More...

Myths of Babylon and Assyria: Chapter XV. Conflicts for Trade and Supremacy

CHAPTER XV

Conflicts for Trade and Supremacy

Modern Babylonia--History repeating itself--Babylonian Trade Route in Mesopotamia--Egyptian Supremacy in Syria--Mitanni and Babylonia--Bandits who plundered Caravans--Arabian Desert Trade Route opened--Assyrian and Elamite Struggles with Babylonia--Rapid Extension of Assyrian Empire--Hittites control Western Trade Routes--Egypt's Nineteenth Dynasty Conquests--Campaigns of Rameses II--Egyptians and Hittites become Allies--Babylonian Fears of Assyria--Shalmaneser's Triumphs--Assyria Supreme in Mesopotamia--Conquest of Babylonia--Fall of a Great King--Civil War in Assyria--Its Empire goes to pieces--Babylonian Wars with Elam--Revival of Babylonian Power--Invasions of Assyrians and Elamites--End of the Kassite Dynasty--Babylonia contrasted with Assyria.

IT is possible that during the present century Babylonia may once again become one of the great wheat-producing countries of the world. A scheme of land reclamation has already been inaugurated by the construction of a great dam to control the distribution of the waters of the Euphrates, and, if it is energetically promoted on a generous scale in the years to come, the ancient canals, which are used at present as caravan roads, may yet be utilized to make the whole country as fertile and prosperous as it was in ancient days. When that happy consummation is reached, new cities may grow up and flourish beside the ruins of the old centres of Babylonian culture.

With the revival of agriculture will come the revival of commerce. Ancient trade routes will then be re-opened, and the slow-travelling caravans supplanted by speedy trains. A beginning has already been made in this direction. The first modern commercial highway which is crossing the threshold of Babylonia's new Age is the German railway through Asia Minor, North Syria, and Mesopotamia to Baghdad.1 It brings the land of Hammurabi into close touch with Europe, and will solve problems which engaged the attention of many rival monarchs for long centuries before the world knew aught of "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome".

These sudden and dramatic changes are causing history to repeat itself. Once again the great World Powers are evincing much concern regarding their respective "spheres of influence" in Western Asia, and pressing together around the ancient land of Babylon. On the east, where the aggressive Elamites and Kassites were followed by the triumphant Persians and Medes, Russia and Britain have asserted themselves as protectors of Persian territory, and the influence of Britain is supreme in the Persian Gulf. Turkey controls the land of the Hittites, while Russia looms like a giant across the Armenian highlands; Turkey is also the governing power in Syria and Mesopotamia, which are being crossed by Germany's Baghdad railway. France is constructing railways in Syria, and will control the ancient "way of the Philistines". Britain occupies Cyprus on the Mediterranean coast, and presides over the destinies of the ancient land of Egypt, which, during the brilliant Eighteenth Dynasty, extended its sphere of influence to the borders of Asia Minor. Once again, after the lapse of many centuries, international politics is being strongly influenced by the problems connected with the development of trade in Babylonia and its vicinity.

The history of the ancient rival States, which is being pieced together by modern excavators, is, in view of present-day political developments, invested with special interest to us. We have seen Assyria rising into prominence. It began to be a great Power when Egypt was supreme in the "Western Land" (the land of the Amorites) as far north as the frontiers of Cappadocia. Under the Kassite regime Babylonia's political influence had declined in Mesopotamia, but its cultural influence remained, for its language and script continued in use among traders and diplomatists.

At the beginning of the Pharaoh Akhenaton period, the supreme power in Mesopotamia was Mitanni. As the ally of Egypt it constituted a buffer state on the borders of North Syria, which prevented the southern expansion from Asia Minor of the Hittite confederacy and the western expansion of aggressive Assyria, while it also held in check the ambitions of Babylonia, which still claimed the "land of the Amorites". So long as Mitanni was maintained as a powerful kingdom the Syrian possessions of Egypt were easily held in control, and the Egyptian merchants enjoyed preferential treatment compared with those of Babylonia. But when Mitanni was overcome, and its territories were divided between the Assyrians and the Hittites, the North Syrian Empire of Egypt went to pieces. A great struggle then ensued between the nations of western Asia for political supremacy in the "land of the Amorites".

Babylonia had been seriously handicapped by losing control of its western caravan road. Prior to the Kassite period its influence was supreme in Mesopotamia and middle Syria; from the days of Sargon of Akkad and of Naram-Sin until the close of the Hammurabi Age its merchants had naught to fear from bandits or petty kings between the banks of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean coast. The city of Babylon had grown rich and powerful as the commercial metropolis of Western Asia.

Separated from the Delta frontier by the broad and perilous wastes of the Arabian desert, Babylonia traded with Egypt by an indirect route. Its caravan road ran northward along the west bank of the Euphrates towards Haran, and then southward through Palestine. This was a long detour, but it was the only possible way.

During the early Kassite Age the caravans from Babylon had to pass through the area controlled by Mitanni, which was therefore able to impose heavy duties and fill its coffers with Babylonian gold. Nor did the situation improve when the influence of Mitanni suffered decline in southern Mesopotamia. Indeed the difficulties under which traders operated were then still further increased, for the caravan roads were infested by plundering bands of "Suti", to whom references are made in the Tell-el-Amarna letters. These bandits defied all the great powers, and became so powerful that even the messengers sent from one king to another were liable to be robbed and murdered without discrimination. When war broke out between powerful States they harried live stock and sacked towns in those areas which were left unprotected.

The "Suti" were Arabians of Aramn stock. What is known as the "Third Semitic Migration" was in progress during this period. The nomads gave trouble to Babylonia and Assyria, and, penetrating Mesopotamia and Syria, sapped the power of Mitanni, until it was unable to resist the onslaughts of the Assyrians and the Hittites.

The Aramn tribes are referred to, at various periods and by various peoples, not only as the "Suti", but also as the "Achlame", the "Arimi", and the "Khabiri". Ultimately they were designated simply as "Syrians", and under that name became the hereditary enemies of the Hebrews, although Jacob was regarded as being of their stock: "A Syrian ready to perish", runs a Biblical reference, "was my father (ancestor), and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous".1

An heroic attempt was made by one of the Kassite kings of Babylonia to afford protection to traders by stamping out brigandage between Arabia and Mesopotamia, and opening up a new and direct caravan road to Egypt across the Arabian desert. The monarch in question was Kadashman-Kharbe, the grandson of Ashur-uballit of Assyria. As we have seen, he combined forces with his distinguished and powerful kinsman, and laid a heavy hand on the "Suti". Then he dug wells and erected a chain of fortifications, like "block-houses", so that caravans might come and go without interruption, and merchants be freed from the imposts of petty kings whose territory they had to penetrate when travelling by the Haran route.

This bold scheme, however, was foredoomed to failure. It was shown scant favour by the Babylonian Kassites. No record survives to indicate the character of the agreement between Kadashman-Kharbe and Ashur-uballit, but there can be little doubt that it involved the abandonment by Babylonia of its historic claim upon Mesopotamia, or part of it, and the recognition of an Assyrian sphere of influence in that region. It was probably on account of his pronounced pro-Assyrian tendencies that the Kassites murdered Kadashman-Kharbe, and set the pretender, known as "the son of nobody", on the throne for a brief period.

Kadashman-Kharbe's immediate successors recognized in Assyria a dangerous and unscrupulous rival, and resumed the struggle for the possession of Mesopotamia. The trade route across the Arabian desert had to be abandoned. Probably it required too great a force to keep it open. Then almost every fresh conquest achieved by Assyria involved it in war with Babylonia, which appears to have been ever waiting for a suitable opportunity to cripple its northern rival.

But Assyria was not the only power which Babylonia had to guard itself against. On its eastern frontier Elam was also panting for expansion. Its chief caravan roads ran from Susa through Assyria towards Asia Minor, and through Babylonia towards the Phnician coast. It was probably because its commerce was hampered by the growth of Assyrian power in the north, as Servia's commerce in our own day has been hampered by Austria, that it cherished dreams of conquering Babylonia. In fact, as Kassite influence suffered decline, one of the great problems of international politics was whether Elam or Assyria would enter into possession of the ancient lands of Sumer and Akkad.

Ashur-uballit's vigorous policy of Assyrian expansion was continued, as has been shown, by his son Bel-nirari. His grandson, Arik-den-ilu, conducted several successful campaigns, and penetrated westward as far as Haran, thus crossing the Babylonian caravan road. He captured great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, which were transported to Asshur, and on one occasion carried away 250,000 prisoners.

Meanwhile Babylonia waged war with Elam. It is related that Khur-batila, King of Elam, sent a challenge to Kurigalzu III, a descendant of Kadashman-Kharbe, saying: "Come hither; I will fight with thee". The Babylonian monarch accepted the challenge, invaded the territory of his rival, and won a great victory. Deserted by his troops, the Elamite king was taken prisoner, and did not secure release until he had ceded a portion of his territory and consented to pay annual tribute to Babylonia.

Flushed with his success, the Kassite king invaded Assyria when Adad-nirari I died and his son Arik-den-ilu came to the throne. He found, however, that the Assyrians were more powerful than the Elamites, and suffered defeat. His son, Nazi-mar-uttash1 , also made an unsuccessful attempt to curb the growing power of the northern Power.

These recurring conflicts were intimately associated with the Mesopotamian question. Assyria was gradually expanding westward and shattering the dreams of the Babylonian statesmen and traders who hoped to recover control of the caravan routes and restore the prestige of their nation in the west.

Like his father, Adad-nirari I of Assyria had attacked the Aramn "Suti" who were settling about Haran. He also acquired a further portion of the ancient kingdom of Mitanni, with the result that he exercised sway over part of northern Mesopotamia. After defeating Nazi-mar-uttash, he fixed the boundaries of the Assyrian and Babylonian spheres of influence much to the advantage of his own country.

At home Adad-nirari conducted a vigorous policy. He developed the resources of the city state of Asshur by constructing a great dam and quay wall, while he contributed to the prosperity of the priesthood and the growth of Assyrian culture by extending the temple of the god Ashur. Ere he died, he assumed the proud title of "Shar Kishshate", "king of the world", which was also used by his son Shalmaneser I. His reign extended over a period of thirty years and terminated about 1300 B.C.

Soon after Shalmaneser came to the throne his country suffered greatly from an earthquake, which threw down Ishtar's temple at Nineveh and Ashur's temple at Asshur. Fire broke out in the latter building and destroyed it completely.

These disasters did not dismay the young monarch. Indeed, they appear to have stimulated him to set out on a career of conquest, to secure treasure and slaves, so as to carry out the work of reconstructing the temples without delay. He became as great a builder, and as tireless a campaigner as Thothmes III of Egypt, and under his guidance Assyria became the most powerful nation in Western Asia. Ere he died his armies were so greatly dreaded that the Egyptians and Assyrians drew their long struggle for supremacy in Syria to a close, and formed an alliance for mutual protection against their common enemy.

It is necessary at this point to review briefly the history of Palestine and north Syria after the period of Hittite expansion under King Subbi-luliuma and the decline of Egyptian power under Akhenaton. The western part of Mitanni and the most of northern Syria had been colonized by the Hittites.1 Farther south, their allies, the Amorites, formed a buffer State on the borders of Egypt's limited sphere of influence in southern Palestine, and of Babylonia's sphere in southern Mesopotamia. Mitanni was governed by a subject king who was expected to prevent the acquisition by Assyria of territory in the north-west.

Subbi-luliuma was succeeded on the Hittite throne by his son, King Mursil, who was known to the Egyptians as "Meraser", or "Maurasar". The greater part of this monarch's reign appears to have been peaceful and prosperous. His allies protected his frontiers, and he was able to devote himself to the work of consolidating his empire in Asia Minor and North Syria. He erected a great palace at Boghaz K, and appears to have had dreams of imitating the splendours of the royal Courts of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.

At this period the Hittite Empire was approaching the zenith of its power. It controlled the caravan roads of Babylonia and Egypt, and its rulers appear not only to have had intimate diplomatic relations with both these countries, but even to have concerned themselves regarding their internal affairs. When Rameses I came to the Egyptian throne, at the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, he sealed an agreement with the Hittites, and at a later date the Hittite ambassador at Babylon, who represented Hattusil II, the second son of King Mursil, actually intervened in a dispute regarding the selection of a successor to the throne.

The closing years of King Mursil's reign were disturbed by the military conquests of Egypt, which had renewed its strength under Rameses I. Seti I, the son of Rameses I, and the third Pharaoh of the powerful Nineteenth Dynasty, took advantage of the inactivity of the Hittite ruler by invading southern Syria. He had first to grapple with the Amorites, whom he successfully defeated. Then he pressed northward as far as Tunip, and won a decisive victory over a Hittite army, which secured to Egypt for a period the control of Palestine as far north as Phoenicia.

When Mursil died he was succeeded on the Hittite throne by his son Mutallu, whom the Egyptians referred to as "Metella" or "Mautinel". He was a vigorous and aggressive monarch, and appears to have lost no time in compelling the Amorites to throw off their allegiance to Egypt and recognize him as their overlord. As a result, when Rameses II ascended the Egyptian throne he had to undertake the task of winning back the Asiatic possessions of his father.

The preliminary operations conducted by Rameses on the Palestinian coast were attended with much success. Then, in his fifth year, he marched northward with a great army, with purpose, it would appear, to emulate the achievements of Thothmes III and win fame as a mighty conqueror. But he underestimated the strength of his rival and narrowly escaped disaster. Advancing impetuously, with but two of his four divisions, he suddenly found himself surrounded by the army of the wily Hittite, King Mutallu, in the vicinity of the city of Kadesh, on the Orontes. His first division remained intact, but his second was put to flight by an intervening force of the enemy. From this perilous position Rameses extricated himself by leading a daring charge against the Hittite lines on the river bank, which proved successful. Thrown into confusion, his enemies sought refuge in the city, but the Pharaoh refrained from attacking them there.

Although Rameses boasted on his return home of having achieved a great victory, there is nothing more certain than that this campaign proved a dismal failure. He was unable to win back for Egypt the northern territories which had acknowledged the suzerainty of Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Subsequently he was kept fully engaged in maintaining his prestige in northern Palestine and the vicinity of Phoenicia. Then his Asiatic military operations, which extended altogether over a period of about twenty years, were brought to a close in a dramatic and unexpected manner. The Hittite king Mutallu had died in battle, or by the hand of an assassin, and was succeeded by his brother Hattusil II (Khetasar), who sealed a treaty of peace with the great Rameses.

An Egyptian copy of this interesting document can still be read on the walls of a Theban temple, but it is lacking in certain details which interest present-day historians. No reference, for instance, is made to the boundaries of the Egyptian Empire in Syria, so that it is impossible to estimate the degree of success which attended the campaigns of Rameses. An interesting light, however, is thrown on the purport of the treaty by a tablet letter which has been discovered by Professor Hugo Winckler at Boghaz K. It is a copy of a communication addressed by Hattusil II to the King of Babylonia, who had made an enquiry regarding it. "I will inform my brother," wrote the Hittite monarch; the King of Egypt and I have made an alliance, and made ourselves brothers. Brothers we are and will [unite against] a common foe, and with friends in common."1 The common foe could have been no other than Assyria, and the Hittite king's letter appears to convey a hint to Kadashman-turgu of Babylon that he should make common cause with Rameses II and Hattusil.

Shalmaneser I of Assyria was pursuing a determined policy of western and northern expansion. He struck boldly at the eastern Hittite States and conquered Malatia, where he secured great treasure for the god Ashur. He even founded colonies within the Hittite sphere of influence on the borders of Armenia. Shalmaneser's second campaign was conducted against the portion of ancient Mitanni which was under Hittite control. The vassal king, Sattuari, apparently a descendant of Tushratta's, endeavoured to resist the Assyrians with the aid of Hittites and Aramns, but his army of allies was put to flight. The victorious Shalmaneser was afterwards able to penetrate as far westward as Carchemish on the Euphrates.

Having thus secured the whole of Mitanni, the Assyrian conqueror attacked the Aramn hordes which were keeping the territory round Haran in a continuous state of unrest, and forced them to recognize him as their overlord.

Shalmaneser thus, it would appear, gained control of northern Mesopotamia and consequently of the Babylonian caravan route to Haran. As a result Hittite prestige must have suffered decline in Babylon. For a generation the Hittites had had the Babylonian merchants at their mercy, and apparently compelled them to pay heavy duties. Winckler has found among the Boghaz K tablets several letters from the king of Babylon, who made complaints regarding robberies committed by Amoritic bandits, and requested that they should be punished and kept in control. Such a communication is a clear indication that he was entitled, in lieu of payment, to have an existing agreement fulfilled.

Shalmaneser found that Asshur, the ancient capital, was unsuitable for the administration of his extended empire, so he built a great city at Kalkhi (Nimrud), the Biblical Calah, which was strategically situated amidst fertile meadows on the angle of land formed by the Tigris and the Upper Zab. Thither to a new palace he transferred his brilliant Court.

He was succeeded by his son, Tukulti-Ninip I, who was the most powerful of the Assyrian monarchs of the Old Empire. He made great conquests in the north and east, extended and strengthened Assyrian influence in Mesopotamia, and penetrated into Hittite territory, bringing into subjection no fewer than forty kings, whom he compelled to pay annual tribute. It was inevitable that he should be drawn into conflict with the Babylonian king, who was plotting with the Hittites against him. One of the tablet letters found by Winckler at Boghaz K is of special interest in this connection. Hattusil advises the young monarch of Babylonia to "go and plunder the land of the foe". Apparently he sought to be freed from the harassing attention of the Assyrian conqueror by prevailing on his Babylonian royal friend to act as a "cat's paw".

It is uncertain whether or not Kashtiliash II of Babylonia invaded Assyria with purpose to cripple his rival. At any rate war broke out between the two countries, and Tukulti-Ninip proved irresistible in battle. He marched into Babylonia, and not only defeated Kashtiliash, but captured him and carried him off to Asshur, where he was presented in chains to the god Ashur.

The city of Babylon was captured, its wall was demolished, and many of its inhabitants were put to the sword. Tukulti-Ninip was evidently waging a war of conquest, for he pillaged E-sagila, "the temple of the high head", and removed the golden statue of the god Merodach to Assyria, where it remained for about sixteen years. He subdued the whole of Babylonia as far south as the Persian Gulf; and ruled it through viceroys.

Tukulti-Ninip, however, was not a popular emperor even in his own country. He offended national susceptibilities by showing preference for Babylonia, and founding

a new city which has not been located. There he built a great palace and a temple for Ashur and his pantheon. He called the city after himself, Kar-Tukulti-Ninip1 .

Seven years after the conquest of Babylonia revolts broke out against the emperor in Assyria and Babylonia, and he was murdered in his palace, which had been besieged and captured by an army headed by his own son, Ashur-natsir-pal I, who succeeded him. The Babylonian nobles meantime drove the Assyrian garrisons from their cities, and set on the throne the Kassite prince Adad-shum-utsur.

Thus in a brief space went to pieces the old Assyrian Empire, which, at the close of Tukulti-Ninip's thirty years' reign, embraced the whole Tigro-Euphrates valley from the borders of Armenia to the Persian Gulf. An obscure century followed, during which Assyria was raided by its enemies and broken up into petty States.

The Elamites were not slow to take advantage of the state of anarchy which prevailed in Babylonia during the closing years of Assyrian rule. They overran a part of ancient Sumer, and captured Nippur, where they slew a large number of inhabitants and captured many prisoners. On a subsequent occasion they pillaged Isin. When, however, the Babylonian king had cleared his country of the Assyrians, he attacked the Elamites and drove them across the frontier.

Nothing is known regarding the reign of the parricide Ashur-natsir-pal I of Assyria. He was succeeded by Ninip-Tukulti-Ashur and Adad-shum-lishir, who either reigned concurrently or were father and son. After a brief period these were displaced by another two rulers, Ashur-nirari III and Nabu-dan.

It is not clear why Ninip-Tukulti-Ashur was deposed.


Perhaps he was an ally of Adad-shum-utsur, the Babylonian king, and was unpopular on that account. He journeyed to Babylon on one occasion, carrying with him the statue of Merodach, but did not return. Perhaps he fled from the rebels. At any rate Adad-shum-utsur was asked to send him back, by an Assyrian dignitary who was probably Ashur-nirari III. The king of Babylon refused this request, nor would he give official recognition to the new ruler or rulers.

Soon afterwards another usurper, Bel-kudur-utsur, led an Assyrian army against the Babylonians, but was slain in battle. He was succeeded by Ninip-apil-esharia, who led his forces back to Asshur, followed by Adad-shumutsur. The city was besieged but not captured by the Babylonian army.

Under Adad-shum-utsur, who reigned for thirty years, Babylonia recovered much of its ancient splendour. It held Elam in check and laid a heavy hand on Assyria, which had been paralysed by civil war. Once again it possessed Mesopotamia and controlled its caravan road to Haran and Phoenicia, and apparently its relations with the Hittites and Syrians were of a cordial character. The next king, Meli-shipak, assumed the Assyrian title "Shar Kishshati", "king of the world", and had a prosperous reign of fifteen years. He was succeeded by Marduk-aplu-iddin I, who presided over the destinies of Babylonia for about thirteen years. Thereafter the glory of the Kassite Dynasty passed away. King Zamama-shum-iddin followed with a twelvemonth's reign, during which his kingdom was successfully invaded from the north by the Assyrians under King Ashur-dan I, and from the east by the Elamites under a king whose name has not been traced. Several towns were captured and pillaged, and rich booty was carried off to Asshur and Susa.

