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MYTHS

OF

BABYLONIA

AND

ASSYRIA

Donald A. Mackenzie

Table of Contents

	Preface
	Introduction
I	The Races and Early Civilization of Babylonia
II	The Land of Rivers and the God of the Deep
III	Rival Pantheons and Representative Deities
IV	Demons, Fairies, and Ghosts
V	Myths of Tammuz and Ishtar
VI	Wars of the City States of Sumer and Akkad
VII	Creation Legend: Merodach the Dragon Slayer
VIII	Deified Heroes: Etana and Gilgamesh
IX	Deluge Legend, the Island of the Blessed, and Hades
X	Buildings and Laws and Customs of Babylon
XI	The Golden Age of Babylonia
XII	Rise of the Hittites, Mitannians, Kassites, Hyksos, and Assyrians
XIII	Astrology and Astronomy
XIV	Ashur the National God of Assyria
XV	Conflicts for Trade and Supremacy
XVI	Race Movements that Shattered Empires
XVII	The Hebrews in Assyrian History
XVIII	The Age of Semiramis
XIX	Assyria's Age of Splendour
XX	The Last Days of Assyria and Babylonia
	Index

List of Figures

1.	TEMPTATION OF THE EA-BANI
2.	BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
I.1.	EXAMPLES OF RACIAL TYPES
I.2.	STATUE OF A ROYAL PERSONAGE OR OFFICIAL OF NON-SEMITIC ORIGIN
III.1.	WORSHIP OF THE MOON GOD
III.2.	WINGED MAN-HEADED LION
IV.1.	TWO FIGURES OF DEMONS
IV.2.	WINGED HUMAN-HEADED COW (?)
V.1.	ISHTAR IN HADES
V.2.	Female figure in adoration before a goddess
V.3.	The winged Ishtar above the rising sun god, the river god, and other deities
V.4.	Gilgamesh in conflict with bulls (see page 176)
V.5.	PLAQUE OF UR-NINA
VI.1.	SILVER VASE DEDICATED TO THE GOD NIN-GIRSU BY ENTEMENA
VI.2.	STELE OF NARAM SIN
VII.1.	STATUE OF GUDEA
VII.2.	"THE SEVEN TABLETS OF CREATION"
VII.3.	MERODACH SETS FORTH TO ATTACK TIAMAT
VIII.1.	THE SLAYING OF THE BULL OF ISHTAR
IX.1.	THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE
IX.2.	SLIPPER-SHAPED COFFIN MADE OF GLAZED EARTHENWARE
IX.3.	STELE OF HAMMURABI, WITH "CODE OF LAWS"
X.1.	THE BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE MARKET
XI.1.	HAMMURABI RECEIVING THE "CODE OF LAWS" FROM THE SUN GOD
XI.2.	THE HORSE IN WARFARE
XII.1.	LETTER FROM TUSHRATTA, KING OF MITANNI, TO AMENHOTEP III, KING OF EGYPT
XII.2.	THE GOD NINIP AND ANOTHER DEITY
XIII.1.	SYMBOLS OF DEITIES AS ASTRONOMICAL SIGNS
XIII.2.	ASHUR SYMBOLS
XIV.1.	WINGED DEITIES KNEELING BESIDE A SACRED TREE
XIV.2.	EAGLE-HEADED WINGED DEITY (ASHUR)
XVI.1.	ASSYRIAN KING HUNTING LIONS
XVI.2.	TYRIAN GALLEY PUTTING OUT TO SEA
XVII.1.	STATUE OF ASHUR-NATSIR-PAL, WITH INSCRIPTIONS
XVII.2.	DETAILS FROM SECOND SIDE OF BLACK OBELISK OF SHALMANESER III
XVIII.1.	THE SHEPHERD FINDS THE BABE SEMIRAMIS
XIX.1.	STATUE OF NEBO
XIX.2.	TIGLATH-PLESSER IV IN HIS CHARIOT
XIX.3.	COLOSSAL WINGED AND HUMAN-HEADED BULL AND MYTHOLOGICAL BEING
XIX.4.	ASSAULT ON THE CITY OF ALAMMU (? JERUSALEM) BY THE ASSYRIANS UNDER SENNACHERIB
XX.1.	ASHUR-BANI-PAL RECLINING IN A BOWER
XX.2.	PERSIANS BRINGING CHARIOTS, RINGS, AND WREATHS

Preface

This volume deals with the myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria, and as these reflect the civilization in which they developed, a historical narrative has been provided, beginning with the early Sumerian Age and concluding with the periods of the Persian and Grecian Empires. Over thirty centuries of human progress are thus passed under review.

During this vast interval of time the cultural influences emanating from the Tigro-Euphrates valley reached far-distant shores along the intersecting avenues of trade, and in consequence of the periodic and widespread migrations of peoples who had acquired directly or indirectly the leavening elements of Mesopotamian civilization. Even at the present day traces survive in Europe of the early cultural impress of the East; our "Signs of the Zodiac", for instance, as well as the system of measuring time and space by using 60 as a basic numeral for calculation, are inheritances from ancient Babylonia.

As in the Nile Valley, however, it is impossible to trace in Mesopotamia the initiatory stages of prehistoric culture based on the agricultural mode of life. What is generally called the "Dawn of History" is really the beginning of a later age of progress; it is necessary to account for the degree of civilization attained at the earliest period of which we have knowledge by postulating a remoter age of culture of much longer duration than that which separates the "Dawn" from the age in which we now live. Although Sumerian (early Babylonian) civilization presents distinctively local features which justify the application of the term "indigenous" in the broad sense, it is found, like that of Egypt, to be possessed of certain elements which suggest exceedingly remote influences and connections at present obscure. Of special interest in this regard is Professor Budge's mature and well-deliberated conclusion that "both the Sumerians and early Egyptians derived their primeval gods from some common but exceedingly ancient source". The prehistoric burial customs of these separate peoples are also remarkably similar and they resemble closely in turn those of the Neolithic Europeans. The cumulative effect of such evidence forces us to regard as not wholly satisfactory and conclusive the hypothesis of cultural influence. A remote racial connection is possible, and is certainly worthy of consideration when so high an authority as Professor Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, is found prepared to admit that the widespread "homogeneity of beliefs" may have been due to "homogeneity of race". It is shown (Chapter 1) that certain ethnologists have accumulated data which establish a racial kinship between the Neolithic Europeans, the proto-Egyptians, the Sumerians, the southern Persians, and the Aryo-Indians.

Throughout this volume comparative notes have been compiled in dealing with Mesopotamian beliefs with purpose to assist the reader towards the study of linking myths and legends. Interesting parallels have been gleaned from various religious literatures in Europe, Egypt, India, and elsewhere. It will be found that certain relics of Babylonian intellectual life, which have a distinctive geographical significance, were shared by peoples in other cultural areas where they were similarly overlaid with local colour. Modes of thought were the products of modes of life and were influenced in their development by human experiences. The influence of environment on the growth of culture has long been recognized, but consideration must also be given to the choice of environment by peoples who had adopted distinctive habits of life. Racial units migrated from cultural areas to districts suitable for colonization and carried with them a heritage of immemorial beliefs and customs which were regarded as being quite as indispensable for their welfare as their implements and domesticated animals.

When consideration is given in this connection to the conservative element in primitive religion, it is not surprising to find that the growth of religious myths was not so spontaneous in early civilizations of the highest order as has hitherto been assumed. It seems clear that in each great local mythology we have to deal, in the first place, not with symbolized ideas so much as symbolized folk beliefs of remote antiquity and, to a certain degree, of common inheritance. It may not be found possible to arrive at a conclusive solution of the most widespread, and therefore the most ancient folk myths, such as, for instance, the Dragon Myth, or the myth of the culture hero. Nor, perhaps, is it necessary that we should concern ourselves greatly regarding the origin of the idea of the dragon, which in one country symbolized fiery drought and in another overwhelming river floods.

The student will find footing on surer ground by following the process which exalts the dragon of the folk tale into the symbol of evil and primordial chaos. The Babylonian Creation Myth, for instance, can be shown to be a localized and glorified legend in which the hero and his tribe are displaced by the war god and his fellow deities whose welfare depends on his prowess. Merodach kills the dragon, Tiamat, as the heroes of Eur-Asian folk stories kill grisly hags, by casting his weapon down her throat.

He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart,

He overcame her and cut off her life;

He cast down her body and stood upon it ...

And with merciless club he smashed her skull.

He cut through the channels of her blood,

And he made the north wind to bear it away into secret places.

Afterwards

He divided the flesh of the Ku-pu and devised a cunning plan.

Mr. L.W. King, from whose scholarly Seven Tablets of Creation these lines are quoted, notes that "Ku-pu" is a word of uncertain meaning. Jensen suggests "trunk, body". Apparently Merodach obtained special knowledge after dividing, and perhaps eating, the "Ku-pu". His "cunning plan" is set forth in detail: he cut up the dragon's body:

He split her up like a flat fish into two halves.

He formed the heavens with one half and the earth with the other, and then set the universe in order. His power and wisdom as the Demiurge were derived from the fierce and powerful Great Mother, Tiamat.

In other dragon stories the heroes devise their plans after eating the dragon's heart. According to Philostratus,^[1] Apollonius of Tyana was worthy of being remembered for two things--his bravery in travelling among fierce robber tribes, not then subject to Rome, and his wisdom in learning the language of birds and other animals as the Arabs do. This accomplishment the Arabs acquired, Philostratus explains, by eating the hearts of dragons. The "animals" who utter magic words are, of course, the Fates. Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, after slaying the Regin dragon, makes himself invulnerable by bathing in its blood. He obtains wisdom by eating the heart: as soon as he tastes it he can understand the language of birds, and the birds reveal to him that Mimer is waiting to slay him. Sigurd similarly makes his plans after eating the heart of the Fafner dragon. In Scottish legend Finn-mac-Coul obtains the power to divine secrets by partaking of a small portion of the seventh salmon associated with the "well dragon", and Michael Scott and other folk heroes become great physicians after tasting the juices of the middle part of the body of the white snake. The hero of an Egyptian folk tale slays a "deathless snake" by cutting it in two parts and putting sand between the parts. He then obtains from the box, of which it is the guardian, the book of spells; when he reads a page of the spells he knows what the birds of the sky, the fish of the deep, and the beasts of the hill say; the book gives him power to enchant "the heaven and the earth, the abyss, the mountains and the sea".^[2]

Magic and religion were never separated in Babylonia; not only the priests but also the gods performed magical ceremonies. Ea, Merodach's father, overcame Apsu, the husband of the dragon Tiamat, by means of spells: he was "the great magician of the gods". Merodach's division of the "Ku-pu" was evidently an act of contagious magic; by eating or otherwise disposing of the vital part of the fierce and wise mother dragon, he became endowed with her attributes, and was able to proceed with the work of creation. Primitive peoples in our own day, like the Abipones of Paraguay, eat the flesh of fierce and cunning animals so that their strength, courage, and wisdom may be increased.

The direct influence exercised by cultural contact, on the other hand, may be traced when myths with an alien geographical setting are found among peoples whose experiences could never have given them origin. In India, where the dragon symbolizes drought and the western river deities are female, the Manu fish and flood legend resembles closely the Babylonian, and seems to throw light upon it. Indeed, the Manu myth appears to have been derived from the lost flood story in which Ea figured prominently in fish form as the Preserver. The Babylonian Ea cult and the Indian Varuna cult had apparently much in common, as is shown.

Throughout this volume special attention has been paid to the various peoples who were in immediate contact with, and were influenced by, Mesopotamian civilization. The histories are traced in outline of the Kingdoms of Elam, Urartu (Ancient Armenia), Mitanni, and the Hittites, while the story of the rise and decline of the Hebrew civilization, as narrated in the Bible and referred to in Mesopotamian inscriptions, is related from the earliest times until the captivity in the Neo-Babylonian period and the restoration during the age of the Persian Empire. The struggles waged between the great Powers for the control of trade routes, and the periodic migrations of pastoral warrior folks who determined the fate of empires, are also dealt with, so that light may be thrown on the various processes and influences associated with the developments of local religions and mythologies. Special chapters, with comparative notes, are devoted to the Ishtar-Tammuz myths, the Semiramis legends, Ashur and his symbols, and the origin and growth of astrology and astronomy.

The ethnic disturbances which occurred at various well-defined periods in the Tigro-Euphrates valley were not always favourable to the advancement of knowledge and the growth of culture. The invaders who absorbed Sumerian civilization may have secured more settled conditions by welding together political units, but seem to have exercised a retrogressive influence on the growth of local culture. "Babylonian religion", writes Dr. Langdon, "appears to have reached its highest level in the Sumerian period, or at least not later than 2000 B.C. From that period onward to the first century B.C. popular religion maintained with great difficulty the sacred standards of the past." Although it has been customary to characterize Mesopotamian civilization as Semitic, modern research tends to show that the indigenous inhabitants, who were non-Semitic, were its originators. Like the proto-Egyptians, the early Cretans, and the Pelasgians in southern Europe and Asia Minor, they invariably achieved the intellectual conquest of their conquerors, as in the earliest times they had won victories over the antagonistic forces of nature. If the modern view is accepted that these ancient agriculturists of the goddess cult were of common racial origin, it is to the most representative communities of the widespread Mediterranean race that the credit belongs of laying the foundations of the brilliant civilizations of the ancient world in southern Europe, and Egypt, and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Figure 1. TEMPTATION OF THE EA-BANI

From the Painting by E. Wallcousins

[1] Life of Apollonius of Tyana, i, 20.

[2] Egyptian Tales (Second Series), W.M. Flinders Petrie, pp. 98 et seq.

Introduction

Ancient Babylonia has made stronger appeal to the imagination of Christendom than even Ancient Egypt, because of its association with the captivity of the Hebrews, whose sorrows are enshrined in the familiar psalm:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down;

Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows....

In sacred literature proud Babylon became the city of the anti-Christ, the symbol of wickedness and cruelty and human vanity. Early Christians who suffered persecution compared their worldly state to that of the oppressed and disconsolate Hebrews, and, like them, they sighed for Jerusalem--the new Jerusalem. When St. John the Divine had visions of the ultimate triumph of Christianity, he referred to its enemies--the unbelievers and persecutors--as the citizens of the earthly Babylon, the doom of which he pronounced in stately and memorable phrases:

Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,

And is become the habitation of devils,

And the hold of every foul spirit,

And a cage of every unclean and hateful bird....

For her sins have reached unto heaven

And God hath remembered her iniquities....

The merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her,

For no man buyeth their merchandise any more.

