CHAPTER II--THE TEMPLES AND THE GODS OF CHALDAEA

_The construction and revenues of the temples--Popular gods and

theological triads--The dead and Hades_.

The cities of the Euphrates attract no attention, like those of the

Nile, by the magnificence of their ruins, which are witnesses,

even after centuries of neglect, to the activity of a powerful and

industrious people: on the contrary, they are merely heaps of rubbish in

which no architectural outline can be distinguished--mounds of stiff

and greyish clay, cracked by the sun, washed into deep crevasses by the

rain, and bearing no apparent traces of the handiwork of man.

[Illustration: 126.jpg PLAN OF THE RUINS OF WAKKA]

In the estimation of the Chaldaean architects, stone was a material of

secondary consideration: as it was necessary to bring it from a great

distance and at considerable expense, they used it very sparingly, and

then merely for lintels, uprights, thresholds, for hinges on which to

hang their doors, for dressings in some of their state apartments, in

cornices or sculptured friezes on the external walls of their buildings;

and even then its employment suggested rather that of a band of

embroidery carefully disposed on some garment to relieve the plainness

of the material. Crude brick, burnt brick, enamelled brick, but always

and everywhere brick was the principal element in their construction.

The soil of the marshes or of the plains, separated from the pebbles

and foreign substances which it contained, mixed with grass or chopped

straw, moistened with water, and assiduously trodden underfoot,

furnished the ancient builders with materials of incredible tenacity.

This was moulded into thin square bricks, eight inches to a foot across,

and three to four inches thick, but rarely larger: they were stamped on

the flat side, by means of an incised wooden block, with the name of

the reigning sovereign, and were then dried in the sun.* A layer of

fine mortar or of bitumen was sometimes spread between the courses, or

handfuls of reeds would be strewn at intervals between the brickwork to

increase the cohesion: more frequently the crude bricks were piled one

upon another, and their natural softness and moisture brought about

their rapid agglutination.** As the building proceeded, the weight

of the courses served to increase still further the adherence of the

layers: the walls soon became consolidated into a compact mass, in which

the horizontal strata were distinguishable only by the varied tints of

the clay used to make the different relays of bricks.

* The making of bricks for the Assyrian monuments of the

time of the Sargonids has been minutely described by Place,

_Ninive et l’Assyrie_, vol. i. pp. 211-214. The methods of

procedure were exactly the same as those used under the

earliest king known, as has been proved by the examination

of the bricks taken from the monuments of Uru and Lagash.

** This method of building was noticed by classical writers.

The word “Bowarieh,” borne by several ancient mounds in

Chaldoa, signifies, properly speaking, a mat of reeds; it is

applied only to such buildings as are apparently constructed

with alternate layers of brick and dried reeds. The

proportion of these layers differs in certain localities: in

the ruins of the ancient temple of Belos at Babylon, now

called the “Mujelibeh,” the lines of straw and reeds run

uninterruptedly between each course of bricks; in the ruins

of Akkerkuf, they only occur at wider intervals--according

to Niebuhr and Ives, every seventh or eighth course;

according to Raymond, every seventh course, or sometimes

every fifth or sixth course, but in these cases the layer of

reeds becomes 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 inches wide. H. Rawlin-son

thinks, on the other hand, that all the monuments in which

we find layers of straw and reeds between the brick courses

belong to the Parthian period.

[Illustration: 128.jpg A CHALDAEAN STAMPED BRICK.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a brick preserved in the

Louvre. The bricks bearing historical inscriptions, which

are sometimes met with, appear to have been mostly ex-voto

offerings placed somewhere prominently, and not building

materials hidden in the masonry.

Monuments constructed of such a plastic material required constant

attention and frequent repairs, to keep them in good condition: after a

few years of neglect they became quite disfigured, the houses suffered

a partial dissolution in every storm, the streets were covered with

a coating of fine mud, and the general outline of the buildings and

habitations grew blurred and defaced. Whilst in Egypt the main features

of the towns are still traceable above ground, and are so well preserved

in places that, while excavating them, we are carried away from

the present into the world of the past, the Chaldaean cities, on the

contrary, are so overthrown and seem to have returned so thoroughly to

the dust from which their founders raised them, that the most patient

research and the most enlightened imagination can only imperfectly

reconstitute their arrangement.

The towns were not enclosed within those square or rectangular

enclosures with which the engineers of the Pharaohs fortified their

strongholds. The ground-plan of Uru was an oval, that of Larsam formed

almost a circle upon the soil, while Uruk and Eridu resembled in shape

a sort of irregular trapezium. The curtain of the citadel looked down on

the plain from a great height, so that the defenders were almost out

of reach of the arrows or slings of the besiegers: the remains of the

ramparts at Uruk at the present day are still forty to fifty feet

high, and twenty or more feet in thickness at the top. Narrow turrets

projected at intervals of every fifty feet along the face of the wall:

the excavations have not been sufficiently pursued to permit of our

seeing what system of defence was applied to the entrances. The area

described by these cities was often very large, but the population

in them was distributed very unequally; the temples in the different

quarters formed centres around which were clustered the dwellings of the

inhabitants, sometimes densely packed, and elsewhere thinly scattered.

The largest and richest of these temples was usually reserved for the

principal deity, whose edifices were being continually decorated by

the ruling princes, and the extent of whose ruins still attracts the

traveller. The walls, constructed and repaired with bricks stamped

with the names of lords of the locality, contain in themselves alone an

almost complete history. Did Urbau, we may ask, found the ziggurat of

Nannar in Uru? We meet with his bricks at the base of the most ancient

portions of the building, and we moreover learn, from cylinders

unearthed not far from it, that “for Nannar, the powerful bull of Anu,

the son of Bel, his King, Urbau, the brave hero, King of Uru, had built

E-Timila, his favourite temple.” The bricks of his son Dungi are found

mixed with his own, while here and there other bricks belonging to

subsequent kings, with cylinders, cones, and minor objects, strewn

between the courses, mark restorations at various later periods. What

is true of one Chaldaean city is equally true of all of them, and the

dynasties of Uruk and of Lagash, like those of Uru, can be reconstructed

from the revelations of their brickwork. The lords of heaven promised

to the lords of the earth, as a reward of their piety, both glory and

wealth in this life, and an eternal fame after death: they have, indeed,

kept their word. The majority of the earliest Chaldaean heroes would be

unknown to us, were it not for the witness of the ruined sanctuaries

which they built, and that which they did in the service of their

heavenly patrons has alone preserved their names from oblivion. Their

most extravagant devotion, however, cost them less money and effort than

that of the Pharaohs their contemporaries. While the latter had to

bring from a distance, even from the remotest parts of the desert, the

different kinds of stone which they considered worthy to form part of

the decoration of the houses of their gods, the Chaldaean kings gathered

up outside their very doors the principal material for their buildings:

should they require any other accessories, they could obtain, at

the worst, hard stone for their statues and thresholds in Magan and

Milukhkha, and beams of cedar and cypress in the forests of the Amanus

and the Upper Tigris. Under these conditions a temple was soon erected,

and its construction did not demand centuries of continuous labour, like

the great limestone and granite sanctuaries of Egypt: the same ruler who

laid the first brick, almost always placed the final one, and succeeding

generations had only to keep the building in ordinary repair, without

altering its original plan. The work of construction was in almost

every case carried out all at one time, designed and finished from

the drawings of one architect, and bears traces but rarely of those

deviations from the earlier plans which sometimes make the comprehension

of the Theban temples so difficult a matter: if the state of decay of

certain parts, or more often inadequate excavation, frequently prevent

us from appreciating their details, we can at least reinstate their

general outline with tolerable accuracy.

While the Egyptian temple was spread superficially over a large area,

the Chalaean temple strove to attain as high an elevation as possible.

The “ziggurats,” whose angular profile is a special characteristic of

the landscapes of the Euphrates, were composed of several immense cubes,

piled up on one another, and diminishing in size up to the small shrine

by which they were crowned and wherein the god himself was supposed to

dwell. There are two principal types of these ziggurats. In the first,

for which the builders of Lower Chaldaea showed a marked preference,

the vertical axis, common to all the superimposed stories, did not pass

through the centre of the rectangle which served as the base of the

whole building; it was carried back and placed near to one of the narrow

ends of the base, so that the back elevation of the temple rose abruptly

in steep narrow ledges above the plain, while the terraces of the front

broadened out into wide platforms. The stories are composed of solid

blocks of crude brick; up to the present, at least, no traces of

internal chambers have been found.* The chapel on the summit could not

contain more than one apartment: an altar stood before the door, and

access to it was obtained by a straight external staircase, interrupted

at each terrace by a more or less spacious landing.** The second type

of temple frequently found in Northern Chaldaea was represented by a

building on a square base with seven stories, all of equal height,

connected by one or two lateral staircases, having on the summit, the

pavilion of the god; this is the “terraced tower” which excited the

admiration of the Greeks at Babylon, and of which the temple of Bel was

the most remarkable example. The ruins of it still exist, but it has

been so frequently and so completely restored in the course of ages,

that it is impossible to say how much now remains of the original

construction. We know of several examples, however, of the other type

of ziggurat--one at Uru, another at Bridu, a third at Uruk, without

mentioning those which have not as yet been methodically explored. None

of them rises directly from the surface of the ground, but they are all

built on a raised platform, which consequently places the foundations of

the temple nearly on a level with the roofs of the surrounding houses.