Bel-shum-iddin succeeded Zamama-shum-iddin, but three years afterwards he was deposed by a king of Isin. So ended the Kassite Dynasty of Babylonia, which had endured for a period of 576 years and nine months.

Babylonia was called Karduniash during the Kassite Dynasty. This name was originally applied to the district at the river mouths, where the alien rulers appear to have first achieved ascendancy. Apparently they were strongly supported by the non-Semitic elements in the population, and represented a popular revolt against the political supremacy of the city of Babylon and its god Merodach. It is significant to find in this connection that the early Kassite kings showed a preference for Nippur as their capital and promoted the worship of Enlil, the elder Bel, who was probably identified with their own god of fertility and battle. Their sun god, Sachi, appears to have been merged in Shamash. In time, however, the kings followed the example of Hammurabi by exalting Merodach.

The Kassite language added to the "Babel of tongues" among the common people, but was never used in inscriptions. At an early period the alien rulers became thoroughly Babylonianized, and as they held sway for nearly six centuries it cannot be assumed that they were unpopular. They allowed their mountain homeland, or earliest area of settlement in the east, to be seized and governed by Assyria, and probably maintained as slight a connection with it after settlement in Babylonia as did the Saxons of England with their Continental area of origin.

Although Babylonia was not so great a world power under the Kassites as it had been during the Hammurabi Dynasty, it prospered greatly as an industrial, agricultural, and trading country. The Babylonian language was used throughout western Asia as the language of diplomacy and commerce, and the city of Babylon was the most important commercial metropolis of the ancient world.

Its merchants traded directly and indirectly with far-distant countries. They imported cobalt--which was used for colouring glass a vivid blue--from China, and may have occasionally met Chinese traders who came westward with their caravans, while a brisk trade in marble and limestone was conducted with and through Elam. Egypt was the chief source of the gold supply, which was obtained from the Nubian mines; and in exchange for this precious metal the Babylonians supplied the Nilotic merchants with lapis-lazuli from Bactria, enamel, and their own wonderful coloured glass, which was not unlike the later Venetian, as well as chariots and horses. The Kassites were great horse breeders, and the battle steeds from the Babylonian province of Namar were everywhere in great demand. They also promoted the cattle trade. Cattle rearing was confined chiefly to the marshy districts at the head of the Persian Gulf, and the extensive steppes on the borders of the Arabian desert, so well known to Abraham and his ancestors, which provided excellent grazing. Agriculture also flourished; as in Egypt it constituted the basis of national and commercial prosperity.

It is evident that great wealth accumulated in Karduniash during the Kassite period. When the images of Merodach and Zerpanitumwere taken back to Babylon, from Assyria, they were clad, as has been recorded, in garments embroidered with gold and sparkling with gems, while E-sagila was redecorated on a lavish scale with price-less works of art.

Assyria presented a sharp contrast to Babylonia, the mother land, from which its culture was derived. As a separate kingdom it had to develop along different lines. In fact, it was unable to exist as a world power without the enforced co-operation of neighbouring States. Babylonia, on the other hand, could have flourished in comparative isolation, like Egypt during the Old Kingdom period, because it was able to feed itself and maintain a large population so long as its rich alluvial plain was irrigated during its dry season, which extended over about eight months in the year.

The region north of Baghdad was of different geographical formation to the southern plain, and therefore less suitable for the birth and growth of a great independent civilization. Assyria embraced a chalk plateau of the later Mesozoic period, with tertiary deposits, and had an extremely limited area suitable for agricultural pursuits. Its original inhabitants were nomadic pastoral and hunting tribes, and there appears to be little doubt that agriculture was introduced along the banks of the Tigris by colonists from Babylonia, who formed city States which owed allegiance to the kings of Sumer and Akkad.

After the Hammurabi period Assyria rose into prominence as a predatory power, which depended for its stability upon those productive countries which it was able to conquer and hold in sway. It never had a numerous peasantry, and such as it had ultimately vanished, for the kings pursued the short-sighted policy of colonizing districts on the borders of their empire with their loyal subjects, and settling aliens in the heart of the homeland, where they were controlled by the military. In this manner they built up an artificial empire, which suffered at critical periods in its history because it lacked the great driving and sustaining force of a population welded together by immemorial native traditions and the love of country which is the essence of true patriotism. National sentiment was chiefly confined to the military aristocracy and the priests; the enslaved and uncultured masses of aliens were concerned mainly with their daily duties, and no doubt included communities, like the Israelites in captivity, who longed to return to their native lands.

Assyria had to maintain a standing army, which grew from an alliance of brigands who first enslaved the native population, and ultimately extended their sway over neighbouring States. The successes of the army made Assyria powerful. Conquering kings accumulated rich booty by pillaging alien cities, and grew more and more wealthy as they were able to impose annual tribute on those States which came under their sway. They even regarded Babylonia with avaricious eyes. It was to achieve the conquest of the fertile and prosperous mother State that the early Assyrian emperors conducted military operations in the north-west and laid hands on Mesopotamia. There was no surer way of strangling it than by securing control of its trade routes. What the command of the sea is to Great Britain at the present day, the command of the caravan roads was to ancient Babylonia.

Babylonia suffered less than Assyria by defeat in battle; its natural resources gave it great recuperative powers, and the native population was ever so intensely patriotic that centuries of alien sway could not obliterate their national aspirations. A conqueror of Babylon had to become a Babylonian. The Amorites and Kassites had in turn to adopt the modes of life and modes of thought of the native population. Like the Egyptians, the Babylonians ever achieved the intellectual conquest of their conquerors.

The Assyrian Empire, on the other hand, collapsed like a house of cards when its army of mercenaries suffered a succession of disasters. The kings, as we have indicated, depended on the tribute of subject States to pay their soldiers and maintain the priesthood; they were faced with national bankruptcy when their vassals successfully revolted against them.

The history of Assyria as a world power is divided into three periods: (1) the Old Empire; (2) the Middle Empire; (3) the New or Last Empire.

We have followed the rise and growth of the Old Empire from the days of Ashur-uballit until the reign of Tukulti-Ninip, when it flourished in great splendour and suddenly went to pieces. Thereafter, until the second period of the Old Empire, Assyria comprised but a few city States which had agricultural resources and were trading centres. Of these the most enterprising was Asshur. When a ruler of Asshur was able, by conserving his revenues, to command sufficient capital with purpose to raise a strong army of mercenaries as a business speculation, he set forth to build up a new empire on the ruins of the old. In its early stages, of course, this process was slow and difficult. It necessitated the adoption of a military career by native Assyrians, who officered the troops, and these troops had to be trained and disciplined by engaging in brigandage, which also brought them rich rewards for their services. Babylonia became powerful by developing the arts of peace; Assyria became powerful by developing the science of warfare.

Footnotes

357:1 At Carchemish a railway bridge spans the mile-wide river ferry which Assyria's soldiers were wont to cross with the aid of skin floats. The engineers have found it possible to utilize a Hittite river wall about 3000 years old--the oldest engineering structure in the world. The ferry was on the old trade route.
360:1 Deuteronomy, xxvi, 5.
362:1 Pr. uas oo.
363:1 The chief cities of North Syria were prior to this period Hittite. This expansion did not change the civilization but extended the area of occupation and control.
366:1 Garstang's The Land of the Hittites, p. 349.
369:1 "Burgh of Tukulti-Ninip."
Next: Chapter XVI. Race Movements that Shattered Empires

• September 20, 2011
• 0
• Published in Myths of Babylonia and Assyria
• Written by LC Geerts

Myths of Babylon and Assyria: Chapter XIV. Ashur the National God of Assyria

CHAPTER XIV

Ashur the National God of Assyria

Derivation of Ashur--Ashur as Anshar and Anu--Animal forms of Sky God--Anshar as Star God on the Celestial Mount--Isaiah's Parable--Symbols of World God and World Hill--Dance of the Constellations and Dance of Satyrs--Goat Gods and Bull Gods--Symbols of Gods as "High Heads"--The Winged Disc--Human Figure as Soul of the Sun--Ashur as Hercules and Gilgamesh--Gods differentiated by Cults--Fertility Gods as War Gods--Ashur's Tree and Animal forms--Ashur as Nisroch--Lightning Symbol in Disc--Ezekiel's Reference to Life Wheel--Indian Wheel and Discus--Wheels of Shamash and Ahura-Mazda--Hittite Winged Disc--Solar Wheel causes Seasonal Changes--Bonfires to stimulate Solar Deity--Burning of Gods and Kings--Magical Ring and other Symbols of Scotland--Ashur's Wheel of Life and Eagle Wings--King and Ashur--Ashur associated with Lunar, Fire, and Star Gods--The Osirian Clue--Hittite and Persian Influences.

THE rise of Assyria brings into prominence the national god Ashur, who had been the city god of Asshur, the ancient capital. When first met with, he is found to be a complex and mystical deity, and the problem of his origin is consequently rendered exceedingly difficult. Philologists are not agreed as to the derivation of his name, and present as varied views as they do when dealing with the name of Osiris. Some give Ashur a geographical significance, urging that its original form was Aushar, "water field"; others prefer the renderings "Holy", "the Beneficent One", or "the Merciful One"; while not a few regard Ashur as simply a dialectic form of the name of Anshar, the god who, in the Assyrian version, or copy, of the Babylonian Creation myth, is chief of the "host of heaven", and the father of Anu, Ea, and Enlil.

If Ashur is to be regarded as an abstract solar deity, who was developed from a descriptive place name, it follows that he had a history, like Anu or Ea, rooted in Naturalism or Animism. We cannot assume that his strictly local character was produced by modes of thought which did not obtain elsewhere. The colonists who settled at Asshur no doubt imported beliefs from some cultural area; they must have either given recognition to a god, or group of gods, or regarded the trees, hills, rivers, sun, moon, and stars, and the animals as manifestations of the "self power" of the Universe, before they undertook the work of draining and cultivating the "water field" and erecting permanent homes. Those who settled at Nineveh, for instance, believed that they were protected by the goddess Nina, the patron deity of the Sumerian city of Nina. As this goddess was also worshipped at Lagash, and was one of the many forms of the Great Mother, it would appear that in ancient times deities had a tribal rather than a geographical significance.

If the view is accepted that Ashur is Anshar, it can be urged that he was imported from Sumeria. "Out of that land (Shinar)", according to the Biblical reference, "went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh."1 Asshur, or Ashur (identical, Delitzsch and Jastrow believe, with Ashir),2 may have been an eponymous hero--a deified king like Etana, or Gilgamesh, who was regarded as an incarnation of an ancient god. As Anshar was an astral or early form of Anu, the Sumerian city of origin may have been Erech, where the worship of the mother goddess was also given prominence.

Damascius rendered Anshar's name as "Assōros", a fact usually cited to establish Ashur's connection with that deity. This writer stated that the Babylonians passed over "Sige,1 the mother, that has begotten heaven and earth", and made two--Apason (Apsu), the husband, and Tauthe (Tiawath or Tiamat), whose son was Moymis (Mummu). From these another progeny came forth--Lache and Lachos (Lachmu and Lachamu). These were followed by the progeny Kissare and Assōros (Kishar and Anshar), "from which were produced Anos (Anu), Illillos (Enlil) and Aos (Ea). And of Aos and Dauke (Dawkina or Damkina) was born Belos (Bel Merodach), whom they say is the Demiurge"2 (the world artisan who carried out the decrees of a higher being).

Lachmu and Lachamu, like the second pair of the ancient group of Egyptian deities, probably symbolized darkness as a reproducing and sustaining power. Anshar was apparently an impersonation of the night sky, as his son Anu was of the day sky. It may have been believed that the soul of Anshar was in the moon as Nannar (Sin), or in a star, or that the moon and the stars were manifestations of him, and that the soul of Anu was in the sun or the firmament, or that the sun, firmament, and the wind were forms of this "self power".

If Ashur combined the attributes of Anshar and Anu, his early mystical character may be accounted for. Like the Indian Brahma, he may have been in his highest form an impersonation, or symbol, of the "self power" or "world soul" of developed Naturalism--the "creator", "preserver", and "destroyer" in one, a god of water, earth, air, and sky, of sun, moon, and stars, fire and lightning, a god of the grove, whose essence was in the fig, or the fir cone, as it was in all animals. The Egyptian god Amon of Thebes, who was associated with water, earth, air, sky, sun and moon, had a ram form, and was "the hidden one", was developed from one of the elder eight gods; in the Pyramid Texts he and his consort are the fourth pair. When Amon was fused with the specialized sun god Ra, he was placed at the head of the Ennead as the Creator. "We have traces", says Jastrow, "of an Assyrian myth of Creation in which the sphere of creator is given to Ashur."1

Before a single act of creation was conceived of, however, the early peoples recognized the eternity of matter, which was permeated by the "self power" of which the elder deities were vague phases. These were too vague, indeed, to be worshipped individually. The forms of the "self power" which were propitiated were trees, rivers, hills, or animals. As indicated in the previous chapter, a tribe worshipped an animal or natural object which dominated its environment. The animal might be the source of the food supply, or might have to be propitiated to ensure the food supply. Consequently they identified the self power of the Universe with the particular animal with which they were most concerned. One section identified the spirit of the heavens with the bull and another with the goat. In India Dyaus was a bull, and his spouse, the earth mother, Prithivi, was a cow. The Egyptian sky goddess Hathor was a cow, and other goddesses were identified with the hippopotamus, the serpent, the cat, or the vulture. Ra, the sun god, was identified in turn with the cat, the ass, the bull, the ram, and the crocodile, the various animal forms of the local deities he had absorbed. The eagle in Babylonia and India, and the vulture, falcon, and mysterious Phoenix in Egypt, were identified with the sun, fire, wind, and lightning. The animals associated with the god Ashur were the bull, the eagle, and the lion. He either absorbed the attributes of other gods, or symbolized the "Self Power" of which the animals were manifestations.

The earliest germ of the Creation myth was the idea that night was the parent of day, and water of the earth. Out of darkness and death came light and life. Life was also motion. When the primordial waters became troubled, life began to be. Out of the confusion came order and organization. This process involved the idea of a stable and controlling power, and the succession of i a group of deities--passive deities and active deities. When the Babylonian astrologers assisted in developing the Creation myth, they appear to have identified with the stable and controlling spirit of the night heaven that steadfast orb the Polar Star. Anshar, like Shakespeare's Car, seemed to say:
I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there's but one in all doth hold his place.1

Associated with the Polar Star was the constellation Ursa Minor, "the Little Bear", called by the Babylonian astronomers, "the Lesser Chariot". There were chariots before horses were introduced. A patesi of Lagash had a chariot which was drawn by asses.

The seemingly steadfast Polar Star was called "Ilu Sar", "the god Shar", or Anshar, "star of the height ", or "Shar the most high". It seemed to be situated at the summit of the vault of heaven. The god Shar, therefore, stood upon the Celestial mountain, the Babylonian Olympus. He was the ghost of the elder god, who in Babylonia was displaced by the younger god, Merodach, as Mercury, the morning star, or as the sun, the planet of day; and in Assyria by Ashur, as the sun, or Regulus, or Arcturus, or Orion. Yet father and son were identical. They were phases of the One, the "self power".

A deified reigning king was an incarnation of the god; after death he merged in the god, as did the Egyptian Unas. The eponymous hero Asshur may have similarly merged in the universal Ashur, who, like Horus, an incarnation of Osiris, had many phases or forms.

Isaiah appears to have been familiar with the Tigro-Euphratean myths about the divinity of kings and the displacement of the elder god by the younger god, of whom the ruling monarch was an incarnation, and with the idea that the summit of the Celestial mountain was crowned by the "north star", the symbol of Anshar. "Thou shalt take up this parable", he exclaimed, making use of Babylonian symbolism, "against the king of Babylon and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! . . . How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."1 The king is identified with Lucifer as the deity of fire and the morning star; he is the younger god who aspired to occupy the mountain throne of his father, the god Shar--the Polar or North Star.

It is possible that the Babylonian idea of a Celestial mountain gave origin to the belief that the earth was a mountain surrounded by the outer ocean, beheld by Etana when he flew towards heaven on the eagle's back. In India this hill is Mount Meru, the "world spine", which "sustains the earth"; it is surmounted by Indra's Valhal, or "the great city of Brahma". In Teutonic mythology the heavens revolve round the Polar Star, which is called "Veraldar nagli",1 the "world spike"; while the earth is sustained by the "world tree". The "ded" amulet of Egypt symbolized the backbone of Osiris as a world god: "ded" means "firm", "established";2 while at burial ceremonies the coffin was set up on end, inside the tomb, "on a small sandhill intended to represent the Mountain of the West--the realm of the dead".3 The Babylonian temple towers were apparently symbols of the "world hill". At Babylon, the Du-azaga, "holy mound", was Merodach's temple E-sagila, "the Temple of the High Head". E-kur, rendered "the house or temple of the Mountain", was the temple of Bel Enlil at Nippur. At Erech, the temple of the goddess Ishtar was E-anna, which connects her, as Nina or Ninni, with Anu, derived from "ana", "heaven". Ishtar was "Queen of heaven".

Now Polaris, situated at the summit of the celestial mountain, was identified with the sacred goat, "the highest of the flock of night".4 Ursa Minor (the "Little Bear" constellation) may have been "the goat with six heads", referred to by Professor Sayce.1 The six astral goats or goat-men were supposed to be dancing round the chief goat-man or Satyr (Anshar). Even in the dialogues of Plato the immemorial belief was perpetuated that the constellations were "moving as in a dance". Dancing began as a magical or religious practice, and the earliest astronomers saw their dancing customs reflected in the heavens by the constellations, whose movements were rhythmical. No doubt, Isaiah had in mind the belief of the Babylonians regarding the dance of their goat-gods when he foretold: "Their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls (ghosts) shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there".2 In other words, there would be no people left to perform religious dances beside the "desolate houses"; the stars only would be seen dancing round Polaris.

Tammuz, like Anshar, as sentinel of the night heaven, was a goat, as was also Nin-Girsu of Lagash. A Sumerian reference to "a white kid of En Mersi (Nin-Girsu)" was translated into Semitic, "a white kid of Tammuz". The goat was also associated with Merodach. Babylonians, having prayed to that god to take away their diseases or their sins, released a goat, which was driven into the desert. The present Polar Star, which was not, of course, the Polar star of the earliest astronomers, the world having rocked westward, is called in Arabic Al-Jedy, "the kid". In India, the goat was connected with Agni and Varuna; it was slain at funeral ceremonies to inform the gods that a soul was about to enter heaven. Ea, the Sumerian lord of water, earth, and heaven, was symbolized as a "goat fish". Thor, the Teutonic fertility and thunder god, had a chariot drawn by goats. It is of interest to note that the sacred Sumerian goat bore on its forehead the same triangular symbol as the Apis bull of Egypt.

Ashur was not a "goat of heaven", but a "bull of heaven", like the Sumerian Nannar (Sin), the moon god of Ur, Ninip of Saturn, and Bel Enlil. As the bull, however, he was, like Anshar, the ruling animal of the heavens; and like Anshar he had associated with him "six divinities of council".

Other deities who were similarly exalted as "high heads" at various centres and at various periods, included Anu, Bel Enlil, and Ea, Merodach, Nergal, and Shamash. A symbol of the first three was a turban on a seat, or altar, which may have represented the "world mountain". Ea, as "the world spine", was symbolized as a column, with ram's head, standing on a throne, beside which crouched a "goat fish". Merodach's column terminated in a lance head, and the head of a lion crowned that of Nergal. These columns were probably connected with pillar worship, and therefore with tree worship, the pillar being the trunk of the "world tree". The symbol of the sun god Shamash was a disc, from which flowed streams of water; his rays apparently were "fertilizing tears", like the rays of the Egyptian sun god Ra. Horus, the Egyptian falcon god, was symbolized as the winged solar disc.

It is necessary to accumulate these details regarding other deities and their symbols before dealing with Ashur. The symbols of Ashur must be studied, because they are one of the sources of our knowledge regarding the god's origin and character. These include (1) a winged disc with horns, enclosing four circles revolving round a middle circle; rippling rays fall down from either side of the disc; (2) a circle or wheel, suspended from wings, and enclosing a warrior drawing his bow to discharge an arrow; and (3) the same circle; the warrior's bow, however, is carried in his left hand, while the right hand is uplifted as if to bless his worshippers. These symbols are taken from seal cylinders.


Click to enlarge

ASHUR SYMBOLS

The winged disk on the right appears on a Babylonian "boundary stone" which dates from the reign of Marduk-balatsu-ikbi.
Photos. Mansell

An Assyrian standard, which probably represented the "world column", has the disc mounted on a bull's head with horns. The upper part of the disc is occupied by a warrior, whose head, part of his bow, and the point of his arrow protrude from the circle. The rippling water rays are V-shaped, and two bulls, treading river-like rays, occupy the divisions thus formed. There are also two heads--a lion's and a man's--with gaping mouths, which may symbolize tempests, the destroying power of the sun, or the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Jastrow regards the winged disc as "the purer and more genuine symbol of Ashur as a solar deity". He calls it "a sun disc with protruding rays", and says: "To this symbol the warrior with the bow and arrow was added--a despiritualization that reflects the martial spirit of the Assyrian empire".1

The sun symbol on the sun boat of Ra encloses similarly a human figure, which was apparently regarded as the soul of the sun: the life of the god was in the "sun egg". In an Indian prose treatise it is set forth: "Now that man in yonder orb (the sun) and that man in the right eye truly are no other than Death (the soul). His feet have stuck fast in the heart, and having pulled them out he comes forth; and when he comes forth then that man dies; whence they say of him who has passed away, 'he has been cut off (his life or life string has been severed)'."1 The human figure did not indicate a process of "despiritualization" either in Egypt or in India. The Horus "winged disc" was besides a symbol of destruction and battle, as well as of light and fertility. Horus assumed that form in one legend to destroy Set and his followers.2 But, of course, the same symbols may not have conveyed the same ideas to all peoples. As Blake put it:
What to others a trifle appears
Fills me full of smiles and tears. . . .
With my inward Eye, t is an old Man grey,
With my outward, a Thistle across my way.

