History
Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria,Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12), by G.
Maspero
CHAPTER
I--ANCIENT CHALDÆA
The
Creation, the Deluge, the history of the gods--The country, its
cities
its inhabitants, its early dynasties.
[Illustration:
002a.jpg]
"In
the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and
when
nothing
below had as yet received the name of earth,* Apsu, the Ocean,
who
first was their father, and Chaos-Tiâmat, who gave birth to them
all,
mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes
which
bore no fruit."** Life germinated slowly in this inert mass, in
which
the elements of our world lay still in confusion: when at length
it
did spring up, it was but feebly, and at rare intervals, through
the
hatching of divine couples devoid of personality and almost
without
form.
"In the time when the gods were not created, not one as yet, when
they
had neither been called by their names, nor had their destinies
been
assigned to them by fate, gods manifested themselves. Lakhmu and
Lakhamu
were the first to appear, and waxed great for ages; then Anshar
and
Kishar were produced after them. Days were added to days, and
years
were
heaped upon years: Anu, Inlil, and Ea were born in their turn,
for
Anshar
and Kishar had given them birth." As the generations emanated one
from
the other, their vitality increased, and the personality of each
became
more clearly defined; the last generation included none but
beings
of an original character and clearly marked individuality. Anu,
the
sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night; Inlil-Bel,
the
king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and the
personification
of wisdom.*** Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into
Anat,
Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse
whom
he had deduced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these
fruitful
pairs, and the impulse once given, the world was rapidly
peopled
by their descendants. Sin, Shamash, and Kamman, who presided
respectively
over the moon, the sun, and the air, were all three of
equal
rank; next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach,
Nergal,
the
warrior-goddess Ishtar, and Nebo; then a whole army of lesser
deities,
who ranged themselves around Anu as round a supreme master.
Tiâmat,
finding her domain becoming more and more restricted owing
to
the activity of the others, desired to raise battalion against
battalion,
and set herself to create unceasingly; but her offspring,
made
in her own image, appeared like those incongruous phantoms which
men
see in dreams, and which are made up of members borrowed from a
score
of different animals. They appeared in the form of bulls with
human
heads, of horses with the snouts of dogs, of dogs with quadruple
bodies
springing from a single fish-like tail. Some of them had the beak
of
an eagle or a hawk; others, four wings and two faces; others, the
legs
and horns of a goat; others, again, the hind quarters of a horse
and
the whole body of a man. Tiâmat furnished them with terrible
weapons,
placed them under the command of her husband Kingu, and set out
to
war against the gods.
*
In Chaldæa, as in Egypt, nothing was supposed to have a
real
existence until it had received its name: the sentence
quoted
in the text means practically, that at that time
there
was neither heaven nor earth.
**
Apsu has been transliterated kiracruv [in Greek], by the
author
an extract from whose works has been preserved by
Damascius.
He gives a different version of the tradition,
according
to which the amorphous goddess Mummu-Tiâmat
consisted
of two persons. The first, Tauthé, was the wife of
Apasôn;
the second, Moymis, was the son of Apasôn and of
Tauthé.
The last part of the sentence is very obscure in the
Assyrian
text, and has been translated in a variety of
different
ways. It seems to contain a comparison between
Apsû
and Mummu-Tiâmat on the one hand, and the reeds and
clumps
of rushes so common in Chaldæa on the other; the two
divinities
remain inert and unfruitful, like water-plants
which
have not yet manifested their exuberant growth.
***
The first fragments of the Chaldæan account of the
Creation
were discovered by G. Smith, who described them in
the
_Daily Telegraph_ (of March 4, 1875), and published them
in
the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_,
and
translated in his Chaldæan account of Genesis all the
fragments
with which he was acquainted; other fragments have
since
been collected, but unfortunately not enough to enable
us
to entirely reconstitute the legend. It covered at least
six
tablets, possibly more. Portions of it have been
translated
after Smith, by Talbot, by Oppert, by Lenormant,
by
Schrader, by Sayce, by Jensen, by Winckler, by Zimmern,
and
lastly by Delîtzsch. Since G. Smith wrote _The Chaldæan
Account_,
a fragment of a different version has been
considered
to be a part of the dogma of the Creation, as it
was
put forth at Kutha.
