Myths of Babylonia and Assyria 2

Myths of Babylonia and Assyria 2

George Smith, like Henry Schliemann, the pioneer investigator of

pre-Hellenic culture, was a self-educated man of humble origin. He was

born at Chelsea in 1840. At fourteen he was apprenticed to an

engraver. He was a youth of studious habits and great originality, and

interested himself intensely in the discoveries which had been made by

Layard and other explorers. At the British Museum, which he visited

regularly to pore over the Assyrian inscriptions, he attracted the

attention of Sir Henry Rawlinson. So greatly impressed was Sir Henry

by the young man's enthusiasm and remarkable intelligence that he

allowed him the use of his private room and provided casts and

squeezes of inscriptions to assist him in his studies. Smith made

rapid progress. His earliest discovery was the date of the payment of

tribute by Jehu, King of Israel, to the Assyrian Emperor Shalmaneser.

Sir Henry availed himself of the young investigator's assistance in

producing the third volume of _The Cuneiform Inscriptions_.

 

In 1867 Smith received an appointment in the Assyriology Department of

the British Museum, and a few years later became famous throughout

Christendom as the translator of fragments of the Babylonian Deluge

Legend from tablets sent to London by Rassam. Sir Edwin Arnold, the

poet and Orientalist, was at the time editor of the _Daily Telegraph_,

and performed a memorable service to modern scholarship by dispatching

Smith, on behalf of his paper, to Nineveh to search for other

fragments of the Ancient Babylonian epic. Rassam had obtained the

tablets from the great library of the cultured Emperor Ashur-bani-pal,

"the great and noble Asnapper" of the Bible,[5] who took delight, as

he himself recorded, in

 

The wisdom of Ea,[6] the art of song, the treasures of science.

 

This royal patron of learning included in his library collection,

copies and translations of tablets from Babylonia. Some of these were

then over 2000 years old. The Babylonian literary relics were, indeed,

of as great antiquity to Ashur-bani-pal as that monarch's relics are

to us.

 

The Emperor invoked Nebo, god of wisdom and learning, to bless his

"books", praying:

 

Forever, O Nebo, King of all heaven and earth,

Look gladly upon this Library

Of Ashur-bani-pal, his (thy) shepherd, reverencer of thy

divinity.[7]

 

Mr. George Smith's expedition to Nineveh in 1873 was exceedingly

fruitful of results. More tablets were discovered and translated. In

the following year he returned to the ancient Assyrian city on behalf

of the British Museum, and added further by his scholarly achievements

to his own reputation and the world's knowledge of antiquity. His last

expedition was made early in 1876; on his homeward journey he was

stricken down with fever, and on 19th August he died at Aleppo in his

thirty-sixth year. So was a brilliant career brought to an untimely

end.

 

Rassam was engaged to continue Smith's great work, and between 1877

and 1882 made many notable discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia,

including the bronze doors of a Shalmaneser temple, the sun temple at

Sippar; the palace of the Biblical Nebuchadrezzar, which was famous

for its "hanging gardens"; a cylinder of Nabonidus, King of Babylon;

and about fifty thousand tablets.

 

M. de Sarzec, the French consul at Bassorah, began in 1877 excavations

at the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash (Shirpula), and continued them

until 1900. He found thousands of tablets, many has reliefs, votive

statuettes, which worshippers apparently pinned on sacred shrines, the

famous silver vase of King Entemena, statues of King Gudea, and

various other treasures which are now in the Louvre.

 

The pioneer work achieved by British and French excavators stimulated

interest all over the world. An expedition was sent out from the

United States by the University of Pennsylvania, and began to operate

at Nippur in 1888. The Germans, who have displayed great activity in

the domain of philological research, are at present represented by an

exploring party which is conducting the systematic exploration of the

ruins of Babylon. Even the Turkish Government has encouraged research

work, and its excavators have accumulated a fine collection of

antiquities at Constantinople. Among the archaeologists and linguists

of various nationalities who are devoting themselves to the study of

ancient Assyrian and Babylonian records and literature, and gradually

unfolding the story of ancient Eastern civilization, those of our own

country occupy a prominent position. One of the most interesting

discoveries of recent years has been new fragments of the Creation

Legend by L.W. King of the British Museum, whose scholarly work, _The

Seven Tablets of Creation_, is the standard work on the subject.

