
themselves in consequence of the promotion of Marduk to the head of the
pantheon, the conclusion is forced upon us that such literary
productions date from this same epoch of Hammurabi. This influence of
the schoolmen while centering, as repeatedly pointed out, around the
position of Marduk, manifests itself in a pronounced fashion, also, in
the changed position henceforth accorded to the god Ea. It will be
recalled that in the earliest period of Babylonian history, Ea does not
figure prominently. At the same time we must beware of laying too much
stress upon the negative testimony of the historical texts. Besides the
still limited material of this character at our disposal, the
non-mention of a deity may be due to a variety of circumstances, that
may properly be designated as accidental. The gods to whom the kings of
the ancient Babylonian states would be apt to appeal would be, in the
first instance, the local deities, patrons of the city that happened to
be the capital of the state; in the second instance, the gods of the
vanquished towns; and thirdly, some of the great deities worshipped at
the sacred centers of the Euphrates valley, and who constituted, as it
were, the common heritage of the past. Ea, as the god of the Persian
gulf, the region which forms the starting-point of Babylonian culture,
and around which some of the oldest and most precious recollections
center, would come within the radius of the third instance, since, in
the period we have in mind, Eridu no longer enjoyed any political
importance. We may be sure, then, despite the silence of the texts, that
Ea was always held in great esteem, and that even the absence of temples
in his honor, did not affect the reverence and awe that he inspired. As
for the epoch of Hammurabi, the historical spirit that is never absent
in a truly intellectual age would be certain to restore Ea to his proper
prestige, assuming that a previous age had permitted him to fall into
neglect. Next to Marduk, there is no deity who is given such distinction
in Babylonia, after the union of the Babylonian states, as Ea. In the
religious literature, moreover, as reshaped by the schoolmen of the
time, his rôle is even more prominent than that of Marduk. As a
water-god, and more particularly as the god to whom the largest body of
water known to the Babylonians was sacred, Ea was regarded as the source
and giver of wisdom. Fountains everywhere were sacred to him; and so he
becomes also the giver of fertility and plenty. Berosus tells us of a
mystic being, half man, half fish, who spent his nights in the waters of
the gulf, but who would come out of the waters during the day to give
instruction to the people, until that time steeped in ignorance and
barbarism. This 'Oannes,' as Berosus is said[140] to have called him,
was none other than Ea. As the great benefactor of mankind, it is
natural that Ea should have come to be viewed as the god whose special
function it is to protect the human race, to advance it in all its good
undertakings, to protect it against the evil designs of gods or demons.
In this rôle, he appears in the religious literature--in the epics, the
cosmogony, and the ritual--of Babylonia. There is no god conceived in so
universal a manner as Ea. All local connection with Eridu disappears. He
belongs to no particular district. His worship is not limited to any
particular spot. All of Babylonia lays claim to him. The ethical import
of such a conception is manifestly great, and traces of it are to be
found in the religious productions. It impressed upon the Babylonians
the common bond uniting all mankind. The cult of Ea must have engendered
humane feelings, softening the rivalry existing among the ancient
centers of Babylonian power, and leading the people a considerable
distance, on the road to the conception of a common humanity. When the
gods decide to destroy mankind, it is Ea who intercedes on behalf of
humanity; when the demon of disease has entered a human body, it is to
Ea that, in the last resort, the appeal is made to free the sufferer
from his pain. Ea is the god of the physicians. Nay, more, it is Ea who
presided at the birth of humanity, so that his protection reaches far
back, beyond even the beginnings of civilization, almost to the
beginning of things. Lastly, as the god of civilization, it is to him
that the great works of art are ascribed. He is the god of the smithy,
the patron of the gold and silversmiths, of workers in lapis-lazuli, and
all kinds of precious stones. He is the god of sculpture. The great
bulls and lions that guarded the approaches to the temple and palace
chambers, as well as the statues of the gods and kings, were the work of
his hands. Furthermore, he is the patron of weavers, as of other arts.
This conception may have been perfected in a general way, and in all
probability was perfected before the days of Hammurabi, though perhaps
not prominently brought forward; but important modifications were
introduced into it, through the compromise that had to be arranged
between the position of Ea and that of Marduk. Of course, neither the
rulers nor the priests of Babylon could have permitted the reverence for
Ea to have gone to the length of throwing Marduk into the shade. Many of
the functions assigned to Ea seemed to belong of right to Marduk, who,
as the patron of Babylon, presided over the destinies of what to the
Babylonians was the essential part of mankind,--namely, themselves.
Moreover, Babylon being the seat of culture as well as of power, in the
period following upon Hammurabi, Marduk was necessarily conceived as
possessing the same wisdom that distinguishes Ea. As a consequence, the
attributes of Ea were transferred in a body to Marduk. An amalgamation
of the two, however, such as took place in the case of other deities,
was neither possible, nor, indeed, desirable. It was not possible,
because of the antiquity of the Ea cult and the peculiar position that
he, as a common heirloom of all Babylonia, occupied; nor was it
desirable, for to do so would be to cut off completely the bond uniting
Babylon to its own past and to the rest of Babylonia. The solution of
the problem was found in making Ea, the father of Marduk--the loving and
proud father who willingly transfers all his powers and qualities to his
son, who rejoices in the triumph of his offspring, and who suffers no
pangs of jealousy when beholding the superior honors shown to Marduk,
both by the gods and by men.


Ea and Marduk.

The combination of the two gods is particularly frequent in the
so-called incantation texts. Marduk becomes the mediator between Ea and
mankind. The man smitten with disease, or otherwise in trouble, appeals
to Marduk for help, who promptly brings the petition to his father Ea.
The latter, after modestly declaring that there is nothing that he knows
which his son Marduk does not know, gives Marduk the necessary
instructions, which in turn are conveyed to the one crying for divine
succor. It is clear that these texts have been reshaped with the
intention of adding to the glory of Marduk. They must, therefore, have
been remodelled at a time when the Marduk cult was in the ascendancy.
This was after the days of Hammurabi, and before the subjugation of
Babylonia to Assyrian rule. The limits thus assigned are, to be sure,
broad, but from what has above been said as to the intellectual activity
reigning in the days of Hammurabi, we need not descend far below the
death of the great conqueror to find the starting-point for the
remodelling of the texts in question. Not all of them, of course, were
so reshaped. There are quite a number in which Ea is alone and directly
appealed to, and these form a welcome confirmation of the supposition
that those in which Ea is joined to Marduk have been reshaped with a
desire to make them conform to the position of Marduk in the Babylonian
pantheon. Again, there are incantations in which the name of Marduk
appears without Ea. Such are either productions of a later period, of
the time when Marduk had already assumed his superior position, or what
is also possible, though less probable, old compositions in which the
name of Ea has been simply replaced by that of Marduk. An especially
interesting example of the manner in which ancient productions have been
worked over by the Babylonian theologians, with a view to bringing their
favorite Marduk into greater prominence, appears in one of the episodes
of the Babylonian cosmogony. Prior to the creation of man a great
monster known as Tiâmat had to be subdued. The gods all shrink in terror
before her. Only one succeeds in conquering her. In the form of the
story, as we have it, this hero is Marduk, but it is quite evident[141]
that the honor originally belonged to an entirely different god, one who
is much older, and who stands much higher than the god of Babylon. This
was Bel,--the old god of Nippur who was conceived as the god of earth
_par excellence_, and to whom therefore the task of preparing the earth
for the habitation of mankind properly belonged. How do the Babylonian
theologians, who stand under the influence of the political conditions
prevailing in Babylonia after the union of the Babylonian states,
reconcile this older and true form of the episode with the form in which
they have recast it? The gods who are called the progenitors of Marduk
are represented as rejoicing upon seeing Marduk equipped for the fray.
In chorus they greet and bless him, "Marduk be king." They present him
with additional weapons, and encourage him for the contest. Upon hearing
of his success the gods vie with one another in conferring honors upon
Marduk. They bestow all manner of glorious epithets upon him; and, to
cap the climax, the old Bel, known as 'father Bel,' steps forward and
transfers to him his name, _bêl matâti_,[142] 'lord of lands.' To bestow
the name was equivalent to transferring Bel's powers to Marduk; and so
Marduk is henceforth known as _Bel_. But Ea must be introduced into the
episode. It is not sufficient that Bel, the original subduer of Tiâmat,
should pay homage to Marduk; Ea also greets his son, and bestows his
name upon him,[143]--that is, transfers his powers to his son. There is
a special reason for this. The overthrow of Tiâmat is followed by the
creation of man. This function properly belongs to Bel, both as the god
of earth and as the subduer of Tiâmat. According to one--and probably
the oldest--version of this part of the Babylonian cosmogony which was
embodied in the work of Berosus[144], it is Bel who creates mankind. The
substitution of Marduk for Bel necessitated the transference of the rôle
of creator to Marduk likewise, and yet the latter could not take this
upon himself without the consent of his father Ea, who had become the
god of humanity _par excellence_. Ea could interpose no objection
against Bel being replaced by Marduk in vanquishing the monster, but
when it came to drawing the conclusion and replacing Bel by Marduk also
in the creation of man, the case was different. If Bel was to be
replaced, Ea had a prior claim. Marduk could only take the new functions
upon himself after receiving the powers of Ea. That is the force of Ea's
saying that Marduk's name also shall be Ea just as his. This
transference of the name of Ea to Marduk is in itself an indication that
there must have existed a second version in Babylonia--probably of later
origin than the other--of the creation of man, according to which Ea,
and not Bel, was the creator. We shall have occasion to see, in a future
chapter, that there were at least two different versions current in
Babylonia of the creation of the gods and of the universe. The opening
chapters in Genesis form an interesting parallel to show the manner in
which two different versions of one and the same subject may be
combined. There is, therefore, nothing improbable in the supposition
that a later version, reflecting a period when Bel had sunk into
comparative insignificance, made Ea the creator of mankind instead of
Bel, and that still later a solution of the apparent inconsistency
involved in transferring only part of Bel's powers to Marduk was found
by securing Ea's consent to the acknowledgment of Marduk not merely as
creator of mankind but of the heavenly vault as well. Jensen[145] has
brought other evidence to show that Ea was once regarded as the creator
of mankind. One of his titles is that of 'potter,' and mankind,
according to Babylonian theories, was formed of 'clay.' Moreover, in a
Babylonian myth that will be set forth in its proper place, Ea expressly
figures in the rôle of creating a mysterious being, _Uddushu-na-mir_,
whose name signifies 'his light shines.' Such a proper name, too, as
"Ea-bani," _i.e._, 'Ea creates,' points in the same direction.

In other literary productions of Babylonia, such as, _e.g._, the
so-called Izdubar epic, Ea again appears without Marduk, showing that
this story has not been remodeled, or that the later version, in which
the traces of a recasting may have been seen, has not been discovered.
In the deluge story, which forms part of the Izdubar epic, Ea alone is
the hero. It is he who saves humanity from complete annihilation, and
who pacifies the angered Bel. Marduk's name does not appear in the
entire epic. We have found it necessary to dwell thus at length upon
these evidences of the recasting of the literary products of ancient
Babylonia under the influence of changed conceptions of the gods and of
their relations to one another, for upon the understanding of these
changes, our appreciation of the development of religious beliefs in
Babylonia, and all connected with these beliefs, hinges. The epoch of
Hammurabi was a crucial one for Babylonia from a religious as well as
from a political point of view.


Damkina.

The consort of Ea figures occasionally in the historical texts of
Hammurabi's successors. Agumkakrimi invokes Ea and Damkina, asking these
gods, who 'dwell in the great ocean' surrounding the earth, to grant him
long life. In addition to this, the antiquity of the literary
productions in which her name appears justifies us in reckoning her
among the gods of Babylonia of Hammurabi's time. Her name signifies
'lady of the earth,' and there is evidently a theoretical substratum to
this association of Ea, the water-god, with an earth-goddess. The one
forms the complement to the other; and Marduk, as the son of water and
earth, takes his place in the theory as the creator of the world. In
this form the 'natural philosophy' of Babylonia survived to a late
period. Nicolas of Damascus still knows (probably through Berosus) that
Ea and Damkina[146] had a son Bel (_i.e._, Marduk). The survival of the
name is a proof that, despite the silence of the historical texts, she
was a prominent personage in Babylonian mythology, even though she did
not figure largely in the cult. She appears in the magical texts quite
frequently at the side of Ea. In a hymn[147] where a description occurs
of the boat containing Ea, Damkina his wife, and Marduk their son,
together with the ferryman and some other personages sailing across the
ocean, we may see traces of the process of symbolization to which the
old figures of mythology were subjected.


Shamash.

Passing on, we find Hammurabi as strongly attached to the worship of the
old sun-god as any of his predecessors. Next to Babylon, he was much
concerned with making improvements in Sippar. The Temple of Shamash at
Larsa also was improved and enlarged by him. Hammurabi's example is
followed by his successors. Agumkakrimi invokes Shamash as 'warrior of
heaven and earth'; and it is likely that the precedent furnished by
these two kings, who considered it consistent with devotion to Marduk to
single out the places sacred to Shamash for special consideration, had
much to do in maintaining the popularity of sun-worship in Babylonia and
Assyria. Kara-indash, of the Cassite dynasty (_c._ 1450 B.C.), restores
the temple of Shamash at Larsa, and Mili-shikhu, two centuries later,
assigns to Shamash the second place in his pantheon, naming him before
Marduk. Foreign rulers were naturally not so deeply attached to Marduk
as were the natives of Babylon. In the Assyrian pantheon Shamash
occupies the third place, following immediately upon the two special
deities of Assyria. One of the greatest of the northern kings erects a
temple in honor of the god, and the later Babylonian kings vie with one
another in doing honor to the two oldest sanctuaries of Shamash, at
Sippar and Larsa. Perhaps the pristine affinity between Marduk, who, as
we saw, was originally a sun-deity, and Shamash, also had a share in
Hammurabi's fondness for coupling these two gods. When describing his
operations at Sippar he speaks of himself as 'doing good to the flesh of
Shamash and Marduk.' Hammurabi felt himself to be honoring Marduk,
through paying homage to a deity having affinity with the patron
protector of Babylon.


Innanna.

We have already come across a deity of this name in a previous
chapter.[148] Hammurabi tells us, in one of his inscriptions, that he
has restored the temple in honor of Innanna at Hallabi--a town near
Sippar.[149] Innanna, or Ninni, signifying merely 'lady,' or 'great
lady,' appears to have become a very general name for a goddess, hence
the addition 'of Hallabi,' which Hammurabi is careful to make. At the
same time the designation 'lady of Hallabi' points to her being a
consort of a male deity who was the patron of the place. May this have
been the moon-god again, as in the case of the other Innanna? Our
knowledge of this goddess is confined to what the king tells us about
her. For him she is the mistress whose glory fills heaven and earth, but
when he adds that she has placed in his hands the reins of government,
this only means that the goddess recognizes his right to supreme
authority over the Babylonian states--not that he owes his power to her.
It is after he has succeeded in making Babylon the capital of a great
kingdom that he proceeds to improve the temple of Innanna.


Bel and the Triad of Babylonian Theology.

Among the literary remains of Hammurabi's days we have a hymn in which
the chief gods worshipped by the king are enumerated in succession. The
list begins with Bel, and then mentions Sin, Ninib, Ishtar, Shamash, and
Ramman. We should expect to find at the head of the list Marduk. The
hymn may be older than Hammurabi, who, perhaps, is quoting or copying
it, and since the Bel who is here at the head of the pantheon is the god
of Nippur, the hymn may originally have belonged to the ritual of that
place. For Hammurabi the highest 'Bel,' or lord, is Marduk, and there is
hardly room for doubt that in using this hymn as a means of passing on
to singing his own praises, with which the inscription in question ends,
Hammurabi has in mind the patron god of Babylon when speaking of
Bel.[150] It is this amalgamation of the old Bel with Marduk that marks,
as we have seen, the transition to the use of Bel's name as a mere title
of Marduk. Elsewhere, however, Hammurabi uses Bel to designate the old
god. So when he calls himself the proclaimer of Anu and Bel[151] the
association with Anu makes it impossible that Marduk should be meant. At
times he appears to refer in the same inscription, now to the old Bel
and again to Bel-Marduk, under the same designation. When Kurigalzu, a
member of the Cassite dynasty (_c._ 1400 B.C.), speaks of 'Bel, the lord
of lands,' to whom he erects a temple in the new city, Dur-Kurigalzu--
some forty miles to the northeast of Babylon--it is the old Bel who is
again meant. While acknowledging Marduk as one of the chief gods, these
foreign rulers in Babylonia--the Cassites--did not feel the same
attachment to him as Hammurabi did. They gave the preference to the old
god of Nippur, and, indeed, succeeded in their attempt to give to the
old city of Nippur some of its pristine glory. They devoted themselves
assiduously to the care of the great temple at Nippur. There are some
indications of an attempt made by them to make Nippur the capital of
their empire. In the case of Hammurabi's immediate successor, as has
been pointed out, the equation Bel-Marduk is distinctly set down, but,
for all that, the double employment of the name continues even through
the period of the Assyrian supremacy over Babylonia. The northern rulers
now use Bel to designate the more ancient god, and, again, merely as a
designation of Marduk. Tiglathpileser I. (see note 1, below) expressly
adds 'the older' when speaking of Bel. When Sargon refers to Bel, 'the
lord of lands, who dwells on the sacred mountain of the gods,' or when
Tiglathpileser I. calls Bel 'the father of the gods,' 'the king of the
group of spirits' known as the Anunaki, it is of course only the old
Bel, the lord of the lower region, or of the earth, who can be meant;
but when, as is much more frequently the case, the kings of Assyria,
down to the fall of the empire, associate Bel with Nabu, speak of Bel
and the gods of Akkad (_i.e._, Babylonia), and use Bel, moreover, to
designate Babylonia,[152] it is equally clear that Marduk is meant. In
the Neo-Babylonian empire Marduk alone is used.

The continued existence of a god Bel in the Babylonian pantheon, despite
the amalgamation of Bel with Marduk, is a phenomenon that calls for some
comment. The explanation is to be found in the influence of the
theological system that must have been developed in part, at least, even
before the union of the Babylonian states.[153] Bel, as the god of
earth, was associated with Anu, as the god of heaven, and Ea, as the god
of the deep, to form a triad that embraced the entire universe. When,
therefore, Anu, Bel, and Ea were invoked, it was equivalent to naming
all the powers that influenced the fate of man. They embraced, as it
were, the three kingdoms of the gods, within which all the other gods
could be comprised. The systematization involved in the assumption of a
triad of gods controlling the entire pantheon can hardly be supposed to
have been a popular process. It betokens an amount of thought and
speculation, a comprehensive view of the powers of nature, that could
only have arisen in minds superior to the average intelligence. In other
words, the conception of the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea is again an evidence
of the existence of schoolmen and of schools of religious thought in the
days of the ancient empire. So far, however, as Hammurabi is concerned,
he only refers to a duality--Anu and Bel--which, for him, comprises all
the other gods. He is the 'proclaimer of Anu and Bel.' It is Anu and Bel
who give him sovereignty over the land. In the texts of the second
period the triad does not occur until we come to the reign of a king,
Mili-shikhu, who lives at least eight centuries after Hammurabi. Ea, in
fact, does not occur at all in those inscriptions of the king that have
as yet been discovered. If any conclusion is to be drawn from this
omission, it is certainly this,--that there are several stages in the
development of the ancient theological system of Babylonia. At first a
duality of kingdoms--the kingdom of what is above and below--was
conceived as comprising all the personified powers of nature, but this
duality was replaced by a triad through the addition of the god who
stands at the head of all water-deities. Of course the assumption of a
duality instead of a triad may have been due to a difference among
existing schools of thought. At all events, there seems to be no
political reason for the addition of Ea, and it is difficult to say,
therefore, how soon the conception of a triad standing at the head of
the pantheon arose. We have found it in Gudea's days, and it must,
therefore, have existed in the days of Hammurabi, without, perhaps,
being regarded as an essential dogma as yet. A direct and natural
consequence of Bel's position in the triad was that, by the side of
Bel-Marduk, the older Bel continued to be invoked in historical
inscriptions. Since Anu and Ea were appealed to by themselves, the
former occasionally, the latter more frequently, there was no reason why
a ruler should not at times be prompted to introduce an invocation to
Bel, without the direct association with Anu and Ea. The confusion that
thus ensues between the two Bels was not of serious moment, since from
the context one could without difficulty determine which of the two was
meant; and what we, with our limited knowledge of ancient Babylonia, are
able to do, must have been an easy task for the Babylonians
themselves.[154] It is tempting to suppose that the first command of the
Decalogue (Exodus, xx) contains an implied reference to the Babylonian
triad.


Anu, Bel, and Ea.

The theory of the triad succeeds in maintaining its hold upon Babylonian
minds from a certain period on, through all political and intellectual
vicissitudes. To invoke Anu, Bel, and Ea becomes a standing formula that
the rulers of Babylonia as well as of Assyria are fond of employing.
These three are the great gods _par excellence_. They occupy a place of
their own. The kings do not feel as close to them as to Marduk, or to
Ashur, or even to the sun-god, or to the moon-god. The invocation of the
triad partakes more of a formal character, as though in giving to these
three gods the first place, the writers felt that they were following an
ancient precedent that had more of a theoretical than a practical value
for their days. So among Assyrian rulers, Ashur-rish-ishi (_c._ 1150
B.C.) derives his right to the throne from the authority with which he
is invested by the triad. Again, in the formal curses which the kings
called down upon the destroyers of the inscriptions or statues that they
set up, the appeal to Anu, Bel, and Ea is made. Ashurnasirbal calls upon
the triad not to listen to the prayers of such as deface his monuments.
Sargon has an interesting statement in one of his inscriptions,
according to which the names of the months were fixed by Anu, Bel, and
Ea. This 'archaeological' theory illustrates very well the extraneous
position occupied by the triad. The months, as we shall see, are sacred,
each to a different god. The gods thus distinguished are the ones that
are directly concerned in the fortunes of the state,--Sin, Ashur,
Ishtar, and the like. Anu, Bel, and Ea are not in the list, and the
tradition, or rather the dogma according to which they assign the names
is evidently an attempt to make good this omission by placing them, as
it were, beyond the reach of the calendar. In short, so far as the
historical texts are concerned which reflect the popular beliefs, the
triad represents a theological doctrine rather than a living force. In
combination, Anu, Bel, and Ea did not mean as much, nor the same thing,
to a Babylonian or an Assyrian, as when he said Marduk, or Nabu, or
Ashur, or Sin, as the case might be. It was different when addressing
these gods individually, as was occasionally done. The Assyrians were
rather fond of introducing Anu by himself in their prayers, and the
Babylonians were prompted to a frequent mention of Ea by virtue of his
relationship to Marduk, but when this was done Anu and Ea meant
something different than when mentioned in one breath along with Bel.


Belit.

One might have supposed that when Bel became Marduk, the consort of Bel
would also become Marduk's consort. Such, however, does not appear to be
the case, at least so far as the epoch of Hammurabi is concerned. When
he calls himself 'the beloved shepherd of Belit,' it is the wife of the
old Bel that is meant, and so when Agumkakrimi mentions Bel and Belit
together, as the gods that decree his fate on earth, there is no doubt
as to what Belit is meant. In later days, however, and in Assyria more
particularly, there seems to be a tendency towards generalizing the name
(much as that of Bel) to the extent of applying it in the sense of
'mistress' to the consort of the chief god of the pantheon; and that
happening to be Ashur in Assyria accounts for the fact, which might
otherwise appear strange, that Tiglathpileser I. (_c._ 1140 B.C.) calls
Belit the 'lofty consort and beloved of Ashur.' Ashurbanabal (668-626
B.C.) does the same, and even goes further and declares himself to be
the offspring of Ashur and Belit. On the other hand, in the interval
between these two kings we find Shalmaneser II. (860-825 B.C.) calling
Belit 'the mother of the great gods' and 'the wife of Bel,' making it
evident that the old Belit of the south is meant, and since Ashurbanabal
on one occasion also calls the goddess 'the beloved of Bel,'[155] it
follows that in his days two Belits were still recognized, or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say two uses of the term,--one specifically
for the consort of the Babylonian Bel, the god of the earth, with his
ancient seat at Nippur; the other of a more general character, though
still limited as 'lady' to the consort of the _chief_ gods, just as
'Bel,' while acquiring the general sense of 'lord,' was restricted in
actual usage to the _greatest_ 'lords' only. An indication of this
distinction, somewhat parallel to the addition of Dagan to Bel, to
indicate that the old Bel was meant,[156] appears in the sobriquet 'of
Babylonia,'[157] which Ashurbanabal gives to the goddess in one place
where the old Belit is meant. Under the influence of this Assyrian
extension of the term, Nabopolassar, in the Neo-Babylonian period,
applies the title to the consort of Shamash at Sippar, but he is careful
to specify 'Belit of Sippar,' in order to avoid misunderstanding.
Besides being applied to the consorts of Ashur and of Shamash, 'Belit,'
in the general sense of 'mistress,' is applied only to another goddess,
the great Ishtar of the Assyrian pantheon--generally, however, as a
title, not as a name of the goddess. The important position she occupied
in the Assyrian pantheon seemed to justify this further modification and
extension in the use of the term. Occasionally, Ishtar is directly and
expressly called 'Belit.' So, Ashurbanabal speaks of a temple that he
has founded in Calah to 'Belit mâti,'[158] 'the Belit (or lady) of the
land,' where the context speaks in favor of identifying Belit with the
great goddess Ishtar. Again Ashurbanabal, in a dedicatory inscription
giving an account of improvements made in the temple of Ishtar,
addresses the goddess as Belit 'lady of lands, dwelling in
E-mash-mash.'[159]


Anu and Anatum.

