Myths of Babylonia and Assyria 4

Myths of Babylonia and Assyria 4

The agricultural life permitted large communities to live in river

valleys, and these had to be governed by codes of laws; settled

communities required peace and order for their progress and

prosperity. All great civilizations have evolved from the habits and

experiences of settled communities. Law and religion were closely

associated, and the evidence afforded by the remains of stone circles

and temples suggests that in the organization and division of labour

the influence of religious teachers was pre-eminent. Early rulers,

indeed, were priest-kings--incarnations of the deity who owned the

land and measured out the span of human life.

 

We need not assume that Neolithic man led an idyllic existence; his

triumphs were achieved by slow and gradual steps; his legal codes

were, no doubt, written in blood and his institutions welded in the

fires of adversity. But, disciplined by laws, which fostered

humanitarian ideals, Neolithic man, especially of the Mediterranean

race, had reached a comparatively high state of civilization long ages

before the earliest traces of his activities can be obtained. When

this type of mankind is portrayed in Ancient Sumeria, Ancient Egypt,

and Ancient Crete we find that the faces are refined and intellectual

and often quite modern in aspect. The skulls show that in the Late

Stone Age the human brain was fully developed and that the racial

types were fixed. In every country in Europe we still find the direct

descendants of the ancient Mediterranean race, as well as the

descendants of the less highly cultured conquerors who swept westward

out of Asia at the dawn of the Bronze Age; and everywhere there are

evidences of crossment of types in varying degrees. Even the influence

of Neolithic intellectual life still remains. The comparative study of

mythology and folk beliefs reveals that we have inherited certain

modes of thought from our remote ancestors, who were the congeners of

the Ancient Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians. In this connection it

is of interest, therefore, to refer to the social ideals of the early

peoples who met and mingled on the southern plains of the Tigris and

Euphrates, and especially the position occupied by women, which is

engaging so much attention at the present day.

 

It would appear that among the Semites and other nomadic peoples woman

was regarded as the helpmate rather than the companion and equal of

man. The birth of a son was hailed with joy; it was "miserable to have

a daughter", as a Hindu sage reflected; in various countries it was

the custom to expose female children after birth and leave them to

die. A wife had no rights other than those accorded to her by her

husband, who exercised over her the power of life and death. Sons

inherited family possessions; the daughters had no share allotted to

them, and could be sold by fathers and brothers. Among the peoples who

observed "male right", social life was reflected in the conception of

controlling male deities, accompanied by shadowy goddesses who were

often little else than figures of speech.

 

The Ancient Sumerians, on the other hand, like the Mediterranean

peoples of Egypt and Crete, reverenced and exalted motherhood in

social and religious life. Women were accorded a legal status and

marriage laws were promulgated by the State. Wives could possess

private property in their own right, as did the Babylonian Sarah, wife

of Abraham, who owned the Egyptian slave Hagar.[26] A woman received

from her parents a marriage dowry, and in the event of separation from

her husband she could claim its full value. Some spinsters, or wives,

were accustomed to enter into business partnerships with men or

members of their own sex, and could sue and be sued in courts of law.

Brothers and sisters were joint heirs of the family estate. Daughters

might possess property over which their fathers exercised no control:

they could also enter into legal agreements with their parents in

business matters, when they had attained to years of discretion. Young

women who took vows of celibacy and lived in religious institutions

could yet make business investments, as surviving records show. There

is only one instance of a Sumerian woman ascending the throne, like

Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. Women, therefore, were not rigidly excluded

from official life. Dungi II, an early Sumerian king, appointed two of

his daughters as rulers of conquered cities in Syria and Elam.

Similarly Shishak, the Egyptian Pharaoh, handed over the city of

Gezer, which he had subdued, to his daughter, Solomon's wife.[27] In

the religious life of ancient Sumeria the female population exercised

an undoubted influence, and in certain temples there were priestesses.