The raised platform of the temple of Nannar at Uru still measures 20

feet in height, and its four angles are orientated exactly to the four

cardinal points. Its facade was approached by an inclined plane, or by

a flight of low steps, and the summit, which was surrounded by a low

balustrade, was paved with enormous burnt bricks. On this terrace,

processions at solemn festivals would have ample space to perform their

evolutions. The lower story of the temple occupies a parallelogram of

198 feet in length by 173 feet in width, and rises about 27 feet in

height.

* Perrot-Ohipiez admit that between the first and second

story there was a sort of plinth seven feet in height which

corresponded to the foundation platform below the first

story. It appears to me, as it did to Loftus, that the slope

which now separates the two vertical masses of brickwork “is

accidental, and owes its existence to the destruction of the

upper portion of the second story.” Taylor mentions only two

stories, and evidently considers the slope in question to be

a bank of rubbish.

** Perrot-Chipiez place the staircase leading from the

ground-level to the terrace inside the building--“an

arrangement which would have the advantage of not

interfering with the outline of this immense platform, and

would not detract from the strength and solidity of its

appearance;” Reber proposes a different combination. At Uru,

the whole staircase projects in front of the platform and

“loads up to the edge of the basement of the second story,”

then continues as an inclined plane from the edge of the

first story to the terrace of the second, forming one single

staircase, perhaps of the same width as this second story,

leading from the base to the summit of the building.

[Illustration: 134.jpg THE TEMPLE OF NANNAR AT URU, APPROXIMATELY

RESTORED.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. The restoration differs from that

proposed by Perrot-Chipiez. I have made it by working out

the description taken down on the spot by Taylor.

The central mass of crude brick has preserved its casing of red tiles,

cemented with bitumen, almost intact up to the top; it is

strengthened by buttresses--nine on the longer and six on the shorter

sides--projecting about a foot, which relieve its rather bare surface.

The second story rises to the height of only 20 feet above, the first,

and when intact could not have been more than 26 to 30 feet high.* Many

bricks bearing the stamp of Dungi are found among the materials used in

the latest restoration, which took place about the VIth century before

our era; they have a smooth surface, are broken here and there by

air-holes, and their very simplicity seems to bear witness to the fact

that Nabonidos confined himself to the task of merely restoring things

to the state in which the earlier kings of Uru had left them.**

[Illustration: 135.jpg THE TEMPLE OF URU IN ITS PRESENT STATE, ACCORDING

TO TAYLOR]

Facsimile, by Faucher-Gudin, of the drawing published by

Taylor.

* At the present time 14 feet high, plus 5 feet of rubbish,

119 feet long, 75 feet wide (Loftus, _Travels and Researches

in Olialdsea and Susiana_, p. 129).

** The cylinders of Nabonidos describing the restoration of

the temple were found at the four angles of the second story

by Taylor.

Till within the last century, traces of a third story to this temple

might have been distinguished; unlike the lower ones, it was not of

solid brickwork, but contained at least one chamber: this was the Holy

of Holies, the sanctuary of Nannar. The external walls were covered with

pale blue enamelled tiles, having a polished surface. The interior

was panelled with cedar or cypress--rare woods procured as articles

of commerce from the peoples of the North and West; this woodwork was

inlaid in parts with thin leaves of gold, alternating with panels of

mosaics composed of small pieces of white marble, alabaster, onyx, and

agate, cut and polished.

[Illustration: 136.jpg FURTHER VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF URU]

In Its Present State, According To Loftus. Drawn by

Bouchier, from Loftus.

Here stood the statue of Nannar, one of those stiff and conventionalized

figures in the traditional pose handed down from generation to

generation, and which lingered even in the Chaldaean statues of Greek

times. The spirit of the god dwelt within it in the same way as the

double resided in the Egyptian idols, and from thence he watched over

the restless movements of the people below, the noise of whose turmoil

scarcely reached him at that elevation. The gods of the Euphrates, like

those of the Nile, constituted a countless multitude of visible and

invisible beings, distributed into tribes and empires throughout all the

regions of the universe. A particular function or occupation formed,

so to speak, the principality of each one, in which he worked with an

indefatigable zeal, under the orders of his respective prince or king;

but, whereas in Egypt they were on the whole friendly to man, or at the

best indifferent in regard to him, in Chaldaea they for the most part

pursued him with an implacable hatred, and only seemed to exist in order

to destroy him. These monsters of alarming aspect, armed with knives and

lances, whom the theologians of Heliopolis and Thebes confined within

the caverns of Hades in the depths of eternal darkness, were believed

by the Chaldaeans to be let loose in broad daylight over the earth,--such

were the “gallu” and the “mas-kim,” the “alu” and the “utukku,” besides

a score of other demoniacal tribes bearing curious and mysterious names.

[Illustration: 137.jpg Lion-headed genius.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a small terra-cotta figure of

the Assyrian period, and now in the Louvre. It was one of

the figures buried under the threshold of one of the gates

of the town at Khorsabad, to keep off baleful influences.

Some floated in the air and presided over the unhealthy winds. The

South-West Wind, the most cruel of them all, stalked over the solitudes

of Arabia, whence he suddenly issued during the most oppressive months

of the year: he collected round him as he passed the malarial vapours

given off by the marshes under the heat of the sun, and he spread them

over the country, striking down in his violence not only man and beast,

but destroying harvests, pasturage, and even trees.

[Illustration: 138.jpg THE SOUTH-WEST WIND]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the bronze original now in the

Louvre. The latter museum and the British Museum possess

several other figures of the same demon.

The genii of fevers and madness crept in silently everywhere, insidious

and traitorous as they were. The plague alternately slumbered or made

furious onslaughts among crowded populations. Imps haunted the houses,

goblins wandered about the water’s edge, ghouls lay in wait for

travellers in unfrequented places, and the dead quitting their tombs in

the night stole stealthily among the living to satiate themselves with

their blood. The material shapes attributed to these murderous beings

were supposed to convey to the eye their perverse and ferocious

characters. They were represented as composite creatures in whom the

body of a man would be joined grotesquely to the limbs of animals in the

most unexpected combinations. They worked in as best they could, birds’

claws, fishes’ scales, a bull’s tail, several pairs of wings, the head

of a lion, vulture, hyaena, or wolf; when they left the creature a human

head, they made it as hideous and distorted as possible. The South-West

Wind was distinguished from all the rest by the multiplicity of the

incongruous elements of which his person was composed. His dog-like body

was supported upon two legs terminating in eagle’s claws; in addition to

his arms, which were furnished with sharp talons, he had four outspread

wings, two of which fell behind him, while the other two rose up and

surrounded his head; he had a scorpion’s tail, a human face with large

goggle-eyes, bushy eyebrows, fleshless cheeks, and retreating lips,

showing a formidable row of threatening teeth, while from his flattened

skull protruded the horns of a goat: the entire combination was so

hideous, that it even alarmed the god and put him to flight, when he was

unexpectedly confronted with his own portrait. There was no lack of

good genii to combat this deformed and vicious band. They too

were represented as monsters, but monsters of a fine and noble

bearing,--griffins, winged lions, lion-headed men, and more especially

those splendid human-headed bulls, those “lamassi” crowned with mitres,

whose gigantic statues kept watch before the palace and temple gates.

Between these two races hostility was constantly displayed: restrained

at one point, it broke out afresh at another, and the evil genii,

invariably beaten, as invariably refused to accept their defeat. Man,

less securely armed against them than were the gods, was ever meeting

with them. “Up there, they are howling, here they lie in wait,--they are

great worms let loose by heaven--powerful ones whose clamour rises above

the city--who pour water in torrents from heaven, sons who have come

out of the bosom of the earth.--They twine around the high rafters,

the great rafters, like a crown;--they take their way from house to

house,--for the door cannot stop them, nor bar the way, nor repulse

them,--for they creep like a serpent under the door--they insinuate

themselves like the air between the folding doors,--they separate the

bride from the embraces of the bridegroom,--they snatch the child from

between the knees of the man,--they entice the unwary from out of his

fruitful house,--they are the threatening voice which pursues him from

behind.” Their malice extended even to animals: “They force the raven

to fly away on the wing,--and they make the swallow to escape from its

nest;--they cause the bull to flee, they cause the lamb to flee--they,

the bad demons who lay snares.”

