inscriptions so that we expect to find them mentioned in his laws.
Clauses 53-56 are in connection with this subject:
53. If anyone is too lazy to keep his dikes in order and fails to
do so, and if a breach is made in his dike and the fields have been
flooded with water, the man in whose dike the breach was opened
shall replace the grain which he has destroyed.
54. If he is not able to replace the grain, he and his property
shall be sold, and the people whose grain the water carried off
shall share (the proceeds).
55. If anyone opens his irrigation canals to let in water, but is
careless and the water floods the field of his neighbour, he shall
measure out grain to the latter in proportion to the yield of the
neighbouring field.
56. If anyone lets in the water and it floods the growth of his
neighbour’s field, he shall measure out to him 10 GUR of grain for
every 10 GAN (of land).
Each cultivator had an intricate system of small water-ways
covering his land, into which he let water from the main canal
at certain times. When he had watered his field he dammed up the
connection again, but if he neglected to do so the water would keep
on coming in and eventually flood his neighbour’s land.
If a shepherd let his flock pasture in a field without permission,
he was compelled to return a definite amount of grain to the owner.
Anyone cutting down a tree without permission had to pay one-half
of a mina of silver.
About thirty-five clauses, from 65 to 100, have been erased. This
gap has been partly filled in from some old fragments of another
supposed copy of this code in the British Museum. One of these
supplementary fragments speaks of house rent: if a tenant has paid
his rent for a whole year, and the landlord turns him out before
the end of his term, the landlord shall pay back to the tenant a
proportionate amount of the money which the tenant gave him.
_Commerce, Debt_
The reverse of the stele begins with a continuation of the laws
regulating commercial relations, which are extremely important as
showing a highly developed system. If an agent found no opening
where he went, he was to return the capital to the merchant; also
if any mishap befell him in the place to which he went. If he were
robbed by the way, he was to swear before God that the loss was
through no fault of his and could then go free. The agent was to
make out a written statement of the goods received, and received
also a receipt for the money paid to the merchant. Without this
receipt he could lay no claim to his money in case of disagreement.
Curiously enough the wine sellers appear to have been women. We
read in clause 109: If a wine merchant when rebels meet in her
house does not arrest them and take them to the palace, that wine
merchant shall be put to death. 110. If a votary who does not live
in the temple shall open a tavern or enter a tavern to drink, she
shall be burned.
[Illustration: THE GOD SHAMASH DICTATING THE CODE OF LAWS TO KING
KHAMMURABI]
Laws concerning debt are treated of in clauses 113-119. A man might
be imprisoned for debt, or, as in the Mosaic code, he might sell
his wife and children into bondage for debt, but only for three
years. We have a peculiarly doleful picture of a prison of this
period, in a letter dating from the reign of Khammurabi. It
is written by an imprisoned man to his master. He describes his
place of confinement as a “house of want,” and begs for food and
clothing, to keep him from death and being devoured by dogs. If the
debtor died a natural death in his confinement, the case was at an
end, but:
116. If the confined man has died in the house of his confinement
as a result of blows or ill-treatment, the owner of the prisoner
shall call his merchant to account. If the man was free-born, his
son (of the merchant) one shall kill; if he was a slave, he shall
pay one-third of a mina of silver, and shall lose possession of
everything which he gave him.
117. If anyone has an indebtedness, sells wife, son, or daughter
for gold or gives them into bondage, three years in the house of
their buyer or their taskmaster shall they labour; in the fourth
year shall he let them go free.
118. If he gives away a man or woman slave into servitude, and if
the merchant passes them on, sells them for money, there is no
protest.
119. If anyone has contracted a debt and sells a slave who has
borne him children, the money which the merchant paid, the owner of
the slave shall pay back to him and buy back his slave.
Clauses 120-126 are in regard to depositing grain and other
property in another’s keeping. A written document was necessary and
the person who received the deposit made responsible for what had
been intrusted to him.
120. If anyone has stored his grain in the house of another for
keeping, and a disaster has happened in the granary, or the owner
of the house has opened the granary and taken out grain, or if he
disputes as to the whole amount which was deposited with him, the
owner of the grain shall pursue (claim) his grain before God, and
the master of the house shall return undiminished to its owner the
grain which he took.
_Domestic Legislation, Divorce, Inheritance_
The laws referring to domestic legislation are especially
interesting as showing the position of women. We know from other
documents of the period that they could hold property in their own
name and carry on business, and we see here that their position was
respected.
127. If anyone has caused a finger to be pointed at a votary or the
wife of a man and has not proved (his accusation against) that man,
one shall bring him before the judge and brand his forehead.
A contract was necessary for legal marriage:
128. If anyone has married a wife but has not drawn up a contract
with her, that woman is not a wife.
If a man was taken captive and if, during his absence, his wife
married some one else while there was means of subsistence in the
house, she was drowned. But if she had no means of support, her
action was considered justifiable. If, in the latter case, the
husband returned, his wife was to return to him; but the children
of her second marriage remained with their father. If the man was
a fugitive and had abandoned his native city, but returned after a
time and wanted his wife again, she was not to return to him.
The laws concerning divorce were much like those existing in
Mohammedan countries to-day. If a woman were childless and her
husband wished to divorce her, she received her dowry and marriage
portion and returned to her father’s house. If she had borne
children and her husband still wanted to divorce her, she received
besides her marriage portion sufficient means to bring up her
children; and after they were grown, of whatever they received
they were to give her a son’s share. She was also free to marry
again. If the woman were divorced through a fault of her own, she
received nothing.
141. If a man’s wife, who lives in his house, sets her face to go
out, causes discord, wastes her house, neglects her husband, to
justice one shall bring her. If her husband says, “I repudiate
her,” he shall let her go her way, he shall give her nothing for
her divorce. If her husband says, “I do not repudiate her,” her
husband may take another wife; that (first) wife shall stay in the
house of her husband as a slave.
A woman who wanted a divorce, if she could show fault in her
husband for it, might take her marriage portion and go home; but if
the fault were hers she was thrown into the water.
A peculiarly humane provision is the following:
148. If anyone has taken a wife and a sickness has seized her, and
if his face is set towards taking another wife, he may take (her),
but his wife whom the sickness has seized he may not repudiate her,
she shall live in the house he has built, and as long as she lives
he shall support her.
149. If that woman does not desire to live in the house of her
husband, he shall give her the marriage portion she brought from
her father’s house, and she shall go.
150. If anyone has given his wife, field, garden, house, or
property, and has left her a sealed tablet; after (the death of)
her husband, her children shall contest nothing with her. The
mother shall leave her inheritance to the child whom she loves; to
a brother she shall not give it.
Laws of inheritance are more particularly dealt with in clauses
162-184:
162. If anyone has married a wife, and she has borne him children;
if that woman has gone to her fate, of her marriage portion her
father shall claim nothing; her marriage portion belongs to her
children.
163. If anyone has married a wife and she has borne him no
children; if that woman has gone to her fate, if the dowry which
that man took from the house of his father-in-law his father-in-law
has returned; on the marriage portion of that woman the husband
shall make no claim, it belongs to the house of her father.
164. If his father-in-law has not returned him the dowry, from her
marriage portion he shall deduct all her dowry; and her marriage
portion he shall return to the house of her father.
165. If any man to his son, the first in his eyes, has given a
field, garden, and house, and has written a tablet for him; if
afterwards the father has gone to his fate, when the brothers make
a division, the present which the father gave him he shall keep;
in addition, the goods of their father’s house in equal parts they
shall share (with him).
166. If a man has taken wives for his sons, for his little son
a wife has not taken, if afterwards the father has gone to his
fate, when the brothers divide the goods of their father’s house,
to their little brother, who has not taken a wife, besides his
portion, money for a dowry they shall give him, and a wife they
shall cause him to take.
167. If a man has married a woman, if she has borne him children,
if that woman has gone to her fate; if afterwards he has taken
another wife, who has borne him children, and if afterwards the
father has gone to his fate: the children shall not divide the
property according to their mothers; they shall take the marriage
portion of their mother; their father’s property they shall share
in equal parts.
168. If anyone has set his face to cut off his son and says to the
judge, “I cut off my son,” the judge shall inquire into the matter;
and if the son has no grievous offence, which would lead to being
cut off from sonship, the father shall not cut off his son from
sonship.
169. If he has a grievous crime against his father to the extent of
cutting him off from sonship, for the first time he (the father)
shall turn away his face; but if he commit a grievous crime a
second time, the father shall cut off his son from sonship.
170. If to a man his wife has borne children, and if his servant
has borne him children; if the father during his life has said:
“You are my children,” to the children which his servant bore him,
and has counted them with his wife’s children: afterwards if that
father has gone to his fate, the goods of the father’s house shall
the children of the wife and the children of the servant share on
equal terms. In the division the children of the wife shall choose
(first) and take.
171. And if the father, during his life to the children which his
slave bore him has not said, “You are my children,” afterwards
when the father has gone to his fate, the property of the father’s
house the children of the servant shall not share with the children
of the wife. The freedom of the servant and her children shall be
assured. The children of the wife cannot claim the children of the
servant for servitude. The wife shall take her marriage portion and
the gift which her husband gave her and wrote on a tablet for her,
and shall remain in the house of her husband. As long as she lives
she shall keep them, and for money shall not give them; after her
they belong to her children.
172. If her husband has not given her a gift, her marriage portion
she shall receive entire; and of the property of her husband’s
house, a portion like a son she shall take. If her children force
her to go out of the house, the judge shall inquire into the
matter, and if a fault is imputed to the children, that woman shall
not go out of the house of her husband. If that woman has set her
face to go, the gift which her husband gave her she shall leave to
her children. The marriage portion which came from her father’s
house she shall keep, and the husband of her choice she shall take.
173. If that woman, there where she has entered, to her second
husband has borne children, and if afterward that woman dies, her
marriage portion shall her earlier and her later children divide
between them.
174. If to her second husband she has borne no children, her
marriage portion shall the children of her first husband take.
175. If a free-born woman has married a palace slave or the slave
of a noble, and has borne children; the owner of the slave on the
children of the free-born woman shall make no claim for servitude.
176. And if a free-born woman marries a slave of the palace or
the slave of a noble, and if when he married her she entered
the house of the palace slave or of the nobleman’s slave with a
marriage portion from the house of her father, and from the time
that they set up their house together have acquired property;
if afterward either the slave of the palace or the slave of the
nobleman has gone to his fate, the free-born woman shall take her
marriage portion, and whatever her husband and she since they began
housekeeping have made, into two parts they shall divide; one-half
the owner of the slave shall take, one-half the free-born woman
shall take for her children.
