Ea and Marduk.

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

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

Damkina.

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

Shamash.

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

Innanna.

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

Bel and the Triad of Babylonian Theology.

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

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

Anu, Bel, and Ea.

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

Belit.

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

Anu and Anatum.

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

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

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

Ramman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

[118] Near Sippar.

[119] Bel matati.

[120] Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. 98 seq.; Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, p. 88.

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

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

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

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

[125] See below under Tashmitum.

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

[127] Rawlinson, ii. 60, 30.

[128] Hibbert Lectures, p. 117.

[129] See further on, sub Ea.

[130] Kosmologie, p. 239.

[131] Sub Nusku, chapter xiii.

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

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

[134] So, Tiele, Geschichte d. Religion i. Alterthum, i. 191.

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

[136] See above, p. 123.

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

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

[139] Wiener Zeitschrift fuer die Kunde d. Morgenlandes, iv. 301-307.

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

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

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

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

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

[145] Kosmologie, pp. 293, 294.

[146] Aos and Dauke.

[147] Rawlinson, iv. 25.

[148] See p. 79.

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

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

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

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

[153] See p. 89 and chapter vii.

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

[155] Rassam, Cylinder ix. 75.

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

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

[158] Annals, iii. 135.

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

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

[161] VR. pl. 33.

[162] Delitzsch, Die Kossaer, pp. 25, 27.

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

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

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

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

[167] No less than nine times.

[168] Tiglathpileser I.

[169] Ramman-nirari I.

[170] Kosmologie, p. 274.

[171] See the list IIIR. 68, 26 seq.

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

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

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

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

[176] Belser in Haupt and Delitzsch, Beitraege sur Assyriologie, ii. 187 seq., col. vi. i. 3 seq.

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

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

[179] See above, p. 122.

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

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

[182] See chapter x.



CHAPTER IX.

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

[185] Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 458.

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

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

[188] See besides Scheil's article (above), Lehmann's note, Zeits. fuer Assyr. x. 381.

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

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

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

[192] Meissner, nos. 40 and 118.

[193] See chapter xi.

[194] IIR. 60, 18a. Pinches (Journal Victoria Institute, xxviii. 36 reads Shu-gid-la; Hommel, ib. 36, Shu-sil-la).

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



CHAPTER X.

THE MINOR GODS IN THE PERIOD OF HAMMURABI.

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

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

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

Gula.

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

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

Malik and Bunene.

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

[197] Kosmologie, pp. 481 seq.

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

[199] Kossaer, pp. 25-27.

[200] Delitzsch, Kossaer, p. 33.

[201] See above, p. 105.

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

[203] Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 185 seq. and p. 218.

[204] Kosmologie, p. 195.

[205] Rawlinson, i. 29, 16.

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

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

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

[209] Servant of Gula.

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

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

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



CHAPTER XI.

SURVIVALS OF ANIMISM IN THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.

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

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

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

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

Anunnaki and Igigi.

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