The most audacious among them did not fear at times to attack the gods

of light; on one occasion, in the infancy of the world, they had sought

to dispossess them and reign in their stead. Without any warning they

had climbed the heavens, and fallen upon Sin, the moon-god; they had

repulsed Shamash, the Sun, and Eamman, both of whom had come to the

rescue; they had driven Ishtar and Anu from their thrones: the whole

firmament would have become a prey to them, had not Bel and Nusku, Ea

and Merodach, intervened at the eleventh hour, and succeeded in hurling

them down to the earth, after a terrible battle. They never completely

recovered from this reverse, and the gods raised up as rivals to them a

class of friendly genii--the “Igigi,” who were governed by five heavenly

Anunnas.

[Illustration: 141.jpg SIN DELIVERED BY MERODACH FROM THE ASSAULT OF THE

SEVEN EVIL SPIRITS.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Assyrian intaglio published

by Layard.

The earthly Anunnas, the Anunnaki, had as their chiefs seven sons

of Bel, with bodies of lions, tigers, and serpents: “the sixth was a

tempestuous wind which obeyed neither god nor king,--the seventh, a

whirlwind, a desolating storm which destroys everything,”--“Seven,

seven,--in the depth of the abyss of waters they are seven,--and

destroyers of heaven they are seven.--They have grown up in the depths

of the abyss, in the palace;--males they are not, females they are

not,--they are storms which pass quickly.--They take no wife, they give

birth to no child,--they know neither compassion nor kindness,--they

listen to no prayer nor supplication.--As wild horses they are born in

the mountains,--they are the enemies of Ba,--they are the agents of the

gods;--they are evil, they are evil--and they are seven, they are seven,

they are twice seven.” Man, if reduced to his own resources, could have

no chance of success in struggling against beings who had almost reduced

the gods to submission. He invoked in his defence the help of the whole

universe, the spirits of heaven and earth, the spirit of Bel and of

Belit, that of Ninib and of Nebo, those of Sin, of Ishtar, and of

Bamman; but Gibir or Gibil, the Lord of Fire, was the most powerful

auxiliary in this incessant warfare. The offspring of night and of dark

waters, the Anunnaki had no greater enemy than fire; whether kindled

on the household hearth or upon the altars, its appearance put them to

flight and dispelled their power.

[Illustration: 142.jpg STRUGGLE BETWEEN A GOOD AND AN EVIL GENIUS.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.

“Gibil, renowned hero in the land,--valiant, son of the Abyss, exalted

in the land,--Gibil, thy clear flame, breaking forth,--when it lightens

up the darkness,--assigns to all that bears a name its own destiny.

--The copper and tin, it is thou who dost mix them,--gold and silver,

it is thou who meltest them,--thou art the companion of the goddess

Ninkasi--thou art he who exposes his breast to the nightly enemy!--Cause

then the limbs of man, son of his god, to shine,--make him to be bright

like the sky,--may he shine like the earth,--may he be bright like the

interior of the heavens,--may the evil word be kept far from him,” and

with it the malignant spirits. The very insistence with which help is

claimed against the Anunnaki shows how much their power was dreaded.

The Chaldean felt them everywhere about him, and could not move without

incurring the danger of coming into contact with them. He did not fear

them so much during the day, as the presence of the luminary deities in

the heavens reassured him; but the night belonged to them, and he was

open to their attacks. If he lingered in the country at dusk, they were

there, under the hedges, behind walls and trunks of trees, ready to

rush out upon him at every turn. If he ventured after sundown into the

streets of his village or town, he again met with them quarrelling with

dogs over the offal on a rubbish heap, crouched in the shelter of a

doorway, lying hidden in corners where the shadows were darkest. Even

when barricaded within his house, under the immediate protection of

his domestic idols, these genii still threatened him and left him not a

moment’s repose.* The number of them was so great that he was unable to

protect himself adequately from all of them: when he had disarmed the

greater portion of them, there were always several remaining against

whom he had forgotten to take necessary precautions. What must have

been the total of the subordinate genii, when, towards the IXth century

before our era, the official census of the invisible beings stated

the number of the great gods in heaven and earth to be sixty-five

thousand!**

* The presence of the evil spirits everywhere is shown,

among other magical formulas, by the incantation in

Rawlinson, _Cun, Ins. W. As._, vol. ii. pi. 18, where we

find enumerated at length the places from which they are to

be kept out. The magician closes the house to them, the

hedge which surrounds the house, the yoke laid upon the

oxen, the tomb, the prison, the well, the furnace, the

shade, the vase for libation, the ravines, the valleys, the

mountains, the door.

** Assurnazirpal, King of Assyria, speaks in one of his

inscriptions of these sixty-five thousand great gods of

heaven and earth.

We are often much puzzled to say what these various divinities, whose

names we decipher on the monuments, could possibly have represented. The

sovereigns of Lagash addressed their prayers to Ningirsu, the valiant

champion of Inlil; to Ninursag, the lady of the terrestrial mountain:

to Ninsia, the lord of fate; to the King Ninagal; to Inzu, of whose real

name no one has an idea; to Inanna, the queen of battles; to Pasag, to

Galalim, to Dunshagana, to Ninmar, to Ningishzida. Gudea raised temples

to them in all the cities over which his authority extended, and he

devoted to these pious foundations a yearly income out of his domain

land or from the spoils of his wars. “Gudea, the ‘vicegerent’ of

Lagash, after having built the temple Ininnu for Ningirsu, constructed a

treasury; a house decorated with sculptures, such as no ‘vicegerent’

had ever before constructed for Ningirsu; he constructed it for him,

he wrote his name in it, he made in it all that was needful, and he

executed faithfully all the words from the mouth of Ningirsu.” The

dedication of these edifices was accompanied with solemn festivals, in

which the whole population took an active part. “During seven years no

grain was ground, and the maidservant was the equal of her mistress, the

slave walked beside his master, and in my town the weak rested by

the side of the strong.” Henceforward Gudea watched scrupulously lest

anything impure should enter and mar the sanctity of the place.

[Illustration: 145.jpg THE GOD NINGIBSU, PATRON OF LAGASH.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec. The attribution

of this figure to Ningirsu is very probable, but not wholly

certain.

Those we have enumerated were the ancient Sumerian divinities, but the

characteristics of most of them would have been lost to us, had we

not learned, by means of other documents, to what gods the Semites

assimilated them, gods who are better known and who are represented

under a less barbarous aspect. Ningirsu, the lord of the division of

Lagash which was called Girsu, was identified with Ninib; Inlil is Bel,

Ninursag is Beltis, Inzu is Sin, Inanna is Ishtar, and so on with the

rest. The cultus of each, too, was not a local cultus, confined to some

obscure corner of the country; they all were rulers over the whole of

Chaldaea, in the north as in the south, at Uruk, at Urn, at Larsam, at

Nipur, even in Babylon itself. Inlil was the ruler of the earth and of

Hades, Babbar was the sun, Inzu the moon, Inanna-Antmit the morning and

evening star and the goddess or love, at a time when two distinct

religious and two rival groups of gods existed side by side on the banks

of the Euphrates. The Sumerian language is for us, at the present day,

but a collection of strange names, of whose meaning and pronunciation we

are often ignorant. We may well ask what beings and beliefs were

originally hidden under these barbaric combinations of syllables which

are constantly recurring in the inscriptions of the oldest dynasties,

such as Pasag, Dunshagana, Dumuzi-. Zuaba, and a score of others. The

priests of subsequent times claimed to define exactly the attributes of

each of them, and probably their statements are, in the main, correct.

But it is impossible for us to gauge the motives which determined the

assimilation of some of these divinities, the fashion in which it was

carried out, the mutual concessions which Semite and Sumerian must have

made before they could arrive at an understanding, and before the

primitive characteristics of each deity were softened down or entirely

effaced in the process. Many of these divine personages, such as Ea,

Merodach, Ishtar, are so completely transformed, that we may well ask to

which of the two peoples they owed their origin. The Semites finally

gained the ascendency over their rivals, and the Sumerian gods from

thenceforward preserved an independent existence only in connection with

magic, divination, and the science of foretelling events, and also in

the formulas of exorcists and physicians, to which the harshness of

their names lent a greater weight. Elsewhere it was Bel and Sin, Shamash

and Eamman, who were universally worshipped, but a Bel, a Sin, a

Shamash, who still betrayed traces of their former connection with the

Sumerian Inlil and Inzu, with Babbar and Mermer. In whatever language,

however, they were addressed, by whatever name they were called upon,

they did not fail to hear and grant a favourable reply to the appeals of

the faithful.

