The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

M >> Morris Jastrow >> The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

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The stimulus given by Botta and Layard to the recovery of the records
and monuments of antiquity that had been hidden from view for more than
two thousand years, led to a refreshing rivalry between England and
France in continuing a work that gave promise of still richer returns by
further efforts. Victor Place, a French architect of note, who succeeded
Botta as the French consul at Mosul, devoted his term of service, from
1851 to 1855, towards completing the excavations at Khorsabad. A large
aftermath rewarded his efforts. Thanks, too, to his technical knowledge
and that of his assistant, Felix Thomas, M. Place was enabled more
accurately to determine the architectural construction of the temples
and palaces of ancient Assyria. Within this same period (1852-1854)
another exploring expedition was sent out to Mesopotamia by the French
government, under the leadership of Fulgence Fresnel, in whose party
were the above-mentioned Thomas and the distinguished scholar Jules
Oppert. The objective point this time was Southern Mesopotamia, the
mounds of which had hitherto not been touched, many not even identified
as covering the remains of ancient cities. Much valuable work was done
by this expedition in its careful study of the site of the ancient
Babylon,--in the neighborhood of the modern village Hillah, some forty
miles south of Baghdad. Unfortunately, the antiquities recovered at this
place, and elsewhere, were lost through the sinking of the rafts as they
carried their precious burden down the Tigris. In the south again, the
English followed close upon the heels of the French. J. E. Taylor, in
1854, visited many of the huge mounds that were scattered throughout
Southern Mesopotamia in much larger numbers than in the north, while his
compatriot, William K. Loftus, a few years previous had begun
excavations, though on a small scale, at Warka, the site of the ancient
city of Erech. He also conducted some investigations at a mound Mugheir,
which acquired special interest as the supposed site of the famous
Ur,--the home of some of the Terahites before the migration to
Palestine. Of still greater significance were the examinations made by
Sir Henry Rawlinson, in 1854, of the only considerable ruins of ancient
Babylonia that remained above the surface,--the tower of Birs Nimrud,
which proved to be the famous seven-staged temple as described by
Herodotus. This temple was completed, as the foundation records showed,
by Nebuchadnezzar II., in the sixth century before this era; but the
beginnings of the structure belong to a much earlier period. Another
sanctuary erected by this same king was found near the tower. Subsequent
researches by Hormuzd Rassam made it certain that Borsippa, the ancient
name of the place where the tower and sanctuaries stood, was a suburb of
the great city of Babylon itself, which lay directly opposite on the
east side of the Euphrates. The scope of the excavations continued to
grow almost from year to year, and while new mounds were being attacked
in the south, those in the north, especially Koujunjik, continued to be
the subject of attention.