"At the noise of the taking of Babylon", cried Jeremiah, referring to the original Babylon, "the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among the nations.... It shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation." The Christian Saint rendered more profound the brooding silence of the desolated city of his vision by voicing memories of its beauty and gaiety and bustling trade:

The voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee;

And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee;

And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee;

And the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee:

For thy merchants were the great men of the earth;

For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints,

And of all that were slain upon the earth.^[3]

So for nearly two thousand years has the haunting memory of the once-powerful city pervaded Christian literature, while its broken walls and ruined temples and palaces lay buried deep in desert sand. The history of the ancient land of which it was the capital survived in but meagre and fragmentary form, mingled with accumulated myths and legends. A slim volume contained all that could be derived from references in the Old Testament and the compilations of classical writers.

It is only within the past half-century that the wonderful story of early Eastern civilization has been gradually pieced together by excavators and linguists, who have thrust open the door of the past and probed the hidden secrets of long ages. We now know more about "the land of Babel" than did not only the Greeks and Romans, but even the Hebrew writers who foretold its destruction. Glimpses are being afforded us of its life and manners and customs for some thirty centuries before the captives of Judah uttered lamentations on the banks of its reedy canals. The sites of some of the ancient cities of Babylonia and Assyria were identified by European officials and travellers in the East early in the nineteenth century, and a few relics found their way to Europe. But before Sir A.H. Layard set to work as an excavator in the "forties", "a case scarcely three feet square", as he himself wrote, "enclosed all that remained not only of the great city of Nineveh, but of Babylon itself".^[4]

Layard, the distinguished pioneer Assyriologist, was an Englishman of Huguenot descent, who was born in Paris. Through his mother he inherited a strain of Spanish blood. During his early boyhood he resided in Italy, and his education, which began there, was continued in schools in France, Switzerland, and England. He was a man of scholarly habits and fearless and independent character, a charming writer, and an accomplished fine-art critic; withal he was a great traveller, a strenuous politician, and an able diplomatist. In 1845, while sojourning in the East, he undertook the exploration of ancient Assyrian cities. He first set to work at Kalkhi, the Biblical Calah. Three years previously M.P.C. Botta, the French consul at Mosul, had begun to investigate the Nineveh mounds; but these he abandoned for a mound near Khorsabad which proved to be the site of the city erected by "Sargon the Later", who is referred to by Isaiah. The relics discovered by Botta and his successor, Victor Place, are preserved in the Louvre.

At Kalkhi and Nineveh Layard uncovered the palaces of some of the most famous Assyrian Emperors, including the Biblical Shalmaneser and Esarhaddon, and obtained the colossi, bas reliefs, and other treasures of antiquity which formed the nucleus of the British Museum's unrivalled Assyrian collection. He also conducted diggings at Babylon and Niffer (Nippur). His work was continued by his assistant, Hormuzd Rassam, a native Christian of Mosul, near Nineveh. Rassam studied for a time at Oxford.

The discoveries made by Layard and Botta stimulated others to follow their example. In the "fifties" Mr. W.K. Loftus engaged in excavations at Larsa and Erech, where important discoveries were made of ancient buildings, ornaments, tablets, sarcophagus graves, and pot burials, while Mr. J.E. Taylor operated at Ur, the seat of the moon cult and the birthplace of Abraham, and at Eridu, which is generally regarded as the cradle of early Babylonian (Sumerian) civilization.

In 1854 Sir Henry Rawlinson superintended diggings at Birs Nimrud (Borsippa, near Babylon), and excavated relics of the Biblical Nebuchadrezzar. This notable archaeologist began his career in the East as an officer in the Bombay army. He distinguished himself as a political agent and diplomatist. While resident at Baghdad, he devoted his leisure time to cuneiform studies. One of his remarkable feats was the copying of the famous trilingual rock inscription of Darius the Great on a mountain cliff at Behistun, in Persian Kurdistan. This work was carried out at great personal risk, for the cliff is 1700 feet high and the sculptures and inscriptions are situated about 300 feet from the ground.

Darius was the first monarch of his line to make use of the Persian cuneiform script, which in this case he utilized in conjunction with the older and more complicated Assyro-Babylonian alphabetic and syllabic characters to record a portion of the history of his reign. Rawlinson's translation of the famous inscription was an important contribution towards the decipherment of the cuneiform writings of Assyria and Babylonia.

Twelve years of brilliant Mesopotamian discovery concluded in 1854, and further excavations had to be suspended until the "seventies" on account of the unsettled political conditions of the ancient land and the difficulties experienced in dealing with Turkish officials. During the interval, however, archaeologists and philologists were kept fully engaged studying the large amount of material which had been accumulated. Sir Henry Rawlinson began the issue of his monumental work The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia on behalf of the British Museum.

Goodspeed refers to the early archaeological work as the "Heroic Period" of research, and says that the "Modern Scientific Period" began with Mr. George Smith's expedition to Nineveh in 1873.

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.

Various aspects of Babylonian life and culture are dealt with throughout this volume, and it is shown that the growth of science and art was stimulated by unwholesome and crude superstitions. Many rank weeds flourished beside the brightest blossoms of the human intellect that wooed the sun in that fertile valley of rivers. As in Egypt, civilization made progress when wealth was accumulated in sufficient abundance to permit of a leisured class devoting time to study and research. The endowed priests, who performed temple ceremonies, were the teachers of the people and the patrons of culture. We may think little of their religious beliefs, regarding which after all we have only a superficial knowledge, for we have yet discovered little more than the fragments of the shell which held the pearl, the faded petals that were once a rose, but we must recognize that they provided inspiration for the artists and sculptors whose achievements compel our wonder and admiration, moved statesmen to inaugurate and administer humanitarian laws, and exalted Right above Might.

These civilizations of the old world, among which the Mesopotamian and the Nilotic were the earliest, were built on no unsound foundations. They made possible "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome", and it is only within recent years that we have begun to realize how incalculable is the debt which the modern world owes to them.

Figure 2. BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

[3] Revelation, xviii. The Babylon of the Apocalypse is generally believed to symbolize or be a mystic designation of Rome.

[4] Nineveh and Its Remains, vol. i, p. 17.

[5] Ezra, iv, 10.

[6] The culture god.

[7] Langdon's Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, p. 179.

[8] Crete the Forerunner of Greece, p. 18.

[9] The Scapegoat vol., p. 409 (3rd edition).

[10] The Seven Tablets of Creation, L. W. King, p. 129.

[11] Ibid, pp. 133-4.

Chapter I. The Races and Early Civilization of Babylonia

Abstract

Prehistoric Babylonia--The Confederacies of Sumer and Akkad--Sumerian Racial Affinities--Theories of Mongolian and Ural-Altaic Origins--Evidence of Russian Turkestan--Beginnings of Agriculture--Remarkable Proofs from Prehistoric Egyptian Graves--Sumerians and the Mediterranean Race--Present-day Types in Western Asia--The Evidence of Crania--Origin of the Akkadians--The Semitic Blend--Races in Ancient Palestine--Southward Drift of Armenoid Peoples--The Rephaims of the Bible--Akkadians attain Political Supremacy in Northern Babylonia--Influence of Sumerian Culture--Beginnings of Civilization--Progress in the Neolithic Age--Position of Women in Early Communities--Their Legal Status in Ancient Babylonia--Influence in Social and Religious Life--The "Woman's Language"--Goddess who inspired Poets.

Before the dawn of the historical period Ancient Babylonia was divided into a number of independent city states similar to those which existed in pre-Dynastic Egypt. Ultimately these were grouped into loose confederacies. The northern cities were embraced in the territory known as Akkad, and the southern in the land of Sumer, or Shumer. This division had a racial as well as a geographical significance. The Akkadians were "late comers" who had achieved political ascendency in the north when the area they occupied was called Uri, or Kiuri, and Sumer was known as Kengi. They were a people of Semitic speech with pronounced Semitic affinities. From the earliest times the sculptors depicted them with abundant locks, long full beards, and the prominent distinctive noses and full lips, which we usually associate with the characteristic Jewish type, and also attired in long, flounced robes, suspended from their left shoulders, and reaching down to their ankles. In contrast, the Sumerians had clean-shaven faces and scalps, and noses of Egyptian and Grecian rather than Semitic type, while they wore short, pleated kilts, and went about with the upper part of their bodies quite bare like the Egyptian noblemen of the Old Kingdom period. They spoke a non-Semitic language, and were the oldest inhabitants of Babylonia of whom we have any knowledge. Sumerian civilization was rooted in the agricultural mode of life, and appears to have been well developed before the Semites became numerous and influential in the land. Cities had been built chiefly of sun-dried and fire-baked bricks; distinctive pottery was manufactured with much skill; the people were governed by humanitarian laws, which formed the nucleus of the Hammurabi code, and had in use a system of cuneiform writing which was still in process of development from earlier pictorial characters. The distinctive feature of their agricultural methods was the engineering skill which was displayed in extending the cultivatable area by the construction of irrigating canals and ditches. There are also indications that they possessed some knowledge of navigation and traded on the Persian Gulf. According to one of their own traditions Eridu, originally a seaport, was their racial cradle. The Semitic Akkadians adopted the distinctive culture of these Sumerians after settlement, and exercised an influence on its subsequent growth.

Figure I.1. EXAMPLES OF RACIAL TYPES

From a drawing by E. Wallcousins

Figure I.2. STATUE OF A ROYAL PERSONAGE OR OFFICIAL OF NON-SEMITIC ORIGIN

(British Museum)

Much controversy has been waged regarding the original home of the Sumerians and the particular racial type which they represented. One theory connects them with the lank-haired and beardless Mongolians, and it is asserted on the evidence afforded by early sculptural reliefs that they were similarly oblique-eyed. As they also spoke an agglutinative language, it is suggested that they were descended from the same parent stock as the Chinese in an ancient Parthian homeland. If, however, the oblique eye was not the result of faulty and primitive art, it is evident that the Mongolian type, which is invariably found to be remarkably persistent in racial blends, did not survive in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, for in the finer and more exact sculpture work of the later Sumerian period the eyes of the ruling classes are found to be similar to those of the Ancient Egyptians and southern Europeans. Other facial characteristics suggest that a Mongolian racial connection is highly improbable; the prominent Sumerian nose, for instance, is quite unlike the Chinese, which is diminutive. Nor can far-reaching conclusions be drawn from the scanty linguistic evidence at our disposal. Although the languages of the Sumerians and long-headed Chinese are of the agglutinative variety, so are those also which are spoken by the broad-headed Turks and Magyars of Hungary, the broad-headed and long-headed, dark and fair Finns, and the brunet and short-statured Basques with pear-shaped faces, who are regarded as a variation of the Mediterranean race with distinctive characteristics developed in isolation. Languages afford no sure indication of racial origins or affinities.

Another theory connects the Sumerians with the broad-headed peoples of the Western Asian plains and plateaus, who are vaguely grouped as Ural-Altaic stock and are represented by the present-day Turks and the dark variety of Finns. It is assumed that they migrated southward in remote times in consequence of tribal pressure caused by changing climatic conditions, and abandoned a purely pastoral for an agricultural life. The late Sumerian sculpture work again presents difficulties in this connection, for the faces and bulging occiputs suggest rather a long-headed than a broad-headed type, and the theory no longer obtains that new habits of life alter skull forms which are usually associated with other distinctive traits in the structure of skeletons. These broad-headed nomadic peoples of the Steppes are allied to Tatar stock, and distinguished from the pure Mongols by their abundance of wavy hair and beard. The fact that the Sumerians shaved their scalps and faces is highly suggestive in this connection. From the earliest times it has been the habit of most peoples to emphasize their racial characteristics so as to be able, one may suggest, to distinguish readily a friend from a foeman. At any rate this fact is generally recognized by ethnologists. The Basques, for instance, shave their pointed chins and sometimes grow short side whiskers to increase the distinctive pear-shape which is given to their faces by their prominent temples. In contrast, their neighbours, the Andalusians, grow chin whiskers to broaden their already rounded chins, and to distinguish them markedly from the Basques.^[12] Another example of similar character is afforded in Asia Minor, where the skulls of the children of long-headed Kurds are narrowed, and those of the children of broad-headed Armenians made flatter behind as a result of systematic pressure applied by using cradle boards. In this way these rival peoples accentuate their contrasting head forms, which at times may, no doubt, show a tendency towards variation as a result of the crossment of types. When it is found, therefore, that the Sumerians, like the Ancient Egyptians, were in the habit of shaving, their ethnic affinities should be looked for among a naturally glabrous rather than a heavily-bearded people.

A Central Asiatic source for Sumerian culture has also been urged of late with much circumstantial detail. It breaks quite fresh and interesting ground. Recent scientific expeditions in Russian and Chinese Turkestan have accumulated important archaeological data which clearly establish that vast areas of desert country were at a remote period most verdurous and fruitful, and thickly populated by organized and apparently progressive communities. From these ancient centres of civilization wholesale migrations must have been impelled from time to time in consequence of the gradual encroachment of wind-distributed sand and the increasing shortage of water. At Anau in Russian Turkestan, where excavations were conducted by the Pumpelly expedition, abundant traces were found of an archaic and forgotten civilization reaching back to the Late Stone Age. The pottery is decorated with geometric designs, and resembles somewhat other Neolithic specimens found as far apart as Susa, the capital of ancient Elam, on the borders of Babylonia, Boghaz Köi in Asia Minor, the seat of Hittite administration, round the Black Sea to the north, and at points in the southern regions of the Balkan Peninsula. It is suggested that these various finds are scattered evidences of early racial drifts from the Central Asian areas which were gradually being rendered uninhabitable. Among the Copper Age artifacts at Anau are clay votive statuettes resembling those which were used in Sumeria for religious purposes. These, however, cannot be held to prove a racial connection, but they are important in so far as they afford evidence of early trade relations in a hitherto unsuspected direction, and the long distances over which cultural influence extended before the dawn of history. Further we cannot go. No inscriptions have yet been discovered to render articulate this mysterious Central Asian civilization, or to suggest the original source of early Sumerian picture writing. Nor is it possible to confirm Mr. Pumpelly's view that from the Anau district the Sumerians and Egyptians first obtained barley and wheat, and some of their domesticated animals. If, as Professor Elliot Smith believes, copper was first used by the Ancient Egyptians, it may be, on the other hand, that a knowledge of this metal reached Anau through Sumeria, and that the elements of the earlier culture were derived from the same quarter by an indirect route. The evidence obtainable in Egypt is of interest in this connection. Large quantities of food have been taken from the stomachs and intestines of sun-dried bodies which have lain in their pre-Dynastic graves for over sixty centuries. This material has been carefully examined, and has yielded, among other things, husks of barley and millet, and fragments of mammalian bones, including those, no doubt, of the domesticated sheep and goats and cattle painted on the pottery.^[13] It is therefore apparent that at an extremely remote period a knowledge of agriculture extended throughout Egypt, and we have no reason for supposing that it was not shared by the contemporary inhabitants of Sumer.