In the second period of Babylonian history the worship of the supreme
god of heaven becomes even more closely bound up with Anu's position as
the first member of the inseparable triad than was the case in the first
period. For Hammurabi, as has been noted, Anu is only a half-real figure
who in association with Bel is represented as giving his endorsement to
the king's authority.[160] The manner in which Agumkakrimi introduces
Anu is no less characteristic for the age of Hammurabi and his
successors. At the beginning of his long inscription,[161] he enumerates
the chief gods under whose protection he places himself. As a Cassitic
ruler, he assigns the first place to the chief Cassite deity, Shukamuna,
a god of war whom the Babylonian scholars identified with their own
Nergal.[162] Shukamuna is followed by the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea. Marduk
occupies a fifth place, after which comes a second triad, Sin, Shamash
"the mighty hero," and Ishtar[163] "the strong one among the gods." The
inscription is devoted to the king's successful capture of the statues
of Marduk and Sarpanitum out of the hands of the Khani, and the
restoration of the shrines of these deities at Babylon. At the close,
the king Agumkakrimi appeals to Anu and his consort Anatum,[164] who are
asked to bless the king in heaven, to Bel and Belit who are asked to fix
his fate on earth, and to Ea and Damkina, inhabiting the deep,[165] who
are to grant him long life. As in the beginning of the inscription, the
thought of the triad--Anu, Bel, Ea--evidently underlies this interesting
invocation, but at the same time the association of a consort with Anu
brings the god into closer relationship with his fellows. He takes
on--if the contradiction in terms be permitted--a more human shape. His
consort bears a name that is simply the feminine form to Anu, just as
Belit is the feminine to Bel. 'Anu,' signifying 'the one on high,'--a
feminine to it was formed, manifestly under the influence of the notion
that every god must have a consort of some kind. After Agumkakrimi no
further mention of Anatum occurs, neither in the inscriptions of
Babylonian nor of Assyrian rulers. We are permitted to conclude,
therefore, that Anatum was a product of the schools, and one that never
took a strong hold on the popular mind. Among the Assyrian kings who in
other respects also show less dependence upon the doctrines evolved in
the Babylonian schools, and whose inscriptions reflect to a greater
degree the purely popular phases of the faith, we find Anu mentioned
with tolerable frequency, and in a manner that betrays less emphasis
upon the position of the god as a member of the triad. Still, it is
rather curious that he does not appear even in the inscriptions of the
Assyrian kings by himself, but in association with another god. Thus
Tiglathpileser I. (_c._ 1130 B.C.) gives an elaborate account of an old
temple to Anu and Ramman in the city of Ashur that he restores to more
than its former grandeur.[166] This dedication of a temple to two
deities is unusual. Ramman is the god of thunder and storms, whose seat
of course is in the heavens. He stands close, therefore, to Anu, the
supreme god of heaven. In the religious productions, this relationship
is expressed by making Ramman the son of Anu. From a passage descriptive
of this temple it would appear that the old temple founded by King
Samsi-Ramman, who lived several centuries before Tiglathpileser, was
dedicated to Ramman. It looks, therefore, as though the association of
Anu with Ramman was the work of the later king. What his motive was in
thus combining Anu with Ramman it is difficult to say, but in his
account of the restoration of the sanctuary, he so consistently mentions
Anu and Ramman together,[167] designating them unitedly as 'the great
gods my lords,' that one gains the impression that the two were
inseparable in his mind, Ramman being perhaps regarded simply as a
manifestation of Anu. The supposition finds some support in the closing
words of the inscription, where, in hurling the usual curses upon those
who should attempt to destroy his monuments, he invokes Ramman alone,
whom he asks to punish the offender by his darts, by hunger, by distress
of every kind, and by death.

Elsewhere Anu appears in association with Dagan, of whom we shall have
occasion to speak in the chapter on the Assyrian pantheon. Suffice it to
say here that Dagan in this connection is an equivalent of Bel. When,
therefore, Ashurbanabal and Sargon call themselves 'the favorite of Anu
and Dagan,' it is the same as though they spoke of Anu and Bel. Apart
from this, Anu only appears when a part or the whole of the Assyrian
pantheon is enumerated. Thus we come across Anu, Ramman, and Ishtar as
the chief gods of the city of Ashur,[168] and again Anu, Ashur, Shamash,
Ramman, and Ishtar.[169] Finally, Sargon who names the eight gates of
his palace after the chief gods of the land does not omit Anu, whom he
describes as the 'one who blesses his handiwork.' Otherwise we have Anu
only when the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea is invoked. Once Ramman-nirari I.
(_c._ 1325 B.C.) adds Ishtar to the triad. After Sargon we no longer
find Anu's name at all among the deities worshipped in Assyria. On the
whole, then, Anu's claim to reverence rests in Assyria as well as in
Babylonia upon his position in the triad, and while Assyria is less
influenced by the ancient system devised in Babylonia whereby Anu, Bel,
and Ea come to be the representatives of the three kingdoms among which
the gods are distributed, still Anu as a specific deity, ruling in his
own right, remains a rather shadowy figure. The only temple in his honor
is the one which he shares with Ramman, and which, as noted, appears to
have been originally devoted to the service of the latter. One other
factor that must be taken into account to explain the disappearance of
Anu is the gradual enforcement of Ashur's claim to the absolute headship
of the Assyrian pantheon. Either Anu or Ashur had to be assigned to this
place, and when circumstances decided the issue in favor of Ashur, there
was no place worthy of Anu as a specific deity. Ashur usurps in a
measure the rôle of Anu. So far as Babylonia was concerned, there was
still in the twelfth century B.C. a city 'Der' which is called the 'city
of Anu.' The city is probably of very ancient foundation, and its
continued association with Anu forms an interesting survival of a local
conception that appears to have been once current of the god.

In the religious literature, especially in that part of it which
furnishes us with the scholastic recastings of the popular traditions,
Anu is a much more prominent figure than in the historical texts. From
being merely the personification of the heavens, he is raised to the
still higher dignity of symbolizing, as Jensen puts it,[170] the
abstract principle of which both the heavens and earth are emanations.
All the earliest gods conceived of by popular tradition as existing from
the beginning of things are viewed as manifestations of Anu, or of Anu
and Anatum in combination. He gives ear to prayers, but he is not
approached directly. The gods are his messengers, who come and give him
report of what is going on.[171] He is a god for the gods rather than
for men. When his daughter Ishtar is insulted she appeals to her father
Anu; and when the gods are terrified they take refuge with Anu. Armed
with a mighty weapon whose assault nothing can withstand, Anu is
surrounded by a host of gods and powerful spirits who are ready to
follow his lead and to do his service.


Ramman.

With Ramman we reach a deity whose introduction into the Babylonian
pantheon and whose position therein appears to be entirely independent
of Marduk.

The reading of the name as Ramman (or Rammanu) is provisional. The
ideograph _Im_ with which the name is written designates the god as the
power presiding over storms; and while it is certain that, in Assyria at
least, the god was known as Ramman, which means 'the thunderer,' it is
possible that this was an epithet given to the god, and not his real or
his oldest name. It is significant that in the El-Amarna tablets (_c._
1500 B.C.), where the god _Im_ appears as an element in proper names,
the reading _Addu_ is vouched for, and this form has been justly brought
into connection with a very famous solar deity of Syria,--Hadad. The
worship of Hadad, we know, was widely spread in Palestine and Syria, and
there is conclusive evidence that Hadad (or Adad), as a name for the god
_Im_, was known in Babylonia. Professor Oppert is of the opinion that
Adad represents the oldest name of the god. Quite recently the
proposition has been made that the real name of the deity was
_Immeru_.[172] The ideograph in this case would arise through the
curtailment of the name (as is frequently the case in the cuneiform
syllabary), and the association of _Im_ with 'storm' and 'wind' would be
directly dependent upon the nature of the deity in question. The
material at hand is not sufficient for deciding the question. Besides
Immeru, Adad, and Ramman, the deity was also known as _Mer_--connected
apparently with Immeru.[173] So much is certain, that Ramman appears to
have been the name currently used in Assyria for this god. Adad may have
been employed occasionally in Babylonia, as was _Mer_ in proper names,
but that it was not the common designation is proved by a list of gods
(published by Bezold[174]) in which the _foreign_ equivalent for _Im_ is
set down as Adad. We may for the present, therefore, retain Ramman,
while bearing in mind that we have only proof of its being an epithet
applied to the god, not necessarily his real name and in all
probabilities not the oldest name.

We meet with the god for the first time in the hymn to which reference
has already been made,[175] and where the god is mentioned together with
Shamash. If the suggestion above thrown out is correct, that the hymn is
older than the days of Hammurabi, Ramman too would be older than his
first mention in historical texts. However, it is worthy of note that in
this hymn each of the other gods mentioned receives a line for himself,
and that Ramman is the only one who is tacked on to another deity. It is
not strange that in making copies of older texts, especially those of a
religious character, the scribes should have introduced certain
modifications. At all events, the god does not acquire any degree of
prominence until the days of Hammurabi; so that whatever his age and
origin, he belongs in a peculiar sense to the pantheon of Hammurabi
rather than to that of the old Babylonian period. The successor of
Hammurabi, Samsu-iluna, dedicates a fort, known as Dur-padda, to Ramman
whom he addresses as his 'helper', along with several other gods.
Despite this fact, his worship does not appear to have been very firmly
established in Babylonia, for Agumkakrimi, who follows upon Samsu-iluna,
does not make mention of Ramman. During the reign of the Cassite
dynasty, however, the worship of Ramman appears to have gained a
stronger foothold. Several kings of this dynasty have incorporated the
name of this deity into their own names, and in an inscription dealing
with events that transpired in the reign of one of these kings, Ramman
occupies a prominent place. Immediately after the great triad, Anu, Bel,
and Ea, there is enumerated a second, Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, and only
then there follows Marduk.[176] More than this, Ramman is introduced for
a second time in conjunction with Shamash, as in the hymn of Hammurabi.
The two are appealed to as 'the divine lords of justice.' The conqueror
of the Cassites, Nebuchadnezzar I., also holds Ramman in high esteem.
For him, Ramman is the god of battle who in companionship with Ishtar
abets the king in his great undertakings. He addresses Ramman as the
great lord of heaven, the lord of subterranean waters and of rain, whose
curse is invoked against the one who sets aside the decrees of
Nebuchadnezzar or who defaces the monument the king sets up. While
acknowledging the supremacy of Marduk, upon whose appeal he proceeds to
Babylonia to rid the country of its oppressors, Nebuchadnezzar
nevertheless shows remarkable partiality for Ramman, perhaps as a matter
of policy to offset the supposed preference shown by Ramman towards the
previous dynasty. Ramman with Nergal and Nanâ are also enumerated as the
special gods of Namar--a Babylonian district which caused the king
considerable annoyance, and which may have been one of the strongholds
whence the Cassitic kings continued their attacks upon Nebuchadnezzar.

In order to determine more precisely the nature of this deity, it is
necessary to turn to Assyria, where his worship dates from the very
earliest times, and where he appears consistently in a single
rôle,--that of the god of storms, more particularly of thunder and
lightning. The oldest Assyrian ruler known to us is Samsi-Ramman (_c._
1850 B.C.), whose name, containing the god as one of its elements,
points to the antiquity of the cult of Ramman in the north. Another king
who has frequently been mentioned, Ramman-nirari (_i.e._, Ramman is my
helper), bears evidence to the same effect, and Tiglathpileser I. speaks
of a temple to Ramman whose foundation carries us back several centuries
beyond the period of these two kings--almost to the days of Hammurabi.
The theory has accordingly been advanced that the worship of Ramman came
to Babylonia from the north, and since the cult of this same god is
found in Damascus and extended as far south as the plain of Jezreel, the
further conclusion has been drawn that the god is of Aramaic origin and
was brought to Assyria through Aramaic tribes who had settled in parts
of Assyria. The great antiquity of the Ramman cult in Assyria argues
against a foreign origin. It seems more plausible to regard the Ramman
cult as indigenous to Assyria; but reverting to a time when the
population of the north was still in the nomadic state of civilization,
the cult may have been carried to the west by some of the wandering
tribes who afterwards established themselves around Damascus. Up to a
late period Aramaic hordes appear from time to time in western Assyria;
and in a higher stage of culture, contact between Aramaeans and
Assyrians was maintained by commercial intercourse and by warfare. Since
the earliest mention of Ramman's cult is in the city of Ashur, it may be
that he was originally connected with that place. As already intimated,
he was essentially a storm-god, whose manifestation was seen in the
thunder and lightning, and the god was known not merely as 'the
thunderer,' but also as Barku, _i.e._, lightning. Perhaps it was because
of this that he was also brought into association with the great light
of heaven,--the sun-god. In many mythologies, the sun and lightning are
regarded as correlated forces. At all events, the frequent association
of Shamash and Ramman cannot have been accidental. This double nature of
Ramman--as a solar deity representing some particular phase of the sun
that escapes us and as a storm-god--still peers through the inscription
above noted from the Cassite period where Ramman is called 'the lord of
justice,'--an attribute peculiar to the sun-god; but in Assyria his rôle
as the thunder-and storm-god overshadows any other attributes that he
may have had.

There are two aspects to rainstorms in Babylonia. The flooding of the
fields while committing much havoc is essential to the fertility of the
soil. Ramman is therefore the carrier of blessings to the cities, the
one who supplies wells and fields with water; but the destructive
character of the rain and thunder and lightning are much more strongly
emphasized than their beneficent aspects. Even though the fields be
flooded, Ramman can cause thorns to grow instead of herbs. The same
ideograph _Im_ that signifies Ramman also means distress. When the
failure of the crops brings in its wake hunger and desolation, it is the
'god of the clouds,' the 'god of rain,' the 'god of the overflow,' whose
wrath has thus manifested itself. It is he who (as a hymn puts it) 'has
eaten the land.' No wonder that the 'roar' of the god is described as
'powerful,' and that he is asked to stand at the right side of the
petitioner and grant protection. When Ramman lets his voice resound,
misfortune is at hand. It was natural that he who thus presided over the
battle of the elements should come to be conceived essentially as a god
of war to a people whose chief occupation grew to be conquest. As such
he appears constantly in the inscriptions of Assyrian kings, and to such
a degree as to be a formidable rival, at times, to the head of the
Assyrian pantheon. The final victory of the Assyrian arms is generally
attributed to Ashur alone, but just before the battle and in the midst
of the fray, Ramman's presence is felt almost as forcibly as that of
Ashur. He shares with the latter the honor of invocations and sacrifices
at such critical moments. In this capacity Ramman is so essentially an
Assyrian god that it will be proper to dwell upon him again in the
following chapter, when the specially Assyrian phases of the religion we
are investigating will be taken up. The consort of Ramman also, the
goddess Shala, will best be treated of in connection with the Assyrian
phases of the Ramman cult.

Of the other gods whose names occur in the inscriptions of Hammurabi,
but little of a special character is to be noted. The attributes that he
gives them do not differ from those that we come across in the texts of
his predecessors. It is sufficient, therefore, to enumerate them. The
longest list is furnished by the hymn which has already been referred
to. The text is unfortunately fragmentary, and so we cannot be sure that
the names embrace the entire pantheon worshipped by him. The list opens
with Bel (who, as we have seen, is the old Bel of Nippur); then follow
Sin, Ninib, Ishtar, Shamash, Ramman. Here the break in the tablet begins
and, when the text again becomes intelligible, a deity is praised in
such extravagant terms that one is tempted to conclude that Hammurabi
has added to an old hymn a paean to his favorite Marduk[177]. To Bel is
given the honor of having granted royal dignity to the king. Sin has
given the king his princely glory; from Ninib, the king has received a
powerful weapon; Ishtar fixes the battle array, while Shamash and Ramman
hold themselves at the service of the king. With this list, however, we
are far from having exhausted the pantheon as it had developed in the
days of Hammurabi. From the inscriptions of his successors we are
permitted to add the following: Nin-khar-sag, Nergal, and Lugal-mit-tu,
furnished by Samsu-iluna; Shukamuna, by Agumkakrimi; and passing down to
the period of the Cassite dynasty, we have in addition Nin-dim-su,
Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli, Shumalia.[178]

During the Cassitic rule, Marduk does not play the prominent part that
he did under the native rulers, but he is restored to his position by
Nebuchadnezzar I., who, it will be recalled, succeeds in driving the
Cassites out of power. But besides Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar invokes a
large number of other deities. For purposes of comparison with the
pantheon of Hammurabi, and of his immediate successors, I give the
complete list and in the order mentioned by him in the only inscription
that we have of this king. They are Ninib, Gula, Ramman, Shumalia,
Nergal, Shir, Shubu, Sin, Belit of Akkad. Moreover, Anu is referred to
as the especial god of Der, and a goddess Eria[179] is worshipped in
Elam. Passing still further down, we obtain as additional names, Malik
and Bunene, from the inscription of Nabubaliddin (_c._ 883-852
B.C.).[180]

We may divide this long period from Hammurabi down to the time that the
governors of Babylonia became mere puppets of the Assyrian rulers into
three sections: (1) Hammurabi and his successors, (2) the Cassite
dynasty, (3) the restoration of native rulers to the throne. A
comparison of the names furnished by the inscriptions from these three
sections shows that the gods common to all are Marduk, Bel, Shamash,
Ramman. But, in addition, our investigations have shown that we are
justified in adding the following as forming part of the Babylonian
pantheon during this entire period: Sarpanitum, Belit, Tashmitum, Sin,
Ninib, Ishtar, Nergal, Nin-khar-sag, and the two other members of the
triad, Anu and Ea, with their consorts, Anatum and Damkina. All these
gods and goddesses are found in the texts from the first and third
section of the period, and the absence of some of them from texts of the
second section is simply due to the smaller amount of material that we
have for the history of the Cassite dynasty in Babylonia. Some of the
deities in this list, which is far from being exhaustive,[181] are
foreign, so _e.g._, Shukamuna and Shumalia, who belong to the Cassitic
pantheon; others are of purely local significance, as Shir and
Shubu.[182] As for Sin, Ninib, and Ishtar, the worship of none of these
deities assumes any great degree of prominence during this period. No
doubt the local cult was continued at the old centers much as before,
but except for an occasional invocation, especially in the closing
paragraphs of an inscription, where the writers were fond of grouping a
large array of deities so as to render more impressive the curses upon
enemies and vilifiers, with which the inscriptions usually terminated,
they do not figure in the official writings of the time. Of Sin, it is
of some importance to note that under the Cassite dynasty he stands
already at the head of a second class of triads which consists of Sin,
Shamash, and Ramman, or Ishtar (see note 3 on page 152), and that
through the inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I., we learn of an additional
district of Babylonia,--that of Bit-Khabban, where in association with
Belit of Akkad, the consort of the older Bel, he was worshipped as the
patron deity. Nebuchadnezzar himself does not enumerate Sin among the
chief gods. Ninib appears in the familiar rôle as a god of war. After
Hammurabi he is only mentioned once in inscriptions of the Cassitic
period and then again in the days of Nebuchadnezzar I., who assigns a
prominent place to him. It is Ninib who, with the title 'king of heaven
and earth,' leads off in the long list of gods whose curses are invoked
upon the king's opponents. Similarly, the belligerent character of
Ishtar is the only phase of the goddess dwelt upon during this period.
While for Agumkakrimi, she still occupies a comparatively inferior rank,
coming seventh in his list, Nebuchadnezzar places her immediately after
Anu and before Ramman and Marduk. This advance foreshadows the superior
rôle that she is destined to play in the pantheon during the period of
Assyrian supremacy. The cult of Nergal does not figure prominently
during this period. In fact, so far as the historical texts go, he
disappears from the scene till the time of Nebuchadnezzar I., when he is
incidentally invoked in a group with Ramman and Nanâ as the gods of a
district in Babylonia known as Namar. Exactly where Namar lay has not
yet been ascertained. Since Nergal, as was shown in the previous
chapter, was the local patron of Cuthah, it may be that the latter city
was included in the Namar district. At all events, we may conclude from
the silence of the texts as to Nergal, that Cuthah played no conspicuous
part in the empire formed of the Babylonian states, and that the cult of
Nergal, apart from the association of the deity in religious texts with
the lower world, did not during this entire period extend beyond local
proportions. Lastly, it is interesting to note that Samsu-iluna, the son
of Hammurabi, refers to Belit of Nippur as Nin-khar-sag, which we have
seen was one of her oldest titles.

FOOTNOTES:

[116] The name is also written Ma-ru-duk, which points to its having
been regarded (for which there is other evidence) as a compound of
_maru_, 'son,' and an element, _duk_(_u_), which in religious and other
texts designates the 'glorious chamber' in which the god determines the
fate of humanity. Such an 'etymology' is, however, merely a play upon
the name, similar to the plays upon proper names found in the Old
Testament. The real etymology is unknown. The form Marduk is Semitic,
and points to an underlying stem, _rdk_. Marduk appears under a variety
of names which will be taken up at their proper place. See Schrader's
_Assyrisch-Babyl. Keilschriften_, p. 129; and the same author's
_Cuneiform Inscrip. and the O. T._ (p. 422) for other etymologies.

[117] Hommel's view that Gish-galla, in Gudea's inscriptions, is Babylon
lacks convincing evidence, but the city may be as old as Gudea's days
for all that.

[118] Near Sippar.

[119] _Bêl matâti_.

[120] Sayce, _Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, pp. 98 _seq._;
Jensen, _Kosmologie der Babylonier_, p. 88.

[121] So Delitzsch, _Beiträge sur Assyriologie_, ii. 623. The first part
of the name is also used to designate the 'young bullock,' and it is
possible, therefore, that the god was pictured in this way, as both Anu
and Sin are occasionally called 'bulls.'

[122] Louvre Inscription II, col ii. ll. 12-17.

[123] There is also a goddess _Eria_ worshipped in Elam, who may be
identical with Erua. The scribes in the days of Nebuchadnezzar (_c._
1140 B.C.), at least, appear to have thought so, for they associate her
with Bel, just as Sarpanitum is associated with Del-Marduk. (See the
Inscription VR. 57, col. ii. ll. 11, 12.)

[124] Whether, however, this was the real meaning of the name is
doubtful, for the name of the goddess is also written Aru and Arua,
which points to a different verbal stem.

[125] See below under Tashmitum.

[126] There are indications also of an arrested amalgamation of
Erua-Sarpanitum with Tashmitum, the wife of Nabu. (See Sayce, _Hibbert
Lectures_, p. 112.)

[127] Rawlinson, ii. 60, 30.

[128] _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 117.

[129] See further on, _sub_ Ea.

[130] _Kosmologie_, p. 239.

[131] _Sub_ Nusku, chapter xiii.

[132] Tiele, _Geschichte d. Religion i. Alterthum_, i. 171 and 188, is
of the opinion that Nabu is a late deity whose worship dates from a
period considerably subsequent to Hammurabi. This conclusion from the
non-occurrence of the god in early inscriptions is not justified. There
is no reason why Nabu should have been added as a deity in later times,
and in general we must be on our guard against assuming new deities
subsequent to Hammurabi. It is much more plausible to assume the
restored popularity of very old ones.

[133] Bel being Marduk, the title was equivalent to that of 'governor of
Babylonia.'

[134] So, Tiele, _Geschichte d. Religion i. Alterthum_, i. 191.

[135] The Hebrew word for prophet, _nabi_, is of the same stem as the
Assyrian Nabu, and the popular tradition is placing the last scene in
the life of Moses on Mt. Nebo is apparently influenced by the fact that
Moses was a _nabi_.

[136] See above, p. 123.

[137] So in the cylinder of Shamash-shum-ukin (Lehmann's publication,
pls. viii. _seq._).

[138] _E.g._, in the so-called Grotefend Cylinder, col. ii. 34.

[139] _Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde d. Morgenlandes_, iv. 301-307.

[140] We only know the name through Eusebius' extract from Alexander
Polyhistor's digest of Berosus. The form, therefore, cannot be vouched
for. The various modern attempts to explain the name have failed (see
_e.g._, Lenormant's _Magic und Wahrsagekunst der Chaldaer_, 2d German
edition, pp. 376-379). There may be some ultimate connection between
Oannes and Jonah (see Trumbull in _Journal of Bibl. Liter._ xl. 58,
note).

[141] For fuller proof, see the chapter on "The Cosmology of the
Babylonians."

[142] This, it will be remembered (see above, p. 118), is one of the
titles of Marduk in one of Hammurabi's inscriptions,--an important point
for the date of the episode in its present form.

[143] Literally, 'Ea shall be his name, his as mine.'

[144] According to Syncellus. In cuneiform texts the old Bel is at times
invoked as the creator of mankind.

[145] _Kosmologie_, pp. 293, 294.

[146] _Aos_ and _Dauke_.

[147] Rawlinson, iv. 25.

[148] See p. 79.

[149] See Jensen, _Keils Bibl._. 3, 1, p. 108, note 5. Tiele, _Gesch._
p. 126, apparently identifies Innanna of Hallabi with Tashmit, but, so
far as I can see, without sufficient reason.

[150] Here written En-lil, as the Bel of Nippur.

[151] Attached to the name here (Rawlinson, i. 4, no. xv-9), which is
written ideographically En-Lil, is the designation _da-gan-ni_, which
has occasioned considerable discussion. See Jensen, _Kosmologie_, pp.
449-456. It seems to me that the addition which emphasizes this identity
of Bel with another god, Dagan, is to indicate that the Bel of the
triad, and not Bel-Marduk, is here meant. Somewhat in the same way
Tiglathpileser I. (Rawlinson, i. 14, vi. 87) distinguishes the older Bel
by calling him 'Bel latura,' _i.e._, 'Bel the older.'

[152] 'Governor of Bel' for governor of Babylonia, and 'subjects of Bel'
for subjects of Babylonia.

[153] See p. 89 and chapter vii.

[154] Occasionally a king (so _e.g._ Nabubaliddin, _c._ 883 B.C.)
associates Anu with Ea, and omits Bel (Rawlinson, v. 60, ii. 21), as
though with the intent of avoiding confusion.

[155] Rassam, Cylinder ix. 75.

[156] See chapter xii., "The Assyrian Pantheon," p. 208.

[157] Rassam, Cylinder viii. 98, 99. 'Belit of Babylonia, honored among
the great gods.'

[158] _Annals_, iii. 135.

[159] The name of the temple. See IIR. 66, ll. 1 and 10. The title
'belit matâti,' 'lady of the lands' is evidently introduced in imitation
of 'bel matâti,' 'lord of lands,' belonging to Bel and then to Marduk.