Rassam, who has just been mentioned, was in a favorable position,
through his long residence as English consul at Mosul, for extracting
new finds from the mounds in this vicinity. Besides adding more than a
thousand tablets from the royal library discovered by Layard, his most
noteworthy discoveries were the unearthing of a magnificent temple at
Nimrud, and the finding of a large bronze gate at Balawat, a few miles
to the northeast of Nimrud. Rassam and Rawlinson were afterwards joined
by George Smith of the British Museum, who, instituting a further search
through the ruins of Koujunjik, Nimrud, Kalah-Shergat, and elsewhere,
made many valuable additions to the English collections, until his
unfortunate death in 1876, during his third visit to the mounds, cut him
off in the prime of a brilliant and most useful career. The English
explorers extended their labors to the mounds in the south. Here it was,
principally at Abu-Habba, that they set their forces to work. The
finding of another temple dedicated to the sun-god rewarded their
efforts. The foundation records showed that the edifice was one of great
antiquity, which was permitted to fall into decay and was then restored
by a ruler whose date can be fixed at the middle of the ninth century
B.C. The ancient name of the place was shown to be Sippar, and the fame
of the temple was such, that subsequent monarchs vied with one another
in adding to its grandeur. It is estimated that the temple contained no
less than three hundred chambers and halls for the archives and for the
accommodation of the large body of priests attached to this temple. In
the archives many thousands of little clay tablets were again found,
not, however, of a literary, but of a legal character, containing
records of commercial transactions conducted in ancient Sippar, such as
sales of houses, of fields, of produce, of stuffs, money loans,
receipts, contracts for work, marriage settlements, and the like. The
execution of the laws being in the hands of priests in ancient
Mesopotamia, the temples were the natural depositories for the official
documents of the law courts. Similar collections to those of Sippar have
been found in almost every mound of Southern Mesopotamia that has been
opened since the days of Rassam. So at Djumdjuma, situated near the site
of the ancient city of Babylon, some three thousand were unearthed that
were added to the fast growing collections of the British Museum. At
Borsippa, likewise, Rawlinson and Rassam recovered a large number of
clay tablets, most of them legal but some of them of a literary
character, which proved to be in part duplicates of those in the royal
library of Ashurbanabal. In this way, the latter's statement, that he
sent his scribes to the large cities of the south for the purpose of
collecting and copying the literature that had its rise there, met with
a striking confirmation. Still further to the south, at a mound known as
Telloh, a representative of the French government, Ernest de Sarzec,
began a series of excavations in 1877, which, continued to the present
day, have brought to light remains of temples and palaces exceeding in
antiquity those hitherto discovered. Colossal statues of diorite,
covered with inscriptions, the pottery, tablets and ornaments, showed
that at a period as early as 3500 B.C. civilization in this region had
already reached a very advanced stage. The systematic and thorough
manner in which De Sarzec, with inexhaustible patience, explored the
ancient city, has resulted in largely extending our knowledge of the
most ancient period of Babylonian history as yet known to us. The Telloh
finds were forwarded to the Louvre, which in this way secured a
collection from the south that formed a worthy complement to the
Khorsabad antiquities.

Lastly, it is gratifying to note the share that our own country has
recently taken in the great work that has furnished the material needed
for following the history of the Mesopotamian states. In 1887, an
expedition was sent out under the auspices of the University of
Pennsylvania, to conduct excavations at Niffer,--a mound to the
southeast of Babylon, situated on a branch of the Euphrates, and which
was known to be the site of one of the most famous cities in this
region. The Rev. John P. Peters (now in New York), who was largely
instrumental in raising the funds for the purpose, was appointed
director of the expedition. Excavations were continued for two years
under Dr. Peters' personal supervision, and since then by Mr. John H.
Haynes, with most satisfactory success. A great temple dedicated to the
god Bel was discovered, and work has hitherto been confined chiefly to
laying bare the various parts of the edifice. The foundation of the
building goes back to an earlier period than the ruins of Telloh. It
survived the varying fortunes of the city in which it stood, and each
period of Babylonian history left its traces at Niffer through the
records of the many rulers who sought the favor of the god by enlarging
or beautifying his place of worship. The temple became a favorite spot
to which pilgrims came from all sides on the great festivals, to offer
homage at the sacred shrines. Votive offerings, in the shape of
inscribed clay cones, and little clay images of Bel and of his female
consort, were left in the temple as witnesses to the piety of the
visitors. The archives were found to be well stocked with the official
legal documents dating chiefly from the period of 1700 to 1200 B.C.,
when the city appears to have reached the climax of its glory. Other
parts of the mound were opened at different depths, and various layers
which followed the chronological development of the place were
determined.[9] After its destruction, the sanctity of the city was in a
measure continued by its becoming a burial-place. The fortunes of the
place can thus be followed down to the ninth or the tenth century of our
era, a period of more than four thousand years. Already more than 20,000
tablets have been received at the University of Pennsylvania, besides
many specimens of pottery, bowls, jars, cones, and images, as well as
gold, copper, and alabaster work.