176 a. If the free-born woman had no marriage portion, everything
which her husband and she had acquired since they kept house
together, into two parts they shall divide. The owner of the slave
one-half shall take: one-half shall the free-born woman take for
her children.
177. If a widow, whose children are still young, has set her face
to enter the house of another without consulting the judge, she
shall not enter. When she enters another house the judge shall
inquire into that which was left from the house of her former
husband; and the goods of her former husband’s house to her later
husband and to that woman (herself) one shall confide, and a tablet
one shall make them deliver. They shall keep the house and bring up
the little ones; no utensil shall they give for money. The buyer
who shall buy a utensil belonging to the children of the widow,
shall lose his money; the property shall return to its owner.
178. If a votary or a vowed woman to whom her father has given
a marriage portion, a tablet has written, and on the tablet he
wrote for her did not write, “After her she may give to whom
she pleases,” has not permitted her all the wish of her heart;
afterwards when the father has gone to his fate, her field and
garden shall her brothers take, and according to the value of her
portion they shall give her grain, oil, and wool, and her heart
they shall content. If her brothers have not given her grain,
oil, and wool according to the value of her portion, and have not
contented her heart, she shall give her field and garden to a
cultivator who is pleasing to her, and her cultivator shall sustain
her. The field, garden, and whatever her father gave her she shall
keep as long as she lives, but for money she shall not give it,
to another she shall not part with it; her sonship (inheritance)
belongs to her brother.
179. If a votary or a vowed woman to whom her father has given a
marriage portion, and has written her a tablet, and on the tablet
which he wrote her has written, “property where (to whom) it seems
good to her to give (let her give),” has allowed her the fulness
of her heart’s desire: afterwards when the father has gone to his
fate, her property after her death to whomever it pleases her she
shall give; her brothers shall not strive with her.
180. If a father to his daughter, a bride or vowed woman, a
marriage portion has not given; after the father has gone to his
fate, she shall receive of the possession of the father’s house a
share like one son. As long as she lives she shall keep it; her
property after her death shall belong to her brothers.
181. If a father has vowed to God a hierodule or a temple virgin,
and has gone to his fate, she shall have a share in the possession
of the father’s house equal to one-third her portion as one of his
children. As long as she lives she shall keep it. Her property
after her death shall belong to her brothers.
182. If a father to his daughter, a votary of Marduk of Babylon,
has not given a marriage portion, a tablet has not written; after
the father has gone to his fate she shall share with her brothers
in the possession of her father’s house; a third of her share as
his child (she shall receive). Control over it shall not go from
her. The votary of Marduk shall give her property after her death
to whomever it pleases her.
183. If a father to his daughter by a concubine has given a
marriage portion, and has given her to a husband and has written
her a tablet; after the father has gone to his fate, in the goods
of the father’s house, she shall not share.
184. If a man to his daughter by a concubine a marriage portion has
not provided, to a husband has not given her; after the father has
gone to his fate her brothers shall provide her a marriage portion
according to the value of the father’s house, and to a husband they
shall give her.
_Laws concerning Adoption_
185. If a man has taken a small child as a son in his own name and
has brought him up, that foster child shall not be reclaimed.
186. If a man has taken a small child for his son, and if when he
took him his father and his mother he offended, that foster child
shall return to the house of his father.
187. The son of a familiar slave in the palace service, or the son
of a vowed woman, cannot be reclaimed.
188. If an artisan has taken a child to bring up, and has taught
him his handicraft, no one can make a complaint.
189. If he has not taught him his handicraft, that foster child
shall return to the house of his father.
190. If a man, a small child whom he took for his son and brought
him up, with his own sons has not counted, that foster son shall
return to his father’s house.
191. If a man who has taken a small child for his son and has
brought him up, has afterwards made a home for himself and acquired
children, if he sets his face to cut off the foster child; that
child shall not go his way. His adoptive father shall give him of
his goods one-third a son’s share, and then he shall go. Of the
field, garden, and house he shall not give him.
192. If the son of a favourite slave or the son of a vowed woman to
the father who brought him up and to the mother who brought him up
say, “Thou art not my father, thou art not my mother,” one shall
cut out his tongue.
193. If the son of a palace favourite or the son of a vowed woman
has known the house of his father and has hated the father who
brought him up and the mother who brought him up, and has gone to
the house of his father, one shall tear out his eyes.
194. If a man has given his son to a nurse and if his son has died
in the hand of the nurse, and if the nurse, without the consent of
his father or mother, another child has nourished, she shall be
brought to account and because she nourished another child, without
the consent of the father and mother, one shall cut off her breasts.
_Laws of Recompense_
195. If a son has struck his father, one shall cut off his hands.
196. If one destroys the eye of a free-born man, his eye one shall
destroy.
197. If anyone breaks the limb of a free-born man, his limb one
shall break.
198. If the eye of a nobleman he has destroyed, or the limb of a
nobleman he has broken, one mina of silver he shall pay.
199. If he has destroyed the eye of the slave of a free-born man or
has broken the limb of the slave of a free-born man, he shall pay
the half of its price.
200. If he knocks out the teeth of a man who is his equal, his
teeth one shall knock out.
201. If the teeth of a freedman he has made to fall out, he shall
pay one-third of a mina of silver.
202. If anyone has injured the strength of a man who is high above
him, he shall publicly be struck with sixty strokes of a cowhide
whip.
203. If he has injured the strength of a man who is his equal, he
shall pay one mina of silver.
204. If he has injured the strength of a freedman, one shall cut
off his ear.
205. If the slave of a man has injured the strength of a free-born
man, one shall cut off his ear.
206. If a man has struck another in a quarrel and has wounded him,
and that man shall swear, “I did not strike him wittingly,” he
shall pay the doctor.
207. If he dies of the blows, he shall swear again, and if it was a
free-born man, he shall pay one-half a mina of silver.
208. If it was a freedman, he shall pay one-third a mina of silver.
209. If anyone has struck a free-born woman and caused her to let
fall what was in her womb, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for
what was in her womb.
210. If that woman dies, one shall put his daughter to death.
211. If it was a freedwoman whom he caused to let fall that which
was in her womb, through his blows, he shall pay five shekels of
silver.
212. If that woman dies, he shall pay one-half a mina of silver.
213. If he has struck a man’s maid-servant and caused her to drop
what was in her womb, he shall pay two shekels of silver.
214. If that maid-servant dies he shall pay one-third a mina of
silver.
_Regulations concerning Physicians and Veterinary Surgeons_
215. If a doctor has treated a man for a severe wound with a lancet
of bronze and has cured the man, or has opened a tumour with a
bronze lancet and has cured the man’s eye; he shall receive ten
shekels of silver.
216. If it was a freedman, he shall receive five shekels of silver.
217. If it was a man’s slave, the owner of the slave shall give the
doctor two shekels of silver.
218. If a physician has treated a free-born man for a severe
wound with a lancet of bronze and has caused the man to die, or
has opened a tumour of the man with a lancet of bronze and has
destroyed his eye, his hands one shall cut off.
219. If a doctor has treated the slave of a freedman for a severe
wound with a bronze lancet and has caused him to die, he shall give
back slave for slave.
220. If he has opened his tumour with a bronze lancet and has
ruined his eye, he shall pay the half of his price in money.
221. If a doctor has cured the broken limb of a man, or has healed
his sick body, the patient shall pay the doctor five shekels of
silver.
222. If it was a freedman, he shall give three shekels of silver.
223. If it was a man’s slave, the owner of the slave shall give two
shekels of silver to the doctor.
224. If the doctor of oxen and asses has treated an ox or an ass
for a grave wound and has cured it, the owner of the ox or the ass
shall give to the doctor as his pay one-sixth of a shekel of silver.
225. If he has treated an ox or an ass for a severe wound and has
caused its death, he shall pay one-fourth of its price to the owner
of the ox or the ass.
_Illegal Branding of Slaves_
226. If a barber-surgeon, without consent of the owner of a slave,
has branded the slave with an indelible mark, one shall cut off the
hands of that barber.
227. If anyone deceives the barber-surgeon and makes him brand a
slave with an indelible mark, one shall kill that man and bury
him in his house. The barber shall swear, “I did not mark him
wittingly,” and he shall be guiltless.
_Regulations concerning Builders_
228. If a builder has built a house for some one and has finished
it, for every SAR of house he shall give him two shekels of silver
as his fee.
229. If a builder has built a house for some one and has not made
his work firm, and if the house he built has fallen and has killed
the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.
230. If it has killed the son of the house-owner, one shall kill
the son of that builder.
231. If it has killed the slave of the house-owner, he (the
builder) shall give to the owner of the house slave for slave.
232. If it has destroyed property, he shall restore everything he
destroyed; and because the house he built was not firm and fell in,
out of his own funds he shall rebuild the house that fell.
233. If a builder has built a house for some one and has not made
its foundations solid, and a wall falls, that builder out of his
own money shall make firm that wall.
_Regulations concerning Shipping_
234. If a boatman has caulked (?) a boat of 60 GUR for a man, he
shall give him two shekels of silver as his fee.
235. If a boatman has caulked a boat for a man, and has not made
firm his work; if in that year that ship is put into use and it
suffers an injury, the boatman shall alter that boat and shall make
it firm out of his own funds; and he shall give the strengthened
boat to the owner of the boat.
236. If a man has given his boat to a boatman on hire, if the
boatman has been careless, has grounded the boat or destroyed
it, the boatman shall give a boat to the owner of the boat in
compensation.
237. If a man has hired a boatman and a boat, and has loaded it
with grain, wool, oil, dates, or whatever the cargo was; if that
boatman has been careless, has grounded the ship and destroyed
all that was in it, the boatman shall make good the ship which he
grounded and whatever he destroyed of what was in it.
238. If a man has grounded a boat and has refloated it, he shall
pay the half of its price in silver.
239. If a man has hired a boatman, he shall give 6 GUR of grain a
year.
240. If a freight boat has struck a ferry-boat, and grounded it,
the owner of the grounded boat shall make a statement before God of
everything that was destroyed in the boat and (the owner of) the
freight boat which grounded the ferry-boat shall make good the boat
and whatever was destroyed.
_Regulations concerning the Hiring of Animals, Farming, Wages, etc._
241. If a man has forced an ox to too hard labour, he shall pay
one-third a mina of silver.
242. If a man hires (the ox) for one year, he shall pay 4 GUR of
grain as the hire of a working ox.
243. For the hire of an ox to carry burdens (?) he shall give 3 GUR
of grain to its owner.
244. If anyone has hired an ox or an ass, and if in the field a
lion has killed it, the loss is its master’s.
245. If anyone has hired an ox and has caused it to die through
ill-treatment or blows, he shall return ox for ox to the owner of
the ox.