The various theories which have been propounded regarding the outside source of Sumerian culture are based on the assumption that it commenced abruptly and full grown. Its rude beginnings cannot be traced on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, but although no specimens of the earliest form of picture writing have been recovered from the ruins of Sumerian and Akkadian cities, neither have any been found elsewhere. The possibility remains, therefore, that early Babylonian culture was indigenous. "A great deal of ingenuity has been displayed by many scholars", says Professor Elliot Smith, "with the object of bringing these Sumerians from somewhere else as immigrants into Sumer; but no reasons have been advanced to show that they had not been settled at the head of the Persian Gulf for long generations before they first appeared on the stage of history. The argument that no early remains have been found is futile, not only because such a country as Sumer is no more favourable to the preservation of such evidence than is the Delta of the Nile, but also upon the more general grounds that negative statements of this sort cannot be assigned a positive evidence for an immigration."^[14] This distinguished ethnologist is frankly of opinion that the Sumerians were the congeners of the pre-Dynastic Egyptians of the Mediterranean or Brown race, the eastern branch of which reaches to India and the western to the British Isles and Ireland. In the same ancient family are included the Arabs, whose physical characteristics distinguish them from the Semites of Jewish type.

Some light may be thrown on the Sumerian problem by giving consideration to the present-day racial complexion of Western Asia. The importance of evidence of this character has been emphasized elsewhere. In Egypt, for instance, Dr. C.S. Myers has ascertained that the modern peasants have skull forms which are identical with those of their pre-Dynastic ancestors. Mr. Hawes has also demonstrated that the ancient inhabitants of Crete are still represented on that famous island. But even more remarkable is the fact that the distinctive racial type which occupied the Palaeolithic caves of the Dordogne valley in France continues to survive in their vicinity after an interval of over twenty thousand years.^[15] It is noteworthy, therefore, to find that in south-western Asia at the present day one particular racial type predominates over all others. Professor Ripley, who summarizes a considerable mass of data in this connection, refers to it as the "Iranian", and says: "It includes the Persians and Kurds, possibly the Ossetes in the Caucasus, and farther to the east a large number of Asiatic tribes, from the Afghans to the Hindus. These peoples are all primarily long-headed and dark brunets. They incline to slenderness of habit, although varying in stature according to circumstances. In them we recognize at once undoubted congeners of our Mediterranean race in Europe. The area of their extension runs off into Africa, through the Egyptians, who are clearly of the same race. Not only the modern peoples, but the Ancient Egyptians and the Phoenicians also have been traced to the same source. By far the largest portion of this part of Western Asia is inhabited by this eastern branch of the Mediterranean race." The broad-headed type "occurs sporadically among a few ethnic remnants in Syria and Mesopotamia".^[16] The exhaustive study of thousands of ancient crania in London and Cambridge collections has shown that Mediterranean peoples, having alien traits, the result of early admixture, were distributed between Egypt and the Punjab.^[17] Where blending took place, the early type, apparently, continued to predominate; and it appears to be reasserting itself in our own time in Western Asia, as elsewhere. It seems doubtful, therefore, that the ancient Sumerians differed racially from the pre-Dynastic inhabitants of Egypt and the Pelasgians and Iberians of Europe. Indeed, the statuettes from Tello, the site of the Sumerian city of Lagash, display distinctively Mediterranean skull forms and faces. Some of the plump figures of the later period suggest, however, "the particular alien strain" which in Egypt and elsewhere "is always associated with a tendency to the development of fat", in contrast to "the lean and sinewy appearance of most representatives of the Brown race".^[18] This change may be accounted for by the presence of the Semites in northern Babylonia.

Whence, then, came these invading Semitic Akkadians of Jewish type? It is generally agreed that they were closely associated with one of the early outpourings of nomadic peoples from Arabia, a country which is favourable for the production of a larger population than it is able to maintain permanently, especially when its natural resources are restricted by a succession of abnormally dry years. In tracing the Akkadians from Arabia, however, we are confronted at the outset with the difficulty that its prehistoric, and many of its present-day, inhabitants are not of the characteristic Semitic type. On the Ancient Egyptian pottery and monuments the Arabs are depicted as men who closely resembled the representatives of the Mediterranean race in the Nile valley and elsewhere. They shaved neither scalps nor faces as did the historic Sumerians and Egyptians, but grew the slight moustache and chin-tuft beard like the Libyans on the north and the majority of the men whose bodies have been preserved in pre-Dynastic graves in the Nile valley. "If", writes Professor Elliot Smith, "the generally accepted view is true, that Arabia was the original home of the Semites, the Arab must have undergone a profound change in his physical characters after he left his homeland and before he reached Babylonia." This authority is of opinion that the Arabians first migrated into Palestine and northern Syria, where they mingled with the southward-migrating Armenoid peoples from Asia Minor. "This blend of Arabs, kinsmen of the proto-Egyptians and Armenoids, would then form the big-nosed, long-bearded Semites, so familiar not only on the ancient Babylonian and Egyptian monuments, but also in the modern Jews."^[19] Such a view is in accord with Dr. Hugo Winckler's contention that the flow of Arabian migrations was northwards towards Syria ere it swept through Mesopotamia. It can scarcely be supposed that these invasions of settled districts did not result in the fusion and crossment of racial types and the production of a sub-variety with medium skull form and marked facial characteristics.

Of special interest in this connection is the evidence afforded by Palestine and Egypt. The former country has ever been subject to periodic ethnic disturbances and changes. Its racial history has a remote beginning in the Pleistocene Age. Palaeolithic flints of Chellean and other primitive types have been found in large numbers, and a valuable collection of these is being preserved in a French museum at Jerusalem. In a northern cave fragments of rude pottery, belonging to an early period in the Late Stone Age, have been discovered in association with the bones of the woolly rhinoceros. To a later period belong the series of Gezer cave dwellings, which, according to Professor Macalister, the well-known Palestinian authority, "were occupied by a non-Semitic people of low stature, with thick skulls and showing evidence of the great muscular strength that is essential to savage life".^[20] These people are generally supposed to be representatives of the Mediterranean race, which Sergi has found to have been widely distributed throughout Syria and a part of Asia Minor.^[21] An interesting problem, however, is raised by the fact that, in one of the caves, there are evidences that the dead were cremated. This was not a Mediterranean custom, nor does it appear to have prevailed outside the Gezer area. If, however, it does not indicate that the kinsmen of the Ancient Egyptians came into contact with the remnants of an earlier people, it may be that the dead of a later people were burned there. The possibility that unidentified types may have contributed to the Semitic blend, however, remains. The Mediterraneans mingled in Northern Syria and Asia Minor with the broad-headed Armenoid peoples who are represented in Europe by the Alpine race. With them they ultimately formed the great Hittite confederacy. These Armenoids were moving southwards at the very dawn of Egyptian history, and nothing is known of their conquests and settlements. Their pioneers, who were probably traders, appear to have begun to enter the Delta region before the close of the Late Stone Age.^[22] The earliest outpourings of migrating Arabians may have been in progress about the same time. This early southward drift of Armenoids might account for the presence in southern Palestine, early in the Copper Age, of the tall race referred to in the Bible as the Rephaim or Anakim, "whose power was broken only by the Hebrew invaders".^[23] Joshua drove them out of Hebron,^[24] in the neighbourhood of which Abraham had purchased a burial cave from Ephron, the Hittite.^[25] Apparently a system of land laws prevailed in Palestine at this early period. It is of special interest for us to note that in Abraham's day and afterwards, the landed proprietors in the country of the Rephaim were identified with the aliens from Asia Minor--the tall variety in the Hittite confederacy.

Little doubt need remain that the Arabians during their sojourn in Palestine and Syria met with distinctive types, and if not with pure Armenoids, at any rate with peoples having Armenoid traits. The consequent multiplication of tribes, and the gradual pressure exercised by the constant stream of immigrants from Arabia and Asia Minor, must have kept this part of Western Asia in a constant state of unrest. Fresh migrations of the surplus stock were evidently propelled towards Egypt in one direction, and the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in another. The Semites of Akkad were probably the conquerors of the more highly civilized Sumerians, who must have previously occupied that area. It is possible that they owed their success to the possession of superior weapons. Professor Elliot Smith suggests in this connection that the Arabians had become familiar with the use of copper as a result of contact with the Egyptians in Sinai. There is no evidence, however, that the Sumerians were attacked before they had begun to make metal weapons. It is more probable that the invading nomads had superior military organization and considerable experience in waging war against detached tribal units. They may have also found some of the northern Sumerian city states at war with one another and taken advantage of their unpreparedness to resist a common enemy. The rough Dorians who overran Greece and the fierce Goths who shattered the power of Rome were similarly in a lower state of civilization than the peoples whom they subdued.

The Sumerians, however, ultimately achieved an intellectual conquest of their conquerors. Although the leaders of invasion may have formed military aristocracies in the cities which they occupied, it was necessary for the great majority of the nomads to engage their activities in new directions after settlement. The Semitic Akkadians, therefore, adopted Sumerian habits of life which were best suited for the needs of the country, and they consequently came under the spell of Sumerian modes of thought. This is shown by the fact that the native speech of ancient Sumer continued long after the dawn of history to be the language of Babylonian religion and culture, like Latin in Europe during the Middle Ages. For centuries the mingling peoples must have been bilingual, as are many of the inhabitants of Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands in the present age, but ultimately the language of the Semites became the prevailing speech in Sumer and Akkad. This change was the direct result of the conquests and the political supremacy achieved by the northern people. A considerable period elapsed, however, ere this consummation was reached and Ancient Babylonia became completely Semitized. No doubt its brilliant historical civilization owed much of its vigour and stability to the organizing genius of the Semites, but the basis on which it was established had been laid by the ingenious and imaginative Sumerians who first made the desert to blossom like the rose.

The culture of Sumer was a product of the Late Stone Age, which should not be regarded as necessarily an age of barbarism. During its vast periods there were great discoveries and great inventions in various parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Neoliths made pottery and bricks; we know that they invented the art of spinning, for spindle-whorls are found even in the Gezer caves to which we have referred, while in Egypt the pre-Dynastic dead were sometimes wrapped in finely woven linen: their deftly chipped flint implements are eloquent of artistic and mechanical skill, and undoubted mathematical ability must be credited to the makers of smoothly polished stone hammers which are so perfectly balanced that they revolve on a centre of gravity. In Egypt and Babylonia the soil was tilled and its fertility increased by irrigation. Wherever man waged a struggle with Nature he made rapid progress, and consequently we find that the earliest great civilizations were rooted in the little fields of the Neolithic farmers. Their mode of life necessitated a knowledge of Nature's laws; they had to take note of the seasons and measure time. So Egypt gave us the Calendar, and Babylonia the system of dividing the week into seven days, and the day into twelve double hours.

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!

[12] The Races of Europe, W.Z. Ripley, p. 203.

[13] The Ancient Egyptians, by Elliot Smith, p. 41 et seq.

[14] The Ancient Egyptians, p. 140.

[15] Crete the Forerunner of Greece, C. H. and H. B. Hawes, 1911, p. 23 et seq.

[16] The Races of Europe, W. Z. Ripley, p. 443 et seq.

[17] The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 144-5.

[18] The Ancient Egyptians, p. 114.

[19] The Ancient Egyptians, p. 136.

[20] A History of Palestine, R.A.S. Macalister, pp. 8-16.

[21] The Mediterranean Race (1901 trans.), G. Sergi, p. 146 et seq.

[22] The Ancient Egyptians, p. 130.

[23] A History of Civilization in Palestine, p. 20 et seq.

[24] Joshua, xi. 21.

[25] Genesis, xxiii.

[26] Genesis, xvi. 8, 9.

[27] 1 Kings, xvi. 16.

Chapter II. The Land of Rivers and the God of the Deep

Abstract

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 bulk, and he transferred it next to a tank and then to the river Ganges. In time the fish complained to Manu that the river was too small for it, so he carried it to the sea. For these services the god in fish form instructed Manu regarding the approaching flood, and afterwards piloted his ship through the weltering waters until it rested on a mountain top.^[32]

If this Indian myth is of Babylonian origin, as appears probable, it may be that the spirit of the river Euphrates, "the soul of the land", was identified with a migrating fish. The growth of the fish suggests the growth of the river rising in flood. In Celtic folk tales high tides and valley floods are accounted for by the presence of a "great beast" in sea, loch, or river. In a class of legends, "specially connected with the worship of Atargatis", wrote Professor Robertson Smith, "the divine life of the waters resides in the sacred fish that inhabit them. Atargatis and her son, according to a legend common to Hierapolis and Ascalon, plunged into the waters--in the first case the Euphrates, in the second the sacred pool at the temple near the town--and were changed into fishes". The idea is that "where a god dies, that is, ceases to exist in human form, his life passes into the waters where he is buried; and this again is merely a theory to bring the divine water or the divine fish into harmony with anthropomorphic ideas. The same thing was sometimes effected in another way by saying that the anthropomorphic deity was born from the water, as Aphrodite sprang from sea foam, or as Atargatis, in another form of the Euphrates legend, ... was born of an egg which the sacred fishes found in the Euphrates and pushed ashore."^[33]

As "Shar Apsi", Ea was the "King of the Watery Deep". The reference, however, according to Jastrow, "is not to the salt ocean, but the sweet waters flowing under the earth which feed the streams, and through streams and canals irrigate the fields".^[34] As Babylonia was fertilized by its rivers, Ea, the fish god, was a fertilizing deity. In Egypt the "Mother of Mendes" is depicted carrying a fish upon her head; she links with Isis and Hathor; her husband is Ba-neb-Tettu, a form of Ptah, Osiris, and Ra, and as a god of fertility he is symbolized by the ram. Another Egyptian fish deity was the god Rem, whose name signifies "to weep"; he wept fertilizing tears, and corn was sown and reaped amidst lamentations. He may be identical with Remi, who was a phase of Sebek, the crocodile god, a developed attribute of Nu, the vague primitive Egyptian deity who symbolized the primordial deep. The connection between a fish god and a corn god is not necessarily remote when we consider that in Babylonia and Egypt the harvest was the gift of the rivers.

The Euphrates, indeed, was hailed as a creator of all that grew on its banks.

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...

Thou judgest the cause of mankind!

O River, thou art mighty! O River, thou art supreme!

