The Religion Of Babylonia And Assyria

RELIGIONS ANCIENT AND MODERN

THE RELIGION OF
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

THE RELIGION* OF
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

By

THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D.

LECTURER IN ASSYRIAN AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON,

AUTHOR OF C THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE LIGHT OF THE

RECORDS OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA * 5 ' THE BRONZE

ORNAMENTS OF THE PALACE GATES OF BALEWAT '

ETC. ETC.

LONDON
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE &r CO LTD

16 JAMES STREET HAYMARKET
1906

Edinburgh : T. and A CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER i. FOREWORD, . . 1-9

Position and period of the Babylonian and
Assyrian Religion ; by whom followed ; and
the importance of the study.

CHAPTER n. THE NATURE OF THE BABYLONIAN

AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION, .... 10-29

The people, their script, and its evidence. The
earliest form of their creed. Idols and
sacred objects. Holy places. Temples and
temple-towers, The Tower of Babel.

CHAPTER in. THE BABYLONIAN STORY OF THE

CREATION, 30-49

Water the first creator. The gods. Tiawath
and her followers make war against them.
Merodach, made king of the gods, overcomes
Tiawath, and becomes the great Creator,
Man the redeemer. The bilingual account
of the Creation. The order of the gocE-Tin
the principal lists.

CHAPTER iv THE PRINCIPAL GODS OF THE

BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS, . . . 50-106

Anu, Bel, Beltis, Merodach, Zer-panitu m , Nebo,
Tas*mtu m , Samas* and his consort, Tammuz

vi CONTENTS

PAGE

and IStar, Ere3-ki-gal and Nergal, Sin
or Nannara, Addu or Rammanu, A&sur,
etc , etc. The minor divinities. The gods
and the heavenly bodies.

CHAPTER v. TEE DEMONS : EXORCISMS AND

CEREMONIES, 107-116

UttuJcka, dlti, fidimmu, gallu. Lilu and Ullthu.
Namtaru, etc. An incantation. Eites
and ceremonies

CHAPTER vi. PROBLEMS WHICH THE STUDY

OFFERS, . . . ,117-125

Monotheism, Dualism, Monism. The future
life.

PRONUNCIATION OF BABYLONIAN DIVINE

NAMES

Vowels as in Italian. G- always hard, ."= Scotch ch
P often pronounced as / (ph\ and t as th. T emphatic. 8 is
a hissing s (sometimes transcribed as $). S is the Heb. sh
and s the Heb. 5, but were probably pronounced conversely.
M and w are expressed by the same characters Twwath or
Tiamat, Dawkina, or DamUna t etc. (the G-reek and other
transcriptions favour w).

THE RELIGION OF THE

BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

CHAPTER I

FOBEWORD

Position, and Period. The religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians was the polytheistic
faith professed by the peoples inhabiting the
Tigris and Euphrates valleys from what may be
regarded as the dawn of history until the Chris-
tian era began, or, at least, until the inhabitants
were brought under the influence of Christianity.
The chronological period covered may be roughly
estimated at about 5000 years. The belief of
the people, at the end of that time, being
Babylonian heathenism leavened with Judaism,
the country was probably ripe for the reception
of the new faith. Christianity, however, by no
means replaced the earlier polytheism, as is
evidenced by the fact, that the^worship of Nebo

BABYLONIAN" AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

and tlie gods associated with, him continued until
the fourth century of the Christian era.

By whom followed. It was the faith of two
distinct peoples the Sumero- Akkadians, and the
Assyro-Babylonians. In what country it had its
beginnings is unknown it comes before us, even
at the earliest period, as a faith already well-
developed, and from that fact, as well as from
the names of the numerous deities, it is clear
that it began with the former race the Sumero-
Akkadians who spoke a non-Semitic language
largely affected by phonetic decay, and in which
the grammatical forms had in certain cases become
confused to such an extent that those who study
it ask themselves whether the people who spoke
it were able to understand each other without
recourse to devices such as the ' tones ' to which
the Chinese resort. With few exceptions, the
names of the gods which the inscriptions reveal
to us are all derived from this non-Semitic
language, which furnishes us with satisfactory
etymologfe for such names as Merodach, Nergal,
Sin, and the divinities mentioned in Berosus and
Damascius (see pp. 32, 41, 42), as well as those of
hundreds of deities revealed to us by the tablets
and slabs of Babylonia and Assyria.

The documents. Outside the inscriptions of
2

FOREWORD

Babylonia and Assyria, there is but little bearing
upon the religion of those countries, the most im-
portant fragment being the extracts from Berosus
and Daraascius referred to above. Among the
Babylonian and Assyrian remains, however, we
have an extensive and valuable mass of material,
dating from the fourth or fifth millennium before
Christ until the disappearance of the Babylonian
system of writing about the beginning of the
Christian era. The earlier inscriptions are mostly
of the nature of records, and give information
about the deities and the religion of the people
in the course of descriptions of the building and
rebuilding of temples, the making of offerings,
the performance of ceremonies, etc. Purely re-
ligious inscriptions are found near the end of the
third millennium before Christ, and occur in con-
siderable numbers, either in the original Sumeriaa
text, or in translations, or both, until about the
third century before Christ. Among the more
recent inscriptions those from the library of the
Assyrian king Assur-bani-apli and "the later
Babylonian temple archives, there are many
lists of deities, with numerous identifications with
each other and with ths heavenly bodies, and
explanations of their nature. It is needless to say
that all this material is of enormous value for
3

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN KELIGION

the study of tlie religion of the Babylonians and
Assyrians, and enables us to reconstruct at first
hand their mythological system, and note the
changes which took place in the course of their
long national existence. Many interesting and
entertaining legends illustrate and supplement
the information given by the bilingual lists of
gods, the bilingual incantations and hymns, and
the references contained in the historical and
other documents A trilingual list of gods (see
pp. 46-48) enables us also to recognise, in some
cases, the dialectic forms of their names.

The importance of the subject. Of equal
antiquity with the religion of Egypt, that of
Babylonia and Assyria possesses some marked
differences as to its development. Beginning
among the non-Semitic Sumero-Akkadian popu-
lation, it maintained for a long time its uninter-
rupted development, affected mainly by influences
from within, namely, the homogeneous local cults
which acted and reacted upon each other. The
religious systems of other nations did not greatly
affect the development of the early non-Semitic
religious system of Babylonia. A time at last
came, however, when the influence of the Semitic
inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria was not to
be gainsaid, and from that moment, the develop-
4

FOREWORD

ment of their religion took another turn. In all
probability this augmentation of Semitic religious
influence was due to the increased numbers of
the Semitic population, and at the same period
the Sumero-Akkadian language began to give
way to the Semitic idiom which they spoke.
When at last the Semitic Babylonian language
came to be used for official documents, we find
that, although the non-Semitic divine names are
in the main preserved, a certain number of them
have been displaced by the Semitic equivalent
names, such as Samag for the sun-god, with
KiUu and M$$a/nL ('justice and righteousness 7 )
his attendants; Nabfi, ( f the teacher * = Nebo) with
his consort TasmStu ( c the hearer ') ; Addu, Adad,
or Dadu, and Ramwianu, Ramimu, or Ragimu =
Hadad or Rimmon ('the thunderer'), B$l and
Beltu (J?e^='the lord' and 'the lady' par
excellence), with some others of inferior rank In
place of the chief divinity of each state at the
head of each separate pantheon, the tendency was
to make Merodach, the god of the capital city
Babylon, the head of the pantheon, and he seems
to have been universally accepted in Babylonia,
like Assur in Assyria, about 2000 B.C. or earlier.

The uniting of two pantheons.- We thus find
two pantheons, the Sumero-Akkadian with its
5

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

many gods, and the Semitic Babylonian with
its comparatively few, united, and forming one
apparently homogeneous whole. But the creed
had taken a fresh tendency. It was no longer a
series of small, and to a certain extent antagonistic,
pantheons composed of the chief god, his consort,
attendants, children, and servants, but a pantheon
of considerable extent, containing all the elements
of the primitive but smaller pantheons, with a
number of great gods who had raised Merodach
to be their king.

In Assyria. Whilst accepting the religion of
Babylonia, Assyria nevertheless kept herself dis-
tinct from her southern neighbour by a very
simple device, namely, by placing at the head
of the pantheon the god Assur, who became for
her the chief of the gods, and at the same time
the emblem of her distinct national aspirations
for Assyria had no intention whatever of casting
in her lot with her southern neighbour. Never-
theless, Assyria possessed, along with the language
of Babylonia, all the literature of that country
indeed, it is from the libraries of her kings that
we obtain the best copies of the Babylonian
religious texts, treasured and preserved by her
with all the veneration of which her religious
mind was capable, and the religious fervour of
6

FOKEWOBD

the Oriental in most cases leaves that of the
European, or at least of the ordinary Briton, far
behind

The later period in Assyria. Assyria went to
her downfall at the end of the seventh century
before Christ worshipping her national god Assur,
whose cult did not cease with the destruction of
her national independence. In fact, the city of
Assur, the centre of that worship, continued to
exist for a considerable period ; but for the history
of the religion of Assyria, as preserved there, we
wait for the result of the excavations being carried
on by the Germans, should they be fortunate
enough to obtain texts belonging to the period
following the fall of Nineveh

In Babylonia Babylonia, on the other hand,
continued the even tenor of her way. More
successful at the end of her independent political
career than her northern rival had been, she
retained her faith, and remained the unswerving
worshipper of Merodach, the great god of Babylon,
to whom her priests attributed yet greater powers,
and with whom all the other gods were to all
appearance identified. This tendency to mono-
theism, however, never reached the culminating
point never became absolute except, naturally,
in the minds of those who, dissociating them-
7

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN EELIGION

selves, for philosophical reasons, from, the super-
stitious teaching of the priests of Babylonia,
decided for themselves that there was but one
God, and worshipped Him. That orthodox Jews
at that period may have found, in consequence
of this monotheistic tendency, converts, is not
by any means improbable indeed, the names
met with during the later period imply that
converts to Judaism were made.

The picture presented by tlie study. Thus we
see, from the various inscriptions, both Babylonian
and Assyrian the former of an extremely early
period the growth and development, with at least
one branching off, of one of the most important
religious systems of the ancient world. It is not
so important for modern religion as the develop-
ment of the beliefs of the Hebrews, but as the
creed of the people from which the Hebrew
nation sprang, and from which, therefore, it had
its beginnings, both corporeal and spiritual, it is
such as no student of modern religious systems
can afford to neglect. Its legends, and therefore
its teachings, as will be seen in these pages,
ultimately permeated the Semitic West, and may
in some cases even have penetrated Europe, not
only through heathen Greece, but also through
the early Christians, who, being so many centuries

FOREWORD

nearer the time of the Assyro-Babylonians, and
also nearer the territory which they anciently
occupied, than we are, were far better acquainted
than the people of the present day with the
legends and ideas which they possessed.

CHAPTER II

THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND

ASSYRIANS

The Sumero-Akkadians and the Semites. For
the history of the development of the religion of
the Babylonians and Assyrians much naturally
depends upon the composition of the population
of early Babylonia. There is hardly any doubt
that the Sumero-Akkadians were non-Semites of
a fairly pure race, but the country of their origin
is still unknown, though a certain relationship
with the Mongolian and Turkish nationalities,
probably reaching back many centuries perhaps
thousands of years before the earliest accepted
date, may be regarded as likely. Equally un-
certain is the date of the entry of the Semites,
whose language ultimately displaced the non-
Semitic Sumero-Akkadian idioms, and whose
kings finally ruled over the land. During the
third millennium before Christ Semites, bearing
10

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Semitic names, and called Amorites, appear, and
probably formed the last considerable stratum of
tribes of that race which entered the land. The
name Martu, the Sumero-Akkadian equivalent of
Amurru t i Amorite,' is of frequent occurrence also
before this period. The eastern Mediterranean
coast district, including Palestine and the neigh-
bouring tracts, was known by the Babylonians
and Assyrians as the land of the Amorites, a term
which stood for the West in general even when
these regions no longer bore that name The
Babylonians maintained their claim to sovereignty
over that part as long as they possessed the power
to do so, and naturally exercised considerable
influence there. The existence in Palestine, Syria,
and the neighbouring states, of creeds contain-
ing the names of many Babylonian divinities is
therefore not to be wondered at, and the pre-
sence of West Semitic divinities in the religion
of the Babylonians need not cause us any
surprise.

The Babylonian script and its evidence, In
consequence of the determinative prefix for a
god or a goddess being, in the oldest form, a
picture of an eight-rayed star, it has been assumed
that Assyro-Babylonian mythology is, either wholly
or partly, astral in its origin. This, however, is
ii

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

by no means certain, the character for ' star ' in
the inscriptions being a combination of three such
pictures, and not a single sign. The probability
therefore is, that the use of the single star- to
indicate the name of a divinity arises merely
from the fact that the character in question stands
for ana, 'heaven.' Deities were evidently thus
distinguished by the Babylonians because they
regarded them as inhabitants of the realms above
indeed, the heavens being the place where the
stars are seen, a picture of a star was the only
way of indicating heavenly things. That the
gods of the Babylonians were in many cases
identified with the stars and planets is certain,
but these identifications seem to have taken place
at a comparatively late date. An exception has
naturally to be made in the case of the sun and
moon, but the god Merodach, if he be, as seems
certain, a deified Babylonian king, must have been
identified with the stars which bear his name
after his worshippers began to pay him divine
honours as the supreme deity, and naturally what
is true for him may also be so for the other gods
whom they worshipped. The identification of
some of the deities with stars or planets is, more-
over, impossible, and if Ea, the god of the deep,
and Anu, the god of the heavens, have their
12

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

representatives among the heavenly bodies, this
is probably the result of later development l

Ancestor and hero-worship. The deification
of kings. Though there is no proof that ancestor- ~
worship in general prevailed at any time in Baby-
lonia, it would seem that the worship of heroes
and prominent men was common, at least in
early times. The tenth chapter of Genesis tells
us of the story of Nimrod, who cannot be any
other than the Merodach of the Assyro-Baby Ionian
inscriptions ; and other examples, occurring in
semi-mythological times, are En-we-dur-an-ki,
the Greek Edoreschos, and Gilgame, the Greek
Gilgamos, though Aelian's story of the latter does
not fit in with the account as given by the inscrip-
tions. In later times, the divine prefix is found
before the names of many a Babylonian ruler
Sargon of Agade, 2 Dungi of Ur (about 2500 B.C.),
Rim-Sin or Eri-Aku (Arioch of ELlasar, about

1 If there be any historical foundation for the statement that
Merodach arranged the sun, the moon, the planets, and the
stars, assigning to them their proper places and duties a
tradition which would make him the founder of the science of
astronomy during his life upon earth this, too, would tend to
the probability that the origin of the gods of the Babylonians
was not astral, as has been suggested, but that their identifica-
tion with the heavenly bodies was introduced during the
period of his reign.

2 According to Nabonidus's date 3800 B.C., though many
Assyriologists regard this as being a millennium too early.

13

BABYLONIAN" AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

2100 B.C.), and others. It was doubtless a kind
of flattery to deify and pay these rulers divine
honours during their lifetime, and on account of
this, it is very probable that their godhood was
utterly forgotten, in the case of those who were
strictly historical, after their death. The deifica-
tion of the kings of Babylonia and Assyria is
probably due to the fact, that they were regarded
as the representatives of God upon earth, and
being his chief priests as well as his offspring (the
personal names show that it was a common thing
to regard children as the gifts of the gods whom
their father worshipped), the divine fatherhood
thus attributed to them naturally could, in the
case of those of royal rank, give them a real claim
to divine birth and honours. An exception is the
deification of the Babylonian Noah, Ut-napistim,
who, as the legend of the Flood relates, was raised
and made one of the gods by Aa or Ea, for his
faithfulness after the great catastrophe, when he
and his wife were translated to the ' remote place
at the mouth of the rivers/ The hero Gilgames,
on the other hand, was half divine by birth,
though it is not exactly known through whom
his divinity came.

The earliest form of the Babylonian religion.
The state of development to which the religious
14

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

system of the Babylonians had attained at the
earliest period to which the inscriptions refer
naturally precludes the possibility of a trustworthy
history of its origin and early growth There is
no doubt, however, that it may be regarded as
having reached the stage at which we find it in
consequence of there being a number of states in
ancient Babylonia (which was at that time like
the Heptarchy in England) each possessing its
own divinity who, in its district, was regarded as
supreme with a number of lesser gods forming
his court. It was the adding together of all these
small pantheons which, ultimately made that of
Babylonia as a whole so exceedingly extensive.
Thus the chief divinity of Babylon, as has already
been stated, was Merodach , at Sippar and Larsa
the sungod &amas was worshipped, at Ur the
moongod Sin or Nannar; at Erech and D6r the
god of the heavens, Anu; at Muru, Ennigi, and
Kakru, the god of the atmosphere, Hadad or
Rimmon ; at firidu, the god of the deep, Aa or Ea ;
at Niffur l the god Bel ; at Cuthah the god of war,
Nergal, at Dailem the god Uras; at Kis the god
of battle, Zagaga; Lugal-Amarda, the king of

1 Noufar at present, according to the latest explorers
Layard (1856) has Niffer, Loftus (1857) Niffar. The native
spelling is Noufer, due to the French system of phonetics.