Whether Sumerian or Semitic, the gods, like those of Egypt, were not

abstract personages, guiding in a metaphysical fashion the forces of

nature. Each of them contained in himself one of the principal elements

of which our universe is composed,--earth, water, sky, sun, moon, and

the stars which moved around the terrestrial mountain. The succession of

natural phenomena with them was not the result of unalterable laws; it

was due entirely to a series of voluntary acts, accomplished by beings

of different grades of intelligence and power. Every part of the great

whole is represented by a god, a god who is a man, a Chaldaean, who,

although of a finer and more lasting nature than other Chaldaeans,

possesses nevertheless the same instincts and is swayed by the same

passions. He is, as a rule, wanting in that somewhat lithe grace of

form, and in that rather easy-going good-nature, which were the primary

characteristics of the Egyptian gods: the Chaldaean divinity has the

broad shoulders, the thick-set figure and projecting muscles of the

people over whom he rules; he has their hasty and violent temperament,

their coarse sensuality, their cruel and warlike propensities, their

boldness in conceiving undertakings, and their obstinate tenacity in

carrying them out. Their goddesses are modelled on the tyra of the

Chaldaen women, or, more properly speaking, on that of their queens. The

majority of them do not quit the harem, and have no other ambition than

to become speedily the mother of a numerous offspring. Those who openly

reject the rigid constraints of such a life, and who seek to share the

rank of the gods, seem to lose all self-restraint when they put off

the veil: like Ishtar, they exchange a life of severe chastity for

the lowest debauchery, and they subject their followers to the same

irregular life which they themselves have led. “Every woman born in the

country must enter once during her lifetime the enclosure of the temple

of Aphrodite, must there sit down and unite herself to a stranger. Many

who are wealthy are too proud to mix with the rest, and repair thither

in closed chariots, followed by a considerable train of slaves. The

greater number seat themselves on the sacred pavement, with a cord

twisted about their heads,--and there is always a great crowd there,

coming and going; the women being divided by ropes into long lanes, down

which strangers pass to make their choice. A woman who has once taken

her place here cannot return home until a stranger has thrown into her

lap a silver coin, and has led her away with him beyond the limits of

the sacred enclosure. As he throws the money he pronounces these words:

‘May the goddess Mylitta make thee happy! ‘--Now, among the Assyrians,

Aphrodite is called Mylitta. The silver coin may be of any value, but

none may refuse it, that is forbidden by the law, for, once thrown, it

is sacred. The woman follows the first man who throws her the money, and

repels no one. When once she has accompanied him, and has thus satisfied

the goddess, she returns to her home, and from thenceforth, however

large the sum offered to her, she will yield to no one. The women who

are tall or beautiful soon return to their homes, but those who are ugly

remain a long time before they are able to comply with the law; some

of them are obliged to wait three or four years within the enclosure.” *

This custom still existed in the Vth century before our era, and the

Greeks who visited Babylon about that time found it still in full force.

* Herodotus, i. 199: of. Stabo, xvi. p. 1058, who probably

has merely quoted this passage from Herodotus, or some

writer who copied from Herodotus. We meet with a direct

allusion to this same custom in the Bible, in the _Book of

Barueh_; “The women also, with cords about them, sitting in

the ways, burn bran for perfume; but if any of them, drawn

by some that passeth by, lie with him, she reproacheth her

fellow, that she was not thought as worthy as herself, nor

her cord broken.”

The gods, who had begun by being the actual material of the element

which was their attribute, became successively the spirit of it, then

its ruler.* They continued at first to reside in it, but in the course

of time they were separated from it, and each was allowed to enter the

domain of another, dwell in it, and even command it, as they could

have done in their own, till finally the greater number of them were

identified with the firmament.

* Pk. Lbnoemant, _La Magie chez les Chaldeens_, p. 144, et

seq., where the author shows how Anu, after having at

first been the Heaven itself, the starry vault stretched

above the earth, became successively the Spirit of Heaven

(_Zi-ana_), and finally the supreme ruler of the world:

according to Lenormant, it was the Semites in particular who

transformed the primitive spirit into an actual god-king.

Bel, the lord of the earth, and Ea, the ruler of the waters, passed info

the heavens, which did not belong to them, and took their places beside

Ami: the pathways were pointed out which they had made for themselves

across the celestial vault, in order to inspect their kingdoms from the

exalted heights to which they had been raised; that of Bel was in the

Tropic of Cancer, that of Ea in the Tropic of Capricorn. They gathered

around them all the divinities who could easily be abstracted from the

function or object to which they were united, and they thus constituted

a kind of divine aristocracy, comprising all the most powerful

beings who guided the fortunes of the world. The number of them was

considerable, for they reckoned seven supreme and magnificent gods,

fifty great gods of heaven and earth, three hundred celestial

spirits, and six hundred terrestrial spirits. Each of them deputed

representatives here below, who received the homage of mankind for him,

and signified to them his will. The god revealed himself in dreams to

his seers and imparted to them the course of coming events,* or, in

some cases, inspired them suddenly and spoke by their mouth: their

utterances, taken down and commented on by their assistants, were

regarded as infallible oracles. But the number of mortal men possessing

adequate powers, and gifted with sufficiently acute senses to bear

without danger the near presence of a god, was necessarily limited;

communications were, therefore, more often established by means of

various objects, whose grosser substance lessened for human intelligence

and flesh and blood the dangers of direct contact with an immortal. The

statues hidden in the recesses of the temples or erected on the summits

of the “ziggurats” became imbued, by virtue of their consecration, with

the actual body of the god whom they represented, and whose name was

written either on the base or garment of the statue.** The sovereign

who dedicated them, summoned them to speak in the days to come, and from

thenceforth they spoke: when they were interrogated according to the

rite instituted specially for each one, that part of the celestial soul,

which by means of the prayers had been attracted to and held captive

by the statue, could not refuse to reply.** Were there for this purpose

special images, as in Egypt, which were cleverly contrived so as to

emit sounds by the pulling of a string by the hidden prophet? Voices

resounded at night in the darkness of the sanctuaries, and particularly

when a king came there to prostrate himself for the purpose of learning

the future: his rank alone, which raised him halfway to heaven, prepared

him to receive the word from on high by the mouth of the image.

* A prophetic dream is mentioned upon, one of the statues of

Telloh. In the records of Assurbanipal we find mention of

several “seers”--_shabru_--one of whom predicts the

general triumph of the king over his enemies, and of whom

another announces in the name of Ishtar the victory over the

Elamites and encourages the Assyrian army to cross a torrent

swollen by rains, while a third sees in a dream the defeat

and death of the King of Elam. These “seers” are mentioned in

the texts of Gudea with the prophetesses “who tell the

message” of the gods.

** In a formula drawn up against evil spirits, for the

purpose of making talismanic figures for the protection of

houses, it is said of Merodach that he “inhabits the image”

--_ashibu salam_--which has been made of him by the magician.

** This is what Gudea says, when, describing his own statue

which he had placed in the temple of Telloh, he adds that

“he gave the order to the statue: ‘To the statue of my king,

speak!’” The statue of the king, inspired by that of the

god, would thenceforth speak when interrogated according to

the formularies. Cf. what is said of the divine or royal

statues dedicated in the temples of Egypt, vol. i. pp. 169,

170. A number of oracles regularly obtained in the time of

Asarhaddon and Assurbanabal have been published by Knudtzon.

[Illustration: 152.jpg THE ADORATION OF THE MACE AND THE WHIP.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the Chaldaean intaglio

reproduced in Heuzey-Sarzec, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_, pl.

30bis, No. 13b.

More frequently a priest, accustomed from childhood to the office,

possessed the privilege of asking the desired questions and of

interpreting to the faithful the various signs by means of which the

divine will was made known. The spirit of the god inspired, moreover,

whatever seemed good to him, and frequently entered into objects

where we should least have expected to find it. It animated stones,

particularly such as fell from heaven; also trees, as, for example, the

tree of Eridu which pronounced oracles; and, besides the battle-mace,

with a granite head fixed on a wooden handle, the axe of Ramman, lances

made on the model of Gilgames’ fairy javelin, which came and went at its

master’s orders, without needing to be touched. Such objects, when it

was once ascertained that they were imbued with the divine spirit, were

placed upon the altar and worshipped with as much veneration as were the

statues themselves.

[Illustration: 153.jpg A protecting amulet.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the terra-cotta figurine of

Assyrian date now in the Louvre.

Animals never became objects of habitual worship as in Egypt: some of

them, however, such as the bull and lion, were closely allied to the

gods, and birds unconsciously betrayed by their flight or cries the

secrets of futurity.* In addition to all these, each family possessed

its household gods, to whom its members recited prayers and poured

libations night and morning, and whose statues set up over the domestic

hearth defended it from the snares of the evil ones.** The State

religion, which all the inhabitants of the same city, from the king down

to the lowest slave, were solemnly bound to observe, really represented

to the Chaldaeans but a tithe of their religious life: it included some

dozen gods, no doubt the most important, but it more or less left out of

account all the others, whose anger, if aroused by neglect, might become

dangerous. The private devotion of individuals supplemented the State

religion by furnishing worshippers for most of the neglected divinities,

and thus compensated for what was lacking in the official public worship

of the community.