246. If a man has hired an ox and has broken his leg or has cut its
nape, he shall return ox for ox to the owner of the ox.
247. If a man has hired an ox and has knocked out its eye, he shall
give one-half its value in silver to the owner of the ox.
248. If anyone has hired an ox and has broken its horn, cut off its
tail, or has injured its nostrils, he shall pay one-fourth of its
price in silver.
249. If anyone has hired an ox and God (an accident) has struck him
and he has died, he who hired the ox shall swear by the name of God
and be guiltless.
250. If a furious ox in his charge gores a man and kills him, that
case cannot be brought to judgment.
251. If an ox has pushed a man (with his horns) and in pushing
showed him his vice, and if he has not blunted his horns, has not
shut up his ox: if that ox gores a free-born man and kills him, he
shall pay one-half a mina of silver.
252. If it is the slave of a man he shall give one-third of a mina
of silver.
253. If a man has hired a man to live in his field and has
furnished him seed grain (?) and oxen, and has bound him to
cultivate the field; if that man has stolen grain or plants and
they are seized in his possession, one shall cut off his hands.
254. If he has taken the seed grain (?), for himself exhausted the
oxen; he shall make restitution according to the amount of the
grain which he took.
255. If he has given out the man’s oxen on hire or has stolen the
grain, has not caused it to grow in the field; one shall bring that
man to judgment, for 100 GAN of land he shall measure out 60 GUR of
grain.
256. If his community (clan) will not take up his cause, one shall
leave him in the field among the oxen. (?)
257. If a man has hired a harvester, he shall give him 8 GUR of
grain for one year.
258. If a man has hired an ox driver (?), he shall give him 6 GUR
of grain for one year.
259. If a man has stolen a watering wheel (Gis-Apin) from the
field, he shall pay 5 shekels of silver to the owner of the wheel.
260. If he has stolen a watering bucket[32] or a plough, he shall
pay three shekels of silver.
261. If a man has hired a herdsman to pasture cattle and sheep, he
shall pay him 8 GUR of grain a year.
262. If a man, oxen or sheep … [the stone is here defaced.]
263. If he has destroyed the oxen or sheep which were given him, ox
for ox and sheep for sheep he shall restore to their owner.
264. If a herdsman, to whom oxen and sheep have been given for
pasturing, has received his wages, whatever was agreed upon, and
his heart is contented; if he has diminished the oxen or the sheep,
has lessened the offspring, he shall give offspring and produce
according to the words of his agreement.
265. If a herdsman, to whom oxen and sheep have been given for
pasturing, has deceived, has changed the price, or has given them
for money; he shall be brought to judgment and he shall return to
their owner oxen and sheep ten times that which he stole.
266. If in the fold a disaster is brought about from God, or if a
lion has killed, the herdsman shall purge himself before God, and
the owner of the fold shall bear the disaster to the fold.
267. If the herdsman has been careless and in the fold has caused
loss, the shepherd shall make good in oxen and sheep the loss he
caused in the fold, and shall give them to their owner in good
condition.
268. If a man has hired an ox for threshing, 20 KA of grain is its
hire.
269. If he has hired an ass for threshing, 10 KA of grain is its
hire.
270. If he has hired a young animal for threshing, 1 KA of grain is
its hire.
271. If anyone has hired oxen, a cart, and driver, he shall pay 180
KA of grain for one day.
272. If anyone has hired a cart alone, he shall give 40 KA of grain
for one day.
273. If anyone has hired a day labourer, from the first of the year
to the fifth month, he shall give him 6 SHE of silver a day; from
the sixth month to the end of the year he shall give him 5 =SHE= of
silver a day.
274. If anyone hires an artisan,--The wages of a … are 5 SHE of
silver; the wages of a brick maker (?), 5 SHE of silver; the wages
of a tailor, 5 SHE of silver; the wages of a stone cutter (?) … SHE
of silver; the wages of a … SHE of silver; the wages of a … SHE of
silver; the wages of a carpenter, 4 SHE of silver; the wages of a …
4 SHE of silver; the wages of … SHE of silver; the wages of a mason
… SHE of silver,--a day he shall give.
275. If anyone has hired a (ferry-boat?) its hire is 3 SHE of
silver a day.
276. If he has hired a freight boat, he shall give 2½ SHE of silver
a day as its hire.
277. If anyone has hired a boat of 60 GUR he shall give one-sixth
of a shekel of silver as its hire.
_Regulations concerning the Buying of Slaves_
278. If anyone has bought a man or woman slave and before the end
of the month the bennu-sickness has fallen upon him, he shall
return him to the seller, and the buyer shall take back the money
which he paid.
279. If anyone has bought a man or woman slave and a complaint is
made, the seller shall answer for the complaint.
280. If anyone has bought another man’s man or woman slave in a
strange land; when he has come into the country and the owner of
the man or woman slave recognises his property; if that man or
woman slave are natives: without money he shall grant them their
freedom.
281. If they are from another country, the buyer shall declare
before God the money which he paid; the owner of the man or woman
slave shall give to the merchant the money which he paid, and shall
recover his man or woman slave.
282. If a slave has said to his master, “Thou art not my master,”
one shall bring him to judgment as his slave, and his master shall
cut off his ear.
Having presented this remarkable code in its entirety, it is hardly
necessary to comment upon it at length. It will repay the closest
examination on the part of anyone who is interested in the manners and
customs of this remote period. Prior to the excavations in Mesopotamia,
no historian could have dared hope that we should ever have presented
to us so varied and so authoritative an exposition of the laws that
governed society in any part of the world in the third millennium
before our era. Thanks to the imperishable nature of the materials
on which the Babylonians wrote, this seeming miracle has now come to
pass, and we are in a fair way to have a much more precise and accurate
knowledge of the culture of this ancient people than we are likely ever
to possess regarding European nations of two thousand years later. The
laws that governed the Greeks and Romans of the earlier period, and the
details as to the practicalities of their civilisation, are for the
most part preserved to us only through traditions that utterly lack the
authenticity of such an original document as this code of Khammurabi.
The sands of Egypt have recently given up to us a papyrus roll on
which is inscribed the famous treatise on the constitution of Athens
by Aristotle; and the eagerness with which this document has been
scanned by students of Greek history is in itself an evidence of the
paucity of authoritative documents regarding the classical world during
this relatively recent period. It is peculiarly gratifying then to be
able to go back to so much more remote a period and learn as it were
at first hand such interesting details of the laws that governed the
social intercourse of these forerunners of the Greeks. The fact that
the earliest European civilisation undoubtedly deferred in many ways to
this remoter civilisation of the Orient lends additional importance to
these wonderful documents from old Babylonia.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[30] Small boats similarly constructed are, however, introduced into a
bas-relief, which appears to represent a scene on an Assyrian river or
lake.
[31] [The translation is based on those mentioned in the introduction
together with a comparison of the Babylonian text as given in
transcription by V. Scheil.[g]]
[32] [The Egyptians call this _shaduf_. It is an arrangement to draw
water from the canal for irrigation, and is worked by hand, whereas the
wheel for the same purpose (_sakieh_) is turned by an animal.]
CHAPTER VIII. THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS
It is always extremely difficult for a writer of any nationality to
appreciate the peculiar genius of another nation, even as regards
its political and social history. And when we turn to the question
of religion, the difficulty becomes well nigh an impassable barrier.
Obviously the effort must be made, but we can never feel too secure
in the results; certainly not unless we know the particular bias of
the individual interpreter. Perhaps we cannot better illustrate the
difficulties in question than by making two short quotations, each of
which includes an estimate of Babylonian influence in general, and of
its religious influence in particular.
One of these estimates runs thus:
“In spite of the skill and knowledge of the Babylonians, and their
wonderful progress in arts and sciences, they had a religion of the
lowest and most degrading kind. True insight into natural phenomena
was prevented, and progress beyond the surface of things stopped by a
religion which had a multitude of gods, which were supposed to bring
about in an irregular and capricious manner all the changes in nature
and all the misfortunes which happened to the people; thus foresight
and medicine were neglected, and unavailing prayers and useless
sacrifices offered to propitiate the deities, who were imagined to hold
the destiny of the human race in their hands.”
The other estimate is quite different:
“The history of Babylonia has an interest of a wider kind than that of
Egypt; from its more intimate connection with the general history of
the human race, and from the remarkable influence which its religion,
its science, and its civilisation have had on all subsequent human
progress. Its religious traditions, carried away by the Israelites who
came out from Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis xi. 31), have through this
wonderful people become the heritage of all mankind, while its science
and civilisation, through the medium of the Greeks and Romans, have
become the basis of modern research and advancement.”
Now the curious thing is that these contradictory estimates occur in
the same book, and only separated from one another by a few pages.
They were probably not written by the same man, for the edition we
are quoting is one published after the author’s death, and “edited
and brought up to date” by another writer. George Smith was the
author, A. H. Sayce the editor, and both alike have the highest rank
as Assyriologists, and any quotation from either must be considered
as having a high degree of authority. Which, then, is right? Had the
Babylonians a “religion of the lowest and most degrading kind,” or was
it a religion which has had a “remarkable influence upon all subsequent
human progress” through having been adopted by the Hebrews, and through
them becoming “the heritage of all mankind”?
Or, again, are the two citations less contradictory than they seem,
each being a correct statement of a particular point of view? Did the
Babylonian religion, which the Hebrews are said to have borrowed,
really have elements both of greatness and of degradation, and was
it, therefore, capable of being interpreted in one way or the other,
according to the particular element for the moment considered? Perhaps
this is the fairer view. Possibly these two phases might be found to
pertain to every religion whatsoever. In any event, we shall have
occasion often to quote contradictory views in attempting to get
at the truth about the religions of the various peoples who come
before us. And of a certainty we shall sometimes be left in doubt as
to the real character of the religion in question. So long as the
sects of Christendom cannot agree among themselves as to the correct
interpretation of the particular records which form their common
basis, we can hardly hope to interpret with full justice the religious
contemplations of people of another genius.
The following account of Assyrian religion by Joachim Menant is based
upon a study of documents from the library of Asshurbanapal, and, as
will be seen, is an exposition of certain details of the subject,
rather than an attempt at a comprehensive analysis. Nevertheless, its
explicit depiction of these details will perhaps give the reader a
clearer idea of the Assyrian religion than could be gained from a more
general treatment. As already pointed out, any interpretation of the
mysteries of an oriental religion must necessarily, in the present
state of our knowledge, leave much to be desired.[a]
It is rather difficult nowadays to distinguish the link which united
science to astrology and astrology to religion. The Assyrio-Chaldean
dogma is not formulated in a text by which we may grasp the whole, and
thus we are obliged to seek traces of it in fragments of different
sources and of different times, without being able to give them the
unity they must have had in their complete form; in other words, we
cannot reconstruct the Assyrian pantheon as a whole.