15

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Marad, at the city so called, at Opis Zakar,
one of the gods of dreams, at Agade, Nineveh,
and Arbela, Istar, goddess of love and of war;
Nina at the city Nina in Babylonia, etc When
the chief deities were masculine, they were
naturally all identified with each other, just as
the Greeks called the Babylonian Merodach by
the name of Zeus ; and as Zer-panltu m , the consort
of Merodach, was identified with Juno, so the
consorts, divine attendants, and children of each
chief divinity, as far as they possessed them,
could also be regarded as the same, though
possibly distinct in their different attributes.

How the religion of the Babylonians developed.
The fact that the rise of Merodach to the position
of king of the gods was due to the attainment, by
the city of Babylon, of the position of capital of
all Babylonia, leads one to suspect that the kingly
rank of his father Ea, at an earlier period, was
due to a somewhat similar cause, and if so, the
still earlier kingship of Anu, the god of the
heavens, may be in like manner explained. This
leads to the question whether the first state to
attain to supremacy was Der, Ami's seat, and
whether Der was succeeded by firidu, of which
city Ea was the patron concerning the import-
ance of Babylon, Merodaeh's city, later on, there
16

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Is no doubt whatever. The rise of Anu and Ea to
divine overlordship, however, may not have been
due to the political supremacy of the cities where
they were worshipped it may have come about
simply on account of renown gained through
religious enthusiasm due to wonders said to have
been performed where they were worshipped, or
to the reported discovery of new records con-
cerning their temples, or to the influence of some
renowned high-priest, like En-we-dur-an-ki of
Sippar, whose devotion undoubtedly brought great
renown to the city of his dominion.

Was Animism its original form? But the
question naturally arises, can we go back beyond
the indications of the inscriptions? The Baby-
lonians attributed life, in certain not very numerous
cases, to such things as trees and plants, and
naturally to the winds, and the heavenly bodies.
Whether they regarded stones, rocks, mountains,
storms, and rain in the same way, however, is
doubtful, but it may be taken for granted, that
the sea, with all rivers and streams, was regarded
as animated with the spirit of Ea and his children,
whilst the great cities and temple-towers were
pervaded with the spirit of the god whose abode
they were. Innumerable good and evil spirits were
believed in, such as the spirit of the mountain,
B 17

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

the sea, the plain, and the grave. These spirits
were of various kinds, and bore names which do
not always reveal their real character such as
the ecfommik, utukku, sedu, aiakku (spirit of
fevers), namtaru (spirit of fate), 6JA (regarded as
the spirit of the south wind), gallu, rabisu, lalartu,
labasu, a^azy,, (the seizer), lilu and Ulftthu
(male and female spirits of the mist), with their
attendants. 1

All this points to animism as the pervading idea
of the worship of the peoples of the Babylonian
states in the prehistoric period the attribution of
life to every appearance of nature. The question
is, however, Is the evidence of the inscriptions
sufficient to make this absolutely certain ? It is
hard to believe that such intelligent people, as the
primitive Babylonians naturally were, believed that
such things as stones, rocks, mountains, storms,
and rain were, in themselves, and apart from the
divinity which they regarded as presiding over
them, living things. A stone might be a btt tti
or bethel a f house of god,' and almost invested
with the status of a living thing, but that does
not prove that the Babylonians thought of every
stone as being endowed with life, even in pre-
historic times. Whilst, therefore, there are traces

1 See Chapter v.

18

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

of a belief similar to that which an animistic
creed might be regarded as possessing, it must be
admitted that these seemingly animistic doctrines
may haye originated in another way, and be due
to later developments. The power of the gods to
create living things naturally makes possible the
belief that they had also power to endow with a
soul, and therefore with life and intelligence, any
seemingly inanimate object. Such was probably
the nature of Babylonian animism, if it may be
so called. The legend of Tiawthu (Tiawath) may
with great probability be regarded as the remains
of a primitive animism which was the creed of
the original and comparatively uncivilised Baby-
lonians, who saw in the sea the producer and
creator of all the monstrous shapes which are
found therein ; but any development of this idea
in other directions was probably cut short by
the priests, who must have realised, under the
influence of the doctrine of the divine rise to
perfection, that animism in general was altogether
incompatible with the creed which they professed.
Image-worship and Sacred Stones. Whether
image-worship was original among the Babylonians
and Assyrians is uncertain, and improbable; the
tendency among the people in early times being
to venerate sacred stones and other inanimate
19

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

objects. As lias been already pointed out, the
$L07reTpr)<; of the Greeks was probably a meteorite,
and stones marking the position of the Semitic
bethels were probably, in their origin, the same.
The boulders which were sometimes used for
boundary-stones may have been the representa-
tives of these meteorites in later times, and it is
noteworthy that the Sumerian group for ' iron,'
an-bar, implies that the early Babylonians only
knew of that metal from meteoric ironstone. The
name of the god Nirig or Enu-restu (Ninip) is
generally written with the same group, implying
some kind of connection between the two the
god and the iron. In a well-known hymn to
that deity certain stones are mentioned, one of
them being described as the 'poison-tooth' 1
coming forth on the mountain, recalling the
sacred rocks at Jerusalem and Mecca Boundary-
stones in Babylonia were not sacred objects ex-
cept in so far as they were sculptured with the
signs of the gods. 2 With regard to the Baby-
lonian bethels, very little can be said, their true
nature being uncertain, and their number, to

1 So called, probably, not because it sent forth poison, but on
account of its likeness to a serpent's fang,

2 Notwithstanding medical' opinion, their phallic origin is
doubtful. One is sculptured in the form of an Eastern castel-
lated fortress.

20

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN BELIGION

all appearance, small. Gifts were made to them,
and from this fact it would seem that they were
temples true ' houses of god/ in factprobably
containing an image of the deity, rather than a
stone similar to those referred to in the Old
Testament.

Idols. With the Babylonians, the gods were
represented by means of stone images at a very
early date, and it is possible that wood was also
used. The tendency of the human mind being to
attribute to the Deity a human form, the Baby-
lonians were no exception to the rule. Human
thoughts and feelings would naturally accompany
the human form with which the minds of men
endowed them. Whether the gross human pas-
sions attributed to the gods of Babylonia in
Herodotus be of early date or not is uncertain
a late period, when the religion began to de-
generate, would seem to be the more probable.

The adoration of sacred objeets.-It is prob-
able that objects belonging to or dedicated to
deities were not originally worshipped they were
held as divine in consequence of their being
possessed or used by a deity, like the bow of
Merodach, placed in the heavens as a constella-
tion, etc. The cities where the gods dwelt on
earth, their temples, their couches, the chariot of

21

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

the sun In his temple-cities, and everything exist-
ing in connection with their worship, were in all
probability regarded as divine simply in so far as
they belonged to a god. Sacrifices offered to
them, and invocations made to them, were in
all likelihood regarded as having been made to
the deity himself, the possessions of the divinity
being, in the minds of the Babylonians, pervaded
with his spirit. In the case of rivers, these were
divine as being the children and offspring of Enki
(Aa or fia), the god of the ocean.

Holy places. In a country which was origin-
ally divided into many small states, each having
its own deities, and, to a certain extent, its own
religious system, holy places were naturally
numerous. As the spot where they placed
Paradise, Babylonia was itself a holy place, but
in all probability this idea is late, and only came
into existence after the legends of the creation
and the rise of Merodach to the kingship of
heaven had become elaborated into one homo-
geneous whole.

An interesting list, One of the most interest-
ing documents referring to the holy places of
Babylonia is a tiny tablet found at Nineveh, and
preserved in the British Museum. This text
begins with the word Tiawthu ' the sea/ and goes

22

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

on to enumerate, in turn, Tilmun (identified with
the island of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf) ; En-
gurra (the Abyss, the abode of Enki or Ea), with
numerous temples and shrines, including ' the
holy house/ 'the temple of the seer of heaven
and earth/ 'the abode of Zer-panitu m / consort
of Merodach, ' the throne of the holy place/ ' the
temple of the region of Hades/ ' the supreme
temple of life/ 'the temple of the ear of the
corn -deity/ with many others, the whole list
containing what may be regarded as the chief
sanctuaries of the land, to the number of thirty-
one. Numerous other similar and more extensive
lists, enumerating every shrine and temple in the
country, also exist, though in a very imperfect
state, and in addition to these, many holy places
are referred to in the bilingual, historical, and
other inscriptions. All the great cities of Baby-
lonia, moreover, were sacred places, the chief in
renown and importance in later days being the
great city of Babylon, where E-sagila, c the temple
of the high head/ in which was apparently the
shrine called ' the temple of the foundation of
heaven and earth/ held the first place. This
building is called by Nebuchadnezzar 'the temple-
tower of Babylon/ and may better be regarded as
the site of the Biblical ' Tower of Babel ' than the
23

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

traditional foundation, E-zida 'the everlasting
temple/ in Borsippa (the Birs Nimroud) not-
withstanding that Borsippa was called the ' second
Babylon/ and its temple- tower ' the supreme house
of life/

The Tower of Babel Though quite close to
Babylon, there is no doubt that Borsippa was a
most important religious centre, and this leads
to the possibility, that its great temple may have
disputed with 'the house of the high head/
fi-sagila in Babylon, the honour of being the
site of the confusion of tongues and the disper-
sion of mankind. There is no doubt, however,
that fi-sagila has the prior claim, it being the
temple of the supreme god of the later Baby-
lonian pantheon, the counterpart of the God of
the Hebrews who commanded the changing of
the speech of the people assembled there. Sup-
posing the confusion of tongues to have been a
Babylonian legend as well as a Hebrew one (as
is possible), it would be by command of Merodach
rather than that of Nebo that such a thing would
have taken place. E-sagila, which is now the
ruin known as the mound of Amran ibn AH, is
the celebrated temple of Belus which Alexander
and Philip attempted to restore.

In addition to the legend of the confusion of
24

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

tongues, it is probable that there were many
similar traditions attached to the great temples
of Babylonia, and as time goes on, and the excava-
tions bring more material, a large number of them
will probably be recovered. Already we have an
interesting and poetical record of the entry of
Bel and Beltis into the great temple at Niffer,
probably copied from some ancient source, and
Gudea, a king of Lagas (Telloh), who reigned
about 2700 BC., gives an account of the dream
which he saw, in which he was instructed by the
gods to build or rebuild the temple of Nin-Girsu
in his, capital city,

ll-saglla according to Herodotus. As the
chief fane in the land after Babylon became the
capital, and the type of many similar erections,
fi-sagila, the temple of'Belus, merits just a short
notice. According to Herodotus, it was a massive
tower within an enclosure measuring 400 yards
each way, and provided with gates of brass, or
rather bronze, The tower within consisted of a
kind of step-pyramid, the stages being seven in
number (omitting the lowest, which was the
platform forming the foundation of the struc-
ture). A winding ascent gave access to the top,
where was a chapel or shrine, containing no
statue, but regarded by the Babylonians as the
25

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

abode of the god. Lower down was another
shrine, in which was placed a great statue of
Zeus (Bel-Merodach) sitting, with a large table
before it. Both statue and table are said to have
been of gold, as were also the throne and the steps.
Outside the sanctuary (on the ramp, apparently)
were two altars, one small and made of gold,
whereon only unweaned lambs were sacrificed,
and the other larger, for full-grown victims.

A Babylonian description. In 1876 the
well-known Assyriologist, Mr. George Smith,
was fortunate enough to discover a Babylonian
description of this temple, of which he pub-
lished a precis. According to this document,
there were two courts of considerable extent, the
smaller within the larger neither of them was
square, but oblong. Six gates admitted to the
temple-area surrounding the platform upon which
the tower was built. The platform is stated to
have been square and walled, with four gates
facing the cardinal points. Within this wall was
a building connected with the great zikkwat or
tower the principal edifice round which were
chapels or temples to the principal gods, on all
four sides, and facing the cardinal points that
to Nebo and Tasmit being on the east, to Aa or
Ea and Nusku on the north, Anu and Bel on the
26

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN BELIGION

south, and the series of buildings on the west,
consisting of a double house a small court
between two wings, was evidently the shrine of
Merodach (Belos). In these western chambers
stood the couch of the god, and the golden throne
mentioned by Herodotus, besides other furniture
of great value. The couch was given as being
9 cubits long by 4 broad, about as many feet in
each case, or rather more.

The centre of these buildings was the great
zikJcurat, or temple-tower, square on its plan,
and with the sides facing the cardinal points
The lowest stage was 15 gar square by 5J high
(Smith, 300 feet by 110), and the wall, in accord-
ance with the usual Babylonian custom, seems to
have been ornamented with recessed groovings.
The second stage was 13 gar square by 3 in height
(Smith, 260 by 60 feet). He conjectured, from
the expression used, that it had sloping sides.
Stages three to five were each one gar (Smith,
20 feet) high, and respectively 10 gar (Smith,
200 feet), 8J gar (170 feet), and 7 gar (140 feet)
square. The dimensions of the sixth stage are
omitted, probably by accident, but Smith con-
jectures that they were in proportion to those
which precede. His description omits also the
dimensions of the seventh stage, but he gives
27

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

those of the sanctuary of Belus, which was built
upon it. This was 4 gar long, 3J gar broad, and
2J gar high (Smith, 80 x 70 x 50 feet). He points
out, that the total height was, therefore, 15 gar,
the same as the dimensions of the base, i e. t the
lowest platform, which would make the total
height of this world-renowned building rather
more than 300 feet above the plains.

Other temple - towers. Towers of a similar
nature were to be found in all the great cities of
Babylonia, and it is probable that in most cases
slight differences of form were to be found. That
at Niffer, for instance, seems to have had a cause-
way on each side, making four approaches in the
form of a cross. But it was not every city which
had a tower of seven stages in addition to the
platform on which it was erected, and some of
the smaller ones at least seem to have had sloping
or rounded sides to the basement-portion, as is
indicated by an Assyrian bas-relief. Naturally
small temples, with hardly more than the rooms
on the ground floor, were to be found, but these
temple-towers were a speciality of the country.

Their origin. There is some probability that,

as indicated in the tenth chapter of Genesis, the

desire in building these towers was to get nearer

the Deity, or to the divine inhabitants of the

28

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

heavens in general it would be easier there to
gain attention than on the surface of the earth.
Then there was the belief, that the god to whom
the place was dedicated would come down to such
a sanctuary, which thus became, as it were, the
stepping-stone between heaven and earth Sacri-
fices were also offered at these temple-towers
(whether on the highest point or not is not quite
certain) in imitation of the Chaldaean Noah, Ut-
napisti m , who, on coming out of the ark, made
an offering l ina zikkurat $add, c on the peak of
the mountain/ in which passage, it is to be noted,
the word zihJcurat occurs with what is probably
a more original meaning.

1 Seep. 113.

29

CHAPTER II

THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND

ASSYRIANS

The Sumero- Akkadians and the Semites. For
the history of the development of the religion of
the Babylonians and Assyrians much naturally
depends upon the composition of the population
of early Babylonia. There is hardly any doubt
that the Sumero-Akkadians were non-Semites of
a fairly pure race, but the country of their origin
is still unknown, though a certain relationship
with the Mongolian and Turkish nationalities,
probably reaching back many centuries perhaps
thousands of years before the earliest accepted
date, may be regarded as likely. Equally un-
certain is the date of the entry of the Semites,
whose language ultimately displaced the non-
Semitic Sumero-Akkadian idioms, and whose
kings finally ruled over the land. During the
third millennium before Christ Semites, bearing
10

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

federated states. Modifications of their creed
probably took place, but nothing seriously affect-
ing it, until after the abandonment of Babylon in
the time of Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C. or there-
abouts, when the deity at the head of the
pantheon seems not to have been Merodach, but
Ami- Bel. This legend is therefore the most
important document bearing upon the beliefs of
the Babylonians from the end of the third mil-
lennium B.C. until that time, and the philosophical
ideas which it contains seem to have been held,
in a more or less modified form, among the
remnants who still retained the old Babylonian
faith, until the sixth century of the present era,
as the record by Damascius implies. Properly
speaking, it is not a record of the creation, but
the story of the fight between Bel and the Dragon,
to which the account of the creation is prefixed
by way of introduction.

Water the first creator. The legend begins
by stating that, when the heavens were un-
named and the earth bore no name, the
primaeval ocean was the producer of all things,
and Mummu Tiawath (the sea) she who brought
forth everything existing. Their waters (that is,
of the primaeval ocean and of the sea) were all
united in one, and neither plains nor marshes

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

were to be seen ; the gods likewise did not exist,
even in name, and the fates were undetermined
nothing had been decided as to the future of
things. Then arose the great gods Lal^mii and
La^ame came first, followed, after a long period, by
Ansar and Kisar, generally identified with the 'host
of heaven ' and the c host of earth/ these being the
meanings of the component parts of their names.
After a further long period of days, there came
forth their son Anu, the god of the heavens.

The gods. Here the narrative is defective,
and is continued by Damascius in his Doubts
and Solutions of the First Principles, in which
he states that, after Anos (Anu), come Illinos
(Ellila or Bel, ' the lord ' par* excellence) and Aos
(Aa, Ae, or Ea), the god of Eridu (see p. 52). Of
Aos and Dauke (the Babylonian Aa and Damkina)
is born, he says, a son called Belos (Bel-Merodach),
who, they (apparently the Babylonians) say, is
the fabricator of the world the creator.