The oldest hymns give indication of the respect shown to women by

making reference to mixed assemblies as "females and males", just as

present-day orators address themselves to "ladies and gentlemen". In

the later Semitic adaptations of these productions, it is significant

to note, this conventional reference was altered to "male and female".

If influences, however, were at work to restrict the position of women

they did not meet with much success, because when Hammurabi codified

existing laws, the ancient rights of women received marked

recognition.

 

There were two dialects in ancient Sumeria, and the invocatory hymns

were composed in what was known as "the women's language". It must not

be inferred, however, that the ladies of Sumeria had established a

speech which differed from that used by men. The reference would

appear to be to a softer and homelier dialect, perhaps the oldest of

the two, in which poetic emotion found fullest and most beautiful

__EXPRESSION__. In these ancient days, as in our own, the ideal of

womanhood was the poet's chief source of inspiration, and among the

hymns the highest reach of poetic art was attained in the invocation

of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus. The following hymn is addressed to

that deity in her Valkyrie-like character as a goddess of war, but her

more feminine traits are not obscured:--

 

HYMN TO ISHTAR

 

To thee I cry, O lady of the gods,

Lady of ladies, goddess without peer,

Ishtar who shapes the lives of all mankind,

Thou stately world queen, sovran of the sky,

And lady ruler of the host of heaven--

Illustrious is thy name... O light divine,

Gleaming in lofty splendour o'er the earth--

Heroic daughter of the moon, oh! hear;

Thou dost control our weapons and award

In battles fierce the victory at will--

crown'd majestic Fate. Ishtar most high,

Who art exalted over all the gods,

Thou bringest lamentation; thou dost urge

With hostile hearts our brethren to the fray;

The gift of strength is thine for thou art strong;

Thy will is urgent, brooking no delay;

Thy hand is violent, thou queen of war

Girded with battle and enrobed with fear...

Thou sovran wielder of the wand of Doom,

The heavens and earth are under thy control.

 

Adored art thou in every sacred place,

In temples, holy dwellings, and in shrines,

Where is thy name not lauded? where thy will

Unheeded, and thine images not made?

Where are thy temples not upreared? O, where

Art thou not mighty, peerless, and supreme?

 

Anu and Bel and Ea have thee raised

To rank supreme, in majesty and pow'r,

They have established thee above the gods

And all the host of heaven... O stately queen,

At thought of thee the world is filled with fear,

The gods in heaven quake, and on the earth

All spirits pause, and all mankind bow down

With reverence for thy name... O Lady Judge,

 

Thy ways are just and holy; thou dost gaze

On sinners with compassion, and each morn

Leadest the wayward to the rightful path.

 

Now linger not, but come! O goddess fair,

O shepherdess of all, thou drawest nigh

With feet unwearied... Thou dost break the bonds

Of these thy handmaids... When thou stoopest o'er

The dying with compassion, lo! they live;

And when the sick behold thee they are healed.

 

Hear me, thy servant! hearken to my pray'r,

For I am full of sorrow and I sigh

In sore distress; weeping, on thee I wait.

Be merciful, my lady, pity take

And answer, "'Tis enough and be appeased ".

 

How long must my heart sorrow and make moan

And restless be? How long must my dark home

Be filled with mourning and my soul with grief?

O lioness of heaven, bring me peace

And rest and comfort. Hearken to my pray'r!

Is anger pity? May thine eyes look down

With tenderness and blessings, and behold

Thy servant. Oh! have mercy; hear my cry

And unbewitch me from the evil spells,

That I may see thy glory... Oh! how long

Shall these my foes pursue me, working ill,

And robbing me of joy?... Oh! how long

Shall demons compass me about and cause

Affliction without end?... I thee adore--

The gift of strength is thine and thou art strong--

The weakly are made strong, yet I am weak...

O hear me! I am glutted with my grief--

This flood of grief by evil winds distressed;

My heart hath fled me like a bird on wings,

And like the dove I moan. Tears from mine eyes

Are falling as the rain from heaven falls,

And I am destitute and full of woe.