[Illustration:
006.jpg ONE OF THE EAGLE-HEADED GENII.]
Drawn
by Faucher-Gudin from an Assyrian bas-relief from
Khorsabad
At
first they knew not whom to send against her. Anshar despatched
his
son
Anu; but Anu was afraid, and made no attempt to oppose her. He
sent
Ea;
but Ea, like Anu, grew pale with fear, and did not venture to
attack
her.
Merodach, the son of Ea, was the only one who believed himself
strong
enough to conquer her. The gods, summoned to a solemn banquet in
the
palace of Anshar, unanimously chose him to be their champion, and
proclaimed
him king. "Thou, thou art glorious among the great gods, thy
will
is second to none, thy bidding is Anu; Marduk (Merodach), thou
art
glorious
among the great gods, thy will is second to none,* thy bidding
is
Anu.** From this day, that which thou orderest may not be
changed,
the
power to raise or to abase shall be in thy hand, the word of thy
mouth
shall endure, and thy commandment shall not meet with opposition.
None
of the gods shall transgress thy law; but wheresoever a sanctuary
of
the gods is decorated, the place where they shall give their
oracles
shall
be thy place.*** Marduk, it is thou who art our avenger! We
bestow
on
thee the attributes of a king; the whole of all that exists, thou
hast
it, and everywhere thy word shall be exalted. Thy weapons shall
not
be
turned aside, they shall strike thy enemy. O master, who trusts
in
thee,
spare thou, his life; but the god who hath done evil, put out
his
life like water. They clad their champion in a garment, and thus
addressed
him: 'Thy will, master, shall be that of the gods. Speak the
word,
'Let it be so,' it shall be so. Thus open thy mouth, this garment
shall
disappear; say unto it, 'Return,' and the garment shall be
there."
He
spoke with his lips, the garment disappeared; he said unto it,
"Return,"
and the garment was restored.
*
The Assyrian runs, "thy destiny is second to none." This
refers
not to the _destiny_ of the god himself, but to the
fate
which he allots to others. I have substituted, here and
elsewhere,
for the word "destiny," the special meaning of
which
would not have been understood, the word "will,"
which,
though it does not exactly reproduce the Assyrian
expression,
avoids the necessity for paraphrases or formulas
calculated
to puzzle the modern reader.
**
Or, to put it less concisely, "When thou commandest, it
is
Anu himself who commands," and the same blind obedience
must
be paid to thee as to Anu.
***
The meaning is uncertain. The sentence seems to convey
that
henceforth Merodach would be at home in all temples
that
were constructed in honour of the other gods.
Merodach
having been once convinced by this evidence that he had the
power
of doing everything and of undoing everything at his pleasure,
the
gods
handed to him the sceptre, the throne, the crown, the insignia of
supreme
rule, and greeted him with their acclamations: "Be King!--Go!
Cut
short the life of Tiâmat, and let the wind carry her blood to the
hidden
extremities of the universe."* He equipped himself carefully for
the
struggle. "He made a bow and placed his mark upon it;"** he had a
spear
brought to him and fitted a point to it; the god lifted the
lance,
brandished
it in his right hand, then hung the bow and quiver at
his
side. He placed a thunderbolt before him, filled his body with a
devouring
flame, then made a net in which to catch the anarchic Tiâmat;
he
placed the four winds in such a way that she could not escape,
south
and
north, east and west, and with his own hand he brought them the
net,
the
gift of his father Anu. "He created the hurricane, the evil wind,
the
storm,
the tempest, the four winds, the seven winds, the waterspout, the
wind
that is second to none; then he let loose the winds he had
created,
all
seven of them, in order to bewilder the anarchic Tiâmat by
charging
behind
her. And the master of the waterspout raised his mighty weapon,
he
mounted his chariot, a work without its equal, formidable; he
installed
himself therein, tied the four reins to the side, and darted
forth,
pitiless, torrent-like, swift."