The designs against them. At this point
Damaseius ends his extract, and the Babylonian
tablet also becomes extremely defective. The
next deity to come into existence, however, would
seem to have been Nudimmud, who was appar-
ently the deity Aa or Ea (the god of the sea and
of rivers) as the god of creation. Among the
32

BABYLONIAN STOEY OF CREATION

children of Tauthe (Tiawath) enumerated by
Damascius is one named Moumis, who was evi-
dently referred to in the document at that
philosopher's disposal. If this be correct, his
name, under the form of Munmm, probably
existed in one of the defective lines of the first
portion of this legend in any case, his name
occurs later on, with those of Tiawath and Apsu
(the Deep), his parents, and the three seem to be
compared, to their disadvantage, with the progeny
of Lafemu and La^ame, the gods on high. As
the ways of these last were not those of Tiawath's
brood, and Apsu complained that he had no
peace by day nor rest by night on account of
their proceedings, the three representatives of
the chaotic deep, Tiawath, Apsu, and Mummu,
discussed how they might get rid of the beings
who wished to rise to higher things. Mummu
was apparently the prime mover in the plot, and
the face of Apsu grew bright at the thought of
the evil plan which they had devised against
1 the gods their sons.' The inscription being very
mutilated here, its full drift cannot be gathered,
but from the complete portions which come later
it would seem that Mumniu's plan was not a
remarkably cunning one, being simply to make
war upon and destroy the gods of heaven,
c 33

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Tiawath's preparations. The preparations
made for this were elaborate. Restlessly, day
and night, the powers of evil raged and toiled,
and assembled for the fight. 'Mother Hubur,'
as Tiawath is named in this passage, called her
creative powers into action, and gave her followers
irresistible weapons. She brought into being also
various monsters giant serpents, sharp of tooth,
bearing stings, and with poison filling their bodies
like blood; terrible dragons endowed with bril-
liance, and of enormous stature, reared on high,
raging dogs, scorpion-men, fish-men, and many
other terrible beings, were created and equipped,
the whole being placed under the command of
a deity named Kingu, whom she calls her * only
husband,' and to whom she delivers the tablets
of fate, which conferred upon him the godhead
of Anu (the heavens), and enabled their possessor
to determine the fates among the gods her sons.

Kingn replaces Apsu. The change in the
narrative which comes in here suggests that this
is the point at which two legends current in
Babylonia were united. Henceforward we hear
nothing more of Apsu, the begetter of all things,
Tiawath's spouse, nor of Muimnu, their son. In
all probability there is good reason for this, and
inscriptions will doubtless ultimately be found
34

BABYLONIAN STOEY OF CBEATION

which, will explain it, but until then it is only
natural to suppose that two different legends
have "been pieced together to form a harmonious
whole.

Tiawath's aim. As will be gathered from the
above, the story centres in the wish of the goddess
of the powers of evil and her kindred to retain
creation the forming of all living things in her
own hands. As Tiawath means 'the sea,' and
Apsu ' the deep/ it is probable that this is a kind
of allegory personifying the productive power
seen in the teeming life of the ocean, and typi-
fying the strange and wonderful forms found
therein, which were symbolical, to the Babylonian
mind, of chaos and confusion, as well as of evil.

The gods hear of the conspiracy. Aa, or ifia,
having learned of the plot of Tiawath and her
followers against the gods of heaven, naturally
became filled with anger, and went and told the
whole to Ansar, his father, who in his turn gave
way to his wrath, and uttered cries of the deepest
grief. After considering what they would do,
Ansar applied to his son Anu, ' the mighty and
brave/ saying that, if he would only speak to her,
the great dragon's anger would be assuaged, and
her rage disappear In obedience to this behest,
Anu went to try his power with the monster, but
35

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

on beholding her snarling face, feared to approach
her, and turned back. Nudimmud was next
called upon to become the representative of the
gods against their foe, but his success was as that
of Ami, and it became needful to seek another
champion

And choose Merodach as their champion.
The choice fell upon Merodach, the Belus (Bel-
Merodach) of Damascius's paraphrase, and at
once met with an enthusiastic reception. The
god asked simply that an 'unchangeable com-
mand' might be given to him that whatever
he ordained should without fail come to pass, in
order that he might destroy the common enemy.
Invitations were sent to the gods asking them to
a festival, where, having met together, they ate
and drank, and ' decided the fate ' for Merodach
their avenger, apparently meaning that he was
decreed their defender in the conflict with
Tiawath, and that the power of creating and
annihilating by the word of his mouth was his.
Honours were then conferred upon him ; princely
chambers were erected for him, wherein he sat as
judge 'in the presence of his fathers,' and the
rule over the whole universe was given to him.
The testing of his newly acquired power followed.
A garment was placed in their midst :

36

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

* He spake with liis mouth, and the garment was destroyed,
He spake to it again, and the garment was reproduced J

Merodach proclaimed king. On this proof of
the reality of the powers conferred on him, all the
gods shouted ' Merodach is king ! ' and handed to
him sceptre, throne, and insignia of royalty. An
irresistible weapon, which should shatter all his
enemies, was then given to him, and he armed
himself also with spear or dart, bow, and quiver
lightning flashed before him, and flaming fire
filled his body. Anu, the god of the heavens,
had given him a great net, and this he set at
the four cardinal points, in order that nothing
of the dragon, when he had defeated her, should
escape. Seven winds he then created to accom-
pany him, and the great weapon called Abubu,
1 the Flood,' completed his equipment. All being
ready, he mounted his dreadful, irresistible chariot,
to which four steeds were yoked steeds unspar-
ing, rushing forward, rapid in flight, their teeth
full of venom, foam- covered, experienced in gal-
loping, schooled in overthrowing. Being now
ready for the fray, Merodach fared forth to meet
Tiawath, accompanied by the fervent good wishes
of ' the gods his fathers/

The fight with Tiawath. Advancing, he re-
garded Tiawath's retreat, but the sight of the
37

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

enemy was so menacing that even the great
Merodach (if we understand the text rightly)
began to falter This, however, was not for long,
and the king of the gods stood before Tiawath,
who, on her side, remained firm and undaunted.
In a somewhat long speech, in which he re-
proaches Tiawath for her rebellion, he challenges
her to battle, and the two meet in fiercest fight.
To all appearance the type of all evil did not
make use of honest weapons, but sought to over-
come the king of the gods with incantations and
charms. These, however, had not the slightest
effect, for she found herself at once enclosed in
Merodach's net, and on opening her mouth to
resist and free herself, the evil wind, which
Merodach had sent on before him, entered, so
that she could not close her lips, and thus in-
flated, her heart was overpowered, and she became
a prey to her conqueror. Having cut her asunder
and taken out her heart, thus destroying her life,
he threw her body down and stood thereon. Her
followers then attempted to escape, but found
themselves surrounded and unable to get forth.
Like their mistress, they were thrown into the
net, and sat in bonds, being afterwards shut up
in prison. As for Kingu, he was raised up, bound,
and delivered to be with Ugga, the god of death.

38

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

The tablets of fate, winch Tiawath had delivered
to Kingu, were taken from him by Merodacb, who
pressed his seal upon them, and placed them in
his breast. The deity Ansar, who had been, as it
would seem, deprived of his rightful power by
Tiawath, received that power again on the death
of the common foe, and Nudimmud c saw his
desire upon his enemy.'

Tiawatfc's fate. The dismemberment of Tia-
wath then followed, and her veins having been
cut through, the north wind was caused by the
deity to carry her blood away into secret places, a
statement which probably typifies the opening of
obstructions which prevent the rivers flowing from
the north from running into the southern seas,
helped thereto by the north wind Finally her
body was divided, like a ma^-fish/ into two
parts, one of which was made into a covering for
the heavens the c waters above the firmament '
of Genesis i. 7.

Merodach orders the world anew. Then came
the ordering of the universe anew. Having made
a covering for the heavens with half the body of
the defeated Dragon of Chaos, Merodach set the
Abyss, the abode of Nudimmud, in front, and
made a corresponding edifice above the heavens
where he founded stations for the gods Anu,
39

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Bel, and Ae Stations for the great gods in the
likeness of constellations, together with what is
regarded as the Zodiac, were his next work. He
then designated the year, setting three constella-
tions for each month, and made a station for
Nibiru Merodach's own star 1 as the overseer of
all the lights in the firmament. He then caused
the new moon, Nannaru, to shine, and made him
the ruler of the night, indicating his phases, one
of which was on the seventh day, and the other,
a abattu, or day of rest, in the middle of the
month. Directions with regard to the moon's
movements seem to follow, but the record is muti-
lated, and their real nature consequently doubtful.
With regard to other works which were performed
we have no information, as a gap prevents their
being ascertained. Something, however, seems to
have been done with Merodach's net probably it
was placed in the heavens as a constellation, as
was his bow, to which several names were given.
Later on, the winds were bound and assigned to
their places, but the account of the arrangement
of other things is mutilated and obscure, though
it can be recognised that the details in this place
were of considerable interest.
The creation of man. To all appearance the

1 See p. 60.
40

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

gods, after he had ordered the universe and the
things then existing, urged Merodach to further
works of wonder. Taking up their suggestion, he
considered what he should do, and then com-
municated to his father Ae his plan for the
creation of man with his own blood, in order that
the service and worship of the gods might be
established. This portion is also unfortunately
very imperfect, and the details of the carrying out
of the plan are entirely wanting.

Berosus' narrative fills the gap. It is note-
worthy that this portion of the narrative has been
preserved by Abydenus, George the Syneellus,
and Eusebius, in their quotations from Berosus.
According to this Chaldsean writer, there was a
woman named Omoroca, or, in Chaldsean, Thalatth
(apparently a mistake for Thauatth, i.e. Tiawath),
whose name was equivalent to the Greek Tha-
lassa, the sea. It was she who had in her charge
all the strange creatures then existing. At this
period, Belus (Bel-Merodach) came, and cut the
woman asunder, forming out of one half the earth,
and of the other the heavens, at the same time
destroying all the creatures which were within
her all this being an allegory, for the whole
universe consists of moisture, and creatures are
constantly generated therein. The deity then
4*

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

cut off his own head, and the other gods mixed
the blood, as it gushed out, with the earth, and
from this men were formed. Hence it is that
men are rational, and partake of divine know-
ledge.

A second creation. This Belus, 'who is called
Zeus/ divided the darkness, separated the heavens
from the earth, and reduced the universe to
order. The animals which had been created,
however, not being able to bear the light, died.
Belus then, seeing the void thus made, ordered
one of the gods to take off his head, and mix the
blood with the soil, forming other men and
animals which should be able to bear the light.
He also formed the stars, the sun, the moon, and
the five planets. It would thus seem that there
were two creations, the first having been a failure
because Belus had not foreseen that it was needful
to produce beings which should be able to bear
the light. Whether this repetition was really in
the Babylonian legend, or whether Berosus (or
those who quote him) has merely inserted and
united two varying accounts, will only be known
when the cuneiform text is completed.

The concluding tablet. The tablet of the fifty-
one names completes the record of the tablets
found at Nineveh and Babylon. In this Merodach
42

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

receives the titles of all the other gods, thus
identifying him with them, and leading to that
tendency to monotheism of which something will
be said later on. In this text, which is written,
like the rest of the legend, in poetical form, Mero-
dach is repeatedly called Tutu, a mystic word
meaning c creator ' and ' begetter,' from the re-
duplicate root tu or utu which was to all appear-
ance his name when it was desired to refer to him
especially in that character. Noteworthy in this
portion is the reference to Merodach's creation of
mankind :

Line 25. ' Tutu : Aga-azaga (the glorious crown) may he
make the crowns glorious

26. The lord of the glorious incantation bringing the
dead to life ;

2*7. He who had mercy on the gods who had been over-
powered ;

28. Made heavy the yoke which he had laid on the gods

' who were his enemies,

29. (And) to redeem (?) them, created mankind.

30. " The merciful one," " he with whom is salvation,"

31. May his word be established, and not forgotten,

32. In the mouth of the black-headed ones l whom his

hands have made.'

Man the redeemer. The phrase 'to redeem
them ' is, in the original, ana padi-wnu, the verb
being from paM, ' to spare/ f set free/ and if this

I.e. mankind.

43

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

rendering be correct, as seems probable, the Baby-
lonian reasons for the creation of mankind would
be, that they might carry on the service and
worship of the gods, and by their righteousness
redeem those enemies of the gods who were under-
going punishment for their hostility. Whether
by this Tiawath, Apsu, Mumrnu, Kingu, and the
monsters whom she had created were included,
or only the gods of heaven who had joined her,
the record does not say. Naturally, this doctrine
depends entirely upon the correctness of the
translation of the words quoted. Jensen, who
first proposed this rendering, makes no attempt
to explain it, and simply asks : ( Does " them " in
" to redeem^) them " refer to the gods named in
1 [28] or to mankind and then to a future how
meant ? redemption ? Eschatology ? Zimmern's
"in their place" unprovable. Delitzsch refrains
from an explanation/

Tlie bilingual account of the creation. Aruru
aids Merodach. Whilst dealing with this part of
the religious beliefs of the Babylonians, a few words
are needed concerning the creation-story which is
prefixed to an incantation used in a purification
ceremony. The original text is Sumerian (dialectic),
and is provided with a Semitic translation. In
this inscription, after stating that nothing (in the
44

BABYLONIAN STOEY OF CREATION

beginning) existed, and even the great cities and
temples of Babylonia were as yet unbuilt, the
condition of the world is briefly indicated by the
statement that ' All the lands were sea/ The
renowned cities of Babylonia seem to have been
regarded as being as much creations of Merodach
as the world and its inhabitants indeed, it is
apparently for the glorification of those cities by
attributing their origin to Merodach, that the
bilingual account of the creation was composed.
' When within the sea there was a stream '
that is, when the veins of Tiawath had been
cut through (see p. 39) firidu (probably = Para-
dise) and the temple E-sagila within the Abyss
were constructed, and after that Babylon and the
earthly temple of E-sagila (see pp. 23-28) within
it. Then he made the gods and the Annunnaki
(the gods of the earth), proclaimed a glorious
city as the seat of the joy of their hearts, and
afterwards made a pleasant place in which the
gods might dwell. The creation of mankind fol-
lowed, in which Merodach was aided by the god-
dess Aruru, who made mankind's seed. Finally,
plants, trees, and the animals, were produced,
after which Merodach constructed bricks, beams,
houses, and cities, including Niffer and Erech
with their renowned temples.
45

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

We see here a change in the teaching with
regard to Merodach the gods are no longer
spoken of as ' his fathers/ but he is the creator of
the gods, as well as of mankind.

The order of the gods in the principal lists.
It is unfortunate that no lists of gods have been
found in a sufficiently complete state to allow of
the scheme after which they were drawn up to be
determined without uncertainty. It may, never-
theless, be regarded as probable that these lists,
at least in some cases, are arranged in conformity
(to a certain extent) with the appearance of the
deities in the so-called creation-story. Some of
them begin with Anu, and give him various
names, among them being Ansar and Kisar,
La^rnu and Lahame, etc. (see p 32). More
specially interesting, however, is a well-known
trilingual list of gods, which contains the names
of the various deities in the following order :

EXTBACTS FROM THE TRILINGUAL LlST.

Obverse.
Sumerian Columns. Explanatory Column. 1

1. Dimmer Dingir flu God

2. U-ki En-Id &a a or Aa

1 The first column is in the 'dialect,' the second in that
which is called the standard tongue. The explanatory column
contains the common equivalents of the names, which are
sometimes Sumenan, sometimes Semitic.

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

Sumerian Columns. Explanatory Column.

3. Gaan(?)-ki Nin-ki Dawkina Dauke, the consort

4. Mu-ul-hl En-til-la BSl The god Bel.

5. E-lum A-lim B&l Do.

6. (ra$an(?}-lil Nin-hl-la dam-bi sal his consort

7. U-lu-a Ni-rig ^nu-r^tiL the god of Niffer
8 U-lib-a Ni-rig $nu-rtu Do.

9-12 have Elnu-r^tu's consort, sister, and attendant.

13. U-$ab-sib En-&a,g-duga Nusku Nusku.

14-19 have two other names of Nusku, followed by three names
of his consort. A number of names of minor divinities
then follow. At line 43 five names of a are given,
followed by four of Merodach :

48. U-fa-lu-lu En-bi-lu-lu Marduk Merodach.

49. U-Tm-dirki En-Tin-dirh Marduk Merodach as ' lord

of Babylon. J

50. U^mmer- En-diiigir- Marduk Merodach as 'lord

an-lda an-ha god of heaven

and earth.'

51. U-ab-ar-u En-ab-Zar-u Marduk Merodach, appar-

ently as * lord
of the 36,000
steers. 3

52. U-bar-gi-si Nin-bar-gi-si Zer-panttu m Merodach's con-

sort.

53. Gaian-abzu Nin-abzu dam-bi sal f the Lady of the

Abyss,' his con-
sort.

The remainder of the obverse is mutilated, but
gave the names of Nebo in Sumerian, and ap-
parently also of Tasmetu m , his consort. The
beginning of the reverse also is mutilated, but
seems to have given the names of the sun-god,
Samas, and his consort, followed by those of Kittu
47

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

and Msaru m , 'justice and righteousness/ his
attendants. Other interesting names are :

Heverse.
Sumenan Columns. Explanatory Column.

8. V-hbir-si En-ubar-si Dumu-zi Tammuz.

9. Sir-tumu Sir-du ama Dumu- the mother of

zi-gi Tammuz.

12. Gasan -anna Innanna I$tar IStar (Venus) as

'lady of heaven/
20. . . Nin-si-anna Innanna IStar the star (the

mul planet Venus).