From this survey of the work done in the last decades in exploring the
long lost and almost forgotten cities of the Tigris and of the Euphrates
Valley, it will be apparent that a large amount of material has been
made accessible for tracing the course of civilization in this region.
Restricting ourselves to that portion of it that bears on the religion
of ancient Mesopotamia, it may be grouped under two heads, (1) literary,
and (2) archaeological. The religious texts of Ashurbanabal's library
occupy the first place in the literary group. The incantations, the
prayers and hymns, lists of temples, of gods and their attributes,
traditions of the creation of the world, legends of the deities and of
their relations to men, are sources of the most direct character; and it
is fortunate that among the recovered portions of the library, such
texts are largely represented. Equally direct are the dedicatory
inscriptions set up by the kings in the temples erected to the honor of
some god, and of great importance are the references to the various
gods, their attributes, their powers, and their deeds, which are found
at every turn in the historical records which the kings left behind
them. Many of these records open or close with a long prayer to some
deity; in others, prayers are found interspersed, according to the
occasion on which they were offered up. Attributing the success of their
undertakings--whether it be a military campaign, or the construction of
some edifice, or a successful hunt--to the protection offered by the
gods, the kings do not tire of singing the praises of the deity or
deities as whose favorites they regarded themselves. The gods are
constantly at the monarch's side. Now we are told of a dream sent to
encourage the army on the approach of a battle, and again of some
portent which bade the king be of good cheer. To the gods, the appeal is
constantly made, and to them all good things are ascribed. From the
legal documents, likewise, much may be gathered bearing on the religion.
The protection of the gods is invoked or their curses called down; the
oath is taken in their name; while the manner in which the temples are
involved in the commercial life of ancient Babylonia renders these
tablets, which are chiefly valuable as affording us a remarkable insight
into the people's daily life, of importance also in illustrating certain
phases of the religious organization of the country. Most significant
for the position occupied by the priests, is the fact that the latter
are invariably the scribes who draw up the documents.

The archaeological material furnished by the excavations consists of the
temples of the gods, their interior arrangement, and provisions for the
various religious functions; secondly, the statues of the gods,
demigods, and the demons, the altars and the vessels; and thirdly, the
religious scenes,--the worship of some deity, the carrying of the gods
in procession, the pouring of libations, the performance of rites, or
the representation of some religious symbols sculptured on the palace
wall or on the foundation stone of a sacred building, or cut out on the
seal cylinders, used as signatures[10] and talismans.

Large as the material is, it is far from being exhausted, and, indeed,
far from sufficient for illustrating all the details of the religious
life. This will not appear surprising, if it be remembered that of the
more than one hundred mounds that have been identified in the region of
the Tigris and Euphrates as containing remains of buried cities, only a
small proportion have been explored, and of these scarcely more than a
half dozen with an approach to completeness. The soil of Mesopotamia
unquestionably holds still greater treasures than those which it has
already yielded. The links uniting the most ancient period--at present,
_c._ 4000 B.C.--to the final destruction of the Babylonian empire by
Cyrus, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., are far from being
complete. For entire centuries we are wholly in the dark, and for others
only a few skeleton facts are known; and until these gaps shall have
been filled, our knowledge of the religion of the Babylonians and
Assyrians must necessarily remain incomplete. Not as incomplete, indeed,
as their history, for religious rites are not subject to many changes,
and the progress of religious ideas does not keep pace with the constant
changes in the political kaleidoscope of a country; but, it is evident
that no exhaustive treatment of the religion can be given until the
material shall have become adequate to the subject.

III.

Before proceeding to the division of the subject in hand, some
explanation is called for of the method by which the literary material
found beneath the soil has been made intelligible.