The most superficial examination suffices to show that we are in the
presence of a very complicated polytheism, but there is no text to
explain the hierarchy which must have reigned in the celestial world.
At the summit of this hierarchy one can perceive a divinity, one, and
at the same time divisible. Dogma proclaims this divinity in certain
passages, but when we wish to learn its exact individuality, it eludes
us, so that we may only seize the abstraction. We are led to believe
in a celestial hierarchy of beings inhabiting a superior world and
subordinated to an all-powerful God, who governs gods, world, and men.
He is enthroned in spaces inaccessible to us in our condition, and
appears only in legends; his power intervenes only when the order of
the universe is threatened, as we shall see in the legend of Ishtar,
when the goddess of the dwellings of the dead wishes to keep the
daughter of Sin in the dark dwelling, where she is so boldly detained.
This all-powerful God does not seem to be accessible to human beings;
secondary divinities revolve about him and seem, like him, to be
pure spirits. In the practice of the religion one has a glimpse of
an assembly of divinities, whose relations with humanity are more
tangible. These gods assume more definite form, as a general thing the
human one often joined with that of various animals, fish, oxen, or
birds. The wings seem to have but a single symbolical signification, to
denote beings of a superior order.
These gods have a rather definite hierarchy, twelve of them being
known as “great gods.” The one who appears to be the chief varies
according to locality and time. The chances of political conquest seem
to influence him, and he is changed according to the fortunes of war
that give the upper hand to such and such locality where his cult is
followed.
At Nineveh, the god which seems to have been the highest in the
celestial hierarchy, is Ilu; his character is no further defined and
his symbol is often only the abstract representation of the divinity.
[Illustration: WINGED BULL DISCOVERED AT ARBAN
(Layard)]
In the historical texts of the Assyrian kings we find an enumeration of
the great gods who were invoked by the sovereigns of the earth; their
number and order is not always constant, but such as they are we can
mention: Ilu (Ana), who is often confounded at Nineveh with Asshur;
then Bel (Baal); and lastly Anu. These three divinities appear as the
reflection of the gods of the superior world, which we have already
mentioned, but to which we have been unable to ascribe names. Then
follow the gods more particularly associated with the visible world:
Sin, the god of the moon; Shamash, god of the sun; Bin (Ramman or
Adad), god of the higher regions of the atmosphere, arbitrator of the
heavens and earth, the god who presides over tempests.
A series of divinities seems especially given over to the
superintendence of the planets: Adar over Saturn, Marduk over Jupiter,
Nergal over Mars, Ishtar over Venus, Nabu over Mercury.
Ishtar seems always to have a peculiar and special individuality,
notwithstanding that each of the great gods has a spouse who is often
invoked with him, and who seems to complete him. The rôle of the great
spouses of the great gods is not well understood; with Ishtar we can
see Beltis figure, whose name is transformed and often becomes like
that of Ishtar, a collective appellation of all female divinities;
those whose names seem to have a more permanent character are Zarpanit,
the goddess who particularly represents the fertile principle of the
universe, and Tasmit, the goddess of wisdom. All female divinities seem
to have direct relations with humanity, but they often disappear in the
higher and inaccessible world, and then only reveal themselves through
secondary influences. Secondary gods, whose number is infinite, are
born of these divine couples; a tablet from the Nineveh library gives
us the list of twelve sons of Anu with their attributes; of these sons
other divinities are born, but their descent we cannot follow. It is so
with other great gods.
At Babylon the divinities are the same, but the hierarchy is different;
Bel seems to have replaced Ilu (Ana), and Marduk takes the place of
Asshur. It is easy to be seen that these theogonies come from a common
source, which is every day becoming more accessible to us, but which we
have not yet sufficiently explored to know its exact nature.
The artistic development at which the Chaldeans had arrived from
the remotest antiquity, allows us easily to suppose that we ought
to discover in the pictured monuments that which the texts have not
yet revealed to us. Unfortunately we cannot fix upon the meaning
of the figures on the engraved stones until we shall have complete
enlightenment from the texts. The significance of a symbol cannot
be guessed at; also it is the most we can do if from all these
representations we are able to recognise the figures of four or
five divinities--Ilu, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar, and Zarpanit. There is,
moreover, a special reason why we should be most cautious in our
comparisons; we know that when the Assyrians took possession of a
hostile town, they carried away the images of strange divinities, and
restored them to their possessors, after inscribing on these images
the names of Assyrian gods. Therefore we should not trust too much to
an Assyrian inscription to fix on the identification of the image of
a divinity, as deeds of this nature might have been repeated in every
campaign. It is thus, doubtless, that we may explain the fact that,
while in the whole of Mesopotamia the abstract idea of the divinity
was mentioned by the name Ilu, it appears on the monuments of the
Achæmenidæ as Ormuzd.
The Assyrio-Chaldean cult had a very solemn ritual; we already have a
great number of hymns addressed to the principal divinities; and as
every month and every day of the month was under the protection of
a particular divinity, one may understand that the Assyrio-Chaldean
ritual must have had a considerable development. There were hymns
dedicated to Nabu, Sin, Shamash, Anuit, to Fire, and to the Elements.
Here is a hymn which can give an idea of the lyric poetry of which the
library of Nineveh included numerous fragments:
“Lord Illuminator of darkness who penetrates obscurity. The Good God,
who uplifts those who are in abjection, who sustains the feeble. The
great gods turn their eyes towards thy light. The spirits of the abyss
eagerly contemplate thy face. The language of praise is addressed
to thee as a single word. The … of their heads seeks the light of
the Southern sun. Like a betrothed thou restest full of joy and
graciousness. In thy splendour thou attainest the limits of Heaven.
Thou art the Standard of this wide World. O God, the men who live afar
off contemplate thee and rejoice.”
Religious ceremonies bore a relation to external worship; they all
ended in invocation or sacrifice. The cylinder-engraved scenes give us
an idea of these ceremonies; we usually see the priest in an attitude
of adoration or prayer, sometimes alone, but often before an altar, on
which reposes the object of adoration, or that which is going to be
sacrificed. The most usual victim is a ram or a kid. The Assyrian kings
never began an important expedition without having invoked the gods and
held religious ceremonies; after a victory they offered a sacrifice on
the borders of their newly conquered states. These sacrifices generally
took place in the open air; nevertheless, temples were numerous in
Assyria and Chaldea; their traditional form is that of a step-pyramid
(ziggurat); every town had one or two temples of this kind under the
patronage of one of the divinities of the Assyrian pantheon.
A tablet from the library gives us a list of these different
sanctuaries, where the gifts of the faithful multiplied and accumulated
until the time when war came to disperse them.
Cosmogony occupies a large place on the tablets of Asshurbanapal’s
library. Amongst all these tablets, those which relate to the creation
of the world, particularly to the history of the flood, have acquired
notoriety. These ancient traditions form a whole which claims the
closest attention. Whatever the philological explanations one may
accept, there is one dominating matter which gives an incontestable
importance to these remains, and this is their relation to the Mosaic
statements. It is certain that the fall of Nineveh antedated the
Babylonian captivity, and that the Bible in its present form postdates
the return from captivity. It is not without interest, therefore, to
compare the biblical accounts with a text, which could not have been
altered from the day it was buried under the ruins of an Assyrian
palace. This is not all; these ancient Assyrian legends are really the
translation of a Sumerian text, which Asshurbanapal had copied and
translated from the libraries of lower Chaldea, and we know positively
that these texts antedate the reign of the ancient Sargon, and are
therefore earlier by several centuries than the time when Abraham must
have left Chaldea.
It is doubtless not the place here to give way to a discussion on
pure philology; we will simply say this: when we make a mistake in
translating a hymn addressed to the god Sin, and apply it to quite
another divinity of the Assyrian pantheon, it is a deplorable mistake;
but such an error, were it the most gross, would have no influence on
our present prejudices. It is otherwise if we refer to a text which can
influence our intimate beliefs, be it to fortify them, combat them, or
explain their origin. In England and other protestant countries the
discoveries of George Smith acquired a tremendous notoriety, and his
translations are accepted with an eagerness and confidence which a
severe criticism has not justified. In France these discoveries aroused
less curiosity from the first, and Assyriologists who study legendary
texts have done so with a dispassionateness which is all the more
conducive to scientific and correct historic results.
Nevertheless, from these sources and authorities, translations have
passed into elementary books, where it has been sought to use them
in the support of preconceived ideas, often by altering their true
meaning. We cannot set ourselves too strongly against such proceedings.
It is surely not a new principle, that disinterested science must with
perfect impartiality scrutinise all books, legends, and documents which
claim the attention of the human mind.
The history of the creation comprises a collection of several tablets,
of which the text was published in 1875, in the _Transactions of the
Society of Biblical Archæology_. This text includes six fragments
forming part of a series of tablets designated in Assyria under the
title of “Enuva” (_i.e._, Formerly).[b]
THE ASSYRIAN STORY OF THE CREATION
Since George Smith first published the tablets various other fragments
have been discovered, the most important new discovery, perhaps, being
made by Mr. L. W. King[j] of a tablet containing a reference to the
creation of man. He found that the tablets belonging to the series are
seven in number, and has published all the hitherto known material in
his _Seven Tablets of Creation_. The following extracts are taken from
his translation:
When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both,--
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was found, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies [were ordained]
Then were created the gods in the midst of [heaven]
Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being [............]
Ages increased [........]
Then Anshar and Kishar were created, and over them [.......]
Long were the days, then there came forth [........]
Anu, their son,
Anshar and Anu [.........]
And the god Anu [.........]
Here follow three tablets telling of the revolt of Tiamat and her
defeat, which will be spoken of later on.
The fifth tablet begins:
He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods;
The stars, their images, as the stars of the zodiac he fixed.
He ordained the year and into sections he divided it;
For the twelve months he fixed three stars.
........
The Moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he intrusted to him.
He appointed him, a being of the night, to determine the days.
The rest of the tablet is rather badly mutilated. The sixth begins:
When Marduk heard the words of the gods,
His heart prompted him and he devised [a cunning plan].
He opened his mouth and unto Ea [he spake],
That which he had conceived in his heart he imparted [unto him],
“My blood will I take and bone will I [fashion],
I will make man, that man may........[.......]
I will create man who shall inhabit [the earth]
That the service of the gods may be established and that [their]
shrines [may be built].
But I will alter the ways of the gods, and I will change [their paths];
Together shall they be oppressed, and unto evil shall [they......]”