 

* * * * *

 

What have I done that thou hast turned from me?

Have I neglected homage to my god

And thee my goddess? O deliver me

And all my sins forgive, that I may share

Thy love and be watched over in thy fold;

And may thy fold be wide, thy pen secure.

 

* * * * *

 

How long wilt thou be angry? Hear my cry,

And turn again to prosper all my ways--

O may thy wrath be crumbled and withdrawn

As by a crumbling stream. Then smite my foes,

And take away their power to work me ill,

That I may crush them. Hearken to my pray'r!

And bless me so that all who me behold

May laud thee and may magnify thy name,

While I exalt thy power over all--

Ishtar is highest! Ishtar is the queen!

Ishtar the peerless daughter of the moon!

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

THE LAND OF RIVERS AND THE GOD OF THE DEEP

 

 

Fertility of Ancient Babylonia--Rivers, Canals, Seasons, and

Climate--Early Trade and Foreign Influences--Local Religious

Cults--Ea, God of the Deep, identical with Oannes of Berosus--Origin

as a Sacred Fish--Compared with Brahma and Vishnu--Flood Legends in

Babylonia and India--Fish Deities in Babylonia and Egypt--Fish God

as a Corn God--The River as Creator--Ea an Artisan God, and links

with Egypt and India--Ea as the Hebrew Jah--Ea and Varuna are Water

and Sky Gods--The Babylonian Dagan and Dagon of the

Philistines--Deities of Water and Harvest in Phoenicia, Greece,

Rome, Scotland, Scandinavia, Ireland, and Egypt--Ea's Spouse

Damkina--Demons of Ocean in Babylonia and India--Anu, God of the

Sky--Enlil, Storm and War God of Nippur, like Adad, Odin, &c.--Early

Gods of Babylonia and Egypt of common origin--Ea's City as Cradle of

Sumerian Civilization.

 

 

Ancient Babylonia was for over four thousand years the garden of

Western Asia. In the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah, when it had come

under the sway of the younger civilization of Assyria on the north, it

was "a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of

oil olive and of honey[28]". Herodotus found it still flourishing and

extremely fertile. "This territory", he wrote, "is of all that we know

the best by far for producing grain; it is so good that it returns as

much as two hundredfold for the average, and, when it bears at its

best, it produces three hundredfold. The blades of the wheat and

barley there grow to be full four fingers broad; and from millet and

sesame seed, how large a tree grows, I know myself, but shall not

record, being well aware that even what has already been said relating

to the crops produced has been enough to cause disbelief in those who

have not visited Babylonia[29]." To-day great tracts of undulating

moorland, which aforetime yielded two and three crops a year, are in

summer partly barren wastes and partly jungle and reedy swamp.

Bedouins camp beside sandy heaps which were once populous and thriving

cities, and here and there the shrunken remnants of a people once

great and influential eke out precarious livings under the oppression

of Turkish tax-gatherers who are scarcely less considerate than the

plundering nomads of the desert.

 

This historic country is bounded on the east by Persia and on the west

by the Arabian desert. In shape somewhat resembling a fish, it lies

between the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, 100 miles

wide at its broadest part, and narrowing to 35 miles towards the

"tail" in the latitude of Baghdad; the "head" converges to a point

above Basra, where the rivers meet and form the Shatt-el-Arab, which

pours into the Persian Gulf after meeting the Karun and drawing away

the main volume of that double-mouthed river. The distance from

Baghdad to Basra is about 300 miles, and the area traversed by the

Shatt-el-Arab is slowly extending at the rate of a mile every thirty

years or so, as a result of the steady accumulation of silt and mud

carried down by the Tigris and Euphrates. When Sumeria was beginning

to flourish, these two rivers had separate outlets, and Eridu, the

seat of the cult of the sea god Ea, which now lies 125 miles inland,

was a seaport at the head of the Persian Gulf. A day's journey

separated the river mouths when Alexander the Great broke the power of

the Persian Empire.