O River, thou art righteous!^[35]

In serving Ea, the embodiment or the water spirit, by leading him, as the Indian Manu led the Creator and "Preserver" in fish form, from river to water pot, water pot to pond or canal, and then again to river and ocean, the Babylonians became expert engineers and experienced agriculturists, the makers of bricks, the builders of cities, the framers of laws. Indeed, their civilization was a growth of Ea worship. Ea was their instructor. Berosus states that, as Oannes, he lived in the Persian Gulf, and every day came ashore to instruct the inhabitants of Eridu how to make canals, to grow crops, to work metals, to make pottery and bricks, and to build temples; he was the artisan god--Nun-ura, "god of the potter"; Kuski-banda, "god of goldsmiths", &c.--the divine patron of the arts and crafts. "Ea knoweth everything", chanted the hymn maker. He taught the people how to form and use alphabetic signs and instructed them in mathematics: he gave them their code of laws. Like the Egyptian artisan god Ptah, and the linking deity Khnumu, Ea was the "potter or moulder of gods and man". Ptah moulded the first man on his potter's wheel: he also moulded the sun and moon; he shaped the universe and hammered out the copper sky. Ea built the world "as an architect builds a house".^[36] Similarly the Vedic Indra, who wielded a hammer like Ptah, fashioned the universe after the simple manner in which the Aryans made their wooden dwellings.^[37]

Like Ptah, Ea also developed from an artisan god into a sublime Creator in the highest sense, not merely as a producer of crops. His word became the creative force; he named those things he desired to be, and they came into existence. "Who but Ea creates things", exclaimed a priestly poet. This change from artisan god to creator (Nudimmud) may have been due to the tendency of early religious cults to attach to their chief god the attributes of rivals exalted at other centres.

Ea, whose name is also rendered Aa, was identified with Ya, Ya'u, or Au, the Jah of the Hebrews. "In Ya-Daganu, 'Jah is Dagon'", writes Professor Pinches, "we have the elements reversed, showing a wish to identify Jah with Dagon, rather than Dagon with Jah; whilst another interesting name, Au-Aa, shows an identification of Jah with Aa, two names which have every appearance of being etymologically connected." Jah's name "is one of the words for 'god' in the Assyro-Babylonian language".^[38]

Ea was "Enki", "lord of the world", or "lord of what is beneath"; Amma-ana-ki, "lord of heaven and earth"; Sa-kalama, "ruler of the land", as well as Engur, "god of the abyss", Naqbu, "the deep", and Lugal-ida, "king of the river". As rain fell from "the waters above the firmament", the god of waters was also a sky and earth god.

The Indian Varuna was similarly a sky as well as an ocean god before the theorizing and systematizing Brahmanic teachers relegated him to a permanent abode at the bottom of the sea. It may be that Ea-Oannes and Varuna were of common origin.

Another Babylonian deity, named Dagan, is believed to be identical with Ea. His worship was certainly of great antiquity. "Hammurabi", writes Professor Pinches, "seems to speak of the Euphrates as being 'the boundary of Dagan', whom he calls his creator. In later inscriptions the form Daguna, which approaches nearer to the West Semitic form (Dagon of the Philistines), is found in a few personal names.^[39]

It is possible that the Philistine deity Dagon was a specialized form of ancient Ea, who was either imported from Babylonia or was a sea god of more than one branch of the Mediterranean race. The authorities are at variance regarding the form and attributes of Dagan. Our knowledge regarding him is derived mainly from the Bible. He was a national rather than a city god. There are references to a Beth-dagon^[40], "house or city of Dagon"; he had also a temple at Gaza, and Samson destroyed it by pulling down the two middle pillars which were its main support.^[41] A third temple was situated in Ashdod. When the captured ark of the Israelites was placed in it the image of Dagon "fell on his face", with the result that "the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left".^[42] A further reference to "the threshold of Dagon" suggests that the god had feet like Ea-Oannes. Those who hold that Dagon had a fish form derive his name from the Semitic "dag = a fish", and suggest that after the idol fell only the fishy part (dāgo) was left. On the other hand, it was argued that Dagon was a corn god, and that the resemblance between the words Dagan and Dagon are accidental. Professor Sayce makes reference in this connection to a crystal seal from Phoenicia in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, bearing an inscription which he reads as Baal-dagon. Near the name is an ear of corn, and other symbols, such as the winged solar disc, a gazelle, and several stars, but there is no fish. It may be, of course, that Baal-dagon represents a fusion of deities. As we have seen in the case of Ea-Oannes and the deities of Mendes, a fish god may also be a corn god, a land animal god and a god of ocean and the sky. The offering of golden mice representing "your mice that mar the land",^[43] made by the Philistines, suggests that Dagon was the fertilizing harvest god, among other things, whose usefulness had been impaired, as they believed, by the mistake committed of placing the ark of Israel in the temple at Ashdod. The Philistines came from Crete, and if their Dagon was imported from that island, he may have had some connection with Poseidon, whose worship extended throughout Greece. This god of the sea, who is somewhat like the Roman Neptune, carried a lightning trident and caused earthquakes. He was a brother of Zeus, the sky and atmosphere deity, and had bull and horse forms. As a horse he pursued Demeter, the earth and corn goddess, and, like Ea, he instructed mankind, but especially in the art of training horses. In his train were the Tritons, half men, half fishes, and the water fairies, the Nereids. Bulls, boars, and rams were offered to this sea god of fertility. Amphitrite was his spouse.

An obscure god Shony, the Oannes of the Scottish Hebrides, received oblations from those who depended for their agricultural prosperity on his gifts of fertilizing seaweed. He is referred to in Martin's Western Isles, and is not yet forgotten. The Eddic sea god Njord of Noatun was the father of Frey, the harvest god. Dagda, the Irish corn god, had for wife Boann, the goddess of the river Boyne. Osiris and Isis of Egypt were associated with the Nile. The connection between agriculture and the water supply was too obvious to escape the early symbolists, and many other proofs of this than those referred to could be given.

Ea's "faithful spouse" was the goddess Damkina, who was also called Nin-ki, "lady of the earth". "May Ea make thee glad", chanted the priests. "May Damkina, queen of the deep, illumine thee with her countenance; may Merodach (Marduk), the mighty overseer of the Igigi (heavenly spirits), exalt thy head." Merodach was their son: in time he became the Bel, or "Lord", of the Babylonian pantheon.

Like the Indian Varuna, the sea god, Ea-Oannes had control over the spirits and demons of the deep. The "ferryman" who kept watch over the river of death was called Arad-Ea, "servant of Ea". There are also references to sea maidens, the Babylonian mermaids, or Nereids. We have a glimpse of sea giants, which resemble the Indian Danavas and Daityas of ocean, in the chant:

Seven are they, seven are they,

In the ocean deep seven are they,

Battening in heaven seven are they,

Bred in the depths of ocean....

Of these seven the first is the south wind,

The second a dragon with mouth agape....^[44]

A suggestion of the Vedic Vritra and his horde of monsters.

These seven demons were also "the messengers of Anu", who, although specialized as a sky god in more than one pantheon, appears to have been closely associated with Ea in the earliest Sumerian period. His name, signifying "the high one", is derived from "ana", "heaven"; he was the city god of Erech (Uruk). It is possible that he was developed as an atmospheric god with solar and lunar attributes. The seven demons, who were his messengers, recall the stormy Maruts, the followers of Indra. They are referred to as

Forcing their way with baneful windstorms,

Mighty destroyers, the deluge of the storm god,

Stalking at the right hand of the storm god.^[45]

When we deal with a deity in his most archaic form it is difficult to distinguish him from a demon. Even the beneficent Ea is associated with monsters and furies. "Evil spirits", according to a Babylonian chant, were "the bitter venom of the gods". Those attached to a deity as "attendants" appear to represent the original animistic group from which he evolved. In each district the character of the deity was shaped to accord with local conditions.

At Nippur, which was situated on the vague and shifting boundary line between Sumer and Akkad, the chief god was Enlil, whose name is translated "lord of mist", "lord of might", and "lord of demons" by various authorities. He was a storm god and a war god, and "lord of heaven and earth", like Ea and Anu. An atmospheric deity, he shares the attributes of the Indian Indra, the thunder and rain god, and Vayu, the wind god; he also resembles the Semitic Adad or Rimman, who links with the Hittite Tarku. All these are deities of tempest and the mountains--Wild Huntsmen in the Raging Host. The name of Enlil's temple at Nippur has been translated as "mountain house", or "like a mountain", and the theory obtained for a time that the god must therefore have been imported by a people from the hills. But as the ideogram for "mountain" and "land" was used in the earliest times, as King shows, with reference to foreign countries,^[46] it is more probable that Enlil was exalted as a world god who had dominion over not only Sumer and Akkad, but also the territories occupied by the rivals and enemies of the early Babylonians.

Enlil is known as the "older Bel" (lord), to distinguish him from Bel Merodach of Babylon. He was the chief figure in a triad in which he figured as earth god, with Anu as god of the sky and Ea as god of the deep. This classification suggests that Nippur had either risen in political importance and dominated the cities of Erech and Eridu, or that its priests were influential at the court of a ruler who was the overlord of several city states.

Associated with Bel Enlil was Beltis, later known as "Beltu--the lady". She appears to be identical with the other great goddesses, Ishtar, Nana, Zerpanitum, &c., a "Great Mother", or consort of an early god with whom she was equal in power and dignity.

In the later systematized theology of the Babylonians we seem to trace the fragments of a primitive mythology which was vague in outline, for the deities were not sharply defined, and existed in groups. Enneads were formed in Egypt by placing a local god at the head of a group of eight elder deities. The sun god Ra was the chief figure of the earliest pantheon of this character at Heliopolis, while at Hermopolis the leader was the lunar god Thoth. Professor Budge is of opinion that "both the Sumerians and the early Egyptians derived their primeval gods from some common but exceedingly ancient source", for he finds in the Babylonian and Nile valleys that there is a resemblance between two early groups which "seems to be too close to be accidental".^[47]

The Egyptian group comprises four pairs of vague gods and goddesses--Nu and his consort Nut, Hehu and his consort Hehut, Kekui and his consort Kekuit, and Kerh and his consort Kerhet. "Man always has fashioned", he says, "and probably always will fashion, his god or gods in his own image, and he has always, having reached a certain stage in development, given to his gods wives and offspring; but the nature of the position taken by the wives of the gods depends upon the nature of the position of women in the households of those who write the legends and the traditions of the gods. The gods of the oldest company in Egypt were, the writer believes, invented by people in whose households women held a high position, and among whom they possessed more power than is usually the case with Oriental peoples."^[48]

We cannot say definitely what these various deities represent. Nu was the spirit of the primordial deep, and Nut of the waters above the heavens, the mother of moon and sun and the stars. The others were phases of light and darkness and the forces of nature in activity and repose.

Nu is represented in Babylonian mythology by Apsu-Rishtu, and Nut by Mummu-Tiamat or Tiawath; the next pair is Lachmu and Lachamu, and the third, Anshar and Kishar. The fourth pair is missing, but the names of Anu and Ea (as Nudimmud) are mentioned in the first tablet of the Creation series, and the name of a third is lost. Professor Budge thinks that the Assyrian editors substituted the ancient triad of Anu, Ea, and Enlil for the pair which would correspond to those found in Egypt. Originally the wives of Anu and Ea may have made up the group of eight primitive deities.

There can be little doubt but that Ea, as he survives to us, is of later characterization than the first pair of primitive deities who symbolized the deep. The attributes of this beneficent god reflect the progress, and the social and moral ideals of a people well advanced in civilization. He rewarded mankind for the services they rendered to him; he was their leader and instructor; he achieved for them the victories over the destructive forces of nature. In brief, he was the dragon slayer, a distinction, by the way, which was attached in later times to his son Merodach, the Babylonian god, although Ea was still credited with the victory over the dragon's husband.

When Ea was one of the pre-Babylonian group--the triad of Bel-Enlil, Anu, and Ea--he resembled the Indian Vishnu, the Preserver, while Bel-Enlil resembled Shiva, the Destroyer, and Anu, the father, supreme Brahma, the Creator and Father of All, the difference in exact adjustment being due, perhaps, to Sumerian political conditions.

Ea, as we have seen, symbolized the beneficence of the waters; their destructive force was represented by Tiamat or Tiawath, the dragon, and Apsu, her husband, the arch-enemy of the gods. We shall find these elder demons figuring in the Babylonian Creation myth, which receives treatment in a later chapter.

The ancient Sumerian city of Eridu, which means "on the seashore", was invested with great sanctity from the earliest times, and Ea, the "great magician of the gods", was invoked by workers of spells, the priestly magicians of historic Babylonia. Excavations have shown that Eridu was protected by a retaining wall of sandstone, of which material many of its houses were made. In its temple tower, built of brick, was a marble stairway, and evidences have been forthcoming that in the later Sumerian period the structure was lavishly adorned. It is referred to in the fragments of early literature which have survived as "the splendid house, shady as the forest", that "none may enter". The mythological spell exercised by Eridu in later times suggests that the civilization of Sumeria owed much to the worshippers of Ea. At the sacred city the first man was created: there the souls of the dead passed towards the great Deep. Its proximity to the sea--Ea was Nin-bubu, "god of the sailor"--may have brought it into contact with other peoples and other early civilizations. Like the early Egyptians, the early Sumerians may have been in touch with Punt (Somaliland), which some regard as the cradle of the Mediterranean race. The Egyptians obtained from that sacred land incense-bearing trees which had magical potency. In a fragmentary Babylonian charm there is a reference to a sacred tree or bush at Eridu. Professor Sayce has suggested that it is the Biblical "Tree of Life" in the Garden of Eden. His translations of certain vital words, however, is sharply questioned by Mr. R. Campbell Thompson of the British Museum, who does not accept the theory.^[49] It may be that Ea's sacred bush or tree is a survival of tree and water worship.

If Eridu was not the "cradle" of the Sumerian race, it was possibly the cradle of Sumerian civilization. Here, amidst the shifting rivers in early times, the agriculturists may have learned to control and distribute the water supply by utilizing dried-up beds of streams to irrigate the land. Whatever successes they achieved were credited to Ea, their instructor and patron; he was Nadimmud, "god of everything".

[28] 2 Kings, xviii, 32.

[29] Herodotus, i, 193.

[30] Peter's Nippur, i, p. 160.

[31] A Babylonian priest of Bel Merodach. In the third century a.c. he composed in Greek a history of his native land, which has perished. Extracts from it are given by Eusebius, Josephus, Apollodorus, and others.

[32] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 140, 141.

[33] The Religion of the Semites, pp. 159, 160.

[34] Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, M. Jastrow, p. 88.

[35] The Seven Tablets of Creation, L.W. King, vol. i, p. 129.

[36] Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, M. Jastrow, p. 88.

[37] Cosmology of the Rigveda, Wallis, and Indian Myth and Legend, p. 10.

[38] The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, T.G. Pinches, pp. 59-61.

[39] The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, T.G. Pinches, pp. 91, 92.

[40] Joshua, xv, 41; xix, 27.

[41] Judges, xvi, 14.

[42] I Sam., v, 1-9.

[43] I Sam., vi, 5.

[44] The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, R. Campbell Thompson, London, 1903, vol. i, p. xlii.

[45] The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, R. C. Thompson, vol. i, p. xliii.

[46] A History of Sumer and Akkad, L. W. King, p. 54.

[47] The Gods of the Egyptians, E. Wallis Budge, vol. i, p. 290.

[48] The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. i, p. 287.

[49] The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, vol. i, Intro. See also Sayce's The Religion of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (Gifford Lectures, 1902), p. 385, and Pinches' The Old Testament in the Light of Historical Records, &c., p. 71.