And Ea answered him and spake the word:
The rest of the tablet is too fragmentary for translation. The seventh
contains the fifty titles of Marduk.
Besides these seven tablets there are some which contain other accounts
of the creation. One of these refers to the creation of cattle and the
beasts of the field.[a]
When the gods in their assembly had made [the world]
And had created the heavens and had formed [the earth]
And had brought living creatures into being [......]
And [had fashioned] the cattle of the field, and the beasts of the
field, and the creatures [of the city],--
After [they had........] unto the living creatures [.......][c]
The rest is too mutilated for comprehension of anything besides single
words.
THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION
The fact that these tablets as well as so many others of Babylonian
origin were found in an Assyrian library, shows that the Assyrians took
their religion like the rest of their culture from the Babylonians.
Indeed the Assyrian myths, religious doctrines, and observances are so
similar to those of the mother-country that in speaking of Babylonian
religion the Assyrian is usually to be understood as well. The
Babylonian religion in turn was largely influenced by the Summerian
which was an astral religion. The names of the gods are found written
with the same ideograms although they were doubtless pronounced
differently. Many of the texts are found written in Summerian with
interlinear Assyrian translations.
Babylonian religion as we first see it is in the form of local cults.
Each city with its surrounding district had its own god, whose
authority was supreme. Thus Anu was worshipped in Erech, Bel in Nippur,
Ea in Eridu, Sin in Uru, Shamash in Larsa and Sippar. When these cities
began to be welded together into political systems, the gods also were
put together into an organised pantheon in which political situations
influenced the relations the gods were made to bear to each other. Thus
when Babylon became the capital of the empire its special god, Marduk,
became leader among the gods.
A second characteristic feature of the Babylonian religion is that it
is based on natural phenomena. The myths are nature myths. The story
of the original creation was in a way the prototype of what happened
every year. The earth is covered with water from the winter rains
(state of chaos). The spring sun (Marduk) fights with and overcomes the
water (Tiamat); the earth appears, green things of all kinds and life
are produced. The story of the flood may have referred to the annual
inundation, with perhaps the added element of severe winds and a tidal
wave from the south. Such inundations have occurred in historic times.
Ishtar’s descent into the lower world marks the autumn when everything
is dry and has been burned up by the fierce summer sun. Ishtar goes
to seek the water of life, which in the Babylonian world was a most
appropriate metaphor, because water actually was the life of the
country. Without it the land was arid and desolate as to-day; with it,
its luxuriant vegetation caused the region about Babylon to be called
the garden of the gods (Karaduniash).
The creation legend as we have it must have been written after the
consolidation of the empire with Babylon as its capital, because in the
story Marduk, although one of the younger gods, is made the champion
and leader of the others. The tablets on which the legend is contained
now usually go by the name of _enuma elish_, “when above,” from the
opening words. The opening lines of the story relating the creation
of the gods, and the latter part telling of the creation of animals
and man, we have already seen. The version of creation given here is
practically the one Berosus gives of the Babylonians, which is found in
Eusebius and which he quotes from Polyhistor (see Appendix A).
In the beginning was chaos, consisting of a watery mass. Only two
beings existed--Apsu, the Deep, and Tiamat, the universal mother.
These two represent the two formative elements from whose union the
gods were created. First Lakhmu and Lakhamu were born, then Anshar and
Kishar, and after a long interval the other great gods. Tiamat, after
having brought forth the gods, conceived a hatred for them and created
a large number of monsters to aid her in a battle against them and
gave the command to her son Kingu. She bore: “giant snakes, sharp as
to teeth, and merciless--with poison she filled their bodies as with
blood.” Anshar sends his son Anu against Tiamat, but he is afraid to
face her. After Ea also has been sent in vain, Marduk offers to take
up the fight, but first demands to be recognised by the other gods as
their champion. Anshar summons the great gods to a feast, informs them
of all that has taken place, and calls on them to appoint Marduk as
their defender. The gods do so and hail him with the following words
(the translation of the Assyrian texts is based upon that of Jensen[h]
in his _Cosmologie der Babylonier_):
Thou art the most honoured among the great gods
Thy fate has no equal, thy decree is Anu.
Marduk, thou art most honoured among the great gods
Thy fate has no equal, thy decree is Anu.
From now on thy word shall not be altered,
To put up and to lower, shall be in thy hand;
What goes out of thy mouth shall be established
Thy decree shall not be resisted.
No one among the great gods shall overstep thy boundary
........
Marduk, thou our avenger,
We give thee dominion over the whole world.
To test his powers the gods place a garment before Marduk and tell
him to bid it disappear and come back again at his word. When he has
accomplished this prodigy the gods are pleased and exclaim “Marduk is
king.” The avenger after equipping himself for the fray goes out to
meet Tiamat and her host, taking with him his thunderbolt, spear, and
net; he is followed by seven winds, which he has created. We take up
the story again at the point where Marduk challenges Tiamat to battle:
“Stand! I and thou let us fight together--”
When Tiamat heard these words
She became like one demented, and lost her senses.
Then cried out Tiamat wild and loud
Her limbs trembled to their very foundations,
She said an incantation, and spoke a formula,
And of the gods of battle, she asked their weapons.
They drew near, Tiamat and Marduk, wise among the gods,
They advanced to battle, came near to fight--
Then the lord spread out his net and surrounded her.
He let loose the evil wind that was behind him.
When Tiamat opened her mouth to its full extent,
He sent the evil wind into it, so that she could not close her lips.
Filled her belly with terrible winds
Her heart was … and she opened wide her mouth.
He seized the spear and pierced through her belly
Cut through her inward parts, and pierced her heart.
He overcame her and destroyed her life,
Threw down her body and stood upon it.
When he had killed Tiamat, the leader,
Her might was broken and her host scattered
And the gods, her helpers, who went at her side
Trembled, were afraid, and turned back.
After Marduk had dealt with the minor rebels
He returned to Tiamat, whom he had conquered
He cut her in two parts like a fish
He put up one half of her as a cover for the heavens,
Placed before it a bolt and established a watchman--
And commanded him not to let her waters come forth.
The rest of the legend deals with the creation and has been mentioned
elsewhere. Professor Gunkel[i] (in his _Schöpfung und Chaos_) in
speaking of this myth says that Tiamat’s offspring, the monsters of the
sea, are the stars in the constellations of the zodiac. The stars are
the children of the night. Marduk is the spring sun, who fights with
the waters, finally subdues them, and brings forth vegetation. This
story of Marduk and his fight with the dragon is sometimes identified
with the Christ story. The Babylonians also appear to have celebrated a
festival at the new year, when the sun turned back from the equator and
left the constellation of the water-man. This may be said to mark the
birth of spring. Three months later when the god has grown sufficiently
strong he fights with the waters (Tiamat Sin) and conquers.
The Babylonians pictured the earth as a cone-shaped mountain surrounded
by water. Over this was stretched the dome of heaven behind which was
the heavenly ocean and the home of the gods. In the dome were two gates
through which Shamash the sun-god passed out in the morning and entered
at night. The moon and stars were within the dome, and did not pass
through it as did the sun. Underneath the thick crust of the earth’s
surface the space was all filled with water, and within the crust was
Arallu, the home of the dead and land of “no return.” This was supposed
to be surrounded by seven walls. Although the real home of the gods
was beyond the dome of heaven, they usually lived on the earth and had
their council-chamber on the mountain of sunrise, near the gate through
which Shamash came out in the morning.
The Babylonian gods are very human. They are born, live, love,
fight, and even die, like the people on the earth. The conception is
wholly materialistic. Alfred Jeremias[k] says of this religion: “A
practical streak runs through the religion of the inhabitants of the
Euphrates valley. Their gods are gods of the living; they are in active
intercourse with them as helpers in every action, as rescuers from all
evil. The whole religious interest centres on the necessities of this
world. There is no room for the anxious reflection and philosophising
as to the whence, and whither of the soul, which is so characteristic
of the Egyptians. With death comes an end of strength and life, of
hope and comfort. Hence their religion as such has little to do with
conceptions of another world.”
The names of the chief gods have been already mentioned. Besides the
_ilani rabuti_, the great gods, there were a hosts of smaller ones,
and a large number of good and evil spirits. Sickness and disease were
supposed to be brought by demons, the children of the under-world who
performed the bidding of Allatu and Nergal, the rulers over hades.
Allatu’s chief messenger was Namtar, the demon of pestilence. The
Annunaki likewise did her errands of destruction. The Babylonians
lived in constant terror of offending some of these divinities, and
a large part of their literature was devoted to magical formulas and
prayers for aid and protection. Before undertaking any deed it was
customary to find out whether or not the omens were favourable. Certain
days were particularly unlucky and on them nothing could be done. The
7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of every month were among the unlucky
ones. The later Jewish sabbath is thus seen to have been originally
an unlucky day rather than a holy day. Hugo Winckler has suggested an
ingenious theory for the fact that thirteen has always been considered
an unlucky number. In order to make the Babylonian calendrical system
of lunar months agree with the solar year, it was necessary to insert
an extra month. This thirteenth month was regarded as being in the
way and disturbing calculations. So thirteen came to be regarded as a
superfluous, unlucky number. Another sign of the zodiac was appointed
for this extra month, and this was the sign of the raven.
A great many of the tablets which have been excavated contain omens.
Omens were drawn from dreams, from the conjunction of stars and
planets, from earthquakes, eclipses, and in short from all natural
phenomena. Connected with this was the magical literature, the hymns,
and penitential psalms. If all a man’s precautions had been in vain
and disease had come upon him, there were magical formulas which might
rescue him from his misery, certain prayers or hymns he might recite.
Every Babylonian had his own protecting god and goddess, to whose care
he was perhaps committed at birth, but the intervention of a priest
was necessary to appease the god. The following prayer, from a tablet
used as prayer-book for the use of priest and penitent, is taken from
King’s[c] _Babylonian Religion and Mythology_:
O my God, who art angry, accept my prayer, O my goddess, who art
angry, receive my supplication. Receive my supplication and let thy
spirit be at rest. O my goddess, look with pity on me and accept
my supplication. Let my sins be forgiven, let my transgressions be
blotted out. Let the ban be torn away, let the bonds be loosened.
Let the seven winds carry away my sighs. I will send away my
wickedness, let the bird bear it to the heavens. Let the fish carry
off my misery, let the river sweep it away. Let the beast of the
field take it from me. Let the flowing waters of the river wash me
clean.
To ascertain why the evil had come upon the man, questions like the
following were asked, some of which show an advanced moral code:
Has he estranged the father from his son or the son from his
father? Has he estranged the mother from her daughter or the
daughter from her mother? Has he estranged the brother from his
brother or the friend from his friend? Has he refused to set a
captive free? Has he shut out a prisoner from the light? has he
committed a sin against a god or against a goddess? Has he done
violence to one older than himself? Has he said yes for no or no
for yes? Has he used false scales? Has he accepted a wrong account?