 

The archaeological work conducted in Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine,

Cyprus, Crete, the Aegean, and Egypt has thrown, and is throwing, much

light on the relations between the various civilizations of antiquity.

In addition to the Hittite discoveries, with which the name of

Professor Sayce will ever be associated as a pioneer, we now hear much

of the hitherto unknown civilizations of Mitanni and Urartu (ancient

Armenia), which contributed to the shaping of ancient history. The

Biblical narratives of the rise and decline of the Hebrew kingdoms

have also been greatly elucidated.

 

In this volume, which deals mainly with the intellectual life of the

Mesopotamian peoples, a historical narrative has been provided as an

appropriate setting for the myths and legends. In this connection the

reader must be reminded that the chronology of the early period is

still uncertain. The approximate dates which are given, however, are

those now generally adopted by most European and American authorities.

Early Babylonian history of the Sumerian period begins some time prior

to 3000 B.C; Sargon of Akkad flourished about 2650 B.C., and Hammurabi

not long before or after 2000 B.C. The inflated system of dating which

places Mena of Egypt as far back as 5500 B.C. and Sargon at about 3800

B.C. has been abandoned by the majority of prominent archaeologists,

the exceptions including Professor Flinders Petrie. Recent discoveries

appear to support the new chronological system. "There is a growing

conviction", writes Mr. Hawes, "that Cretan evidence, especially in

the eastern part of the island, favours the minimum (Berlin) system of

Egyptian chronology, according to which the Sixth (Egyptian) Dynasty

began at _c_. 2540 B.C. and the Twelfth at _c_. 2000 B.C.[8] Petrie

dates the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty at _c_. 3400 B.C.

 

To students of comparative folklore and mythology the myths and

legends of Babylonia present many features of engrossing interest.

They are of great antiquity, yet not a few seem curiously familiar. We

must not conclude, however, that because a European legend may bear

resemblances to one translated from a cuneiform tablet it is

necessarily of Babylonian origin. Certain beliefs, and the myths which

were based upon them, are older than even the civilization of the

Tigro-Euphrates valley. They belong, it would appear, to a stock of

common inheritance from an uncertain cultural centre of immense

antiquity. The problem involved has been referred to by Professor

Frazer in the _Golden Bough_. Commenting on the similarities presented

by certain ancient festivals in various countries, he suggests that

they may be due to "a remarkable homogeneity of civilization

throughout Southern Europe and Western Asia in prehistoric times. How

far", he adds, "such homogeneity of civilization may be taken as

evidence of homogeneity of race is a question for the ethnologist."[9]

 

In Chapter I the reader is introduced to the ethnological problem, and

it is shown that the results of modern research tend to establish a

remote racial connection between the Sumerians of Babylonia, the

prehistoric Egyptians, and the Neolithic (Late Stone Age) inhabitants

of Europe, as well as the southern Persians and the "Aryans" of India.

 

Comparative notes are provided in dealing with the customs, religious

beliefs, and myths and legends of the Mesopotamian peoples to assist

the student towards the elucidation and partial restoration of certain

literary fragments from the cuneiform tablets. Of special interest in

this connection are the resemblances between some of the Indian and

Babylonian myths. The writer has drawn upon that "great storehouse" of

ancient legends, the voluminous Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, and it

is shown that there are undoubted links between the Garuda eagle myths

and those of the Sumerian Zu bird and the Etana eagle, while similar

stories remain attached to the memories of "Sargon of Akkad" and the

Indian hero Karna, and of Semiramis (who was Queen Sammu-ramat of

Assyria) and Shakuntala. The Indian god Varuna and the Sumerian Ea are

also found to have much in common, and it seems undoubted that the

Manu fish and flood myth is a direct Babylonian inheritance, like the

Yuga (Ages of the Universe) doctrine and the system of calculation

associated with it. It is of interest to note, too, that a portion of

the Gilgamesh epic survives in the _Ramayana_ story of the monkey god

Hanuman's search for the lost princess Sita; other relics of similar

character suggest that both the Gilgamesh and Hanuman narratives are

derived in part from a very ancient myth. Gilgamesh also figures in

Indian mythology as Yama, the first man, who explored the way to the

Paradise called "The Land of Ancestors", and over which he

subsequently presided as a god. Other Babylonian myths link with those

found in Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, Iceland, and the British Isles