* Animal forms are almost always restricted either to the

genii, the constellations, or the secondary forms of the

greater divinities: Ea, however, is represented by a man

with a fish’s tail, or as a man clothed with a fish-skin,

which would appear to indicate that at the outset he was

considered to be an actual fish.

** The images of these gods acted as amulets, and the fact

of their presence alone repelled the evil spirits. At

Khorsabad they were found buried under the threshold of the

city gates. A bilingual tablet in the British Museum has

preserved for us the formula of consecration which was

supposed to invest these protecting statuettes with divine

powers.

If the idea of uniting all these divine beings into a single supreme

one, who would combine within himself all their elements and the whole

of their powers, ever for a moment crossed the mind of some Chaldaean

theologian, it never spread to the people as a whole. Among all the

thousands of tablets or inscribed stones on which we find recorded

prayers and magical formulas, we have as yet discovered no document

treating of the existence of a supreme god, or even containing the

faintest allusion to a divine unity. We meet indeed with many passages

in which this or that divinity boasts of his power, eloquently

depreciating that of his rivals, and ending his discourse with the

injunction to worship him alone: “Man who shall come after, trust

in Nebo, trust in no other god!” The very expressions which are used,

commanding future races to abandon the rest of the immortals in

favour of Nebo, prove that even those who prided themselves on being

worshippers of one god realized how far they were from believing in the

unity of God. They strenuously asserted that the idol of their choice

was far superior to many others, but it never occurred to them to

proclaim that he had absorbed them all into himself, and that he

remained alone in his glory, contemplating the world, his creature. Side

by side with those who expressed this belief in Nebo, an inhabitant

of Babylon would say as much and more of Merodach, the patron of

his birthplace, without, however, ceasing to believe in the actual

independence and royalty of Nebo. “When thy power manifests itself, who

can withdraw himself from it?--Thy word is a powerful net which thou

spreadest in heaven and over the earth:--it falls upon the sea, and

the sea retires,--it falls upon the plain, and the fields make great

mourning,--it falls upon the upper waters of the Euphrates, and the word

of Merodach stirs up the flood in them.--O Lord, thou art sovereign,

who can resist thee?--Merodach, among the gods who bear a name, thou art

sovereign.” Merodach is for his worshippers the king of the gods, he is

not the sole god. Each of the chief divinities received in a similar

manner the assurance of his omnipotence, but, for all that, his most

zealous followers never regarded them as the only God, beside whom there

was none other, and whose existence and rule precluded those of any

other. The simultaneous elevation of certain divinities to the supreme

rank had a reactionary influence on the ideas held with regard to the

nature of each. Anu, Bel, and Ea, not to mention others, had enjoyed

at the outset but a limited and incomplete personality, confined to a

single concept, and were regarded as possessing only such attributes as

were indispensable to the exercise of their power within a prescribed

sphere, whether in heaven, or on the earth, or in the waters; as each in

his turn gained the ascendency over his rivals, he became invested with

the qualities which were exercised by the others in their own domain.

His personality became enlarged, and instead of remaining merely a

god of heaven or earth or of the waters, he became god of all three

simultaneously. Anu reigned in the province of Bel or of Ea as he ruled

in his own; Bel joined to his own authority that of Anu and Ea; Ea

treated Anu and Bel with the same absence of ceremony which they had

shown to him, and added their supremacy to his own. The personality

of each god was thenceforward composed of many divers elements: each

preserved a nucleus of his original being, but superadded to this were

the peculiar characteristics of all the gods above whom he had been

successively raised. Anu took to himself somewhat of the temperaments

of Bel and of Ea, and the latter in exchange borrowed from him

many personal traits. The same work of levelling which altered the

characteristics of the Egyptian divinities, and transformed them

little by little into local variants of Osiris and the Sun, went on as

vigorously among the Chaldaean gods: those who were incarnations of

the earth, the waters, the stars, or the heavens, became thenceforth

so nearly allied to each other that we are tempted to consider them

as being doubles of a single god, worshipped under different names

in different localities. Their primitive forms can only be clearly

distinguished when they are stripped of the uniform in which they are

all clothed.

The sky-gods and the earth-gods had been more numerous at the outset

than they were subsequently. We recognize as such Anu, the immovable

firmament, and the ancient Bel, the lord of men and of the soil on which

they live, and into whose bosom they return after, death; but there

were others, who in historic times had partially or entirely lost their

primitive character,--such as Nergal, Ninib, Dumuzi; or, among the

goddesses, Damkina, Esharra, and even Ishtar herself, who, at the

beginning of their existence, had represented only the earth, or one

of its most striking aspects. For instance, Nergal and Ninib were the

patrons of agriculture and protectors of the soil, Dumuzi was the

ground in spring whose garment withered at the first approach of summer,

Damkina was the leafy mould in union with fertilizing moisture, Esharra

was the field whence sprang the crops, Ishtar was the clod which again

grew green after the heat of the dog days and the winter frosts. All

these beings had been forced to submit in a greater or less degree to

the fate which among most primitive races awaits those older earth-gods,

whose manifestations are usually too vague and shadowy to admit of their

being grasped or represented by any precise imagery without limiting and

curtailing their spheres. New deities had arisen of a more definite and

tangible kind, and hence more easily understood, and having a real or

supposed province which could be more easily realized, such as the sun,

the moon, and the fixed or wandering stars. The moon is the measure of

time; it determines the months, leads the course of the years, and the

entire life of mankind and of great cities depends upon the regularity

of its movements: the Chaldaeans, therefore, made it, or rather the

spirit which animated it, the father and king of the gods; but

its suzerainty was everywhere a conventional rather than an actual

superiority, and the sun, which in theory was its vassal, attracted more

worshippers than the pale and frigid luminary. Some adored the sun under

its ordinary title of Shamash, corresponding to the Egyptian Ra; others

designated it as Merodach, Ninib, Nergal, Dumuzi, not to mention other

less usual appellations. Nergal in the beginning had nothing in common

with Ninib, and Merodach differed alike from Shamash, Ninib, Nergal,

and Dumuzi; but the same movement which instigated the fusion of so many

Egyptian divinities of diverse nature, led the gods of the Chaldaeans to

divest themselves little by little of their individuality and to lose

themselves in the sun. Each one at first became a complete sun, and

united in himself all the innate virtues of the sun--its brilliancy

and its dominion over the world, its gentle and beneficent heat, its

fertilizing warmth, its goodness and justice, its emblematic character

of truth and peace; besides the incontestable vices which darken certain

phases of its being--the fierceness of its rays at midday and in summer,

the inexorable strength of its will, its combative temperament, its

irresistible harshness and cruelty. By degrees they lost this uniform

character, and distributed the various attributes among themselves. If

Shamash continued to be the sun in general, Ninib restricted himself,

after the example of the Egyptian Harmakhis, to being merely the rising

and setting sun, the sun on the two horizons. Nergal became the feverish

and destructive summer sun.* Merodach was transformed into the youthful

sun of spring and early morning;** Dumuzi, like Merodach, became the sun

before the summer. Their moral qualities naturally were affected by the

process of restriction which had been applied to their physical being,

and the external aspect now assigned to each in accordance with their

several functions differed considerably from that formerly attributed

to the unique type from which they had sprung. Ninib was represented as

valiant, bold, and combative; he was a soldier who dreamed but of

battle and great feats of arms. Nergal united a crafty fierceness to

his bravery: not content with being lord of battles, he became the

pestilence which breaks out unexpectedly in a country, the death which

comes like a thief, and carries off his prey before there is time

to take up arms against him. Merodach united wisdom with courage and

strength: he attacked the wicked, protected the good, and used his power

in the cause of order and justice. A very ancient legend, which was

subsequently fully developed among the Canaanites, related the story of

the unhappy passion of Ishtar for Dumuzi. The goddess broke out yearly

into a fresh frenzy, but the tragic death of the hero finally moderated

the ardour of her devotion. She wept distractedly for him, went to beg

the lords of the infernal regions for his return, and brought him back

triumphantly to the earth: every year there was a repetition of the same

passionate infatuation, suddenly interrupted by the same mourning. The

earth was united to the young sun with every recurring spring, and under

the influence of his caresses became covered with verdure; then followed

autumn and winter, and the sun, grown old, sank into the tomb, from

whence his mistress had to call him up, in order to plunge afresh with

him by a common impulse into the joys and sorrows of another year.

* The solar character of Nergal, at least in later times, is

admitted, but with restrictions, by all Assyriologists. The

evident connection between him and Ninib, of which we have

proofs, was the ground of Delitzsch’s theory that he was

likewise the burning and destructive sun, and also of

Jensen’s analogous concept of a midday and summer sun.