 

In the days of Babylonia's prosperity the Euphrates was hailed as "the

soul of the land" and the Tigris as "the bestower of blessings".

Skilful engineers had solved the problem of water distribution by

irrigating sun-parched areas and preventing the excessive flooding of

those districts which are now rendered impassable swamps when the

rivers overflow. A network of canals was constructed throughout the

country, which restricted the destructive tendencies of the Tigris and

Euphrates and developed to a high degree their potentialities as

fertilizing agencies. The greatest of these canals appear to have been

anciently river beds. One, which is called Shatt en Nil to the north,

and Shatt el Kar to the south, curved eastward from Babylon, and

sweeping past Nippur, flowed like the letter S towards Larsa and then

rejoined the river. It is believed to mark the course followed in the

early Sumerian period by the Euphrates river, which has moved steadily

westward many miles beyond the sites of ancient cities that were

erected on its banks. Another important canal, the Shatt el Hai,

crossed the plain from the Tigris to its sister river, which lies

lower at this point, and does not run so fast. Where the artificial

canals were constructed on higher levels than the streams which fed

them, the water was raised by contrivances known as "shaddufs"; the

buckets or skin bags were roped to a weighted beam, with the aid of

which they were swung up by workmen and emptied into the canals. It is

possible that this toilsome mode of irrigation was substituted in

favourable parts by the primitive water wheels which are used in our

own day by the inhabitants of the country who cultivate strips of land

along the river banks.

 

In Babylonia there are two seasons--the rainy and the dry. Rain falls

from November till March, and the plain is carpeted in spring by

patches of vivid green verdure and brilliant wild flowers. Then the

period of drought ensues; the sun rapidly burns up all vegetation, and

everywhere the eye is wearied by long stretches of brown and yellow

desert. Occasional sandstorms darken the heavens, sweeping over

sterile wastes and piling up the shapeless mounds which mark the sites

of ancient cities. Meanwhile the rivers are increasing in volume,

being fed by the melting snows at their mountain sources far to the

north. The swift Tigris, which is 1146 miles long, begins to rise

early in March and reaches its highest level in May; before the end of

June it again subsides. More sluggish in movement, the Euphrates,

which is 1780 miles long, shows signs of rising a fortnight later than

the Tigris, and is in flood for a more extended period; it does not

shrink to its lowest level until early in September. By controlling

the flow of these mighty rivers, preventing disastrous floods, and

storing and distributing surplus water, the ancient Babylonians

developed to the full the natural resources of their country, and made

it--what it may once again become--one of the fairest and most

habitable areas in the world. Nature conferred upon them bountiful

rewards for their labour; trade and industries flourished, and the

cities increased in splendour and strength. Then as now the heat was

great during the long summer, but remarkably dry and unvarying, while

the air was ever wonderfully transparent under cloudless skies of

vivid blue. The nights were cool and of great beauty, whether in

brilliant moonlight or when ponds and canals were jewelled by the

lustrous displays of clear and numerous stars which glorified that

homeland of the earliest astronomers.

 

Babylonia is a treeless country, and timber had to be imported from

the earliest times. The date palm was probably introduced by man, as

were certainly the vine and the fig tree, which were widely

cultivated, especially in the north. Stone, suitable for building, was

very scarce, and limestone, alabaster, marble, and basalt had to be

taken from northern Mesopotamia, where the mountains also yield copper

and lead and iron. Except Eridu, where ancient workers quarried

sandstone from its sea-shaped ridge, all the cities were built of

brick, an excellent clay being found in abundance. When brick walls

were cemented with bitumen they were given great stability. This

resinous substance is found in the north and south. It bubbles up

through crevices of rocks on river banks and forms small ponds. Two

famous springs at modern Hit, on the Euphrates, have been drawn upon

from time immemorial. "From one", writes a traveller, "flows hot water

black with bitumen, while the other discharges intermittently bitumen,

or, after a rainstorm, bitumen and cold water.... Where rocks crop out

in the plain above Hit, they are full of seams of bitumen."[30]

Present-day Arabs call it "kiyara", and export it for coating boats

and roofs; they also use it as an antiseptic, and apply it to cure the

skin diseases from which camels suffer.