Has he set up a false landmark? Has he broken into his neighbour’s
house? Has he come near his neighbour’s wife? Has he shed his
neighbour’s blood?
On one old tablet which has a Summerian interlinear translation the
stricken man turns to Marduk as an intercessor:
An evil curse like a demon has come upon the man
Sorrow and trouble have fallen upon him
Evil sorrow has fallen upon him
An evil curse, a spell, a sickness,
The evil curse has slain that man like a lamb.
His god has departed from his body,
His guardian goddess has left his side,
He is covered by sorrow and trouble as with a garment, and he is
overwhelmed.
Then Marduk saw him
He entered into the house of his father Ea and said to him:
“O my father, an evil curse like a demon has beset the man.”
Twice he spoke unto him and said
“I know not what that man has done nor whereby he may be cured.”
Ea made answer to his son Marduk:
“O my son, what thou dost not know, what can I tell thee?
O, Marduk, what thou dost not know, what can I tell thee?
What I know, thou knowest,
Go my son Marduk,
Take him to the house of purification
Take away the spell from him, remove the spell from him.”
A very pessimistic view of life is shown by the following complaint of
a sick man quoted by Jeremias: “The day is sighing, the night a flood
of tears; weeping is the month and misery the year.”
We have already seen specimens of Babylonian hymnology. The following
hymn to Sin, as translated from Shrader’s[m] work on cuneiform
inscriptions, shows real religious fervour:
Lord, ruler among the gods, who alone is great on heaven and earth,
Father Nannar, Lord, God Amar, ruler among the gods
........
Merciful, gracious father, in whose hand the life of the whole land
is held.
O Lord, thy divinity is like the distant heaven, like the wide sea,
full of majesty.
He who has created the land, founded the temple, called it by name
Father, generator of gods and men, who caused dwellings to be put up,
established sacrifice
Who calls to dominions, gives the sceptre, decides fate for distant
days,
Mighty leader, whose depths no god sees through
Valiant one, whose knees never grow tired, who opens the way for the
gods, his brothers,
Who passes glorious from the depths of heaven to its heights,
Who opens the gate of heaven, makes light for all men.
Father, generator of all, who looks upon living beings … who thinks
upon …
Lord, who utters judgment for heaven and earth, whose decree no one
alters
Who holds fire and water, who directs living beings, What god is like
to thee?
........
In heaven who is great? Thou alone art great.
On earth, who is great? Thou alone art great.
When thy word resounds in heaven, the Igigi throw themselves upon their
faces;
When thy word resounds on earth the Anunnaki kiss the ground.
When thy word speeds above like the storm wind, it causes food and
drink to flourish,
When thy word settles upon the east, the green arises,
Thy word makes stall and herd to be fat, expands living beings.
Thy word causes right and justice to arise, so that men speak justice.
Thy word is the distant heaven, the hidden under-world which no one
sees through,
Thy word, who can understand it, who is equal to it?
O Lord, thou hast no rival in heaven in dominion nor on the earth in
power, among the gods thy brothers.
THE EPIC OF GILGAMISH
The close relation existing between mythology and religion hardly
needs to be pointed out. The great epic of the Babylonians and
Assyrians--that of Gilgamish--is of special interest to us since
it contains the Babylonian story of the flood. The hero’s name was
formerly read as Izdubar, as the following quotation from Jeremias[n]
in his _Izdubar-Nimrod_ shows.[a]
The epic, which was preserved in the royal library of Nineveh in
the seventh century as a precious national possession, gives us a
glimpse into the Babylonian history of a remote past. The poem deals
principally with “kings who ruled the land in by-gone times,” and with
a city “which was old” at the time of the flood, and the epic itself
reaches back into very ancient times. Its scene is laid among cities
in the Euphrates district: Uruk (Erech), Nippur, the “city of ships,”
Sherippak and Babylon. The geographical horizon extends beyond these
cities to the mountain Nisir, east of the Tigris, and southwards,
beyond the Mashu mountain land, clear into the Persian Gulf. The
central point of interest is the city Uruk, called _Uruk supuri_, “the
well guarded.” Among the aristocracy of this city Izdubar makes himself
distinguished, being “perfect in power, like a mountain ox, excelling
the heroes in might.” He overcomes the jealousy of his fellow citizens
and establishes an indigenous kingdom, namely by conquering the tyrant
Khumbaba, who is shown by his name to be of Elamite descent. The
attempt has been made to identify this historical background with the
national uprising of Babylonia, which, according to Berosus, brought
about the downfall of an Elamite dynasty ruling 2450-2250 B.C. That
the tradition really did reach back to this age is proved by Babylonian
seal-cylinders of the oldest kings, which unquestionably reproduce
scenes from the epic, perhaps also the connection of the epic with
certain constellations of the zodiac.
More important than the historical is the mythological background.
Since Babylonian religion did not belong to the “aristocracy of book
religions,” it is difficult to form a system from the abundance of
religious literature, the views of which have been influenced by
varying popular opinion. Hence the portrayal of the divine world as
found in a finished epic is the more important. As in the inscription
of King Nabunaid, written 2,000 years later, so here we find the
two great divine triads, Anu, Bel, Ea, who represent three parts of
the world according to Babylonian ideas (heaven, earth, ocean), and
Shamash, Sin, Ishtar, who represent the chief heavenly bodies (Sun,
Moon, Venus).
The relations between gods and men is pictured in a naïve childlike
fashion, as in Homer. Ishtar tries to win the love of the hero Izdubar.
Shamash establishes friendship between the hero and Eabani, the three
great gods Anu, Bel, Ea whisper secrets into his ear. As Ishtar at one
time mounts from out the city to the heaven of her father Bel, so the
gods out of fear of the rising flood “crouch down like dogs at the
portals of heaven”; they flock like flies around the sacrifice and
“smell the good smell.”
One remarkable feature of the epic should be noticed here, namely,
the importance attached to dreams. The whole action is set in motion
by countless dreams, by means of which the gods show men the future
and give them council. This view is characteristic of Babylonian and
Assyrian religion. The ancient Babylonian king Gudea is shown the
outline of the temple building in a dream. Asshurbanapal on his coming
to the throne receives an address of encouragement from the priestly
class, which is based on a dream of his grandfather Sennacherib, and
in his campaigns inspiring dreams are sent to his soldiers from the
goddess of war.[n]
Nothing definite is known as to the time of the composition of this
epic. We do not know if the copy in Asshurbanapal’s library was made
from a Babylonian original or not. It is not probable that the whole
was written at one time or by one author.
The Gilgamish epic comprises twelve tablets. These are mutilated and
broken in places leaving gaps in the story, but they are sufficiently
well preserved to permit us to follow the main thread of the argument.
When the scene opens the city of Erech is suffering under the severe
misfortune of a protracted siege. The inhabitants are in distress and
the gods do nothing to help them. This siege lasts for three years,
during which time the gates of the city remain closed. Then Gilgamish
appears, whether as conqueror or deliverer the mutilated condition
of the tablet leaves in doubt. He was probably the former, since his
rule is very severe and the people complain of his tyrannical acts.
In their distress they appeal to the goddess Aruru, who is elsewhere
associated with Marduk in the creation of mankind, to make a person
who shall rival Gilgamish in strength and power. Aruru accordingly
creates Ea-bani, a creature whose whole body is covered with long hair
like a woman’s. The upper part of his body is like a man but his legs
are those of a beast. This strange being lives among the beasts of the
field, eating and drinking with them.
Gilgamish fearing that Ea-bani will be sent by the gods against him
sends out a man called the hunter to catch and bring him to Erech. The
hunter lies in wait for him three days, but on account of his great
strength is afraid to attack him and returns to the city. Gilgamish
then sends a harlot from the temple with the hunter, to tempt Ea-bani.
This plan is successful. Ea-bani forsakes his cattle out of love for
Achat, the harlot, and is persuaded by her to return to Erech and meet
Gilgamish. One thinks involuntarily here of the story of Adam and Eve.
There also it is a woman who tempts man and leads him to civilisation.
Ea-bani would like to match his strength with Gilgamish, but he is
warned in a dream not to do so. Gilgamish is also told in a dream of
Ea-bani’s coming, and the goddess to whom he appeals for interpretation
of his dream advises him to make friends with the approaching hero. The
intervention of Shamash, the sun-god, however, is necessary to persuade
Ea-bani to become a companion and friend to Gilgamish.
The two heroes then proceed against the Elamite tyrant, Khumbaba. The
epic tells of the long, hard road they have to follow, of their terror,
and of the wonderful cedar grove in which the fortress of Khumbaba is
placed. Gilgamish has several encouraging dreams to cheer them on,
and they eventually succeed in killing the tyrant. On their return
Gilgamish has the misfortune to incur Ishtar’s displeasure. The goddess
sues for his love and invites him to become her husband. He, however,
refuses her favour, even reproaching her for her cruel treatment of
her former lovers, Tammuz among them, all of whom she has forsaken
and destroyed. Ishtar in her rage at being repulsed hastens to her
father, Anu, who creates a divine bull to attack Gilgamish. The latter,
however, with Ea-bani’s help succeeds in conquering the bull. He
sacrifices his magnificent horns to Shamash and proudly boasts that he
will conquer Ishtar as well as the bull. But here his success is at an
end. Ea-bani dies, probably stricken by Ishtar, and Gilgamish himself
is afflicted by her with a dreadful disease, which strikes terror to
his heart at the thought that he must die like his friend.
Izdubar wept for Ea-bani, his friend;
In sorrow he laid himself down in the field.
“I will not die like Ea-bani,
Grief has entered my soul.
I am afraid of death
And lay me down in the field.”
Gilgamish then determines to seek Sit-napishtim and beseech his help to
rescue him from disease and death. After various experiences he comes
to the mountain Mashu, the sunset mountain, whose gates are guarded by
scorpion men. They let him enter and he journeys for twenty-four hours
in intense darkness before he emerges into the sunlight and passes by
a tree and grove with precious stones for fruit. He then comes to the
sea coast, ruled over by a princess Sabitum. She advises him to seek
out Arad-Ea, the former pilot of Sit-napishtim, who may possibly carry
him across the waters. Arad-Ea consents, builds a boat with the aid of
Gilgamish and they set out together. The most difficult part of the
voyage is the journey across the “waters of death.” The two finally
reach the island home of Sit-napishtim who, at Gilgamish’s request,
tells the story of his escape from the flood (as translated from
Jeremias[n]):
Sit-napishtim said to him, to Gishduba (Gilgamish),
“I will reveal to thee, Gishduba, something hidden.