** Pr. Lenormant seems to have been the first to distinguish

in Merodach, besides the god of the planet Jupiter, a solar

personage. This notion, which has been generally admitted by

most Assyriologists, has been defined with greater

exactitude by Jensen, who is inclined to see in Merodach

both the morning sun and the spring sun; and this is the

opinion held at present.

The differences between the gods were all the more accentuated, for the

reason that many who had a common origin were often separated from one

another by, relatively speaking, considerable distances. Having divided

the earth’s surface between them, they formed, as in Egypt, a complete

feudal system, whose chiefs severally took up their residence in a

particular city. Anu was worshipped in Uruk, Enlil-Bel reigned in Nipur,

Eridu belonged to Ea, the lord of the waters. The moon-god, Sin, alone

governed two large fiefs, Uru in the extreme south, and Harran towards

the extreme north-west; Shamash had Larsam and one of the Sipparas for

his dominion, and the other sun-gods were not less well provided for,

Nergal possessing Kutha, Zamama having Kish, Ninib side by side with Bel

reigning in Nipur, while Merodach ruled at Babylon. Each was absolute

master in his own territory, and it is quite exceptional to find two of

them co-regnant in one locality, as were Ninib and Bel at Nipur, or Ea

and Ishtar in Uruk; not that they raised any opposition on principle

to the presence of a stranger divinity in their dominions, but they

welcomed them only under the titles of allies or subjects. Each,

moreover, had fair play, and Nebo or Shamash, after having filled

the _role_ of sovereign at Borsippa or at Larsam, did not consider it

derogatory to his dignity to accept a lower rank in Babylon or at Uru.

Hence all the feudal gods played a double part, and had, as it were,

a double civil portion--that of suzerain in one or two localities, and

that of vassals everywhere else--and this dual condition was the surest

guarantee not only of their prosperity, but of their existence. Sin

would have run great risk of sinking into oblivion if his resources had

been confined to the subventions from his domain temples of Harran and

Uru. Their impoverishment would in such case have brought about his

complete failure: after having enjoyed an existence amid riches and

splendour in the beginning of history, he would have ended his life in a

condition of misery and obscurity. But the sanctuaries erected to him in

the majority of the other cities, the honours which these bestowed upon

him, and the offerings which they made to him, compensated him for the

poverty and neglect which he experienced in his own domains; and he was

thus able to maintain his divine dignity on a suitable footing. All

the gods were, therefore, worshipped by the Chaldeans, and the only

difference among them in this respect arose from the fact that some

exalted one special deity above the others. The gods of the richest and

most ancient principalities naturally enjoyed the greatest popularity.

The greatness of Uru had been the source of Sin’s prestige, and Merodach

owed his prosperity to the supremacy which Babylon had acquired over the

districts of the north. Merodach was regarded as the son of Ba, as the

star which had risen from the abyss to illuminate the world, and to

confer upon mankind the decrees of eternal wisdom. He was proclaimed as

lord--“bilu”--_par excellence_, in comparison with whom all other lords

sank into insignificance, and this title soon procured for him a second,

which was no less widely recognized than the first: he was spoken of

everywhere as the Bel of Babylon, Bel-Merodach--before whom Bel of Nipur

was gradually thrown into the shade. The relations between these feudal

deities were not always pacific: jealousies arose among them like those

which disturbed the cities over which they ruled; they conspired against

each other, and on occasions broke out into open warfare. Instead of

forming a coalition against the evil genii who threatened their rule,

and as a consequence tended to bring everything into jeopardy, they

sometimes made alliances with these malign powers and mutually betrayed

each other. Their history, if we could recover it in its entirety, would

be marked by as violent deeds as those which distinguished the princes

and kings who worshipped them. Attempts were made, however, and that too

from an early date, to establish among them a hierarchy like that which

existed among the great ones of the earth. The faithful, who, instead of

praying to each one separately, preferred to address them all, invoked

them always in the same order: they began with Anu, the heaven, and

followed with Bel, Ea, Sin, Shamash, and Bamman. They divided these six

into two groups of three, one trio consisting of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the

other of Sin, Shamash, and Bamman. All these deities were associated

with Southern Chaldoa, and the system which grouped them must have taken

its rise in this region, probably at Uruk, whose patron Anu V occupied

the first rank among them. The theologians who classified them in this

manner seem never to have dreamt of explaining, like the authors of

the Heliopolitan Ennead, the successive steps in their creation: these

triads were not, moreover, copies of the human family, consisting of

a father and mother whose marriage brings into the world a new being.

Others had already given an account of the origin of things, and of

Merodach’s struggles with chaos; these theologians accepted the universe

as it was, already made, and contented themselves with summing up its

elements by enumerating the gods which actuated them.* They assigned the

first place to those elements which make the most forcible impression

upon man--beginning with Anu, for the heaven was the god of their city;

following with Bel of Nipur, the earth which from all antiquity has

been associated with the heaven; and concluding with Ea of Eridu, the

terrestrial waters and primordial Ocean whence Anu and Bel, together

with all living creatures, had sprung--Ea being a god whom, had they

not been guided by local vanity, they would have made sovereign lord

of all. Anu owed his supremacy to an historical accident rather than a

religious conception: he held his high position, not by his own merits,

but because the prevailing theology of an early period had been the work

of his priesthood.

* I know of Sayce only who has endeavoured to explain the

historical formation of the triads. They are considered by

him as of Accadian origin, and probably began in an

astronomical triad, composed of the moon-god, the sun-god,

and the evening star, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar; alongside

this elementary trinity, “the only authentic one to be found

in the religious faith of primitive Chaldaea,” the Semites

may have placed the cosmogonical trinity of Anu, Bel, and

Ea, formed by the reunion of the gods of Uruk, Nipur, and

Eridu.

The characters of the three personages who formed the supreme triad can

be readily deduced from the nature of the elements which they represent.

Anu is the heaven itself--“ana”--the immense vault which spreads itself

above our heads, clear during the day when glorified by the sun, obscure

and strewn with innumerable star clusters during the night. Afterwards

it becomes the spirit which animates the firmament, or the god which

rules it: he resides in the north towards the pole, and the ordinary

route chosen by him when inspecting his domain is that marked out by our

ecliptic. He occupies the high regions of the universe, sheltered from

winds and tempests, in an atmosphere always serene, and a light always

brilliant. The terrestrial gods and those of middle-space take refuge in

this “heaven of Anu,” when they are threatened by any great danger, but

they dare not penetrate its depths, and stop, shortly after passing its

boundary, on the ledge which supports the vault, where they loll and

howl like dogs. It is but rarely that it may be entered, and then

only by the highly privileged--kings whose destiny marked them out for

admittance, and heroes who have fallen valiantly on the field of

battle. In his remote position on unapproachable summits Anu seems to

participate in the calm and immobility of his dwelling. If he is quick

in forming an opinion and coming to a conclusion, he himself never puts

into execution the plans which he has matured or the judgments which

he has pronounced: he relieves himself of the trouble of acting, by

assigning the duty to Bel-Merodach, Ea, or Eamman, and he often employs

inferior genii to execute his will. “They are seven, the messengers of

Anu their king; it is they who from town to town raise the stormy wind;

they are the south wind which drives mightily in the heavens; they are

the destroying clouds which overturn the heavens; they are the rapid

tempests which bring darkness in the midst of clear day, they roam here

and there with the wicked wind and the ill-omened hurricane.” Anu sends

forth all the gods as he pleases, recalls them again, and then, to make

them his pliant instruments, enfeebles their personality, reducing it to

nothing by absorbing it into his own. He blends himself with them, and

their designations seem to be nothing more than doublets of his own: he

is Anu the Lakhmu who appeared on the first days of creation; Ahu Urash

or Ninib is the sun-warrior of Nipur; and Anu is also the eagle Alala

whom Ishtar enfeebled by her caresses. Anu regarded in this light ceases

to be the god _par excellence_: he becomes the only chief god, and the

idea of authority is so closely attached to his name that the latter

alone is sufficient in common speech to render the idea of God. Bel

would have been entirely thrown into the shade by him, as the earth-gods

generally are by the sky-gods, if it had not been that he was confounded

with his namesake Bel-Merodach of Babylon: to this alliance he owed

to the end the safety of his life, in presence of Anu. Ea was the

most active and energetic member of the triad.* As he represented the

bottomless abyss, the dark waters which had filled the universe until

the day of the creation, there had been attributed to him a complete

knowledge of the past, present, and future, whose germs had lain within

him, as in a womb. The attribute of supreme wisdom was revered in Ea,

the lord of spells and charms, to which gods and men were alike subject:

no strength could prevail against his strength, no voice against his

voice: when once he opened his mouth to give a decision, his will became

law, and no one might gainsay it. If a peril should arise against

which the other gods found themselves impotent, they resorted to

him immediately for help, which was never refused. He had saved

Shamashnapishtirn from the Deluge; every day he freed his votaries from

sickness and the thousand demons which were the causes of it. He was

a potter, and had modelled men out of the clay of the plains. From him

smiths and workers in gold obtained the art of rendering malleable

and of fashioning the metals. Weavers and stone-cutters, gardeners,

husbandmen, and sailors hailed him as their teacher and patron. From his

incomparable knowledge the scribes derived theirs, and physicians and

wizards invoked spirits in his name alone by the virtue of prayers which

he had condescended to teach them.