Indeed, it is possible that the winged disc meant one thing to an Assyrian priest, and another thing to a man not gifted with what Blake called "double vision".

What seems certain, however, is that the archer was as truly solar as the "wings" or "rays". In Babylonia and Assyria the sun was, among other things, a destroyer from the earliest times. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Ashur, like Merodach, resembled, in one of his phases, Hercules, or rather his prototype Gilgamesh. One of Gilgamesh's mythical feats was the slaying of three demon birds. These may be identical with the birds of prey which Hercules, in performing his sixth labour, hunted out of Stymphalus.3 In the Greek Hipparcho-Ptolemy star list Hercules was the constellation of the "Kneeler", and in Babylonian-Assyrian astronomy he was (as Gilgamesh or Merodach) "Sarru", "the king". The astral "Arrow" (constellation of Sagitta) was pointed against the constellations of the "Eagle", "Vulture", and "Swan". In Phnician astronomy the Vulture was "Zither" (Lyra), a weapon with which Hercules (identified with Melkarth) slew Linos, the musician. Hercules used a solar arrow, which he received from Apollo. In various mythologies the arrow is associated with the sun, the moon, and the atmospheric deities, and is a symbol of lightning, rain, and fertility, as well as of famine, disease, war, and death. The green-faced goddess Neith of Libya, compared by the Greeks to Minerva, carries in one hand two arrows and a bow.1 If we knew as little of Athena (Minerva), who was armed with a lance, a breastplate made of the skin of a goat, a shield, and helmet, as we do of Ashur, it might be held that she was simply a goddess of war. The archer in the sun disc of the Assyrian standard probably represented Ashur as the god of the people--a deity closely akin to Merodach, with pronounced Tammuz traits, and therefore linking with other local deities like Ninip, Nergal, and Shamash, and partaking also like these of the attributes of the elder gods Anu, Bel Enlil, and Ea.

All the other deities worshipped by the Assyrians were of Babylonian origin. Ashur appears to have differed from them just as one local Babylonian deity differed from another. He reflected Assyrian experiences and aspirations, but it is difficult to decide whether the sublime spiritual aspect of his character was due to the beliefs of alien peoples, by whom the early Assyrians were influenced, or to the teachings of advanced Babylonian thinkers, whose doctrines found readier acceptance in a "new country" than among the conservative ritualists of ancient Sumerian and Akkadian cities. New cults were formed from time to time in Babylonia, and when they achieved political power they gave a distinctive character to the religion of their city states. Others which did not find political support and remained in obscurity at home, may have yet extended their influence far and wide. Buddhism, for instance, originated in India, but now flourishes in other countries, to which it was introduced by missionaries. In the homeland it was submerged by the revival of Brahmanism, from which it sprung, and which it was intended permanently to displace. An instance of an advanced cult suddenly achieving prominence as a result of political influence is afforded by Egypt, where the fully developed Aton religion was embraced and established as a national religion by Akhenaton, the so-called "dreamer". That migrations were sometimes propelled by cults, which sought new areas in which to exercise religious freedom and propagate their beliefs, is suggested by the invasion of India at the close of the Vedic period by the "later comers", who laid the foundations of Brahmanism. They established themselves in Madhyadesa, "the Middle Country", "the land where the Brahmanas and the later Samhitas were produced". From this centre went forth missionaries, who accomplished the Brahmanization of the rest of India.1

It may be, therefore, that the cult of Ashur was influenced in its development by the doctrines of advanced teachers from Babylonia, and that Persian Mithraism was also the product of missionary efforts extended from that great and ancient cultural area. Mitra, as has been stated, was one of the names of the Babylonian sun god, who was also a god of fertility. But Ashur could not have been to begin with merely a battle and solar deity. As the god of a city state he must have been worshipped by agriculturists, artisans, and traders; he must have been recognized as a deity of fertility, culture, commerce, and law. Even as a national god he must have made wider appeal than to the cultured and ruling classes. Bel Enlil of Nippur was a "world god" and war god, but still remained a local corn god.

Assyria's greatness was reflected by Ashur, but he also reflected the origin and growth of that greatness. The civilization of which he was a product had an agricultural basis. It began with the development of the natural resources of Assyria, as was recognized by the Hebrew prophet, who said: "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches. . . . The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters when he shot forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches; for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty."1

Asshur, the ancient capital, was famous for its merchants. It is referred to in the Bible as one of the cities which traded with Tyre "in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar".1

As a military power, Assyria's name was dreaded. "Behold," Isaiah said, addressing King Hezekiah, "thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly."2 The same prophet, when foretelling how Israel would suffer, exclaimed: "O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets."3

We expect to find Ashur reflected in these three phases of Assyrian civilization. If we recognize him in the first place as a god of fertility, his other attributes are at once included. A god of fertility is a corn god and a water god. The river as a river was a "creator", and Ashur was therefore closely associated with the "watery place", with the canals or "rivers running round about his plants". The rippling water-rays, or fertilizing tears, appear on the solar discs. As a corn god, he was a god of war. Tammuz's first act was to slay the demons of winter and storm, as Indra's in India was to slay the demons of drought, and Thor's in Scandinavia was to exterminate the frost giants. The corn god had to be fed with human sacrifices, and the people therefore waged war against foreigners to obtain victims. As the god made a contract with his people, he was a deity of commerce; he provided them with food and they in turn fed him with offerings.

In Ezekiel's comparison of Assyria to a mighty tree, there is no doubt a mythological reference. The Hebrew



Click to enlarge

WINGED DEITIES KNEELING BESIDE A SACRED TREE
Marble Slab from N.W. Palace of Nimrod: now in British Museum.
Photo. Manell

prophets invariably utilized for their poetic imagery the characteristic beliefs of the peoples to whom they made direct reference. The "owls", "satyrs", and "dragons" of Babylon, mentioned by Isaiah, were taken from Babylonian mythology, as has been indicated. When, therefore, Assyria is compared to a cedar, which is greater than fir or chestnut, and it is stated that there are nesting birds in the branches, and under them reproducing beasts of the field, and that the greatness of the tree is due to "the multitude of waters", the conclusion is suggested that Assyrian religion, which Ashur's symbols reflect, included the worship of trees, birds, beasts, and water. The symbol of the Assyrian tree--probably the "world tree" of its religion--appears to be "the rod of mine anger . . . the staff in their hand"; that is, the battle standard which was a symbol of Ashur. Tammuz and Osiris were tree gods as well as corn gods.

Now, as Ashur was evidently a complex deity, it is futile to attempt to read his symbols without giving consideration to the remnants of Assyrian mythology which are found in the ruins of the ancient cities. These either reflect the attributes of Ashur, or constitute the material from which he evolved.

As Layard pointed out many years ago, the Assyrians had a sacred tree which became conventionalized. It was "an elegant device, in which curved branches, springing from a kind of scroll work, terminated in flowers of graceful form. As one of the figures last described1 was turned, as if in act of adoration, towards this device, it was evidently a sacred emblem; and I recognized in it the holy tree, or tree of life, so universally adored at the remotest period in the East, and which was preserved in the religious systems of the Persians to the final overthrow of their Empire. . . . The flowers were formed by seven petals."1

This tree looks like a pillar, and is thrice crossed by conventionalized bull's horns tipped with ring symbols which may be stars, the highest pair of horns having a larger ring between them, but only partly shown as if it were a crescent. The tree with its many "sevenfold" designs may have been a symbol of the "Sevenfold-one-are-ye" deity. This is evidently the Assyrian tree which was called "the rod" or "staff".

What mythical animals did this tree shelter? Layard found that "the four creatures continually introduced on the sculptured walls", were "a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle".2

In Sumeria the gods were given human form, but before this stage was reached the bull symbolized Nannar (Sin), the moon god, Ninip (Saturn, the old sun), and Enlil, while Nergal was a lion, as a tribal sun god. The eagle is represented by the Zu bird, which symbolized the storm and a phase of the sun, and was also a deity of fertility. On the silver vase of Lagash the lion and eagle were combined as the lion-headed eagle, a form of Nin-Girsu (Tammuz), and it was associated with wild goats, stags, lions, and bulls. On a mace head dedicated to Nin-Girsu, a lion slays a bull as the Zu bird slays serpents in the folk tale, suggesting the wars of totemic deities, according to one "school", and the battle of the sun with the storm clouds according to another. Whatever the explanation may be of one animal deity of fertility slaying another, it seems certain that the conflict was associated with the idea of sacrifice to procure the food supply.

In Assyria the various primitive gods were combined as a winged bull, a winged bull with human head (the king's), a winged lion with human head, a winged man, a deity with lion's head, human body, and eagle's legs with claws, and also as a deity with eagle's head and feather headdress, a human body, wings, and feather-fringed robe, carrying in one hand a metal basket on which two winged men adored the holy tree, and in the other a fir cone.1

Layard suggested that the latter deity, with eagle's head, was Nisroch, "the word Nisr signifying, in all Semitic languages, an eagle".2 This deity is referred to in the Bible: "Sennacherib, king of Assyria, . . . was worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god".3 Professor Pinches is certain that Nisroch is Ashur, but considers that the "ni" was attached to "Ashur" (Ashuraku or Ashurachu), as it was to "Marad" (Merodach) to give the reading Ni-Marad = Nimrod. The names of heathen deities were thus made "unrecognizable, and in all probability ridiculous as well. . . . Pious and orthodox lips could pronounce them without fear of defilement."4 At the same time the "Nisr" theory is probable: it may represent another phase of this process. The names of heathen gods were not all treated in like manner by the Hebrew teachers. Abed-nebo, for instance, became Abed-nego(Daniel, i, 7), as Professor Pinches shows.

Seeing that the eagle received prominence in the mythologies of Sumeria and Assyria, as a deity of fertility with solar and atmospheric attributes, it is highly probable that the Ashur symbol, like the Egyptian Horus solar disk, is a winged symbol of life, fertility, and destruction. The idea that it represents the sun in eclipse, with protruding rays, seems rather far-fetched, because eclipses were disasters and indications of divine wrath;1 it certainly does not explain why the "rays" should only stretch out sideways, like wings, and downward like a tail, why the "rays" should be double, like the double wings of cherubs, bulls, &c., and divided into sections suggesting feathers, or why the disk is surmounted by conventionalized horns, tipped with star-like ring symbols, identical with those depicted in the holy tree. What particular connection the five small rings within the disk were supposed to have with the eclipse of the sun is difficult to discover.

In one of the other symbols in which appears a feather-robed archer, it is significant to find that the arrow he is about to discharge has a head shaped like a trident; it is evidently a lightning symbol.

When Ezekiel prophesied to the Israelitish captives at Tel-abib, "by the river of Chebar" in Chaldea (Kheber, near Nippur), he appears to have utilized Assyrian symbolism. Probably he came into contact in Babylonia with fugitive priests from Assyrian cities.

This great prophet makes interesting references to "four living creatures", with "four faces"--the face of a man, the face of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle; "they had the hands of a man under their wings, . . . their wings were joined one to another; . . . their wings were stretched upward: two wings of every one were joined one to another. . . . Their appearance was like burning coals of fire and like the appearance of lamps. . . . The living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning."2



EAGLE-HEADED WINGED DEITY (ASHUR)
Marble Slab, British Museum.
Photo. Mansell

Elsewhere, referring to the sisters, Aholah and Aholibah, who had been in Egypt and had adopted unmoral ways of life, Ezekiel tells that when Aholibah "doted upon the Assyrians" she "saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins".1 Traces of the red colour on the walls of Assyrian temples and palaces have been observed by excavators. The winged gods "like burning coals" were probably painted in vermilion.

Ezekiel makes reference to "ring" and "wheel" symbols. In his vision he saw "one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of beryl; and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. . . . As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.2 . . . And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above. . . . And when they went I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host; when they stood they let down their wings. . . ."3

Another description of the cherubs states: "Their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes (? stars) round about, even the wheels that they four had. As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel!"--or, according to a marginal rendering, "they were called in my hearing, wheel, or Gilgal," i.e. move round. . . . "And the cherubims were lifted up."1

It would appear that the wheel (or hoop, a variant rendering) was a symbol of life, and that the Assyrian feather-robed figure which it enclosed was a god, not of war only, but also of fertility. His trident-headed arrow resembles, as has been suggested, a lightning symbol. Ezekiel's references are suggestive in this connection. When the cherubs "ran and returned" they had "the appearance of a flash of lightning", and "the noise of their wings" resembled "the noise of great waters". Their bodies were "like burning coals of fire". Fertility gods were associated with fire, lightning, and water. Agni of India, Sandan of Asia Minor, and Melkarth of Phoenicia were highly developed fire gods of fertility. The fire cult was also represented in Sumeria.

In the Indian epic, the Mahhata, the revolving ring or wheel protects the Soma2 (ambrosia) of the gods, on which their existence depends. The eagle giant Garuda sets forth to steal it. The gods, fully armed, gather round to protect the life-giving drink. Garuda approaches "darkening the worlds by the dust raised by the hurricane of his wings". The celestials, "overwhelmed by that dust", swoon away. Garuda afterwards assumes a fiery shape, then looks "like masses of black clouds", and in the end its body becomes golden and bright "as the rays of the sun". The Soma is protected by fire, which the bird quenches after "drinking in many rivers" with the numerous mouths it has assumed. Then Garuda finds that right above the Soma is "a wheel of steel, keen edged, and sharp as a razor, revolving incessantly. That fierce instrument, of the lustre of the blazing sun and of terrible form, was devised by the gods for cutting to pieces all robbers of the Soma." Garuda passes "through the spokes of the wheel", and has then to contend against "two great snakes of the lustre of blazing fire, of tongues bright as the lightning flash, of great energy, of mouth emitting fire, of blazing eyes". He slays the snakes. . . . The gods afterwards recover the stolen Soma.

Garuda becomes the vehicle of the god Vishnu, who carries the discus, another fiery wheel which revolves and returns to the thrower like lightning. "And he (Vishnu) made the bird sit on the flagstaff of his car, saying: 'Even thus thou shalt stay above me'."1

The Persian god Ahura Mazda hovers above the king in sculptured representations of that high dignitary, enclosed in a winged wheel, or disk, like Ashur, grasping a ring in one hand, the other being lifted up as if blessing those who adore him.

Shamash, the Babylonian sun god; Ishtar, the goddess of heaven; and other Babylonian deities carried rings as the Egyptian gods carried the ankh, the symbol of life. Shamash was also depicted sitting on his throne in a pillar-supported pavilion, in front of which is a sun wheel. The spokes of the wheel are formed by a star symbol and threefold rippling "water rays".

In Hittite inscriptions there are interesting winged emblems; "the central portion" of one "seems to be composed of two crescents underneath a disk (which is also divided like a crescent). Above the emblem there appear the symbol of sanctity (the divided oval) and the hieroglyph which Professor Sayce interprets as the name of the god Sandes." In another instance "the centre of the winged emblem may be seen to be a rosette, with a curious spreading object below. Above, two dots follow the name of Sandes, and a human arm bent 'in adoration' is by the side. . . ." Professor Garstang is here dealing with sacred places "on rocky points or hilltops, bearing out the suggestion of the sculptures near Boghaz-Keui1 , in which there may be reasonably suspected the surviving traces of mountain cults, or cults of mountain deities, underlying the newer religious symbolism". Who the deity is it is impossible to say, but "he was identified at some time or other with Sandes".2 It would appear, too, that the god may have been "called by a name which was that used also by the priest". Perhaps the priest king was believed to be an incarnation of the deity.

Sandes or Sandan was identical with Sandon of Tarsus, "the prototype of Attis",3 who links with the Babylonian Tammuz. Sandon's animal symbol was the lion, and he carried the "double axe" symbol of the god of fertility and thunder. As Professor Frazer has shown in The Golden Bough, he links with Hercules and Melkarth.4

All the younger gods, who displaced the elder gods as one year displaces another, were deities of fertility, battle, lightning, fire, and the sun; it is possible, therefore, that Ashur was like Merodach, son of Ea, god of the deep, a form of Tammuz in origin. His spirit was in the solar wheel which revolved at times of seasonal change. In Scotland it was believed that on the morning of May Day (Beltaine) the rising sun revolved three times. The younger god was a spring sun god and fire god. Great bonfires were lit to strengthen him, or as a ceremony of riddance; the old year was burned out. Indeed the god himself might be burned (that is, the old god), so that he might renew his youth. Melkarth was burned at Tyre. Hercules burned himself on a mountain top, and his soul ascended to heaven as an eagle.

These fiery rites were evidently not unknown in Babylonia and Assyria. When, according to Biblical narrative, Nebuchadnezzar "made an image of gold" which he set up "in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon", he commanded: "O people, nations, and languages . . . at the time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick . . . fall down and worship the golden image". Certain Jews who had been "set over the affairs of the province of Babylonia", namely, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego", refused to adore the idol. They were punished by being thrown into "a burning fiery furnace", which was heated "seven times more than it was wont to be heated". They came forth uninjured.1

In the Koran it is related that Abraham destroyed the images of Chaldean gods; he "brake them all in pieces except the biggest of them; that they might lay the blame on that".2 According to the commentators the Chaldns were at the time "abroad in the fields, celebrating a great festival". To punish the offender Nimrod had a great pyre erected at Cuthah. "Then they bound Abraham, and putting him into an engine, shot him into the midst of the fire, from which he was preserved by the angel Gabriel, who was sent to his assistance." Eastern Christians were wont to set apart in the Syrian calendar the 25th of January to commemorate Abraham's escape from Nimrod's pyre.1

It is evident that the Babylonian fire ceremony was observed in the spring season, and that human beings were sacrificed to the sun god. A mock king may have been burned to perpetuate the ancient sacrifice of real kings, who were incarnations of the god.

Isaiah makes reference to the sacrificial burning of kings in Assyria: "For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod. And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared: he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it."2 When Nineveh was about to fall, and with it the Assyrian Empire, the legendary king, Sardanapalus, who was reputed to have founded Tarsus, burned himself, with his wives, concubines, and eunuchs, on a pyre in his palace. Zimri, who reigned over Israel for seven days, "burnt the king's house over him with fire"3 . Saul, another fallen king, was burned after death, and his bones were buried "under the oak in Jabesh".4 In Europe the oak was associated with gods of fertility and lightning, including Jupiter and Thor. The ceremony of burning Saul is of special interest. Asa, the orthodox king of Judah, was, after death, "laid in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him" (2 Chronicles, xvi, 14). Jehoram, the heretic king of Judah, who "walked in the way of the kings of Israel", died of "an incurable disease. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers" (2 Chronicles, xxi, 18, 19).

The conclusion suggested by the comparative study of the beliefs of neighbouring peoples, and the evidence afforded by Assyrian sculptures, is that Ashur was a highly developed form of the god of fertility, who was sustained, or aided in his conflicts with demons, by the fires and sacrifices of his worshippers.

It is possible to read too much into his symbols. These are not more complicated and vague than are the symbols on the standing stones of Scotland--the crescent with the "broken" arrow; the trident with the double rings, or wheels, connected by two crescents; the circle with the dot in its centre; the triangle with the dot; the large disk with two small rings on either side crossed by double straight lines; the so-called "mirror", and so on. Highly developed symbolism may not indicate a process of spiritualization so much, perhaps, as the persistence of magical beliefs and practices. There is really no direct evidence to support the theory that the Assyrian winged disk, or disk "with protruding rays", was of more spiritual character than the wheel which encloses the feather-robed archer with his trident-shaped arrow.

The various symbols may have represented phases of the god. When the spring fires were lit, and the god "renewed his life like the eagle", his symbol was possibly the solar wheel or disk with eagle's wings, which became regarded as a symbol of life. The god brought life and light to the world; he caused the crops to grow; he gave increase; he sustained his worshippers. But he was also the god who slew the demons of darkness and storm.

The Hittite winged disk was Sandes or Sandon, the god of lightning, who stood on the back of a bull. As the lightning god was a war god, it was in keeping with his character to find him represented in Assyria as "Ashur the archer" with the bow and lightning arrow. On the disk of the Assyrian standard the lion and the bull appear with "the archer" as symbols of the war god Ashur, but they were also symbols of Ashur the god of fertility.

The life or spirit of the god was in the ring or wheel, as the life of the Egyptian and Indian gods, and of the giants of folk tales, was in "the egg". The "dot within the circle", a widespread symbol, may have represented the seed within "the egg" of more than one mythology, or the thorn within the egg of more than one legendary story. It may be that in Assyria, as in India, the crude beliefs and symbols of the masses were spiritualized by the speculative thinkers in the priesthood, but no literary evidence has survived to justify us in placing the Assyrian teachers on the same level as the Brahmans who composed the Upanishads.

Temples were erected to Ashur, but he might be worshipped anywhere, like the Queen of Heaven, who received offerings in the streets of Jerusalem, for "he needed no temple", as Professor Pinches says. Whether this was because he was a highly developed deity or a product of folk religion it is difficult to decide. One important fact is that the ruling king of Assyria was more closely connected with the worship of Ashur than the king of Babylonia was with the worship of Merodach. This may be because the Assyrian king was regarded as an incarnation of his god, like the Egyptian Pharaoh. Ashur accompanied the monarch on his campaigns: he was their conquering war god. Where the king was, there was Ashur also. No images were made of him, but his symbols were carried aloft, as were the symbols of Indian gods in the great war of the Mahhataepic.