[160] Sayce's view (_Hibbert Lectures_, p. 186), according to which Anu
was originally the local god of Erech, is erroneous.

[161] VR. pl. 33.

[162] Delitzsch, _Die Kossaer_, pp. 25, 27.

[163] The omission of Ramman here, though invoked at the close of the
inscription, is noticeable. Ishtar takes the place that in the more
developed system belongs to the god of storms, who with the moon-god and
sun-god constitutes a second triad. See p. 163.

[164] Written with the sign _An_, and the feminine ending _tum_, but
probably pronounced Anatum. The form Anat (without the ending) is used
by many scholars, as Sarpanit and Tashmit are used instead of Sarpanitum
and Tashmitum. I prefer the fuller forms of these names. Anum similarly
is better than Anu, but the latter has become so common that it might as
well be retained.

[165] VR. 33, vii. 34-44.

[166] IR. pl. 15, col. vii. 71-pl. 16, col. viii. 88.

[167] No less than nine times.

[168] Tiglathpileser I.

[169] Ramman-nirari I.

[170] _Kosmologie_, p. 274.

[171] See the list IIIR. 68, 26 _seq._

[172] Thureau-Dangin, _Journal Asiatique_, 1895, pp. 385-393. The name
of this deity has been the subject of much discussion. For a full
discussion of the subject with an account of the recent literature, see
an article by the writer in _The American Journal of Semitic Languages
and Literatures_, xii. 159-162.

[173] Arising perhaps after _Im_ came into use as the ideographic form.

[174] _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, xi. 173-174 and pl. 1, col. i. 7.

[175] See p. 145 and also p. 161.

[176] Belser in Haupt and Delitzsch, _Beiträge sur Assyriologie_, ii.
187 _seq._, col. vi. i. 3 _seq._

[177] The character of this part of the hymn is quite different from
that which precedes.

[178] For further notices of these gods, see chapter x.

[179] See above, p. 122.

[180] One might include in the list also Nin-igi-nangar-bu,
Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, Nin-zadim (from Nabubaliddin's Inscription),
but these are only so many epithets of Ea or various _forms_ under which
the god came to be worshipped. See p. 177.

[181] We may now look forward to finding many more gods in the rich
material for this period unearthed by the University of Pennsylvania
Expedition to Niffer.

[182] See chapter x.




CHAPTER IX.

THE GODS IN THE TEMPLE LISTS AND IN THE LEGAL AND COMMERCIAL DOCUMENTS.


Besides the historical texts in the proper sense, there is another
source for the study of the Babylonian pantheon.

Both for the first and for the second periods we now have a large number
of lists of offerings made to the temples of Babylonia and of thousands
of miscellaneous legal documents. De Sarzec found a number of such
documents at Telloh some years ago, and quite recently some thirty
thousand tablets of the temple archives have come to light.[183] At
Tell-Sifr, Abu-Habba, and elsewhere, many thousands also have been
found, belonging chiefly to the second period. A feature of these
documents is the invocation of the gods, introduced for various
purposes, at times in connection with oaths, at times as a guarantee
against the renewal of claims. Again, certain gods are appealed to as
witnesses to an act, and in the lists of temple offerings, gods are
constantly introduced. Since many of the commercial transactions
recorded in these documents, moreover, concern the temples of Babylonia,
further occasions were found for the mention of a god or gods. The
proper names occurring in these documents, compounded as these names in
most cases are with some deity,[184] furnish some additions to the
pantheon of Babylonia. Naturally, a distinction is to be made between
deities introduced in temple lists and in the course of legal
proceedings, and such as are merely known through forming an element in
proper names. The former constitute a part of what might be called the
'active' pantheon of the time. Deities that are actually invoked by
contracting parties for whatever purpose are such as are endowed with
real significance; and if any of these are not mentioned in the
historical texts proper, the omission is due to the lack of material.
The testimony of the legal documents in this respect is fully as valid
as is that of the historical texts. In proper names the case is
different. Custom being a prominent, if not a controlling, factor in the
giving of names, it may happen that the deity appearing as an element in
a name is one who, for various reasons, is no longer worshipped, or
whose worship has diminished in significance at the time we meet with
the name. Again, deities of very restricted local fame, deities that
occupy the inferior rank of mere spirits or demons in the theological
system of the Babylonians, may still be incorporated in proper names.
Lastly, in view of the descriptive epithets by which some deities are
often known, as much as by their real names, it frequently happens in
the case of proper names that a deity otherwise known is designated by
one of his attributes. Thus we find in legal documents of the second
period a goddess, Da-mu-gal, who is none other than the well-known Gula,
the great healing deity; Ud-zal, who is identical with Ninib, and so
written as the god of 'the rising sun';[185] and Mar-tu (lit., 'the west
god'), which is a designation of Ramman.[186] Bearing in mind all these
considerations, we find in the tablets of the first period, so far as
published,[187] the same deities that are met with in the historical
inscriptions: En-lil, Bau, En-zu (or Sin), Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida,
Nin-mar, Nanâ, Ninâ, Shul-pa-uddu, and others. No doubt a complete
publication of the Telloh archives will furnish some--not many--new
deities not occurring in the historical texts of this period. A rather
curious feature, illustrated by these temple archives, and one upon
which we shall have occasion to dwell, is the divine honors that appear
to have been paid towards the end of the first period of Babylonian
history to some of the earlier rulers, notably Gudea and Dungi.[188]
Alongside of wine, oil, wheat, sheep, etc., offered to Bau,
Nin-gish-zida, and Shul-pa-uddu, the great kings and _patesis_ of the
past are honored. More than this, sanctuaries sacred to these rulers are
erected, and in other respects they are placed on a footing of equality
with the great gods of the period. Passing on to the lists and the legal
documents of the second period,[189] we may note that the gods in whose
name the oath is taken are chiefly Marduk, Shamash,[190] Â, Ramman, and
Sin. Generally two or three are mentioned, and often the name of the
reigning king is added to lend further solemnity to the oath. Other gods
directly introduced are Nanâ, Ishtar, Nebo, Tashmitum, and Sarpanitum,
after whom the years are at times designated, probably in consequence of
some special honors accorded to the gods. The standing phrase is 'the
year of the throne,' or simply 'the year' of such and such a deity.
Nin-mar appears in the days of Hammurabi as the daughter of Marduk.
Among gods appearing for the first time are Khusha[191], Nun-gal, and
Zamama. Mentioned in connection with the gates of the temple where the
judges held court, the association of Khusha with Marduk, Shamash, Sin,
and Nin-mar points to a considerable degree of prominence enjoyed by
this deity. Of his nature and origin, however, we know nothing. Nun-gal
signifies the 'great chief.' His temple stood in Sippar,[192] and from
this we may conclude that he was one of the minor gods of the place
whose original significance becomes obscured by the side of the
all-powerful patron of Sippar--the sun-god. A syllabary describes the
god as a 'raging' deity, a description that suggests solar functions.
Nun-gal appears, therefore, to be the ideograph proper to a deity that
symbolized, like Nergal, Ninib, and Â, some phase of the sun. The
disappearance of the god would thus be naturally accounted for, in view
of the tendency that we have found characteristic of the religion,
whereby powerful gods absorb the functions of weaker ones whose
attributes resemble their own. But while the god disappears, the name
survives. Nun-gal with the plural sign attached becomes a collective
designation for a group of powerful demons.[193] In this survival and
use of the name we have an interesting example of the manner in which,
by a species of differentiation, local gods, unable to maintain
themselves by the side of more powerful rivals, sink to the lower grade
of demons, either beneficent or noxious. In this grade, too,
distinctions are made, as will be pointed out at the proper place. There
is a 'pantheon' of demons as well as of gods in the Babylonian theology.
Nun-gal accordingly recovers some of his lost dignity by becoming an
exceptionally powerful demon--so powerful as to confer his name upon an
entire class. The god Zamama appears in connection with a date attached
to a legal document of the days of Hammurabi. The building of a
sanctuary in honor of this deity and his consort was of sufficient
importance to make the year known by this event. Zamama is occasionally
mentioned in the religious hymns. He belongs to the deities that form a
kind of court around Marduk. From syllabaries, we learn that he was a
form of the sun-god, worshipped in the city of Kish in northern
Babylonia, and it also appears that he was identified at one period with
Ninib. The temple to Zamama--perhaps only a shrine--stood in the city of
Kish, which was remodeled by Hammurabi. The shrine, or temple, bore the
significant name 'house of the warrior's glory.' The warrior is of
course the god, and the name accordingly shows clearly the character of
the god in whose honor the sanctuary was built. Elsewhere, he is
explicitly called a 'god of battle.' Associated with Zamama of Kish was
his consort, who, however, is merely termed again in a general way,
'Ninni,' _i.e._, 'the lady.' In the case of such a deity as Zamama, it
is evident that the absence of the name in historical texts is
accidental, and that we may expect to come across it with the increase
of historical material. In the proper names, all of the prominent
deities discussed in this and the previous chapters are found, though
with some notable exceptions. Anu, _e.g._, is not met with as an element
in proper names, but among those occurring may be mentioned Shamash, Â,
Ishtar, Ramman (also under the forms Im-me-ru and Mar-tu), Marduk,
sometimes called Sag-ila after his temple in Babylon, Nabu, Ishum,
Shala, Bau, Nin-ib, Nin-girsu, Sin, Bunene, Annuit, and Ea. Among gods
appearing for the first time in connection with the names, it is
sufficient to record a goddess Shubula, who from other sources[194] we
know was the local patron of the city Shumdula, a goddess Bashtum,[195]
a goddess Mamu (a form of Gula), Am-na-na, Lugal-ki-mu-na, E-la-li
(perhaps an epithet for the fire-god Gibil), Ul-mash-shi-tum, and a
serpent god Sir. Most of these may be safely put down as of purely local
origin and jurisdiction, and it is hardly likely that any of them embody
an idea not already covered by those which we have discussed. From the
lists of gods prepared by the Babylonian scholars, it is clear that the
number of local deities whose names at least survived to a late period
was exceedingly large, ranging in the thousands; and since, as seems
likely, these lists were prepared (as so much of the lexicographical
literature) on the basis of the temple lists and of the commercial and
legal documents, we may conclude that all, or at any rate most, of these
deities were in use as elements in proper names, without, however,
having much importance beyond this incorporation.

FOOTNOTES:

[183] The museums of Europe and America have secured a large proportion
of these through purchase.

[184] The longer names consist of three elements: subject,
verb, and object. The deity is generally the subject; _e.g._,
Sinacherib=Sin-akhe-irba, _i.e._, may the god Sin increase the brothers.
But there are many variations. So the imperative of the verb is often
used, and in that case, the deity is in the vocative case. Instead of
three elements, there are frequently only two, a deity and a participle
or an adjective; _e.g._, Sin-magir, _i.e._, Sin is favorable, or a
person is called 'the son' or 'the servant' of a god. The name of the
deity alone may also constitute a proper name; and many names of course
do not contain the mention of a deity at all, though such names are
often abbreviations from longer ones in which some god was introduced.

[185] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 458.

[186] Arnold, _Ancient Babylonian Temple Records_, p. 5, is of the
opinion that Id-nik-mar-tu is also a designation of Ramman. His view is
plausible, but it still remains to be proved.

[187] Scheil, "Le Culte de Gudea sous le II^e Dynastie d'Ur" (_Recueil
des Travaux, etc._ xviii. 64-74). W. R. Arnold, _Ancient Babylonian
Temple Records_ (New York, 1896). The Telloh tablets appear to be
largely lists of offerings made to the temples at Lagash, and temple
accounts. (See now Reisner, Tempelurkunden aus Telloh (Berlin, 1901).)

[188] See besides Scheil's article (above), Lehmann's note, _Zeits. für
Assyr._ x. 381.

[189] Our knowledge of the documents of this period is due chiefly to
Strassmaier and Meissner.

[190] At times under rather curious forms, _e.g._, Shush-sha;
Strassmaier, Warka, no. 30, l. 21. The form Sha-ash-sha also occurs in
nos. 43 and 105 (_cf._ Meissner's note, _Beiträge zum Altbabylonischen
Privatrecht_, p. 156).

[191] Meissner, no. 42. Also in a proper name, Khusha-ilu, _i.e._,
'Khusha is god.'

[192] Meissner, nos. 40 and 118.

[193] See chapter xi.

[194] IIR. 60, 18a. Pinches (_Journal Victoria Institute_, xxviii. 36
reads Shu-gid-la; Hommel, _ib._ 36, Shu-sil-la).

[195] For this deity, see a paper by the writer, "The Element _Bosheth_
in Hebrew Proper Names," in the _Journal of Bibl. Liter._ xiii. 20-30.




CHAPTER X.

THE MINOR GODS IN THE PERIOD OF HAMMURABI.


Coming back now to the historical texts and placing the minor deities
together that occur in the inscriptions of Hammurabi and his successors
down through the restoration of native rulers on the throne of
Babylonia, we obtain the following list: Zakar, Lugal-mit-tu (?),
Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli, Shumalia, Shukamuna, Gula,
Shir, Shubu, Belit of Akkad, Malik, Bunene, Nin-igi-nangar-bu,
Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, Nin-zadim. In view of the limited amount of
historical material at our disposal for the second period of Babylonian
history, the list of course does not permit us to form a definite notion
of the total number of minor gods that were still occasionally invoked
by the side of the great gods. By comparison, however, with the pantheon
so far as ascertained of the first period, the conclusion is justified
that with the systematization of cults and beliefs characteristic of the
Hammurabi, a marked tendency appears towards a reduction of the
pantheon, a weeding out of the numerous local cults, their absorption by
the larger ones, and the relegation of the minor gods of only local
significance to a place among the spirits and demons of the Babylonian
religion. Brief statements of these minor gods will suffice to indicate
their general character. Of most of the gods in this list there is but
little we know as yet beyond the name. Some of them will occur again in
the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian historical texts, others in the hymns
and incantations; some are only found in the period we are considering,
though with the material constantly increasing we must beware of drawing
any conclusions from the fact of a single mention. 'Zakar,' signifying,
probably, 'heroic,' appears to have been worshipped in Nippur, where a
wall known as the 'wall of Zakar' was built by Samsu-iluna. From the
fact that this wall was sacred to Nin-khar-sag or Belit, we may,
perhaps, be permitted to conclude that 'Zakar' stood in close
relationship to Bel and Belit of Nippur,--possibly a son,--or, at all
events, belonged to the inner circle of deities worshipped in the old
city sacred to the great Bel.

Another wall in Nippur was dedicated by this Samsu-iluna to a god whose
name is provisionally read by Winckler, Lugal-mit-tu.[196] Lugal,
signifying 'king,' is an element that enters as an ideograph in the
composition of the names of several deities. Thus we have Lugal-edinna,
'king of the field,' which is the equivalent of Nergal, and again for
the same god, the combination Lugal-gira, which is, as Jensen[197] has
shown, 'raging king,' and a title of Nergal in his character as the god
of pestilence and war. Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli,
Shumalia, and Shukamuna occur at the close of the inscription of
Melishikhu, among the gods asked to curse the transgressors of the royal
decree.[198] That some of these are Cassite deities imported into
Babylonia, and whose position in the pantheon was therefore of a
temporary character, there seems little reason to question. Ba-kad may,
and Shumalia quite certainly does, belong to this class. As for
Shukamuna, the fact that Agumkakrimi, who places his title, 'king of
Cassite land,' before that of Akkad and Babylon, opens his inscription
with the declaration that he is the glorious offspring of Shukamuna,
fixes the character of this god beyond all doubt; and Delitzsch has
shown[199] that this god was regarded by the Babylonian schoolmen as the
equivalent of their own Nergal. Shukamuna, accordingly, was the Cassite
god of war, who, like Nergal, symbolized the mid-day sun,--that is, the
raging and destructive power. Shumalia is the consort of Shukamuna[200],
and is invoked as the 'lady of the shining mountains.' Nin-dim-su is a
title of Ea, as the patron of arts. Belit-ekalli--_i.e._, Belit of the
palace--appears as the consort of Ninib, the epithet 'ekalli' being
added to specify what Belit is meant, and to avoid confusion with the
consort of Bel. At the same time it must be confessed that the precise
force of the qualification of 'Belit of the palace' (or temple) escapes
us. Ninib's consort, as we know from other sources, was Gula.[201] This
name is in some way connected with an Assyrian stem signifying 'great,'
and it is at least worthy of note that the word for palace is written by
a species of punning etymology with two signs, e=house and gallu=large.
The question suggests itself whether the title 'Belit-ekalli' may not
have its rise in a further desire to play upon the goddess's name, just
as her title Kallat-Eshara (bride of Eshara, or earth) rests upon such a
play. Such plays on names are characteristic of the Semites, and indeed
in a measure are common to all ancient nations, to whom the name always
meant much more than to us. Every _nomen_, as constituting the essence
of an object, was always and above all an _omen_. It is, therefore,
plausible to suppose that titles of the gods should have been chosen in
part under the influence of this idea.[202] A further suggestion that I
would like to offer is that 'ekallu,' as temple or palace (lit., large
house), may be one of the numerous names of the nether world. A parallel
would be furnished by Ekur, which signifies both 'temple' and
'earth,'[203] and is also one of the names of the gathering-place of the
dead. Gula, being the goddess of the nether world who restores the dead
to life, would be appropriately called 'the lady of the nether world.'
One should like to know more of Pap-u (the phonetic reading unknown),
who is called the offspring of Eshara, and 'the lord of the boundary.'
Eshara, as Jensen has shown,[204] is a poetical name for earth. The god
Ninib, in his capacity as a god of agriculture, is called the 'product
of Eshara.'[205] Pap-u, therefore, must be a god somewhat of the same
character--a conclusion which is borne out by the description given of
him as the protector of the boundary. He is probably one of the numerous
forms of boundary gods that are met with among all nations. That we do
not encounter more in Babylonia is due to the decided tendency that has
been noted towards a centralization of power in a limited number of
deities. Instead of gods of boundaries, we have numerous demons and
spirits in the case of the developed Babylonian religion, into whose
hands the care of preserving the rights of owners to their lands is
entrusted. Symbols of these spirits--serpents, unicorns, scorpions, and
the like--are added on the monuments which were placed at the
boundaries, and on which the terms were specified that justified the
land tenure. To this class of monuments the name of 'Kudurru,' or
'boundary' stones, was given by the Babylonians themselves. The
inscription on which the name of Pap-u occurs belongs to this class; and
he is invoked, as already said, along with many other gods--in fact,
with the whole or a goodly portion of the pantheon. It would seem,
therefore, that we have in Pap-u a special boundary god who has survived
in that rôle from a more primitive period of Babylonian culture. He
occupies a place usually assigned to the powerful demons who are
regarded as the real owners of the soil.[206]

Perhaps the most interesting of the minor deities during this second
period is


Gula.

As has just been stated, she is the consort of Ninib. She is not
mentioned in any of the inscriptions of this period till we come to the
days of Nebuchadnezzar I., who invokes her as the bride of
Eshara,--_i.e._, of the earth.[207] We also meet with her name in that
of several individuals, Balatsu-Gula[208] and Arad-Gula,[209] and we
have seen that she is also known as _Damu_ and _Mamu_, or _Meme_. We
have a proof, therefore, of her cult being firmly established at an
early period of Babylonian history. Her rôle is that of a 'life-giver,'
in the widest sense of the word. She is called the 'great physician,'
who both preserves the body in health and who removes sickness and
disease by the 'touch of her hand.' Gula is the one who leads the dead
to a new life. She shares this power, however, with her husband Ninib.
Her power can be exerted for evil as well as for good. She is appealed
to, to strike the enemy with blindness; she can bring on the very
diseases that she is able to heal, and such is the stress laid upon
these qualities that she is even addressed as the 'creator of mankind.'
But although it is the 'second' birth of mankind over which she
presides, she does not belong to the class of deities whose concern is
with the dead rather than the living. The Babylonians, as we shall have
occasion to point out, early engaged in speculations regarding the life
after death, and, as a result, there was developed a special pantheon
for the nether world. Gula occupies a rather unique place intermediate,
as it were, between the gods of the living and the gods of the dead.

Of the other deities occurring in the inscription of this same
Nebuchadnezzar I. it is sufficient to note that two, Shir and Shubu, are
enumerated among the gods of Bit-Khabban. They were, therefore, local
deities of some towns that never rose to sufficient importance to insure
their patrons a permanent place in the Babylonian pantheon. 'Belit of
Akkad,' whom Nebuchadnezzar invokes, is none other than the great Belit,
the consort of Bel. 'Akkad' is here used for Babylonia, and the
qualification is added to distinguish her from other 'ladies,' as,
_e.g._, 'Belit-ekalli,' who, we have seen, was Gula.


Malik and Bunene.

Upon reaching so late a period as the days of Nabubaliddin (_c._ 850
B.C.), it becomes doubtful whether we are justified in including the
additional deities occurring in his inscription among the Babylonian
pantheon of the second period. The occurrence of some of these gods in
the religious literature is a presumption in favor of regarding them as
ancient creations, rather than due to later influences. Certainly this
appears to be the case with Malik and Bunene, who, with Shamash, form a
triad that constitutes the chief object of worship in the great temple
E-babbara at Sippar, to whose restored cult Nabubaliddin devotes
himself. Both names, moreover, occur as parts of proper names in the age
of Hammurabi. Malik--_i.e._, ruler--is one of the names frequently
assigned to Shamash, just as the god's consort was known as Malkatu, but
for all that Malik is not the same as Shamash. Accompanying the
inscription of Nabubaliddin is a design[210] representing the sun-god
seated in his shrine. Before him on a table rests a wheel, and attached
to the wheel are cords held by two figures, who are evidently directing
the course of the wheel. These two figures are Malik and Bunene, a
species of attendants, therefore, on the sun-god, who drive the fiery
chariot that symbolized the great orb. Bunene, through association with
Malik, becomes the latter's consort, and it is interesting to observe
the extent to which the tendency of the Babylonian religion to conceive
the gods in pairs goes. Bunene is not the only instance of an originally
male deity becoming through various circumstances the female consort to
another. Originally, Malik may have been a name under which the sun-god
was worshipped at some place, for the conception that makes him the
chariot-driver to Shamash appears to be late. The absorption by the
greater sun-cults (at Sippar and Larsa more particularly) of the lesser
ones leads to the complete transfer of the names of minor sun-deities to
the great Shamash, but in some instances the minor deities continue to
lead a shadowy existence in some rôle of service to the greater ones.


Nin-igi-nangar-bu, Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, and Nin-zadim.

We have seen that Ea, among other powers assigned to him, was regarded
as the god of fine arts,--in the first instance as the god of the
smithy, because of the antiquity and importance of the smith's art, and
then of art in general, including especially the production of great
statues. In accordance with this conception, Nabubaliddin declares that
it was through the wisdom of Ea that he succeeded in manufacturing the
great image of Shamash that was set up by him in the temple at Sippar.
But in the days of Nabubaliddin the arts had been differentiated into
various branches, and this differentiation was expressed by assigning to
each branch some patron god who presided over that section. In this way,
the old belief that art comes to men from the gods survived, while at
the same time it entered upon new phases.[211] Accordingly, Nabubaliddin
assigns several deities who act the part of assistants to Ea. The names
of these deities point to their functions. Nin-igi-nangar-bu is the
'lord who presides over metal-workers'; Gushgin-banda, 'brilliant
chief,' is evidently the patron of those skilled in the working of the
bright metals; Nin-kurra, 'lord of mountain,' the patron of those that
quarried the stones; while Nin-zadim is the patron of sculpture. Ea
stands above these as a general overseer, but the four classes of
laborers symbolized by gods indicate the manner of artistic construction
in the advanced state of Babylonian art, and of the various distinct
professions to which this art gave birth. In a certain sense, of course,
these four gods associated with Ea belong to the Babylonian pantheon,
but not in the same sense in which Ea, for example, or the other gods
discussed in this chapter, belong to it. They cannot even be said to be
gods of a minor order--they are hardly anything more than
personifications of certain phenomena that have their source in the
human intellect. In giving to these personified powers the determinative
indicative of deity, the Babylonian schoolmen were not conscious of
expressing anything more than their belief in the divine origin of the
power and skill exercised by man. To represent such power as a god was
the only way in which the personification could at all be effected under
the conditions presented by Babylonian beliefs. When, therefore, we meet
with such gods as Nin-zadim, 'lord of sculpture,' it is much the same as
when in the Old Testament we are told that Tubal-cain was the 'father'
of those that work in metals, and where similarly other arts are traced
back to a single source. 'Father' in Oriental hyperbole signifies
'source, originator, possessor, or patron,' and, indeed, includes all
these ideas. The Hebrew writer, rising to a higher level of belief,
conceives the arts to have originated through some single personage
endowed with divine powers;[212] the Babylonian, incapable as yet of
making this distinction, ascribes both the origin and execution of the
art directly to a god. In this way, new deities were apparently created
even at an advanced stage of the Babylonian religion, but deities that
differed totally from those that are characteristic of the earlier
periods. The differentiation of the arts, and the assignment of a patron
to each branch, reflect the thoughts and the aspirations of a later age.
These views must have arisen under an impulse to artistic creation that
was called forth by unusual circumstances, and I venture to think that
this impulse is to be traced to the influence of the Assyrian rulers,
whose greatest ambition, next to military glory, was to leave behind
them artistic monuments of themselves that might unfold to later ages a
tale of greatness and of power. Sculpture and works in metal were two
arts that flourished in a special degree in the days when Assyria was
approaching the zenith of her glory. Nabubaliddin's reign falls within
this period; and we must, therefore, look from this time on for traces
of Assyrian influence in the culture, the art, and also to some extent
in the religious beliefs of the southern district of Mesopotamia.

FOOTNOTES:

[196] The text is defective at the point where the god's name
is mentioned. See _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, p. 133. King reads,
Lugal-diri-tu-gab.

[197] _Kosmologie_, pp. 481 _seq._

[198] Belser, _Beiträge zur Assyr._ ii. 203, col. vi.

[199] _Kossaer_, pp. 25-27.

[200] Delitzsch, _Kossaer_, p. 33.

[201] See above, p. 105.