21 Nm . . . Nm-tag-taga, Nanaa a goddess identi-

with IStar.

23. U-saljt Nin'&afy Pap-sukal the gods' messen-

ger.

24. U-banda Lugal-banda Lugal- (see p 94).

banda
26. U'M&rsi Nm-Girsu Nin-Girsu the chief god of

27. Ma-sib-sib Ga-tum-duga Ban Ban, a goddess

identified with
G-ula.

Four non-Semitic names of G-ula follow, of
which that in line 31 is the most interesting :

31. G-aZan-ti- Nin-tin-ugga Gula 'the lady saving

dibba from death. 3

33. Gra$ct,n-h~gal EreZ-ld-gala, Allatu Persephone.

36. lf-mu-zi-da Nin-gi-zi-da Nin-gib-zida 'the lord of the

everlasting tree. *

37. U-urugal Ne-eri-gal Nerigal Nergal,

42. MvZu-jiursag Galu-faursag Amurru the Amorite god.

43. Gascm-gu- Ntn-gu-edina (apparently the consort of

edina Amurru).

4 8

BABYLONIAN STORY OF CREATION

In all probability this list is one of compara-
tively late date, 1 though, its chronological position
with regard to the others is wholly uncertain
it may not be later, and may even be earlier,
than those beginning with Ann, the god of the
heavens. The important thing about it is, that
it begins with ttu, god, in general, which is written,
in the standard dialect (that of the second column)
with the same character as that used for the
name of Anu. After this comes Aa or fia, the god
of the earth, and his consort, followed by En-lilla,
the older Bel Illinos in Damascius. The name of
lla is repeated again in line 43 and following,
where he is apparently re-introduced as the father
of Merodach, whose names immediately follow.
This peculiarity is also found in other lists of gods
and is undoubtedly a reflection of the history
of the Babylonian religion. As this list replaces
Anu by ttu, it indicates the rule of Enki or a,
followed by that of Merodach, who, as has been
shown, became the chief divinity of the Baby-
lonian pantheon in consequence of Babylon having
become the capital of the country.

1 See pp. 80-81 (Amurru, end of paragraph).

CHAPTER IY

THE PKINCIPAL GODS OF THE BABYLONIANS
AND ASSYRIANS

Arm. The name of this divinity is derived
from the Sumero-Atkadian ana, 'heaven/ of
which he was the principal deity. He is called
the father of the great gods, though, in the
creation-story, he seems to be described as the
son of Ansar and Kisar. In early names he is
described as the father, creator, and god, pro-
bably meaning the supreme being. His consort
was Anatu, and the pair are regarded in the lists
as the same as the Lahmu and Lafeame of the
creation-story, who,' with other deities, are also
described as gods of the heavens. Anu was wor-
shipped at Erech, along with Istar.

Ea is given as if it were the Semitic equivalent
of Enki, 'the lord of the earth/ but it would
seem to be really a Sumerian word, later written
Ae, and certain inscriptions suggest that the true
reading was Aa. His titles are 'king of the
50

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYEIANS

Abyss, creator of everything, lord of all, 3 the first
being seemingly due to the fact that Aa is a
word which may, in its reduplicate form, mean
' waters/ or if read $a, l house of water.' He also
like Anu, is called ' father of the gods.' As this
god was likewise ' lord of deep wisdom/ it was to
him that his son Merodach went for advice when-
ever he was in doubt On account of his know-
ledge, he was the god of artisans in general
potters, blacksmiths, sailors, builders, stone-cutters,
gardeners, seers, barbers, farmers, etc. This is
the Aos (a form which confirms the reading Aa)
of Damascius, and the Oannes of the extracts
from Berosus, who states that he was ' a creature
endowed with reason, with a body like that of a
fish, and under the fish's head another head, with
feet below, like those of a man, with a fish's tail.'
This description applies fairly well to certain bas-
reliefs from Nimroud in the British Museum.
The creature described by Berosus lived in the
Persian Gulf, landing during the day to teach the
inhabitants the building of houses and temples,
the cultivation of useful plants, the gathering of
fruits, and also geometry, law, and letters. From
him, too, came the account of the beginning of
things referred to on pp. 41-42, which, in the
original Greek, is preceded by a description of

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

the composite monsters said to have existed before
Merodach assumed the rule of the universe.

The name of his consort, Damkina or Dawkina,
probably means 'the eternal spouse/ and her
other names, Gasan-ki (Sumerian dialectic) and
Nin-k% (non-dialectic), 'Lady of the earth,' suffi-
ciently indicate her province. She is often
mentioned in the incantations with fia.

The forsaking of the worship of Ea as chief
god for that of Merodach seems to have caused
considerable heartburning in Babylonia, if we
may judge from the story of the Iflood, for it
was on account of his faithfulness that TJt-
nipisti m , the Babylonian Noah, attained to salva-
tion from the Flood and immortality afterwards.
All through this adventure it was the god a
who favoured him, and afterwards gave him im-
mortality like that of the gods. There is an
interesting Sumerian text in which the ship of
fia seems to be described, the woods of which its
various parts were formed being named, and in
it, apparently, were Enki (Ea), Damgal-nunna
(Damkina), his consort, Asari-lu-duga (Merodach),
In-ab (or Ines), the pilot of Eridu (fia's city), and
Nin-igi-nagar-sir, * the great architect of heaven' :
* May the ship before thee bring fertility,
May the ship after thee bring joy,
In thy heart may it make joy of heart.
52

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Ea was the god of fertility, hence this ending to
the poetical description of the ship of 6a.

Bel. The deity who is mentioned next in
order in the list given above is the 'older Bel,'
so called to distinguish him from Bel-Merodach.
His principal names were Mullil (dialectic) or En-
lillci l (standard speech), the Illinos of Damascius.
His name is generally translated ' lord of mist/
so-called as god of the underworld, his consort
being Ga&m-Ul or Mn-lilla, ' the lady of the
mist,' in Semitic Babylonian Hffitu,' the Lady/
par excellence. Bel, whose name means 'the
lord/ was so called because he was regarded as
chief of the gods. As there was considerable
confusion in consequence of the title Bel having
been given to Merodach, Tiglath-pileser i. (about
1200 B.C.) refers to him as the ' older Bel ' in de-
scribing the temple which he built for him at
Assur. Numerous names of men compounded
with his occur until the latest times, implying
that, though the favourite god was Merodach,
the worship of Bel was not forgotten, even at
Babylon that he should always have been adored
at his own city, Niffur, and at Dur-Kuri-galzu,
where Kuri-galzu I. built a temple for 'Bel, the

1 Ordinarily pronounced Illila, as certain glosses and Damas-
cms's Ilhnos (for Ittilos] show.

53

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

lord of the lands/ was naturally to be expected.
Being, like iSa, a god of the earth, he is regarded
as having formed a trinity with Ann, the god of
heaven, and fia, the god of the deep, and prayer
to these three was as good as invoking all the
gods of the universe. Classification of the gods
according to the domain of their power would
naturally take place in a religious system in
which they were all identified with each other,
and this classification indicates, as Jastrow says,
a deep knowledge of the powers of nature, and
a more than average intelligence among the
Babylonians indeed, he holds it as a proof that,
at the period of the older empire, there were
schools and students who had devoted themselves
to religious speculation upon this point. He also
conjectures that the third commandment of the
Law of Moses was directed against this doctrine
held by the Babylonians.

Beltis. This goddess was properly only the
spouse of the older Bel, but as Bdltu, her Baby-
lonian name, simply meant 'lady' in general
(just as Ml or lelu meant 'lord'), it became a
title which could be given to any goddess, and
was in fact borne by Zer-panitu m , Istar, Nanaa,
and others. It was therefore often needful to
add the name of the city over which the special
54

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

presided, in order to make clear which of
them was meant Besides being the title of the
spouse of the older Bel, having her earthly seat
with him in Niffur and other less important
shrines, the Assyrians sometimes name Beltu the
spouse of Assur, their national god, suggesting an
identification, in the minds of the priests, with
that deity.

Enii-re&ttt or Mrig. 1 Whether $nu-r$tu be
a translation of Nirig or not, is uncertain, but
not improbable, the meaning being 'primaeval
lord/ or something similar, and f lord ' that of the
first element, ni, in the Sumerian form. In
support of this reading and rendering may be
quoted the fact, that one of the descriptions of
this divinity is asarid ttani dfyS-gu, 'the eldest
of the gods his brothers.' It is noteworthy that
this deity was a special favourite among the
Assyrians, many of whose kings, to say nothing
of private persons, bore his name as a component
part of theirs. In the bilingual poem entitled
Ana-kime gimma? he is described as being the

1 J?hiu-r$tu is the reading which I have adoped as the
Semitic Babylonian equivalent of the name of this divinity, in
consequence of the Aramaic transcription given by certain
contract-tablets discovered by the American expedition to
Niffer, and published by Prof. Clay of Philadelphia.

2 'Formed like Ann.'

55

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

son of Bel (hence his appearance after Bel in the
list printed above), and in the likeness of Ann,
for which reason, perhaps, his divinity is called
' Anuship.' Beginning with words praising him,
it seems to refer to his attitude towards the gods
of hostile lands, against whom, apparently, he
rode in a chariot of the sacred lapis-lazuli. Anu
having endowed him with terrible glory, the gods
of the earth feared to attack him, and his onrush
was as that of a storm-flood. By the command
of Bel, his course was directed towards l-kur, the
temple of Bel at Niffur. Here he was met by
Nusku, the supreme messenger of Bel, who, with
words of respect of and praise, asks him not to
disturb the god Bel, his father, in his seat, nor
make the gods of the earth tremble in Upsuken-
naku, 1 and offers him a gift. 2 It will thus be
seen that fCnu-restu was a rival to the older Bel,
whose temple was the great tower in stages called
ll-kura, in which, in all probability, &-su-me-du,
the shrine of Enu-rstu, was likewise situated.
The inscriptions call him 'god of war, 3 though,
unlike Nergal, he was not at the same time god
of disease and pestilence. To all appearance he

1 The heavenly festival-hall of the gods.

2 The result of this request is not known, in consequence of
the defective state of the tablets.

56

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

was the god of the various kinds of stones, of
which another legend states that he * determined
their fate/ He was 'the hero, whose net over-
throws the enemy, who summons his army to
plunder the hostile land, the royal son who
caused his father to bow down to him from
afar/ ' The son who sat not with the nurse, and
eschewed (?) the strength of milk/ ' the offspring
who did not know his father/ ' He rode over
the mountains and scattered seed unanimously
the plants proclaimed his name to their dominion,
among them like a great wild bull he raises his
horns/

Many other interesting descriptions of the
deity Nirig (generally read Nin-ip) occur, and
show, with those quoted here, that his story was
one of more than ordinary interest.

Nusku. This deity was especially invoked by
the Assyrian kings, but was in no wise exclusively
Assyrian, as is shown by the fact that his name
occurs in many Babylonian inscriptions. He was
the great messenger of the gods, and is variously
given as ' the offspring of the abyss, the creation
of a,' and ' the likeness of his father, the first-
born of Bel/ As Gibil, the fire-god, has likewise
the same diverse parentage, it is regarded as
likely that these two gods were identical. Nusku
57

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

was the god whose command is supreme, the
counsellor of the great gods, the protector of the
Igigi (the gods of the heavens), the great and
powerful one, the glorious day, the burning one,
the founder of cities, the renewer of sanctuaries,
the provider of feasts for all the Igigi, without
whom no feast took place in E-kura. Like Nebo,
he bore the glorious sceptre, and it was said of
him that he attacked mightily in battle. With-
out him the sun-god, as judge, could not give
judgment

All this points to the probability, that Nusku
may not have been the fire-god, but the brother
of the fire-god, i.e. either flame, or the light of
fire. The sun-god, without light, could not see,
and therefore could not give judgment : no feast
could be prepared without fire and its flame.
As the evidence of the presence of the shining
orbs in the heavens the light of their fires -
he was the messenger of the gods, and was
honoured accordingly. From this idea, too, he
became their messenger in general, especially of
Bel-Merodach, the younger Bel, whose requests
he carried to the god fia in the Deep. In one
inscription he is identified with Nirig or Enu-
restii, who is described above.

Merodach. Concerning this god, and how he
58

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYEIANS

arose to the position of king of all the gods
of heaven, has been fully shown on pp. 36-46.
Though there is but little in his attributes to
indicate any connection with oamas, there is
hardly any doubt that he was originally a sun-
god, as is shown by the etymology of his name.
The form, as it has been handed down to us,
is somewhat shortened, the original pronuncia-
tion having been Amar-udu/c, 'the young steer
of day/ a name which suggests that he was the
morning sun. Of the four names given in the
extract on p. 47, two ' lord of Babylon/ and
' lord god of heaven and earth/ may be regarded
as expressing his more well-known attributes.
En-ab-ar-u, however, is a provisional, though
not impossible, reading and rendering, and if
correct, the ' 36,000 wild bulls ' would be a meta-
phorical way of speaking of ' the 36,000 heroes/
probably meaning the gods of heaven in all
their grades. The signification of Un-bilulu is
unknown. Like most of the other gods of the
Babylonian pantheon, however, Merodach had
many other names, among which may be men-
tioned Asari, which has been compared with
the Egyptian Osiris, Asari-lu-duga,, ( Asari who
is good/ compared with Osiris Unnefer; Nam-
tila, 'life/ Tutu, 'begetter (of the gods), renewer
59

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

(of the gods)/ $ar-azaga, 'the glorious incanta-
tion/ Mu-azaga, ' the glorious charm/ and many
others. The last two refer to his being the god
who, by his kindness, obtained from his father !Ea,
dwelling in the abyss, those charms and incanta-
tions which benefited mankind, and restored the
sick to health. In this connection, a frequent
title given to him is ' the merciful one/ but most
merciful was he in that he spared the lives of
the gods who, having sided with Tiawath, were
his enemies, as is related in the tablet of the
fifty-one names (p. 43). In connection with the
fight he bore also the names, 'annihilator of
the enemy/ 'rooter out of all evil/ 'troubler of
the evil ones/ 'life of the whole of the gods.'
From these names it is clear that Merodach, in
defeating Tiawath, annihilated, at the same time,
the spirit of evil, Satan, the accuser, of which she
was, probably, the Babylonian type. But unlike
the Saviour in the Christian creed, he saved
not only man, at that time uncreated, but the
gods of heaven also. As ' king of the heavens/
he was identified with the largest of the planets,
Jupiter, as well as with other heavenly bodies.
Traversing the sky in great zigzags, Jupiter
seemed to the Babylonians to superintend the
stars, and this was regarded as emblematic of
60

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Merodach shepherding them e pasturing the gods
like sheep/ as the tablet has it.

A long list of gods gives as it were the court
of Merodach, held in what was apparently a
heavenly $-sagila, and among the spiritual
beings mentioned are Mind-iJcul-beli and MWI&-
it$,-beh, ' what has my lord eaten,' and ' what
has my lord drunk/ Ncufrin-md-gati, 'he who
gives water for the hands/ also the two door-
keepers, and the four dogs of Merodach, wherein
people are inclined to see the four satellites of
Jupiter, which, it is thought, were probably
visible to certain of the more sharpsighted star-
gazers of ancient Babylonia These dogs were
called Ukkuwiu, Akkulu, Ikuda, and Iltebu,
' Seizer/ ' Eater/ ' Grasper/ and ' Holder.' Images
of these beings were probably kept in the temple
of fi-sagila at Babylon.

Zer-panitu m . This was the name of the con-
sort of Merodach, and is generally read Sar-
p(b)anitu m a transcription which is against the
native orthography and etymology, namely,
' seed-creatress ' (Zer-banitu m ). The meaning
attributed to this word is partly confirmed by
another name which Lehmann has pointed out
that she possessed, namely, Erua, or Aru'a, who,
in an inscription of Antiochus Soter (280-260
61

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN EELIGION

B.C.), is called 'the queen who produces birth/
but more especially by the circumstance, that
she must be identical with Aruru, who created
the seed of mankind along with Merodach (see
the bilingual creation- story, p. 45). Why she
was called 'the lady of the abyss/ as in the
extract (p. 47, line 53), and elsewhere ' the voice
of the abyss' (Me-abzu), is not known. Zer-
panitu m was no mere reflection of Merodach,
but one of the most important goddesses in the
Babylonian pantheon. The tendency of scholars
has been to identify her with the moon, Merodach
being a solar deity, and the meaning ' silvery '
Sarpanitu, from sarpu, one of the words for
' silver/ was regarded as supporting this idea.
She was identified with the Elamite goddess
named Elagu, and with the La^amun of the
island of Bahrein, the Babylonian Tilmun.