Chapter III. Rival Pantheons and Representative Deities

Abstract

Why Different Gods were Supreme at Different Centres--Theories regarding Origin of Life--Vital Principle in Water--Creative Tears of Weeping Deities--Significance of widespread Spitting Customs--Divine Water in Blood and Divine Blood in Water--Liver as the Seat of Life--Inspiration derived by Drinking Mead, Blood, &c.--Life Principle in Breath--Babylonian Ghosts as "Evil Wind Gusts"--Fire Deities--Fire and Water in Magical Ceremonies--Moon Gods of Ur and Harran--Moon Goddess and Babylonian "Jack and Jill"--Antiquity of Sun Worship--Tammuz and Ishtar--Solar Gods of War, Pestilence, and Death--Shamash as the "Great Judge"--His Mitra Name--Aryan Mitra or Mithra and linking Babylonian Deities--Varuna and Shamash Hymns compared--The Female Origin of Life--Goddesses of Maternity--The Babylonian Thor--Deities of Good and Evil.

In dealing with the city cults of Sumer and Akkad, consideration must be given to the problems involved by the rival mythological systems. Pantheons not only varied in detail, but were presided over by different supreme gods. One city's chief deity might be regarded as a secondary deity at another centre. Although Ea, for instance, was given first place at Eridu, and was so pronouncedly Sumerian in character, the moon god Nannar remained supreme at Ur, while the sun god, whose Semitic name was Shamash, presided at Larsa and Sippar. Other deities were similarly exalted in other states.

As has been indicated, a mythological system must have been strongly influenced by city politics. To hold a community in sway, it was necessary to recognize officially the various gods worshipped by different sections, so as to secure the constant allegiance of all classes to their rulers. Alien deities were therefore associated with local and tribal deities, those of the nomads with those of the agriculturists, those of the unlettered folks with those of the learned people. Reference has been made to the introduction of strange deities by conquerors. But these were not always imposed upon a community by violent means. Indications are not awanting that the worshippers of alien gods were sometimes welcomed and encouraged to settle in certain states. When they came as military allies to assist a city folk against a fierce enemy, they were naturally much admired and praised, honoured by the women and the bards, and rewarded by the rulers.

In the epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Hercules, we meet with Ea-bani, a Goliath of the wilds, who is entreated to come to the aid of the besieged city of Erech when it seemed that its deities were unable to help the people against their enemies.

The gods of walled-round Erech

To flies had turned and buzzed in the streets;

The winged bulls of walled-round Erech

Were turned to mice and departed through the holes.

Ea-bani was attracted to Erech by the gift of a fair woman for wife. The poet who lauded him no doubt mirrored public opinion. We can see the slim, shaven Sumerians gazing with wonder and admiration on their rough heroic ally.

All his body was covered with hair,

His locks were like a woman's,

Thick as corn grew his abundant hair.

He was a stranger to the people and in that land.

Clad in a garment like Gira, the god,

He had eaten grass with the gazelles,

He had drunk water with savage beasts.

His delight was to be among water dwellers.

Like the giant Alban, the eponymous ancestor of a people who invaded prehistoric Britain, Ea-bani appears to have represented in Babylonian folk legends a certain type of foreign settlers in the land. No doubt the city dwellers, who were impressed by the prowess of the hairy and powerful warriors, were also ready to acknowledge the greatness of their war gods, and to admit them into the pantheon. The fusion of beliefs which followed must have stimulated thought and been productive of speculative ideas. "Nowhere", remarks Professor Jastrow, "does a high form of culture arise without the commingling of diverse ethnic elements."

We must also take into account the influence exercised by leaders of thought like En-we-dur-an-ki, the famous high priest of Sippar, whose piety did much to increase the reputation of the cult of Shamesh, the sun god. The teachings and example of Buddha, for instance, revolutionized Brahmanic religion in India.

A mythology was an attempt to solve the riddle of the Universe, and to adjust the relations of mankind with the various forces represented by the deities. The priests systematized existing folk beliefs and established an official religion. To secure the prosperity of the State, it was considered necessary to render homage unto whom homage was due at various seasons and under various circumstances.

The religious attitude of a particular community, therefore, must have been largely dependent on its needs and experiences. The food supply was a first consideration. At Eridu, as we have seen, it was assured by devotion to Ea and obedience to his commands as an instructor. Elsewhere it might happen, however, that Ea's gifts were restricted or withheld by an obstructing force--the raging storm god, or the parching, pestilence-bringing deity of the sun. It was necessary, therefore, for the people to win the favour of the god or goddess who seemed most powerful, and was accordingly considered to be the greatest in a particular district. A rain god presided over the destinies of one community, and a god of disease and death over another; a third exalted the war god, no doubt because raids were frequent and the city owed its strength and prosperity to its battles and conquests. The reputation won by a particular god throughout Babylonia would depend greatly on the achievements of his worshippers and the progress of the city civilization over which he presided. Bel-Enlil's fame as a war deity was probably due to the political supremacy of his city of Nippur; and there was probably good reason for attributing to the sun god a pronounced administrative and legal character; he may have controlled the destinies of exceedingly well organized communities in which law and order and authority were held in high esteem.

In accounting for the rise of distinctive and rival city deities, we should also consider the influence of divergent conceptions regarding the origin of life in mingled communities. Each foreign element in a community had its own intellectual life and immemorial tribal traditions, which reflected ancient habits of life and perpetuated the doctrines of eponymous ancestors. Among the agricultural classes, the folk religion which entered so intimately into their customs and labours must have remained essentially Babylonish in character. In cities, however, where official religions were formulated, foreign ideas were more apt to be imposed, especially when embraced by influential teachers. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in Babylonia, as in Egypt, there were differences of opinion regarding the origin of life and the particular natural element which represented the vital principle.

One section of the people, who were represented by the worshippers of Ea, appear to have believed that the essence of life was contained in water. The god of Eridu was the source of the "water of life". He fertilized parched and sunburnt wastes through rivers and irrigating canals, and conferred upon man the sustaining "food of life". When life came to an end--

Food of death will be offered thee...

Water of death will be offered thee...

Offerings of water and food were made to the dead so that the ghosts might be nourished and prevented from troubling the living. Even the gods required water and food; they were immortal because they had drunk ambrosia and eaten from the plant of life. When the goddess Ishtar was in the Underworld, the land of the dead, the servant of Ea exclaimed--

"Hail! lady, may the well give me of its waters, so that I may drink."

The goddess of the dead commanded her servant to "sprinkle the lady Ishtar with the water of life and bid her depart". The sacred water might also be found at a confluence of rivers. Ea bade his son, Merodach, to "draw water from the mouth of two streams", and "on this water to put his pure spell".

The worship of rivers and wells which prevailed in many countries was connected with the belief that the principle of life was in moisture. In India, water was vitalized by the intoxicating juice of the Soma plant, which inspired priests to utter prophecies and filled their hearts with religious fervour. Drinking customs had originally a religious significance. It was believed in India that the sap of plants was influenced by the moon, the source of vitalizing moisture and the hiding-place of the mead of the gods. The Teutonic gods also drank this mead, and poets were inspired by it. Similar beliefs obtained among various peoples. Moon and water worship were therefore closely associated; the blood of animals and the sap of plants were vitalized by the water of life and under control of the moon.

The body moisture of gods and demons had vitalizing properties. When the Indian creator, Prajápati, wept at the beginning, "that (the tears) which fell into the water became the air. That which he wiped away, upwards, became the sky."^[50] The ancient Egyptians believed that all men were born from the eyes of Horus except negroes, who came from other parts of his body.^[51] The creative tears of Ra, the sun god, fell as shining rays upon the earth. When this god grew old saliva dripped from his mouth, and Isis mixed the vitalizing moisture with dust, and thus made the serpent which bit and paralysed the great solar deity.^[52]

Other Egyptian deities, including Osiris and Isis, wept creative tears. Those which fell from the eyes of the evil gods produced poisonous plants and various baneful animals. Orion, the Greek giant, sprang from the body moisture of deities. The weeping ceremonies in connection with agricultural rites were no doubt believed to be of magical potency; they encouraged the god to weep creative tears.

Ea, the god of the deep, was also "lord of life" (Enti), "king of the river" (Lugal-ida), and god of creation (Nudimmud). His aid was invoked by means ot magical formulae. As the "great magician of the gods" he uttered charms himself, and was the patron of all magicians. One spell runs as follows:

I am the sorcerer priest of Ea...

To revive the ... sick man

The great lord Ea hath sent me;

He hath added his pure spell to mine,

He hath added his pure voice to mine,

He hath added his pure spittle to mine.

R.C. Thompson's Translation.

Saliva, like tears, had creative and therefore curative qualities; it also expelled and injured demons and brought good luck. Spitting ceremonies are referred to in the religious literature of Ancient Egypt. When the Eye of Ra was blinded by Set, Thoth spat in it to restore vision. The sun god Tum, who was linked with Ra as Ra-Tum, spat on the ground, and his saliva became the gods Shu and Tefnut. In the Underworld the devil serpent Apep was spat upon to curse it, as was also its waxen image which the priests fashioned.^[53]

Several African tribes spit to make compacts, declare friendship, and to curse.

Park, the explorer, refers in his Travels to his carriers spitting on a flat stone to ensure a good journey. Arabian holy men and descendants of Mohammed spit to cure diseases. Mohammed spat in the mouth of his grandson Hasen soon after birth. Theocritus, Sophocles, and Plutarch testify to the ancient Grecian customs of spitting to cure and to curse, and also to bless when children were named. Pliny has expressed belief in the efficacy of the fasting spittle for curing disease, and referred to the custom of spitting to avert witchcraft. In England, Scotland, and Ireland spitting customs are not yet obsolete. North of England boys used to talk of "spitting their sauls" (souls). When the Newcastle colliers held their earliest strikes they made compacts by spitting on a stone. There are still "spitting stones" in the north of Scotland. When bargains are made in rural districts, hands are spat upon before they are shaken. The first money taken each day by fishwives and other dealers is spat upon to ensure increased drawings. Brand, who refers to various spitting customs, quotes Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft regarding the saliva cure for king's evil, which is still, by the way, practised in the Hebrides. Like Pliny, Scot recommended ceremonial spitting as a charm against witchcraft.^[54] In China spitting to expel demons is a common practice. We still call a hasty person a "spitfire", and a calumniator a "spit-poison".

The life principle in trees, &c., as we have seen, was believed to have been derived from the tears of deities. In India sap was called the "blood of trees", and references to "bleeding trees" are still widespread and common. "Among the ancients", wrote Professor Robertson Smith, "blood is generally conceived as the principle or vehicle of life, and so the account often given of sacred waters is that the blood of the deity flows in them. Thus as Milton writes:

Smooth Adonis from his native rock

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded.

Paradise Lost, i, 450.

The ruddy colour which the swollen river derived from the soil at a certain season was ascribed to the blood of the god, who received his death wound in Lebanon at that time of the year, and lay buried beside the sacred source."^[55]

In Babylonia the river was regarded as the source of the life blood and the seat of the soul. No doubt this theory was based on the fact that the human liver contains about a sixth of the blood in the body, the largest proportion required by any single organ. Jeremiah makes "Mother Jerusalem" exclaim: "My liver is poured upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people", meaning that her life is spent with grief.

Inspiration was derived by drinking blood as well as by drinking intoxicating liquors--the mead of the gods. Indian magicians who drink the blood of the goat sacrificed to the goddess Kali, are believed to be temporarily possessed by her spirit, and thus enabled to prophesy.^[56] Malayan exorcists still expel demons while they suck the blood from a decapitated fowl.^[57]

Similar customs were prevalent in Ancient Greece. A woman who drank the blood of a sacrificed lamb or bull uttered prophetic sayings.^[58]

But while most Babylonians appear to have believed that the life principle was in blood, some were apparently of opinion that it was in breath--the air of life. A man died when he ceased to breathe; his spirit, therefore, it was argued, was identical with the atmosphere--the moving wind--and was accordingly derived from the atmospheric or wind god. When, in the Gilgamesh epic, the hero invokes the dead Ea-bani, the ghost rises up like a "breath of wind". A Babylonian charm runs:

The gods which seize on men

Came forth from the grave;

The evil wind gusts

Have come forth from the grave,

To demand payment of rites and the pouring out of libations

They have come forth from the grave;

All that is evil in their hosts, like a whirlwind,

Hath come forth from the grave.^[59]

The Hebrew "nephesh ruach" and "neshamah" (in Arabic "ruh" and "nefs") pass from meaning "breath" to "spirit".^[60] In Egypt the god Khnumu was "Kneph" in his character as an atmospheric deity. The ascendancy of storm and wind gods in some Babylonian cities may have been due to the belief that they were the source of the "air of life". It is possible that this conception was popularized by the Semites. Inspiration was perhaps derived from these deities by burning incense, which, if we follow evidence obtained elsewhere, induced a prophetic trance. The gods were also invoked by incense. In the Flood legend the Babylonian Noah burned incense. "The gods smelled a sweet savour and gathered like flies over the sacrificer." In Egypt devotees who inhaled the breath of the Apis bull were enabled to prophesy.

In addition to water and atmospheric deities Babylonia had also its fire gods, Girru, Gish Bar, Gibil, and Nusku. Their origin is obscure. It is doubtful if their worshippers, like those of the Indian Agni, believed that fire, the "vital spark", was the principle of life which was manifested by bodily heat. The Aryan fire worshippers cremated their dead so that the spirits might be transferred by fire to Paradise. This practice, however, did not obtain among the fire worshippers of Persia, nor, as was once believed, in Sumer or Akkad either. Fire was, however, used in Babylonia for magical purposes. It destroyed demons, and put to flight the spirits of disease. Possibly the fire-purification ceremonies resembled those which were practised by the Canaanites, and are referred to in the Bible. Ahaz "made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen".^[61] Ezekiel declared that "when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols".^[62] In Leviticus it is laid down: "Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch".^[63] It may be that in Babylonia the fire-cleansing ceremony resembled that which obtained at Beltane (May Day) in Scotland, Germany, and other countries. Human sacrifices might also have been offered up as burnt offerings. Abraham, who came from the Sumerian city of Ur, was prepared to sacrifice Isaac, Sarah's first-born. The fire gods of Babylonia never achieved the ascendancy of the Indian Agni; they appear to have resembled him mainly in so far as he was connected with the sun. Nusku, like Agni, was also the "messenger of the gods". When Merodach or Babylon was exalted as chief god of the pantheon his messages were carried to Ea by Nusku. He may have therefore symbolized the sun rays, for Merodach had solar attributes. It is possible that the belief obtained among even the water worshippers of Eridu that the sun and moon, which rose from the primordial deep, had their origin in the everlasting fire in Ea's domain at the bottom of the sea. In the Indian god Varuna's ocean home an "Asura fire" (demon fire) burned constantly; it was "bound and confined", but could not be extinguished. Fed by water, this fire, it was believed, would burst forth at the last day and consume the universe.^[64] A similar belief can be traced in Teutonic mythology. The Babylonian incantation cult appealed to many gods, but "the most important share in the rites", says Jastrow, "are taken by fire and water--suggesting, therefore, that the god of water--more particularly Ea--and the god of fire ... are the chief deities on which the ritual itself hinges". In some temples there was a bit rimki, a "house of washing", and a bit nuri, a "house of light".^[65]

Figure III.1. WORSHIP OF THE MOON GOD

Cylinder-Seal ol Khashkhamer, Patesi of Ishkun-Sin (in North Babylonia), and vassal of Ur-Engur, King of Ur. (c. 2400 B.C.) (British Museum)

Figure III.2. WINGED MAN-HEADED LION

In Marble. From N.W. Palace of Nimroud: now

in the British Museum

It is possible, of course, that fire was regarded as the vital principle by some city cults, which were influenced by imported ideas. If so, the belief never became prevalent. The most enduring influence in Babylonian religion was the early Sumerian; and as Sumerian modes of thought were the outcome of habits of life necessitated by the character of the country, they were bound, sooner or later, to leave a deep impress on the minds of foreign peoples who settled in the Garden of Western Asia. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that imported deities assumed Babylonian characteristics, and were identified or associated with Babylonian gods in the later imperial pantheon.