 

Sumeria had many surplus products, including corn and figs, pottery,

fine wool and woven garments, to offer in exchange for what it most

required from other countries. It must, therefore, have had a brisk

and flourishing foreign trade at an exceedingly remote period. No

doubt numerous alien merchants were attracted to its cities, and it

may be that they induced or encouraged Semitic and other raiders to

overthrow governments and form military aristocracies, so that they

themselves might obtain necessary concessions and achieve a degree of

political ascendancy. It does not follow, however, that the peasant

class was greatly affected by periodic revolutions of this kind, which

brought little more to them than a change of rulers. The needs of the

country necessitated the continuance of agricultural methods and the

rigid observance of existing land laws; indeed, these constituted the

basis of Sumerian prosperity. Conquerors have ever sought reward not

merely in spoil, but also the services of the conquered. In northern

Babylonia the invaders apparently found it necessary to conciliate and

secure the continued allegiance of the tillers of the soil. Law and

religion being closely associated, they had to adapt their gods to

suit the requirements of existing social and political organizations.

A deity of pastoral nomads had to receive attributes which would give

him an agricultural significance; one of rural character had to be

changed to respond to the various calls of city life. Besides, local

gods could not be ignored on account of their popularity. As a result,

imported beliefs and religious customs must have been fused and

absorbed according to their bearing on modes of life in various

localities. It is probable that the complex character of certain

deities was due to the process of adjustment to which they were

subjected in new environments.

 

The petty kingdoms of Sumeria appear to have been tribal in origin.

Each city was presided over by a deity who was the nominal owner of

the surrounding arable land, farms were rented or purchased from the

priesthood, and pasture was held in common. As in Egypt, where we

find, for instance, the artisan god Ptah supreme at Memphis, the sun

god Ra at Heliopolis, and the cat goddess Bast at Bubastis, the

various local Sumerian and Akkadian deities had distinctive

characteristics, and similarly showed a tendency to absorb the

attributes of their rivals. The chief deity of a state was the central

figure in a pantheon, which had its political aspect and influenced

the growth of local theology. Cities, however, did not, as a rule,

bear the names of deities, which suggests that several were founded

when Sumerian religion was in its early animistic stages, and gods and

goddesses were not sharply defined from the various spirit groups.

 

A distinctive and characteristic Sumerian god was Ea, who was supreme

at the ancient sea-deserted port of Eridu. He is identified with the

Oannes of Berosus,[31] who referred to the deity as "a creature

endowed with reason, with a body like that of a fish, with feet below

like those of a man, with a fish's tail". This description recalls the

familiar figures of Egyptian gods and priests attired in the skins of

the sacred animals from whom their powers were derived, and the fairy

lore about swan maids and men, and the seals and other animals who

could divest themselves of their "skin coverings" and appear in human

shape. Originally Ea may have been a sacred fish. The Indian creative

gods Brahma and Vishnu had fish forms. In Sanskrit literature Manu,

the eponymous "first man", is instructed by the fish to build a ship

in which to save himself when the world would be purged by the rising

waters. Ea befriended in similar manner the Babylonian Noah, called

Pir-napishtim, advising him to build a vessel so as to be prepared for

the approaching Deluge. Indeed the Indian legend appears to throw

light on the original Sumerian conception of Ea. It relates that when

the fish was small and in danger of being swallowed by other fish in a

stream it appealed to Manu for protection. The sage at once lifted up

the fish and placed it in a jar of water. It gradually increased in