It would appear that Ashur was sometimes worshipped in the temples of other gods. In an interesting inscription he is associated with the moon god Nannar (Sin) of Haran. Esarhaddon, the Assyrian king, is believed to have been crowned in that city. "The writer", says Professor Pinches, "is apparently addressing Assur-bani-apli, 'the great and noble Asnapper':

"When the father of my king my lord went to Egypt, he was crowned (?) in the ganniof Harrah, the temple (lit. 'Bethel') of cedar. The god Sin remained over the (sacred) standard, two crowns upon his head, (and) the god Nusku stood beside him. The father of the king my lord entered, (and) he (the priest of Sin) placed (the crown?) upon his head, (saying) thus: 'Thou shalt go and capture the lands in the midst'. (He we)nt, he captured the land of Egypt. The rest of the lands not submitting (?) to Assur (Ashur) and Sin, the king, the lord of kings, shall capture (them)."1

Ashur and Sin are here linked as equals. Associated with them is Nusku, the messenger of the gods, who was given prominence in Assyria. The kings frequently invoked him. As the son of Ea he acted as the messenger between Merodach and the god of the deep. He was also a son of Bel Enlil, and like Anu was guardian or chief of the Igigi, the "host of heaven". Professor Pinches suggests that he may have been either identical with the Sumerian fire god Gibil, or a brother of the fire god, and an impersonation of the light of fire and sun. In Haran he accompanied the moon god, and may, therefore, have symbolized the light of the moon also. Professor Pinches adds that in one inscription "he is identified with Nirig or En-reshtu" (Nin-Girsu = Tammuz).1 The Babylonians and Assyrians associated fire and light with moisture and fertility.

The astral phase of the character of Ashur is highly probable. As has been indicated, the Greek rendering of Anshar as "Assoros", is suggestive in this connection. Jastrow, however, points out that the use of the characters Anshar for Ashur did not obtain until the eighth century B.C. "Linguistically", he says, "the change of Ashir to Ashur can be accounted for, but not the transformation of An-shar to Ashur or Ashir; so that we must assume the 'etymology' of Ashur, proposed by some learned scribe, to be the nature of a play upon the name."2 On the other hand, it is possible that what appears arbitrary to us may have been justified in ancient Assyria on perfectly reasonable, or at any rate traditional, grounds. Professor Pinches points out that as a sun god, and "at the same time not Shamash", Ashur resembled Merodach. "His identification with Merodach, if that was ever accepted, may have been due to the likeness of the word to Asari, one of the deities' names."3 As Asari, Merodach has been compared to the Egyptian Osiris, who, as the Nile god, was Asar-Hapi. Osiris resembles Tammuz and was similarly a corn deity and a ruler of the living and the dead, associated with sun, moon, stars, water, and vegetation. We may consistently connect Ashur with Aushar, "water field", Anshar, "god of the height", or "most high", and with the eponymous King Asshur who went out on the land of Nimrod and "builded Nineveh", if we regard him as of common origin with Tammuz, Osiris, and Attis--a developed and localized form of the ancient deity of fertility and corn.

Ashur had a spouse who is referred to as Ashuritu, or Beltu, "the lady". Her name, however, is not given, but it is possible that she was identified with the Ishtar of Nineveh. In the historical texts Ashur, as the royal god, stands alone. Like the Hittite Great Father, he was perhaps regarded as the origin of life. Indeed, it may have been due to the influence of the northern hillmen in the early Assyrian period, that Ashur was developed as a father god--a Baal. When the Hittite inscriptions are read, more light may be thrown on the Ashur problem. Another possible source of cultural influence is Persia. The supreme god Ahura-Mazda (Ormuzd) was, as has been indicated, represented, like Ashur, hovering over the king's head, enclosed in a winged disk or wheel, and the sacred tree figured in Persian mythology. The early Assyrian kings had non-Semitic and non-Sumerian names. It seems reasonable to assume that the religious culture of the ethnic elements they represented must have contributed to the development of the city god of Asshur.

Footnotes

327:1 Genesis, x, 11.
327:2 "A number of tablets have been found in Cappadocia of the time of the Second Dynasty of Ur which show marked affinities with Assyria. The divine name Ashir, as in early Assyrian texts, the institution of eponyms and many personal names which occur in Assyria, are so characteristic that we must assume kinship of peoples. But whether they witness to a settlement in Cappadocia from Assyria, or vice versa, is not yet clear." Ancient Assyria, C. H. W. Johns (Cambridge, 1912), pp. 12-13.
328:1 Sumerian Ziku, apparently derived from Zi, the spiritual essence of life, the "self power" of the Universe.
328:2 Peri Archon, cxxv.
329:1 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 197 et seq.
330:1 Julius Car, act iii, scene 1.
331:1 Isaiah, xiv, 4-14.
332:1 Eddubrott, ii.
332:2 Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, A. Wiedemann, pp. 289-90.
332:3 Ibid., p. 236. Atlas was also believed to be in the west.
332:4 Primitive Constellations, vol. ii, p. 184.
333:1 Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, xxx, 11.
333:2 Isaiah, xiii, 21. For "Satyrs" the Revised Version gives the alternative translation, "or he-goats".
335:1 Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 120, plate 18 and note.
336:1 Satapatha Brahmana, translated by Professor Eggeling, part iv, 1897, p. 371. (Sacred Books of the East.)
336:2 Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 165 et seq.
336:3 Classic Myth and Legend, p. 105. The birds were called "Stymphalides".
337:1 The so-called "shuttle" of Neith may be a thunderbolt. Scotland's archaic thunder deity is a goddess. The bow and arrows suggest a lightning goddess who was a deity of war because she was a deity of fertility.
338:1 Vedic Index, Macdonell & Keith, vol. ii, pp. 125-6, and vol. i, 168-9.
339:1 Ezekiel, xxxi, 3-8.
340:1 Ezekiel, xxvii, 23, 24.
340:2 Isaiah, xxxvii, 11.
340:3 Ibid., x, 5, 6.
341:1 A winged human figure, carrying in one hand a basket and in another a fir cone.
342:1 Layard's Nineveh(1856), p. 44.
342:2 Ibid., p. 309.
343:1 The fir cone was offered to Attis and Mithra. Its association with Ashur suggests that the great Assyrian deity resembled the gods of corn and trees and fertility.
343:2 Nineveh, p. 47.
343:3 Isaiah, xxxvii, 37-8.
343:4 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, pp. 129-30.
344:1 An eclipse of the sun in Assyria on June 15, 763 B.C., was followed by an outbreak of civil war.
344:2 Ezekiel, i, 4-14
345:1 Ezekiel, xxiii, 1-15.
345:2 As the soul of the Egyptian god was in the sun disk or sun egg.
345:3 Ezekiel, i, 15-28.
346:1 Ezekiel, x, 11-5.
346:2 Also called "Amrita".
347:1 The Mahhata(Adi Parva), Sections xxxiii-iv.
348:1 Another way of spelling the Turkish name which signifies "village of the pass". The deep "gh" guttural is not usually attempted by English speakers. A common rendering is "Bog-haz Kay-ee", a slight "oo" sound being given to the "a" in "Kay"; the "z" sound is hard and hissing.
348:2 The Land of the Hittites, J. Garstang, pp. 178 et seq.
348:3 Ibid., p. 173.
348:4 Adonis, Attis, Osiris, chaps. v and vi.
349:1 Daniel, iii, 1-26.
349:2 The story that Abraham hung an axe round the neck of Baal after destroying the other idols is of Jewish origin.
350:1 The Koran, George Sale, pp. 245-6.
350:2 Isaiah, xxx, 31-3. See also for Tophet customs 2 Kings, xxiii, 10; Jeremiah, vii, 31, 32 and xix, 5-12.
350:3 2 Kings, xvi, 18.
350:4 1 Samuel, xxxi, 12, 13 and 1 Chronicles, x, 11, 12.
353:1 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, pp. 201-2.
354:1 Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, pp. 57-8,
354:2 Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p.121.
354:3 Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, p. 86.
Next: Chapter XV. Conflicts for Trade and Supremacy

• September 20, 2011
• 0
• Published in Myths of Babylonia and Assyria
• Written by LC Geerts

Myths of Babylon and Assyria: Chapter XIII. Astrology and Astronomy

CHAPTER XIII

Astrology and Astronomy

Culture and Superstition--Primitive Star Myths--Naturalism, Totemism, and Animism--Stars as Ghosts of Men, Giants, and Wild Animals--Gods as Constellations and Planets--Babylonian and Egyptian Mysticism--Osiris, Tammuz, and Merodach--Ishtar and Isis as Bisexual Deities--The Babylonian Planetary Deities--Planets as Forms of Tammuz and Ghosts of Gods--The Signs of the Zodiac--The "Four Quarters"--Cosmic Periods in Babylonia, India, Greece, and Ireland--Babylonian System of Calculation--Traced in Indian Yuga System--Astrology--Beliefs of the Masses--Rise of Astronomy--Conflicting Views of Authorities--Greece and Babylonia--Eclipses Foretold--The Dial of Ahaz--Omens of Heaven and Air--Biblical References to Constellations--The Past in the Present.

THE empire builders of old who enriched themselves with the spoils of war and the tribute of subject States, not only satisfied personal ambition and afforded protection for industrious traders and workers, but also incidentally promoted culture and endowed research. When a conqueror returned to his capital laden with treasure, he made generous gifts to the temples. He believed that his successes were rewards for his piety, that his battles were won for him by his god or goddess of war. It was necessary, therefore, that he should continue to find favour in the eyes of the deity who had been proved to be more powerful than the god of his enemies. Besides, he had to make provision during his absence on long campaigns, or while absorbed in administrative work, for the constant performance of religious rites, so that the various deities of water, earth, weather, and corn might be sustained or propitiated with sacrificial offerings, or held in magical control by the performance of ceremonial rites. Consequently an endowed priesthood became a necessity in all powerful and well-organized states.

Thus came into existence in Babylonia, as elsewhere, as a result of the accumulation of wealth, a leisured official class, whose duties tended to promote intellectual activity, although they were primarily directed to perpetuate gross superstitious practices. Culture was really a by-product of temple activities; it flowed forth like pure gold from furnaces of thought which were walled up by the crude ores of magic and immemorial tradition.

No doubt in ancient Babylonia, as in Europe during the Middle Ages, the men of refinement and intellect among the upper classes were attracted to the temples, while the more robust types preferred the outdoor life, and especially the life of the soldier.1 The permanent triumphs of Babylonian civilization were achieved either by the priests, or in consequence of the influence they exercised. They were the grammarians and the scribes, the mathematicians and the philosophers of that ancient country, the teachers of the young, and the patrons of the arts and crafts. It was because the temples were centres of intellectual activity that the Sumerian language remained the language of culture for long centuries after it ceased to be the everyday speech of the people.

Reference has already been made to the growth of art, and the probability that all the arts had their origin in magical practices, and to the growth of popular education necessitated by the centralization of business in the temples. It remains with us to deal now with priestly contributions to the more abstruse sciences. In India the ritualists among the Brahmans, who concerned themselves greatly regarding the exact construction and measurements of altars, gave the world algebra; the pyramid builders of Egypt, who erected vast tombs to protect royal mummies, had perforce to lay the groundwork of the science of geometry; and the Babylonian priests who elaborated the study of astrology became great astronomers because they found it necessary to observe and record accurately the movements of the heavenly bodies.

From the earliest times of which we have knowledge, the religious beliefs of the Sumerians had vague stellar associations. But it does not follow that their myths were star myths to begin with. A people who called constellations "the ram", "the bull", "the lion", or "the scorpion", did not do so because astral groups suggested the forms of animals, but rather because the animals had an earlier connection with their religious life.

At the same time it should be recognized that the mystery of the stars must ever have haunted the minds of primitive men. Night with all its terrors appealed more strongly to their imaginations than refulgent day when they felt more secure; they were concerned most regarding what they feared most. Brooding in darkness regarding their fate, they evidently associated the stars with the forces which influenced their lives--the ghosts of ancestors, of totems, the spirits that brought food or famine and controlled the seasons. As children see images in a fire, so they saw human life reflected in the starry sky. To the simple minds of early folks the great moon seemed to be the parent of the numerous twinkling and moving orbs. In Babylon, indeed, the moon was regarded as the father not only of the stars but of the sun also; there, as elsewhere, lunar worship was older than solar worship.

Primitive beliefs regarding the stars were of similar character in various parts of the world. But the importance which they assumed in local mythologies depended in the first place on local phenomena. On the northern Eur-Asian steppes, for instance, where stars vanished during summer's blue nights, and were often obscured by clouds in winter, they did not impress men's minds so persistently and deeply as in Babylonia, where for the greater part of the year they gleamed in darkness through a dry transparent atmosphere with awesome intensity. The development of an elaborate system of astral myths, besides, was only possible in a country where the people had attained to a high degree of civilization, and men enjoyed leisure and security to make observations and compile records. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Babylonia was the cradle of astronomy. But before this science had destroyed the theory which it was fostered to prove, it lay smothered for long ages in the debris of immemorial beliefs. It is necessary, therefore, in dealing with Babylonian astral myths to endeavour to approach within reasonable distance of the point of view, or points of view, of the people who framed them.

Babylonian religious thought was of highly complex character. Its progress was ever hampered by blended traditions. The earliest settlers in the Tigro-Euphrates valley no doubt imported many crude beliefs which they had inherited from their Pallithic ancestors--the modes of thought which were the moulds of new theories arising from new experiences. When consideration is given to the existing religious beliefs of various peoples throughout the world, in low stages of culture, it is found that the highly developed creeds of Babylonia, Egypt, and other countries where civilization flourished were never divested wholly of their primitive traits.

Among savage peoples two grades of religious ideas have been identified, and classified as Naturalism and Animism. In the plane of Naturalism the belief obtains that a vague impersonal force, which may have more than one manifestation and is yet manifested in everything, controls the world and the lives of human beings. An illustration of this stage of religious consciousness is afforded by Mr. Risley, who, in dealing with the religion of the jungle dwellers of Chota Nagpur, India, says that "in most cases the indefinite something which they fear and attempt to propitiate is not a person at all in any sense of the word; if one must state the case in positive terms, I should say that the idea which lies at the root of their religion is that of a power rather than many powers".1

Traces of Naturalism appear to have survived in Sumeria in the belief that "the spiritual, the Zi, was that which manifested life. . . . The test of the manifestation of life was movement."2 All things that moved, it was conceived in the plane of Naturalism, possessed "self power"; the river was a living thing, as was also the fountain; a stone that fell from a hill fell of its own accord; a tree groaned because the wind caused it to suffer pain. This idea that inanimate objects had conscious existence survived in the religion of the Aryo-Indians. In the Nala story of the Indian epic, the Mahhata, the disconsolate wife Damayanti addresses a mountain when searching for her lost husband:
This, the monarch of all mountains, ask I of the king of men;
"O all-honoured Prince of Mountains, with thy heavenward soaring peaks . . .
Hast thou seen the kingly Nala in this dark and awful wood?. . .
Why repliest thou not, O Mountain?"

She similarly addresses the Asoka tree:
"Hast thou seen Nishadha's monarch, hast thou seen my only love? . . .
That I may depart ungrieving, fair Asoka, answer me. . . ."
Many a tree she stood and gazed on. . . .1

It will be recognized that when primitive men gave names to mountains, rivers, or the ocean, these possessed for them a deeper significance than they do for us at the present day. The earliest peoples of Indo-European speech who called the sky "dyeus", and those of Sumerian speech who called it "ana", regarded it not as the sky "and nothing more", but as something which had conscious existence and "self power". Our remote ancestors resembled, in this respect, those imaginative children who hold conversations with articles of furniture, and administer punishment to stones which, they believe, have tripped them up voluntarily and with desire to commit an offence.

In this early stage of development the widespread totemic beliefs appear to have had origin. Families or tribes believed that they were descended from mountains, trees, or wild animals.

op's fable about the mountain which gave birth to a mouse may be a relic of Totemism; so also may be the mountain symbols on the standards of Egyptian ships which appear on pre-dynastic pottery; the black dwarfs of Teutonic mythology were earth children.2


Adonis sprang from a tree; his mother may have, according to primitive belief, been simply a tree; Dagda, the patriarchal Irish corn god, was an oak; indeed, the idea of a "world tree", which occurs in Sumerian, Vedic-Indian, Teutonic, and other mythologies, was probably a product of Totemism.

Wild animals were considered to be other forms of human beings who could marry princes and princesses as they do in so many fairy tales. Damayanti addressed the tiger, as well as the mountain and tree, saying:
I approach him without fear.
"Of the beasts art thou the monarch, all this forest thy domain; . . .
Thou, O king of beasts, console me, if my Nala thou hast seen."1

A tribal totem exercised sway over a tribal district. In Egypt, as Herodotus recorded, the crocodile was worshipped in one district and hunted down in another. Tribes fought against tribes when totemic animals were slain. The Babylonian and Indian myths about the conflicts between eagles and serpents may have originated as records of battles between eagle clans and serpent clans. Totemic animals were tabooed. The Set pig of Egypt and the devil pig of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were not eaten except sacrificially. Families were supposed to be descended from swans and were named Swans, or from seals and were named Seals, like the Gaelic "Mac Codrums", whose surname signifies "son of the seal"; the nickname of the Campbells, "sons of the pig", may refer to their totemic boar's head crest, which commemorated the slaying, perhaps the sacrificial slaying, of the boar by their ancestor Diarmid. Mr. Garstang, in The Syrian Goddess, thinks it possible that the boar which killed Adonis was of totemic origin. So may have been the fish form of the Sumerian god Ea. When an animal totem was sacrificed once a year, and eaten sacrificially so that the strength of the clan might be maintained, the priest who wrapped himself in its skin was supposed to have transmitted to him certain magical powers; he became identified with the totem and prophesied and gave instruction as the totem. Ea was depicted clad in the fish's skin.

Animism, the other early stage of human development, also produced distinctive modes of thought. Men conceived that the world swarmed with spirits, that a spirit groaned in the wind-shaken tree, that the howling wind was an invisible spirit, that there were spirits in fountains, rivers, valleys, hills, and in ocean, and in all animals; and that a hostile spirit might possess an individual and change his nature. The sun and the moon were the abodes of spirits, or the vessels in which great spirits sailed over the sea of the sky; the stars were all spirits, the "host of heaven". These spirits existed in groups of seven, or groups of three, and the multiple of three, or in pairs, or operated as single individuals.

Although certain spirits might confer gifts upon mankind, they were at certain seasons and in certain localities hostile and vengeful, like the grass-green fairies in winter, or the earth-black elves when their gold was sought for in forbidden and secret places. These spirits were the artisans of creation and vegetation, like the Egyptian Khnumu and the Indian Rhibus; they fashioned the grass blades and the stalks of corn, but at times of seasonal change they might ride on their tempest steeds, or issue forth from flooding rivers and lakes. Man was greatly concerned about striking bargains with them to secure their services, and about propitiating them, or warding off their attacks with protective charms, and by performing "ceremonies of riddance". The ghosts of the dead, being spirits, were similarly propitious or harmful on occasion; as emissaries of Fate they could injure the living.

Ancestor worship, the worship of ghosts, had origin in the stage of Animism. But ancestor worship was not developed in Babylonia as in China, for instance, although traces of it survived in the worship of stars as ghosts, in the deification of kings, and the worship of patriarchs, who might be exalted as gods or identified with a supreme god. The Egyptian Pharaoh Unas became the sun god and the constellation of Orion by devouring his predecessors.1 He ate his god as a tribe ate its animal totem; he became the "bull of heaven".

There were star totems as well as mountain totems. A St. Andrew's cross sign, on one of the Egyptian ship standards referred to, may represent a star. The Babylonian goddess Ishtar was symbolized as a star, and she was the "world mother". Many primitive currents of thought shaped the fretted rocks of ancient mythologies.

In various countries all round the globe the belief prevailed that the stars were ghosts of the mighty dead--of giants, kings, or princes, or princesses, or of pious people whom the gods loved, or of animals which were worshipped. A few instances may be selected at random. When the Teutonic gods slew the giant Thjasse, he appeared in the heavens as Sirius. In India the ghosts of the "seven Rishis", who were semi-divine Patriarchs, formed the constellation of the Great Bear, which in Vedic times was called the "seven bears". The wives of the seven Rishis were the stars of the Pleiades. In Greece the Pleiades were the ghosts of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and in Australia they were and are a queen and six handmaidens. In these countries, as elsewhere, stories were told to account for the "lost Pleiad", a fact which suggests that primitive men were more constant observers of the heavenly bodies than might otherwise be supposed. The Arcadians believed that they were descended, as Hesiod recorded, from a princess who was transformed by Zeus into a bear; in this form Artemis slew her and she became the "Great Bear" of the sky. The Egyptian Isis was the star Sirius, whose rising coincided with the beginning of the Nile inundation. Her first tear for the dead Osiris fell into the river on "the night of the drop". The flood which ensued brought the food supply. Thus the star was not only the Great Mother of all, but the sustainer of all.

The brightest stars were regarded as being the greatest and most influential. In Babylonia all the planets were identified with great deities. Jupiter, for instance, was Merodach, and one of the astral forms of Ishtar was Venus. Merodach was also connected with "the fish of Ea" (Pisces), so that it is not improbable that Ea worship had stellar associations. Constellations were given recognition before the planets were identified.