Moon worship appears to have been as ancient as water worship, with which, as we have seen, it was closely associated. It was widely prevalent throughout Babylonia. The chief seat of the lunar deity, Nannar or Sin, was the ancient city of Ur, from which Abraham migrated to Harran, where the "Baal" (the lord) was also a moon god. Ur was situated in Sumer, in the south, between the west bank of the Euphrates and the low hills bordering the Arabian desert, and not far distant from sea-washed Eridu. No doubt, like that city, it had its origin at an exceedingly remote period. At any rate, the excavations conducted there have afforded proof that it flourished in the prehistoric period.

As in Arabia, Egypt, and throughout ancient Europe and elsewhere, the moon god of Sumeria was regarded as the "friend of man". He controlled nature as a fertilizing agency; he caused grass, trees, and crops to grow; he increased flocks and herds, and gave human offspring. At Ur he was exalted above Ea as "the lord and prince of the gods, supreme in heaven, the Father of all"; he was also called "great Anu", an indication that Anu, the sky god, had at one time a lunar character. The moon god was believed to be the father of the sun god: he was the "great steer with mighty horns and perfect limbs".

His name Sin is believed to be a corruption of "Zu-ena", which signifies "knowledge lord".^[66] Like the lunar Osiris of Egypt, he was apparently an instructor of mankind; the moon measured time and controlled the seasons; seeds were sown at a certain phase of the moon, and crops were ripened by the harvest moon. The mountains of Sinai and the desert of Sin are called after this deity.

As Nannar, which Jastrow considers to be a variation of "Narnar", the "light producer", the moon god scattered darkness and reduced the terrors of night. His spirit inhabited the lunar stone, so that moon and stone worship were closely associated; it also entered trees and crops, so that moon worship linked with earth worship, as both linked with water worship.

The consort of Nannar was Nin-Uruwa, "the lady of Ur", who was also called Nin-gala. She links with Ishtar as Nin, as Isis of Egypt linked with other mother deities. The twin children of the moon were Mashu and Mashtu, a brother and sister, like the lunar girl and boy of Teutonic mythology immortalized in nursery rhymes as Jack and Jill.

Sun worship was of great antiquity in Babylonia, but appears to have been seasonal in its earliest phases. No doubt the sky god Anu had his solar as well as his lunar attributes, which he shared with Ea. The spring sun was personified as Tammuz, the youthful shepherd, who was loved by the earth goddess Ishtar and her rival Eresh-ki-gal, goddess of death, the Babylonian Persephone. During the winter Tammuz dwelt in Hades, and at the beginning of spring Ishtar descended to search for him among the shades.^[67] But the burning summer sun was symbolized as a destroyer, a slayer of men, and therefore a war god. As Ninip or Nirig, the son of Enlil, who was made in the likeness of Anu, he waged war against the earth spirits, and was furiously hostile towards the deities of alien peoples, as befitted a god of battle. Even his father feared him, and when he was advancing towards Nippur, sent out Nusku, messenger of the gods, to soothe the raging deity with soft words. Ninip was symbolized as a wild bull, was connected with stone worship, like the Indian destroying god Shiva, and was similarly a deity of Fate. He had much in common with Nin-Girsu, a god of Lagash, who was in turn regarded as a form of Tammuz.

Nergal, another solar deity, brought disease and pestilence, and, according to Jensen, all misfortunes due to excessive heat. He was the king of death, husband of Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades. As a war god he thirsted for human blood, and was depicted as a mighty lion. He was the chief deity of the city of Cuthah, which, Jastrow suggests, was situated beside a burial place of great repute, like the Egyptian Abydos.

The two great cities of the sun in ancient Babylonia were the Akkadian Sippar and the Sumerian Larsa. In these the sun god, Shamash or Babbar, was the patron deity. He was a god of Destiny, the lord of the living and the dead, and was exalted as the great Judge, the lawgiver, who upheld justice; he was the enemy of wrong, he loved righteousness and hated sin, he inspired his worshippers with rectitude and punished evildoers. The sun god also illumined the world, and his rays penetrated every quarter: he saw all things, and read the thoughts of men; nothing could be concealed from Shamash. One of his names was Mitra, like the god who was linked with Varuna in the Indian Rigveda. These twin deities, Mitra and Varuna, measured out the span of human life. They were the source of all heavenly gifts: they regulated sun and moon, the winds and waters, and the seasons.^[68]

These did the gods establish in royal power over themselves, because they were wise and the children of wisdom, and because they excelled in power.--Prof. Arnold's trans. of Rigvedic Hymn.

Mitra and Varuna were protectors of hearth and home, and they chastised sinners. "In a striking passage of the Mahabharata" says Professor Moulton, "one in which Indian thought comes nearest to the conception of conscience, a kingly wrongdoer is reminded that the sun sees secret sin."^[69]

In Persian mythology Mitra, as Mithra, is the patron of Truth, and "the Mediator" between heaven and earth^[70]. This god was also worshipped by the military aristocracy of Mitanni, which held sway for a period over Assyria. In Roman times the worship of Mithra spread into Europe from Persia. Mithraic sculptures depict the deity as a corn god slaying the harvest bull; on one of the monuments "cornstalks instead of blood are seen issuing from the wound inflicted with the knife^[71]". The Assyrian word "metru" signifies rain^[70]. As a sky god Mitra may have been associated, like Varuna, with the waters above the firmament. Rain would therefore be gifted by him as a fertilizing deity. In the Babylonian Flood legend it is the sun god Shamash who "appointed the time" when the heavens were to "rain destruction" in the night, and commanded Pir-napishtim, "Enter into the midst of thy ship and shut thy door". The solar deity thus appears as a form of Anu, god of the sky and upper atmosphere, who controls the seasons and the various forces of nature. Other rival chiefs of city pantheons, whether lunar, atmospheric, earth, or water deities, were similarly regarded as the supreme deities who ruled the Universe, and decreed when man should receive benefits or suffer from their acts of vengeance.

It is possible that the close resemblances between Mithra and Mitra of the Aryan-speaking peoples of India and the Iranian plateau, and the sun god of the Babylonians--the Semitic Shamash, the Sumerian Utu--were due to early contact and cultural influence through the medium of Elam. As a solar and corn god, the Persian Mithra links with Tammuz, as a sky and atmospheric deity with Anu, and as a god of truth, righteousness, and law with Shamash. We seem to trace in the sublime Vedic hymns addressed by the Indian Aryans to Mitra and Varuna the impress of Babylonian religious thought:

Whate'er exists within this earth, and all within the sky,

Yea, all that is beyond, King Varuna perceives....

Rigveda, iv, 16.[72]

O Varuna, whatever the offence may be

That we as men commit against the heavenly folk,

When through our want of thought we violate thy laws,

Chastise us not, O god, for that iniquity.

Rigveda, vii, 89.[73]

Shamash was similarly exalted in Babylonian hymns:

The progeny of those who deal unjustly will not prosper.

What their mouth utters in thy presence

Thou wilt destroy, what issues from their mouth thou wilt dissipate.

Thou knowest their transgressions, the plan of the wicked thou rejectest.

All, whoever they be, are in thy care....

He who takes no bribe, who cares for the oppressed,

Is favoured by Shamash,--his life shall be prolonged.^[74]

The worshippers of Varuna and Mitra in the Punjab did not cremate their dead like those who exalted the rival fire god Agni. The grave was the "house of clay", as in Babylonia. Mitra, who was identical with Yama, ruled over departed souls in the "Land of the Pitris" (Fathers), which was reached by crossing the mountains and the rushing stream of death.^[75] As we have seen, the Babylonian solar god Nergal was also the lord of the dead.

As Ma-banda-anna, "the boat of the sky", Shamash links with the Egyptian sun god Ra, whose barque sailed over the heavens by day and through the underworld of darkness and death during the night. The consort of Shamash was Aa, and his attendants were Kittu and Mesharu, "Truth" and "Righteousness".

Like the Hittites, the Babylonians had also a sun goddess: her name was Nin-sun, which Jastrow renders "the annihilating lady". At Erech she had a shrine in the temple of the sky god Anu.

We can trace in Babylonia, as in Egypt, the early belief that life in the Universe had a female origin. Nin-sun links with Ishtar, whose Sumerian name is Nana. Ishtar appears to be identical with the Egyptian Hathor, who, as Sekhet, slaughtered the enemies of the sun god Ra. She was similarly the goddess of maternity, and is depicted in this character, like Isis and other goddesses of similar character, suckling a babe. Another Babylonian lady of the gods was Ama, Mama, or Mami, "the creatress of the seed of mankind", and was "probably so called as the 'mother' of all things".^[76]

A characteristic atmospheric deity was Ramman, the Rimmon of the Bible, the Semitic Addu, Adad, Hadad, or Dadu. He was not a presiding deity in any pantheon, but was identified with Enlil at Nippur. As a hammer god, he was imported by the Semites from the hills. He was a wind and thunder deity, a rain bringer, a corn god, and a god of battle like Thor, Jupiter, Tarku, Indra, and others, who were all sons of the sky.

In this brief review of the representative deities of early Babylonia, it will be seen that most gods link with Anu, Ea, and Enlil, whose attributes they symbolized in various forms. The prominence accorded to an individual deity depended on local conditions, experiences, and influences. Ceremonial practices no doubt varied here and there, but although one section might exalt Ea and another Shamash, the religious faith of the people as a whole did not differ to any marked extent; they served the gods according to their lights, so that life might be prolonged and made prosperous, for the land of death and "no return" was regarded as a place of gloom and misery.

When the Babylonians appear before us in the early stages of the historical period they had reached that stage of development set forth so vividly in the Orations of Isocrates: "Those of the gods who are the source to us of good things have the title of Olympians; those whose department is that of calamities and punishments have harsher titles: to the first class both private persons and states erect altars and temples; the second is not worshipped either with prayers or burnt sacrifices, but in their case we perform ceremonies of riddance".^[77]

The Sumerians, like the Ancient Egyptians, developed their deities, who reflected the growth of culture, from vague spirit groups, which, like ghosts, were hostile to mankind. Those spirits who could be propitiated were exalted as benevolent deities; those who could not be bargained with were regarded as evil gods and goddesses. A better understanding of the character of Babylonian deities will therefore be obtained by passing the demons and evil spirits under review.

[50] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 100.

[51] Maspero's Dawn of Civilization, p. 156 et seq.

[52] Egyptian Myth and Legend, p. I et seq. The saliva of the frail and elderly was injurious.

[53] Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, E. Wallis Budge, vol. ii, p. 203 et seq.

[54] Brana's Popular Antiquities, vol. iii, pp. 259-263 (1889 ed.).

[55] The Religion of the Semites, pp. 158, 159.

[56] Castes and Tribes of Southern India, E. Thurston, iv, 187.

[57] Omens and Superstitions of Southern India, E. Thurston (1912), pp. 245, 246.

[58] Pausanias, ii, 24, 1.

[59] Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, R.C. Thompson, vol. ii, tablet Y.

[60] Animism, E. Clodd, p. 37.

[61] 2 Kings, xvi, 3.

[62] Ezekiel, xx, 31.

[63] Leviticus, xviii, 21.

[64] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 65.

[65] Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria, M. Jastrow, pp. 312, 313.

[66] The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, T.G. Pinches, p. 81.

[67] In early times two goddesses searched for Tammuz at different periods.

[68] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 30.

[69] Early Religious Poetry of Persia, p. 35.

[70] Early Religious Poetry of Persia, p. 37.

[71] The Golden Bough (Spirits of the Corn and Wild, vol. ii, p. 10), 3rd edition.

[72] Indian Wisdom, Sir Monier Monier-Williams.

[73] A History of Sanskrit Literature, Professor Macdonell.

[74] Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, M. Jastrow, pp. 111, 112.

[75] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. xxxii, and 38 et seq.

[76] The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, T.G. Pinches, p. 94.

[77] The Religion of Ancient Greece, J.E. Harrison, p. 46, and Isoc. Orat., v, 117

Chapter IV. Demons, Fairies, and Ghosts

Abstract

Spirits in Everything and Everywhere--The Bringers of Luck and Misfortune--Germ Theory Anticipated--Early Gods indistinguishable from Demons--Repulsive form of Ea--Spirit Groups as Attendants of Deities--Egyptian, Indian, Greek, and Germanic parallels--Elder Gods as Evil Gods--Animal Demons--The Babylonian "Will-o'-the-Wisp"--"Foreign Devils"--Elves and Fairies--Demon Lovers--"Adam's first wife, Lilith"--Children Charmed against Evil Spirits--The Demon of Nightmare--Ghosts as Enemies of the Living--The Vengeful Dead Mother in Babylonia, India, Europe, and Mexico--Burial Contrast--Calling Back the Dead--Fate of Childless Ghosts--Religious Need for Offspring--Hags and Giants and Composite Monsters--Tempest Fiends--Legend of Adapa and the Storm Demon--Wind Hags of Ancient Britain--Tyrolese Storm Maidens--Zu Bird Legend and Indian Garuda Myth--Legend of the Eagle and the Serpent--The Snake Mother Goddess--Demons and the Moon God--Plague Deities--Classification of Spirits, and Egyptian, Arabian, and Scottish parallels--Traces of Progress from Animism to Monotheism.