[202] Examples of punning etymologies on names of gods are frequent. See
Jensen's discussion of Nergal for examples of various plays upon the
name of the god. _Kosmologie_, pp. 185 _seq._

[203] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, pp. 185 _seq._ and p. 218.

[204] _Kosmologie_, p. 195.

[205] Rawlinson, i. 29, 16.

[206] This notion that the ground belongs to the gods, and that man is
only a tenant, survives to a late period in Semitic religions. The
belief underlies the Pentateuchal enactments regarding the holding of
the soil, which is only to be temporary. See W. R. Smith, _Religion of
the Semites_, pp. 91 _seq._

[207] In Babylonian, _Kallat Eshara_, with another play upon her name.
See above, p. 173.

[208] _I.e._, (Protect) his life, O Gula.

[209] Servant of Gula.

[210] See V.R. pl. 60.

[211] To this day in the Orient, fine productions of man's skill are
attributed to the influence of hidden spirits, good or bad, as the case
may be.

[212] This position does not, of course, exclude the fact that in the
original form of the tradition, Tubal-cain, Naamah, and other personages
in the fourth chapter of Genesis were deities.




CHAPTER XI.

SURVIVALS OF ANIMISM IN THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.


The Assyrian influence however was only one factor, and a minor factor
at that, in maintaining the belief in countless spirits that occupied a
place of more or less importance by the side of the great and lesser
gods. That conservatism which is a distinguishing trait of the popular
forms of religion everywhere, served to keep alive the view that all the
acts of man, his moods, the accidents that befell him, were under the
control of visible or invisible powers. The development of a pantheon,
graded and more or less regulated under the guidance of the Babylonian
schoolmen, did not drive the old animistic views out of existence. In
the religious literature, and more especially in those parts of it which
reflect the popular forms of thought, the unorganized mass of spirits
maintain an undisputed sway. In the incantation texts, which will be
discussed at length in a subsequent chapter, as well as in other
sections of Babylonian literature embodying both the primitive and the
advanced views of the Babylonians regarding the origin of the universe,
its subdivisions, and its order of development, and, thirdly, in the
legends and epics, hundreds of spirits are introduced, to which some
definite function or functions were assigned. In many, indeed in the
majority of cases, the precise character of these functions still
escapes us. The material at our disposal is as yet inadequate for any
satisfactory treatment of this phase of Babylonian belief, and we must
content ourselves for the present with some generalizations, or at the
most with some broad classifications. Besides the texts themselves, we
have proper names containing a spirit as an element, and also lists of
those spirits prepared by the schoolmen on the basis of the texts. When,
as sometimes happens, these lists contain explanatory comments on the
spirits enumerated, we are able to take some steps forward in our
knowledge of the subject.

In the first place, then, it is important to bear in mind that the
numerous spirits, when introduced into the religious and other texts,
are almost invariably preceded by a sign--technically known as a
determinative--which stamps them as divine. This sign being the same as
the one placed before the names of the gods, it is not always possible
to distinguish between deities and spirits. The use of a common sign is
significant as pointing to the common origin of the two classes of
superior powers that thus continue to exist side by side. A god is
naught but a spirit writ large. As already intimated in a previous
chapter, a large part of the development of the Babylonian religion
consists in the differentiation between the gods and the spirits,--a
process that, beginning before the period of written records, steadily
went on, and in a certain sense was never completed. In the historical
texts, the gods alone, with certain exceptions, find official
recognition, and it is largely through these texts that we are enabled
to distinguish between the two classes of powers, the gods and the
spirits; but as a survival of a primitive animism, the demons, good,
bad, and indifferent, retain their place in the popular forms of
religion. Several hundred spirits occur in the incantation texts, and
almost as many more in other religious texts. We may distinguish several
classes. In the first place, there are the demons that cause disease and
all manner of physical annoyances. The chief of these will be considered
when we come to the analysis of the incantation texts. Against these
demons the sufferer seeks protection by means of formulas, the utterance
of which is invested with peculiar power, and again by means of certain
rites of an expiatory or purificatory character. Next, we have the
demons supposed to inhabit the fields, and to whom the ground is
supposed to belong. These were imaged under various animal forms,
serpents and scorpions being the favorite ones. When possession was
taken of the field, the spirits inhabiting it had to be propitiated. The
owner placed himself under their protection, and endeavored to insure
his rights against wrongful encroachment by calling upon the demons to
range themselves on his side. It was customary, especially in the case
of territory acquired by special grant of the monarch, or under
extraordinary circumstances, to set up a so-called boundary stone,[213]
on which the owner of the field detailed his right to possession,
through purchase or gift, as the case may be. This inscription closed
with an appeal to various gods to strike with their curses any intruder
upon the owner's rights. In addition to this, the stones are embellished
with serpents, scorpions, unicorns, and various realistic or fantastic
representations of animal forms. These, it would seem, symbolize the
spirits, the sight of which, it was hoped, might act as a further and
effectual warning against interference with the owner's rights.[214]

A special class of demons is formed by those which were supposed to
infest the resting-places of the dead, though they stand in a certain
relationship to the demons that plague the living. A remarkable monument
found a number of years ago, and which will be fully described in a
subsequent chapter, affords us a picture of some of these demons whose
sphere of action is more particularly in the subterranean cave that
forms the gathering-place of the dead. They are represented as half
human, half animal, with large grotesque and terror-inspiring
features.[215] Their power, however, is limited. They are subject to the
orders of the gods whose dominion is the lower world, more particularly
to Nergal and his consort Allatu. In the advanced eschatology of the
Babylonians the demons play a minor part. It is with the gods that the
dead man must make his peace. Their protection assured, he has little to
fear; but the demons of the lower world frequently ascend to the upper
regions to afflict the living. Against them precautions must be taken
similar to the means employed for ridding one's self of the baneful
influence of the disease-and pain-bringing spirits. Reference has
already been made to the spirits that belong to the higher phases of
Mesopotamian culture,--those that have a share in the production of
works of skill and art. We have seen that in accounting for these we are
justified in assuming a higher phase of religious belief. The dividing
line between god and spirit becomes faint, and the numerous protecting
patrons of the handicrafts that flourished in Babylonia and Assyria can
hardly be placed in the same category with those we have so far been
considering. Still, to the popular mind the achievements of the human
mind were regarded as due to the workings of hidden forces. Strange as
it may seem, there was an indisposition to ascribe everything to the
power of the gods. Ea and Nabu, although the general gods of wisdom, did
not concern themselves with details. These were left to the secondary
powers,--the spirits. Hence it happens that by the side of the great
gods, we have a large number of minor powers who preside over the
various branches of human handiwork and control the products of the
human mind.

Reserving further details regarding the several classes of demons and
spirits enumerated, it will suffice to say a few words about one
particular group of spirits whose rôle was peculiarly prominent in both
historical, liturgical, and general religious texts. The tendency to
systematize the beliefs in spirits manifests itself in Babylonia,
equally with the grouping of the gods into certain classes. In
consequence of this general tendency, the conception arose of a group of
spirits that comprised the associated secondary powers of earth and
heaven, somewhat as Anu, Bel, and Ea summed up the quintessence of the
higher powers or gods. This group was known as the


Anunnaki and Igigi.

Regarding these names it may be said that the former has not yet been
satisfactorily interpreted. On the assumption that the union of the
syllables A-nun-na-ki[216] represents a compound ideograph, the middle
syllable _nun_ signifies 'strength,' whereas the first is the ordinary
ideograph for 'water.' Hommel[217] proposed to interpret the name
therefore as 'gods of the watery habitation.' The artificiality of this
manner of writing points, as in several instances noted, to a mere
'play' upon the real name. _Anunna_ reminds one forcibly of the god
_Anu_ and of the goddess _Anunit_, and the element _ak_ is quite a
common afformative in Babylonian substantives, conveying a certain
emphatic meaning to the word. If therefore we may compare Anun with the
name of the god of heaven, the name _Anunnak_ embodying, as it does in
this case, the idea of power, would be an appropriate designation for
the spirits, or a group of spirits collectively. Be it understood that
this explanation is offered merely as a conjecture, which, however,
finds support in the meaning attached to the term 'Igigi.' This, as
Halévy and Guyard have recognized, is a formation of a well-known stem
occurring in Babylonian, as well as in other Semitic languages, that has
the meaning 'strong.' The ideographic form of writing the name likewise
designates the spirits as 'the great chiefs.' The 'Igigi,' therefore,
are 'the strong ones,' and strength being the attribute most commonly
assigned to the Semitic deities,[218] there is a presumption, at least,
in favor of interpreting Anunnak, or Anunnaki,[219] in the same way. The
'Igigi' are at times designated as the seven gods, but this number is
simply an indication of their constituting a large group. Seven is a
round number which marked a large quantity. At an earlier period five
represented a numerical magnitude, and hence the Anunnaki are at times
regarded as a group of five.[220] The Anunnaki and Igigi appear for the
first time in an historical text in the inscription of the Assyrian king
Ramman-nirari I., who includes them in his appeal to the great gods. He
designates the Igigi as belonging to heaven, the Anunnaki as belonging
to the earth. The manner in which he uses the names shows conclusively
that, at this early period, the two groups comprehended the entire
domain over which spirits, and for that matter also the gods, exercised
their power. Indeed, it would appear that at one time the two names were
used to include the gods as well as the spirits. At least this appears
to be the case in Assyria, and the conclusion may be drawn, from the
somewhat vague use of the terms, that the names belong to a very early
period of the religion, when the distinction between gods and spirits
was not yet clearly marked. However that may be, in Babylonian hymns and
incantations the Igigi and Anunnaki play a very prominent part. Anu is
represented as the father of both groups. But they are also at the
service of other gods, notably of Bel, who is spoken of as their 'lord,'
of Ninib, of Marduk, of Ishtar, and of Nergal. They prostrate themselves
before these superior masters, and the latter at times manifest their
anger against the Igigi. They are sent out by the gods to do service.
Their character is, on the whole, severe and cruel. They are not
favorable to man, but rather hostile to him. Their brilliancy consumes
the land. Their power is feared, and Assyrian kings more particularly
are fond of adding the Igigi and Anunnaki to the higher powers--the gods
proper--when they wish to inspire a fear of their own majesty. At times
the Igigi alone are mentioned, but generally the Igigi and Anunnaki
appear in combination. To the latest period of Babylonian history these
two groups continue to receive official recognition. Nebuchadnezzar
II.[221] dedicates an altar, which he erects at the wall of the city of
Babylon, to the Igigi and Anunnaki. The altar is called a structure of
'joy and rejoicing,' and on the festival of Marduk, who is the 'lord of
the Anunnaki and Igigi,' sacrifices were offered at this altar. In the
great temple of Marduk there was a fountain in which the gods and the
Anunnaki, according to a Babylonian hymn, 'bathe their countenance'; and
when to this notice it be added that another hymn praises them as the
'shining chiefs' of the ancient city of Eridu, it will be apparent that
the conceptions attached to this group span the entire period of
Babylonian-Assyrian history.

Besides the Igigi and Anunnaki there is still a third group of seven
spirits, generally designated as the 'evil demons,' who represent the
embodiment of all physical suffering to which man is subject. They
appear, however, only in the incantation texts, and we may, therefore,
postpone their consideration until that subject is reached. The point to
be borne in mind, and which I have attempted to emphasize in this place,
is the close relationship existing in the _popular_ forms of the
Babylonian religion between the gods and the spirits. The latter belong
to the pantheon as much as the former. Primitive animism continues to
enchain the minds of the people, despite the differentiation established
between the higher and the secondary powers, and despite the high point
of development reached by the schoolmen in their attempts to systematize
and, in a measure, to purify the ancient beliefs.

FOOTNOTES:

[213] The technical name for this class of monuments was _Kudurru_,
_i.e._, mark, and then used like the German word _Mark_ both for
boundary and for the territory included within the bounds. A notable
contribution to the interpretation of the Kudurru monuments was made by
Belser, in the _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, ii. 111-203.

[214] The question has been raised (see Belser, _ib._ p. 111) by Pinches
whether these representations are not the symbols of the zodiac, but, as
Belser justly remarks, the attempt to interpret the pictures in this way
has not been successful. It still seems most plausible to regard the
pictures as symbols of spirits or demons. Such an interpretation is in
accord with the Babylonian and general Semitic view of land ownership.
At the same time it must be confessed that we are still in the dark as
to the motives underlying the choice of the animals portrayed. There may
be some ultimate connection with _some_ of the signs of the zodiac,--so
Hommel believes,--but such connection would have to be judged from the
earlier forms that animism takes on, and not in the light of an advanced
theology such as appears in the zodiacal system of the Babylonians.

[215] See Perrot and Chiplez, _History of Art in Chaldaea and Assyria_,
I. 351.

[216] The element _ki_ is sometimes omitted. The force of _na_ is not
clear, unless it be a phonetic complement merely.

[217] _Semitische Völker_, p. 369.

[218] Very many of the names of the Semitic gods and heroes signify
strong, _e.g._, _El_, _Adon_, _Baal_, _Etana_, _Kemosh_, etc.

[219] The final vowel _i_ would, on the basis of the explanation
offered, be paralleled by the _i_ of Igigi--an indication of the plural.
See Delitzsch, _Assyr. Gram._ § 67, 1.

[220] The Igigi are designated ideographically as v plus ii, and Hommel
(_Semitische Völker_, p. 491) properly suggests that this peculiar
writing points to an earlier use of five as constituting the group.
Hommel, however, does not see that neither five nor seven are to be
interpreted literally, but that both represent a large round number,
and, therefore, also a holy one.

[221] IR. 55, col. iv. ll. 7-13.




CHAPTER XII.

THE ASSYRIAN PANTHEON.


We have now reached a point where it will be proper to set forth the
phases that the Babylonian religion assumed during the days of Assyrian
supremacy.

An enumeration of the gods occurring in the inscriptions of the rulers
of Assyria from the earliest days to the close of the empire, so far as
published, will show better than any argument the points of similarity
between the Babylonian and the Assyrian pantheon. These gods are in
alphabetical order:[222] Anu, Ashur, Bel, Belit, Gaga, Gibil, Gamlat,
Gula, Dibbarra, Dagan, Damkina, Ea, Ishtar, Kadi, Khani, Marduk, Nabu,
Nanâ, Nin-gal, Nergal, Ninib, Nusku, Ramman, Sin, Shala, Shalman,
Shamash, Shanitka(?), Tashmitum. Of these quite a number are only
mentioned incidentally, and in a manner that indicates that they do not
belong to the pantheon in the strict sense. Others, like Khani[223] and
Gamlat,--_i.e._, 'the merciful one,'[224]--may turn out to be mere
epithets of deities otherwise known; and it would hardly be legitimate
to extend the list by including deities that have not yet been
identified,[225] and which may similarly be only variant forms,
descriptive of such as are already included. But however much this list
may be extended and modified by further publications and researches, the
historical material at hand for the Assyrian period of the religion is
sufficient to warrant us in setting up two classes of the pantheon,--one
class constituting the active pantheon, the other, deities introduced by
the kings merely for purposes of self-glorification, or to give greater
solemnity to the invocations and warnings that formed a feature of all
commemorative and dedicatory inscriptions, as well as of the annals
proper. The future additions to the list, it is safe to assert, will
increase the second class and only slightly modify, if at all, the first
class. Bearing in mind this distinction we may put down as active forces
in Assyria the following: Anu, Ashur, Bel, Belit, Gula, Dagan, Ea,
Khani, Ishtar, Marduk, Nabu, Nergal, Ninib, Nusku, Ramman, Sin, Shala,
Shamash, Tashmitum.

Comparing both the fuller and the restricted list with the Babylonian
pantheon during the two periods treated of in the preceding chapters, we
are struck by three facts: (1) the smaller compass of the Assyrian
pantheon; (2) the more restricted introduction of what, for want of a
better term, we may call minor deities; and (3) the small number of new
deities met with. To take up the latter point, the only gods in the
above list that are not found in Babylonian inscriptions are Ashur,
Gibil, Gamlat, Dibbarra, Kadi, Nusku, Shala, Shanitka. Of these it is
purely accidental that Gibil, Dibbarra, Nusku, and Shala are not
mentioned, for, except those that are foreign importations, they belong
to Babylonia as much as to Assyria and fall within the periods of the
Babylonian religion that have been treated of. Kadi is a foreign
deity.[226] Shanitka(?) may only be a title of some goddess, and Shalman
(or Shalmannu) occurs only in proper names, and may likewise be only a
title of some god.[227] There remains, as the only god peculiar to
Assyria, the god Ashur. But for this god, the Babylonian and the
Assyrian pantheon are identical. When we come, however, to the position
held by the gods in the pantheon, their relationship to one another, and
the traits which secured for them popular and royal favor, the
differences between the Babylonian and the Assyrian phases of the
religion will be found to be more accentuated.

As for the smaller compass of the Assyrian pantheon, we may recognize in
this a further advance of the tendency already noted in the second
period of the Babylonian religion. There, too, we found the minor local
cults yielding to the growing influence and favor of certain gods
associated with the great centers of Babylonian life, or possessing
attributes that accorded more with the new political order and the
general advance of culture. One of the chief factors in this tendency
towards centralization was, as we saw, the supremacy accorded to Marduk
in the new empire as the patron god of the capital, and that not only
led to his absorbing the rôle of other deities,[228] but resulted also
in strengthening the belief that there were only a limited number of
deities upon whose power and willingness to aid dependence could be
placed. This tendency was in a measure offset by the pride that the
rulers of the second Babylonian period still took in parading at times,
as large a number as possible of deities under whose protection they
claimed to stand. As we pass from one age to the other, the number of
minor deities thus invoked also tends to diminish, and the occasions
likewise when they are invoked become limited to the more solemn
invocations at the beginning and the close of inscriptions. Now, in
Assyria we have much the same political conditions as in Babylonia, only
intensified. Here, too, we have one god towering above the others, only
to a still greater degree even than Marduk in Babylonia. Marduk, while
absorbing the rôle of the old Bel, is still bound to acknowledge the
fathership of Ea. For a time he has to fear the rivalry of Nabu, and we
have seen that during the Cassitic rule, the glory of Marduk is somewhat
dimmed. The god who comes to stand at the head of the Assyrian
pantheon--Ashur--suffers from none of these restrictions. He is
independent of other gods and is under no obligations to any of his
fellows, and his rule once acknowledged remains supreme, with, perhaps,
one short period excepted,[229] throughout all the vicissitudes that the
empire undergoes. As a consequence of this unique position, Ashur is so
completely identified with Assyria, that with the fall of the empire he,
too, disappears,--whereas the Marduk cult survives the loss of
Babylonian independence, and is undisturbed even by the final absorption
of Babylonia into the empire of Cyrus. The tendency towards
centralization of the cult is even more pronounced, therefore, in
Assyria than in Babylonia. Marduk is a leader who has many gods as
followers, but all of whom have their distinct functions. Ashur is a
host in himself. He needs no attendants. His aid suffices for all
things, and such is the attachment of his subjects to him that it would
almost appear like an insult to his dignity to attach a long array of
minor gods to him. For the Assyrian kings the same motives did not exist
as for the Babylonians to emphasize their control over all parts of
their empire by adding the chief gods of these districts to the
pantheon. Assyria was never split up into independent states like
Babylonia before the days of Hammurabi. The capital, it is true, changed
with considerable frequency, but there was always only one great center
of political power. So far as Assyrian control over Babylonia was
concerned, it was sufficient for the purposes of the Assyrian rulers to
claim Marduk as their patron and protector, and, as we shall see, they
always made a point of emphasizing this claim. Hence we have only 'great
gods,'[230] and no minor deities, in the train of Ashur. These 'great
gods' could not be expunged from the pantheon without a complete
severance of the ties that bound the Assyrians to their past. Kings of
great empires seldom favor religious revolutions. But by the side of
Ashur these great gods pale, and in the course of time the tendency
becomes more marked to regard them merely as formal members of a little
court with few functions of their own, beyond that of adding by their
presence to the majesty and glory of Ashur. One receives the impression
that in Assyria only a few of the gods invoked by the kings at the side
of Ashur exert any real influence on the lives of the people; and such
as do, gain favor through possessing in some measure the chief attribute
that distinguished Ashur,--prowess in war. They are little Ashurs, as it
were, by the side of the great one. The position of Ashur in the
Assyrian pantheon accounts for the general tendencies manifested by the
religion of the northern empire, and upon a clear conception of the
character of Ashur depends our understanding of the special points that
distinguish the other gods from what we have learned of their character
and traits in the southern states. The beginning, therefore, of an
account of the Assyrian pantheon is properly to be made with Ashur.


Ashur.

The starting-point of the career of Ashur is the city of Ashur, situated
on the west bank of the Tigris, not far from the point where the lower
Zab flows into the Tigris. Ashur is therefore distinctly a local deity,
and so far as the testimony of the texts goes, he was never regarded in
early days in any other light than as the local patron of the city to
which he has given his name. He was never worshipped, so far as can be
ascertained, as a manifestation of any of the great powers of
nature,--the sun or the moon; though, if anything, he was originally a
solar deity.[231] Nor was he a symbol of any of the elements,--fire or
water. In this respect he differs from Sin, Shamash, Nusku,[232] and Ea,
whose worship was localized, without affecting the _quasi_-universal
character that these deities possessed. As a local deity his worship
must have been limited to the city over which he spread his protecting
arm; and if we find the god afterwards holding jurisdiction over a much
larger territory than the city of Ashur, it is because in the north, as
in the south, a distinct state or empire was simply regarded as the
extension of a city. Ashur became the god of Assyria as the rulers of
the city of Ashur grew in power,--in the same way that Marduk, upon the
union of the Babylonian states under the supremacy of the city of
Babylon, became the god of all Babylonia. But a difference between the
north and the south is to be noted. Whereas Marduk, although the god of
Babylonia, was worshipped only in the city of Babylon where he was
supposed to have his seat, temples to Ashur existed in various parts of
the Assyrian empire. The god accompanied the kings in their wars, and
wherever the rulers settled, there the god was worshipped. So in the
various changes of official residences that took place in the course of
Assyrian history from Ashur to Calah, and from Calah to Nineveh, and
from Nineveh to Khorsabad, the god took part, and his central seat of
worship depended upon the place that the kings chose for their official
residence. At the same time, while the cult in the various temples that
in the course of time were erected in his honor probably continued
without interruption, there was always one place--the official
residence--which formed the central spot of worship. There the god was
supposed to dwell for the time being. One factor, perhaps, that ought to
be taken into consideration in accounting for this movable disposition
of the god was that he was not symbolized exclusively by a statue, as
Marduk and the other great gods were. His chief symbol was a standard
that could be carried from place to place, and indeed was so made that
it could be carried into the thick of the fray, in order to assure the
army of the god's presence. The standard consisted of a pole surrounded
by a disc enclosed within two wings, while above the disc stood the
figure of a warrior in the act of shooting an arrow.[233] The statues of
the gods were deposited in shrines, and after being carried about, as
was done on festive days or other occasions, they would be replaced in
their shrines. The military standard, however, followed the camp
everywhere, and when the kings chose to fix upon a new place for their
military encampment--and such the official residences of the Assyrian
warrior-kings in large measure were--the standard would repose in the
place selected. How this standard came to be chosen, and when, is
another question, and one more difficult to answer. It may be that the
representation of the god by a standard was a consequence of the
fondness that the rulers of Ashur manifested for perpetual warfare; or,
in other words, that the god Ashur was represented by a standard so that
he might be carried into the battle and be moved from place to place. At
all events, the two things--the standard and the warlike character of
the subjects of Ashur--stood in close relationship to one another, and
the further conclusion is justified that when a military standard came
to be chosen as the symbol of Ashur, the god was recognized distinctly
as a god of war. The symbols accompanying the standard are of importance
as enabling us to determine something more regarding the character of
Ashur. In the first place, the fact that it contained a figure may be
taken as an indication that the god was at one time represented by a
statue,--as indeed we know from other evidence,[234]--and that the
change of his symbol from a statue to a standard is a result of the
military activity of the Assyrians. The winged disc is so general a
symbol of the sun in the religious system of various ancient
nations[235] that one cannot escape the conclusion that the symbol must
be similarly interpreted in the case before us. Is it possible,
therefore, that in a period lying beyond that revealed by the oldest
inscriptions at our disposal, Ashur was worshipped as a solar deity? One
is bound to confess that the evidence does not warrant us in regarding
Ashur as anything but the patron of the city of Ashur. Nowhere do we
find any allusion from which we are justified in concluding that he
originally represented some elemental power or phenomenon. Tiele[236] is
of the decided opinion that Ashur was at his origin a nature god of some
kind, and he goes so far as to suggest, though with due reserve, the
possible identification of Ashur with Sin. No doubt Tiele is prompted to
this view by the example of the great god of the south, Marduk, who is
originally a solar deity, and by all the other great gods who represent,
or represented, some power of nature. Analogy, however, is not a
sufficiently reliable guide to settle a question for the solution of
which historical material is lacking. So much, however, may be said,
that if we are to assume that Ashur personified originally some natural
power, the symbol of the winged disc lends a strong presumption in favor
of supposing him to have been some phase of the sun. So much, then, for
the general character of Ashur. Before passing on to a specification of
his rôle and his traits, as revealed by the historical texts, a word
remains to be said as to the etymology and form of the name. Ashur is
the only instance that we have of a god expressly giving his name to a
city, for the name of the city can only be derived from that of the god,
and not _vice versa_. The identification of the god with his favorite
town must have been so complete that the town, which probably had some
specific name of its own, became known simply as the 'city of the god
Ashur.' From such a designation it is but a small step to call the city
simply, Ashur. The difference between the god and the city would be
indicated by the determinative for deity, which was only attached to the
former, while the latter was written with the determinative attached to
towns. When this city of Ashur extended its bounds until it became
coequal with the domain of Assyria, the name of the god was transferred
to the entire northern district of Mesopotamia, which, as the country of
the god Ashur, was written with the determinative for country.[237] The
ideographs which the Assyrian scribes employed in writing the name of
the god reveal the meaning they attached to it. He is described
ideographically as the 'good god.' This interpretation accords admirably
with the general force of the verbal stem underlying the name. In both
Hebrew and Assyrian _a-sh-r_ signifies 'to be gracious, to grant
blessing, to cause to prosper.' Ashur, therefore, is the god that
blesses his subjects, and to the latter he would accordingly appear as
the 'good god' _par excellence_. If the tempting etymology of our own
word 'god,' which connects it with 'good,' be correct, 'god' would be
almost the perfect equivalent of Ashur. It is not necessary to conclude,
as Tiele does,[238] that Ashur, as the 'good one,' is an ethical
abstraction, but certainly a designation of a god as 'a good one' sounds
more like a descriptive epithet than like a name. The supposition that
Ashur was not, therefore, the original name of the god receives a
certain measure of force from this consideration. Moreover, there are
indications that there actually existed another form of his name,
namely, Anshar.[239] This form Anshar would, according to the phonetic
laws prevailing in Assyria, tend to become Ash-shar.[240] Ashur--the
'good one'--would thus turn out to be an epithet of the god, chosen as a
'play' suggested by Ash-shar, just as we found Gula called the lady of
_Ekalli_, and again _Kallat_ (bride).[241] The etymology of Anshar is as
obscure as that of most of the ancient gods of Babylonia,--as of Sin,
Marduk, Ishtar, and many more. But before leaving the subject, it will
be proper to call attention to the rôle that a god Anshar plays in the
Babylonian-Assyrian cosmological system. _Anshar_ and _Kishar_ are the
second pair of deities to be created, the first pair being _Lakhmu_ and
_Lakhamu_. In the great fight of the gods against the monster Tiâmat, it
would appear that, according to one version at least, Anshar sends Anu,
Ea, and finally Bel-Marduk, in turn to destroy the monster. He appears,
therefore, to have exercised a kind of supremacy over the gods. Assuming
the correctness of the deductions, according to which Ashur is an
epithet arising by a play upon Ash-shar (from an original Anshar), it is
hardly open to doubt that this Anshar is the same as the one who appears
in the cosmology. On the other hand, it is difficult to suppose that
Anshar should have played so significant a part in Babylonian traditions
and yet find no mention in the text of the rulers of Babylonia. Bearing
in mind what has been said as to the manner in which ancient traditions
and myths were remodeled by the schoolmen to conform to later ideas,--we
have seen how in this process the popularity of Marduk led to his
assuming the rôle originally played by Bel,--may not the recognition
given to Anshar be a concession, made at the time that Assyria had begun
her glorious career (_c._ 1400 B.C.), to the chief god of the northern
empire?