Nebo and Tametu m . As 'the teacher' and
' the hearer/ these were among the most popular
of the deities of Babylonia and Assyria. Nebo
(in Semitic Babylonian Nabii) was worshipped
at the temple-tower known as fe-zida, ' the ever-
lasting house/ at Borsippa, now the Birs Nimroud,
traditionally regarded as the site of the Tower
of Babel, though that title, as has already been
shown (pp. 23-24), would best suit the similar
62

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

structure known as -sagila, 'the house of the
high head,' in Babylon itself, In composition
with men's names, this deity occurs more than
any other, even including Merodach himself a
clear indication of the estimation in which the
Babylonians and Assyrians held the possession
of knowledge. The character with which his
name is written means, with the pronunciation
of ak, 'to make/ 'to create, 3 'to receive/ 'to
proclaim/ and with the pronunciation of me,
c to be wise/ 'wisdom/ 'open of ear/ 'broad of
ear/ and ' to make, of a house/ the last probably
referring to the design rather than to the actual
building. Under the name of Dim-$ara he was
'the creator of the writing of the scribes/ as
Ni-zu, 'the god who knows 5 (zu t 'to know'),
as Mermer, 'the speeder ( 2 ) of the command of
the gods ' on the Sumerian side indicating some
connection with Addu or Rimmon, the thunderer
(see p. 83), and on the Semitic side with Enu~resfru,
who was one of the gods' messengers. A small
fragment in the British Museum gave his attri-
butes as god of the various cities of Babylonia,
but unfortunately their names are lost or incom-
plete. From what remains, however, we see
that Nebo was god of ditching (?), commerce (?),
granaries ( ? ), fasting (?), and food; it was he who

63

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

overthrew the land of the enemy, and who
protected planting; and, lastly, he was god of
Borsippa.

The worship of Nebo was not always as popular
as it became in the later days of the Babylonian
empire and after its fall, and Jastrow is of opinion
that Hammurabi intentionally ignored this deity,
giving the preference to Merodach, though he
did not suppress the worship. Why this should
have taken place is not by any means certain,
for Nebo was a deity adored far and wide, as
may be gathered from the fact that there was
a mountain bearing his name in Moab, upon
which Moses also an ' announcer/ adds Jastrow
died. Besides the mountain, there was a city in
Moab so named, and another in Judaea. That it
was the Babylonian Nebo originally is implied by
the form the Hebrew corresponding word is nabi.

How old the worship of Tasmtu m , his consort,
is, is doubtful, but her name first occurs in a
date of the reign of |Jammurabi. Details con-
cerning her attributes are rare, and Jastrow
regards this goddess as the result of Babylonian
religious speculations. It is noteworthy that her
worship appears more especially in later times,
but it may be doubted whether it is a product
of those late times, especially when we bear in
64

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

mind the remarkable seal-Impression on an
early tablet of 3500-4500 B.C., belonging to Lord
Amherst of Hackney, in which we see a male
figure with wide-open mouth seizing a stag by
his horns, and a female figure with no mouth at
all, but with very prominent ears, holding a bull
in a similar manner. Here we have the ' teacher '
and the ' hearer ' personified in a very remarkable
manner, and it may well be that this primitive
picture shows the idea then prevailing with
regard to these two deities. It is to be noted
that the name of Tasmetu m has a Sumerian
equivalent, namely, Kurntin, and that the ideo-
graph by which it is represented is one whose
general meaning seems to be ' to bind, 7 perhaps
with the additional signification of ' to accom-
plish/ in which case ' she who hears ' would also
be ' she who obeys.*

&ama and Ms consort. At all times the
worship of the sun in Babylonia and Assyria was
exceedingly popular, as, indeed, was to be expected
from his importance as the greatest of the
heavenly bodies and the brightest, without whose
help men could not live, and it is an exceedingly
noteworthy fact that this deity did not become,
like Ra in Egypt, the head of the pantheon.
This place was reserved for Merodach, also a sun-
E 65

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

god, but possessing attributes of a far wider scope.
Hamas is mentioned as early as the reign of
E-anna-tum, whose date is set at about 4200 B.C.,
and at this period his Semitic name does not,
naturally, occur, the character used being Utu, or,
in its longer form, Utuki.

It is worthy of note that, in consequence of
the Babylonian idea of evolution in the creation
of the world, less perfect beings brought forth
those which were more perfect, and the sun was
therefore the offspring of Nannara or Sin, the
moon. In accordance with the same idea, the
day, with the Semites, began with the evening,
the time when the moon became visible, and thus
becomes the offspring of the night. In the in-
scriptions $amas is described as ' the light of
things above and things below, the illuminator
of the regions/ ' the supreme judge of heaven and
earth/ ' the lord of living creatures, the gracious
one of the lands/ Dawning in the foundation of
the sky, he opened the locks and threw wide
the gates of the high heavens, and raised his head,
covering heaven and earth with his splendour.
He was the constantly righteous in heaven, the
truth within the ears of the lands, the god
knowing justice and injustice, righteousness he,
supported upon his shoulders, unrighteousness he
66

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

burst asunder like a leather bond, etc. It will
thus be seen, that the sun-god was the great god
of judgment and justice indeed, he is con-
stantly alluded to as 'the judge/ the reason in
all probability being, that as the sun shines upon
the earth all day long, and his light penetrates
everywhere, he was regarded as the god who
knew and investigated everything, and was there-
fore best in a position to judge aright, and deliver
a just decision. It is for this reason that his
image appears at the head of the stele inscribed
with gammurabi's laws, and legal ceremonies
were performed within the precincts of his
temples. The chief seats of his worship were
the great temples called fi-babbara, 'the house
of great light/ in the cities of Larsa and Sippar.

The consort of Samas was Aa, whose chief
seat was at Sippar, side by side with Samas.
Though only a weak reflex of the sun-god, her
worship was exceedingly ancient, being mentioned
in an inscription of Man-is tusu, who is regarded
as having reigned before Sargon of Agade. From
the fact that, in one of the lists, she has names
formed by reduplicating the name of the sun-
god, Utu, she would seem once to have been
identical with him, in which case it may be
supposed that she personified the setting sun
67

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

'the double sun/ from the magnified disc
which he presents at sunset, when, according
to a hymn to the setting sun sung at the
temple at Borsippa, Aa, in the Sumerian line
Kur-nirda, was accustomed to go to receive him.
According to the list referred to above, Aa, with
the name of Burida in Sumerian, was more
especially the consort of Sa-zu, f him who knows
the heart/ one of the names of Merodach, who,
as suggested on p. 59, was probably the morning
sun, and therefore the exact counterpart of the
sun at evening.

Besides Samas and Utu, the latter his ordinary
Sumerian name, the sun-god had several other
non-Semitic names, including Gi^nu, 1 ' the light/
Ma-banda-anna, e the bark of heaven/ U-4, ' the
rising sun/ Mitra, apparently the Persian Mithra ;
Ume-gimas and Najiunda, Elamite names, and
Sahi, the Kassite name of the sun. He also
sometimes bears the names of his attendants
Kittu and Mesaru, 'Truth 5 and 'Righteousness/
who guided him upon his path as judge of the
earth.

1 It is the group expressing this word which is used for feamaS
in the name of 3ama8-8um-uk!n (Saosduchinos), the hrother of
Ail&ur-bani-apli (Assurbanipal). The Greek equivalent implies
the pronunciation Sawas, as well as tiamag*

68

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYEIANS

Tanmmz and Is'tar. -The date of the rise of
the myth of Tammuz is uncertain, but as the
name of this god is found on tablets of the time
of Lugal-anda and Uru-ka-gina (about 3500 B.C.),
it can hardly be of later date than 4000 B.C., and
may be much earlier. As he is repeatedly called
' the shepherd/ and had a domain where he
pastured his flock, Professor Sayce sees in
Tammuz 'Daonus or Daos, the shepherd of
Pantibibla/ who, according to Berosus, ruled
in Babylonia for 10 sari, or 36,000 years, and
was the sixth king of the mythical period.
According to the classic story, the mother of
Tammuz had unnatural intercourse with her
own father, being urged thereto by Aphrodite
whom she had offended, and who had decided
thus to revenge herself. Being pursued by her
father, who wished to kill her for this crime, she
prayed to the gods, and was turned into a tree,
from whose trunk Adonis was afterwards born.
Aphrodite was so charmed with the infant that,
placing him in a chest, she gave him into the
care of Persephone, who, however, when she dis-
covered what a treasure she had in her keeping,
refused to part with him again. Zeus was
appealed to, and decided that for four months
in the year Adonis should be left to himself, four

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

should be spent with. Aphrodite, and four with
Persephone; or, as a variant account makes it,
he should spend six months with Persephone,
and six with Aphrodite on earth. He was after-
wards slain, whilst hunting, by a wild boar

Nothing has come down to us as yet concern-
ing this legend except the incident of his dwell-
ing in Hades, whither Is tar, the Babylonian
Venus, went in search of him. It is not by any
means unlikely, however, that the whole story
existed in Babylonia, and thence spread to
Phoenicia, and afterwards to Greece. In Phoe-
nicia it was adapted to the physical conditions
of the country, and the place of Tammuz's en-
counter with the boar was said to be the
mountains of Lebanon, whilst the river named
after him, Adonis (now the Nahr Ibrahim), which
ran red with the earth washed down by the
autumn rains, was said to be so coloured in con-
sequence of being mingled with his blood. The
descent of Tammuz to the underworld, typified
by the flowing down of the earth-laden waters
of the rivers to the sea, was not only celebrated
by the Phoenicians, but also by the Babylonians,
who had at least two series of lamentations which
were used on this occasion, and were probably
the originals of those chanted by the Hebrew
70

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

women in the time of Ezekiel (about 597 B c ).
Whilst on earth, he was the one who nourished
the ewe and her lamb, the goat and her kid, and
also caused them to be slain probably in sacri-
fice. 'He has gone, he has gone to the bosom
of the earth,' the mourners cried, ' he will make
plenty to overflow for the land of the dead, for
its lamentations for the day of his fall, in the
unpropitious month of his year.' There was also
lamentation for the cessation of the growth of
vegetation, and one of these hymns, after address-
ing him as the shepherd and husband of Istar,
' lord of the underworld/ and ' lord of the shep-
herd's seat/ goes on to liken him to a germ which
has not absorbed water in the furrow, whose bud
has not blossomed in the meadow ; to the sapling
which has not been planted by the watercourse,
and to the sapling whose root has been removed.
In the 'Lamentations' in the Manchester Museum,
Istar, or one of her devotees, seems to call for
Tammuz, saying 'Return, my husband/ as she
makes her way to the region of gloom in quest
of him. Eres-e-gala, 'the lady of the great
house ' (Persephone), is also referred to, and the
text seems to imply that Istar entered her domain
in spite of her. In this text other names are
given to him, namely, Tumu-giba 3 'son of the
71

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

flute/ Ama-elaggi, and Si-umunnagi, 'life of the
people.'

The reference to sheep and goats in the British
Museum fragment recalls the fact that in an
incantation for purification the person using it
is told to get the milk of a yellow goat which
has been brought forth in the sheep-fold of
Tarn muz, recalling the flocks of the Greek sun-
god Helios. These were the clouds illuminated
by the sun, which were likened to sheep
indeed, one of the early Sumerian expressions
for ' fleece ' was : sheep of the sky.' The name of
Tammuz m Suinerian is Duimi-zi, or in its rare
fullest form, Dumu - zida ? meaning true ' or
' faithful son/ There is probably some legend
attached to this which is at present unknown.
For his identification with En-Mersi, see p. 77.

In all probability Istar, the spouse of Tammuz,
is best known from her descent into Hades in
quest of him when with Persephone (Eres-ki-gal)
in the underworld. In this she had to pass
through seven gates, and an article of clothing
was taken from her at each, until she arrived in
the underworld quite naked, typifying the teaching,
that man can take nothing away with him when
he departs this life During her absence, things
naturally began to go wrong upon the earth, and
72

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

the gods were obliged to intervene, and demand
her release, which was ultimately granted, and at
each gate, as she returned, the adornments which
she had left were given back to her. It is un-
certain whether the husband whom she sought
to release was set free, but the end of the inscrip-
tion seems to imply that Istar was successful in
her mission.

In this story she typifies the faithful wife, but
other legends show another side of her character,
as in that of Gilgames, ruler of her city Erech,
to whom she makes love. Gilgames, however,
knowing the character of the divine queen of his
city too well, reproaches her with her treatment
of her husband and her other lovers Tammuz,
to whom, from year to year, she caused bitter
weeping; the bright coloured Allala bird, whom
she smote and broke his wings ; the lion perfect
in strength, in whom she cut wounds c by sevens';
the horse glorious in war, to whom she caused
hardship and distress, and to his mother Silili
bitter weeping ; the shepherd who provided for
her things which she liked, whom she smote
and changed to a jackal; Isullanu, her father's
gardener, whom she tried, apparently, to poison,
but failing, she smote him, and changed him to
a statue ( ? ). On being thus reminded of her
73

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

misdeeds, Istar was naturally angry, and, ascend-
ing to heaven, complained to her father Anu and
her mother Anatu, the result being, that a divine
bull was sent against G-ilgames and Enki-du, his
friend and helper. The bull, however, was killed,
and a portion of the animal having been cut off,
Enki-du threw it at the goddess, saying at the
same time that, if he could only get hold of her,
he would treat her similarly. Apparently Istar
recognised that there was nothing further to be
done in the matter, so, gathering the hand-
maidens, pleasure-women and whores, in their
presence she wept over the portion of the divine
bull which had been thrown at her.

The worship of Istar, she being the goddess of
love and war, was considerably more popular than
that of her spouse, Tamrnuz, who, as among the
western Semitic nations, was adored rather by
the women than the men. Her worship was in
all probability of equal antiquity, and branched
out, so to say, in several directions, as may be
judged by her many names, each of which had
a tendency to become a distinct personality.
Thus the syllabaries give the character which
represents her name as having also been pro-
nounced Innanna (see the line numbered 12 on
p. 48), Ennen, and Nin, whilst a not uncommon
74

GODS OP BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

name in other inscriptions is Ama - Innanna,
'mother Istar.' The principal seat of her wor-
ship in Babylonia was at Erech, and in Assyria
at Nineveh also at Arbela, and many other
places. She was also honoured (at Erech and
elsewhere) under the Elamite names of Tispak
and $usinak, ' the Susian goddess/

Nina From the name Nin, which Istar bore,
there is hardly any doubt that she acquired the
identification with Nina, which is provable as
early as the time of the Lagasite kings, Lugal-
anda and Uru-ka-gina (see p. 69). As identified
with Aruru, the goddess who helped Merodach
to create mankind, Istar was also regarded as the
mother of all, and in the Babylonian story of the
Flood, she is made to say that she had begotten
man, but like ' the sons of the fishes/ he filled
the sea. Nina, then, as another form of Istar,
was a goddess of creation, typified in the teeming
life of the ocean, and her name is written with a
character standing for a house or receptacle, with
the sign for ' fish' within. Her earliest seat was
the city of Nina in southern Babylonia, from
which place, in all probability, colonists went
northwards, and founded another shrine at Nine-
veh in Assyria, which afterwards became the
great centre of her worship, and on this account
75

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

the city was called after her Ninaa or Ninua.
As their tutelary goddess, the fishermen in the
neighbourhood of the Babylonian Nina and Lagas
were accustomed to make to her, as well as to
Jnnanna or Istar, large offerings of fish.

As the masculine deities had feminine forms,
so it is not by any means improbable that the
goddesses had masculine forms, and if that be
the case, we may suppose that it was a masculine
counterpart of Nina who founded Nineveh, which,
as is well known, is attributed to Ninos, the same
name as Nina with the Greek masculine termina-
tion.

Mn-Girsu. This deity is principally of im-
portance in connection with the ancient Baby-
lonian state of Lagas, the home of an old and
important line of kings and viceroys, among the
latter being the celebrated Gudea, whose statues
and inscribed cylinders now adorn the Babylonian
galleries of the Louvre at Paris. His name means
'Lord of Girsu,' which was probably one of the
suburbs, and the oldest part, of Lagas. This deity
was son of En-lila or Bl, and was identified with
Nirig or finu-restu. To all appearance he was a
sun-deity. As indicated on p. 48, in the line
marked 26, the dialectic form of his name was
U-Mersi, of which a variant, En-Mersi, occurs in

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

an incantation published in the fourth volume
of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia,
pi. 27, where, for the Sumerian 'Take a white
kid of En-Mersi/ the Semitic translation is 'of
Tammuz/ showing that he was identified with
the latter god. In the second volume of the
same work Nin-Girsu is given as the pronuncia-
tion of the name of the god of agriculturalists,
confirming this identification, Tammuz heing also
god of agriculture.

Ban. This goddess at all times played a
prominent part in ancient Babylonian religion,
especially with the rulers before the dynasty of
Hammurabi. She was the 'mother' of Lagas,
and her temple was at Uru-azaga, a district of
Lagas, the chief city of Nin-Girsu, whose spouse
she was. Like Nin-Girsu, she planted (not only
grain and vegetation, but also the seed of men).
In her character of the goddess who gave life
to men, and healed their bodies in sickness, she
was identified with Gula, one of whose titles is
' the lady saving from death' (see p. 48, line num-
bered 31). Ga-tum-duga, whose name probably
means ' making and producing good/ was also
exceedingly popular in ancient times, and though
identified with Bau in line 27, is regarded by
Jastrow as having been originally distinct from her.
77

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Eres-ki-gal or Allatu. As the prototype of
Persephone, this goddess is one of much im-
portance for comparative mythology, and there
is a legend concerning her of considerable interest.
The text is one of those found at Tel-el- Amarna,
in Egypt, and states that the gods once made a
feast, and sent to Eres-ki-gal, saying that, though
they could go down to her, she could not ascend
to them, and asking her to send a messenger to
fetch away the food destined for her. This she did,
and all the gods stood up to receive her messenger,
except one, who seems to have withheld this token
of respect. The messenger, when he returned,
apparently related to Eres-ki-gal what had
happened, and angered thereat, she sent him
back to the presence of the gods, asking for the
delinquent to be delivered to her, that she might
kill him. The gods then discussed the question
of death with the messenger, and told him to
take to his mistress the god who had not stood
up in his presence. When the gods were brought
together, that the culprit might be recognised,
one of them remained in the background, and on
the messenger asking who it was who did not
stand up, it was found to be Nerigal. , This god
was duly sent, but was not at all inclined to be
submissive, for instead of killing him, as she had
78

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

threatened, Eres-ki-gal found herself seized by
the hair and dragged from her throne, whilst
the death-dealing god made ready to cut off her
head. < Do not kill me, my brother, let me speak
to thee,' she cried, and on his loosing his hold
upon her hair, she continued, ' thou shalt be my
husband, and I will be thy wife I will cause
you to take the dominion in the wide earth. I
will place the tablet of wisdom in thine- hand
thou shalt be lord, I will be lady/ Nerigal there-
upon took her, kissed her, and wiped away her
tears, saying, ' Whatever thou hast asked me for
months past now receives assent.'