A strange blending of primitive beliefs occurred when the deities were given astral forms. As has been shown (Chapter III ) gods were supposed to die annually. The Egyptian priests pointed out to Herodotus the grave of Osiris and also his star. There are "giants' graves" also in those countries in which the gods were simply ferocious giants. A god might assume various forms; he might take the form of an insect, like Indra, and hide in a plant, or become a mouse, or a serpent, like the gods of Erech in the Gilgamesh epic. The further theory that a god could exist in various forms at one and the same time suggests that it had its origin among a people who accepted the idea of a personal god while yet in the stage of Naturalism. In Egypt Osiris, for instance, was the moon, which came as a beautiful child each month and was devoured as the wasting "old moon" by the demon Set; he was the young god who was slain in his prime each year; he was at once the father, husband, and son of Isis; he was the Patriarch who reigned over men and became the Judge of the Dead; he was the earth spirit, he was the bisexual Nile spirit, he was the spring sun; he was the Apis bull of Memphis, and the ram of Mendes; he was the reigning Pharaoh. In his fusion with Ra, who was threefold--Khepera, Ra, and Tum--he died each day as an old man; he appeared in heaven at night as the constellation Orion, which was his ghost, or was, perhaps, rather the Sumerian Zi, the spiritual essence of life. Osiris, who resembled Tammuz, a god of many forms also, was addressed as follows in one of the Isis chants:
There proceedeth from thee the strong Orion in heaven at evening, at the resting of every day!
Lo it is I (Isis), at the approach of the Sothis (Sirius) period, who doth watch for him (the child Osiris),
Nor will I leave off watching for him; for that which proceedeth from thee (the living Osiris) is revered.
An emanation from thee causeth life to gods and men, reptiles and animals, and they live by means thereof.
Come thou to us from thy chamber, in the day when thy soul begetteth emanations,--
The day when offerings upon offerings are made to thy spirit, which causeth the gods and men likewise to live.1

This extract emphasizes how unsafe it is to confine certain deities within narrow limits by terming them simply "solar gods", "lunar gods", "astral gods", or "earth gods". One deity may have been simultaneously a sun god and moon god, an air god and an earth god, one who was dead and also alive, unborn and also old. The priests of Babylonia and Egypt were less accustomed to concrete and logical definitions than their critics and expositors of the twentieth century. Simple explanations of ancient beliefs are often by reason of their very simplicity highly improbable. Recognition must ever be given to the puzzling complexity of religious thought in Babylonia and Egypt, and to the possibility that even to the priests the doctrines of a particular cult, which embraced the accumulated ideas of centuries, were invariably confusing and vague, and full of inconsistencies; they were mystical in the sense that the understanding could not grasp them although it permitted their acceptance. A god, for instance, might be addressed at once in the singular and plural, perhaps because he had developed from an animistic group of spirits, or, perhaps, for reasons we cannot discover. This is shown clearly by the following pregnant extract from a Babylonian tablet: "Powerful, O Sevenfold, one are ye". Mr. L. W. King, the translator, comments upon it as follows: "There is no doubt that the name was applied to a group of gods who were so closely connected that, though addressed in the plural, they could in the same sentence be regarded as forming a single personality".1

Like the Egyptian Osiris, the Babylonian Merodach was a highly complex deity. He was the son of Ea, god of the deep; he died to give origin to human life when he commanded that his head should be cut off so that the first human beings might be fashioned by mixing his blood with the earth; he was the wind god, who gave "the air of life"; he was the deity of thunder and the sky; he was the sun of spring in his Tammuz character; he was the daily sun, and the planets Jupiter and Mercury as well as Sharru (Regulus); he had various astral associations at various seasons. Ishtar, the goddess, was Iku (Capella), the water channel star, in January--February, and Merodach was Iku in May--June. This strange system of identifying the chief deity with different stars at different periods, or simultaneously, must not be confused with the monotheistic identification of him with other gods. Merodach changed his forms with Ishtar, and had similarly many forms. This goddess, for instance, was, even when connected with one particular heavenly body, liable to change. According to a tablet fragment she was, as the planet Venus, "a female at sunset and a male at sunrise"1 --that is, a bisexual deity like Nannar of Ur, the father and mother deity combined, and Isis of Egypt. Nannar is addressed in a famous hymn:
Father Nannar, Lord, God Sin, ruler among the gods. . . .
Mother body which produceth all things. . . .
Merciful, gracious Father, in whose hand the life of the whole land is contained.

One of the Isis chants of Egypt sets forth, addressing Osiris:
There cometh unto thee Isis, lady of the horizon, who hath begotten herself alone in the image of the gods . . .
She hath taken vengeance before Horus, the woman who was made a male by her father Osiris.2

Merodach, like Osiris-Sokar, was a "lord of many existences", and likewise "the mysterious one, he who is unknown to mankind".3 It was impossible for the human mind "a greater than itself to know".


Evidence has not yet been forthcoming to enable us to determine the period at which the chief Babylonian deities were identified with the planets, but it is clear that Merodach's ascendancy in astral form could not have occurred prior to the rise of that city god of Babylon as chief of the pantheon by displacing Enlil. At the same time it must be recognized that long before the Hammurabi age the star-gazers of the Tigro-Euphrates valley must have been acquainted with the movements of the chief planets and stars, and, no doubt, they connected them with seasonal changes as in Egypt, where Isis was identified with Sirius long before the Ptolemaic age, when Babylonian astronomy was imported. Horus was identified not only with the sun but also with Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.1 Even the primitive Australians, as has been indicated, have their star myths; they refer to the stars Castor and Pollux as two young men, like the ancient Greeks, while the African Bushmen assert that these stars are two girls. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the prehistoric Sumerians were exact astronomers. Probably they were, like the Aryo-Indians of the Vedic period, "not very accurate observers".2

It is of special interest to find that the stars were grouped by the Babylonians at the earliest period in companies of seven. The importance of this magical number is emphasized by the group of seven demons which rose from the deep to rage over the land (p. 71 ). Perhaps the sanctity of Seven was suggested by Orion, the Bears, and the Pleiad, one of which constellations may have been the "Sevenfold" deity addressed as "one". At any rate arbitrary groupings of other stars into companies of seven took place, for references are made to the seven Tikshi, the seven Lumashi, and the seven Mashi, which are older than the signs of the Zodiac; so far as can be ascertained these groups were selected from various constellations. When the five planets were identified, they were associated with the sun and moon and connected with the chief gods of the Hammurabi pantheon. A bilingual list in the British Museum arranges the sevenfold planetary group in the following order:--


The moon, Sin.
The sun, Shamash.
Jupiter, Merodach.
Venus, Ishtar.
Saturn, Ninip (Nirig).
Mercury, Nebo.
Mars, Nergal.

An ancient name of the moon was Aa, or Ai, which recalls the Egyptian A or Ah. The Sumerian moon was Aku, "the measurer", like Thoth of Egypt, who in his lunar character as a Fate measured out the lives of men, and was a god of architects, mathematicians, and scribes. The moon was the parent of the sun or its spouse; and might be male, or female, or both as a bi-sexual deity.

As the "bull of light" Jupiter had solar associations; he was also the shepherd of the stars, a title shared by Tammuz as Orion; Nin-Girsu, a developed form of Tammuz, was identified with both Orion and Jupiter.

Ishtar's identification with Venus is of special interest. When that planet was at its brightest phase, its rays were referred to as "the beard" of the goddess; she was the "bearded Aphrodite"--a bisexual deity evidently. The astrologers regarded the bright Venus as lucky and the rayless Venus as unlucky.

Saturn was Nirig, who is best known as Ninip, a deity who was displaced by Enlil, the elder Bel, and afterwards regarded as his son. His story has not been recovered, but from the references made to it there is little doubt that it was a version of the widespread myth about the elder deity who was slain by his son, as Saturn was by Jupiter and Dyaus by Indra. It may have resembled the lost Egyptian myth which explained the existence of the two Horuses--Horus the elder, and Horus, the posthumous son of Osiris. At any rate, it is of interest to find in this connection that in Egypt the planet Saturn was Her-Ka, "Horus the Bull". Ninip was also identified with the bull. Both deities were also connected with the spring sun, like Tammuz, and were terrible slayers of their enemies. Ninip raged through Babylonia like a storm flood, and Horus swept down the Nile, slaying the followers of Set. As the divine sower of seed, Ninip may have developed from Tammuz as Horus did from Osiris. Each were at once the father and the son, different forms of the same deity at various seasons of the year. The elder god was displaced by the son (spring), and when the son grew old his son slew him in turn. As the planet Saturn, Ninip was the ghost of the elder god, and as the son of Bel he was the solar war god of spring, the great wild bull, the god of fertility. He was also as Ber "lord of the wild boar", an animal associated with Rimmon.1

Nebo (Nabu), who was identified with Mercury, was a god of Borsippa. He was a messenger and "announcer" of the gods, as the Egyptian Horus in his connection with Jupiter was Her-ap-sheta, "Horus the opener of that which is secret".2 Nebo's original character is obscure.




THE GOD NINIP AND ANOTHER DEITY
Marble slab from Kenyan jib (Nineveh): now in the British Museum.
Photo Mansell

He appears to have been a highly developed deity of a people well advanced in civilization when he was exalted as the divine patron of Borsippa. Although Hammurabi ignored him, he was subsequently invoked with Merodach, and had probably much in common with Merodach. Indeed, Merodach was also identified with the planet Mercury. Like the Greek Hermes, Nebo was a messenger of the gods and an instructor of mankind. Jastrow regards him as "a counterpart of Ea", and says: "Like Ea, he is the embodiment and source of wisdom. The art of writing--and therefore of all literature--is more particularly associated with him. A common form of his name designates him as the 'god of the stylus'."1 He appears also to have been a developed form of Tammuz, who was an incarnation of Ea. Professor Pinches shows that one of his names, Mermer, was also a non-Semitic name of Ramman.2 Tammuz resembled Ramman in his character as a spring god of war. It would seem that Merodach as Jupiter displaced at Babylon Nebo as Saturn, the elder god, as Bel Enlil displaced the elder Ninip at Nippur.

The god of Mars was Nergal, the patron deity of Cuthah,3 who descended into the Underworld and forced into submission Eresh-ki-gal (Persephone), with whom he was afterwards associated. His "name", says Professor Pinches, "is supposed to mean 'lord of the great habitation', which would be a parallel to that of his spouse, Eresh-ki-gal".4 At Erech he symbolized the destroying influence of the sun, and was accompanied by the demons of pestilence. Mars was a planet of evil, plague, and death; its animal form was the wolf. In Egypt it was called Herdesher, "the Red Horus", and in Greece it was associated with Ares (the Roman Mars), the war god, who assumed his boar form to slay Adonis (Tammuz).

Nergal was also a fire god like the Aryo-Indian Agni, who, as has been shown, links with Tammuz as a demon slayer and a god of fertility. It may be that Nergal was a specialized form of Tammuz, who, in a version of the myth, was reputed to have entered the Underworld as a conqueror when claimed by Eresh-ki-gal, and to have become, like Osiris, the lord of the dead. If so, Nergal was at once the slayer and the slain.

The various Babylonian deities who were identified with the planets had their characters sharply defined as members of an organized pantheon. But before this development took place certain of the prominent heavenly bodies, perhaps all the planets, were evidently regarded as manifestations of one deity, the primeval Tammuz, who was a form of Ea, or of the twin deities Ea and Anu. Tammuz may have been the "sevenfold one" of the hymns. At a still earlier period the stars were manifestations of the Power whom the jungle dwellers of Chota Nagpur attempt to propitiate--the "world soul" of the cultured Brahmans of the post-Vedic Indian Age. As much is suggested by the resemblances which the conventionalized planetary deities bear to Tammuz, whose attributes they symbolized, and by the Egyptian conception that the sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars were manifestations of Horus. Tammuz and Horus may have been personifications of the Power or World Soul vaguely recognized in the stage of Naturalism.

The influence of animistic modes of thought may be traced in the idea that the planets and stars were the ghosts of gods who were superseded by their sons. These sons were identical with their fathers; they became, as in Egypt, "husbands of their mothers". This idea was perpetuated in the Aryo-Indian Laws of Manu, in which it is set forth that "the husband, after conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her".1 The deities died every year, but death was simply change. Yet they remained in the separate forms they assumed in their progress round "the wide circle of necessity". Horus was remembered as various planets--as the falcon, as the elder sun god, and as the son of Osiris; and Tammuz was the spring sun, the child, youth, warrior, the deity of fertility, and the lord of death (Orion-Nergal), and, as has been suggested, all the planets.

The stars were also the ghosts of deities who died daily. When the sun perished as an old man at evening, it rose in the heavens as Orion, or went out and in among the stars as the shepherd of the flock, Jupiter, the planet of Merodach in Babylonia, and Attis in Asia Minor. The flock was the group of heavenly spirits invisible by day, the "host of heaven"--manifestations or ghosts of the emissaries of the controlling power or powers.

The planets presided over various months of the year. Sin (the moon) was associated with the third month; it also controlled the calendar; Ninip (Saturn) was associated with the fourth month, Ishtar (Venus) with the sixth, Shamash (the sun) with the seventh, Merodach (Jupiter) with the eighth, Nergal (Mars) with the ninth, and a messenger of the gods, probably Nebo (Mercury), with the tenth.

Each month was also controlled by a zodiacal constellation. In the Creation myth of Babylon it is stated that when Merodach engaged in the work of setting the Universe in order he "set all the great gods in their several stations", and "also created their images, the stars of the Zodiac,1 and fixed them all".

Our signs of the Zodiac are of Babylonian origin. They were passed on to the Greeks by the Phnicians and Hittites. "There was a time", says Professor Sayce, "when the Hittites were profoundly affected by Babylonian civilization, religion, and art. . . ." They "carried the time-worn civilizations of Babylonia and Egypt to the furthest boundary of Egypt, and there handed them over to the West in the grey dawn of European history. . . . Greek traditions affirmed that the rulers of Mykenhad come from Lydia, bringing with them the civilization and treasures of Asia Minor. The tradition has been confirmed by modern research. While certain elements belonging to the prehistoric culture of Greece, as revealed at Mykenand elsewhere, were derived from Egypt and Phoenicia, there are others which point to Asia Minor as their source. And the culture of Asia Minor was Hittite."2

The early Babylonian astronomers did not know, of course, that the earth revolved round the sun. They believed that the sun travelled across the heavens flying like a bird or sailing like a boat.3 In studying its movements they observed that it always travelled from west to east along a broad path, swinging from side to side of it in the course of the year. This path is the Zodiac--the celestial "circle of necessity".



SYMBOLS OF DEITIES AS ASTRONOMICAL SIGNS
Sculptured on a stone recording privileges granted to Ritti-Marduk by Nebuchadnezzar I
(British Museum)

The middle line of the sun's path is the Ecliptic. The Babylonian scientists divided the Ecliptic into twelve equal parts, and grouped in each part the stars which formed their constellations; these are also called "Signs of the Zodiac". Each month had thus its sign or constellation.

The names borne at the present day by the signs of the Zodiac are easily remembered even by children, who are encouraged to repeat the following familiar lines:
The Ram, the Bull, the heavenly Twins,
And next the Crab, the Lionshines.
The Virginand the Scales;
The Scorpion, Archer, and Sea goat,
The man that holds the water pot,
And Fishwith glittring1 tails.

The table shows that our signs are derived from ancient Babylonia.

The celestial regions were also divided into three or more parts. Three "fields" were allotted to the ancient triad formed by Ea, Anu, and Bel. The zodiacal "path" ran through these "fields". Ea's field was in the west, and was associated with Amurru, the land of the Amorites; Anu's field was in the south, and was associated with Elam; and Bel's central "field" was associated with the land of Akkad. When the rulers of Akkad called themselves "kings of the four quarters", the reference was to the countries associated with the three divine fields and to Gutium2 (east = our north-east). Was Gutium associated with demons, as in Scandinavia the north-east was associated with the giants against whom Thor waged war?

The Babylonian Creation myth states that Merodach, having fixed the stars of the Zodiac, made three stars for each month.


Constellations.	Date of Sun's Entry (Babylonian Month in brackets).	Babylonian Equivalent.
Aries (the Ram).	20th March (Nisan = March-April).	The Labourer or Messenger.
Taurus (the Bull).	20th April (Iyyar = April-May).	A divine figure and the "bull of heaven".
Gemini (the Twins).	21st May (Sivan = May-June).	The Faithful Shepherd and Twins side by side, or head to head and feet to feet.
Cancer (the Crab).	21st June (Tammuz = June-July).	Crab or Scorpion.
Leo (the Lion).	22nd July (Ab = July-August).	The big dog (Lion).
Virgo (the Virgin).	23rd August (Elul = August-Sept.).	Ishtar, the Virgin's ear of corn.
Libra (the Balance).	23rd September (Tisri = Sept.-Oct.).	The Balance.
Scorpio (the Scorpion).	23rd October (Marcheswan = Oct.-Nov.).	Scorpion of darkness.
Sagittarius (the Archer).	22nd November (Chisleu = Nov.-Dec.).	Man or man-horse with bow, or an arrow symbol.
Capricornus (the Goat).	21st December (Tebet = Dec.-Jan.).	Ea's goat-fish.
Aquarius (the Water Carrier).	19th January (Sebat = Jan.-Feb.).	God with water urn.
Pisces (the Fishes).	18th February (Adar = Feb.-March).	Fish tails in canal.

Mr. Robert Brown, jun., who has dealt as exhaustively with the astronomical problems of Babylonia as the available data permitted him, is of opinion that the leading stars of three constellations are referred to, viz.: (1) the central or zodiacal constellations, (2) the northern constellations, and (3) the southern constellations. We have thus a scheme of thirty-six constellations. The "twelve zodiacal stars were flanked on either side by twelve non-zodiacal stars". Mr. Brown quotes Diodorus, who gave a rumof Babylonian astronomico-astrology, in this connection. He said that "the five planets were called 'Interpreters'; and in subjection to these were marshalled 'Thirty Stars', which were styled 'Divinities of the Council'. . . The chiefs of the Divinities are twelve in number, to each of whom they assign a month and one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac." Through these twelve signs sun, moon, and planets run their courses. "And with the zodiacal circle they mark out twenty-four stars, half of which they say are arranged in the north and half in the south."1 Mr. Brown shows that the thirty stars referred to "constituted the original Euphratean Lunar Zodiac, the parent of the seven ancient lunar zodiacs which have come down to us, namely, the Persian, Sogdian, Khorasmian, Chinese, Indian, Arab, and Coptic schemes".

The three constellations associated with each month had each a symbolic significance: they reflected the characters of their months. At the height of the rainy season, for instance, the month of Ramman, the thunder god, was presided over by the zodiacal constellation of the water urn, the northern constellation "Fish of the Canal", and the southern "the Horse". In India the black horse was sacrificed at rain-getting and fertility ceremonies. The months of growth, pestilence, and scorching sun heat were in turn symbolized. The "Great Bear" was the "chariot" = "Charles's Wain", and the "Milky Way" the "river of the high cloud", the Celestial Euphrates, as in Egypt it was the Celestial Nile.


Of special interest among the many problems presented by Babylonian astronomical lore is the theory of Cosmic periods or Ages of the Universe. In the Indian, Greek, and Irish mythologies there are four Ages--the Silvern (white), Golden (yellow), the Bronze (red), and the Iron (black). As has been already indicated, Mr. R. Brown, jun., shows that "the Indian system of Yugas, or ages of the world, presents many features which forcibly remind us of the Euphratean scheme". The Babylonians had ten antediluvian kings, who were reputed to have reigned for vast periods, the total of which amounted to 120 saroi, or 432,000 years. These figures at once recall the Indian Maha-yuga of 4,320,000 years = 432,000 X 10. Apparently the Babylonian and Indian systems of calculation were of common origin. In both countries the measurements of time and space were arrived at by utilizing the numerals 10 and 6.

When primitive man began to count he adopted a method which comes naturally to every schoolboy; he utilized his fingers. Twice five gave him ten, and from ten he progressed to twenty, and then on to a hundred and beyond. In making measurements his hands, arms, and feet were at his service. We are still measuring by feet and yards (standardized strides) in this country, while those who engage in the immemorial art of knitting, and, in doing so, repeat designs found on neolithic pottery, continue to measure in finger breadths, finger lengths, and hand breadths as did the ancient folks who called an arm length a cubit. Nor has the span been forgotten, especially by boys in their games with marbles; the space from the end of the thumb to the end of the little finger when the hand is extended must have been an important measurement from the earliest times.

As he made progress in calculations, the primitive Babylonian appears to have been struck by other details in his anatomy besides his sets of five fingers and five toes. He observed, for instance, that his fingers were divided into three parts and his thumb into two parts only;1 four fingers multiplied by three gave him twelve, and multiplying 12 by 3 he reached 36. Apparently the figure 6 attracted him. His body was divided into 6 parts--2 arms, 2 legs, the head, and the trunk; his 2 ears, 2 eyes, and mouth, and nose also gave him 6. The basal 6, multiplied by his la fingers, gave him 60, and 60 x 2 (for his 2 hands) gave him 120. In Babylonian arithmetic 6 and 60 are important numbers, and it is not surprising to find that in the system of numerals the signs for 1 and 10 combined represent 60.