That such tendencies to glorify Ashur may justly be sought for in part
of the religious literature is proved by a version of one of the series
of tablets giving an account of the creation, and which assigns to
Anshar the work of building Esharra,--_i.e._, the earth,--that,
according to another version, belongs to Marduk.[242] Evidently, then,
just as the Babylonian theologians sought to glorify Marduk at the
expense of Bel, so Assyrian theologians, or such as stood under Assyrian
influences, did not hesitate to replace Marduk by their own favorite,
Anshar. In the chapter on the 'Cosmology' we will have occasion to come
back to this point. For present purposes it is sufficient to have shown
that the position of Anshar in the remodeled traditions is an argument
in favor of regarding Anshar as the real name of the god who stands at
the head of the Assyrian pantheon.

In the oldest Assyrian inscription known to us, the god Ashur is
mentioned. Samsi-Ramman, who does not yet assume the title of king, but
only _patesi_,--_i.e._, 'religious chief,'[243]--prides himself upon
being 'the builder of the temple of Ashur.' The phrase does not mean
that he founded the temple, but only that he undertook building
operations in connection with it. The date of this ruler may be fixed
roughly at 1850 B.C., and since the two inscribed bricks that we have of
Samsi-Ramman were found in the ruins of Kalah-Shergat,--the site of the
ancient city of Ashur,--there can, of course, be no doubt that the
temple at that place is referred to.

The rulers of Assyria, even after they assumed the title of 'king' (_c._
1500 B.C.), were still fond of calling themselves the 'priest' of the
god Ashur, and frequently gave this title the preference over others. In
the fourteenth century the temple of Ashur seems to have suffered at the
hands of the Cassites, who attempted to extend their power to the north.
This plan was, however, frustrated by Ramman-nirari I., who forces the
Cassites to retreat, successfully opposes other enemies of Assyria, and
restores the injured parts of Ashur's temple. From this time on, and for
a period of several centuries, Assyria assumes an aggressive attitude,
and as a consequence the dependency upon the god is more keenly felt
than before. The enemies against whom the kings proceed are called 'the
enemies of Ashur,' the troops of the king are the troops of Ashur, and
the weapons with which they fight are the weapons of Ashur. It is he who
causes the arms of Tiglathpileser I. to strike down his foes. The
nations cannot endure the awful sight of the god. His brilliancy--the
reference being no doubt to the shining standard as it was carried into
the fray--inspires on every side a terror that casts all enemies to the
ground. All warfare is carried on in the name of Ashur. The statement
may be taken literally, for an oracle was sought at critical moments to
determine the course that was to be pursued. The fight itself takes
place with the help of the god,--again to be taken literally, for the
god, represented by his symbol, is present on the battlefield. The
victory, accordingly, belongs to the god in the first instance, and only
in a secondary degree to the king. The nations are vanquished by Ashur,
the conquered cities become subject to Ashur, and when the tribute is
brought by the conquered foe, it is to Ashur that it is offered by the
kings. Proud and haughty as the latter were, and filled with greed for
glory and power, they never hesitated to humble themselves before their
god. They freely acknowledged that everything they possessed was due to
Ashur's favor. It was he who called them to the throne, who gave them
the sceptre and crown, and who firmly established their sovereignty.
Through Ashur, who gives the king his invincible weapon,--the mighty
bow,--the kingdom is enlarged, until the kings feel justified in saying
of themselves that, by the nomination of Ashur, they govern the four
quarters of the world. Nay, the rulers go further and declare themselves
to be the offspring of Ashur. It is not likely that they ever desired
such an assertion also to be interpreted literally. The phrase is rather
to be taken as the strongest possible indication of the attachment they
felt for their chief god. Everything that they possessed coming directly
from their god, how could this be better expressed than by making the
god the source of their being? The phrase, at all events, is interesting
as showing that the element of love was not absent in the emotions that
the thought of Ashur aroused in the breasts of his subjects. The kings
cannot find sufficient terms of glorification to bestow upon Ashur.
Tiglathpileser I. calls him 'the great lord ruling the assembly of
gods,' and in similar style, Ashurnasirbal invokes him as 'the great god
of all the gods.' For Ramman-nirari III., he is the king of the
Igigi--the heavenly host of spirits. Sargon lovingly addresses him as
the father of the gods. Sennacherib calls him the great mountain or
rock,--a phrase that recalls a Biblical metaphor applied to the
deity,--and Esarhaddon speaks of him as the 'king of gods.' Frequently
Ashur is invoked together with other gods. He is 'the guide of the
gods.' There is only one instance in which he does not occupy the first
place. Ramman-nirari I., to whom reference has above been made, gives
Anu the preference over Ashur in a list of gods,[244] to whom conjointly
he ascribes his victories. We have already had occasion (see pp.
153-155) to note the antiquity of Anu worship in Assyria, the foundation
of whose temple takes us beyond the period of Samsi-Ramman. Ashur's
importance begins only with the moment that the rulers of his city enter
upon their career of conquest. Before that, his power and fame were
limited to the city over which he presided. Those gods who in the south
occupied a superior rank were also acknowledged in the north. The
religion of the Assyrians does not acquire traits that distinguish it
from that of Babylonia till the rise of a distinct Assyrian empire.
Here, as in Babylonia, the religious conceptions, and in a measure the
art, are shaped by the course of political events. Anu, accordingly,
takes precedence to Ashur previous to the supremacy of the city of
Ashur. This superior rank belongs to him as the supreme god of heaven.
Ramman-nirari's reign marks a turning-point in the history of Assyria.
The enemies of Ashur, who had succeeded for a time in obscuring the
god's glory through the humiliation which his land endured, were driven
back, but neither the people nor the rulers had as yet become conscious
of the fact that it was solely to Ashur that the victory was due. Hence,
other gods are associated with Ashur by Ramman-nirari, and the old god
Anu is accorded his proper rank. After the days of Ramman-nirari,
however, Ashur's precedence over all other gods is established. Whether
associated with Bel or with Ramman, or with Shamash and Ramman, or with
a larger representation of the pantheon, Ashur is invariably mentioned
first.

From what has been said of the chief trait of Assyrian history, it
follows, as a matter of course, that the popularity of Ashur is due to
the military successes of the Assyrian armies; and it follows, with
equal necessity, that Ashur, whatever he may originally have been,
becomes purely a god of war, from the moment that Assyria enters upon
what appeared to be her special mission. All the titles given to Ashur
by the kings may be said to follow from his rôle as the god who presides
over the fortunes of the wars. If he is the 'ruler of all the gods,' and
their father, he is so simply by virtue of that same superior strength
which makes him the 'law-giver' for mankind, and not because of any
ancient traditions, nor as an expression of some nature-myth. He lords
it over gods and spirits, but he lords it solely because of his warlike
qualities. Ashur is the giver of crown and sceptre, and the kings of
Assyria are the _patesis_ of the god, his lieutenants. He is the god
that embodies the spirit of Assyrian history, and as such he is the most
characteristic personage of the Assyrian pantheon--in a certain sense
the only characteristic personage. So profound is his influence that
almost all the other gods of the pantheon take on some of his character.
Whenever and wherever possible, those phases of the god's nature are
emphasized which point to the possession of power over enemies. The gods
of the Assyrian pantheon impress one as diminutive Ashurs by the side of
the big one, and in proportion as they approach nearer to the character
of Ashur himself, is their hold upon the royal favor strengthened.


Ishtar.

Second in rank to Ashur during the most glorious part of Assyrian
history stands the great goddess Ishtar. That the Assyrian Ishtar is
identical with the great goddess of the Babylonian pantheon is beyond
reasonable doubt. She approaches closest to Nanâ,--the Ishtar of Erech;
but just as we found the Babylonian Ishtar appearing under various names
and forms, so there are no less than three Ishtars in Assyria,
distinguished in the texts as Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, and
Ishtar who presides over the temple known as Kidmuru and who for that
reason is generally called 'the queen of Kidmuru.' The seat of the
latter was in Nineveh, as was of course also the seat of Ishtar of
Nineveh. The third Ishtar had her cult at Arbela,[245] a town lying to
the east of Calah about midway between the upper and lower Zab. It is
not easy to determine which of these three Ishtars is the oldest. The
Assyrians themselves seem to have been aware of the Babylonian origin of
Ishtar, for Tiglathpileser I. is at pains to emphasize that the temple
he builds to Ishtar in his capital is dedicated to the 'Assyrian
Ishtar.'[246] This being the oldest mention of Ishtar in Assyrian texts,
we are perhaps warranted in concluding that the cult of the goddess was
transferred with the seat of government to Nineveh. This would not
necessarily make Ishtar of Nineveh the oldest of the three, but accounts
for the higher rank that was accorded to her, as against the other two.
Ishtar of Arbela and the queen of Kidmuru do not make their appearance
so far as the historical texts are concerned till the time of Esarhaddon
(681, B.C.)--a comparatively late date. Tiele[247] suggests that Arbela
became the seat of a school of prophets in the service of Ishtar. The
curious name of the place, the 'four-god' city, certainly speaks in
favor of supposing Arbela to have been a great religious center, but
until excavations shall have been conducted on the modern site of the
town, the problems connected with the worship of Ishtar of Arbela cannot
be solved. It is quite possible, if not probable, that the three Ishtars
are each of independent origin. The 'queen of Kidmuru,' indeed, I
venture to think, is the indigenous Ishtar of Nineveh, who is obliged to
yield her place to the so-called 'Assyrian Ishtar' upon the transfer of
the capitol of Assyria to Nineveh, and henceforth is known by one of her
epithets to distinguish her from her formidable rival. The cult of
Ishtar at Arbela is probably, too, of ancient date; but special
circumstances that escape us appear to have led to a revival of interest
in their cults during the period when Assyria reached the zenith of her
power. The important point for us to bear in mind is that no essential
distinctions between these three Ishtars were made by the Assyrians.
Their traits and epithets are similar, and for all practical purposes we
have only one Ishtar in the northern empire. Next to Ashur, or rather by
the side of Ashur, Ishtar was invoked as the great goddess of battle and
war. This trait, however, was not given to her by the Assyrians.
Hammurabi views the goddess in this light,[248] and in the Izdubar or
Gilgamesh epic, as already pointed out, she appears at times in the rôle
of a violent destroyer. The warlike phase of the goddess's nature is
largely accentuated in the Assyrian pantheon and dwelt upon to the
exclusion of that softer and milder side which we have seen
characterized her as 'the mother of mankind.' Her rôle as the goddess of
war grows in prominence as the Assyrian rulers proceed in their
triumphal careers. Ashurrishishi (_c_. 1150 B.C.) invokes her simply as
the superior goddess, but for Tiglathpileser I. and from his days on,
she is primarily the lady of war, who arranges the order of battle and
encourages her favorites to fight. She appears in dreams at critical
moments, and whispers words of cheer to King Ashurbanabal. When danger
threatens, it is to her that the great king spreads his hands in prayer.
She is not merely the goddess of the kings, but of the people as well.
The latter are instructed to honor her. No deity approaches her in
splendor. As Ashur rules the Igigi, so Ishtar is declared to be 'mighty
over the Anunnaki.' Her commands are not to be opposed. Her appearance
is that of a being clothed with fiery flames, and streams of fire are
sent down by her upon the enemies of Ashurbanabal--a description that
expresses admirably the conception formed by the Assyrians of a genuine
goddess of war. Like Ashur, she is given a supreme rank among the gods.
Shalmaneser II. calls her the first-born of heaven and earth, and for
Tiglathpileser I., she is the first among the gods. Her milder
attributes as the gracious mother of creation, the giver of plenty, and
the hearer of the supplications of the sinner, so prominent in the
religious literature,[249] are not dwelt upon in the historical texts.
Still, an element of love also enters into the relationship with her
subjects. Ashurnasirbal (885-860 B.C.) speaks of her as the lady who
'loves him and his priesthood.' Sennacherib similarly associates Ishtar
with Ashur as the lover of his priesthood. As a goddess of war she is of
course 'perfect in courage,' as Shalmaneser II. declares. Temples are
erected to her in the city of Ashur, in Nineveh and Arbela. Ashurbanabal
distinguishes carefully between the two Ishtars,--the one of Nineveh and
the one of Arbela; and, strange enough, while terming Nineveh the
favorite city of Ishtar, he seems to give the preference to Ishtar of
Arbela. It is to the latter[250] that when hard pressed by the Elamites
he addresses his prayer, calling her 'the lady of Arbela'; and it is
this Ishtar who appears to the royal troops in a dream. The month of
Ab--the fifth month of the Babylonian calendar--is sacred to Ishtar.
Ashurbanabal proceeds to Arbela for the purpose of worshipping her
during this sacred period. Something must have occurred during his
reign, to bring the goddess of Arbela into such remarkable prominence,
but even Ashurbanabal does not go so far as to place Ishtar of Arbela
before Ishtar of Nineveh, when enumerating the gods of the pantheon. One
point still remains to be mentioned before passing on. Ashurbanabal
calls Ishtar--he is speaking of Ishtar of Nineveh--the wife of Bel.[251]
Now Ishtar never appears in this capacity in the Babylonian
inscriptions. If there is one goddess with whom she has nothing in
common, it is Belit of Nippur. To account for this curious statement on
the part of the Assyrian scribes, it is only necessary to bear in mind
that the name Belit signifies 'lady,' and Ishtar is constantly spoken of
as the Belit or lady of battle. Much the same train of thought that led
to regarding Bel in the sense of 'lord,' merely as a title of Marduk,
gave rise to the use of 'Belit,' as the title of the great 'lady' of the
Assyrian pantheon.[252] From this it is but a small--but of course
erroneous--step, to speak of Belit-Ishtar as the consort of Bel. Whether
the error is due only to the scribe, or whether it actually made its way
into the Assyrian system of theology, it is difficult to say. Probably
the former; for the distinguishing feature of both the Babylonian and
the Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought
into close association with Ashur, she is not regarded as the mere
consort of any god--no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in
her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. She
is coequal in rank and dignity with Ashur. Her name becomes synonymous
with goddess, as Marduk becomes the synonym for god. The female deities
both native and foreign come to be regarded as so many forms of Ishtar.
In a certain sense Ishtar is the only _real_ goddess of the later
Assyrian pantheon, the only one taking an active part in the religious
and political life of the people. At the same time it is to be noted
that by the side of the Assyrian Ishtar, the Babylonian Ishtar,
especially the one associated with Erech (or Warka) is also worshipped
by the monarchs of the north. Esarhaddon devotes himself to the
improvement of the old temple at Erech, and Ashurbanabal prides himself
upon having rescued out of the hands of the Elamites a statue of Ishtar
or Nanâ of Erech that had been captured 1635 years previous.[253]


Anu.

Reference has already been made to the antiquity of the Anu cult in
Assyria, and that prior to the time that the city of Ashur assumes the
rôle of mistress of the northern district, Anu stood at the head of the
pantheon, just as theoretically he continued to occupy this place in the
pantheon of the south. What is especially important, he had a temple in
the very city of Ashur, whose patron god succeeded in usurping the place
of the old 'god of heaven.' The character of Anu in the north differs in
no way from the traits assigned to him in the south. He is the king of
the Igigi and Anunnaki, that is, of all the heavenly and earthly
spirits, and he is this by virtue of being the supreme god of heaven.
His cult, however, appears to have suffered through the overshadowing
supremacy of Ashur. Even in his old temple at Ashur, which
Tiglathpileser I. on the occasion of his rebuilding it, tells us was
founded 641 years before this restoration,[254] he is no longer accorded
sole homage. Ramman, the god of thunder and of storms, because
correlated to Anu, is placed by the side of the latter and permitted to
share the honors with Anu.[255] Anu survives in the Assyrian as in the
Babylonian pantheon by virtue of being a member of the theological
triad, composed as we have seen of Anu, Bel, and Ea. Tiglathpileser I.
still invokes Anu as a deity of practical importance. He associates him
with Ramman and Ishtar as the great gods of the city of Ashur or with
Ramman alone, but beyond an incidental mention by Ashurnasirbal, who in
a long list of gods at the beginning of his annals emphasizes the fact
of his being the favorite of Anu, he appears only in combination with
Bel and Ea. The same degree of reverence, however, was shown to the old
triad in Assyria as in Babylonia. The three gods are asked not to listen
to the prayers of the one who destroys the monuments set up by the
kings. Sargon tells us that it is Anu, Bel, and Ea who fix the names of
the months,[256] and this same king when he comes to assign names to the
eight gates of his great palace, does not forget to include Anu in the
list of deities,[257] describing him as the god who blesses his
handiwork.


Dagan.

Coequal in antiquity with the cult of Anu in Assyria is that of Dagan.
Although occurring in Babylonia as early as the days of Hammurabi, and
indeed earlier,[258] it would appear that his worship was imported from
the north into the south.[259] At all events, it is in the north that
the cult of Dagan rises to prominence. The name of the god appears as an
element in the name of Ishme-Dagan (the father of Samsi-Ramman
II.),[260] whose date may be fixed at the close of the nineteenth
century B.C. The form Dagan is interesting as being almost identical
with the name of the chief god of the Philistines, Dagon,[261] who is
mentioned in the Book of Judges. The resemblance can hardly be entirely
accidental. From other sources we know that Dagan was worshipped in
Palestine as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and the form
Dagan, if derived from _Dag_, contains an afformative element which
stamps the word as non-Assyrian. The proposition has much in its favor
which regards Dagan as a god whose worship was introduced into Assyria
at a very early period through the influence of Aramaean hordes, who
continue throughout Assyrian history to skirt the eastern shores of the
Tigris. Once introduced, however, into Assyria, Dagan assumes a
different form from the one that he receives among the Philistines. To
the latter he is the god of agriculture, while in Assyria he rises to
the rank of second in the pantheon, and becomes the associate of Anu.
The latter's dominion being the heavens, Dagan is conceived as the god
of earth. Hence, there results the fusion with the Babylonian Bel, which
has already been noted,[262] and it is due to this fusion that Dagan
disappears almost entirely from the Assyrian pantheon. Ashurnasirbal
invokes Dagan with Anu. Two centuries later, Sargon, whose scribes, as
Jensen has noticed, manifest an 'archaeological' fondness for the
earlier deities, repeats the phrase of Ashurnasirbal, and also calls his
subjects 'troops of Anu and Dagan'; but it is important to observe that
he does not include Dagan among the deities in whose honor he assigns
names to the gates of his palace. We may, therefore, fix upon the ninth
century as the terminus for the Dagan cult in Assyria. Proper names
compounded with Dagan do not occur after the days of Ashurnasirbal.[263]


Shamash.

Besides the testimony furnished by the name of the king, Samsi-Ramman,
we have a proof for the antiquity of the Shamash cult in Assyria in the
express statement of Pudilu (_c._ 1350 B.C.) that he built a temple to
the sun-god in the city of Ashur. He calls Shamash the 'protecting
deity,' but the protection vouchsafed by Shamash is to be understood in
a peculiar sense. Shamash does not work by caprice. He is, as we have
seen, preëminently a god of justice, whose favors are bestowed in
accordance with unchangeable principles. So far as Assyria is concerned,
the conceptions regarding Shamash reach a higher ethical level than
those connected with any other deity. Ashur and Ishtar are partial to
Assyria, and uphold her rulers at any cost, but the favors of Shamash
are bestowed upon the kings because of their righteousness, or, what is
the same thing, because of their claim to being righteous. For
Tiglathpileser I., great and ruthless warrior as he is, Shamash is the
judge of heaven and earth, who sees the wickedness of the king's
enemies, and shatters them because of their guilt. When the king
mercifully sets certain captives free, it is in the presence of Shamash
that he performs this act. It is, therefore, as the advocate of the
righteous cause that Tiglathpileser claims to have received the glorious
sceptre at the hands of Shamash; and so also for the successors of
Tiglathpileser, down to the days of Sargon, Shamash is above all and
first of all the judge, both of men and of the gods. There is, of
course, nothing new in this view of Shamash, which is precisely the one
developed in Babylonia; but in Assyria, perhaps for the reason that in
Shamash is concentrated almost all of the ethical instinct of the
northern people, the judicial traits of Shamash appear to be even more
strongly emphasized. Especially in the days of Ashurnasirbal and
Shalmaneser II.--the ninth century--does the sun-cult receive great
prominence. These kings call themselves the _sun_ of the world. The
phrase,[264] indeed, has so distinctly an Egyptian flavor, that, in
connection with other considerations, it seems quite plausible to assume
that the influence of Egyptian reverence for _Ra_ had much to do with
the popularity of the sun-cult about this time. Shalmaneser bestows
numerous epithets upon Shamash. He is the guide of everything, the
messenger of the gods, the hero, the judge of the world who guides
mankind aright, and, what is most significant, the lord of law. The word
used for law, _têrtu_, is identical with the Hebrew term _torâ_ that is
used to designate the Pentateuchal legislation. No better testimony
could be desired to show the nature of the conceptions that must have
been current of Shamash. Sargon, again, who is fond of emphasizing the
just principles that inspire his acts, goes to the length of building a
sanctuary[265] for Shamash far beyond the northern limits of Assyria.
But the kings, in thus placing themselves under the protection of the
great judge, were not oblivious to the fact that this protection was
particularly desired on the battlefield. War being uppermost in their
thoughts, the other side of Shamash's nature--his power and
violence--was not overlooked. Tiglathpileser invokes him also as the
warrior,--a title that is often given to Shamash in the religious
literature. There can be little doubt that a nation of warriors whose
chief deities were gods of war, was attracted to Shamash not merely
because he was the judge of all things, but also, and in a large degree,
because he possessed some of the traits that distinguished Ashur and
Ishtar.


Ramman.

The association of Ramman with Shamash in the name of the old ruler of
Assyria, Samsi-Ramman, is not accidental or due to mere caprice. Only
such deities are combined in proper names that are, or may be,
correlated to one another. Ramman, as the god of storms, is naturally
viewed as a power complementary to the great orb of light.[266] The two
in combination, viewed as the beneficent and the destructive power,
constitute the most powerful elements of nature, whose good will it was
most important, especially for a nation of warriors, to secure. Some
such thought surely underlies this association of Shamash with Ramman.
The Assyrian Ramman differs in no way from the Ramman of Babylonia, but
he is much more popular in the north than in the south. The popularity
of the god is but a reflection of the delight that the Assyrians took in
military pursuits. Ramman is hardly anything more than another Ashur.
Tiglathpileser I., who once calls the god Mar-tu, _i.e._, "the West
god,"[267] has left us an admirable description of him. He is the hero
who floods the lands and houses of the country's enemies. The approach
of the Assyrian troops is compared to an onslaught of Ramman. His curses
are the most dreadful that can befall a nation or an individual, for his
instruments of destruction are lightning, hunger, and death. Reference
has several times been made to the manner in which Tiglathpileser honors
Ramman by making him a partner of Anu in the great temple of the latter
at Ashur. But the successors of Tiglathpileser are no less zealous in
their reverence for Ramman. It is to Ramman that the kings offer
sacrifices during the campaign, and when they wish to depict in the
strongest terms the destruction that follows in the wake of an onslaught
of the Assyrian troops, they declare that they swept over everything
like Ramman. It is natural, in view of this, that Ramman should have
been to the Assyrians also the 'mightiest of the gods.'[268] Through the
Assyrian inscriptions we learn something of the consort of Ramman.


Shala.