And a secret of the gods will I tell thee.
Shurippak, a city which thou knowest--on the banks of the Euphrates
it is situated--
This city is old. The gods within it,
Their heart led the great gods to bring up a deluge.
Their father Anu was there, their counsellor, the mighty Bel,
Their herald Ninib, their leader En-nu-gi.
Ninigiazag (Ea) was with them and related their words to a hut of
reeds, saying: “O reed hut, O reed hut! O wall, wall!
Reed hut hear! wall understand!
Thou man of Shurippak, son of Ubaratutu,
Make a house, build a ship, leave thy possessions, seek thy life.
Abandon thy goods, and save thy life.
Bring up living seed of every kind into the ship,
The ship, which thou shalt build.
Its dimensions must be measured;
Its breadth and its strength must suit each other.
Thou shalt place it in the ocean.”
I understood and said to Ea, my lord,
“See, my lord, what thou hast commanded
I shall heed and perform.
But, how shall I answer to the city, to the people and to the elders?”
Ea opened his mouth and spake, said to me, his slave,
“This answer shalt thou say to them:
Because Bel hateth me
No longer will I live in your city, nor lay my head on Bel’s earth.
To the deep will I go down and live with Ea, my lord.
He will then cause it to rain upon ye abundantly.
A large number of birds, a crowd of fishes,
A quantity of animals, abundant harvest.…
The lines here are too mutilated to make much meaning. According to
some interpretations Sit-napishtim assures his fellow-citizens of
coming prosperity so that they have no misgivings as to his leaving
them; others, on the contrary, indicate that Sit-napishtim made no
secret of the coming deluge. Sit-napishtim then relates how he built
the ship, gives its dimensions, and tells what he put into it. He
continues (Jeremias’[n] translation):
“I brought up into the ship my whole family, and my dependants,
Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, artisans all together
I brought them up.
Shamash had appointed a signal,
‘The lord of darkness will send a heavy rain in the evening.
Then enter into the ship and close the door.’
The appointed time came;
The lord of darkness sent a heavy rain in the evening.
I feared the beginning of the day;
I was afraid to look upon the day.
I entered the ship and closed the door.
To the pilot of the ship, to Puzur-Bel, the boatman,
I intrusted the ship and what was in it.
When the first dawn appeared
A black cloud arose from the foundation of heaven
Ramman thundered within it.
Nabu and Marduk preceded it.
They advanced as leaders over mountain and earth.
Uragal pulled up the anchor;
Ninib went forth and caused the storm to follow.
The Annunaki raised their torches;
They lighted the earth with their beams.
The thunder of Ramman mounted to heaven;
Everything light was turned to darkness.”
Ramman floods the land, the tempest rages for a whole day, a strong
wind blows the water like mountains upon the people.
“Brother did not see his brother, men could not be distinguished;
in heaven
The gods were afraid of the deluge.
They quailed, they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.
The gods crouched down like dogs, at the borders of heaven.
Ishtar screamed like a woman in travail.
The lady of the gods cried with a loud voice
‘Former man has been turned again to clay
Because I counselled an evil thing in the council of the gods.’”
Ishtar complains that her offspring have become like fish spawn and the
gods weep with her. After six days, however, the storm abates, the sea
becomes quiet. Sit-napishtim looks out of the window and weeps at the
sight that meets his gaze. Mankind is turned to clay, the world is all
sea. After twelve days land appears, and the ship sticks fast on the
top of Mount Nisit, where it remains for six days.
“When the seventh day drew nigh,
I sent out a dove and let her go. The dove flew hither and thither,
But as there was no resting place for her, she returned.
Then I sent out a swallow and let her go. The swallow flew hither
and thither,
But as there was no resting place for her, she returned.
Then I sent out a raven and let her go.
The raven flew off and saw the diminishing of the waters,
She came near and croaked, but did not return.
Then I brought out (all), offered a sacrifice to the four winds;
I made a libation on the top of the mountain,
I laid out the vessels seven by seven,
Under them I put reed, cedar-wood and incense.
The gods smelled the smell. The gods smelled the good smell.
The gods gathered like flies about the lord of the sacrifice.”
When Ishtar arrives she bitterly accuses Bel for having destroyed
mankind and refuses to let him approach the sacrifice. Bel on his part
is angry that any man whatever has escaped. Ea interposes, rebukes Bel
for his deed, and tells him that in the future some other device shall
be used to punish mankind. Bel accepts the censure and himself leads
Sit-napishtim and his wife out of the ship and blesses them. They are
then transported to an island at the “mouth of the streams” where they
are to live forever.
After listening to this story Gilgamish is cured of his disease by
Sit-napishtim who also tells him of a plant which has the power to
prolong life. Gilgamish sets out with Arad-Ea to find it, and their
search is indeed successful; but later on in the journey a demon steals
the plant, and Gilgamish returns sorrowfully home. Here he continues
to mourn for his lost friend Ea-bani. In his desire to see him again
he appeals in turn to Bel, Sin, and Ea to assist him, but they are
powerless to help him. It is Nergal, god of the dead, who grants
his request and “opened the earth, let the spirit of Ea-bani come
out of the earth like a breath of wind.” When asked to describe the
under-world Ea-bani at first answers, “I cannot tell you, my friend, I
cannot tell you,” then he bids him sit down and weep while he gives him
a gloomy account of the place, which closes with the following lines
(Jeremias’ translation):
“On a couch he lieth, drinking pure water.
He who was killed in battle--thou hast seen it, I have seen it--
His father and his mother hold his head
And his wife kneels at his side.
He whose corpse lies in the field--thou hast seen it, I have seen it--
His soul has no rest in the world.
He whose soul has no one to care for it--thou hast seen it, I have seen
it.
The dregs of the cup, the remnants of the feast--what is thrown on the
street, that is his food.”[h]
This is the end of the epic. It has been suggested that the whole forms
a solar myth and is divided into twelve parts to correspond to the
twelve months. According to this theory the sixth tablet, relating to
Ishtar, and her treatment of Tammuz and her other lovers, corresponds
to the sixth month. It is the month when everything seems dry and dead
after the hot summer sun, and in this month the festival of Tammuz
was celebrated, as a characteristic of which was the weeping for
Tammuz related in Ezekiel viii. 14. The seventh tablet speaking of
Gilgamish’s illness would thus correspond to the seventh month, the one
following the summer solstice, when the power of nature seems to grow
less, and this was attributed to a disease of the sun.
ISHTAR’S DESCENT INTO HADES
This idea is brought out more fully in the legend of Ishtar’s descent
into the under world. It is possible that the story used to be recited
in connection with the festival of Tammuz just mentioned. Ishtar is
pictured as descending into the lower realms, probably in search of
her young husband. The picture it gives us of the conception the
Babylonians had of life after death is very valuable. The poem begins:
To the land of no return, to the land …
Ishtar the daughter of Sin inclined her ear.
To the house of darkness, the dwelling of Irkalla
To the house from which none who enter ever return
To the road whose course does not turn back.
To the house in which he who enters is deprived of light,
Where dust is their nurture and mud their food.
They see not the light, they dwell in darkness.
They are clothed like birds in a garment of feathers.
On the doors and bolts is spread dust.
When Ishtar reached the gate of the land of no return
She spoke to the porter at the gate
“Porter, open thy gate,
Open thy gate, I will enter.
If thou dost not open thy gate, and I do not enter,
I will strike the door, I will break the bolt,
I will strike the threshold and break down the door.
I will raise up the dead to consume the living,
The dead shall be more numerous than the living!”
The porter opened his mouth and spoke,
Spoke to the powerful Ishtar:
“Stay, my lady, do not break it down,
I will go and announce thy name to the queen Allatu.”
The porter then informs Allatu that her sister Ishtar stands at the
door. The goddess is displeased at the news but bids the porter open
the door and treat her according to the “ancient laws.” These demanded
that she should lose some part of her apparel at each of the seven
gates of the under-world until she stood naked before the throne of
its goddess. At the first gate the porter takes away her crown and she
asks: “Why, O porter, dost thou take the great crown from my head!” He
answers: “Enter, O lady, for these are the commands of the mistress of
the world.” At each gate Ishtar remonstrates at having her ornaments
taken from her, and each time the porter returns the same answer.
When Ishtar comes before Allatu, the latter commands her messenger
Namtar to smite the goddess with disease in all parts of her body.
But while Ishtar is being detained in the lower world, all life has
stopped on the earth’s surface. The gods demand her release. A being
is specially created to bring her back. The rest of the story and
the meaning of this and the flood myth is told by C. P. Tiele[o] as
follows:[a]
The story of Ishtar’s descent into hades is unmistakably a nature
myth, which describes in picturesque fashion her descent into the
under-world to seek the springs of living water, probably the central
force of light and heat in the world. When she is imprisoned there by
Allatu, the goddess of death and of the shadow world, and even visited
with all sorts of diseases, all growth and generation stand still in
the world, so that the gods take council and decide to demand her
release. Ea accordingly creates a wonderful being a kind of priest,
called “his light shineth,” who is to seek out the fountain of life,
and whom Allatu cannot withstand, however much she may scold and
curse. The goddess is set free, returns to the upper world and brings
her dead lover Tammuz back to life by sprinkling him with the water
of immortality. This myth is not cosmological nor ethical, but has
already become a pure anthropomorphic narration, the physical basis for
certain episodes and details of which is often not clear, and which
has a tendency to strengthen belief in immortality. The account of the
flood also, which we have in several versions and which was itself put
together out of various parts, some of them heterogeneous, betrays
the fact that it was put together by a polytheist and originated in a
nature myth. But the nature myths as such lie already so far behind
the author, there is such a naïve humour in the way the gods are
represented, everything happens in such a human fashion--one needs
only to think of Ishtar’s complaint that she has created men but no
brood of fishes, of the sly excuse with which Ea excuses himself to
Bel for having rescued his favourite from the destruction planned by
the latter, one needs only to hear how Bel is preached at by the wise
Ea for his unreasonable and blind passion, and how the great Ishtar
declares him to have forfeited his share of the sacrifice, and then see
how he silently acknowledges his wrong by himself accompanying the man
over whose rescue he had become so excited, and raising him with his
family to a place among the gods--one needs only to think of all this
to see that the narrator made use of the mythological material only to
describe the fall of sinful humanity and at the same time to remind
his hearers that the gods always have means at their command, such as
hunger, pestilence, and wild beasts, to punish the evil-doer.[o]
The Babylonian view of life after death was particularly gloomy. There
was no hope of anything better. The highest state of happiness pictured
was to lie on a couch and drink clear water; even for the pious it was
a place of gloom. And there was no possibility of escaping from it.