and Ireland. The Sargon myth, for instance, resembles closely the myth

of Scyld (Sceaf), the patriarch, in the _Beowulf_ epic, and both

appear to be variations of the Tammuz-Adonis story. Tammuz also

resembles in one of his phases the Celtic hero Diarmid, who was slain

by the "green boar" of the Earth Mother, as was Adonis by the boar

form of Ares, the Greek war god.

 

In approaching the study of these linking myths it would be as rash to

conclude that all resemblances are due to homogeneity of race as to

assume that folklore and mythology are devoid of ethnological

elements. Due consideration must be given to the widespread influence

exercised by cultural contact. We must recognize also that the human

mind has ever shown a tendency to arrive quite independently at

similar conclusions, when confronted by similar problems, in various

parts of the world.

 

But while many remarkable resemblances may be detected between the

beliefs and myths and customs of widely separated peoples, it cannot

be overlooked that pronounced and striking differences remain to be

accounted for. Human experiences varied in localities because all

sections of humanity were not confronted in ancient times by the same

problems in their everyday lives. Some peoples, for instance,

experienced no great difficulties regarding the food supply, which

might be provided for them by nature in lavish abundance; others were

compelled to wage a fierce and constant conflict against hostile

forces in inhospitable environments with purpose to secure adequate

sustenance and their meed of enjoyment. Various habits of life had to

be adopted in various parts of the world, and these produced various

habits of thought. Consequently, we find that behind all systems of

primitive religion lies the formative background of natural phenomena.

A mythology reflects the geography, the fauna and flora, and the

climatic conditions of the area in which it took definite and

permanent shape.

 

In Babylonia, as elsewhere, we expect, therefore, to find a mythology

which has strictly local characteristics--one which mirrors river and

valley scenery, the habits of life of the people, and also the various

stages of progress in the civilization from its earliest beginnings.

Traces of primitive thought--survivals from remotest antiquity--should

also remain in evidence. As a matter of fact Babylonian mythology

fulfils our expectations in this regard to the highest degree.

 

Herodotus said that Egypt was the gift of the Nile: similarly

Babylonia may be regarded as the gift of the Tigris and

Euphrates--those great shifting and flooding rivers which for long

ages had been carrying down from the Armenian Highlands vast

quantities of mud to thrust back the waters of the Persian Gulf and

form a country capable of being utilized for human habitation. The

most typical Babylonian deity was Ea, the god of the fertilizing and

creative waters.

 

He was depicted clad in the skin of a fish, as gods in other

geographical areas were depicted wearing the skins of animals which

were regarded as ancestors, or hostile demons that had to be

propitiated. Originally Ea appears to have been a fish--the

incarnation of the spirit of, or life principle in, the Euphrates

River. His centre of worship was at Eridu, an ancient seaport, where

apparently the prehistoric Babylonians (the Sumerians) first began to

utilize the dried-up beds of shifting streams to irrigate the soil.

One of the several creation myths is reminiscent of those early

experiences which produced early local beliefs:

 

O thou River, who didst create all things,

When the great gods dug thee out,

They set prosperity upon thy banks,

Within thee Ea, the king of the Deep, created his dwelling.[10]

 

The Sumerians observed that the land was brought into existence by

means of the obstructing reeds, which caused mud to accumulate. When

their minds began to be exercised regarding the origin of life, they

conceived that the first human beings were created by a similar

process:

 

Marduk (son of Ea) laid a reed upon the face of the waters,

He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed ...