* The name of this god was read “Nisrok” by Oppert,

“Nouah” by Hincks and Lenormant. The true reading is Ia, Ea,

usually translated “house,” “water-house”; this is a popular

interpretation which appears to have occurred to the

Chaldaeans from the values of the signs entering into the

name of the god. From the outset H. Rawlinson recognized in

Ea, which he read Hea, Hoa, the divinity presiding over the

abyss of waters; he compared him with the serpent of Holy

Scripture, in its relation to the Tree of Knowledge and the

Tree of Life, and deduced therefrom his character of lord of

wisdom. His position as lord of the primordial waters, from

which all things proceeded, clearly denned by Lenormant, is

now fully recognized. His name was transcribed Aos by

Damascius, a form which is not easily explained; the most

probable hypothesis is that of Hommel who considers Aos as a

shortened form of Iaos = Ia, Ea.

Subordinate to these limitless and vague beings, the theologians placed

their second triad, made up of gods of restricted power and invariable

form. They recognized in the unswerving regularity with which the moon

waxed and waned, or with which the sun rose and set every day, a

proof of their subjection to the control of a superior will, and they

signalized this dependence by making them sons of one or other of the

three great gods. Sin was the offspring of Bel, Shamash of Sin,

Kamman of Anu. Sin was indebted for this primacy among the subordinate

divinities to the preponderating influence which Uru exercised over

Southern Chaldaea. Mar, where Ramman was the chief deity, never emerged

from its obscurity, and Larsam acquired supremacy only many centuries

after its neighbour, and did not succeed in maintaining it for any

length of time. The god of the suzerain city necessarily took precedence

of those of the vassal towns, and when once his superiority was admitted

by the people, he was able to maintain his place in spite of all

political revolutions. Sin was called in Uru, “Uruki,” or “Nannar the

glorious,” and his priests sometimes succeeded in identifying him

with Anu. “Lord, prince of the gods, who alone in heaven and earth is

exalted,--father Nannar, lord of the hosts of heaven, prince of the

gods,--father Nannar, lord, great Anu, prince of the gods,--father

Nannar, lord, moon-god, prince of the gods,--father Nannar, lord of Uni,

prince of the gods....--Lord, thy deity fills the far-off heavens,

like the vast sea, with reverential fear! Master of the earth, thou who

fixest there the boundaries [of the towns] and assignest to them their

names,--father, begetter of gods and men, who establishest for them

dwellings and institutest for them that which is good, who proclaimest

royalty and bestowest the exalted sceptre on those whose destiny was

determined from distant times,--chief, mighty, whose heart is great, god

whom no one can name, whose limbs are steadfast, whose knees never bend,

who preparest the paths of thy brothers the gods....--In heaven, who is

supreme? As for thee, it is thou alone who art supreme! As for thee, thy

decree is made known in heaven, and the Igigi bow their faces!--As for

thee, thy decree is made known upon earth, and the spirits of the abyss

kiss the dust!--As for thee, thy decree blows above like the wind,

and stall and pasture become fertile!--As for thee, thy decree is

accomplished upon earth below, and the grass and green things grow!--As

for thee, thy degree is seen in the cattle-folds and in the lairs of the

wild beasts, and it multiplies living things!--As for thee, thy

decree has called into being equity and justice, and the peoples have

promulgated thy law!--As for thee, thy decree, neither in the far-off

heaven, nor in the hidden depths of the earth, can any one recognize

it!--As for thee, thy decree, who can learn it, who can try conclusions

with it?--O Lord, mighty in heaven, sovereign upon earth, among the gods

thy brothers, thou hast no rival.” Outside Uru and Harran, Sin did not

obtain this rank of creator and ruler of things; he was simply the

moon-god, and was represented in human form, usually accompanied by a

thin crescent, upon which he sometimes stands upright, sometimes appears

with the bust only rising out of it, in royal costume and pose.

[Illustration: 169.jpg THE GOD SUN RECEIVES THE HOMAGE OF TWO

WORSHIPPERS.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a heliogravure by Menant.

His mitre is so closely associated with him that it takes his place on

the astrological tablets; the name he bears--“agu”--often indicates

the moon regarded simply as a celestial body and without connotation

of deity. Babbar-Shamash, “the light of the gods, his fathers,” “the

illustrious scion of Sin,” passed the night in the depths of the north,

behind the polished metal walls which shut in the part of the firmament

visible to human eyes.

[Illustration: 170.jpg SHAMASH SETS OUT, IN THE MORNING, FROM THE

INTERIOR OF THE HEAVEN BY THE EASTERN GATE.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio of green

jasper in the Louvre. The original measures about 1 3/10

inch in height.

As soon as the dawn had opened the gates for him, he rose in the east

all aflame, his club in his hand, and he set forth on his headlong

course over the chain of mountains which surrounds the world;* six hours

later he had attained the limit of his journey towards the south, he

then continued his journey to the west, gradually lessening his heat,

and at length re-entered his accustomed resting-place by the western

gate, there to remain until the succeeding morning. He accomplished his

journey round the earth in a chariot conducted by two charioteers,

and drawn by two vigorous onagers, “whose legs never grew weary;” the

flaming disk which was seen from earth was one of the wheels of his

chariot.**

* His course along the embankment which runs round the

celestial vault was the origin of the title, _Line of Union

between Heaven and Earth_; he moved, in fact, where the

heavens and the earth come into contact, and appeared to

weld them into one by the circle of fire which he described.

Another expression of this idea occurs in the preamble of

Nergal and Ninib, who were called “the separators”; the

course of the sun might, in fact, be regarded as separating,

as well as uniting, the two parts of the universe.

** The disk has sometimes four, sometimes eight rays

inscribed on it, indicating wheels with four or eight spokes

respectively. Rawlinson supposed “that these two figures

indicate a distinction between the male and female power of

the deity, the disk with four rays symbolizing Shamash, the

orb with eight rays being the emblem of Ai, Gula, or

Anunit.”

[Illustration: 171.jpg SHAMASH IN HIS SHRINE, HIS EMBLEM BEFORE HIM ON

THE ALTAR.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Rassam. The

busts of the two deities on the front of the roof of the

shrine are the two charioteers of the sun; they uphold and

guide the rayed disk upon the altar. Cf. in the Assyrian

period the winged disk led with cords by two genii.

As soon as he appeared he was hailed with the chanting of hymns: “O Sun,

thou appearest on the foundation of the heavens,--thou drawest back the

bolts which bar the scintillating heavens, thou openest the gate of

the heavens! O Sun, thou raisest thy head above the earth,--Sun, thou

extendest over the earth the brilliant vaults of the heavens.”

The powers of darkness fly at his approach or take refuge in their

mysterious caverns, for “he destroys the wicked, he scatters them, the

omens and gloomy portents, dreams, and wicked ghouls--he converts evil

to good, and he drives to their destruction the countries and men--who

devote themselves to black magic.” In addition to natural light, he sheds

upon the earth truth and justice abundantly; he is the “high judge”

before whom everything makes obeisance, his laws never waver, his

decrees are never set at naught. “O Sun, when thou goest to rest in the

middle of the heavens--may the bars of the bright heaven salute thee

in peace, and may the gate of heaven bless thee!--May Misharu, thy

well-beloved servant, guide aright thy progress, so that on Rbarra,

the seat of thy rule, thy greatness may rise, and that A, thy cherished

spouse, may receive thee joyfully! May thy glad heart find in her thy

rest!--May the food of thy divinity be brought to thee by her,--warrior,

hero, sun, and may she increase thy vigour;--lord of Ebarra, when

thou ap-proachest, mayest thou direct thy course aright!---0 Sun, urge

rightly thy way along the fixed road determined for thee,--O Sun, thou

who art the judge of the land, and the arbiter of its laws!”

It would appear that the triad had begun by having in the third place a

goddess, Ishtar of Dilbat. Ishtar is the evening star which precedes the

appearance of the moon, and the morning star which heralds the approach

of the sun: the brilliance of its light justifies the choice which

made it an associate of the greater heavenly bodies. “In the days of

the past.... Ea charged Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar with the ruling of the

firmament of heaven; he distributed among them, with Anu, the command

of the army of heaven, and among these three gods, his children,

he apportioned the day and the night, and compelled them to work

ceaselessly.”

[Illustration: 173.jpg ISHTAR HOLDING HER STAR BEFORE SIN.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an intaglio at Rome.