Sit-napishtim tells Gilgamish in this connection that death must come
to all (we translate again from the version of Jeremias[n]):
So long as houses are built,
So long as contracts are made,
So long as brothers quarrel,
So long as enmity exists,
So long as rivers bear their waves [to the sea]
........
The Anunnaki and the great gods determine fate
And Mammetum, the creator of destiny, with them.
They determine life and death,
The days of death are not known.[h]
We have seen the legend telling of a visit to the lower world; there
are two which tell of visits to heaven. One is in connection with
Etana. In Asshurbanapal’s library were a series of tablets containing
the Etana legend. One portion of the story tells how Shamash helped
Etana to find a plant which would help his wife in child-birth. Another
narrates how Etana mounted to heaven on the back of an eagle. They
pause at different stages to look at the earth beneath them. At the
first stop: “The earth appears like a mountain, the sea has become
a pool.” They go further and the eagle again calls to Etana to look
at the earth. This time the sea looks like a belt around the earth.
The next time he looks the sea has become a mere gardener’s ditch.
After reaching the gate of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the eagle wants to go
still further and persuades Etana to accompany him to Ishtar’s abode.
They fly until the earth appears a mere “garden bed,” but here the
rash attempt of the eagle to reach the highest regions appears to be
punished. The two are hurled down from heaven upon the earth. Another
part of the legend tells of a deceit practised upon the eagle by the
serpent, aided by Shamash, in which the eagle dies a miserable death.
The second story of a visit to heaven is found in the legend of Adapa.
This legend was on one of the tablets found at Tel Amarna. Adapa is a
son of the god Ea, and is represented as serving in his temple. One
day as he is fishing in the sea the south wind overturns his boat.
Adapa then fights with the south wind and succeeds in breaking its
wings so that it does not blow for seven days. At the end of this
time Anu, in heaven, becomes aware that the south wind has not been
blowing and inquires the reason. When told, he becomes very angry
that anyone should have had the audacity to interfere with any of his
creatures. He accordingly sends for Adapa to appear before him. Ea
gives his son advice as to his conduct, telling him how to secure the
good favour of the two porters at the gate, one of whom is Tammuz. He
tells him further: “When thou comest before Anu, they will offer thee
food of death--do not eat. Water of death they will offer thee--do not
drink. They will offer thee a garment--put it on. They will offer thee
oil--anoint thyself.” Adapa then reaches heaven, and everything happens
as Ea has told him. Only the food and water which are offered him are
of life not of death, and thus Adapa loses his chances of eternal
life. Anu looks at him in amazement and exclaims: “O Adapa, why didst
thou not eat and drink? Now thou canst not live.” Here, as in the case
of Adam in the biblical story, whose name by the way may possibly be
identical with Adapa, we see that a deceit was practised on man. In
each case he is told that the food and water of life will bring him
death, although the Babylonian story differs from the biblical in that
the former freely and gladly accords man knowledge, as represented by
the clothing and oil for anointment, which may be regarded as symbols
of civilisation.
In the Euphrates valley religion was very closely associated with the
actual life of the nation. The temples were storehouses and banking
establishments; the priests were lawyers and scribes. Every historical
inscription contains a reference to the gods. Victory was due to their
intervention. Nothing was conceived without them. Their festivals
were the great events of the year. The German excavating society has
recently brought to light the old procession street between Babylon and
Borsippa over which the image of the god Nabu used to be carried on
his annual visit to Marduk at Babylon. This street was decorated with
glazed, coloured tiles, representing a stately procession of lions and
other beasts, which show a high grade of artistic talent.
The Babylonian religion shows its development plainly. In its earliest
phase we have the belief in a great many spirits and demons, who could
be controlled by magic. Then comes the period of local cults followed
by the organised pantheon, in which we see faint signs of a conception
of one god manifested in many forms.[a]
To sum up in the words of Tiele: From all that has been said it
will be seen that the religion of the Babylonians had at an early
date attained a comparatively high stage of development. It had not
yet crossed the boundary of monotheism but remained a theocratic,
monarchical polytheism; nevertheless it came very near that boundary.
The gods of mythology were already treated with great freedom, and the
disgust which some of their deeds called forth was not disguised. A
comparatively pure and lofty conception of the highest divinity had
already been developed, even if it was called upon by different names.
However much superficiality and formality, however many superstitions
and magical customs may have been connected with the divine worship, it
was yet not lacking in deep religious feeling and moral earnestness,
which is shown particularly in the penitential psalms.[o]
[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF OF WORKMEN AND CART
(After Layard)]
CHAPTER IX. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CULTURE
Of all the revelations regarding the Mesopotamian civilisation which
the researches of Botta and Layard and their followers have brought to
light, none perhaps are more interesting than those that showed the
position which art had attained in those far-off and forgotten times.
It had all along been remembered that powerful political empires had
risen and fallen here, however vaguely the details of the history may
have been preserved. It was recalled, too, that these peoples possessed
religions with the same fundamental elements as the Jewish creeds; but
that they had developed an artistic spirit and artistic craftsmanship
far beyond that of any other people of their time, had been entirely
forgotten. Yet, as we have seen, the most striking and conspicuous
of the monuments restored by the explorations were works of art. We
have obtained many glimpses of these in the preceding pages, and it
will not be necessary here to treat them in very great detail; indeed,
it would be quite impossible to do so within the necessary bounds of
space. Our concern is with the historic relations of the Mesopotamian
art development rather than with the details of the art itself.
Nevertheless, something more than incidental references will be made to
some features of the subject.[a]
The origin of Babylonian-Assyrian civilisation is lost in the darkness
of prehistoric times, like that of the Egyptians and Chinese. We shall
see that even their oldest monuments display a high grade of artistic
ability and presuppose a long development. The texts on the oldest
monuments are already written in cuneiform; the picture writing in
which this must have originated was already out of use, which shows
a great progress in civilisation. As to the origin of this culture
various suppositions have been made. According to the one which
has made most headway, it was borrowed by the Babylonians from a
non-Semitic race who inhabited the country before them, and then spread
gradually from the Persian Gulf, where it originated or whither it was
brought from without, towards the north.
It is pure supposition to say that civilisation in Babylonia started
out from the shores of the Persian Gulf and spread from there
towards the north, but it is a supposition which has a high degree
of probability. In this direction points the old legend of the
Babylonians, as Berossus relates it, which describes the origin of
civilisation--the legend of the divine fish-man Oannes, who came up
in the morning from the Erythræan Sea, instructed the inhabitants of
Chaldea, who were still living like animals, in the arts and sciences,
and then in the evening disappeared again under the waves. This
fish-god has long since been recognised as the god who is so frequently
depicted on Babylonian and Assyrian monuments, and it can now hardly be
longer doubted that he, the god of the waters, or rather the source of
light and fire in the waters, is the god Ea. This god with his circle
is without doubt indigenous to southern Chaldea. The oldest and most
important centre of his cult is Eridu, situated close to the sea. His
son Marduk, and the god connected with him whom the Semites call Nabu,
is especially honoured on the islands and coast of the Persian Gulf.
Thus if legend traces the culture of the Chaldeans from the instruction
of this god, this is the origin of the tradition that his worshippers,
who must have been mariners and dwellers on the sea coast, introduced
this civilisation into Chaldea.
In agreement with this is the fact that the decrees of Ea and the magic
formulæ of Eridu, his chief city situated near the sea, are repeatedly
designated as being very holy and powerful, and as very ancient; also
that the oldest sayings and traditions which are known to us in the
Gisdubas (Gilgamesh) epic, are located precisely in places on the
sea coast or not far distant from it. These were also the centres of
powerful states, as also of the kingdom of Ur, and the oldest monuments
of Chaldean civilisation which have yet become known to us were found
in southern Babylonia at Telloh.
However, wherever its origin may have been, the great age of Babylonian
culture, of which the Assyrian is only a later branch, stands beyond
doubt. The cylinders of Sargon I as well as the statues found at Telloh
show a high grade of development and presuppose an art which already
has a long past behind it. That the Egyptian culture is younger and
even derived from the Babylonian, and that the latter is thus the
oldest in the world, and at the same time was the mother of all other
civilisations of antiquity, as has been claimed (Hommel), can naturally
not be proved and is still doubtful; but it is not impossible. And
the most remarkable fact is, that at least the plastic art could
never again reach the heights it had already attained in such a gray
antiquity.
This does not mean to imply that the Babylonians did not further
develop the civilisation, the elements of which they had received from
their predecessors. They assimilated it and developed it independently;
it may even be assumed that they improved on it in more than one
respect, and applied it to higher ends. They also introduced into
it much that was peculiar to them. How far this was the case--what
with them was borrowed and what original, cannot yet be determined
in detail. At any rate we are not justified in attributing to their
non-Semitic teachers, as often happens, everything barbaric, cruel,
and repulsive that still characterises their customs, nor all the
superstitions still connected with their religion.
The original inhabitants excelled the Semites in artistic spirit and
ability, perhaps also as traders and mariners, and the latter probably
imitated the former, but seldom reached them and never surpassed
them. The Semites, on the other hand, put more depth and earnestness
into their religious life; energetically carried out the monarchic
principle in this, as also in the life of the state; simplified
the writing; enriched the literature, which was thus rendered more
practical, by highly remarkable epic narrations, especially with epic
poems, and even made an attempt to write history. Furthermore, by the
organisation of a capable army, by the warlike talents of their kings
and generals, as also by their unbending character and persevering
will, they established states which endured the most violent upheavals
and changes, and ruled all their neighbours for centuries. If they
were behind their predecessors in some points, they far surpassed them
in others. The conception that one people takes on the culture of
another, quite as one puts on a borrowed dress, is just as foolish as
the conception that a nation relinquishes its own individuality and
originality as soon as it learns something from another. The Greeks of
whom it has now been proved that they owed much to oriental peoples,
the Persians of whom everyone knows that they borrowed most of their
civilisation from Babylon, prove the contrary. The people who brought
its culture to the southern coasts of Babylonia and probably also to
the coasts of Elan and communicated it to the still uncultured races
living there, seems to have belonged to that peaceful, commercial
race which the Hebrews designated as the “sons of Kush,” which was
not unlike the Phœnicians and was placed in the same category; a race
which, while jealous of its independence, was not aggressive, although
inclined to colonisation and to making distant journeys. These dwellers
on the coasts, together with the inland tribes, were then conquered
by the Semites, perhaps after long battles. If, however, they became
in this way, as always, the teachers of their conquerors, the culture
which grew under their influence was none the less a creation, and thus
the inalienable property of the Babylonians.
LITERATURE AND SCIENCE