The memorable sermon preached by Paul to the Athenians when he stood "in the midst of Mars' hill", could have been addressed with equal appropriateness to the ancient Sumerians and Akkadians. "I perceive", he declared, "that in all things ye are too superstitious.... God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ... for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device."^[78]

Babylonian temples were houses of the gods in the literal sense; the gods were supposed to dwell in them, their spirits having entered into the graven images or blocks of stone. It is probable that like the Ancient Egyptians they believed a god had as many spirits as he had attributes. The gods, as we have said, appear to have evolved from early spirit groups. All the world swarmed with spirits, which inhabited stones and trees, mountains and deserts, rivers and ocean, the air, the sky, the stars, and the sun and moon. The spirits controlled Nature: they brought light and darkness, sunshine and storm, summer and winter; they were manifested in the thunderstorm, the sandstorm, the glare of sunset, and the wraiths of mist rising from the steaming marshes. They controlled also the lives of men and women. The good spirits were the source of luck. The bad spirits caused misfortunes, and were ever seeking to work evil against the Babylonian. Darkness was peopled by demons and ghosts of the dead. The spirits of disease were ever lying in wait to clutch him with cruel invisible hands.

Some modern writers, who are too prone to regard ancient peoples from a twentieth-century point of view, express grave doubts as to whether "intelligent Babylonians" really believed that spirits came down in the rain and entered the soil to rise up before men's eyes as stalks of barley or wheat. There is no reason for supposing that they thought otherwise. The early folks based their theories on the accumulated knowledge of their age. They knew nothing regarding the composition of water or the atmosphere, of the cause of thunder and lightning, or of the chemical changes effected in soils by the action of bacteria. They attributed all natural phenomena to the operations of spirits or gods. In believing that certain demons caused certain diseases, they may be said to have achieved distinct progress, for they anticipated the germ theory. They made discoveries, too, which have been approved and elaborated in later times when they lit sacred fires, bathed in sacred waters, and used oils and herbs to charm away spirits of pestilence. Indeed, many folk cures, which were originally associated with magical ceremonies, are still practised in our own day. They were found to be effective by early observers, although they were unable to explain why and how cures were accomplished, like modern scientific investigators.

In peopling the Universe with spirits, the Babylonians, like other ancient folks, betrayed that tendency to symbolize everything which has ever appealed to the human mind. Our painters and poets and sculptors are greatest when they symbolize their ideals and ideas and impressions, and by so doing make us respond to their moods. Their "beauty and their terror are sublime". But what may seem poetic to us, was invariably a grim reality to the Babylonians. The statue or picture was not merely a work of art but a manifestation of the god or demon. As has been said, they believed that the spirit of the god inhabited the idol; the frown of the brazen image was the frown of the wicked demon. They entertained as much dread of the winged and human-headed bulls guarding the entrance to the royal palace as do some of the Arab workmen who, in our own day, assist excavators to rescue them from sandy mounds in which they have been hidden for long centuries.

When an idol was carried away from a city by an invading army, it was believed that the god himself had been taken prisoner, and was therefore unable any longer to help his people.

In the early stages of Sumerian culture, the gods and goddesses who formed groups were indistinguishable from demons. They were vaguely defined, and had changing shapes. When attempts were made to depict them they were represented in many varying forms. Some were winged bulls or lions with human heads; others had even more remarkable composite forms. The "dragon of Babylon", for instance, which was portrayed on walls of temples, had a serpent's head, a body covered with scales, the fore legs of a lion, hind legs of an eagle, and a long wriggling serpentine tail. Ea had several monster forms. The following description of one of these is repulsive enough:--

The head is the head of a serpent,

From his nostrils mucus trickles,

His mouth is beslavered with water;

The ears are like those of a basilisk,

His horns are twisted into three curls,

He wears a veil in his head band,

The body is a suh-fish full of stars,

The base of his feet are claws,

The sole of his foot has no heel,

His name is Sassu-wunnu,

A sea monster, a form of Ea.

R.C. Thompson's Translation.^[79]

Even after the gods were given beneficent attributes to reflect the growth of culture, and were humanized, they still retained many of their savage characteristics. Bel Enlil and his fierce son, Nergal, were destroyers of mankind; the storm god desolated the land; the sky god deluged it with rain; the sea raged furiously, ever hungering for human victims; the burning sun struck down its victims; and the floods played havoc with the dykes and houses of human beings. In Egypt the sun god Ra was similarly a "producer of calamity", the composite monster god Sokar was "the lord of fear".^[80] Osiris in prehistoric times had been "a dangerous god", and some of the Pharaohs sought protection against him in the charms inscribed in their tombs.^[81] The Indian Shiva, "the Destroyer", in the old religious poems has also primitive attributes of like character.

The Sumerian gods never lost their connection with the early spirit groups. These continued to be represented by their attendants, who executed a deity's stern and vengeful decrees. In one of the Babylonian charms the demons are referred to as "the spleen of the gods"--the symbols of their wrathful emotions and vengeful desires. Bel Enlil, the air and earth god, was served by the demons of disease, "the beloved sons of Bel", which issued from the Underworld to attack mankind. Nergal, the sulky and ill-tempered lord of death and destruction, who never lost his demoniac character, swept over the land, followed by the spirits of pestilence, sunstroke, weariness, and destruction. Anu, the sky god, had "spawned" at creation the demons of cold and rain and darkness. Even Ea and his consort, Damkina, were served by groups of devils and giants, which preyed upon mankind in bleak and desolate places when night fell. In the ocean home of Ea were bred the "seven evil spirits" of tempest--the gaping dragon, the leopard which preyed upon children, the great Beast, the terrible serpent, &c.

In Indian mythology Indra was similarly followed by the stormy Maruts, and fierce Rudra by the tempestuous Rudras. In Teutonic mythology Odin is the "Wild Huntsman in the Raging Host". In Greek mythology the ocean furies attend upon fickle Poseidon. Other examples of this kind could be multiplied.

As we have seen (Chapter II) the earliest group of Babylonian deities consisted probably of four pairs of gods and goddesses as in Egypt. The first pair was Apsu-Rishtu and Tiamat, who personified the primordial deep. Now the elder deities in most mythologies--the "grandsires" and "grandmothers" and "fathers" and "mothers"--are ever the most powerful and most vengeful. They appear to represent primitive "layers" of savage thought. The Greek Cronos devours even his own children, and, as the late Andrew Lang has shown, there are many parallels to this myth among primitive peoples in various parts of the world.

Lang regarded the Greek survival as an example of "the conservatism of the religious instinct".^[82] The grandmother of the Teutonic deity Tyr was a fierce giantess with nine hundred heads; his father was an enemy of the gods. In Scotland the hag-mother of winter and storm and darkness is the enemy of growth and all life, and she raises storms to stop the grass growing, to slay young animals, and prevent the union of her son with his fair bride. Similarly the Babylonian chaos spirits, Apsu and Tiamat, the father and mother of the gods, resolve to destroy their offspring, because they begin to set the Universe in order. Tiamat, the female dragon, is more powerful than her husband Apsu, who is slain by his son Ea. She summons to her aid the gods of evil, and creates also a brood of monsters--serpents, dragons, vipers, fish men, raging hounds, &c.--so as to bring about universal and enduring confusion and evil. Not until she is destroyed can the beneficent gods establish law and order and make the earth habitable and beautiful.

But although Tiamat was slain, the everlasting battle between the forces of good and evil was ever waged in the Babylonian world. Certain evil spirits were let loose at certain periods, and they strove to accomplish the destruction of mankind and his works. These invisible enemies were either charmed away by performing magical ceremonies, or by invoking the gods to thwart them and bind them.

Other spirits inhabited the bodies of animals and were ever hovering near. The ghosts of the dead and male and female demons were birds, like the birds of Fate which sang to Siegfried. When the owl raised its melancholy voice in the darkness the listener heard the spirit of a departed mother crying for her child. Ghosts and evil spirits wandered through the streets in darkness; they haunted empty houses; they fluttered through the evening air as bats; they hastened, moaning dismally, across barren wastes searching for food or lay in wait for travellers; they came as roaring lions and howling jackals, hungering for human flesh. The "shedu" was a destructive bull which might slay man wantonly or as a protector of temples. Of like character was the "lamassu", depicted as a winged bull with human head, the protector of palaces; the "alu" was a bull-like demon of tempest, and there were also many composite, distorted, or formless monsters which were vaguely termed "seizers" or "overthrowers", the Semitic "labashu" and "ach-chazu", the Sumerian "dimmea" and "dimme-kur". A dialectic form of "gallu" or devil was "mulla". Professor Pinches thinks it not improbable that "mulla" may be connected with the word "mula", meaning "star", and suggests that it referred to a "will-o'-the-wisp".^[83] In these islands, according to an old rhyme,

Some call him Robin Good-fellow,

Hob-goblin, or mad Crisp,

And some againe doe tearme him oft

By name of Will the Wisp.

Other names are "Kitty", "Peg", and "Jack with a lantern". "Poor Robin" sang:

I should indeed as soon expect

That Peg-a-lantern would direct

Me straightway home on misty night

As wand'ring stars, quite out of sight.

In Shakespeare's Tempest^[84] a sailor exclaims: "Your fairy, which, you say, is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played the Jack with us". Dr. Johnson commented that the reference was to "Jack with a lantern". Milton wrote also of the "wandering fire",

Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,

Hovering and blazing with delusive light,

Misleads th' amaz'd night wand'rer from his way

To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;

There swallowed up and lost from succour far.^[85]

"When we stick in the mire", sang Drayton, "he doth with laughter leave us." These fires were also "fallen stars", "death fires", and "fire drakes":

So have I seen a fire drake glide along

Before a dying man, to point his grave,

And in it stick and hide.^[86]

Pliny referred to the wandering lights as stars.^[87] The Sumerian "mulla" was undoubtedly an evil spirit. In some countries the "fire drake" is a bird with gleaming breast: in Babylonia it assumed the form of a bull, and may have had some connection with the bull of lshtar. Like the Indian "Dasyu" and "Dasa",^[88] Gallu was applied in the sense of "foreign devil" to human and superhuman adversaries of certain monarchs. Some of the supernatural beings resemble our elves and fairies and the Indian Rakshasas. Occasionally they appear in comely human guise; at other times they are vaguely monstrous. The best known of this class is Lilith, who, according to Hebrew tradition, preserved in the Talmud, was the demon lover of Adam. She has been immortalized by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:

Of Adam's first wife Lilith, it is told

(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve)

That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old,

And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where

Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent

And soft shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went

Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent

And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

Lilith is the Babylonian Lilithu, a feminine form of Lilu, the Sumerian Lila. She resembles Surpanakha of the Ramayana, who made love to Rama and Lakshmana, and the sister of the demon Hidimva, who became enamoured of Bhima, one of the heroes of the Mahabharata,^[89] and the various fairy lovers of Europe who lured men to eternal imprisonment inside mountains, or vanished for ever when they were completely under their influence, leaving them demented. The elfin Lilu similarly wooed young women, like the Germanic Laurin of the "Wonderful Rose Garden",^[90] who carried away the fair lady Kunhild to his underground dwelling amidst the Tyrolese mountains, or left them haunting the place of their meetings, searching for him in vain:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As ere beneath the waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon lover...

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey dew hath fed

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Coleridge's Kubla Khan.

Another materializing spirit of this class was Ardat Lili, who appears to have wedded human beings like the swan maidens, the mermaids, and Nereids of the European folk tales, and the goddess Ganga, who for a time was the wife of King Shantanu of the Mahabharata.^[91]

The Labartu, to whom we have referred, was a female who haunted mountains and marshes; like the fairies and hags of Europe, she stole or afflicted children, who accordingly had to wear charms round their necks for protection. Seven of these supernatural beings were reputed to be daughters of Anu, the sky god.

The Alu, a storm deity, was also a spirit which caused nightmare. It endeavoured to smother sleepers like the Scandinavian hag Mara, and similarly deprived them of power to move. In Babylonia this evil spirit might also cause sleeplessness or death by hovering near a bed. In shape it might be as horrible and repulsive as the Egyptian ghosts which caused children to die from fright or by sucking out the breath of life.

As most representatives of the spirit world were enemies of the living, so were the ghosts of dead men and women. Death chilled all human affections; it turned love to hate; the deeper the love had been, the deeper became the enmity fostered by the ghost. Certain ghosts might also be regarded as particularly virulent and hostile if they happened to have left the body of one who was ceremonially impure. The most terrible ghost in Babylonia was that of a woman who had died in childbed. She was pitied and dreaded; her grief had demented her; she was doomed to wail in the darkness; her impurity clung to her like poison. No spirit was more prone to work evil against mankind, and her hostility was accompanied by the most tragic sorrow. In Northern India the Hindus, like the ancient Babylonians, regard as a fearsome demon the ghost of a woman who died while pregnant, or on the day of the child's birth.^[92] A similar belief prevailed in Mexico. In Europe there are many folk tales of dead mothers who return to avenge themselves on the cruel fathers of neglected children.

A sharp contrast is presented by the Mongolian Buriats, whose outlook on the spirit world is less gloomy than was that of the ancient Babylonians. According to Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, this interesting people are wont to perform a ceremony with purpose to entice the ghost to return to the dead body--a proceeding which is dreaded in the Scottish Highlands.^[93] The Buriats address the ghost, saying: "You shall sleep well. Come back to your natural ashes. Take pity on your friends. It is necessary to live a real life. Do not wander along the mountains. Do not be like bad spirits. Return to your peaceful home.... Come back and work for your children. How can you leave the little ones?" If it is a mother, these words have great effect; sometimes the spirit moans and sobs, and the Buriats tell that there have been instances of it returning to the body.^[94] In his Arabia Deserta^[95] Doughty relates that Arab women and children mock the cries of the owl. One explained to him: "It is a wailful woman seeking her lost child; she has become this forlorn bird". So do immemorial beliefs survive to our own day.

The Babylonian ghosts of unmarried men and women and of those without offspring were also disconsolate night wanderers. Others who suffered similar fates were the ghosts of men who died in battle far from home and were left unburied, the ghosts of travellers who perished in the desert and were not covered over, the ghosts of drowned men which rose from the water, the ghosts of prisoners starved to death or executed, the ghosts of people who died violent deaths before their appointed time. The dead required to be cared for, to have libations poured out, to be fed, so that they might not prowl through the streets or enter houses searching for scraps of food and pure water. The duty of giving offerings to the dead was imposed apparently on near relatives. As in India, it would appear that the eldest son performed the funeral ceremony: a dreadful fate therefore awaited the spirit of the dead Babylonian man or woman without offspring. In Sanskrit literature there is a reference to a priest who was not allowed to enter Paradise, although he had performed rigid penances, because he had no children.^[96]

There were hags and giants of mountain and desert, of river and ocean. Demons might possess the pig, the goat, the horse, the lion, or the ibis, the raven, or the hawk. The seven spirits of tempest, fire, and destruction rose from the depths of ocean, and there were hosts of demons which could not be overcome or baffled by man without the assistance of the gods to whom they were hostile. Many were sexless; having no offspring, they were devoid of mercy and compassion. They penetrated everywhere:

The high enclosures, the broad enclosures, like a flood

they pass through,

From house to house they dash along.