Ishtar was separated from her two companions, when the group of the

planets was definitely organized and claimed the adoration of the

devout; the theologians then put in her place an individual of a less

original aspect, Ramman. Ramman embraced within him the elements of many

very ancient genii, all of whom had been set over the atmosphere, and

the phenomena which are daily displayed in it--wind, rain, and thunder.

These genii occupied an important place in the popular religion which

had been cleverly formulated by the theologians of Uruk, and there have

come down to us many legends in which their incarnations play a part.

They are usually represented as enormous birds flocking on their swift

wings from below the horizon, and breathing flame or torrents of water

upon the countries over which they hovered. The most terrible of them

was Zu, who presided over tempests: he gathered the clouds together,

causing them to burst in torrents of rain or hail; he let loose the

winds and lightnings, and nothing remained standing where he had passed.

He had a numerous family: among them cross-breeds of extraordinary

species which would puzzle a modern naturalist, but were matters of

course to the ancient priests. His mother Siris, lady of the rain and

clouds, was a bird like himself; but Zu had as son a vigorous bull,

which, pasturing in the meadows, scattered abundance and fertility

around him. The caprices of these strange beings, their malice, and

their crafty attacks, often brought upon them vexatious misfortunes.

Shutu, the south wind, one day beheld Adapa, one of the numerous

offspring of Ea, fishing in order to provide food for his family. In

spite of his exalted origin, Adapa was no god; he did not possess the

gift of immortality, and he was not at liberty to appear in the presence

of Anu in heaven. He enjoyed, nevertheless, certain privileges, thanks

to his familiar intercourse with his father Ea, and owing to his birth

he was strong enough to repel the assaults of more than one deity. When,

therefore, Shutu, falling upon him unexpectedly, had overthrown him, his

anger knew no bounds: “‘Shutu, thou hast overwhelmed me with thy hatred,

great as it is,--I will break thy wings! ‘Having thus spoken with his

mouth unto Shutu, Adapa broke his wings. For seven days,--Shutu breathed

no longer upon the earth.” Anu, being disturbed at this quiet, which

seemed to him not very consonant with the meddling temperament of the

wind, made inquiries as to its cause through his messenger Ilabrat. “His

messenger Ilabrat answered him: ‘My master,--Adapa, the son of Ea,

has broken Shutu’s wings.’--Anu, when he heard these words, cried out:

‘Help!’” and he sent to Ea Barku, the genius of the lightning, with an

order to bring the guilty one before him. Adapa was not quite at his

ease, although he had right on his side; but Ea, the cleverest of the

immortals, prescribed a line of conduct for him. He was to put on at

once a garment of mourning, and to show himself along with the messenger

at the gates of heaven. Having arrived there, he would not fail to meet

the two divinities who guarded them,--Dumuzi and Gishzida: “‘In whose

honour this garb, in whose honour, Adapa, this garment of mourning?’

‘On our earth two gods have disappeared--it is on this account I am as

I am.’ Dumuzi and Gishzida will look at each other,* they will begin

to lament, they will say a friendly word--to the god Anu for thee, they

will render clear the countenance of Anu,--in thy favour. When thou

shalt appear before the face of Anu, the food of death, it shall be

offered to thee, do not eat it. The drink of death, it shall be offered

to thee, drink it not. A garment, it shall be offered to the, put it on.

Oil, it shall be offered to thee, anoint thyself with it. The command I

have given thee observe it well.’”

* Dumuzi and Gishzida are the two gods whom Adapa indicates

without naming them; insinuating that he has put on mourning

on their account, Adapa is secure of gaining their sympathy,

and of obtaining their intervention with the god Anu in his

favour. As to Dumuzi, see pp. 158, 159 of the present work;

the part played by Gishzida, as well as the event noted in

the text regarding him, is unknown.

Everything takes place as Ea had foreseen. Dumuzi and Gishzida

welcome the poor wretch, speak in his favour, and present him: “as he

approached, Anu perceived him, and said to him: ‘Come, Adapa, why didst

thou break the wings of Shutu?’ Adapa answered Anu: ‘My lord,--for the

household of my lord Ea, in the middle of the sea,---I was fishing,

and the sea was all smooth.--Shutu breathed, he, he overthrew me, and

I plunged into the abode of fish. Hence the anger of my heart,--that he

might not begin again his acts of ill will,--I broke his wings.’” Whilst

he pleaded his cause the furious heart of Anu became calm. The presence

of a mortal in the halls of heaven was a kind of sacrilege, to be

severely punished unless the god should determine its expiation by

giving the philtre of immortality to the intruder. Anu decided on the

latter course, and addressed Adapa: “‘Why, then, did Ea allow an unclean

mortal to see--the interior of heaven and earth?’ He handed him a cup,

he himself reassured him.--‘We, what shall we give him? The food of

life--take some to him that he may eat.’ The food of life, some was

taken to him, but he did not eat of it. The water of life, some was

taken to him, but he drank not of it. A garment, it was taken to him,

and he put it on. Oil, some was taken to him, and he anointed himself

with it.” Anu looked upon him; he lamented over him: “‘Well, Adapa, why

hast thou not eaten--why hast thou not drunk? Thou shalt not now have

eternal life.’ Ea, my lord, has commanded me: thou shalt not eat, thou

shalt not drink.” Adapa thus lost, by remembering too well the commands

of his father, the opportunity which was offered to him of rising to

the rank of the immortals; Anu sent him back to his home just as he had

come, and Shutu had to put up with his broken wings.

Bamman absorbed one after the other all these genii of tempest and

contention, and out of their combined characters his own personality of

a hundred diverse aspects was built up.

[Illustration: 177.jpg THE BIRDS OF THE TEMPEST]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean cylinder in the

Museum of New York. Lenormant, in a long article, which he

published under the pseudonym of Mansell, fancied he

recognized here the encounter between Sabitum and Gilgames

on the shores of the Ocean.

He was endowed with the capricious and changing disposition of the

element incarnate in him, and passed from tears to laughter, from anger

to calm, with a promptitude which made him one of the most disconcerting

deities. The tempest was his favourite role. Sometimes he would burst

suddenly on the heavens at the head of a troop of savage subordinates,

whose chiefs were known as Matu, the squall, and Barku, the lightning;

sometimes these were only the various manifestations of his own nature,

and it was he himself who was called Matu and Barku. He collected the

clouds, sent forth the thunder-bolt, shook the mountains, and “before

his rage and violence, his bellowings, his thunder, the gods of heaven

arose to the firmament--the gods of the earth sank into the earth” in

their terror. The monuments represent him as armed for battle with

club, axe, or the two-bladed flaming sword which was usually employed to

signify the thunderbolt. As he destroyed everything in his blind

rage, the kings of Chaldaea were accustomed to invoke him against their

enemies, and to implore him to “hurl the hurricane upon the rebel

peoples and the insubordinate nations.” When his wrath was appeased, and

he had returned to more gentle ways, his kindness knew no limits. From

having been the waterspout which overthrew the forests, he became the

gentle breeze which caresses and refreshes them: with his warm showers

he fertilizes the fields: he lightens the air and tempers the summer

heat.

[Illustration: 178.jpg RAMMAN ARMED WITH AN AXE.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Loftus. The

original, a small stele of terra-cotta, is in the British

Museum. The date of this representation is uncertain. Ramman

stands upon the mountain which supports the heaven.

He causes the rivers to swell and overflow their banks; he pours out the

waters over the fields, he makes channels for them, he directs them to

every place where the need of water is felt.

But his fiery temperament is stirred up by the slightest provocation,

and then “his flaming sword scatters pestilence over the land: he

destroys the harvest, brings the ingathering to nothing, tears up trees,

and beats down and roots up the corn.”

[Illustration: 179.jpg RAMMAN, THE GOD OF TEMPESTS AND THUNDER.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard. Properly speaking, this

is a Susian deity brought by the soldiers of Assurbanipal

into Assyria, but it carries the usual insignia of Ramman.

In a word, the second triad formed a more homogeneous whole when Ishtar

still belonged to it, and it is entirely owing to the presence of this

goddess in it that we are able to understand its plan and purpose; it

was essentially astrological, and it was intended that none should be

enrolled in it but the manifest leaders of the constellations. Ramman,

on the contrary, had nothing to commend him for a position alongside the

moon and sun; he was not a celestial body, he had no definitely shaped

form, but resembled an aggregation of gods rather than a single deity.

By the addition of Ramman to the triad, the void occasioned by the

removal of Ishtar was filled up in a blundering way. We must, however,

admit that the theologians must have found it difficult to find any one

better fitted for the purpose: when Venus was once set along with the

rest of the planets, there was nothing left in the heavens which

was sufficiently brilliant to replace her worthily. The priests were

compelled to take the most powerful deity they knew after the other

five--the lord of the atmosphere and the thunder.*