Eres-ki-gal did not treat her rival in the affec-
tions of Tammuz so gently when Istar descended
to Hades in search of the ' husband of her youth/
According to the story, not only was Istar de-
prived of her garments and ornaments, but by
the orders of Eres-ki-gal, Namtar smote her with
disease in all her members. It was not until the
gods intervened that Istar was set free. The
meaning of her name is ' lady of the great region/
a description which is supposed to apply to Hades,
and of which a variant, Eres--gal, 'lady of the
great house/ occurs in the Hymns to Tammuz in
the Manchester Museum.

Nergal. This name is supposed to mean f lord
79

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

of the great habitation/ which, would be a parallel
to that of his spouse Eres-ki-gal. He was the
ruler of Hades, and at the same time god of war
and of disease and pestilence. As warrior, he
naturally fought on the side of those who wor-
shipped him, as in the phrase which describes
him as * the warrior, the fierce storm-flood over-
throwing the land of the enemy/ As pointed
out by Jastrow, he differs from Nirig, who was
also a god of war, in that he symbolises, as god
of disease and death, the misery and destruction
which accompany the strife of nations. It is in
consequence of this side of his character that he
appears also as god of fire, the destroying element,
and Jensen says that Nerigal was god of the
midday or of the summer sun, and therefore of
all the misfortunes caused by an excess of his heat

The chief centre of his worship was Cuthah
(Rutti, Sumerian Gudua) near Babylon, now re-
presented by the mounds of Tel Ibrahim. The
identity with the Greek Aries and the Roman
Mars is proved by the fact that his planet was
Mugtabarrd-mtitanU; 'the death-spreader/ which is
probably the name of Mars in Semitic Babylonian.

Amuim Although this is not by any means
a frequent name among the deities worshipped ,
in Babylonia, it is worthy of notice on account
80

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

of its bearing upon the date of the compilation
of the tablet which has been taken as a basis of
this list of gods. He was known as { Lord of the
mountains/ and his worship became very popular
during the period of the dynasty to which Ham-
murabi belonged say from 2200 to 1937 BO.,
when Amurrii was much combined with the names
of men, and is found both on tablets and cylinder-
seals The ideographic manner of writing it is
Mar-tu, a word that is used for Amwrru, the
land of the Amorites, which stood for the West
in general. Amorites had entered Babylonia in
considerable numbers during this period, so that
there is but little doubt that his popularity was
largely due to their influence, and the tablet
containing these names was probably drawn up,
or at least had the Semitic equivalents added,
towards the beginning of that period.

Sin or Nannara. The cult of the moon-god
was one of the most popular in Babylonia, the
chief seat of his worship being at Uru (now
Muqayyar 1 ) the Biblical Ur of the Chaldees. The
origin of the name Sin is unknown, but it is
thought that it may be a corruption of Zu-ena,
* knowledge-lord,' as the compound ideograph ex-
pressing his name may be read and translated.

1 Or, according to the vulgar pronunciation, Mugheir.
F Si

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN EELIGION

Besides this compound ideograph, the name of the
god Sin was also expressed by the character for
'30,' provided with the prefix of divinity, an
ideograph which is due to the thirty days of the
month, and is thought to be of late date. With
regard to Nannar, Jastrow explains it as being for
Narnar, and renders it 'light-producer.' In a
long hymn to this god he is described in many
lines as * the lord, prince of the gods, who in
heaven alone is supreme/ and as ' father Nannar.'
Among his other descriptive titles are ' great Anu '
(Sum. ana gale, Semitic Bab. Anu rabil) another
instance of the identification of two deities. He
was also 'lord of Or/ c lord of the temple Gis-
nu-gala/ 'lord of the shining crown/ etc. He
is also said to be ' the mighty steer whose horns
are strong, whose limbs are perfect, who is bearded
with a beard of lapis-stone, 1 who is filled with
beauty and fullness (of splendour) '

Besides Babylonia and Assyria, he was also
worshipped in other parts of the Semitic east,
especially at JJarran, to which city Abraham
migrated, scholars say, in consequence of the
patron-deity being the same as at Ur of the
Chaldees, where he had passed the earlier years

1 Probably of the colour of lapis only, not made of the
stone itself

82

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

of his life. The Mountain, of Sinai and the
Desert of Sin, both bear his name.

According to king Dungi (about 2700 B a), the
spouse of Sin or Nannara was Nin-Uruwa, 'the
lady of Ur.' Sargon of Assyria (722-705 B.C.) calls
her Nin-gala.

Addu or Rammanu. The numerous names
which Hadad bears in the inscriptions, both
non- Semitic and Semitic, testify to the popu-
larity which this god enjoyed at all times in
Babylonia. Among his non-Semitic names may
be mentioned Mer, Mermer, Muru, all, it may
be imagined, imitative. Addu is explained as
being his name in the Araorite language, and
a variant form, apparently, which has lost its
first syllable, namely, Dadu, also appears the
Assyrians seem always to have used the termina-
tionless form of Addu, namely, Adad. In all pro-
bability Addu, Adad, and Dadu are derived from
the West Semitic Hadad, but the' other name,
Rammanu, is native Babylonian, and cognate with
Eimmon, which is thus shown by the Babylonian
form to mean 'the thunderer/ or something
similar. He was the god of winds, storms, and
rain, feared on account of the former, and wor-
shipped, and his favour sought, on account of the
last. In his name Birqu, he appears as the god

83

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

of lightning, and Jastrow is of opinion, that he
is sometimes associated on that account with
Sainas, both of them being (though in different
degrees) gods of light, and this is confirmed by
the fact that, in common with the sun-god, he
was called 'god of justice' In the Ass t yrian
inscriptions he appears as a god of war, and the
kings constantly compare the destruction which
their armies had wrought with that of ' Adad the
inundator.' For them he was ' the mighty one,
inundating the regions of the enemy, lands and
houses, 3 and was prayed to strike the land of
the person who showed hostility to the Assyrian
king, with evil-working lightning, to throw want*
famine, drought, and corpses therein, to order
that he should not live one day longer, and to
destroy his name and his seed in the land.

The original seat of his worship was Muru in
South Babylonia, to which the patesi of Girsu in
the time of Ibi-Sin sent grain as an offering. Its
site is unknown. Other places (or are they other
names of the same?) where he was worshipped
were Ennigi and Kakru. The consort of Addu
was $ala, whose worship was likewise very popular,
and to whom there were temples, not only in
Babylonia and Assyria, but also in Elain, seem-
ingly always in connection with Addu.

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYKIANS

r. In all the deities treated of above, we
see the chief gods of the Babylonian and Assyrian
pantheon, which were worshipped by both peoples
extensively, none of them being specifically
Assyrian, though worshipped by the Assyrians
There was one deity, however, whose name will
not be found in the Babylonian lists of gods,
namely, Assur, the national god of Assyria, who
was worshipped in the city of Assur, the old
capital of the country.

From this circumstance, it may be regarded as
certain, that Assur was the local god of the city
whose name he bore, and that he attained to the
position of chief god of the Assyrian pantheon in
the same way as Merodach became king of the
gods in Babylonia namely, because Assur was
the capital of the country. His acceptance as
chief divinity, however, was much more general
than that of Merodach, as temples to him were
to be found all over the Assyrian kingdom a
circumstance which was probably due to Assyria
being more closely united in itself than Babylonia,
causing his name to arouse patriotic feelings
wherever it might be referred to. This was pro-
bably partly due to the fact, that the king in
Assyria was more the representative of the god
than in Babylonia, and that the god followed him
35

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

on warlike expeditions, and when engaged in re-
ligions ceremonies indeed, it is not by any
means improbable that he was thought to follow
him wherever he went. On the sculptures he is
seen accompanying him in the form of a circle
provided with wings, in which is shown some-
times a full-length figure of the god in human
form, sometimes the upper part only, facing
towards and drawing his bow against the foe. In
consequence of its general appearance, the image
of the god has been likened to the sun in eclipse,
the far-stretching wings being thought to resemble
the long streamers visible at the moment of
totality, and it must be admitted as probable
that this may have given the idea of the symbol
shown on the sculptures. As a sun-god, and at
the same time not the god Samas, he resembled
the Babylonian Merodach, and was possibly iden-
tified with him, especially as, in at least one text,
Beltu (Beltis) is described as his consort, which
would possibly identify Assur's spouse with Zer-
panitu m . The original form of his name would"
seem to have been Au$ar, 'water-field/ probably
from the tract where the city of Assur was built.
His identification with Merodach, if that was ever
accepted, may have been due to the likeness of
the word to Asari, one of that deity's names. The
86

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

pronunciation Assur, however, seems to have led
to a comparison with the Ansar of the first tablet
of the Creation-story (see p. 32), though it may
seem strange that the Assyrians should have
thought that their patron-god was a deity sym-
bolising the ' host of heaven.' Nevertheless, the
Greek transcription of Ansar, namely, Assoros,
given by Dainascius, certainly strengthens the indi-
cations of the ideograph in this matter. Delitzsch
regards the word Assur, or Asur, as he reads it,
as meaning ' holy/ and quotes a list of the gods
of the city of Nineveh, where the word Assur
occurs three times, suggesting the exclamation
'holy, holy, holy, 5 or 'the holy, holy, holy one/
In all probability, however, the repetition of the
name three times simply means that there were
three temples dedicated to Assur in the cities in
question. 1 Jastrow agrees with Delitzsch in re-
garding Asur as another form of Asir (found in
early Cappadocian names), but he translates it
rather as ' overseer ' or ' guardian ' of the land and
the people the terminationless form of a$/ru,
which has this meaning, and is applied to
Merodach.
As the use of the characters An-a/r for the

1 Or there may have been three shrines to Assur in each
temple referred to.

87

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

god Assur only appears at a late date (Jastrow
says the eighth century B.C.), this would seem to
have been the work of the scribes, who wished to
read into the name the earlier signification of
Ansar, c the host of heaven/ an explanation fully
in accord with Jastrow's reasonings with regard
to the nature of the deity. As he represented
no personification or power of nature, he says,
but the general protecting spirit of the land, the
king, the army, and the people, the capital of
the country could be transferred from Assur to
Calah, from there back to Assur, and finally to
Nineveh, without affecting the position of the
protecting god of the land in any way. He
needed no temple though such things were
erected to him he had no need to fear that
he should suffer in esteem by the preference for
some other god As the embodiment of the
spirit of the Assyrian people the personal side of
his being remained to a certain extent in the
background. If he was the ' host of heaven/ all
the deities might be regarded as having their
being in him.

Such was the chief deity of the Assyrians a
national god, grafted on to, but always distinct
from, the rest of the pantheon, which, as has been
shown, was of Babylonian origin, and always

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

maintained the characteristics and stamp of its
origin.

The spouse of Assur does not appear in the
historical texts, and her mention elsewhere under
the title of Beltu, ' the lady/ does not allow of
any identification being made. In one in-
scription, however, Assuritu is called the goddess,
and Assur the god, of the star Sib-zi-anna, identi-
fied by Jensen with Regulus, which was apparently
the star of Merodach in Babylonia. This, how-
ever, brings us no nearer, for Assuritu would
simply mean ' the Assurite (goddess) J

The minor divinities. Among the hundreds
of names which the lists furnish, a few are
worthy of mention, either because of more than
ordinary interest, or in consequence of their
furnishing the name of some deity, chief in its
locality, but identified elsewhere with one of the
greater gods.

Aa. This may be regarded either as the god
fia (though the name is written differently), or as
the sun-god assuming the name of his consort;
or (what is, perhaps, more probable) as a way of
writing A'u or Ya'u (the Hebrew Jah), without
the ending of the nominative. This last is also
found under the form. Aa'u, ya'u, yau, and ya.

Abil-Addu, This deity seems to have attained

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN BELIGION

a certain popularity in later times, especially
among immigrants from the "West. As ' the son
of Hadad,' he was the equivalent of the Syrian
Ben-Hadad. A tablet in New York shows that
this name was weakened in form to Ablada.
For Addu or Adad (Hadad or Kimmon), see p. 83.

Aku, the moon-god among the heavenly bodies.
It is this name which is regarded as occurring
in the name of the Babylonian king Eri-Aku,
'servant of the moon-god/ the biblical Arioch
(Gen. xiv.).

Amma-an-ki, a or Aa as lord of heaven and
earth (see pp. 50-51).

Amna. A name only found in a syllabary, and
assigned to the sun-god, from which it would
seem that it is a form of the Egyptian Ammon.

Anunitu m , the goddess of one of the two
Sippars, called Sippar of Anunitu m , who was
worshipped in the temple fi-ulmas within the
city of Agade (Akkad). Sayce identifies, on this
account, these two places as being the same. In
a list of stars, Anunitu ni is coupled with Sinunu-
tu m , which are explained as (the stars of) the
Tigris and Euphrates. These were probably
names of Venus as the morning and evening (or
evening and morning) star.

Apsu. The deep dissociated from the evil con-
90

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

nection with Tiawath (see pp. S3, 34), and regarded
as ' the house of deep wisdom,' i e. the home of
the god Ea or Aa.

Aruru. One of the deities of Sippar and Aram
(in the time of the dynasty of Hammurabi called
Ya'ruru), of which she was chief goddess. Aruru
was one of the names of the ' lady of the gods,'
and aided Merodach to make the seed of man-
kind (see p 45).

BL As this name means 'lord/ it could be
applied, like the Phoenician Baal, to the chief
god of any city, as Bel of Niffur, Bel of Hursag-
kalama, Bel of Aratta, Bel of Babylon, etc. This
often indicates also the star which represented
the chief god of a place.

Beltu In the same way B&ltu, meaning ' lady,'
meant also the chief goddess of any place, as
'Aruru, lady of the gods of Sippar of Aruru/
'Nin-mah, lady of the gods of fi-majj/ a cele-
brated temple within Babylon, recently excavated
by the Germans, ' Nin-hur-saga, lady of the gods
of Kes/ etc.

Bunene. A god associated with Samas and
Istar at Sippar and elsewhere. He ' gave ' and
' renewed * to his worshippers.

Dagan. This deity, whose worship extends
back to an exceedingly early date, is generally

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

identified with the Phoenician Dagon. JEfam-
murabi seems to speak of the Euphrates as being
'the boundary of Dagan/ whom he calls his
creator. In later inscriptions the form Daguna,
which approaches nearer to the West Semitic form,
is found in a few personal names. The Phoenician
statues of this deity showed him with the lower
part of his body in the form of a fish (see 1 Sam.
Y. 4). Whether the deities clothed in a fish's
skin in the Nimroud Gallery of the British
Museum be Dagon or not is uncertain they
may be intended for fia or Aa, the Oannes of
Berosus, who was represented in this way. Pro-
bably the two deities were regarded as identical.

Damu. A goddess regarded as equivalent to
Gula by the Babylonians and Assyrians. She
was goddess of healing, and made one's dreams
happy.

Dumu-zi-abzu, ' Tammuz of the Abyss.' This
was one of the six sons of Ea or Aa, according
to the lists. His worship is exceedingly ancient,
and goes back to the time of E-anna-tum of
Lagas (about 4000 B.C.). What connection, if
any, he may have with Tammuz, the spouse of
Is tar, is unknown. Jastrow apparently regards
him as a distinct deity, and translates his name
' the child of the life of the water-deep/
92

GOJ3S OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Elali. A deity identified with the Hebrew
Helal, the new moon. Only found in names of
the "time of the |Jarnmurabi dynasty, in one of
which he appears as ' a creator.'

En-nugi is described as 'lord of streams and
canals/ and ' lord of the earth, lord of no-return/
This last description, which gives the meaning
of his name, suggests that he was one of the
gods of the realm of Eres-ki-gal, though he may
have borne that name simply as god of streams,
which always flow down, never the reverse.

Gibil. One of the names of the god of fire,
sometimes transcribed Girru by Assyriologists,
the meaning apparently being c the fire-bearer ' or
' light-bearer.' Girru is another name of this deity,
and translates an ideographic group, rendered
by Delitzsch 'great' or 'highest decider/ suggest-
ing the custom of trial by ordeal He was
identified with Nirig, in Semitic fjnu-r&stu.

Gusqi-banda or Kuski-banda, one of the names
of Ea, probably as god of gold- workers.

Isum, ' the glorious sacrificer/ seemingly a name
of the fire-god as the means whereby burnt offer-
ings were made. Nur-Isum, ' light of Isum/ is
found as a man's name

Kaawanu, the planet Saturn (see pp. 99-100).

Lagamal. A god identified with the Elamite
93

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

Lagamar, whose name is regarded as existing in
Chedorlaoiner (cf. Gen. xiv. 2). He was the chief
god of Mair, c the ship-city.'