Sennacherib tells us that in the course of his campaign against
Babylonia he removes out of the city of Babylon, and replaces in
Ekallâte[269] the statues of Ramman and Shala. This, he says, he did 418
years after the time that they had been carried captive from Ekallâte to
Babylon by Marduknadinakhi.[270] We know nothing more of this Ekallâte
except that it lay in Assyria,--probably in the southern half,--and that
Ramman and Shala are called the gods of the city. The name 'Shala'
appears to signify 'woman.' It reminds us, therefore, of 'lady' (Ninni,
Nanâ, etc.), which we have found to be the designation for several
distinct goddesses. It is possible that Shala, likewise, being a name of
so indefinite a character, was applied to other goddesses. A 'Shala of
the mountains,' who is stated to be the wife of Marduk, is mentioned in
a list of gods.[271] The wife of Bel, too, is once called Shala, though
in this case the confusion between Marduk and Bel may have led to
transferring the name from the consort of one to the consort of the
other. Too much importance must not be attached to the data furnished by
these lists of gods. They represent in many cases purely arbitrary
attempts to systematize the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, and in
other cases are valuable only as reflecting the views of the
theologians, or rather of certain schools of theological thought, in
Babylonia. In the religious hymns, too, the consort of Ramman finds
mention, and by a play upon her name is described as the 'merciful one.'
The attribute given to her there is the 'lady of the field,' which puts
her in contrast to Ramman, rather than in partnership with him. Since we
hear little of her worship in Assyria, beyond the notices of
Sennacherib, we may conclude that, like so many goddesses, Shala
dwindled to the insignificant proportions of a mere pale reflection of
the male deity.


Nin-ib.

Another god, who by virtue of his violent traits enjoys the favor of the
Assyrian rulers, is the old Babylonian deity whose name is provisionally
read Nin-ib. In the very first mention of him, in the inscription of
Ashurrishishi (_c._ 1150 B.C.), he is called the 'mighty one of the
gods.' Through the protection of Nin-ib, Ashurrishishi secures victory
over his enemies on all sides. Similarly, other of the Assyrian rulers
emphasize the strength of Nin-ib. Tiglathpileser I. calls him the
courageous one, whose special function is the destruction of the king's
enemies. In doing so he becomes the god 'who fulfills the heart's
desire.' The unmistakable character of the god as a god of war is also
shown by his association with Ashur.[272] If Ashur is the king of Igigi
and Anunnaki, Nin-ib is the hero of the heavenly and earthly spirits. To
him the rulers fly for help. Of all the kings, Ashurnasirbal seems to
have been especially devoted to the service of Nin-ib. The annals of
this king, instead of beginning, as is customary, with an invocation of
all or many of the gods, starts out with an address to Nin-ib, in which
the king fairly exhausts the vocabulary of the language in his desire to
secure the favor of this powerful deity. Almost all the attributes he
assigns to him have reference to the god's powers in war. Dwelling in
the capital Calah, he is 'the strong, the mighty, the supreme one,' the
perfect hero, who is invincible in battle, the 'destroyer of all
opposition, who holds the lock of heaven and earth, who opens the deep;
the strong one, endowed with youthful vigor, whose decree is
unchangeable, without whom no decision is made in heaven or on earth,
whose attack is like a flood, who sweeps away the land of his enemies,'
and so forth, through a bewildering array of epithets. The inscriptions
of the Assyrian kings, especially in the introductions, manifest little
originality. One king, or rather his scribe, frequently copies from
earlier productions, or imitates them. Hence, it happens that the
grandson of Ashurnasirbal, Shamshi-Ramman (_c._ 825-812 B.C.), furnishes
us with an almost equally long array of epithets, exalting the strength
and terror of Nin-ib. Like Ashurnasirbal, he declared himself to have
been chosen by this god to occupy the throne. A comparison of the two
lists makes it evident that the later one is modeled upon the earlier
production. The conclusion is justified that in the century covered by
the reigns of Ashurnasirbal[273] and Shamshi-Ramman, the cult of Nin-ib
must have acquired great popularity, though suffering, perhaps, an
interruption during the reign of Shalmaneser II.,--midway between these
two kings,--whose favorite we have seen was Shamash. The great temple of
Nin-ib stood in Calah, which Ashurnasirbal chose as his official
residence, and it was in this temple that the king deposited a long
inscription commemorating his deeds. In the temple, he also places a
colossal statue of the god. Upon the completion of the edifice, he
dedicates it with prayer and sacrifices. The special festivals of the
god are fixed for the months of Shabat and Ulul,--the eleventh and sixth
months,--and provision is made for the regular maintenance of the cult.
It must, of course, not be supposed that, because Nin-ib appears to be a
favorite of the king, the latter concentrates his attentions upon this
god. He appears to have been specially fond of temple building, and,
besides the one to Nin-ib, he tells us of sanctuaries to 'Belit of the
land,' _i.e._, Ishtar,[274] Sin, Gula, Ea, and Ramman,--that he erects
or improves. One might be led to regard it as strange that a god like
Nin-ib, or Shamash, should claim so large a share of the attention of
the Assyrian rulers, to the apparent neglect of Ashur, but it must be
borne in mind that the position of Ashur was so assured as to be beyond
the reach of rivalry. The fact also that Ashur's popular symbol was the
movable standard was no doubt a reason why so few temples were erected
to him. He did not stand in need of temples. For the very reason that
Ashur was the universally acknowledged master of everything, the kings
felt called upon to choose, by the side of Ashur, some additional
deity,--a patron under whose special protection they placed themselves.
The natural desire for novelty--together with other circumstances that
escape us--led one to choose Ramman, another Nin-ib, a third Shamash,
and a fourth, as we shall see, Nabu. In doing so they were not conscious
of any lack of respect towards Ashur, of whose good will they always
felt certain.

Besides the service rendered by Nin-ib in war, his aid was also invoked
by the kings in their recreations, which partook of the same violent
character as their vocation. Their favorite sport was hunting,
especially of lions, wild horses, elephants, stags, boars, and bulls.
They either proceeded to districts where these animals were to be found,
or they had large parks laid out near their residences, which were then
stocked with material for the chase. Ashurnasirbal does not shun a long
journey to distant mountainous regions to seek for sport, and it is
Nin-ib whom he invokes, together with Nergal. These two, he declares,
who, like Ashur and Ishtar, "love his priesthood," are the ones that
convey into his hands the hunting spoils. Tiglathpileser I. was
especially fond of lion and elephant hunting. He declares that on one
occasion he killed 10 elephants and 920 lions in various parts of
northwestern Mesopotamia; and he ascribes his success to Nin-ib, who
loves him, and who, again, in association with Nergal, and Ashur, has
placed in the king's hands the mighty weapons and the glorious bow.
After the days of Shamshi-Ramman we hear of Nin-ib chiefly in the formal
lists of gods which the later kings of Assyria, from Sargon[275] on, are
fond of placing at the beginning and end of their inscriptions. These
lists, again, copied the one from the other, are of value only as
indicating the chief gods of the pantheon, but warrant no conclusions as
to the activity reigning in the cults of the gods there mentioned.
Before leaving Nin-ib a few words need be said as to his relations to
the other gods. In the chapter on the pantheon before Hammurabi,[276]
the identity of Nin-ib with the chief god of Gudea's district,
Nin-girsu, has been pointed out. The solar character of the latter being
clear, it follows that Nin-ib, too, is originally a personification of
the sun, like Nin-gish-zida and Nin-shakh, whose rôles are absorbed by
Nin-ib.[277] This has long been recognized, but it is the merit of
Jensen[278] to have demonstrated that it is the east sun and the morning
sun which is more especially represented by Nin-ib. On this supposition,
some of the titles given to him in the inscriptions of Ashurnasirbal and
Shamshi-Ramman become perfectly clear. Like Marduk, who, it will be
remembered, is also originally a phase of the solar deity, Nin-ib is
called the first-born of Ea; and as the rising sun he is appropriately
called the offspring of Ekur,--_i.e._, the earth,--in allusion to his
apparent ascent from a place below the earth. Ekur and Eshara being
employed as synonyms, Shamshi-Ramman replaces Ekur by Eshara, and since
Bel is the lord of Ekur-Eshara, Nin-ib also becomes the first-born son
of Bel. Other epithets, such as 'the light of heaven and earth,' 'the
one who pursues his path over the wide world,'[279] are all in keeping
with the solar character of the deity, and date, therefore, from a
period when the more purely 'nature' phases of the god were dwelt upon.
But just as in the case of Shamash and Nergal (also, as we have seen, a
solar deity), so in that of Nin-ib, the violent, fiery, and destructive
character that the sun has in a climate like that of Babylonia brought
it about that Nin-ib was viewed as a destructive force, whose assistance
was of great value in military strife. He becomes the god of the cloud
storm, before whom, as he passes along, heaven and earth tremble. By his
strong weapon he humiliates the disobedient, destroys the enemies of the
kings, and grants all manner of protection to his favorites. Only in the
religious literature are other qualities dwelt upon, such as his
'holiness.'[280] For Hammurabi, it will be recalled, Nin-ib is already
the god of war, and it is natural that in a country like Assyria this
side of the god's nature should become accentuated to the point of
obscuring all others, until nothing more is left of his solar character
than is indicated by stray bits of mythological phrases, perhaps only
half understood, and introduced to add to the imposing array of epithets
that belong to the terrible god of war. As the consort of Nin-ib, the
Assyrians recognized


Gula.

She is only occasionally invoked by the Assyrian rulers. A sanctuary to
Gula, as the consort of Nin-ib, is erected by Ashurnasirbal, and a
festival in honor of the goddess is referred to by Ashurbanabal.


Nergal.

Nergal not only shares with Nin-ib, as already mentioned, the honor of
being the god under whose auspices the royal chase is carried on, but he
is also, like Nin-ib, invoked in that other sport of which the Assyrian
rulers were so fond,--war. He is scarcely differentiated from Nin-ib.
Like the latter he is the perfect king of battle, who marches before the
monarch together with Ashur, and he is pictured as carrying the mighty
weapons which Ashur has presented to the king. In an inscription of
Shalmaneser II.[281] there is an interesting reference to the city
sacred to Nergal--Cuthah. The king, who in the course of his campaign
against Babylonia reaches Cuthah, brings sacrifices to Nergal, whom he
speaks of as 'the hero of the gods, the supreme raging sun.' A later
king, Sargon, also honors the god by giving a fortress in the distant
land of Nairi, to the northeast of Assyria, the name of Kar[282]-Nergal.
It would seem as though, through the influence of Sargon, a revival of
the Nergal cult took place. His successor, Sennacherib, erects a temple
in honor of the god at Tarbisu, a suburb to the north of Nineveh proper,
and Ashurbanabal, who dwells at Tarbisu for a while, is engaged in
adding to the beauty of the edifice,--an indication of the honor in
which the god continued to be held. Nergal's consort is Laz, but she is
not referred to by the Assyrian rulers.


Sin.

The old Babylonian moon-god plays a comparatively insignificant rôle in
Assyria. Ashurnasirbal speaks of a temple that he founded in
Calah--perhaps only a chapel--in honor of Sin. It could not have been of
much importance, for we learn nothing further about it. Sargon, too, who
manifests a great fondness for reviving ancient cults, erects
sanctuaries to Sin along with a quantity of other gods in his official
residence at Khorsabad and beyond the northeastern confines of Assyria
at Magganubba. But when invoked by the kings, Sin shows traces of the
influence which the conceptions current about Ashur exerted upon his
fellow deities. He takes on, as other of the gods, the attributes of the
war-god. Instead of being merely the lord of the crescent, as in
Babylonia, and one of the sources of wisdom because of the connection of
astrology with lunar observations, he is pictured as capable of
inspiring terror. At the same time he is also the lord of plenty, and in
his capacity as the wise god he is regarded as the lord of decisions.
But by the side of new epithets that are attached to him in the Assyrian
inscriptions, there is one which, just as in the case of Nin-ib,
connects the Assyrian Sin cult with the oldest phase of moon-worship in
the south. It is one of the last kings of Assyria, Ashurbanabal, who
calls Sin 'the firstborn son of Bel.' He appears in this relationship to
Bel in the religious texts of Babylonia. The Bel here meant can only be
the great god of Nippur, and the title 'son of Bel' accordingly shows
that the moon-worship of Assyria is ultimately derived from that which
had its seat in the south. Sin's secondary position is indicated by
making him a son of Bel. The rise of the science of astronomy in
connection with astrology, was, as already suggested, an important
factor in spreading and maintaining the Sin cult in the south, while the
lack of intellectual originality in Assyria would equally account for
the comparatively subordinate position occupied by Sin in the Assyrian
pantheon.


Nusku.

That Nusku is a Babylonian god, meriting a place in the pantheon of
Hammurabi, if not of the days prior to the union of the Babylonian
states, is shown by the fact (1) that he had a shrine in the great
temple of Marduk at Babylon, along with Nebo, Tashmiyum, and Ea;[283]
and (2) that he appears in the religious texts. In view of this it might
appear strange that we find no reference to the god in historical texts
till we reach the Assyrian period. The reason, or at least one reason,
is that Nusku is on the one hand amalgamated with Gibil, the fire-god,
and on the other identified with Nabu. The compound ideogram with which
his name is written includes the same sign--the stylus or sceptre--that
is used to designate Nabu, the second part of the ideogram adding the
idea of 'force and strength.' Whether this graphical assimilation is to
be regarded as a factor in bringing about the identification of Nusku
and Nabu, or is due to an original similarity in the traits of the two
gods, it is difficult to say. Hardly the latter, for Nusku is a solar
deity, whereas, as we have tried to show, Nabu is originally a
water-deity.[284] But however we may choose to account for it, the
prominence of Nusku is obscured by Nabu. As a solar deity, it is easy to
see how he should have been regarded as a phase of the fire-god, and if
the various other solar deities were not so regarded, it is because in
the course of their development they were clothed with other attributes
that, while obscuring their origin, saved them from the loss of their
identity. Apart from the formal lists of gods drawn up by Sargon and his
successors, Shalmaneser II. and Ashurbanabal are the only kings who make
special mention of Nusku. The former calls him the bearer of the
brilliant sceptre, just as Nabu is so called; and again, just as Nabu,
he is termed the wise god. The two phases of the ideogram used in his
name--the sceptre and the stylus--are thus united in the personage of
Nusku precisely as in Nabu. On the other hand, the manner in which
Ashurbanabal speaks of him reflects the mythological aspect of Nusku. In
the religious literature Nusku is the messenger of Bel-Marduk, who
conveys the message of the latter to Ea. From being the messenger of
Bel, he comes to be viewed as the messenger of the gods in general, and
accordingly Ashurbanabal addresses him as 'the highly honored messenger
of the gods,' but, combining with the mythological the more realistic
aspect of Nusku, refers to him also as the one who glorifies sovereignty
and who, at the command of Ashur and Belit, stands at the king's side to
aid in bringing the enemies to fall. As for the fire-god Gibil, with
whom Nusku is identified, we have merely a reference to a month of the
year sacred to the servant of Gibil in a passage of the inscriptions of
Sargon.[285]


Bel-Marduk.

From the time that the Assyrian rulers claimed a greater or small
measure of control over the affairs of Babylonia, that is, therefore,
from about the twelfth century, they were anxious to make good their
claim by including in their pantheon the chief god of Babylonia. The
Assyrian inscriptions prove that, as early as the twelfth century, the
theoretical absorption on the part of Marduk, of the rôle taken by the
old god Bel of Nippur, which was enlarged upon in a preceding
chapter,[286] had already taken place. Marduk is not only frequently
known as Bel, but what is more, Babylonia is the country of Bel, or
simply Bel, and the Babylonians are referred to as 'the subjects of
Bel,' or the 'humanity of Bel.' There can be no doubt that in all these
cases Bel-Marduk is meant and not the older Bel. In the days of
Ashurrishishi we already come across the title 'governor of Bel,' that
to the latest days remains the official designation for political
control over the southern empire. So general is this use of Bel for
Marduk that the latter name does not occur until we reach Shalmaneser
II., _i.e._, the ninth century. There seems to be no reason to question,
therefore, that even when Tiglathpileser I. applies to Bel titles that
certainly belong to the older Bel, such as 'father of the gods,' 'king
of all the Anunnaki,' 'who fixes the decrees of heaven and earth,' he
means Marduk, a proof for which may be seen in the epithet _bêl matâti_,
'lord of lands,' which follows upon these designations and which, as we
saw, is a factor in the evolution of Marduk into Bel-Marduk.[287] The
importance that Tiglathpileser I., and therefore also his successors,
attached to their control over the old southern district, is shown by
his according to Bel the second place in the pantheon, invoking him at
the beginning of his inscriptions immediately after Ashur. The control
over Babylonia was an achievement that stirred the pride of the Assyrian
rulers to the highest degree. Its age and its past inspired respect.
Besides being the source of the culture that Assyria possessed,
Babylonia had sacred associations for the Assyrians, as the original
dwelling-places of most of the gods worshipped by them. The old sacred
centers like Ur, Nippur, Uruk, Sippar, with their great temples, their
elaborate cults, their great storehouses of religious literature, and
their great body of influential priests and theologians and astrologers
were as dear to the people of the north as to those of the south; and in
proportion as these old cities lost their political importance, their
rank as sacred centers to which pilgrimages were made on the occasion of
the festivals of the gods was correspondingly raised. Hence the value
that the Assyrian rulers attached to the possession of Babylonia. They
do not like to be reminded that they rule the south by force of arms.
They prefer, as Tiglathpileser I. declares, to consider themselves
'nominated by the gods to rule over the land of Bel.' They want to be
regarded as the favorites of Bel, and they ascribe to him the greatness
of their rule. It is he who fulfills the wishes of the kings; and when
the kings enter upon a campaign against Babylonia, as they frequently
did to quell the uprisings that were constantly occurring in the one or
the other of the southern districts, they emphasize, as Shalmaneser II.
does, that he enters upon this course at the command of Marduk. They set
themselves up as Marduk's defenders, and it must be said for the
Assyrian rulers that they were mild and sparing in their treatment of
their southern subjects. They do not practise those cruelties--burning
of cities, pillage, and promiscuous slaughter--that form the main
feature in their campaigns against the nations to the northeast and
northwest, and against Elam. They accord to the Babylonians as much of
the old independence as was consistent with an imperial policy. The
internal affairs continue for a long time to be regulated by rulers who
are natives of Babylonia, and it is not until a comparatively late
day--the time of Sennacherib--that in consequence of the endless trouble
that these native rulers gave the Assyrians through their constant
attempt to make themselves independent, it became customary for the
Assyrian kings to appoint a member of the royal house--a son or
brother--to the lieutenancy over Babylonia. As for the cult, the
Assyrian kings were at great pains to leave it undisturbed, or where it
had been interrupted to restore it, and thus secure the favor of the
southern gods. So Shalmaneser II. upon the completion of his campaign
enters Marduk's great temple at Babylon, E-sagila, and offers prayers
and sacrifices to Bel and Belit, _i.e._, Marduk and Sarpanitum. From
E-sagila he crosses over to Borsippa, and pays homage to Nabu and to
Nabu's consort, whom he calls Nanâ.[288] The kings are fond, especially
when speaking of the Babylonian campaigns, of slipping in the name of
Marduk after that of Ashur. With the help of Ashur and Marduk their
troops are victorious. Marduk shares Ashur's terrible majesty. At times
Shamash, or Shamash and Ramman, are added to form a little pantheon
whose assistance is invoked in the Babylonian wars. From being used in
restricted application to Babylonian affairs, Ashur and Marduk came to
be invoked in a general way. Esarhaddon expressly sets up the claim of
being the savior of Marduk's honor, as a kind of apology for proceeding
against Babylonia with his armies. Sargon, to emphasize his legitimate
control over Babylonia as well as Assyria, says that he has been called
to the throne by Ashur and Marduk, but Ashurbanabal goes further even
than his predecessors. He proceeds to Babylon on the occasion of the
formal installation of his brother Shamash-shumukin as viceroy of the
district, enters the temple of Marduk, whom he does not hesitate to call
'the lord of lords,' performs the customary rites, and closes the
ceremonies by a fervent prayer to Marduk for his continued good will and
blessing.[289] The great gods Nergal, Nabu, and Shamash come from their
respective shrines to do homage to Marduk. Ashurbanabal's brother
Shamash-shumukin, when he attempts as governor of Babylon to make
himself independent of his brother, endeavors by means of sacrifices and
other devices to secure the favor of Marduk, well aware that in this way
he will also gain the support of the Babylonians. On another occasion,
incidental to a northern campaign, Ashurbanabal mentions that the day on
which he broke up camp at Damascus was the festival of Marduk,--an
indication that the Babylonian god was in his thoughts, even when he
himself was far away from Babylonia. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal, when
approaching the sun-god to obtain an oracle, make mention of Marduk by
the side of Shamash. There are, however, a number of passages in the
Assyrian inscriptions in which when Bel is spoken of, not Marduk but the
old god Bel is meant.


Bel.

Tiglathpileser I. tells us that he rebuilt a temple to Bel in the city
of Ashur, and he qualifies the name of the god by adding the word 'old'
to it. In this way he evidently distinguished the god of Nippur from
Bel-Marduk, similarly as Hammurabi in one place adds Dagan to Bel,[290]
to make it perfectly clear what god he meant. Again, it is Sargon who in
consistent accord with his fondness for displaying his archaeological
tastes, introduces Bel, the 'great mountain,' 'the lord of countries,'
who dwells in E-khar-sag-kurkura, _i.e._, the sacred mountain on which
the gods are born, as participating in the festival that takes place
upon the dedication of the king's palace in Khorsabad. The titles used
by the king are applicable only to the old Bel, but whether he or his
scribes were fully conscious of a differentiation between Bel and
Bel-Marduk, it is difficult to say. Bel is introduced in the inscription
in question[291] immediately after Ashur, and one is therefore inclined
to suspect that Sargon's archaeological knowledge fails him at this
point in speaking of the old Bel, whereas he really meant to invoke the
protection of Bel-Marduk as the chief god of his most important
possession next to Assyria.[292] Besides this, the old Bel is of course
meant, when associated with Anu, as the powers that, together with
Belit, grant victory,[293] or as a member of the old triad, Anu, Bel,
and Ea, whose mention we have seen is as characteristic of the Assyrian
inscriptions as of the Babylonian. Lastly, Sargon calls one of the gates
of his palace after Bel, whom he designates as the one who lays the
foundation of all things. In this case, too, the old Bel is meant.


Belit.

In the case of Belit a curious species of confusion confronts us in the
Assyrian inscriptions. At times Belit appears as the wife of Bel, again
as the consort of Ashur, again as the consort of Ea, and again simply as
a designation of Ishtar.[294] To account for this we must bear in mind,
as has already been pointed out, that just as Bel in the sense of lord
came to be applied merely as a title of the chief god of Babylonia, so
Belit as 'lady' was used in Assyria to designate the chief goddess. This
was, as the case may be, either Ishtar or the pale 'reflection'
associated with Ashur as his consort. Now this Belit, as the wife of
Ashur, absorbs the qualities that distinguish Belit, the wife of
Bel-Marduk. The temple in the city of Ashur, which Tiglathpileser
I.[295] enriches with presents consisting of the images of the deities
vanquished by the king, may in reality have been sacred to the Belit of
Babylonia, but Tiglathpileser, for whom Bel becomes merely a designation
of Marduk, does not feel called upon to pay his devotions to the
Babylonian Sarpanitum, and so converts the old Belit into 'the lofty
wife, beloved of Ashur.' Sargon, on the other hand, who calls one of the
gates of his palace _Belit ilâni_ 'mistress of the gods,' seems to mean
by this, the consort of Ea.[296] Similarly, Ashurbanabal regards Belit
as the wife of Ashur, and himself as the offspring of Ashur and Belit.
At the same time he gives to this Belit the title of 'mother of great
gods,' which of right belongs to the consort of the Babylonian Bel. In
the full pantheon as enumerated by him, Belit occupies a place
immediately behind her consort Ashur. Ashurbanabal, however, goes still
further, and, influenced by the title of 'Belit' as applied to Ishtar,
makes the latter the consort of Ashur. This at least is the case in an
inscription from the temple of Belit at Nineveh,[297] known as
E-mash-mash, and in which Ashurbanabal alternately addresses the goddess
as Belit and as Ishtar, while elsewhere[298] this same Belit, whose seat
is in E-mash-mash, is termed the consort of Ashur. How Ashurbanabal or
his scribes came to this confusing identification we need not stop to
inquire. In part, no doubt, it was due to the general sense of
'goddess,' which Ishtar began to acquire in his days.[299] At all
events, Ashurbanabal's conception marks a contrast to the procedure of
Shalmaneser II., who correctly identifies the mother of the great gods
with the wife of Bel.[300] On the other hand, the confusion that took
place in Ashurbanabal's days is foreshadowed by the title of 'Bêlit
mâti,' _i.e._, 'mistress of the land,' by which Ashurbanabal appears to
designate some other than Ishtar.[301] Lastly, it is interesting to note
that Ashurbanabal recognizes by the side of Belit-Ishtar, the wife of
Ashur, the older Belit, the wife of the Bel of Nippur, to whom, in
association with Anu and Bel, he attributes his victory over the
Arabs.[302]


Sarpanitum.

The consort of Marduk is only incidentally referred to: once by
Sargon,[303] who groups Bel with Sarpanitum and Nabu and Tashmitum, at
the head of the gods of Babylonia; and similarly by Tiglathpileser III.,
on the occasion of his enumerating the chief gods of the Babylonian
pantheon.


Nabu.