In fixing the length of a mythical period his first great calculation of 120 came naturally to the Babylonian, and when he undertook to measure the Zodiac he equated time and space by fixing on 120 degrees. His first zodiac was the Sumerian lunar zodiac, which contained thirty moon chambers associated with the "Thirty Stars" of the tablets, and referred to by Diodorus as "Divinities of the Council". The chiefs of the Thirty numbered twelve. In this system the year began in the winter solstice. Mr. Hewitt has shown that the chief annual festival of the Indian Dravidians begins with the first full moon after the winter festival, and Mr. Brown emphasizes the fact that the list of Tamil (Dravidian) lunar and solar months are named like the Babylonian constellations.1 "Lunar chronology", wrote Professor Max Mler, "seems everywhere to have preceded solar chronology."2 The later Semitic Babylonian system had twelve solar chambers and the thirty-six constellations.

Each degree was divided into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds. The hours of the day and night each numbered twelve.

Multiplying 6 by 10 (pur), the Babylonian arrived at 60 (soss); 60 x 10 gave him 600 (ner), and 600 x 6, 3600 (sar), while 3600 x 10 gave him 36,000, and 36,000 x 12, 432,000 years, or 120 saroi, which is equal to the "sar" multiplied by the "soss" x 2. "Pur" signifies "heap"--the ten fingers closed after being counted; and "ner" signifies "foot". Mr. George Bertin suggests that when 6 x 10 fingers gave 60 this number was multiplied by the ten toes, with the result that 600 was afterwards associated with the feet (ner). The Babylonian sign for 10 resembles the impression of two feet with heels closed and toes apart. This suggests a primitive record of the first round of finger counting.

In India this Babylonian system of calculation was developed during the Brahmanical period. The four Yugas or Ages, representing the four fingers used by the primitive mathematicians, totalled 12,000 divine years, a period which was called a Maha-yuga; it equalled the Babylonian 120 saroi, multiplied by 100. Ten times a hundred of these periods gave a "Day of Brahma". Each day of the gods, it was explained by the Brahmans, was a year to mortals. Multiplied by 360 days, 12,000 divine years equalled 4,320,000 human years. This Maha-yuga, multiplied by 1000, gave the "Day of Brahma" as 4,320,000,000 human years.

The shortest Indian Yuga is the Babylonian 120 saroi multiplied by 10 = 1200 divine years for the Kali Yuga; twice that number gives the Dvapara Yuga of 2400 divine years; then the Treta Yuga is 2400 + 1200 = 3600 divine years, and Krita Yuga 3600 + 1200=4800 divine years.

The influence of Babylonia is apparent in these calculations. During the Vedic period "Yuga" usually signified a "generation", and there are no certain references to the four Ages as such. The names "Kali", "Dvapara", "Treta", and "Krita" "occur as the designations of throws of dice".1 It was after the arrival of the "late corners", the post-Vedic Aryans, that the Yuga system was developed in India.2

In Indian Myth and Legend3 it is shown that the Indian and Irish Ages have the same colour sequence: (1) White or Silvern, (2) Red or Bronze, (3) Yellow or Golden, and (4) Black or Iron. The Greek order is: (1) Golden, (2) Silvern, (3) Bronze, and (4) Iron.

The Babylonians coloured the seven planets as follows: the moon, silvern; the sun, golden; Mars, red; Saturn, black; Jupiter, orange; Venus, yellow; and Mercury, blue.

As the ten antediluvian kings who reigned for 120 saroi had an astral significance, their long reigns corresponding "with the distances separating certain of the principal stars in or near the ecliptic",4 it seems highly probable that the planets were similarly connected with mythical ages which were equated with the "four quarters" of the celestial regions and the four regions of the earth, which in Gaelic story are called "the four red divisions of the world".

Three of the planets may have been heralds of change. Venus, as "Dilbat", was the "Proclaimer", and both Jupiter and Mercury were called "Face voices of light", and "Heroes of the rising sun" among other names. Jupiter may have been the herald of the "Golden Age" as a morning star. This planet was also associated with bronze, as "Kakkub Urud", "the star of bronze", while Mars was "Kakkub Aban Kha-urud", "the star of the bronze fish stone". Mercury, the lapis lazuli planet, may have been connected with the black Saturn, the ghost of the dead sun, the demoniac elder god; in Egypt lapis lazuli was the hair colour of Ra when he grew old, and Egyptologists translate it as black.1 The rare and regular appearances of Mercury may have suggested the planet's connection with a recurring Age. Venus as an evening star might be regarded as the herald of the lunar or silver age; she was propitious as a bearded deity and interchanged with Merodach as a seasonal herald.

Connecting Jupiter with the sun as a propitious planet, and with Mars as a destroying planet, Venus with the moon, and Mercury with Saturn, we have left four colour schemes which suggest the Golden, Silvern, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The Greek order of mythical ages may have had a solar significance, beginning as it does with the "golden" period. On the other hand the Indian and Irish systems begin with the Silvern or white lunar period.


In India the White Age (Treta Yuga) was the age of perfect men, and in Greece the Golden Age was the age of men who lived like gods. Thus the first ages in both cases were "Perfect" Ages. The Bronze Age of Greece was the age of notorious fighters and takers of life; in Babylonia the bronze planet Mars was the symbol of the destroying Nergal, god of war and pestilence, while Jupiter was also a destroyer as Merodach, the slayer of Tiamat. In India the Black Age is the age of wickedness. The Babylonian Saturn, as we have seen, is black, and its god, Ninip, was the destroying boar, which recalls the black boar of the Egyptian demon (or elder god) Set. The Greek Cronos was a destroyer even of his own children. All the elder gods had demoniac traits like the ghosts of human beings.

As the Babylonian lunar zodiac was imported into India before solar worship and the solar zodiac were developed, so too may have been the germs of the Yuga doctrine, which appears to have a long history. Greece, on the other hand, came under the influence of Babylon at a much later period. In Egypt Ra, the sun god, was an antediluvian king, and he was followed by Osiris. Osiris was slain by Set, who was depicted sometimes red and sometimes black. There was also a Horus Age.

The Irish system of ages suggests an early cultural drift into Europe, through Asia Minor, and along the uplands occupied by the representatives of the Alpine or Armenoid peoples who have been traced from Hindu Kush to Brittany. The culture of Gaul resembles that of India in certain particulars; both the Gauls and the post-Vedic Aryans, for instance, believed in the doctrine of Transmigration of Souls, and practised "suttee". After the Roman occupation of Gaul, Ireland appears to have been the refuge of Gaulish scholars, who imported their beliefs and traditions and laid the foundations of that brilliant culture which shed lustre on the Green Isle in late Pagan and early Christian times.

The part played by the Mitanni people of Aryan speech in distributing Asiatic culture throughout Europe may have been considerable, but we know little or nothing regarding their movements and influence, nor has sufficient evidence been forthcoming to connect them with the cremating invaders of the Bronze Age, who penetrated as far as northern Scotland and Scandinavia. On the other hand it is certain that the Hittites adopted the planetary system of Babylonia and passed it on to Europeans, including the Greeks. The five planets Ninip, Merodach, Nergal, Ishtar, and Nebo were called by the Greeks after their gods Kronos, Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, and Hermes, and by the Romans Saturnus, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercurius. It must be recognized, however, that these equations were somewhat arbitrary. Ninip resembled Kronos and Saturnus as a father, but he was also at the same time a son; he was the Egyptian Horus the elder and Horus the younger in one. Merodach was similarly of complex character--a combination of Ea, Aim, Enlil, and Tammuz, who acquired, when exalted by the Amoritic Dynasty of Babylon, the attributes of the thunder god Adad-Ramman in the form of Amurru, "lord of the mountains". During the Hammurabi Age Amurru was significantly popular in personal names. It is as Amurru-Ramman that Merodach bears comparison with Zeus. He also links with Hercules. Too much must not be made, therefore, of the Greek and Roman identifications of alien deities with their own. Mulla, the Gaulish mule god, may have resembled Mars somewhat, but it is a "far cry" from Mars-Mulla to Mars-Nergal, as it is also from the Gaulish Moccus, the boar, called "Mercury", to Nebo, the god of culture, who was the "Mercury" of the Tigro-Euphrates valley. Similarly the differences between "Jupiter-Amon" of Egypt and "Jupiter-Merodach" of Babylon were more pronounced than the resemblances.

The basal idea in Babylonian astrology appears to be the recognition of the astral bodies as spirits or fates, who exercised an influence over the gods, the world, and mankind. These were worshipped in groups when they were yet nameless. The group addressed, "Powerful, O sevenfold, one are ye", may have been a constellation consisting of seven stars.1 The worship of stars and planets, which were identified and named, "seems never to have spread", says Professor Sayce, "beyond the learned classes, and to have remained to the last an artificial system. The mass of the people worshipped the stars as a whole, but it was only as a whole and not individually."2 The masses perpetuated ancient animistic beliefs, like the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. "The Pelasgians, as I was informed at Dodona," wrote Herodotus, "formerly offered all things indiscriminately to the gods. They distinguished them by no name or surname, for they were hitherto unacquainted with either; but they called them gods, which by its etymology means disposers, from observing the orderly disposition and distribution of the various parts of the universe."3 The oldest deities are those which bore no individual names. They were simply "Fates" or groups called "Sevenfold". The crude giant gods of Scotland are "Fomhairean" (Fomorians), and do not have individual names as in Ireland. Families and tribes were controlled by the Fates or nameless gods, which might appear as beasts or birds, or be heard knocking or screaming.

In the Babylonian astral hymns, the star spirits are associated with the gods, and are revealers of the decrees of Fate. "Ye brilliant stars . . . ye bright ones . . . to destroy evil did Anu create you. . . . At thy command mankind was named (created)! Give thou the Word, and with thee let the great gods stand! Give thou my judgment, make my decision!"1

The Indian evidence shows that the constellations, and especially the bright stars, were identified before the planets. Indeed, in Vedic literature there is no certain reference to a single planet, although constellations are named. It seems highly probable that before the Babylonian gods were associated with the astral bodies, the belief obtained that the stars exercised an influence over human lives. In one of the Indian "Forest Books", for instance, reference is made to a man who was "born under the Nakshatra Rohini".2 "Nakshatras" are stars in the Rigvedaand later, and "lunar mansions" in Brahmanical compositions.3 "Rohini, 'ruddy', is the name of a conspicuously reddish star, α Tauri or Aldebaran, and denotes the group of the Hyades."4 This reference may be dated before 600 B.C., perhaps 800 B.C.

From Greece comes the evidence of Plutarch regarding the principles of Babylonian astrology. "Respecting the planets, which they call the birth-ruling divinities, the Chaldeans", he wrote, "lay down that two (Venus and Jupiter) are propitious, and two (Mars and Saturn) malign, and three (Sun, Moon, and Mercury) of a middle nature, and one common." "That is," Mr. Brown comments, "an astrologer would say, these three are propitious with the good, and may be malign with the bad."1

Jastrow's views in this connection seem highly controversial. He holds that Babylonian astrology dealt simply with national affairs, and had no concern with "the conditions under which the individual was born"; it did not predict "the fate in store for him". He believes that the Greeks transformed Babylonian astrology and infused it with the spirit of individualism which is a characteristic of their religion, and that they were the first to give astrology a personal significance.

Jastrow also perpetuates the idea that astronomy began with the Greeks. "Several centuries before the days of Alexander the Great," he says, "the Greeks had begun to cultivate the study of the heavens, not for purposes of divination, but prompted by a scientific spirit as an intellectual discipline that might help them to solve the mysteries of the universe." It is possible, however, to overrate the "scientific spirit" of the Greeks, who, like the Japanese in our own day, were accomplished borrowers from other civilizations. That astronomy had humble beginnings in Greece as elsewhere is highly probable. The late Mr. Andrew Lang wrote in this connection: "The very oddest example of the survival of the notion that the stars are men and women is found in the Paxof Aristophanes. Trygs in that comedy has just made an expedition to heaven. A slave meets him, and asks him: 'Is not the story true, then, that we become stars when we die?' The answer is, 'Certainly'; and Trygs points out the star into which Ion of Chios has just been metamorphosed." Mr. Lang added: "Aristophanes is making fun of some popular Greek superstition". The Eskimos, Persians, Aryo-Indians, Germans, New Zealanders, and others had a similar superstition.1

Jastrow goes on to say that the Greeks "imparted their scientific view of the Universe to the East. They became the teachers of the East in astronomy as in medicine and other sciences, and the credit of having discovered the law of the precession of the equinoxes belongs to Hipparchus, the Greek astronomer, who announced this important theory about the year 130 B.C."2 Undoubtedly the Greeks contributed to the advancement of the science of astronomy, with which, as other authorities believe, they became acquainted after it had become well developed as a science by the Assyrians and Babylonians.

"In return for improved methods of astronomical calculation which," Jastrow says, "it may be assumed(the italics are ours), contact with Greek science gave to the Babylonian astronomers, the Greeks accepted from the Babylonians the names of the constellations of the ecliptic."3 This is a grudging admission; they evidently accepted more than the mere names.

Jastrow's hypothesis is certainly interesting, especially as he is an Oriental linguist of high repute. But it is not generally accepted. The sudden advance made by the Tigro-Euphratean astronomers when Assyria was at the height of its glory, may have been due to the discoveries made by great native scientists, the Newtons and the Herschels of past ages, who had studied the data accumulated by generations of astrologers, the earliest recorders of the movements of the heavenly bodies. It is hard to believe that the Greeks made much progress as scientists before they had identified the planets, and become familiar with the Babylonian constellations through the medium of the Hittites or the Phnicians. What is known for certain is that long centuries before the Greek science was heard of, there were scientists in Babylonia. During the Sumerian period "the forms and relations of geometry", says Professor Goodspeed, "were employed for purposes of augury. The heavens were mapped out, and the courses of the heavenly bodies traced to determine the bearing of their movements upon human destinies."1

Several centuries before Hipparchus was born, the Assyrian kings had in their palaces official astronomers who were able to foretell, with varying degrees of accuracy, when eclipses would take place. Instructions were sent to various observatories, in the king's name, to send in reports of forthcoming eclipses. A translation of one of these official documents sent from the observatory of Babylon to Nineveh, has been published by Professor Harper. The following are extracts from it: "As for the eclipse of the moon about which the king my lord has written to me, a watch was kept for it in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, and Nippur. We observed it ourselves in the city of Akkad. . . . And whereas the king my lord ordered me to observe also the eclipse of the sun, I watched to see whether it took place or not, and what passed before my eyes I now report to the king my lord. It was an eclipse of the moon that took place. . . . It was total over Syria, and the shadow fell on the land of the Amorites, the land of the Hittites, and in part on the land of the Chaldees." Professor Sayce comments: "We gather from this letter that there were no less than three observatories in Northern Babylonia: one at Akkad, near Sippara; one at Nippur, now Niffer; and one at Borsippa, within sight of Babylon. As Borsippa possessed a university, it was natural that one of the three observatories should be established there."1

It is evident that before the astronomers at Nineveh could foretell eclipses, they had achieved considerable progress as scientists. The data at their disposal probably covered nearly two thousand years. Mr. Brown, junior, calculates that the signs of the Zodiac were fixed in the year 2084 B.C.2 These star groups do not now occupy the positions in which they were observed by the early astronomers, because the revolving earth is rocking like a top, with the result that the pole does not always keep pointing at the same spot in the heavens. Each year the meeting-place of the imaginary lines of the ecliptic and equator is moving westward at the rate of about fifty seconds. In time--ages hence--the pole will circle round to the point it spun at when the constellations were named by the Babylonians. It is by calculating the period occupied by this world-curve that the date 2084 B.C. has been arrived at.

As a result of the world-rocking process, the present-day "signs of the Zodiac" do not correspond with the constellations. In March, for instance, when the sun crosses the equator it enters the sign of the Ram (Aries), but does not reach the constellation till the 20th.

When "the ecliptic was marked off into the twelve regions" and the signs of the Zodiac were designated, "the year of three hundred sixty-five and one-fourth days was known", says Goodspeed, "though the common year was reckoned according to twelve months of thirty days each,1 and equated with the solar year by intercalating a month at the proper times. . . . The month was divided into weeks of seven days. . . . The clepsydra and the sundial were Babylonian inventions for measuring time."2

The sundial of Ahaz was probably of Babylonian design. When the shadow went "ten degrees backward" (2 Kings, xx, 11) ambassadors were sent from Babylon "to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land" (2 Chron., xxxii, 31). It was believed that the king's illness was connected with the incident. According to astronomical calculation there was a partial eclipse of the sun which was visible at Jerusalem on 11th January, 689 B.C., about 11.30 a.m. When the upper part of the solar disc was obscured, the shadow on the dial was strangely affected.

The Babylonian astrologers in their official documents were more concerned regarding international omens than those which affected individuals. They made observations not only of the stars, but also the moon, which, as has been shown, was one of their planets, and took note of the clouds and the wind likewise.

As portions of the heavens were assigned to various countries, so was the moon divided into four quarters for the same purpose--the upper part for the north, Gutium, the lower for the south, Akkad or Babylonia, the eastern part for Elam, and the western for Amurru. The crescent was also divided in like manner; looking southward the astrologers assigned the right horn to the west and the left to the east. In addition, certain days and certain months were connected with the different regions. Lunar astrology was therefore of complicated character. When the moon was dim at the particular phase which was connected with Amurru, it was believed that the fortunes of that region were in decline, and if it happened to shine brightly in the Babylonian phase the time was considered auspicious to wage war in the west. Great importance was attached to eclipses, which were fortunately recorded, with the result that the ancient astronomers were ultimately enabled to forecast them.

The destinies of the various states in the four quarters were similarly influenced by the planets. When Venus, for instance, rose brightly in the field of Anu, it was a "prosperor" for Elam; if it were dim it foretold misfortune. Much importance was also attached to the positions occupied by the constellations when the planets were propitious or otherwise; no king would venture forth on an expedition under a "yoke of inauspicious stars".

Biblical references to the stars make mention of well-known Babylonian constellations:

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (?the Zodiac) in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? Job, xxxviii, 31-33.

Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. Job, ix, 9.

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night. Amos, v, 8.

The so-called science of astrology, which had origin in ancient Babylonia and spread eastward and west, is not yet extinct, and has its believers even in our own country at the present day, although they are not nearly so numerous as when Shakespeare made Malvolio read:

In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon em. Thy Fates open their hands. . . .1

or when Byron wrote:
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires--'t is to be forgiven
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies oerleap their mortal state
And claim a kindred with you. . . .2

Our grave astronomers are no longer astrologers, but they still call certain constellations by the names given them in Babylonia. Every time we look at our watches we are reminded of the ancient mathematicians who counted on their fingers and multiplied 10 by 6, to give us minutes and seconds, and divided the day and the night into twelve hours by multiplying six by the two leaden feet of Time. The past lives in the present.

Footnotes

288:1 "It may be worth while to note again", says Beddoe, "how often finely developed skulls are discovered in the graveyards of old monasteries, and how likely seems Galton's conjecture, that progress was arrested in the Middle Ages, because the celibacy of the clergy brought about the extinction of the best strains of blood." The Anthropological History of Europe, p. 161 (1912).
291:1 Census of India, vol. i, part i, pp. 352 et seq.
291:2 Hibbert Lectures, Professor Sayce, p. 328.
292:1 The Story of Nala, Monier Williams, pp. 68-9 and 77.
292:2 "In Ymer's flesh (the earth) the dwarfs were engendered and began to move and live. . . . The dwarfs had been bred in the mould of the earth, just as worms are in a dead body." The Prose Edda.