*
Sayce was the first, I believe, to cite, in connection
with
this mysterious order, the passage in which Berossus
tells
how the gods created men from a little clay, moistened
with
the blood of the god Bêlos. Here there seems to be a
fear
lest the blood of Tiâmat, mingling with the mud, should
produce
a crop of monsters similar to those which the
goddess
had already created; the blood, if carried to the
north,
into the domain of the night, would there lose its
creative
power, or the monsters who might spring from it
would
at any rate remain strangers to the world of gods and
men.
**
"Literally, he made his weapon known; "perhaps it would
be
better to interpret it, "and he made it known that the
bow
would henceforth be his distinctive weapon."
[Illustration:
008.jpg BEL-MERODACH, ARMED WITH THE THUNDERBOLT, DOES
BATTLE
WITH THE TUMULTUOUS TIAMAT.]
Drawn
by Faucher-Gudin from the bas-relief from Nimrûd
preserved
in the British Museum.
He
passed through the serried ranks of the monsters and penetrated
as
far
as Tiâmat, and provoked her with his cries. "'Thou hast rebelled
against
the sovereignty of the gods, thou hast plotted evil against
them,
and hast desired that my fathers should taste of thy malevolence;
therefore
thy host shall be reduced to slavery, thy weapons shall be
torn
from thee. Come, then, thou and I must give battle to one
another!'
Tiâmat,
when she heard him, flew into a fury, she became mad with rage;
then
Tiâmat howled, she raised herself savagely to her full height,
and
planted
her feet firmly on the earth. She pronounced an incantation,
recited
her formula, and called to her aid the gods of the combat,
both
them and their weapons. They drew near one to another, Tiâmat and
Marduk,
wisest of the gods: They flung themselves into the combat, they
met
one another in the struggle. Then the master unfolded his net and
seized
her; he caused the hurricane which waited behind him to pass
in
front of him, and, when Tiâmat opened her mouth to swallow him,
he
thrust
the hurricane into it so that the monster could not close her
jaws
again. The mighty wind filled her paunch, her breast swelled, her
maw
was split. Marduk gave a straight thrust with his lance, burst
open
the paunch, pierced the interior, tore the breast, then bound the
monster
and deprived her of life. When he had vanquished Tiâmat, who had
been
their leader, her army was disbanded, her host was scattered, and
the
gods, her allies, who had marched beside her, trembled, were
scared,
and
fled." He seized hold of them, and of Kingu their chief, and
brought
them
bound in chains before the throne of his father.
He
had saved the gods from ruin, but this was the least part of
his
task; he had still to sweep out of space the huge carcase which
encumbered
it, and to separate its ill-assorted elements, and arrange
them
afresh for the benefit of the conquerors. He returned to Tiâmat
whom
he had bound in chains. He placed his foot upon her, with his
unerring
knife he cut into the upper part of her; then he cut the
blood-vessels,
and caused the blood to be carried by the north wind to
the
hidden places. And the gods saw his face, they rejoiced, they
gave
themselves
up to gladness, and sent him a present, a tribute of peace;
then
he recovered his calm, he contemplated the corpse, raised it and
wrought
marvels.
[Illustration:
010.jpg A KUFA LADEN WITH STONES, AND MANNED BY A CREW OF
FOUR
MEN.]
Drawn
by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief at Koyunjik.
Behind
the _kufa_ may be seen a fisherman seated astride on
an
inflated skin with his fish-basket attached to his neck.
He
split it in two as one does a fish for drying; then he hung up one
of
the
halves on high, which became the heavens; the other half he
spread
out
under his feet to form the earth, and made the universe such as
men
have since known it. As in Egypt, the world was a kind of
enclosed
chamber
balanced on the bosom of the eternal waters.* The earth, which
forms
the lower part of it, or floor, is something like an overturned
boat
in appearance, and hollow underneath, not like one of the narrow
skiffs
in use among other races, but a kufa, or kind of semicircular
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