Lugal-Amarada or Lugal-Marad. This name
means ' king of Marad,' a city as yet unidentified.
The king of this place seems to have been Nerigal,
of whom, therefore, Lugal-Marad is another name.

Lugal-banda. This name means f the powerful
king/ or something similar, and the god bearing
it is supposed to be the same as Nerigal. His
consort, however, was named Nin-sun (or Nin-
gul).

Lugal-Du-azaga, ' the king of the glorious seat/
The founder of Eridu, 'the good city within
the Abyss/ probably the paradise (or a paradise)
of the world to come. As it was the aim of
every good Babylonian to dwell hereafter with
the god whom he had worshipped upon earth, it
may be conjectured that this was the paradise in
the domain of Ea or Aa.

Mama, Mami. Names of 'the lady of the
gods/ and creatress of the seed of mankind,
Aruru. 1 Probably so called as the 'mother' of
all things. Another name of this goddess is
Ama, f mother. 5

Mammitu m , Mamitu m , goddess of fate.

1 See p. 62 (Zer-panitu^).

94

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Mur, one of the names of Addu or Rainmanu
(Hadad or Eimmon).

Nana or Nanaa was the consort of Nebo at
Borsippa, but appears as a form of Istar, wor-
shipped, with Anu her father, at Erech.

Nin-a]ia-kudu, a name of Ea or Aa and of his
daughter as deity of the rivers, and therefore of
gardens and plantations, which were watered by
means of the small canals leading therefrom. As
daughter of Ea, this deity was also 'lady of the
incantation.'

Nin-azu, the consort of Eres-ki-gal, probably as
' lord physician/ He is probably to be identified
with Nerigal.

Nin-igi-nagar-sir, a name somewhat more doubt-
ful as to its reading than the others, designates
Ea or Aa as e the god of the carpenter.' He
seems to have borne this as 'the great con-
structor of heaven ' or ' of Anu.' (See p. 52).

Nin-rna^, chief goddess of the temple 6-ma^i
in Babylon. Probably to be identified with
Aruru, and therefore with Zer-panitu m .

Nin-sa^, a deity whose name is conjectured to
mean c lord of the wild boar.' He seems to have
been a god of war, and was identified with Nirig
or fenu-restu and Pap-sukal.

Nin-sirsir, Ea as the god of sailors.
95

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

Nin-sun, as pointed out by Jastrow, was pro-
bably the same as Istar or Nana of Erech,
where she had a shrine, with them, in E-anna,
' the house of Anu.' He renders her name < the
annihilating lady/ 1 'appropriate for the consort
of a sun-god/ for such he regards Lugal-banda
her spouse. King Sin-gasid of Erech (about
3000 EC) refers to her as his mother.

Nun-urra. Ea, as the god of potters.

Pap-sukal A name of Nin-sah, as the ' divine
messenger/ who is also described as god c of
decisions/ Nin-sa^ would seem to have been
one of the names of Pap-sukal rather than the
reverse.

Qarradu, ' strong/ ' mighty/ * brave/ This
word, which was formerly translated c warrior/ is
applied to several deities, among them being Bel,
Nergal, Nirig (finu-restu), and $amas, the sun-god.

Ragimu and Ramimu, names of Rimmon or
Hadad as 'the thunderer. 5 The second comes
from the same root as Rammanu (Rimmon).

uqamumi. A deity regarded as 'lord of
watercourses/ probably the artificial channels dug
for the irrigation of fields.

Ura-gala, a name of Nerigal.

1 This is due to the second element of the name having, with
another pronunciation, the meaning of { to destroy.'

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Uras, a name of Nirig, under which he was
worshipped at Dailem, near Babylon.

Zagaga, dialectic Zamama. This deity, who
was a god of war, was identified with Nirig. One
of his titles was bdl parakki, 'lord of the royal
chamber/ or ' throne-room.'

Zaraqu or Zariqu. As the root of this name
means ' to sprinkle/ he was probably also a god
of irrigation, and may have presided over cere-
monial purification. He is mentioned in names
as the ( giver of seed ' and ( giver of a name * fy e,
offspring).

These are only a small proportion of the
names found in the inscriptions, but short as
the list necessarily is, the nature, if not the full
composition, of the Babylonian pantheon will
easily be estimated therefrom.

It will be seen that besides the identifications
of the deities of all the local pantheons with each
other, each divinity had almost as many names
as attributes and titles, hence their exceeding
multiplicity. In such an extensive pantheon,
many of the gods composing it necessarily over-
lap, and identifications with each other, to which
the faith, in its primitive form, was a stranger,
were inevitable. The tendency to monotheism
which this caused will be referred to later on.
G 97

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

The gods and the heavenly bodies. It has

already been pointed out that, from the evidence
of the Babylonian syllabary, the deities of the
Babylonians were not astral in their origin,
the only gods certainly originating in heavenly
bodies being the sun and the moon. This leads
to the supposition that the Babylonians, bearing
these two deities in mind, may have asked them-
selves why, if these two were represented by
heavenly bodies, the others should not be so
represented also Be this as it may, the other
deities of the pantheon were so represented, and
the full planetary scheme, as given by a bilingual
list in the British Museum, was as follows

Aku Sin the moon. Sm.

BiSebi

gamaS

the sun.

v

Samas.

Dapinu

Umun-sig-ea

Jupiter.

Merodach.

Zib 1

Dele-bat

Venus.

I&tar.

Lu-lim

Lu-bat-sag-u&

Satarn.

Nirig (ace. to

Jensen).

Bibbu

Lubat-gud

Mercury.

Nebo.

Simutu

/MuStabarru
\ mutanu

j-Mars

Nergal

All the above names of planets have the prefix
of divinity, but in other inscriptions the deter-
minative prefix is that for ' star/ kakkabu.

1 This is apparently a Sumerian dialectic form, the original
word having seemingly been Zig.

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Moon and Sun. Unfortunately, all the above
identifications of tlie planets with the deities in
the fourth column are not certain, namely, those
corresponding with Saturn, Mercury, and Mars.
With regard to the others, however, there is no
doubt whatever. The reason why the moon is
placed before the sun is that the sun, as already
explained, was regarded as his son. It was note-
worthy also that the moon was accredited with two
other offspring, namely, Masu and Mastu son and
daughter respectively. As mau means 'twin/
these names must symbolise the two halves, or,
as we say, ' quarters ' of the moon, who were thus
regarded, in Babylonian mythology, as his ' twin
children/

Jupiter and Saturn. Concerning Jupiter, who
is in the above called Dapinu (Semitic), and
Umun-sig-6a (Sumerian), it has already been
noted that he was called Nibiru according to
Jensen, Merodach as he who went about among
the stars ' pasturing ' them like sheep, as stated in
the Babylonian story of the Creation (or Bel and
the Dragon). 1 This is explained by Mm as being
due to the comparatively rapid and extensive
path of Jupiter on the ecliptic, and it would seem
probable that the names of Saturn,

1 See p. 40.

99

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

and Sag-u$ (the former, which, is Semitic Baby-
lonian, meaning ' steadfast/ or something similar,
and the latter, in Suinerian, ' head-firm ' or ' stead-
fast' 'phlegmatic'), to all appearance indicate in
like manner the deliberation of his movements
compared with those of the planet dedicated to
the king of the gods.

Venus at sunrise and sunset. A fragment of
a tablet published in 1870 gives some interesting
particulars concerning the planet Venus, probably
explaining some as yet unknown mythological
story concerning her. According to this, she was
a female at sunset, and a male at sunrise ; Istar of
Agade (Akad or Akkad) at sunrise, and Istar of
Erech at sunset . Istar of the stars at sunrise, and
the lady of the gods at sunset.

And in the various months. Istar was identi-
fied with Nin-si-anna in the first month of the
year (Nisan= March- April), with the star of the
bow in Ab (August-September), etc. In Sebat
(January-February) she was the star of the water-
channel, Iku, which was Merodach's star in Sivan
(May-June), and in Marcheswan her star was
Rabbu, which also belonged to Merodach in the
same month. It will thus be seen, that Baby-
lonian astronomy is far from being as clear as
would be desired, but doubtless many difficulties
100

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS

will disappear when further inscriptions are
available.

Stars identified with Merodack The same
fragment gives the celestial names of Merodach
for every month of the year, from which it would
appear, that the astrologers called him Umun-
sig-ea in Nisan (March-April), Dapinu in Tammuz
(June-July), Nibiru in Tisri (September-October),
ami (the star Regulus), in Tebet (December-
January), etc. The first three are names by which
the planet Jupiter was known

As for the planets and stars, so also for the
constellations, which are identified with many
gods and divine beings, and probably contain
references, in their names and descriptions, to
many legends. In the sixth tablet of the Creation-
series, it is related of Merodach that, after creating
the heavens and the stations for Anu, Bel, and
Ae,

* He built firmly the stations of the great gods
Stars their likeness he set up the LumaM,
He designated the year, he outlined the (heavenly) forms.
He set for the twelve months three stars each,
From the day when the year begins, ... for signs.'

As pointed out by Mr Robert Brown, jr., who
has made a study of these things, the 'three
stars ' for each month occur on one of the remains
101

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

of planispheres in the British Museum, and are
completed by a tablet which gives them in list-
form, in one case with explanations. Until these
are properly identified, however, it will be im-
possible to estimate their real value. The signs
of the Zodiac, which are given by another tablet,
are of greater interest, as they are the originals of
those which are in use at the present time :

Month.

1. Kisan (March- April)
2 lyyar (April-May)

3. Sivan (May- June)

4. Tammuz (June-

July)

5. Ab (July -August)

6. Elul (August-

September)

7. Tisri (September-

October)

8. Marcheswan (October- The Scorpion

November)

9. Chialeu (November-

December)

10. Tebet (December-

January)

11. Sebat (January -

February)

12. Adar ^February -
March)

Parallels in Babylonian legends. The 'bull
of heaven' probably refers to some legend such
102

Sign.

Equivalent.

The Labourer

The Ram.

Mulmula and the

The Bull.

Bull of heaven

Sib-zi-anna and the

The Twins.

great Twins
Allul or Nagar

The Crab.

The Lion (or dog)
The Ear of corn (?)

The Scales

The Lion.
The ear of

Corn (Virgo).
The Scales.

kid

Gula

The Water-Channel
and the Tails

The Scorpion.

The Archer.

t the Fish- The Goat.

The Water-

bearer.
The Fishes.

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYEIANS

as that of the story of Gilgames in his conflict
with the goddess Istar when the divine bull was
killed ; Sib-zi-annci, ' the faithful shepherd of
heaven/ suggests that this constellation may refer
to Tammuz, the divine shepherd, whilst 'the
scorpion' reminds us of the scorpion-men who
guarded the gate of the sun (Samas), when
Gilgames was journeying to gain information
concerning his friend Enki-du, who had departed
to the place of the dead. Sir Henry Eawlinson
many years ago pointed out that the story of
the Flood occupied the eleventh tablet of the
Gilgames series, corresponding with the eleventh
sign of the Zodiac, Aquarius, or the Water-bearer.
Other star-names. Other names of stars or
constellations include ' the weapon of Merodach's
hand,' probably that with which he slew the
dragon of Chaos ; ' the Horse/ which is described
as ' the god Zu/ Simmon's storm-bird Pegasus ;
' the Serpent/ explained as Eres-ki-gal, the queen
of Hades, who would therefore seem to have been
conceived in that form ; ' the Scorpion/ which is
given as Bhara tdmti, 'Isjiara of the sea/ a
description difficult to explain, unless it refer to
her as the goddess of the Phoenician coast. Many
other identifications, exceedingly interesting, await
solution.

103

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

How the gods were represented. On cylinder-
seals. Many representations of the gods occur,
both on bas-reliefs, boundary-stones, and cylindrical
and ordinary seals. Unfortunately, their identi-
fication generally presents more or less difficulty,
on account of the absence of indications of their
identity. On a small cylinder-seal in the possession
of the Rev. Dr. W. Hayes Ward, Merodach is
shown striding along the serpentine body of
Tiawath, who turns her head to attack him,
whilst the god threatens her with a pointed
weapon which he carries. Another, published by
the same scholar, shows a deity, whom he regards
as being Merodach, driven in a chariot drawn by
a winged lion, upon whose shoulders stands a
naked goddess, holding thunderbolts in each hand,
whom he describes as Zer-panitu m . Another
cylinder-seal shows the corn -deity, probably
Nisaba, seated in flounced robe and horned hat,
with corn-stalks springing out from his shoulders,
and holding a twofold ear of corn in his hand,
whilst an attendant introduces, and another with
a threefold ear of corn follows, a man carrying a
plough, apparently as an offering. On another, a
beautiful specimen from Assyria, Istar is shown
standing on an Assyrian lion, which turns his
head as if to caress her feet. As goddess of war,
104

GODS OF BABYLONIANS AND ASSYJ0&NS

she is armed with bow and arrows, and heAsTrar is
represented upon the crown of her tiara.

On boundary-stones, etc On the boundary-
stones of Babylonia and the royal monoliths of
Assyria the emblems of the gods are nearly always
seen. Most prominent are three horned tiaras, em-
blematic, probably, of Merodach, Anu, and Bel (the
older). A column ending in a ram's head is used
for Ea or Ae , a crescent for Sin or Nannar, the
moon-god ; a disc* with rays for Samas, the sun-god ;
a thunderbolt for Kimmon or Hadad, the god of
thunder, lightning, wind, and storms ; a lamp for
Nusku, etc A bird, perhaps a hawk, stood for
Utu-gisgallu, a deity whose name has been trans-
lated ' the southern sun,' and is explained in the
bilingual inscriptions as Samas, the sun-god, and
Nirig, one of the gods of war (see p. 55 f). The
emblem of Gal-alim, who is identified with the
older Bel, is a snarling dragon's head forming the
termination of a pole, and that of Dun-asaga is
a bird's head similarly posed. On a boundary-
stone of the time of Nebuchadnezzar L, about
1120 BC., one of the signs of the gods shows a
horse's head in a kind of shrine, probably the
emblem of Rimmon's storm-bird, Zu, the Baby-
lonian Pegasus.

Other divine figures. One of the finest of all
105

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYEIAN RELIGION

the representations of divinities is that of the
( Sun-god-stone/ found by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam
at Abu-habbah (the ancient Sippar), which was
one of the chief seats of his worship. It repre-
sents him, seated in his shrine ; holding in
his hand a staff and a ring, his usual emblems,
typifying his position as judge of the world and
his endless course The position of Merodach as
sun-god is confirmed by the small lapis-lazuli
relief found by the German expedition at the
mound known as Amran ibn 'Ali, as he also
carries a staff and a ring, and his robe is covered
with ornamental circles, showing, in all probability,
his solar nature. In the same place another
small relief representing Rimmon or Hadad was
found. His robe has discs emblematical of the
five planets, and he holds in each hand a thunder-
bolt, one of which he is about to launch forth.
Merodach is accompanied by a large two-horned
dragon, whilst Hadad has a small winged dragon,
typifying the swiftness of his course, and another
animal, both of which he holds with cords.

CHAPTEK V

THE DEMONS: EXORCISMS AND CEREMONIES

GOOD and evil spirits, gods, and demons, were
fully believed in by the Babylonians and Assyrians,
and many texts referring to them exist. Naturally
it is not in some cases easy to distinguish well
between the special functions of these super-
natural appearances which they supposed to exist,
but their nature is, in most cases, easily ascertained
from the inscriptions.

To all appearance, the Babylonians imagined
that spirits resided everywhere, and lay in wait to
attack mankind, and to each class, apparently,
a special province in bringing misfortune, or
tormenting, or causing pain and sickness, was
assigned. All the spirits, however, were not evil,
even those whose names would suggest that their
character was such there were good 'liers in
wait/ for instance, as well as evil ones, whose
attitude towards mankind was beneficent.
107

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYKIAN RELIGION

The utfuMu. This was a spirit which was
supposed to do the will of Ann, the god of the
heavens. There was the utukku of the plain, the
mountains, the sea, and the grave

The cU4. Regarded as the demon of the storm,
and possibly, in its origin, the same as the divine
bull sent by Istar to attack Gilgames, and killed
by Enld-du. It spread itself over a man, over-
powering him upon his bed, and attacking his
breast.

The ddimmu. This is generally, but wrongly,
read Mmmu, and translated 'the seizer/ from
Skemu, ' to seize/ In reality, however, it was an
ordinary spirit, and the word is used for the
wraiths of the departed. The c evil ddimmu ' was
apparently regarded as attacking the middle part
of a man.

The gcdlu. As this word is borrowed from the
Sumerian galla, which has a dialectic form, mulla,
it is not 'improbable that it may be connected
with the word mufa, meaning ' star,' and suggest-
ing something which is visible by the light it
gives possibly a will-o'-the-wisp, though others
are inclined to regard the word as being connected
with gala,, ' great.' In any case, its meaning seems
to have become very similar to 'evil spirit' or
' devil' in general, and is an epithet applied by
1 08

THE DEMONS

the Assyrian king Assur-bani-apli to Te-umman,
the Elamite king against whom he fought.

The ttu hmnu, ' evil god/ was probably origin-
ally one of the deities of Tiawath's brood, upon
whom Merodach's redemption had had no effect.

The rabisu is regarded as a spirit which lay in
wait to pounce upon his prey

The labartu, in Sumerian d-imme, was a female
demon. There were seven evil spirits of this
kind, who were apparently regarded as being
daughters of Anu, the god of the heavens.