"The gods . . . took counsel whom they should make the lord of dwarfs out of Ymer's blood (the sea) and his swarthy limbs (the earth)." The Elder Edda(Voluspa, stanza 9).
293:1 The Story of Nala, Monier Williams, p. 67.
295:1 Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 168 et seq.
297:1 The Burden of Isis, Dennis, p. 24.
298:1 Babylonian Magic and Sorcery, p. 117.
299:1 Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, T. G. Pinches, p. 100.
299:2 The Burden of Isis, J. T. Dennis, p. 49.
299:3 Ibid., p. 52.
300:1 Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, A. Wiedemann, p. 30.
300:2 Vedic Index, Macdonell & Keith, vol. i, pp. 423 et seq.
302:1 Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, Sayce, p. 153, n. 6.
302:2 Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, A. Wiedemann, p. 30.
303:1 Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 95.
303:2 Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, pp. 63 and 83.
303:3 When the King of Assyria transported the Babylonians, &c., to Samaria "the men of Cuth made Nergal", 2 Kings, xvii, 30.
303:4 Babylonian and Assyrian Religion, p. 80.
305:1 Indian Myth and Legend, p. 13.
306:1 Derived from the Greek zōon, an animal.
306:2 The Hittites, pp. 116, 119, 120, 272.
306:3 "The sun . . . is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." (Psalmxix, . et seq.) The marriage of the sun bridegroom with the moon bride appears to occur in Hittite mythology. In Aryo-Indian Vedic mythology the bride of the sun (Surya) is Ushas, the Dawn. The sun maiden also married the moon god. The Vedic gods ran a race and Indra and Agni were the winners. The sun was "of the nature of Agni". Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 14, 36, 37.
307:1 Or golden.
307:2 The later reference is to Assyria. There was no Assyrian kingdom when these early beliefs were developed.
309:1 Primitive Constellations, R. Brown, jun., vol. ii, p. 1 et seq.
311:1 In India "finger counting" (Kaur guna) is associated with prayer or the repeating of mantras. The counting is performed by the thumb, which, when the hand is drawn up, touches the upper part of the third finger. The two upper "chambers" of the third finger are counted, then the two upper "chambers" of the little finger; the thumb then touches the tip of each finger from the little finger to the first; when it comes down into the upper chamber of the first finger 9 is counted. By a similar process each round of 9 on the right hand is recorded by the left up to 12; 12 X 9 = 108 repetitions of a mantra. The upper "chambers" of the fingers are the "best" or "highest" (uttama), the lower (adhama) chambers are not utilized in the prayer-counting process. When Hindus sit cross-legged at prayers, with closed eyes, the right hand is raised from the elbow in front of the body, and the thumb moves each time a mantra is repeated; the left hand lies palm upward on the left knee, and the thumb moves each time nine mantras have been counted.
312:1 Primitive Constellations, R. Brown, jun., vol. ii, p. 61; and Early History of Northern India, J. F. Hewitt, pp. 551-2.
312:2 Rigveda-Samhita, vol. iv (1892), p. 67.
313:1 Vedic Index, Macdonell & Keith, vol. ii, pp. 192 et seq.
313:2 Indian Myth and Legend.
313:3 Pp. 107 et seq.
313:4 Primitive Constellations, R. Brown, jun., vol. i, 1. 333. A table is given showing how 120 saroi equals 360 degrees, each king being identified with a star.
314:1 "Behold, his majesty the god Ra is grown old; his bones are become silver, his limbs gold, and his hair pure lapis lazuli." Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, A. Wiedemann, p. 58. Ra became a destroyer after completing his reign as an earthly king.
317:1 As Nin-Girsu, Tammuz was associated with "sevenfold" Orion.
317:2 Babylonian and Assyrian Life, pp. 61, 62.
317:3 Herodotus(ii, 52) as quoted in Egypt and Scythia(London, 1886), p. 49.
318:1 Babylonian Magic and Sorcery, L. W. King (London, 1896), pp. 43 and 115.
318:2 Vedic Index, Macdonell & Keith, vol. ii, p. 229.
318:3 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 409, 410.
318:4 Ibid., vol. i, p. 415.
319:1 Primitive Constellations, vol. i, p. 343.
320:1 Custom and Myth, pp. 133 et seq.
320:2 Dr. Alfred Jeremias gives very forcible reasons for believing that the ancient Babylonians were acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes. Das Alter der Babylonischen Astronomie(Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1908), pp. 47 et seq.
320:3 Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 207 et seq.
321:1 A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, p. 93.
322:1 Babylonians and Assyrians: Life and Customs, pp. 219, 220.
322:2 Primitive Constellations, vol. ii, pp. 147 et seq.
323:1 The Aryo-Indians had a lunar year of 360 days (Vedic Index, ii, 158).
323:2 A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, p. 94.
325:1 Twelfth Night, act ii, scene 5.
325:2 Childe Harold, canto iii, v, 88.


Next: Chapter XIV. Ashur the National God of Assyria

• September 20, 2011
• 0
• Published in Myths of Babylonia and Assyria
• Written by LC Geerts

Myths of Babylon and Assyria: Chapter XII. Rise of the Hittites, Mitannians, Kassites, Hyksos, and Assyrians

CHAPTER XII

Rise of the Hittites, Mitannians, Kassites, Hyksos, and Assyrians

The War God of Mountaineers--Antiquity of Hittite Civilization--Prehistoric Movements of "Broad Heads"--Evidence of Babylon and Egypt--Hittites and Mongolians--Biblical References to Hittites in Canaan--Jacob's Mother and her Daughters-in-law--Great Father and Great Mother Cults--History in Mythology--The Kingdom of Mitanni--Its Aryan Aristocracy--The Hyksos Problem--The Horse in Warfare--Hittites and Mitannians--Kassites and Mitannians--Hyksos Empire in Asia--Kassites overthrow Sealand Dynasty--Egyptian Campaigns in Syria--Assyria in the Making--Ethnics of Genesis--Nimrod as Merodach--Early Conquerors of Assyria--Mitannian Overlords--Tell-el-Amarna Letters--Fall of Mitanni--Rise of Hittite and Assyrian Empires--Egypt in Eclipse--Assyrian and Babylonian Rivalries.

WHEN the Hammurabi Dynasty, like the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, is found to be suffering languid decline, the gaps in the dulled historical records are filled with the echoes of the thunder god, whose hammer beating resounds among the northern mountains. As this deity comes each year in Western Asia when vegetation has withered and after fruits have dropped from trees, bringing tempests and black rainclouds to issue in a new season of growth and fresh activity, so he descended from the hills in the second millennium before the Christian era as the battle lord of invaders and the stormy herald of a new age which was to dawn upon the ancient world.

He was the war god of the Hittites as well as of the northern Amorites, the Mitannians, and the Kassites; and he led the Aryans from the Iranian steppes towards the verdurous valley of the Punjab. His worshippers engraved his image with grateful hands on the beetling cliffs of Cappadocian chasms in Asia Minor, where his sway was steadfast and pre-eminent for long centuries. In one locality he appears mounted on a bull wearing a fringed and belted tunic with short sleeves, a conical helmet, and upturned shoes, while he grasps in one hand the lightning symbol, and in the other a triangular bow resting on his right shoulder. In another locality he is the bringer of grapes and barley sheaves. But his most familiar form is the bearded and thick-set mountaineer, armed with a ponderous thunder hammer, a flashing trident, and a long two-edged sword with a hemispherical knob on the hilt, which dangles from his belt, while an antelope or goat wearing a pointed tiara prances beside him. This deity is identical with bluff, impetuous Thor of northern Europe, Indra of the Himalayas, Tarku of Phrygia, and Teshup or Teshub of Armenia and northern Mesopotamia, Sandan, the Hercules of Cilicia, Adad or Hadad of Amurru and Assyria, and Ramman, who at an early period penetrated Akkad and Sumer in various forms. His Hittite name is uncertain, but in the time of Rameses II he was identified with Sutekh (Set). He passed into southern Europe as Zeus, and became "the lord" of the deities of the ean and Crete.

The Hittites who entered Babylon about 1800 B.C., and overthrew the last king of the Hammurabi Dynasty, may have been plundering raiders, like the European Gauls of a later age, or a well-organized force of a strong, consolidated power, which endured for a period of uncertain duration. They were probably the latter, for although they carried off Merodach and Zerpanitu, these idols were not thrust into the melting pot, but retained apparently for political reasons.

These early Hittites are "a people of the mist". More than once in ancient history casual reference is made to them; but on most of these occasions they soon vanish suddenly behind their northern mountains. The explanation appears to be that at various periods great leaders arose who were able to weld together the various tribes, and make their presence felt in Western Asia. But when once the organization broke down, either on account of internal rivalries or the influence of an outside power, they lapsed back again into a state of political insignificance in the affairs of the ancient world. It is possible that about 1800 B.C. the Hittite confederacy was controlled by an ambitious king who had dreams of a great empire, and was accordingly pursuing a career of conquest.

Judging from what we know of the northern worshippers of the hammer god in later times, it would appear that when they were referred to as the Hatti or Khatti, the tribe of that name was the dominating power in Asia Minor and north Syria. The Hatti are usually identified with the broad-headed mountaineers of Alpine or Armenoid type--the ancestors of the modern Armenians. Their ancient capital was at Boghaz-Kai, the site of Pteria, which was destroyed, according to the Greeks, by Crsus, the last King of Lydia, in the sixth century B.C. It was strongly situated in an excellent pastoral district on the high, breezy plateau of Cappadocia, surrounded by high mountains, and approached through narrow river gorges, which in winter were blocked with snow.

Hittite civilization was of great antiquity. Excavations which have been conducted at an undisturbed artificial mound at Sakje-Geuzi have revealed evidences of a continuous culture which began to flourish before 3000 B.C.1 In one of the lower layers occurred that particular type of Neolithic yellow-painted pottery, with black geometric designs, which resembles other specimens of painted fabrics found in Turkestan by the Pumpelly expedition; in Susa, the capital of Elam, and its vicinity, by De Morgan; in the Balkan peninsula by Schliemann; in a First Dynasty tomb at Abydos in Egypt by Petrie; and in the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age (Minoan) strata of Crete by Evans. It may be that these interesting relics were connected with the prehistoric drift westward of the broad-headed pastoral peoples who ultimately formed the Hittite military aristocracy.

According to Professor Elliot Smith, broad-headed aliens from Asia Minor first reached Egypt at the dawn of history. There they blended with the indigenous tribes of the Mediterranean or Brown Race. A mesocephalic skull then became common. It is referred to as the Giza type, and has been traced by Professor Elliot Smith from Egypt to the Punjab, but not farther into India.2

During the early dynasties this skull with alien traits was confined chiefly to the Delta region and the vicinity of Memphis, the city of the pyramid builders. It is not improbable that the Memphite god Ptah may have been introduced into Egypt by the invading broad heads. This deity is a world artisan like Indra, and is similarly associated with dwarfish artisans; he hammers out the copper sky, and therefore links with the various thunder gods--Tarku, Teshup, Adad, Ramman, &c., of the Asian mountaineers. Thunderstorms were of too rare occurrence in Egypt to be connected with the food supply, which has always depended on the river Nile. Ptah's purely Egyptian characteristics appear to have been acquired after fusion with Osiris-Seb, the Nilotic gods of inundation, earth, and vegetation. The ancient god Set (Sutekh), who became a demon, and was ultimately re-exalted as a great deity during the Nineteenth Dynasty, may also have had some connection with the prehistoric Hatti.

Professor Elliot Smith, who has found alien traits in the mummies of the Rameses kings, is convinced that the broad-headed folks who entered Europe by way of Asia Minor, and Egypt through the Delta, at the close of the Neolithic Age, represent "two streams of the same Asiatic folk".1 The opinion of such an authority cannot be lightly set aside.

The earliest Egyptian reference to the Kheta, as the Hittites were called, was made in the reign of the first Amenemhet of the Twelfth Dynasty, who began to reign about 2000 B.C. Some authorities, including Maspero,2 are of opinion that the allusion to the Hatti which is found in the Babylonian Book of Omensbelongs to the earlier age of Sargon of Akkad and Naram-Sin, but Sayce favours the age of Hammurabi. Others would connect the Gutium, or men of Kutu, with the Kheta or Hatti. Sayce has expressed the opinion that the Biblical Tidal, identified with Tudkhul or Tudhula, "king of nations", the ally of Arioch, Amraphel, and Chedor-laomer, was a Hittite king, the "nations" being the confederacy of Asia Minor tribes controlled by the Hatti. "In the fragments of the Babylonian story of Chedor-laomer published by Dr. Pinches", says Professor Sayce, "the name of Tidcal is written Tudkhul, and he is described as King of the Umman Manda, or Nations of the North, of which the Hebrew Goyyimis a literal translation. Now the name is Hittite. In the account of the campaign of Rameses II against the Hittites it appears as Tidcal, and one of the Hittite kings of Boghaz-K bears the same name, which is written as Dud-khaliya in cuneiform.1

One of the racial types among the Hittites wore pigtails. These head adornments appear on figures in certain Cappadocian sculptures and on Hittite warriors in the pictorial records of a north Syrian campaign of Rameses II at Thebes. It is suggestive, therefore, to find that on the stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad, the mountaineers who are conquered by that battle lord wear pig-tails also. Their split robes are unlike the short fringed tunics of the Hittite gods, but resemble the long split mantles worn over their tunics by high dignitaries like King Tarku-dimme, who figures on a famous silver boss of an ancient Hittite dagger. Naram-Sin inherited the Empire of Sargon of Akkad, which extended to the Mediterranean Sea. If his enemies were not natives of Cappadocia, they may have been the congeners of the Hittite pigtailed type in another wooded and mountainous country.

It has been suggested that these wearers of pigtails were Mongolians. But although high cheek bones and oblique eyes occurred in ancient times, and still occur, in parts of Asia Minor, suggesting occasional Mongolian admixture with Ural-Altaic broad heads, the Hittite pig-tailed warriors must not be confused with the true small-nosed Mongols of north-eastern Asia. The Egyptian sculptors depicted them with long and prominent noses, which emphasize their strong Armenoid affinities.

Other tribes in the Hittite confederacy included the representatives of the earliest settlers from North Africa of Mediterranean racial stock. These have been identified with the Canaanites, and especially the agriculturists among them, for the Palestinian Hittites are also referred to as Canaanites in the Bible, and in one particular connection under circumstances which afford an interesting glimpse of domestic life in those far-off times. When Esau, Isaac's eldest son, was forty years of age, "he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite"1 . Apparently the Hittite ladies considered themselves to be of higher caste than the indigenous peoples and the settlers from other countries, for when Ezekiel declared that the mother of Jerusalem was a Hittite he said: "Thou art thy mother's daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children."2 Esau's marriage was "a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah".1 The Hebrew mother seems to have entertained fears that her favourite son Jacob would fall a victim to the allurements of other representatives of the same stock as her superior and troublesome daughters-in-law, for she said to Isaac: "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth; if Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these which are of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?"3 Isaac sent for Jacob, "and charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to Padan-aram, to the house of Bethuel, thy mother's father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban, thy mother's brother."4 From these quotations two obvious deductions may be drawn: the Hebrews regarded the Hittites "of the land" as one with the Canaanites, the stocks having probably been so well fused, and the worried Rebekah had the choosing of Jacob's wife or wives from among her own relations in Mesopotamia who were of Sumerian stock and kindred of Abraham.1 It is not surprising to find traces of Sumerian pride among the descendants of the evicted citizens of ancient Ur, especially when brought into association with the pretentious Hittites.

Evidence of racial blending in Asia Minor is also afforded by Hittite mythology. In the fertile agricultural valleys and round the shores of that great Eur-Asian "land bridge" the indigenous stock was also of the Mediterranean race, as Sergi and other ethnologists have demonstrated. The Great Mother goddess was worshipped from the earliest times, and she bore various local names. At Comana in Pontus she was known to the Greeks as Ma, a name which may have been as old as that of the Sumerian Mama (the creatrix), or Mamitu (goddess of destiny); in Armenia she was Anaitis; in Cilicia she was Ate (Atheh of Tarsus); while in Phrygia she was best known as Cybele, mother of Attis, who links with Ishtar as mother and wife of Tammuz, Aphrodite as mother and wife of Adonis, and Isis as mother and wife of Osiris. The Great Mother was in Phoenicia called Astarte; she was a form of Ishtar, and identical with the Biblical Ashtoreth. In the Syrian city of Hierapolis she bore the name of Atargatis, which Meyer, with whom Frazer agrees, considers to be the Greek rendering of the Aramaic Athar-Atheh--the god Athar and the goddess Atheh. Like the "bearded Aphrodite", Atargatis may have been regarded as a bisexual deity. Some of the specialized mother goddesses, whose outstanding attributes reflected the history and politics of the states they represented, were imported into Egypt--the land of ancient mother deities--during the Empire period, by the half-foreign Rameses kings; these included the voluptuous Kadesh and the warlike Anthat. In every district colonized by the early representatives of the Mediterranean race, the goddess cult came into prominence, and the gods and the people were reputed to be descendants of the great Creatrix. This rule obtained as far distant as Ireland, where the Danann folk and the Danann gods were the children of the goddess Danu.

Among the Hatti proper--that is, the broad-headed military aristocracy--the chief deity of the pantheon was the Great Father, the creator, "the lord of Heaven", the Baal. As Sutekh, Tarku, Adad, or Ramman, he was the god of thunder, rain, fertility, and war, and he ultimately acquired solar attributes. A famous rock sculpture at Boghaz-K depicts a mythological scene which is believed to represent the Spring marriage of the Great Father and the Great Mother, suggesting a local fusion of beliefs which resulted from the union of tribes of the god cult with tribes of the goddess cult. So long as the Hatti tribe remained the predominant partner in the Hittite confederacy, the supremacy was assured of the Great Father who symbolized their sway. But when, in the process of time, the power of the Hatti declined, their chief god "fell . . . from his predominant place in the religion of the interior", writes Dr. Garstang. "But the Great Mother lived on, being the goddess of the land."1

In addition to the Hittite confederacy of Asia Minor and North Syria, another great power arose in northern Mesopotamia. This was the Mitanni Kingdom. Little is known regarding it, except what is derived from indirect sources. Winckler believes that it was first established by early "waves" of Hatti people who migrated from the east.

The Hittite connection is based chiefly on the following evidence. One of the gods of the Mitanni rulers was Teshup, who is identical with Tarku, the Thor of Asia Minor. The raiders who in 1800 B.C. entered Babylon, set fire to E-sagila, and carried off Merodach and his consort Zerpanitum, were called the Hatti. The images of these deities were afterwards obtained from Khani (Mitanni).

At a later period, when we come to know more about Mitanni from the letters of one of its kings to two Egyptian Pharaohs, and the Winckler tablets from Boghaz-K, it is found that its military aristocracy spoke an Indo-European language, as is shown by the names of their kings--Saushatar, Artatama, Sutarna, Artashshumara, Tushratta, and Mattiuza. They worshipped the following deities:
Mi-it-ra, Uru-w-na, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-ti-ia--

Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatyau (the "Twin Aswins" = Castor and Pollux)--whose names have been deciphered by Winckler. These gods were also imported into India by the Vedic Aryans. The Mitanni tribe (the military aristocracy probably) was called "Kharri", and some philologists are of opinion that it is identical with "Arya", which was "the normal designation in Vedic literature from the Rigveda onwards of an Aryan of the three upper classes".1 Mitanni signifies "the river lands", and the descendants of its inhabitants, who lived in Cappadocia, were called by the Greeks "Mattienoi". "They are possibly", says Dr. Haddon, "the ancestors of the modern Kurds",1 a conspicuously long-headed people, proverbial, like the ancient Aryo-Indians and the Gauls, for their hospitality and their raiding propensities.

It would appear that the Mitannian invasion of northern Mesopotamia and the Aryan invasion of India represented two streams of diverging migrations from a common cultural centre, and that the separate groups of wanderers mingled with other stocks with whom they came into contact. Tribes of Aryan speech were associated with the Kassite invaders of Babylon, who took possession of northern Babylonia soon after the disastrous Hittite raid. It is believed that they came from the east through the highlands of Elam.

For a period, the dating of which is uncertain, the Mitannians were overlords of part of Assyria, including Nineveh and even Asshur, as well as the district called "Musri" by the Assyrians, and part of Cappadocia. They also occupied the cities of Harran and Kadesh. Probably they owed their great military successes to their cavalry. The horse became common in Babylon during the Kassite Dynasty, which followed the Hammurabi, and was there called "the ass of the east", a name which suggests whence the Kassites and Mitannians came.

The westward movement of the Mitannians in the second millennium B.C. may have been in progress prior to the Kassite conquest of Babylon and the Hyksos invasion of Egypt. Their relations in Mesopotamia and Syria with the Hittites and the Amorites are obscure. Perhaps they were for a time the overlords of the Hittites. At any rate it is of interest to note that when Thothmes III struck at the last Hyksos stronghold during his long Syrian campaign of about twenty years' duration, his operations were directly against Kadesh on the Orontes, which was then held by his fierce enemies the Mitannians of Naharina.1



click to enlarge

THE HORSE IN WARFARE
Marble slab showing Ashur-natsir-pal and army advancing against a besieged tow. A battering ram is being drawn on a six-wheeled carriage.
From N.W. Palace of Nimroud: now in the British Museum.
Photo. Mansell

During the Hyksos Age the horse was introduced into Egypt. Indeed the Hyksos conquest was probably due to the use of the horse, which was domesticated, as the Pumpelly expedition has ascertained, at a remote period in Turkestan, whence it may have been obtained by the horse-sacrificing Aryo-Indians and the horse-sacrificing ancestors of the Siberian Buriats.

If the Mitanni rulers were not overlords of the Hittites about 1800 B.C., the two peoples may have been military allies of the Kassites. Some writers suggest, indeed, that the Kassites came from Mitanni. Another view is that the Mitannians were the Aryan allies of the Kassites who entered Babylon from the Elamite highlands, and that they afterwards conquered Mesopotamia and part of Cappadocia prior to the Hyksos conquest of Egypt. A third solution of the problem is that the Aryan rulers of the Mitannian Hittites were the overlords of northern Babylonia, which they included in their Mesopotamian empire for a century before the Kassites achieved political supremacy in the Tigro-Euphrates valley, and that they were also the leaders of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, which they accomplished with the assistance of their Hittite and Amoritic allies.

The first Kassite king of Babylonia of whom we have knowledge was Gandash. He adopted the old Akkadian title, "king of the four quarters", as well as the title "king of Sumer and Akkad", first used by the rulers of the Dynasty of Ur. Nippur appears to have been selected by Gandash as his capital, which suggests that his war and storm god, Shuqamuna, was identified with Bel Enlil, who as a "world giant" has much in common with the northern hammer gods. After reigning for sixteen years, Gandash was succeeded by his son, Agum the Great, who sat on the throne for twenty-two years. The great-grandson of Agum the Great was Agum II, and not until his reign were the statues of Merodach and his consort Zerpanitumbrought back to the city of Babylon. This monarch recorded that, in response to the oracle of Shamash, the sun god, he sent to the distant land of Khani (Mitanni) for the great deity and his consort. Babylon would therefore appear to have been deprived of Merodach for about two centuries. The Hittite-Mitanni raid is dated about 1800 B.C., and the rise of Gandash, the Kassite, about 1700 B.C. At least a century elapsed between the reigns of Gandash and Agum II. These calculations do not coincide, it will be noted, with the statement in a Babylonian hymn, that Merodach remained in the land of the Hatti for twenty-four years, which, however, may be either a priestly fiction or a reference to a later conquest. The period which followed the fall of the Hammurabi Dynasty of Babylonia is as obscure as the Hyksos Age of Egypt.