The intimate association of Nabu with Marduk in the city of Babylon
leads as a natural consequence to a similar association in Assyria, when
once the Marduk cult had for political reasons become established in the
north. The kings invoke the favor of Bel (meaning Marduk) and Nabu,
especially when dealing with the affairs of Babylonia,[304] as they
invoke Ashur and Ishtar. Just as we have certain kings devoted to Nin-ib
and Shamash by the side of Ashur, so there are others whose special
favorite is Nabu. In the days of Ramman-nirari III. (812-783 B.C.) the
Nabu cult reached its highest point of popularity in Assyria. From the
manner in which the king speaks of the god, one might draw the
conclusion that he attempted to concentrate the whole Assyrian cult upon
that god alone. He erects a temple to the god at Calah, and overwhelms
the deity with a great array of titles. The dedicatory inscription which
the king places on a statue of Nebo closes with the significant words,
'O Posterity! trust in Nabu. Trust in no other god.'[305] Still we must
not press such phrases too hard. Ramman-nirari III. had no intention of
suppressing Ashur worship, for he mentions the god elsewhere, and
assigns to him the same rank as the other kings do, but so much we are
justified in concluding, that next to Ashur and Ishtar he feels most
strongly attached to Nabu. That the Babylonian Nabu is meant, is clear
from such designations as 'the offspring of E-sagila, the favorite of
Bel,' 'he who dwells at E-zida,' which appear among the epithets
bestowed upon the god; and the temple in Calah, which one of the last
kings of Assyria, Ashuretililani,[306] is engaged in improving, bears
the same name E-zida, as Nabu's great temple at Borsippa. We have
already set forth the reasons[307] for the popularity of the Nabu cult
in Assyria. Suffice it to recall that the peculiar character of the god
as the patron of wisdom placed him beyond the reach of any jealousy on
the part of the other members of the pantheon. So Ramman-nirari III.
extols Nabu as the protector of the arts, the all-wise who guides the
stylus of the scribe, and the possessor of wisdom in general. He is not
merely the originator of writing, but the source of all wisdom, and for
this reason he is spoken of as the son of Ea. Attributes of mere brutal
force are rarely assigned to Nabu, but as befits a god of wisdom, mercy,
nobility, and majesty constitute his chief attractions. By virtue of his
wisdom, Sargon calls him 'the clear seer who guides all the gods,' and
when the last king of Assyria--Saracus, as the Greek writers called
him--invokes Nabu as the 'leader of forces,' he appears to have in mind
the heavenly troops rather than earthly armies. Such patrons of learning
as Sargon and Ashurbanabal were naturally fond of parading their
devotion to Nabu. The former significantly calls him the 'writer of
everything,' and as for Ashurbanabal, almost every tablet in the great
literary collection that he made at Nineveh closes with a solemn
invocation to Nabu and his consort Tashmitum, to whom he offers thanks
for having opened his ears to receive wisdom, and who persuaded him to
make the vast literary treasures of the past accessible to his subjects.


Tashmitum.

The consort of Nabu was permitted to share the honors in the temple of
Nabu at Calah, but beyond this and Ashurbanabal's constant association
of Tashmitum with Nabu in the subscript to his tablets, she appears only
when the kings of Assyria coming to Babylonia as they were wont to
do,[308] in order to perform sacrifices, enumerate the chief gods of the
Babylonian pantheon.


Ea.

Ea takes his place in the Assyrian pantheon in the double capacity of
god of wisdom and as a member of the old triad. Ashurnasirbal makes
mention of a sanctuary erected to the honor of Ea in Ashur. A
recollection of the rôle that Ea plays in Babylonian mythology survives
in the titles of 'creator' and 'king of the ocean,' which Shalmaneser
gives him,[309] and of the 'one who opens the fountains' as Ashurbanabal
declares.[310] He is also, as in Babylonia, the one who determines the
fates of mankind. As the one who has a care for the arts, he is the wise
god, just as Nabu, and under various titles, as Nu-gim-mud,[311]
Nin-igi-azag, and Igi-dug-gu,[312] all emphasizing his skill, he is the
artificer who aids the kings in their building operations. The
similarity of the rôles of Nabu and Ea, as gods of wisdom and the arts,
might easily have led to a confusion. Fortunately, the grandiloquent and
all-embracing titles accorded to the former did not alter his character
as essentially the god who presides over the art of writing, while Ea
retains the control over the architectural achievements,--the great
colossi, in the first instance, that guarded the approach of palaces,
the images of the gods in the second, and the temples and palaces in
general as his third function.


Damkina.

Of the consort of Ea, it is sufficient to note that she is occasionally
referred to in the historical texts of the Assyrian period. In the
inscriptions of Sargon she appears under the rather strange title of
'Belit ilâni,' _i.e._, the mistress of the gods.[313] This 'mistress'
cannot be, as might at first blush appear, Ishtar or the old Belit, for
elsewhere[314] Ishtar, Belit, and Belit ilâni occur side by side. Sargon
declares that he owes his wisdom to Ea and Belit ilâni. In naming the
gates of his palace, he again associates Ea with 'the mistress of the
gods,' from which it is clear that the epithet is used of Ea's consort.


Nin-gal.

A sanctuary to the old Babylonian goddess Nin-gal is included by Sargon
among the holy edifices erected by him in his official residence.[315]


Dibharra.

We have pointed out in a previous chapter how faint the dividing line
sometimes becomes between gods and spirits. Among the minor deities,
ranking hardly above demons, is the plague-god, whose name may
provisionally be read Dibbarra.[316] The god plays a rôle in some of the
ancient legends of Babylonia. Remains have been found of a kind of epic
in which Dibbarra is the chief personage.[317] In the historical texts
he is once incidentally mentioned by Ashurbanabal, who in the course of
his campaign against Babylonia[318] describes how the corpses of those
killed by Dibbarra, _i.e._, through hunger and want, filled the streets
of the cities. Evidently Dibbarra here is a mere personification of the
dreadful demon of want that so often follows in the wake of a military
destruction. Still there can be no doubt that at one time he was
regarded as a real deity, and not merely a spirit or demon. Dibbarra is
identified in the theological system of Babylonia with Nergal.


Damku, Sharru-ilu, and Sha-nit(?)-ka.

In an interesting passage recounting the restoration of the city
Magganubba, Sargon[319] says that he prayed to Damku, _i.e._, 'grace,'
Sharru-ilu, _i.e._, 'king-god,' and Sha-nit(?)-ka. The two former he
calls the judges of mankind. That Damku and Sharru-ilu are titles and
not names is evident from the meaning of the words, but at present it
is impossible to say what gods are meant.[320] Perhaps that these are
the translations of names of the old deities of Magganubba. We have
at least one other example of a foreign deity introduced into the
Assyrian pantheon. At Dur-ilu, a town lying near the Elamitic
frontier, there flourished the cult of Ka-di,[321] evidently a god
imported into the Assyrian pantheon from Elam or some other eastern
district. Sargon's scribes are fond of translating foreign names and
words, and they may have done so in this case, and thus added two new
deities to the glorious pantheon protecting their royal chief. As for
Sha-nit(?)-ka,[322] were it not that she is called the mistress of
Nineveh, one would also put her down as a foreign goddess. In view of
this, however, it may be that Sha-nit(?)-ka is an ideographic
designation of Ishtar.

Before leaving the subject, a word needs to be said regarding the
relation between the active Assyrian pantheon and the long lists of
deities prepared by the schoolmen of Babylonia and Assyria. Reference
has already been made to these lists.[323] They vary in character. Some
of them furnish an index of the various names under which a god was
known,[324] or the titles assigned to him. These names and titles are
frequently indications that some great god has absorbed the attributes
of smaller ones, whose independence was in this way destroyed. Other
lists[325] are simple enumerations of local deities, and when to these
names some indications are added, as to the locality to which the gods
belong,[326] their importance is correspondingly increased. There can be
no doubt that most of these lists were prepared on the basis of the
occurrence of these gods in texts, and it seems most plausible to
conclude that the texts in question were of a religious character.
References to local cults are numerous in the incantations which form a
considerable proportion of the religious literature, while in hymns and
prayers, gods are often referred to by their titles instead of their
names. In some respects, however, these lists of gods are still obscure.
It is often difficult to determine whether we are dealing with gods or
spirits, and the origin and meaning of many of the names and epithets
assigned to gods are similarly involved in doubt. Use has been made of
these lists in determining the character of the gods included in this
survey of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, but it would be
manifestly precarious to make additions to this pantheon on the basis of
the lists alone. Despite the tendency towards centralization of divine
power in a limited number of gods, local cults, no doubt, continued to
enjoy some importance in Assyria as well as Babylonia; but, in the
present stage of our knowledge, we have no means of determining either
the number or the character of these local cults. While, therefore, a
complete treatment of the pantheon of Babylonia and Assyria would
include all the minor local cults, we may feel quite certain that these
local cults furnish few, if any, additions to the concepts connected
with these gods which we have discussed. I have therefore contented
myself with some illustrations, in each of the three divisions under
which the pantheon has been surveyed, of some of the minor deities
chosen, such as actually occur in historical, commercial, or religious
texts. For the Assyrian pantheon, we may place Nin-gal and most of the
consorts of the gods among the minor gods, and also such deities as
Ka-di, Khani, Gaga, Dibbarra, Sherua, and Azag-sir, who are merely
incidentally referred to.[327] These illustrations suffice for placing
clearly before us the distinction to be made in the pantheon between
gods whose worship was actively carried on, and those who occupy more of
a theoretical position in the system perfected by the schoolmen,
standing under the political and social influences of their days. With
this distinction clearly impressed upon us, we will be prepared for such
modifications of our views of the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon as
further researches and discoveries may render necessary.

FOOTNOTES:

[222] Semitic alphabet.

[223] A form of Nebo, according to Meissner-Rost, _Bauinschriften
Sanherib's_, p. 105.

[224] See Meissner-Rost, _ib._ p. 108.

[225] As _e.g._, En-e-in-pal (Meissner-Rost, _ib._ p. 76). Sherua and
Arag-sir (_ib._ p. 101). For further lists of deities, see pp. 234, 238.

[226] The Assyrian kings are fond of mentioning foreign deities, and of
adding them to their pantheon. In his annals (VR. col. vi. ll. 30-43)
Ashurbanabal gives a list of twenty Elamitic deities captured by him.

[227] Tiele (_Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte_, p. 519) suggests Ea.

[228] An interesting example of this tendency is furnished by a tablet
published by T. G. Pinches (_Journal of the Victoria Institute_, xxviii.
8-10), in which the name Marduk is treated almost as a generic term for
deity. Nergal is called 'the Marduk of warfare'; Nebo, 'the Marduk of
earthly possessions'; Ninib, 'the Marduk of strength'; En-lil, 'the
Marduk of sovereignty'; and so on, in a long enumeration, the gods are
regarded as so many forms of Marduk. Pinches' conclusion that the list
points to monotheistic beliefs is, however, unwarranted. The list only
illustrates a tendency towards a centralization of divine powers in
Marduk, that accompanies the political centralization of the period.

[229] See below, pp. 228, 229.

[230] So the gods of the Assyrian pantheon are generally termed in the
inscriptions of the kings.

[231] See below, p. 195.

[232] See below, p. 220.

[233] A description of this symbol occurs in a text of Sennacherib
(Meissner-Rost, _Bauinschriften Sanherib's_, p. 94). The symbol itself
is found on sculptured slabs and on seal cylinders.

[234] So Sennacherib still speaks of Images of Ashur, and of the great
gods erected by him (Meissner-Rost, _Bauinschriften Sanherib's_, p. 94).

[235] See Stevenson, "The Feather and the Wing in Mythology," _Oriental
Studies of the Phila. Oriental Club_, pp. 236-239.

[236] _Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte_, p. 533.

[237] For the sake of convenience it is customary to distinguish between
Ashur the god, and the country by writing the latter with a double
_sh_--Ashshur.

[238] _Geschichte_, p. 533.

[239] See Jensen _Zeits. für Assyr._ i. 1 _seq._ and Delitzsch, _Das
Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos_, p. 94.

[240] By the assimilation of the _n_ to the following consonant.

[241] See above, pp. 173, 175.

[242] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 275.

[243] The combination of religious supremacy with political power, which
characterizes the social state of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, gives
to the title _patesi_ a double significance. In Babylonia, moreover, it
acquires the force of vassal-king.

[244] The full list is Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.

[245] More precisely Arba-ilu, signifying 'city of the fourfold
divinity' or 'four-god' city. _Cf._ the Palestinian form Kiryath-Arba,
"four city,"--originally perhaps, likewise, a city of four gods, rather
than four roads or four quarters, as commonly explained.

[246] IR. 14, l. 86.

[247] _Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte_, p. 85.

[248] See above, p. 83.

[249] See above, pp. 83, 84.

[250] Cylinder B, col. v. ll. 30 _seq._; elsewhere (Rassam Cylinder,
col. ii. ll. 115 _seq._) he prays to Ashur and Ishtar.

[251] Rassam Cylinder, col. viii. l. 92. Elsewhere, Cylinder B, col. v.
17, Ishtar is called the daughter of Bel. This, however, must be an
error; either Sin must be read for Bel, or _khirat_ (consort) for
_marat_ (daughter).

[252] See above, p. 151.

[253] See Barton, "The Semitic Ishtar Cult" (_Hebraica_, x. 9-12).

[254] _I.e._, _c._ 1800 B.C.

[255] See p. 154.

[256] See above, p. 149.

[257] See below, p. 237.

[258] A king of Nippur (_c._ 2500 B.C.) bears the name Ishme-Dagan.

[259] See above, p. 154; Tiele, _Geschichte der Religion im Alterthum_,
i. 172.

[260] See Hommel, _Geschichte_, p. 490. How much earlier Samsi-Ramman I.
reigned is not known--perhaps only 40 or 50 years.

[261] The _d_ of Dagon would be represented by _d_ in cuneiform writing.

[262] See p. 154.

[263] An eponym in his days bears the name Daganbelusur.

[264] In the El-Amarna tablets (_c._ 1400 B.C.) the governors of the
Palestinian states generally address their Egyptian lord as 'my sun'.

[265] Exactly of what nature we do not know. The Assyrian word used,
Cylinder, l. 43, is obscure.

[266] See p. 160.

[267] IR. 8, col. i. 85. See above, p. 166.

[268] Ashurnasirbal calls him so in his annals, _e.g._, col. iii. 1.
130.

[269] Bavian Inscription, ll. 48-50. See also Meissner-Rost,
_Bauinschriften Sanherib's_, p. 102. The reading of the name of the city
is not certain. It signifies 'city of palaces.'

[270] _c._ 1120 B.C.

[271] II Rawlinson, 57, 33.

[272] So Tiglathpileser associates Ashur and Nin-ib, as those 'who
fulfill his desire.'

[273] Ashurnasirbal's father bears the name Tukulti-Ninib.

[274] See above, pp. 151, 206.

[275] One of the gates of Sargon's palace is called after Nin-ib.

[276] See above, p. 57.

[277] See above, pp. 92-94.

[278] _Kosmologie_, pp. 457-475.

[279] He is also called the offspring of a goddess, Ku-tu-shar, but this
reference is not clear. See Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 468, note 5.

[280] In a religious text he is addressed as 'holy, holy, holy.'

[281] Balawat, col. v. ll. 4, 5.

[282] Kar = fortress.

[283] See Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 438, and Jensen's important
note, _Kosmologie_, pp. 492-494.

[284] See pp. 124, 125.

[285] Cylinder, l. 61.

[286] See pp. 117 _seq._

[287] We may therefore expect, some day, to come across the name Marduk
in Assyrian texts earlier than the ninth century.

[288] See p. 131.

[289] So also Shalmaneser II., Obelisk, l. 179, unless Marduk here is an
error for Ramman, _cf._ l. 175.

[290] See above, p. 146.

[291] The so-called _Prunkinschrift_, ll. 174 _seq._

[292] Note the frequent use of Ashur and Bel for Assyria and Babylonia.

[293] Ashurbanabal, Rassam Cylinder, col ix. ll. 76, 77.

[294] See above, p. 205.

[295] IR. II. col. iv. ll. 34, 35.

[296] See below, pp. 231, 237.

[297] Rawlinson, ii. 66.

[298] Rassam Cylinder, col. x. ll. 25-27.

[299] See Tiele, _Babyl. Assyr. Geschichte_, p. 127.

[300] Obelisk, l. 52.

[301] Annals, col. ii. l. 135.

[302] Rassam Cylinder, col. x. l. 75.

[303] _Prunkinschrift_, l. 143.

[304] Esarhaddon, IR. 46, col. ii. l. 48; Rawlinson, iii. 16, col. iii.
l. 24.

[305] IR. 35, no. 2, l. 12.

[306] IR. 8, no. 3, ll. 5 _seq._

[307] See above, p. 126.

[308] _E.g._, Tiglathpileser III., Nimrud inscription (Layard, pl. 17,
l. 12).

[309] Obelisk, l. 5.

[310] Rassam Cylinder, col. i. l. 45.

[311] Delitzsch (_Das Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos_, p. 99) questions
whether Nu-gim-mud (or Nu-dim-mud) was originally a designation of Ea.
Nu-dim-mud being an epithet might, of course, be applied to other gods,
but there can be no doubt that it was used to designate more
particularly Ea as the artificer. See my remarks, pp. 138, 177 _seq._

[312] Meissner-Rost, _Bauinscriften Sanherib's_, p. 105.

[313] Cylinder, l. 48, ideographically as Nin-men-an-na, 'lady of the
heavenly crown.' In the parallel passage, however, as Lyon
(_Sargontexte_, p. 71) points out, _Belit ilâni_ is used.

[314] Cylinder, l. 70.

[315] Cylinder, l. 68.

[316] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 445, reads the name _Gira_. See pp.
527-28.

[317] See the author's work on _A Fragment of the Dibbarra Epic_. (Ginn
& Co., Boston, 1891).

[318] Rassam Cylinder, col. lv. ll. 79 _seq._

[319] Cylinder, ll. 44-53.

[320] Delitzsch's supposition (see Lyon, _Sargontexte_, p. 71) that
Sharru-ilu is Izdubar is untenable.

[321] _Babyl. Chronicle_, col. iii. l. 44.

[322] May also be read Sha-ush-ka.

[323] See above, pp. 13, 170.

[324] _E.g._, IIR. 58, no. 5, titles of Ea; IIR. 60, no. 2, titles of
Nabu.

[325] _E.g._, IIR. 60, no. 1.

[326] _E.g._, IIIR. 66, lists of gods worshipped in various temples of
Assyria and also of Babylonia.

[327] See pp. 189, 238.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRIAD AND THE COMBINED INVOCATION OF DEITIES.


The Assyrian kings, in imitation of the example set by their Babylonian
predecessors, are fond of introducing into their inscriptions, a series
of gods under whose protection they place themselves. They do not do
this as the earlier Babylonian rulers did, to emphasize the extent of
their jurisdiction by adding to their pantheon the deities of towns or
districts vanquished by them. The day of independent states being over,
the importance of merely local deities had ceased. The theological
system evolved in Babylonia in combination with the popular instinct had
led to a selection out of the mass of deities of a limited number, each
with tolerably definite attributes, and who together embraced all the
forces under whose power mankind stood. Of these deities again, as we
have seen, some acquired greater favor in Assyria than others, but for
all that, the kings especially of the later period of Assyrian history
were fond of including in an enumeration of the pantheon, even those who
had no special significance. Policy and the meaningless imitation of
earlier examples played an equal part in thus giving to the lists an
aspect of formality that deprives them of the impression that they might
otherwise make.

The combined invocations are found usually at the beginning and at the
end of the inscriptions--at the beginning for invoking the aid of the
gods, at the close for invoking their curses upon those who would
attempt to destroy the ambitious monuments set up by the kings. Often,
however, the narrative is interrupted for the purpose of making
acknowledgment to a larger or smaller series of gods for victory,
granted or hoped for. In these combined references a separate place
belongs to the triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea. While not occupying the
prominent position they have in Babylonian inscriptions, still the kings
often mention Anu, Bel, and Ea separately, or Anu and Bel alone,
ascribing victory to them, putting them down as the originators of the
calendar system, and declaring themselves to have been nominated by them
to rule over Assyria. Sargon, with his antiquarian zeal, appears to have
made an effort to reinstate the triad as a special group in the
pantheon. In general, however, they take their place with other gods. So
Ramman-nirari I. invokes the curse of Ashur, Anu, Bel, Ea, and Ishtar,
together with the Igigi and Anunnaki; but, what is more important,
already at an early period the triad disappears altogether from the
pantheon, except for the artificial attempts of Sargon to revive
interest in them. In both the longer and shorter lists of gods
enumerated by the kings from the time of Tiglathpileser, the triad is
conspicuous for its absence.

As for the other gods, it is to some extent a matter of caprice which
ones happen to be invoked, though just as frequently we see the motive
for selecting certain ones of the pantheon. Thus, when proceeding to
Babylonia for war or sacrifices, the gods of Babylonia are invoked,
either Marduk and Nabu alone, as the chief gods, or Bel (_i.e._,
Marduk), Sarpanitum, Nabu, Tashmitum, Nanâ, Nergal, with Ashur, or Ashur
and Marduk, or Marduk and Nabu in combination with Ashur. At other times
it depends upon the gods to whom certain kings may be especially
attached, or with whom they may have special dealings in their
inscriptions. Thus Tiglathpileser I., when speaking of the temple of Anu
and Ramman, contents himself with invoking these two gods alone at the
close of his great inscription. Elsewhere, when referring to the special
gods of his city, he combines Anu and Ramman with Ishtar; but again, for
no special reason, his prayer is addressed to Ashur, Shamash, and
Ramman. The pantheon of Ramman-nirari I. consists either of the longer
one above enumerated, or of Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar. As
we proceed down the centuries, the formal lists at the beginning of
inscriptions have a tendency to grow larger. Ashurnasirbal's pantheon
consists of Bel and Nin-ib, Anu and Dagan, Sin, Anu, Ramman, and, of
course, Ashur, though on special occasions, as when speaking of his
achievements in the chase, he contents himself with a mention of Nin-ib
and Nergal. He loves, too, to vary the style of his inscriptions by
naming various groups of deities in pairs: now Ashur and Shamash, again
Ashur and Nin-ib, or Ashur and Bel; then Shamash and Ramman, or a group
of three deities, Ashur, Shamash, and Ramman, or Sin, Anu, and Ramman.
His successors imitate this example, though each one chooses his own
combinations. Shalmaneser II.'s pantheon embraces Ashur, Anu, Bel, Ea,
Sin, Shamash, Nin-ib, Nergal, Nusku, Belit, and Ishtar--eleven in all.
Sargon's practice varies. The best list is furnished by his account of
the eight gates of his palace and of two walls, which he names after the
gods in the following order:[328]

  Shamash, who grants victory.       } As the names for the
  Ramman, who brings superabundance. } eastern gates.
  Bel, who lays foundations.         } For the northern gates.
  Belit, who brings fertility.       }
  Anu, who blesses handiwork.                     } For the western
  Ishtar, who causes the inhabitants to flourish. } gates.
  Ea, who unlocks fountains.                      } For the southern
                                                  } gates.
  Belit ilâni,[329] who increases the offspring.  }
  Ashur, who permits the king to grow old, and protects the troops.--For
  the inner wall.
  Nin-ib, who lays the foundations of the city.--For the outer wall.

The order here is dictated by the directions of the gates. Elsewhere he
sets up the group Ea, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Ramman, Nin-ib, and their
consorts.

Sennacherib's fuller group consists of Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Bel (_i.e._,
Marduk), Nabu, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela--only
eight. But at the close of one of his building inscriptions[330] he
invokes some twenty deities, adding to these eight, Nusku, Khani, Gaga,
Sherua, Nin-gal, a god Azag-sir, and Nin-ib under three different forms;
but it is evident that most of these are added to give effect and
solemnity. They do not form part of the active pantheon. His successor,
Esarhaddon, sets up various groups. At one time he enumerates Ashur,
Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela; at
another he prefers different combinations of these gods. Ashurbanabal is
more consistent than most of the Assyrian rulers, and furnishes at the
same time the best list. While he, too, frequently mentions only a few
deities, grouping three or four together, his longer series consists,
with but one or two exceptions, invariably of the following, and who
always occur in the same order: Ashur, Belit, Sin, Shamash, Ramman, Bel
(_i.e._, Marduk), Nabu, Ishtar of Nineveh, the queen of Kidmuru, Ishtar
of Arbela, Nin-ib, Nergal, and Nusku--thirteen in all. Of these, as we
have seen, only some were actively worshipped at all times in Assyria;
as for the others, the popularity of their cult varied from age to age,
now being actively carried on under the stimulus afforded by the
erection or improvement of an edifice sacred to the god, and again
falling into comparative insignificance; but formally, at least, all
these gods were regarded at all times as forming part of the pantheon of
the 'great gods.' The testimony of Ashurbanabal thus becomes valuable as
a proof that to the latest days of the Assyrian monarchy, the attachment
to these gods was still strong enough to merit the formal
acknowledgments of the king to them on all occasions, and that through
their combined aid the glorious achievements of the past and present
were attained.

FOOTNOTES:

[328] Cylinder, ll. 67-73.

[329] Ea's consort; see above, p. 231.

[330] Meissner-Rost, _Bauinschriften Sanherib's_, p. 99.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE NEO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD.


When upon the fall of the Assyrian empire, in 606 B.C., Babylonia
regained her full measure of independence, Marduk once more obtained
undisputed sway at the head of the pantheon. True, so far as Babylonia
was concerned, Marduk was always the acknowledged head, but during the
period that Assyria held Babylonia in a more or less rigid form of
subjection it was inevitable that Ashur should lower the prestige of
Marduk. When the kings of Assyria paid their respects to Marduk, it was
always as second in rank to Ashur; and, what is more, they claimed
Marduk and the other gods of Babylonia as their own, and as upholders of
their own sovereignty. When the kings feel impelled to invade the
southern districts, they not only claim to be under the protection of
the Babylonian gods, but they carry these gods with them into the land
to be invaded. 'Bel and the gods of Akkad leave Assyria and go to
Babylonia' is the official term in which a campaign against Babylonia is
described.[331] In the eyes of the Babylonians such a haughty assumption
on the part of the Assyrians must have been regarded as humiliating to
Marduk, Nabu, and their associates.