He formed mankind.[11]

 

Ea acquired in time, as the divine artisan, various attributes which

reflected the gradual growth of civilization: he was reputed to have

taught the people how to form canals, control the rivers, cultivate

the fields, build their houses, and so on.

 

But although Ea became a beneficent deity, as a result of the growth

of civilization, he had also a demoniac form, and had to be

propitiated. The worshippers of the fish god retained ancient modes of

thought and perpetuated ancient superstitious practices.

 

The earliest settlers in the Tigro-Euphrates valley were

agriculturists, like their congeners, the proto-Egyptians and the

Neolithic Europeans. Before they broke away from the parent stock in

its area of characterization they had acquired the elements of

culture, and adopted habits of thought which were based on the

agricultural mode of life. Like other agricultural communities they

were worshippers of the "World Mother", the Creatrix, who was the

giver of all good things, the "Preserver" and also the

"Destroyer"--the goddess whose moods were reflected by natural

phenomena, and whose lovers were the spirits of the seasons.

 

In the alluvial valley which they rendered fit for habitation the

Sumerians came into contact with peoples of different habits of life

and different habits of thought. These were the nomadic pastoralists

from the northern steppe lands, who had developed in isolation

theories regarding the origin of the Universe which reflected their

particular experiences and the natural phenomena of their area of

characterization. The most representative people of this class were

the "Hatti" of Asia Minor, who were of Alpine or Armenoid stock. In

early times the nomads were broken up into small tribal units, like

Abraham and his followers, and depended for their food supply on the

prowess of the males. Their chief deity was the sky and mountain god,

who was the "World Father", the creator, and the wielder of the

thunder hammer, who waged war against the demons of storm or drought,

and ensured the food supply of his worshippers.

 

The fusion in Babylonia of the peoples of the god and goddess cults

was in progress before the dawn of history, as was the case in Egypt

and also in southern Europe. In consequence independent Pantheons came

into existence in the various city States in the Tigro-Euphrates

valley. These were mainly a reflection of city politics: the deities

of each influential section had to receive recognition. But among the

great masses of the people ancient customs associated with agriculture

continued in practice, and, as Babylonia depended for its prosperity

on its harvests, the force of public opinion tended, it would appear,

to perpetuate the religious beliefs of the earliest settlers, despite

the efforts made by conquerors to exalt the deities they introduced.

 

Babylonian religion was of twofold character. It embraced temple

worship and private worship. The religion of the temple was the

religion of the ruling class, and especially of the king, who was the

guardian of the people. Domestic religion was conducted in homes, in

reed huts, or in public places, and conserved the crudest

superstitions surviving from the earliest times. The great "burnings"

and the human sacrifices in Babylonia, referred to in the Bible, were,

no doubt, connected with agricultural religion of the private order,

as was also the ceremony of baking and offering cakes to the Queen of

Heaven, condemned by Jeremiah, which obtained in the streets of

Jerusalem and other cities. Domestic religion required no temples.

There were no temples in Crete: the world was the "house" of the

deity, who had seasonal haunts on hilltops, in groves, in caves, &c.

In Egypt Herodotus witnessed festivals and processions which are not

referred to in official inscriptions, although they were evidently

practised from the earliest times.

 

Agricultural religion in Egypt was concentrated in the cult of Osiris

and Isis, and influenced all local theologies. In Babylonia these

deities were represented by Tammuz and Ishtar. Ishtar, like Isis,

absorbed many other local goddesses.

 

According to the beliefs of the ancient agriculturists the goddess was

eternal and undecaying. She was the Great Mother of the Universe and

the source of the food supply. Her son, the corn god, became, as the

Egyptians put it, "Husband of his Mother". Each year he was born anew

and rapidly attained to manhood; then he was slain by a fierce rival

who symbolized the season of pestilence-bringing and parching sun

heat, or the rainy season, or wild beasts of prey. Or it might be that

he was slain by his son, as Cronos was by Zeus and Dyaus by Indra. The

new year slew the old year.

 

The social customs of the people, which had a religious basis, were

formed in accordance with the doings of the deities; they sorrowed or

made glad in sympathy with the spirits of nature. Worshippers also

suggested by their ceremonies how the deities should act at various

seasons, and thus exercised, as they believed, a magical control over

them.