Agum II, the Kassite king, does not state whether or not he waged war against Mitanni to recover Babylon's god Merodach. If, however, he was an ally of the Mitanni ruler, the transference of the deity may have been an ordinary diplomatic transaction. The possibility may also be suggested that the Hittites of Mitanni were not displaced by the Aryan military aristocracy until after the Kassites were firmly established in northern Babylonia between 1700 B.C. and i 600 B.C. This may account for the statements that Merodach was carried off by the Hatti and returned from the land of Khani.

The evidence afforded by Egypt is suggestive in this connection. There was a second Hyksos Dynasty in that country. The later rulers became "Egyptianized" as the Kassites became "Babylonianized", but they were all referred to by the exclusive and sullen Egyptians as "barbarians" and "Asiatics". They recognized the sun god of Heliopolis, but were also concerned in promoting the worship of Sutekh, a deity of sky and thunder, with solar attributes, whom Rameses II identified with the "Baal" of the Hittites. The Mitannians, as has been stated, recognized a Baal called Teshup, who was identical with Tarku of the Western Hittites and with their own tribal Indra also. One of the Hyksos kings, named Ian or Khian, the Ianias of Manetho, was either an overlord or the ally of an overlord, who swayed a great empire in Asia. His name has been deciphered on relics found as far apart as Knossos in Crete and Baghdad on the Tigris, which at the time was situated within the area of Kassite control. Apparently peaceful conditions prevailed during his reign over a wide extent of Asia and trade was brisk between far-distant centres of civilization. The very term Hyksos is suggestive in this connection. According to Breasted it signifies "rulers of countries", which compares with the Biblical "Tidal king of nations", whom Sayce, as has been indicated, regards as a Hittite monarch. When the Hittite hieroglyphics have been read and Mesopotamia thoroughly explored, light may be thrown on the relations of the Mitannians, the Hittites, the Hyksos, and the Kassites between 1800 B.C. and 1500 B.C. It is evident that a fascinating volume of ancient history has yet to be written.

The Kassites formed the military aristocracy of Babylonia, which was called Karduniash, for nearly six centuries. Agum II was the first of their kings who became thoroughly Babylonianized, and although he still gave recognition to Shuqamuna, the Kassite god of battle, he re-exalted Merodach, whose statue he had taken back from "Khani", and decorated E-sagila with gifts of gold, jewels, rare woods, frescoes, and pictorial tiles; he also re-endowed the priesthood. During the reign of his successor, Burnaburiash I, the Dynasty of Sealand came to an end.

Little is known regarding the relations between Elam and Babylonia during the Kassite period. If the Kassite invaders crossed the Tigris soon after the raid of the Mitannian Hittites they must have previously overrun a great part of Elam, but strongly situated Susa may have for a time withstood their attacks. At first the Kassites held northern Babylonia only, while the ancient Sumerian area was dominated by the Sealand power, which had gradually regained strength during the closing years of the Hammurabi Dynasty. No doubt many northern Babylonian refugees reinforced its army.

The Elamites, or perhaps the Kassites of Elam, appear to have made frequent attacks on southern Babylonia. At length Ea-gamil, king of Sealand, invaded Elam with purpose, no doubt, to shatter the power of his restless enemies. He was either met there, however, by an army from Babylon, or his country was invaded during his absence. Prince Ulamburiash, son of Burnaburiash I, defeated Ea-gamil and brought to an end the Sealand Dynasty which had been founded by Ilu-ma-ilu, the contemporary and enemy of Samsu-la-ilu, son of Hammurabi. Ulamburiash is referred to on a mace-head which was discovered at Babylon as "king of Sealand", and he probably succeeded his father at the capital. The whole of Babylonia thus came under Kassite sway.

Agum III, a grandson of Ulamburiash, found it necessary, however, to invade Sealand, which must therefore have revolted. It was probably a centre of discontent during the whole period of Kassite ascendancy.

After a long obscure interval we reach the period when the Hyksos power was broken in Egypt, that is, after 1580 B.C. The great Western Asiatic kingdoms at the time were the Hittite, the Mitannian, the Assyrian, and the Babylonian (Kassite). Between 1557 B.C. and 1501 B.C. Thothmes I of Egypt was asserting his sway over part of Syria. Many years elapsed, however, before Thothmes III, who died in 1447 B.C., established firmly, after waging a long war of conquest, the supremacy of Egypt between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean coast as far north as the borders of Asia Minor.

"At this period", as Professor Flinders Petrie emphasizes, "the civilization of Syria was equal or superior to that of Egypt." Not only was there in the cities "luxury beyond that of the Egyptians", but also "technical work which could teach them". The Syrian soldiers had suits of scale armour, which afterwards were manufactured in Egypt, and they had chariots adorned with gold and silver and highly decorated, which were greatly prized by the Egyptians when they captured them, and reserved for royalty. "In the rich wealth of gold and silver vases", obtained from captured cities by the Nilotic warriors, "we see also", adds Petrie, "the sign of a people who were their (the Egyptians) equals, if not their superiors in taste and skill."1 It is not to be wondered at, therefore, when the Pharaohs received tribute from Syria that they preferred it to be carried into Egypt by skilled workmen. "The keenness with which the Egyptians record all the beautiful and luxurious products of the Syrians shows that the workmen would probably be more in demand than other kinds of slave tribute."1

One of the monarchs with whom Thothmes III corresponded was the king of Assyria. The enemies of Egypt in northern Mesopotamia were the Hittites and Mitannians, and their allies, and these were also the enemies of Assyria. But to enable us to deal with the new situation which was created by Egypt in Mesopotamia, it is necessary in the first place to trace the rise of Assyria, which was destined to become for a period the dominating power in Western Asia, and ultimately in the Nile valley also.

The Assyrian group of cities grew up on the banks of the Tigris to the north of Babylonia, the mother country. The following Biblical references regarding the origins of the two states are of special interest:--

Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. . . . The sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan. . . . And Cush begat Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.

The children of Shem: Elam and Asshur . . . (Genesis, x, 1-22).

The land of Assyria . . . and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof (Micah, v, 6).

It will be observed that the Sumero-Babylonians are Cushites or Hamites, and therefore regarded as racially akin to the proto-Egyptians of the Mediterranean race--an interesting confirmation of recent ethnological conclusions.


Nimrod, the king of Babel (Babylon), in Shinar (Sumer), was, it would appear, a deified monarch who became ultimately identified with the national god of Babylonia. Professor Pinches has shown1 that his name is a rendering of that of Merodach. In Sumerian Merodach was called Amaruduk or Amarudu, and in the Assyro-Babylonian language Marduk. By a process familiar to philologists the suffix "uk" was dropped and the rendering became Marad. The Hebrews added "ni" ="ni-marad", assimilating the name "to a certain extent to the 'niphal forms' of the Hebrew verbs and making a change", says Pinches, "in conformity with the genius of the Hebrew language".

Asshur, who went out of Nimrod's country to build Nineveh, was a son of Shem--a Semite, and so far as is known it was after the Semites achieved political supremacy in Akkad that the Assyrian colonies were formed. Asshur may have been a subject ruler who was deified and became the god of the city of Asshur, which probably gave its name to Assyria.

According to Herodotus, Nineveh was founded by King Ninus and Queen Semiramis. This lady was reputed to be the daughter of Derceto, the fish goddess, whom Pliny identified with Atargatis. Semiramis was actually an Assyrian queen of revered memory. She was deified and took the place of a goddess, apparently Nina, the prototype of Derceto. This Nina, perhaps a form of Damkina, wife of Ea, was the great mother of the Sumerian city of Nina, and there, and also at Lagash, received offerings of fish. She was one of the many goddesses of maternity absorbed by Ishtar. The Greek Ninus is regarded as a male form of her name; like Atargatis, she may have become a bisexual deity, if she was not always accompanied by a shadowy male form. Nineveh (Ninua) was probably founded or conquered by colonists from Nina or Lagash, and called after the fish goddess.

All the deities of Assyria were imported from Babylonia except, as some hold, Ashur, the national god.1 The theory that Ashur was identical with the Aryo-Indian Asura and the Persian Ahura is not generally accepted. One theory is that he was an eponymous hero who became the city god of Asshur, although the early form of his name, Ashir, presents a difficulty in this connection. Asshur was the first capital of Assyria. Its city god may have become the national god on that account.

At an early period, perhaps a thousand years before Thothmes III battled with the Mitannians in northern Syria, an early wave of one of the peoples of Aryan speech may have occupied the Assyrian cities. Mr. Johns points out in this connection that the names of Ushpia, Kikia, and Adasi, who, according to Assyrian records, were early rulers in Asshur, "are neither Semitic nor Sumerian". An ancient name of the goddess of Nineveh was Shaushka, which compares with Shaushkash, the consort of Teshup, the Hittite-Mitanni hammer god. As many of the Mitannian names "are", according to Mr. Johns, "really Elamitic", he suggests an ethnic connection between the early conquerors of Assyria and the people of Elam.2 Were the pre-Semitic Elamites originally speakers of an agglutinative language, like the Sumerians and present-day Basques, who were conquered in prehistoric times by a people of Aryan speech?

The possibility is urged by Mr. Johns's suggestion that Assyria may have been dominated in pre-Semitic times by the congeners of the Aryan military aristocracy of Mitanni. As has been shown, it was Semitized by the Amoritic migration which, about 2000 B.C., brought into prominence the Hammurabi Dynasty of Babylon.

A long list of kings with Semitic names held sway in the Assyrian cities during and after the Hammurabi Age. But not until well on in the Kassite period did any of them attain prominence in Western Asia. Then Ashur-bel-nish-eshu, King of Asshur, was strong enough to deal on equal terms with the Kassite ruler Kara-indash I, with whom he arranged a boundary treaty. He was a contemporary of Thothmes III of Egypt.

After Thothmes III had secured the predominance of Egypt in Syria and Palestine he recognized Assyria as an independent power, and supplied its king with Egyptian gold to assist him, no doubt, in strengthening his territory against their common enemy. Gifts were also sent from Assyria to Egypt to fan the flame of cordial relations.

The situation was full of peril for Saushatar, king of Mitanni. Deprived by Egypt of tribute-paying cities in Syria, his exchequer must have been sadly depleted. A standing army had to be maintained, for although Egypt made no attempt to encroach further on his territory, the Hittites were ever hovering on his north-western frontier, ready when opportunity offered to win back Cappadocia. Eastward, Assyria was threatening to become a dangerous rival. He had himself to pay tribute to Egypt, and Egypt was subsidizing his enemy. It was imperative on his part, therefore, to take action without delay. The power of Assyria had to be crippled; its revenues were required for the Mitannian exchequer. So Saushatar raided Assyria during the closing years of the reign of Thothmes III, or soon after his successor, Amenhotep II, ascended the Egyptian throne.

Nothing is known from contemporary records regarding this campaign; but it can be gathered from the references of a later period that the city of Asshur was captured and plundered; its king, Ashur-nadin-akhe, ceased corresponding and exchanging gifts with Egypt. That Nineveh also fell is made clear by the fact that a descendant of Saushatar (Tushratta) was able to send to a descendant of Thothmes III at Thebes (Amenhotep III) the image of Ishtar (Shaushka) of Nineveh. Apparently five successive Mitannian kings were overlords of Assyria during a period which cannot be estimated at much less than a hundred years.

Our knowledge regarding these events is derived chiefly from the Tell-el-Amarna letters, and the tablets found by Professor Hugo Winckler at Boghaz-K in Cappadocia, Asia Minor.

The Tell-el-Amarna letters were discovered among the ruins of the palace of the famous Egyptian Pharaoh, Akhenaton, of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who died about 1358 B.C. During the winter of 1887-8 an Egyptian woman was excavating soil for her garden, when she happened upon the cellar of Akhenaton's foreign office in which the official correspondence had been stored. The "letters" were baked clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform alphabetical signs in the Babylonian-Assyrian language, which, like French in modern times, was the language of international diplomacy for many centuries in Western Asia after the Hyksos period.



LETTER FROM TUSHRATTA, KING OF MITANNI, TO AMENHOTEP III, KING OF EGYPT
One of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, now in the British Museum.

Photo. Mansell

The Egyptian natives, ever so eager to sell antiquities so as to make a fortune and retire for life, offered some specimens of the tablets for sale. One or two were sent to Paris, where they were promptly declared to be forgeries, with the result that for a time the inscribed bricks were not a marketable commodity. Ere their value was discovered, the natives had packed them into sacks, with the result that many were damaged and some completely destroyed. At length, however, the majority of them reached the British Museum and the Berlin Museum, while others drifted into the museums at Cairo, St. Petersburg, and Paris. When they were deciphered, Mitanni was discovered, and a flood of light thrown on the internal affairs of Egypt and its relations with various kingdoms in Asia, while glimpses were also afforded of the life and manners of the times.

The letters covered the reigns of Amenhotep III, the great-grandson of Thothmes III, and of his son Akhenaton, "the dreamer king", and included communications from the kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Mitanni, Cyprus, the Hittites, and the princes of Phoenicia and Canaan. The copies of two letters from Amenhotep III to Kallima-Sin, King of Babylonia, had also been preserved. One deals with statements made by Babylonian ambassadors, whom the Pharaoh stigmatizes as liars. Kallima-Sin had sent his daughter to the royal harem of Egypt, and desired to know if she was alive and well. He also asked for "much gold" to enable him to carry on the work of extending his temple. When twenty minas of gold was sent to him, he complained in due course that the quantity received was not only short but that the gold was not pure; it had been melted in the furnace, and less than five minas came out. In return he sent to Akhenaton two minas of enamel, and some jewels for his daughter, who was in the Egyptian royal harem.

Ashur-uballit, king of Ashur, once wrote intimating to Akhenaton that he was gifting him horses and chariots and a jewel seal. He asked for gold to assist in building his palace. "In your country", he added, "gold is as plentiful as dust." He also made an illuminating statement to the effect that no ambassador had gone from Assyria to Egypt since the days of his ancestor Ashur-nadin-akhe. It would therefore appear that Ashur-uballit had freed part of Assyria from the yoke of Mitanni.

The contemporary king of Mitanni was Tushratta. He corresponded both with his cousin Amenhotep III and his son-in-law Akhenaton. In his correspondence with Amenhotep III Tushratta tells that his kingdom had been invaded by the Hittites, but his god Teshup had delivered them into his hand, and he destroyed them; "not one of them", he declared, "returned to his own country". Out of the booty captured he sent Amenhotep several chariots and horses, and a boy and a girl. To his sister Gilu-khipa, who was one of the Egyptian Pharaoh's wives, he gifted golden ornaments and a jar of oil. In another letter Tushratta asked for a large quantity of gold "without measure". He complained that he did not receive enough on previous occasions, and hinted that some of the Egyptian gold looked as if it were alloyed with copper. Like the Assyrian king, he hinted that gold was as plentiful as dust in Egypt. His own presents to the Pharaoh included precious stones, gold ornaments, chariots and horses, and women (probably slaves). This may have been tribute. It was during the third Amenhotep's illness that Tushratta forwarded the Nineveh image of Ishtar to Egypt, and he made reference to its having been previously sent thither by his father, Sutarna.

When Akhenaton came to the throne Tushratta wrote to him, desiring to continue the friendship which had existed for two or three generations between the kings of Mitanni and Egypt, and made complimentary references to "the distinguished Queen Tiy", Akhenaton's mother, who evidently exercised considerable influence in shaping Egypt's foreign policy. In the course of his long correspondence with the Pharaohs, Tushratta made those statements regarding his ancestors which have provided so much important data for modern historians of his kingdom.

During the early part of the Tell-el-Amarna period, Mitanni was the most powerful kingdom in Western Asia. It was chiefly on that account that the daughters of its rulers were selected to be the wives and mothers of great Egyptian Pharaohs. But its numerous enemies were ever plotting to accomplish its downfall. Among these the foremost and most dangerous were the Hittites and the Assyrians.

The ascendancy of the Hittites was achieved in northern Syria with dramatic suddenness. There arose in Asia Minor a great conqueror, named Subbi-luliuma, the successor of Hattusil I, who established a strong Hittite empire which endured for about two centuries. His capital was at Boghaz-K. Sweeping through Cappadocia, at the head of a finely organized army, remarkable for its mobility, he attacked the buffer states which owed allegiance to Mitanni and Egypt. City after city fell before him, until at length he invaded Mitanni; but it is uncertain whether or not Tushratta met him in battle. Large numbers of the Mitannians were, however, evicted and transferred to the land of the Hittites, where the Greeks subsequently found them, and where they are believed to be represented by the modern Kurds, the hereditary enemies of the Armenians.

In the confusion which ensued, Tushratta was murdered by Sutarna II, who was recognized by Subbi-luliuma. The crown prince, Mattiuza, fled to Babylon, where he found protection, but was unable to receive any assistance. Ultimately, when the Hittite emperor had secured his sway over northern Syria, he deposed Sutarna II and set Mattiuza as his vassal on the throne of the shrunken Mitanni kingdom.

Meanwhile the Egyptian empire in Asia had gone to pieces. When Akhenaton, the dreamer king, died in his palace at Tell-el-Amarna, the Khabiri were conquering the Canaanite cities which had paid him tribute, and the Hittite ruler was the acknowledged overlord of the Amorites.

The star of Assyria was also in the ascendant. Its king, Ashur-uballit, who had corresponded with Akhenaton, was, like the Hittite king, Subbi-luliuma, a distinguished statesman and general, and similarly laid the foundations of a great empire. Before or after Subbi-luliuma invaded Tushratta's domains, he drove the Mitannians out of Nineveh, and afterwards overcame the Shubari tribes of Mitanni on the north-west, with the result that he added a wide extent of territory to his growing empire.

He had previously thrust southward the Assyro-Babylonian frontier. In fact, he had become so formidable an opponent of Babylonia that his daughter had been accepted as the wife of Karakhardash, the Kassite king of that country. In time his grandson, Kadashman-Kharbe, ascended the Babylonian throne. This young monarch co-operated with his grandfather in suppressing the Suti, who infested the trade routes towards the west, and plundered the caravans of merchants and the messengers of great monarchs with persistent impunity.

A reference to these bandits appears in one of the Tell-el-Amarna letters. Writing to Akhenaton, Ashur-uballit said: "The lands (of Assyria and Egypt) are remote, therefore let our messengers come and go. That your messengers were late in reaching you, (the reason is that) if the Suti had waylaid them, they would have been dead men. For if I had sent them, the Suti would have sent bands to waylay them; therefore I have retained them. My messengers (however), may they not (for this reason) be delayed."1

Ashur-uballit's grandson extended his Babylonian frontier into Amurru, where he dug wells and erected forts to protect traders. The Kassite aristocracy, however, appear to have entertained towards him a strong dislike, perhaps because he was so closely associated with their hereditary enemies the Assyrians. He had not reigned for long when the embers of rebellion burst into flame and he was murdered in his palace. The Kassites then selected as their king a man of humble origin, named Nazibugash, who was afterwards referred to as "the son of nobody". Ashur-uballit deemed the occasion a fitting one to interfere in the affairs of Babylonia. He suddenly appeared at the capital with a strong army, overawed the Kassites, and seized and slew Nazibugash. Then he set on the throne his great grandson the infant Kurigalzu II, who lived to reign for fifty-five years.

Ashur-uballit appears to have died soon after this event. He was succeeded by his son Bel-nirari, who carried on the policy of strengthening and extending the Assyrian empire. For many years he maintained excellent relations with his kinsman Kurigalzu II, but ultimately they came into conflict apparently over disputed territory. A sanguinary battle was fought, in which the Babylonians suffered heavily and were put to rout. A treaty of peace was afterwards arranged, which secured for the Assyrians a further extension of their frontier "from the borders of Mitanni as far as Babylonia". The struggle of the future was to be for the possession of Mesopotamia, so as to secure control over the trade routes.

Thus Assyria rose from a petty state in a comparatively brief period to become the rival of Babylonia, at a time when Egypt at the beginning of its Nineteenth Dynasty was endeavouring to win back its lost empire in Syria, and the Hittite empire was being consolidated in the north.

Footnotes

263:1 The Land of the Hittites, John Garstang, pp. 312 et seq. and 315 et seq.
263:2 The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 106 et seq.
264:1 The Ancient Egyptians, p. 130.
264:2 Struggle of the Nations(1896), p. 19.
265:1 Note contributed to The Land of the Hittites, J. Garstang, p. 324.
266:1 Genesis, xxvi, 34, 35.
266:2 Ezekiel, xvi, 45.
266:3 Genesis, xxvii, 46.
266:4 Genesis, xxviii, 1, 2.
267:1 Genesis, xxiv.
268:1 The Syrian Goddess, John Garstang (London, 1913), pp. 17-8.
269:1 Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, Macdonald & Keith, vol. i, pp. 64-5 (London, 1912).
270:1 The Wanderings of Peoples, p. 21.
271:1 Breasted's History of Egypt, pp. 219-20.
275:1 A History of Egypt, W. M. Flinders Petrie, vol. ii, p. 146 et seq. (1904 ed.).
276:1 A History of Egypt, W. M. Flinders Petrie, vol. ii, p. 147 (1904 ed.).
277:1 The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia, pp. 126 et seq.
278:1 His connection with Anu is discussed in chapter xiv .
278:2 Ancient Assyria, C. H. W. Johns, p. 11 (London, 1912).
285:1 The Tell-el-Amarna Letters, Hugo Winckler, p. 31.
Next: Chapter XIII. Astrology and Astronomy

• September 20, 2011
• 0
• Published in Myths of Babylonia and Assyria
• Written by LC Geerts