No door can shut them out;

No bolt can turn them back.

Through the door, like a snake, they glide,

Through the hinge, like the wind, they storm,

Tearing the wife from the embrace of the man,

Driving the freedman from his family home.[97]

These furies did not confine their unwelcomed attentions to mankind alone:

They hunt the doves from their cotes,

And drive the birds from their nests,

And chase the marten from its hole....

Through the gloomy street by night they roam,

Smiting sheepfold and cattle pen,

Shutting up the land as with door and bolt.

R.C. Thompson's Translation.

The Babylonian poet, like Burns, was filled with pity for the animals which suffered in the storm:

List'ning the doors an' winnocks rattle,

I thought me o' the ourie cattle,

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle

O' winter war....

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!

That in the merry months o' spring

Delighted me to hear thee sing,

What comes o' thee?

Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,

And close thy e'e?

According to Babylonian belief, "the great storms directed from heaven" were caused by demons. Mankind heard them "loudly roaring above, gibbering below".^[98] The south wind was raised by Shutu, a plumed storm demon resembling Hraesvelgur of the Icelandic Eddas:

Corpse-swallower sits at the end of heaven,

A Jötun in eagle form;

From his wings, they say, comes the wind which fares

Over all the dwellers of earth.^[99]

The northern story of Thor's fishing, when he hooked and wounded the Midgard serpent, is recalled by the Babylonian legend of Adapa, son of the god Ea. This hero was engaged catching fish, when Shutu, the south wind, upset his boat. In his wrath Adapa immediately attacked the storm demon and shattered her pinions. Anu, the sky god, was moved to anger against Ea's son and summoned him to the Celestial Court. Adapa, however, appeared in garments of mourning and was forgiven. Anu offered him the water of life and the bread of life which would have made him immortal, but Ea's son refused to eat or drink, believing, as his father had warned him, that the sky god desired him to partake of the bread of death and to drink of the water of death.

Figure IV.1. TWO FIGURES OF DEMONS

The upper head is that of Shutu, the demon of the south-west wind, whose wings were broken by Adapa, son of Ea (British Museum)

Figure IV.2. WINGED HUMAN-HEADED COW (?)

From Kouyunjik (Nineveh): now in the British Museum

Another terrible atmospheric demon was the south-west wind, which caused destructive storms and floods, and claimed many human victims like the Icelandic "corpse swallower". She was depicted with lidless staring eyes, broad flat nose, mouth gaping horribly, and showing tusk-like teeth, and with high cheek bones, heavy eyebrows, and low bulging forehead.

In Scotland the hag of the south-west wind is similarly a bloodthirsty and fearsome demon. She is most virulent in the springtime. At Cromarty she is quaintly called "Gentle Annie" by the fisher folks, who repeat the saying: "When Gentle Annie is skyawlan (yelling) roond the heel of Ness (a promontory) wi' a white feather on her hat (the foam of big billows) they (the spirits) will be harrying (robbing) the crook"--that is, the pot which hangs from the crook is empty during the spring storms, which prevent fishermen going to sea. In England the wind hag is Black Annis, who dwells in a Leicestershire hill cave. She may be identical with the Irish hag Anu, associated with the "Paps of Anu". According to Gaelic lore, this wind demon of spring is the "Cailleach" (old wife). She gives her name in the Highland calendar to the stormy period of late spring; she raises gale after gale to prevent the coming of summer. Angerboda, the Icelandic hag, is also a storm demon, but represents the east wind. A Tyrolese folk tale tells of three magic maidens who dwelt on Jochgrimm mountain, where they "brewed the winds". Their demon lovers were Ecke, "he who causes fear"; Vasolt, "he who causes dismay"; and the scornful Dietrich in his mythical character of Donar or Thunor (Thor), the thunderer.

Another Sumerian storm demon was the Zu bird, which is represented among the stars by Pegasus and Taurus. A legend relates that this "worker of evil, who raised the head of evil", once aspired to rule the gods, and stole from Bel, "the lord" of deities, the Tablets of Destiny, which gave him his power over the Universe as controller of the fates of all. The Zu bird escaped with the Tablets and found shelter on its mountain top in Arabia. Anu called on Ramman, the thunderer, to attack the Zu bird, but he was afraid; other gods appear to have shrunk from the conflict. How the rebel was overcome is not certain, because the legend survives in fragmentary form. There is a reference, however, to the moon god setting out towards the mountain in Arabia with purpose to outwit the Zu bird and recover the lost Tablets. How he fared it is impossible to ascertain. In another legend--that of Etana--the mother serpent, addressing the sun god, Shamash, says:

Thy net is like unto the broad earth;

Thy snare is like unto the distant heaven!

Who hath ever escaped from thy net?

Even Zu, the worker of evil, who raised the head

of evil [did not escape]!

L.W. King's Translation.

In Indian mythology, Garuda, half giant, half eagle, robs the Amrita (ambrosia) of the gods which gives them their power and renders them immortal. It had assumed a golden body, bright as the sun. Indra, the thunderer, flung his bolt in vain; he could not wound Garuda, and only displaced a single feather. Afterwards, however, he stole the moon goblet containing the Amrita, which Garuda had delivered to his enemies, the serpents, to free his mother from bondage. This Indian eagle giant became the vehicle of the god Vishnu, and, according to the Mahabharata, "mocked the wind with his fleetness".

It would appear that the Babylonian Zu bird symbolized the summer sandstorms from the Arabian desert. Thunder is associated with the rainy season, and it may have been assumed, therefore, that the thunder god was powerless against the sandstorm demon, who was chased, however, by the moon, and finally overcome by the triumphant sun when it broke through the darkening sand drift and brightened heaven and earth, "netting" the rebellious demon who desired to establish the rule of evil over gods and mankind.

In the "Legend of Etana" the Eagle, another demon which links with the Indian Garuda, slayer of serpents, devours the brood of the Mother Serpent. For this offence against divine law, Shamash, the sun god, pronounces the Eagle's doom. He instructs the Mother Serpent to slay a wild ox and conceal herself in its entrails. The Eagle comes to feed on the carcass, unheeding the warning of one of his children, who says, "The serpent lies in this wild ox":

He swooped down and stood upon the wild ox,

The Eagle ... examined the flesh;

He looked about carefully before and behind him;

He again examined the flesh;

He looked about carefully before and behind him,

Then, moving swiftly, he made for the hidden parts.

When he entered into the midst,

The serpent seized him by his wing.

In vain the Eagle appealed for mercy to the Mother Serpent, who was compelled to execute the decree of Shamash; she tore off the Eagle's pinions, wings, and claws, and threw him into a pit where he perished from hunger and thirst.^[100] This myth may refer to the ravages of a winged demon of disease who was thwarted by the sacrifice of an ox. The Mother Serpent appears to be identical with an ancient goddess of maternity resembling the Egyptian Bast, the serpent mother of Bubastis. According to Sumerian belief, Nintu, "a form of the goddess Ma", was half a serpent. On her head there is a horn; she is "girt about the loins"; her left arm holds "a babe suckling her breast":

From her head to her loins

The body is that of a naked woman;

From the loins to the sole of the foot

Scales like those of a snake are visible.

R.C. Thompson's Translation.

The close association of gods and demons is illustrated in an obscure myth which may refer to an eclipse of the moon or a night storm at the beginning of the rainy season. The demons go to war against the high gods, and are assisted by Adad (Ramman) the thunderer, Shamash the sun, and Ishtar. They desire to wreck the heavens, the home of Anu:

They clustered angrily round the crescent of the moon god,

And won over to their aid Shamash, the mighty, and Adad, the warrior,

And Ishtar, who with Anu, the King,

Hath founded a shining dwelling.

The moon god Sin, "the seed of mankind", was darkened by the demons who raged, "rushing loose over the land" like to the wind. Bel called upon his messenger, whom he sent to Ea in the ocean depths, saying: "My son Sin ... hath been grievously bedimmed". Ea lamented, and dispatched his son Merodach to net the demons by magic, using "a two-coloured cord from the hair of a virgin kid and from the wool of a virgin lamb".^[101]

As in India, where Shitala, the Bengali goddess of smallpox, for instance, is worshipped when the dreaded disease she controls becomes epidemic, so in Babylonia the people sought to secure immunity from attack by worshipping spirits of disease. A tablet relates that Ura, a plague demon, once resolved to destroy all life, but ultimately consented to spare those who praised his name and exalted him in recognition of his bravery and power. This could be accomplished by reciting a formula. Indian serpent worshippers believe that their devotions "destroy all danger proceeding from snakes".^[102]

Like the Ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians also had their kindly spirits who brought luck and the various enjoyments of life. A good "labartu" might attend on a human being like a household fairy of India or Europe: a friendly "shedu" could protect a household against the attacks of fierce demons and human enemies. Even the spirits of Fate who served Anu, god of the sky, and that "Norn" of the Underworld, Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades, might sometimes be propitious: if the deities were successfully invoked they could cause the Fates to smite spirits of disease and bringers of ill luck. Damu, a friendly fairy goddess, was well loved, because she inspired pleasant dreams, relieved the sufferings of the afflicted, and restored to good health those patients whom she selected to favour.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead the kindly spirits are overshadowed by the evil ones, because the various magical spells which were put on record were directed against those supernatural beings who were enemies of mankind. Similarly in Babylonia the fragments of this class of literature which survive deal mainly with wicked and vengeful demons. It appears probable, however, that the highly emotional Sumerians and Akkadians were on occasion quite as cheerful a people as the inhabitants of ancient Egypt. Although they were surrounded by bloodthirsty furies who desired to shorten their days, and their nights were filled with vague lowering phantoms which inspired fear, they no doubt shared, in their charm-protected houses, a comfortable feeling of security after performing magical ceremonies, and were happy enough when they gathered round flickering lights to listen to ancient song and story and gossip about crops and traders, the members of the royal house, and the family affairs of their acquaintances.

The Babylonian spirit world, it will be seen, was of complex character. Its inhabitants were numberless, but often vaguely defined, and one class of demons linked with another. Like the European fairies of folk belief, the Babylonian spirits were extremely hostile and irresistible at certain seasonal periods; and they were fickle and perverse and difficult to please even when inclined to be friendly. They were also similarly manifested from time to time in various forms. Sometimes they were comely and beautiful; at other times they were apparitions of horror. The Jinn of present-day Arabians are of like character; these may be giants, cloudy shapes, comely women, serpents or cats, goats or pigs.

Some of the composite monsters of Babylonia may suggest the vague and exaggerated recollections of terror-stricken people who have had glimpses of unfamiliar wild beasts in the dusk or amidst reedy marshes. But they cannot be wholly accounted for in this way. While animals were often identified with supernatural beings, and foreigners were called "devils", it would be misleading to assert that the spirit world reflects confused folk memories of human and bestial enemies. Even when a demon was given concrete human form it remained essentially non-human: no ordinary weapon could inflict an injury, and it was never controlled by natural laws. The spirits of disease and tempest and darkness were creations of fancy: they symbolized moods; they were the causes which explained effects. A sculptor or storyteller who desired to convey an impression of a spirit of storm or pestilence created monstrous forms to inspire terror. Sudden and unexpected visits of fierce and devastating demons were accounted for by asserting that they had wings like eagles, were nimble-footed as gazelles, cunning and watchful as serpents; that they had claws to clutch, horns to gore, and powerful fore legs like a lion to smite down victims. Withal they drank blood like ravens and devoured corpses like hyaenas. Monsters were all the more repulsive when they were partly human. The human-headed snake or the snake-headed man and the man with the horns of a wild bull and the legs of a goat were horrible in the extreme. Evil spirits might sometimes achieve success by practising deception. They might appear as beautiful girls or handsome men and seize unsuspecting victims in deathly embrace or leave them demented and full of grief, or come as birds and suddenly assume awesome shapes.

Fairies and elves, and other half-human demons, are sometimes regarded as degenerate gods. It will be seen, however, that while certain spirits developed into deities, others remained something between these two classes of supernatural beings: they might attend upon gods and goddesses, or operate independently now against mankind and now against deities even. The "namtaru", for instance, was a spirit of fate, the son of Bel-Enlil and Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades. "Apparently", writes Professor Pinches, "he executed the instructions given him concerning the fate of men, and could also have power over certain of the gods."^[103] To this middle class belong the evil gods who rebelled against the beneficent deities. According to Hebridean folk belief, the fallen angels are divided into three classes--the fairies, the "nimble men" (aurora borealis), and the "blue men of the Minch". In Beowulf the "brood of Cain" includes "monsters and elves and sea-devils--giants also, who long time fought with God, for which he gave them their reward".^[104] Similarly the Babylonian spirit groups are liable to division and subdivision. The various classes may be regarded as relics of the various stages of development from crude animism to sublime monotheism: in the fragmentary legends we trace the floating material from which great mythologies have been framed.

[78] The Acts, xvii, 22-31.

[79] Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, vol. ii, p. 149 et seq.

[80] Egyptian Myth and Legend, xxxix, n.

[81] Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, J.H. Breasted, pp. 38, 74.

[82] Custom and Myth, p. 45 et seq.

[83] The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 108.

[84] Act iv, scene 1.

[85] Paradise Lost, book ix.

[86] Chapman's Caesar and Pompey.

[87] Natural History, 2nd book.

[88] Indian Myth and Legend, 70, n.

[89] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 202-5, 400, 401.

[90] Teutonic Myth and Legend, p. 424 et seq.

[91] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 164 et seq.

[92] Popular Religion and Folk Lore of Northern India, W. Crooke, vol. i, p. 254.

[93] When a person, young or old, is dying, near relatives must not call out their names in case the soul may come back from the spirit world. A similar belief still lingers, especially among women, in the Lowlands. The writer was once present in a room when a child was supposed to be dying. Suddenly the mother called out the child's name in agonized voice. It revived soon afterwards. Two old women who had attempted to prevent "the calling" shook their heads and remarked: "She has done it! The child will never do any good in this world after being called back." In England and Ireland, as well as in Scotland, the belief also prevails in certain localities that if a dying person is "called back" the soul will tarry for another twenty-four hours, during which the individual will suffer great agony.

[94] A Journey in Southern Siberia, Jeremiah Curtin, pp. 103, 104.

[95] Vol. i, p. 305.

[96] Adi Parva section of Mahàbhàrata, Roy's trans., p. 635.

[97] Jastrow's Aspects of Religious Belief in Babylonia, &c., p. 312.

[98] R.C. Thompson's trans.

[99] The Elder or Poetic Edda, Olive Bray, part i, p. 53.

[100] Babylonian Religion, L.W. King, pp. 186-8.

[101] The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, R. Campbell Thompson, vol. i, p. 53 et seq.

[102] Omens and Superstitions of Southern India, E. Thurston, p. 124.

[103] The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 110.

[104] Beowulf, Clark Hall, p. 14.