The state of affairs changed when Nebopolassar at the end of the seventh
century once more claimed independent control over Babylonia. Marduk
triumphs over Ashur. He is once more the great god, lord of gods,
supreme king of the Igigi, the father of the Anunnaki--all titles that
the Assyrians were fond of heaping upon Ashur. One feels the anxiety of
Nebopolassar to emphasize the new order of things by attributing once
more to Marduk what was formerly claimed for Ashur. The successor of
Nebopolassar, the great Nebuchadnezzar, continues the policy of his
father. He neglects no opportunity for exalting Marduk as the king, the
creator, the leader of the gods, the lord of everything, the merciful
one, the light of the gods, the all-wise. Nabu shares the honors with
Marduk. Nebopolassar, indeed, accords to Nabu an equal share, and he
does not hesitate at times to place the name Nabu before that of
Marduk.[332] He does not speak of Nabu as the son of Marduk, and seems
to be at particular pains to emphasize the equality of Nabu with Marduk.
In this respect Nebopolassar presents a contrast to Hammurabi, who, it
will be recalled, made an attempt to suppress the Nabu cult.[333]
Nebopolassar, however, does not go to the extent of endeavoring to make
Nabu supersede Marduk. He contents himself with manifesting his
partiality for the former, and it is probably no accident that both his
official name and that of his son contain the god Nabu as one of their
elements, and not Marduk. One is inclined to suspect that this
popularity of the Nabu cult is a trace of Assyrian influence. But
whatever may have been Nebopolassar's intention in exalting Nabu at the
cost of Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar restores the old relationship between the
two. For him Nabu is again merely the son of Marduk, and he honors Nabu
in this capacity. Like the Assyrian Nabu, the god places the sceptre in
the king's hands, but he is, after all, only the supreme messenger of
Marduk. In the closing days of the Babylonian monarchy a more serious
attempt, it would appear, was made to displace Marduk. Nabonnedos formed
the design of replacing both Marduk and Nabu by the cult of Shamash. He
incurs the ill-will of the priests by paying much more attention to the
restoration of the various Shamash temples in Babylonia than would
appear to be consistent with devotion to Marduk. Cyrus, therefore, in
his conquest of Babylonia, sets up the claim of being the savior of
Marduk's honor.[334]

The Neo-Babylonian period may properly be designated as a religious age.
The rulers, anxious to manifest their gratitude to the gods, and
prompted in part, no doubt, by the desire to emulate the glorious
architectural achievements of the Assyrian monarchs, devote themselves
assiduously to the improvement of the great temples of the city of
Babylon, and to the restoration or enlargement of those scattered
throughout the country. Nebopolassar sets the example in this respect,
which is considerably improved upon by Nebuchadnezzar. Over forty
temples and shrines are mentioned in the latter's inscriptions as having
been improved, enlarged, or restored by him; and the last king of
Babylonia, Nabonnedos, endeavors to continue this royal policy of
temple-building. In this respect the Neo-Babylonian rulers present a
contrast to the Assyrian rulers, who were much more concerned in rearing
grand edifices for themselves. While the gods were not neglected in
Assyria, one hears much more of the magnificent palaces erected by the
kings than of temples and shrines. In fact, as compared with Babylonia,
Assyria was poor in the number of her temples. The chief sanctuaries to
which the Neo-Babylonian kings devoted themselves were, in the first
instance, E-sagila of Babylon and E-zida of Borsippa. Nebopolassar and
his successors are fond of giving themselves the title of 'beautifier of
E-Sagila and E-zida.' In these great temples sacred to Marduk and Nebo,
there were shrines to Sarpanitum, Tashmitum, Nusku, Ea and others, which
also engaged the energies of the rulers.

After Babylon came the old sanctuaries in the ancient religious centers
of the south,--the temples to Shamash and his consort at Sippar and
Larsa, the temples to Sin at Ur and Harran, to the old Ishtar or Anunit
at Agade, to Nanâ in Erech. Thirdly, the cities of Babylon and Borsippa,
to which the kings, especially Nebuchadnezzar, are deeply attached, were
enriched with many sanctuaries more or less imposing, sacred to a
variety of deities. So Shamash, Sin, Nin-makh,--_i.e._, the great lady,
or Ishtar,--Nin-khar-shag, Gula, also appearing as Nin-Karrak,[335] have
their temples in Babylon, while Ramman has one in Borsippa, and Gula no
less than three sanctuaries--perhaps only small chapels--in Borsippa.
Fourthly, there are sanctuaries of minor importance in other quarters of
Babylonia. Among these we find mention of the improvement of sanctuaries
to the local deity of Marad, whom Nebuchadnezzar simply calls
Lugal-Marada, _i.e._, king of Marad, to Bel-sarbi, or Shar-sarbi, in
Baz,--perhaps a title of Nergal,--to Nin-ib in Dilbat, to Ramman in
Kumari(?).

Most of these sanctuaries are referred to in the inscriptions of
Nebuchadnezzar--a circumstance which, in connection with the many other
gods whom he invokes on various occasions, points to a great revival of
ancient cults in his days. Some of these cults had never reached any
degree of importance prior to his time. Hence it happens that we come
across deities in his inscriptions of whom no mention is found
elsewhere. It is probable that such gods were purely local deities, some
of them, if not many, being at the same time personifications of the
powers or phenomena of nature, while others may be familiar gods,
masquerading under strange attributes. Unfortunately most of these gods
are written in ideographic fashion, so that we cannot be certain of the
reading of their names. Among these are Nin-lil-anna, a goddess called
by Nebuchadnezzar 'the lady who loves me,'[336] and Tur-lil-en,[337] a
god who is described as 'breaking the weapons of enemies.' As for
Bel-sarbi, or Shar-sarbi, the god of Baz,[338] they appear to be titles
rather than names. Dibbarra, Nergal and his consort Laz, and Zamama are
also included in the pantheon of Nebuchadnezzar.

In regard to none of these deities do we find any conceptions different
from those developed in the period of Hammurabi, any more than in the
conceptions of those gods who occupy a more prominent place in the
pantheon. Shamash is the judge, Sin is the wise one, Ramman the
thunderer, and so on throughout the list. It was not a period favorable
to the production of new religious thought, but only to the more or less
artificial revival of old cults.

       *       *       *       *       *

With the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus in 539 B.C., we reach the close
of the period to be embraced in a history of the Babylonian-Assyrian
religion. True, the Marduk and Nabu cults were upheld by the Persian
rulers, and the policy of the latter in not disturbing the religious
status was continued by the Greeks when they in turn succeeded the
Persians in their control of Babylonia, but the presence of strange
civilizations with totally different religious trains of thought was
bound to affect the character of the old faith, and in time to threaten
its existence. At all events, it ceases to have any interest for us.
There are no further lines of development upon which it enters. The
period of decay, of slow but sure decay, has set in. The cuneiform
writing continues to be used till almost the beginning of our era, and
so the religious cults draw out their existence to a late period; but as
the writing and the civilization yield before new forces that entirely
alter the character of Oriental culture, so also the religion, after
sinking ever lower into the bogs of superstition, disappears, much as
the canals and little streams of the Euphrates valley, through the
neglect which settled over the country, become lost in the
death-breeding swamps and marshes.

FOOTNOTES:

[331] Babylonian Chronicle B, col. iv. ll. 34, 35.

[332] _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, II. 72, col. i. ll. 2, 3.

[333] See above, p. 127.

[334] See a paper by Tiele, on "Cyrus and the Babylonian Religion," in
the _Proceedings of the Amsterdam Academy_, 1896.

[335] For the identity of Nin-Karrak and Gula, see the 'Shurpu'
Incantation Series, iv. l. 86 (ed. Zimmern), where the former is called
the 'great physician,'--the epithet peculiar to Gula.

[336] East India House Inscription, col. iv. l. 44.

[337] VR. 34, col. ii. l. 26, or simply Tur-lil (East India House
Inscription, col. iv. l. 49, not Tur-e, as Winckler, _Keils Bibl._ 3, 2,
18, reads).

[338] _I.e._, king or lord of Sarbi. Pognon (_Les Inscriptions
Babyloniennes de Wadl Brissa_), p. 46, is of the opinion that _sarbi_ is
the palm, but he fails to bring sufficient proof, and his theory is
improbable. The stem _sarabu_ means to burn, and the "fiery lord" is
certainly an epithet belonging to some solar deity.




CHAPTER XV.

THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF BABYLONIA.


The pantheon of a religion presents us with the external phases of the
religion in question. In order to penetrate further towards the core of
the religion, and to see it at its best, the religious thought as
manifested in the national literature constitutes our most valuable
guide. The beginnings of Babylonian literature are enveloped in
obscurity. We have seen that we are justified in passing beyond the
period of Hammurabi[339] for these beginnings, but exactly when and
precisely how the literary spirit first manifested itself in Babylonia
will probably remain for a long time, if not for always, a matter of
conjecture. The great political and religious centers of Babylonia, such
as Ur, Sippar, Agade, Eridu, Nippur, Uruk, perhaps also Lagash, and
later on Babylon, formed the foci of literary activity, as they were the
starting-points of commercial enterprise. This intimate connection of
religion with literature left its impress upon all branches into which
the Babylonian literature was in the course of time differentiated. In a
certain sense all the literature of Babylonia is religious. Even the
legal formulas, as embodied in the so-called contract tablets, have a
religious tinge. The priests being the scribes, a contract of any kind
between two or more parties was a religious compact. The oath which
accompanied the compact involved an invocation of the gods. The decree
of the judges in a disputed suit was confirmed by an appeal to the gods.
The terms in which the parties bound themselves consisted largely of
religious phrases, and finally the dating of the tablet often contained
a reference to some religious festival or to some event of religious
import--such as the building of a sanctuary. Science, so far as it
existed in Babylonia, never loosened the leading-strings that bound it
to the prevailing religious thought. The observation of the stars was
carried on under the belief of the supposed influence exerted by the
heavenly bodies upon the fate of man; and surprising as we find the
development of astronomical calculations and forecasts to be,
mathematics does not pass beyond the limits of astrology. Medicine was
likewise the concern of the priests. Disease was a divine infliction
supposed to be due to the direct presence in the body, or to the hidden
influence, of some pernicious spirit. The cure was effected by the
exorcising of the troublesome spirit through prescribed formulas of
supposed power, accompanied by symbolical acts. There is indeed no
branch of human knowledge which so persistently retains its connection
with religious beliefs among all peoples of antiquity as the one which
to-day is regarded as resting solely upon a materialistic basis. As a
consequence the Babylonians, although they made some progress in
medicinal methods, and more especially in medical diagnosis, never
dissociated medicinal remedies from the appeal to the gods. The recital
of formulas was supposed to secure by their magic force the
effectiveness of the medical potions that were offered to the sufferer.

As for the historical texts, the preceding chapters have illustrated how
full they are of religious allusions, how at every turn we meet with the
influence exerted by the priests as the composers of these texts. Almost
all occurrences are given a religious coloring. That these texts furnish
us with such valuable material, and such a quantity of it, is indeed to
be traced directly to the fact that the historical literature is also
the direct production of the religious leaders and guides of the people,
acting at the command of rulers, who were desirous of emphasizing their
dependence upon the gods of the country, and who made this dependence
the basis of the authority they exerted.

Such being the general aspect of Babylonian literature, it is not always
possible to draw a sharp line separating religious productions from such
as may properly be termed secular. For example, the zodiacal system of
the Babylonians, which we shall have occasion to discuss, although
presenting a scientific aspect, is in reality an outcome of the
religious thought; and so at other points it is necessary to pass over
into the region of secular thought for illustrations of the religious
beliefs. Bearing this in mind, we may set up a fivefold division of the
religious literature of the Babylonians in the stricter sense: (1) the
magical texts, (2) the hymns and prayers, (3) omens and forecasts, (4)
the cosmology, (5) epics and legends. It will be apparent that the first
three divisions represent a practical part of the literature, while the
two latter are of a more purely literary character. The magical texts,
as well as the hymns and prayers and omens, we can well imagine were
produced as circumstances called them forth, and one can also understand
how they should, at an early age, have been committed to writing. The
incantations serving the practical purpose already referred to of
securing a control over the spirit, it will be readily seen that such as
had demonstrated their effectiveness would become popular. The desire
would arise to preserve them for future generations. With that natural
tendency of loose custom to become fixed law, these incantations would
come to be permanently associated with certain temples. Rituals would
thus arise. The incantation would be committed to writing so that one
generation of priests might be certain of furnishing orthodox
instruction to the other; and, once written, they would form part of the
temple archives, finding a place in these archives by the side of the
contract tablets, for which the sacred edifices of the country also
served as depositories. The large quantity of incantation texts that
have been found in Ashurbanabal's library,[340] as well as the
variations and contrasts they present when compared with one another,
are probably due to the various sources whence the scribes of the king,
who were sent to the libraries of the south, collected their material.
It is only reasonable to suppose that each great temple acquired in the
course of time a ritual of its own, which, while perhaps not differing
in any essential points from that introduced in another place, yet
deviated from it sufficiently to impart to it a character of its own. In
the case of some of the texts that have been preserved, it is still
possible to determine through certain traits that they exhibit in what
religious center they were produced. With considerable more guarantee of
accuracy can this be done in the case of the hymns and prayers.
Addressed as the latter were to certain deities, it stands to reason
that they were written for use in the temples sacred to those deities,
or, if not to be used, at least composed in honor of certain sanctuaries
that contained the images of the deities thus exalted. Again, in the
historical inscriptions of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods,
prayers are introduced, and we are as a general thing expressly told on
what occasion they were composed and in what sanctuary they were
uttered. We may therefore conclude that those which have been preserved
independently also served a practical purpose, and were written, not
merely for certain occasions, but for certain places. The practical
purpose served by texts containing omens and forecasts derived from the
observation of the planets and stars, from monstrosities--human and
animal--from strange occurrences, accidents, and the like, is too
obvious to require demonstration. But while duly emphasizing the
practical purpose that gave rise to the incantation texts, the hymns,
the prayers and omens, we must be careful not to press this point too
far. The rituals of the various temples once being fixed, the impulse to
literary composition would still go on in an age marked by intellectual
activity. The practical purpose would be followed by the pure love of
composition. The attachment to certain sanctuaries or certain deities
would inspire earnest and gifted priests to further efforts.
Accordingly, while we cannot be certain that among the actual remains of
magical texts and hymns we may not have specimens that belong to this
class, there is no reason to question that such must have been produced.
The guarantee for this hypothesis is furnished by the compositions that
reflect the cosmological beliefs, the epics and legends that form the
second half of the religious productions of Babylonia.

Speculation regarding the origin of the universe belongs to an early
period in the development of culture. There are few people, however
primitive their culture, who are not attracted by the spirit of
curiosity to seek for some solution of the mysteries which they daily
witness; but the systematization of these speculations does not take
place until a body of men arises among a people capable of giving to the
popular fancies a logical sequence, or the approach at least to a
rational interpretation. This process, which resulted in producing in
Babylonia compositions that unfold a system of creation, is one of long
duration. It proceeds under the influence of the intellectual movements
that manifest themselves from time to time with the attendant result
that, as the conceptions become more definite and more elaborate, they
reflect more accurately the aspirations of the various generations
engaged in bringing these conceptions to their final form. When finally
these beliefs and speculations are committed to writing, it is done in
part for the purpose of assuring them a greater degree of permanence,
and in part to establish more definitely the doctrines developed in the
schools--to define, as it were, the norm of theological and
philosophical thought.

In examining, therefore, the cosmological speculations of the
Babylonians as they appear in the literary productions, we must
carefully distinguish between those portions which are the productions
of popular fancy, and therefore old, and those parts which give evidence
of having been worked out in the schools. In a general way, also, we
must distinguish between the contents and the form given to the
speculations in question. We shall see in due time that a certain amount
of historical tradition, however dimmed, has entered into the views
evolved in Babylonia regarding the origin of things, inasmuch as the
science of origins included for the Babylonians the beginning, not
merely of gods, men, animals, and plants, but also of cities and of
civilization in general. Still more pronounced is the historical spirit
in the case of the epics and legends that here, as everywhere else, grew
to even larger proportions, and were modified even after they were
finally committed to writing. The great heroes of the past do not perish
from the memory of a people, nor does the recollection of great events
entirely pass away. In proportion as the traditions of the past become
dimmed, the more easily do they lend themselves to a blending with
popular myths regarding the phenomena of nature. To this material
popularly produced, a literary shape would be given through the same
medium that remodeled the popular cosmological speculations. The task
would have a more purely literary aspect than that of systematizing the
current views regarding the origin and order of things, since it would
be free from any doctrinal tendency. The chief motive that would prompt
the _literati_ to thus collect the stories of favorite heroes and the
traditions and the legends of the past would be--in addition, perhaps,
to the pure pleasure of composition--the desire to preserve the stories
for future generations, while a minor factor that may have entered into
consideration would be the pedagogical one of adding to the material for
study that might engage the attention and thoughts of the young
aspirants to sacred and secular lore. While the ultimate aim of learning
in Babylonia remained for all times a practical one, namely, the ability
to act as a scribe or to serve in the cult, to render judicial decisions
or to observe the movements of the stars, to interpret the signs of
nature and the like, it was inevitable that through the intellectual
activity thus evoked there would arise a spirit of a love of learning
for learning's sake, and at all events a fondness for literary pursuits
independent of any purely practical purposes served by such pursuits.

In this way we may account for the rise of the several divisions of the
religious literature of Babylonia. Before turning to a detailed
exposition of each of these divisions, it only remains to emphasize the
minor part taken in all these literary labors by the Assyrians. The
traditions embodied in the cosmological productions, the epics and
legends of Babylonia, are no doubt as much the property of the Assyrians
as of their southern cousins, just as the conceptions underlying the
incantation texts and the hymns and prayers and omens, though produced
in the south, are on the whole identical with those current in the
north. Whatever differences we have discovered between the phases of the
Babylonian-Assyrian religion, as manifested in the north and in the
south, are not of a character to affect the questions and views involved
in the religious literature. The stamp given to the literary products in
this field, taken as a whole, is distinctly Babylonian. It is the spirit
of the south that breathes through almost all the religious texts that
have as yet been discovered. Only in some of the prayers and oracles and
omens that are inserted in the historical inscriptions of Assyrian
kings, or have been transmitted independently, do we recognize the work
of Assyrian _literati_, imbued with a spirit peculiar to Assyria.
Perhaps, too, in the final shape given to the tales connected with the
creation of the gods and of men we may detect an Assyrian influence on
Babylonian thought, some concession made at a period of Assyrian
supremacy to certain religious conceptions peculiar to the north. But
such influences are of an indirect character, and we may accept the
statement of Ashurbanabal as literally true that the literature
collected by him is a copy of what was found in the great literary
archives of the south--and not only found, but produced there. In
imitation of the example set by the south, schools were of a certainty
established in Nineveh, Arbela, and elsewhere for the education of
priests, scribes, and judges; but we have no evidence to show that they
ever developed to the point of becoming intellectually independent of
Babylonian _models_, except perhaps in minor particulars that need not
enter into our calculations. This relationship between the intellectual
life of Babylonia and Assyria finds its illustration and proof, not
merely in the religious literature, but in the religious art and cult
which, as we shall see, like the literature, bear the distinct impress
of their southern origin, though modified in passing from the south to
the north.

FOOTNOTES:

[339] See above, pp. 72, 114, 133 _seq._

[340] See pp. 12-14.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE MAGICAL TEXTS.


Turning to the first subdivision of Babylonian religious literature, we
find remains sufficient to justify us in concluding that there must have
been produced a vast number of texts containing formulas and directions
for securing a control over the spirits which were supposed at all times
to be able to exercise a certain amount of power over men. By virtue of
the aim served by these productions we may group them under the head of
magical texts, or incantations. We have already indicated the manner in
which these incantations grew into more or less rigid temple rituals.
This growth accounts for the fact that the incantations generally framed
in by ceremonial directions, prayers, and reflections, were combined
into a continuous series (or volume, as we would say) of varying length,
covering nine, ten, a dozen, twenty tablets or more. It has been
generally assumed that these incantation texts constitute the oldest
division of the religious literature of the Babylonians. The assertion
in an unqualified form is hardly accurate, for the incantation texts,
such as they lie before us, give evidence of having been submitted to
the influences of an age much later than the one in which their
substance was produced. Conceptions have been carried into them that
were originally absent, and a form given to them that obliges us to
distinguish between the underlying concepts, and the manner in which
these concepts have been combined with views that reflect a later and,
in many respects, a more advanced period. The incantation texts are
certainly no older than texts furnishing omens. Some of the incantation
texts indeed may not be any older than portions of the creation epic,
and in the latter, as in other parts of the religious literature, there
are elements as ancient and as primitive as anything to be found in the
omens or incantations. So much, however, is true, that the incantations
represent the earliest ritual proper to the Babylonian cult, and that
the conceptions underlying this ritual are the emanation of popular
thought, or, if you choose, of popular fancy of a most primitive
character. It is also true that, on the whole, the incantation texts
retain more traces of primitive popular thought than other divisions of
the religious literature with the exception of the omens. The remodeling
to which they were subjected did not destroy their original character to
the extent that might have been expected--a circumstance due in the
first instance to the persistency of the beliefs that called these texts
forth.

Many of the texts containing incantations were found by the modern
explorers in so mutilated a condition, that one can hardly hazard any
generalizations as to the system followed in putting the incantations
together. From the fact, however, that in so many instances the
incantations form a series of longer or shorter extent, we may, for the
present at least, conclude that the serial form was the method generally
followed; and at all events, if not the general method, certainly a
favorite one. Deviating from the ordinary custom of calling the series
according to the opening line of the first tablet, the incantation texts
were given a distinct title, which was either descriptive or chosen with
reference to their general contents. So one series which covered at
least sixteen tablets was known by the very natural name of the 'evil
demon'; the incantations that it contained being intended as a
protection against various classes of demons. Another is known as the
series of 'head sickness,' and which deals, though not exclusively, with
various forms of derangements having their seat in the brain. It covered
no less than nine tablets. Two others bear names that are almost
synonymous,--"Shurpu" and "Maklu," both signifying 'burning,' and so
called from the chief topic dealt with in them, the burning of images of
the sorcerers, and the incantations to be recited in connection with
this symbolical act. The "Maklu" series embraced eight tablets and
contained, according to Tallqvist's calculations,[341] originally about
1,550 lines, or upwards of 9,000 words. The "Shurpu" series, although
embracing nine tablets, appears to have been somewhat shorter. In view
of the extensive character of these series we are justified in speaking
of incantation 'rituals.' The texts were evidently prepared with a
practical purpose in view. The efficacy of certain formulas having been
demonstrated, it was obviously of importance that their exact form
should be preserved for future reference. But a given formula was
effective only for a given case, or at most for certain correlated
cases, and accordingly it became necessary to collect as many formulas
as possible to cover all emergencies. The priests, acting as exorcisers,
would be the ones interested in making such collections, and we may
assume, as already suggested, that each temple would develop a
collection of its own,--an incantation code that served as a guide for
its priests. The natural tendency would be for these codes to increase
from generation to generation, perhaps not rapidly, but steadily. New
cases not as yet provided for would arise, and new formulas with new
instructions would be produced; or the exorcisers at a certain temple
would learn of remedies tried elsewhere, and would embody them in their
own special code. In short, the growth of these incantation 'rituals'
was probably similar to the manner in which, on the basis of actual
practice, religious codes grew up around the sanctuaries of ancient
Israel,--a process that terminated in the production of the various
codes and rituals constituting the legal documents embodied in the
Pentateuch.

The prominence given to Ea and to his favorite seat, the city of Eridu,
in the incantations suggests the theory that many of our texts are to be
ultimately traced to the temple of Ea, that once stood at Eridu. In that
case an additional proof would be furnished of the great antiquity of
the use of incantations in Babylonia. We must sharply distinguish
however, as already emphasized, between the origin and the present form
of the rituals. Again, those parts of a ritual in which Gibil, or Nusku,
appears prominently would most naturally be produced by priests
connected with a temple sacred to the one or the other of these gods.
The practice of incantation, however, being common to all parts of
Babylonia, we can hardly suppose that any temple should have existed
which did not have its exorcising formulas. In the combination of these
formulas into a ritual, due consideration would naturally be had to the
special gods invoked, the obvious result of which would be to produce
the long lists of deities that are often embodied in a single
incantation. The details of this process can of course no longer be
discerned, but the inevitable tendency would be towards increasing
complications. The effort would be made to collect everything, and from
all known quarters. Hence the heterogeneous elements to be detected in
the texts, and which, while adding to their interest, also increase the
difficulty of their interpretation. In consequence of the presence of
such heterogeneous elements, it is difficult to determine within an
incantation series any guiding principles that prompted the collectors.
Still we can often distinguish large groups in a series that belong
together. So we have whole series of addresses to the fire-god ending
with incantations, and again a series of descriptions of the group of
seven spirits serving a similar purpose as introductions to
incantations, but we cannot see on what grounds the transition from one
subject to the other takes place. Indeed the transitions are generally
marked by their abruptness.

The only legitimate inference is that the main purpose of the collectors
of incantation texts was to exhaust the subject so far as lay in their
power. They included in their codes as much as possible. The exorciser
would have no difficulty in threading his way through the complicated
mass. He would select the division appropriate to the case before him
without much concern of what preceded or followed in the text. Moreover,
these divisions in the texts were clearly marked by dividing lines,
still to be seen on the clay tablets. These divisions correspond so
completely to divisions in the subject-matter that the purely practical
purpose they served can hardly be called into question, while at the
same time they furnish additional proof for the compiled character of
the texts.

As for the date of the composition of the texts, the union of the
Babylonian states under Hammurabi, with its necessary result, the
supremacy of Marduk, that finds its reflection in the texts, furnishes
us with a terminus _a quo_ beyond which we need not proceed for _final_
editing. On the other hand, there are indications in the language which
warrant us in not passing below 2000 B.C. as the period when many of the
incantation texts received their present form, and the editions were
completed from which many centuries afterwards the Assyrian scribes
prepared their copies for their royal masters.

There is, of course, no reason for assuming that all our texts should be
of one age, or that the copying and, in part, the editing should not
have gone on continually. Necessity for further copies would arise with
the steady growth of the temples. Priests would be engaged in making
copies for themselves, either for their edification as a pious work, or
for real use; and accordingly, in fixing upon any date for the texts,
one can hardly do more than assign certain broad limits within which the
texts, so far as their present contents are concerned, may have been
completed. The _copies_ themselves may of course belong to a much later
period without, for that reason, being more recent productions.

Attention must also be directed to the so-called 'bilingual' form, in
which many of the incantation texts are edited; each line being first
written in the ideographic style, and then followed by a transliteration
into the phonetic style.[342] The use of the ideographic style is a
survival of the ancient period when all texts were written in this
manner, and the conservatism attaching to all things religious accounts
for the continuation of the ideographic style in the religious rituals