The labasu, in Sumerian dimmea, was appar-
ently a spirit which overthrew, that being the
meaning of the root from which the word comes.

The dhhazu, in Sumerian dimme-kur, was
apparently so called as : the seizer/ that being the
meaning indicated by the root.

The lilu, in Sumerian lila, is generally regarded
as the night-monster/ the word being referred to
the Semitic root Ul or layl, whence the Hebrew
la/yil, Arabic layl, ' night/ Its origin, however, is
Sumerian, from lila, regarded as meaning ' mist/
To the word lilu the ancient Babylonians formed
a feminine, liltthu, which entered the Hebrew
language under the form of lilith, which was,
according to the rabbins, a beautiful woman, who
lay in wait for children by night. The lilu
109

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

had a companion who is called his handmaid or
servant

The namtaru was apparently the spirit of fate,
and therefore of greater importance than those
already mentioned. This being was regarded as
the beloved son of Bel, and offspring of Eres-lci-gal
or Persephone, and he had a spouse named gu-
bi-aga. Apparently he executed the instructions
given him concerning the fate of men, and could
also have power over certain of the gods.

The Md/u, were apparently deities in the form of
bulls. They were destructive, of enormous power,
and unsparing. In a good sense the edu was a
protecting deity, guarding against hostile attacks.
Erech and the temple fi-kura were protected by
spirits such as these, and to one of them Isum,
' the glorious sacrificer,' was likened.

The lamassu, from the Sumerian lama, was
similar in character to the sddu, but is thought to
have been of the nature of a colossus a winged
man-headed bull or lion. It is these creatures
which the kings placed at the sides of the doors
of their palaces, to protect the king's footsteps.
In early Babylonian times a god named Lama
was one of the most popular deities of the Baby-
lonian pantheon.

A specimen incantation. Numerous inscrip-
no

THE DEMONS

tions, which, may be regarded as dating, in their
origin, from about the middle of the third
millennium before Christ, speak of these super-
natural beings, and also of others similar. One
of the most perfect of these inscriptions is
a large bilingual tablet of which a duplicate
written during the period of the dynasty of
Hammurabi (before 2000 B.C ) exists, and which
was afterwards provided with a Semitic Baby-
lonian translation. This inscription refers to the
evil god, the evil utukTcu, the utukku of the
plain, of the mountain, of the sea, and of the
grave , the evil &du, the glorious dM, or divine
bull, and the evil unsparing wind. There was
also that which takes the form of a man, the
evil face, the evil eye, the evil mouth, the evil
tongue, the evil lip, the evil breath, also the
afflicting asakku (regarded as the demon of fever),
the asakJcu which does not leave a man : the
afflicting namtaru (fate), the severe namtaru,
the namtaru which does not quit a man. After
this are mentioned various diseases, bodily pains,
annoyances, such as ' the old shoe, the broken
shoe-lace, the food which afflicts the body of a
man, the food which turns in eating, the water
which chokes in drinking/ etc. Other things to
be exorcised included the spirit of death, people
in

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

who had died of hunger, thirst, or in other ways ;
the handmaid of the hlu who had no husband,
the prince of the lilu who had no wife, whether
his name had been recorded or unrecorded.

The method of exorcising the demons causing
all these things was curious. White and black
yarn was spun, and fastened to the side and
canopy of the afflicted person's bed the white to
the side and the top or canopy, the black to the
left hand and then, apparently, the following
words were said :

' Evil utuklcu, evil did, evil edimmu, evil gallu,
evil god, evil rabisu, labartu, labasu, dhfyazu,
lilu, liUthu, handmaid of hlu, sorcery, enchant-
ment, magic, disaster, machination which is not
good may they not set their head to his head,
their hand to his hand, their foot to his foot
may they not draw near. Spirit of heaven, mayest
thou exorcise, spirit of earth, mayest thou exorcise '

But this was only the beginning of the real
ceremony. The god Asari-alim-nunna (Mero-
dach), 'eldest son of J&ridu,' was asked to wash
him in pure and bright water twice seven times,
and then would the evil lier-in-wait depart, and
stand aside, and a propitious &du and a propi-
tious labartu reside in his body The gates right
and left having been thus, so to say, shut close,
112

THE DEMONS

the evil gods, demons, and spirits would be un-
able to approach him, wherever he might be.
* Spirit of heaven, exorcise, spirit of earth, exor-
cise.' Then, after an invocation of Erei-ki-gal
and Isum, the final paragraph was pronounced :

* The afflicted man, "by an offering of grace
In health like shining bronze shall be made bright.
As for that man,
ama$ shall give him life.
Merodach, first-born son of the Abyss,
It is thine to purify and glorify.
Spirit of heaven, mayest thou exorcise, spirit of
earth, mayest thou exorcise.'

Rites and ceremonies. As may be expected,
the Babylonians and Assyrians had numerous
rites and ceremonies, the due carrying out of
which was necessary for the attainment of the
grace demanded, or for the efficacy of the thanks
tendered for favours received.

Perhaps the oldest ceremony recorded is that
which Ut-napisti m , the Chaldsean Noah, made on
the zikkurat or peak of the mountain after the
coming forth from the ship which had saved
him and his from the Flood. The Patriarch's
description of this ceremony is short :

' I sent forth to the four winds, I poured out a libation
I made an offering on the peak of the mountain :
SeVen and seven I set incense-vases^there,*

H 113

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Into their depths I poured cane, cedar, and scented

wood (9)

The gods smelled a savour,
The gods smelled a sweet savour,
The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer *

Following in the footsteps of their great pro-
genitor, the Babylonians and Assyrians became a
most pious race, constantly rendering to their
gods the glory for everything which they suc-
ceeded in bringing to a successful issue. Prayer,
supplication, and self-abasement before their gods
seem to have been with them a duty and a plea-
sure :

{ The time for the worship of the gods was my heart's

delight,
The time of the offering to IStar was profit and riches,'

sings Ludlul the sage, and all the people of his
land were one with him in that opinion.

It is noteworthy that the offering of the
Chaldsean Noah consisted of vegetable produce
only, and there are many inscriptions referring
to similar bloodless sacrifices, and detailing the
ritual used in connection therewith. Sacrifices
of animals, however, seem to have been con-
stantly made in any case, offerings of cattle and
fowl, in list-form, are fairly numerous. Many a
cylinder-seal has a representation of the owner'
114

THE DEMONS

bringing a young animal a kid or a lamb as
an offering to the deity whom he worshipped,
and in the inscriptions the sacrifice of animals
is frequently referred to. One of the bilingual
texts refers to the offering of a kid or some
other young animal, apparently on behalf of a
sick man. The text of this, where complete, runs
as follows :

' The fatling which is the "head-raiser" of mankind
He has given the fatling for his life.
He has given the head of the fatling for his head,
He has given the neck of the fatling for his neck,
He has given the breast of the fatling for his breast.'

Whether human sacrifices were common or not
is a doubtful point. Many cylinder-seals exist in
which the slaying of a man is depicted, and the
French Assyriologist Menant was of opinion that
they represented a human offering to the gods.
Hayes Ward, however, is inclined to doubt this
explanation, and more evidence would seem,
therefore, to be needed. He is inclined to think
that, in the majority of cases, the designs referred
to show merely the victims of divine anger or
vengeance, punished by the deity for some mis-
deed or sin, either knowingly or unknowingly
committed.

In the Assyrian galleries of the British Museum,

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Assur-nasir-apli, king of Assyria, is several times
shown engaged in religious ceremonies either
worshipping before the sacred tree, or about to
pour out, apparently, a libation to the gods before
departing upon some expedition, and priests
bringing offerings, either animal or vegetable,
are also represented. Assur-bani-apli, who is
identified with 'the great and noble Asnapper,'
is shown, in bas-reliefs of the Assyrian Saloon,
pouring out a thank-offering over the lions which
he has killed, after his return from the hunt.

116

CHAPTEE VI

PROBLEMS WHICH THE STUDY OFFERS

Monotheism. As the matter of Babylonian
monotheism has been publicly touched upon by
Fried. Delitzsch in his ' Babel und Bibel ' lectures,
a few words upon that important point will be
regarded in all probability as appropriate. It
has already been indicated (see p. 43) that the
giving of the names of 'the gods his fathers'
to Merodach practically identified them with
him, thus leading to a tendency to monotheism.
That tendency is, perhaps, hinted at in a letter
of Assur-bani-apli to the Babylonians, in which
he frequently mentions the Deity, but in doing
so, uses either the word Uu, ' God,' Merodach, the
god of Babylon, or Bl, which may be regarded
as one of his names. The most important docu-
ment for this monotheistic tendency, however
(confirming as it does the tablet of the fifty-one
names), is that in which at least thirteen of the
117

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Babylonian deities are identified with Merodaeh,
and that in such a way as to make them merely
forms in which he manifested himself to men.
The text of this inscription is as follows :

is Merodacli of planting.

Lugal-dki- . is Merodaeh of the water-course

Nirig is Merodaeh of strength.

Nergal is Merodaeh of "war.

Zagaga is Merodaeh of battle.

Bel is Merodaeh of lordship and domination.

Nebo is Merodaeh of trading (?).

Sin is Merodaeh the illuminator of the night.

Sama is Merodaeh of righteous things.

Addu is Merodaeh of rain.

Tispak is Merodaeh of frost (?}.

Sig is Merodaeh of green things (?).

Saqamumi is Merodaeh of the irrigation-channel. 7

Here the text breaks off, but must have
contained several more similar identifications,
showing how at least the more thoughtful of the
Babylonians of old looked upon the host of gods
whom they worshipped. What may be the date
of this document is uncertain, but as the colophon
seems to describe it as a copy of an older inscrip-
tion, it may go back as far as 2000 years B.C.
This is the period at which the name Yau^-ttu
'Jah is God,' is found, together with numerous
references to ilu as the name for the one great
god, and is also, roughly, the date of Abraham,
118

PROBLEMS WHICH THE STUDY OFFERS

who, it may be noted, was a Babylonian of Ur
of the Chaldees. It will probably not be thought
too venturesome to say that his monotheism
was possibly the result of the religious trend of
thought in his time.

Dualism. Damascius, in his valuable account
of the belief of the Babylonians concerning the
Creation (see p. 32), states that, like the other
barbarians, they reject the doctrine of the one
origin of the universe, and constitute two, Tauthe
(Tiawath) and Apason (Apsu). This twofold prin-
ciple, however, is only applicable to the system in
that it makes of the sea and the deep (for such
are the meanings of the two words) two personages
the female and the male personifications of
primaeval matter, from which all creation sprang,
and which gave birth to the gods of heaven them-
selves. As far as the physical constituents of
these two principals are concerned, their tenets
might be described as having 'materialistic
monism' as their basis, but inasmuch as they
believed that each of these two principals had a
mind, the description c idealistic monism ' cannot
be applied to it it is distinctly a dualism.

And Monism. Divested of its idealistic side,
however, there would seem to be no escape from
regarding the Babylonian idea of the origin of
119

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

things as monistic. 1 This idea has its reflection,
though not its reproduction, in the first chapter
of Genesis, in which, verses 2, 6, and 7, water is
represented as the first thing existing, though
not the first abode of life. This divergency from
the Babylonian view was inevitable with a
monotheistic nation, such as the Jews were ?
regarding as they did the Deity as the great
source of everything existing. What effect the
moving of the Spirit of God upon the face of
the waters (v. 2) was supposed by them to have
had, is uncertain, but it is to be noted that it
was the land (vv. 11, 12) which first brought
forth, at the command of God.

The future life. The belief in a future life is
the natural outcome of a religious belief such as
the Babylonians, Assyrians, and many of the
surrounding nations possessed. As has been
shown, a portion of their creed consisted in hero-
worship, which pre-supposes that the heroes in
question continued to exist, in a state of still
greater power and glory, after the conclusion of
their life here upon earth

1 Monism. The doctrine which holds that in the universe
there is only a, single element or principle from which every-
thing is developed, this single principle being either mind
(idealistic monism) or matter (materialistic monism}. (Annan-
dale.)

120

PEOBLEMS WHICH THE STUDY OFFEES

' The god Bel hates me I cannot dwell in this
land, and in the territory of Bel I cannot set my
face. I shall descend then to the Abyss ; with
Aa my lord shall I constantly dwell/ It is with
these words that, by the counsel of the god Aa,
Ut-napisti m explained to those who questioned
him the reason why he was building the ship
or ark which was to save him and his from the
Flood, and there is but little doubt that the
author of the story implied that he announced
thereby his approaching death, or his departure
to dwell with his god without passing the dread
portals of the great leveller. This belief in the
life beyond the grave seems to have been that
which was current during the final centuries of
the third millennium before Christ when a man
died, it was said that his god took him to himself,
and we may therefore suppose, that there were
as many heavens places of contentment and
bliss as there were gods, and that every good
man was regarded as going and dwelling
evermore with the deity which he had wor-
shipped and served faithfully during his life-
time.

G-ilgames, the half-divine king of Erech, who
reigned during the half -mythical period, on
losing his friend and counsellor, Enki-du, set out
121

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

to find him, and to bring him back, if possible,
from the underworld where he was supposed to
dwell. His death, however, had not been like
that of an ordinary man ; it was not Namtara, the
spirit of fate, who had taken him, nor a mis-
fortune such as befalls ordinary men, but NerigaFs
unsparing lier-in-wait yet though Nerigal was
the god of war, Enki-du had not fallen on
the battlefield of men, but had been seized
by the earth (apparently the underworld
where the wicked are is meant) in conse-
quence, seemingly, of some trick or trap which
had been laid for him

The gods were therefore prayed, in turn, to
bring him back, but none of them listened except
Ea, who begged him of Nerigal, whereupon the
latter opened the entrance to the place where he
was the hole of the earth and brought forth
' the spirit (utukku) of Enki-du like mist.' Im-
mediately after this come the words 'Tell, my
friend, tell, my friend the law of the land which
thou sawest, tell/ and the answer ' I will not tell
thee, friend, I will not tell thee if I tell thee the
law of the land which I saw, ... sit down, weep/
Ultimately, however, the person appealed to
apparently the disembodied Enki-du reveals
something concerning the condition of the souls

122

PEOBLEMS WHICH THE STUDY OFFERS

in the place of his sojourn after death, as
follows :

1 Whom thou sawest [die] the death (?) [of] l . . . [I see]
la the resting-place of ... reposing, pure waters he

drinketh.

Whom, in the battle thou sawest killed, I see
His father and his mother raise his head,

And his wife upon [him leaneth ?].
Whose corpse thou hast seen thrown down in the plain,

I see

His edimmu in the earth reposeth not.
Whose edimmu thou sawest without a caretaker, I see
The leavings of the dish, the remains of the food,
Which in the street is thrown, he eateth J

It is naturally difficult to decide/jn a passage
like this, the difference existing between a man's
utukku and his edimmu, but the probability is,
that the former means his spiritual essence, whilst
the latter stands for the ghostly shadow of his
body, resembling in meaning the Jca of the
Egyptians. To all appearance the abode described
above is not the place of the punishment of the
wicked, but the dwelling of those accounted good,
who, if lucky in the manner of their death, "and
the disposal of their bodies, enjoyed the highest
happiness in the habitation of the blest. The
other place, however, is otherwise described (it
occurs in the account of Istar's descent into

1 (?) f The death of the righteous,' or something similar?
123

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION

Hades, and in the seventh tablet of the Gilgames
series the latter differing somewhat) :

' Upon the land of No-return, the region of .
[Set] Istar, daughter of Sin, her ear.
The daughter of Sin set then her ear . .
Upon the house of gloom, the seat of Irkalla l
Upon the house whose entrance hath no exit, 2
Upon the path whose way hath no return,
Upon the house whose enterers are deprived of light,
Where dust is their nourishment, their food mud,
Light they see not, in darkness they dwell,
Clothed also, like a bird, in a dress of feathers.
Upon the door and bolt the dust hath blown.'

Seven gates gave access to this place of gloom,
and the porter, as he let the visitor in, took from
her (the goddess Istar in the narrative) at each
an article of clothing, until, at the last, she
entered quite naked, apparently typifying the fact
that a man can take nothing with him when he
dieth, and also, in this case, that he has not even
his good deeds wherewith to clothe himself, for
had they outweighed his evil ones, he would not
have found himself in that dread abode.

On the arrival of Istar in Hades, Eres-ki-gal
commanded Namtaru, the god of fate, to smite
Istar with disease in all her members eyes, sides,
feet, heart, and head. As things went wrong on

1 One of the names of Nergal.

2 Or * whose enterer goeth not forth.'

124

PROBLEMS WHICH THE STUDY OFFERS

the earth in consequence of the absence of the
goddess of love, the gods sent a messenger to
effect her release. When he reached the land of
No-return, the queen of the region threatened
him with all kinds of torments the food of the
gutters of the city were to be his food, the oil-jars
of the city (naphtha ? ) his drink, the gloom of the
castle his resting-place, a stone slab his seat, and
hunger and thirst were to shatter his strength.
These were evidently the punishments inflicted
there, but as the messenger threatened was a
divine one, they were probably not put into
execution, and he obtained his demand, for Istar
was set free, receiving back at each gate, in
reverse order, the clothing and ornaments which
had been taken from her when she had descended
thither. It is uncertain whether Tammuz, for
whom she had gone down, was set free also, but
as he is referred to, it is not improbable that this
was the case.