 

In Babylonia the agricultural myth regarding the Mother goddess and

the young god had many variations. In one form Tammuz, like Adonis,

was loved by two goddesses--the twin phases of nature--the Queen of

Heaven and the Queen of Hades. It was decreed that Tammuz should spend

part of the year with one goddess and part of the year with the other.

Tammuz was also a Patriarch, who reigned for a long period over the

land and had human offspring. After death his spirit appeared at

certain times and seasons as a planet, star, or constellation. He was

the ghost of the elder god, and he was also the younger god who was

born each year.

 

In the Gilgamesh epic we appear to have a form of the patriarch

legend--the story of the "culture hero" and teacher who discovered the

path which led to the land of ancestral spirits. The heroic Patriarch

in Egypt was Apuatu, "the opener of the ways", the earliest form of

Osiris; in India he was Yama, the first man, "who searched and found

out the path for many".

 

The King as Patriarch was regarded during life as an incarnation of

the culture god: after death he merged in the god. "Sargon of Akkad"

posed as an incarnation of the ancient agricultural Patriarch: he

professed to be a man of miraculous birth who was loved by the goddess

Ishtar, and was supposed to have inaugurated a New Age of the

Universe.

 

The myth regarding the father who was superseded by his son may

account for the existence in Babylonian city pantheons of elder and

younger gods who symbolized the passive and active forces of nature.

 

Considering the persistent and cumulative influence exercised by

agricultural religion it is not surprising to find, as has been

indicated, that most of the Babylonian gods had Tammuz traits, as most

of the Egyptian gods had Osirian traits. Although local or imported

deities were developed and conventionalized in rival Babylonian

cities, they still retained traces of primitive conceptions. They

existed in all their forms--as the younger god who displaced the elder

god and became the elder god, and as the elder god who conciliated the

younger god and made him his active agent; and as the god who was

identified at various seasons with different heavenly bodies and

natural phenomena. Merodach, the god of Babylon, who was exalted as

chief of the National pantheon in the Hammurabi Age, was, like Tammuz,

a son, and therefore a form of Ea, a demon slayer, a war god, a god of

fertility, a corn spirit, a Patriarch, and world ruler and guardian,

and, like Tammuz, he had solar, lunar, astral, and atmospheric

attributes. The complex characters of Merodach and Tammuz were not due

solely to the monotheistic tendency: the oldest deities were of

mystical character, they represented the "Self Power" of Naturalism as

well as the spirit groups of Animism.

 

The theorizing priests, who speculated regarding the mysteries of life

and death and the origin of all things, had to address the people

through the medium of popular beliefs. They utilized floating myths

for this purpose. As there were in early times various centres of

culture which had rival pantheons, the adapted myths varied greatly.

In the different forms in which they survive to us they reflect, not

only aspects of local beliefs, but also grades of culture at different

periods. We must not expect, however, to find that the latest form of

a myth was the highest and most profound. The history of Babylonian

religion is divided into periods of growth and periods of decadence.

The influence of domestic religion was invariably opposed to the new

and high doctrines which emanated from the priesthood, and in times of

political upheaval tended to submerge them in the debris of immemorial

beliefs and customs. The retrogressive tendencies of the masses were

invariably reinforced by the periodic invasions of aliens who had no

respect for official deities and temple creeds.

 

We must avoid insisting too strongly on the application of the

evolution theory to the religious phenomena of a country like

Babylonia.

 

The epochs in the intellectual life of an ancient people are not

comparable to geological epochs, for instance, because the forces at

work were directed by human wills, whether in the interests of

progress or otherwise. The battle of creeds has ever been a battle of

minds. It should be recognized, therefore, that the human element

bulks as prominently in the drama of Babylon's religious history as

does the prince of Denmark in the play of _Hamlet_. We are not

concerned with the plot alone. The characters must also receive

attention. Their aspirations and triumphs, their prejudices and

blunders, were the billowy forces which shaped the shoreland of the story and made history.