The characters on the clay tablets and cylinders, on the limestone
slabs, on statues, on altars, on stone monuments, are generally known as
cuneiform, because of their wedge-shaped appearance, though it may be
noted at once that in their oldest form the characters are linear rather
than wedge-shaped, presenting the more or less clearly defined outlines
of objects from which they appear to be derived. At the time when these
cuneiform inscriptions began to be found in Mesopotamia, the language
which these characters expressed was still totally unknown. Long
previous to the beginning of Botta's labors, inscriptions also showing
the cuneiform characters had been found at Persepolis on various
monuments of the ruins and tombs still existing at that place. The first
notice of these inscriptions was brought to Europe by a famous Italian
traveler, Pietro della Valle, in the beginning of the seventeenth
century. For a long time it was doubted whether the characters
represented anything more than mere ornamentation, and it was not until
the close of the 18th century, after more accurate copies of the
Persepolitan characters had been furnished through Carsten Niebuhr, that
scholars began to apply themselves to their decipherment. Through the
efforts chiefly of Gerhard Tychsen, professor at Rostock, Frederick
Muenter, a Danish scholar, and the distinguished Silvestre de Sacy of
Paris, the beginnings were made which finally led to the discovery of
the key to the mysterious writings, in 1802, by Georg Friedrich
Grotefend, a teacher at a public school in Goettingen. The observation
was made previous to the days of Grotefend that the inscriptions at
Persepolis invariably showed three styles of writing. While in all three
the characters were composed of wedges, yet the combination of wedges,
as well as their shape, differed sufficiently to make it evident, even
to the superficial observer, that there was as much difference between
them as, say, between the English and the German script. The conclusion
was drawn that the three styles represented three languages, and this
conclusion was strikingly confirmed when, upon the arrival of Botta's
finds in Europe, it was seen that one of the styles corresponded to the
inscriptions found at Khorsabad; and so in all subsequent discoveries in
Mesopotamia, this was found to be the case. One of the languages,
therefore, on the monuments of Persepolis was presumably identical with
the speech of ancient Mesopotamia. Grotefend's key to the reading of
that style of cuneiform writing which invariably occupied the first
place when the three styles were ranged one under the other, or occupied
the most prominent place when a different arrangement was adopted, met
with universal acceptance. He determined that the language of the style
which, for the sake of convenience, we may designate as No. 1, was Old
Persian,--the language spoken by the rulers, who, it was known through
tradition and notices in classical writers, had erected the series of
edifices at Persepolis, one of the capitols of the Old Persian or, as it
is also called, the Achaemenian empire. By the year 1840 the
decipherment of these Achaemenian inscriptions was practically complete,
the inscriptions had been read, the alphabet was definitely settled, and
the grammar, in all but minor points, known. It was possible, therefore,
in approaching the Mesopotamian style of cuneiform, which, as occupying
the third place, may be designated as No. 3, to use No. 1 as a guide,
since it was only legitimate to conclude that Nos. 2 and 3 represented
translations of No. 1 into two languages, which, by the side of Old
Persian, were spoken by the subjects of the Achaemenian kings. That one
of these languages should have been the current speech of Mesopotamia
was exactly what was to be expected, since Babylonia and Assyria formed
an essential part of the Persian empire.

The beginning was made with proper names, the sound of which would
necessarily be the same or very similar in both, or, for that matter, in
all the three languages of the Persepolitan inscriptions.[11] In this
way, by careful comparisons between the two styles, Nos. 1 and 3, it was
possible to pick out the signs in No. 3 that corresponded to those in
No. 1, and inasmuch as the same sign occurred in various names, it was,
furthermore, possible to assign, at least tentatively, certain values to
the signs in question. With the help of the signs thus determined, the
attempt was made to read other words in style No. 3, in which these
signs occurred, but it was some time before satisfactory results were
obtained. An important advance was made when it was once determined,
that the writing was a mixture of signs used both as words and as
syllables, and that the language on the Assyrian monuments belonged to
the group known as Semitic. The cognate languages--chiefly Hebrew and
Arabic--formed a help towards determining the meaning of the words read
and an explanation of the morphological features they presented. For all
that, the task was one of stupendous proportions, and many were the
obstacles that had to be overcome, before the principles underlying the
cuneiform writing were determined, and the decipherment placed on a firm
and scientific basis. This is not the place to enter upon a detailed
illustration of the method adopted by ingenious scholars,--notably
Edward Hincks, Isidor Loewenstern, Henry Rawlinson, Jules Oppert,--to
whose united efforts the solution of the great problems involved is
due;[12] and it would also take too much space, since in order to make
this method clear, it would be necessary to set forth the key discovered
by Grotefend for reading the Old Persian inscriptions. Suffice it to say
that the guarantee for the soundness of the conclusions reached by
scholars is furnished by the consideration, that it was from small and
most modest beginnings that the decipherment began. Step by step, the
problem was advanced by dint of a painstaking labor, the degree of which
cannot easily be exaggerated, until to-day the grammar of the
Babylonian-Assyrian language has been clearly set forth in all its
essential particulars: the substantive and verb formation is as
definitely known as that of any other Semitic language, the general
principles of the syntax, as well as many detailed points, have been
carefully investigated, and as for the reading of the cuneiform texts,
thanks to the various helps at our disposal, and the further elucidation
of the various principles that the Babylonians themselves adopted as a
guide, the instance is a rare one when scholars need to confess their
ignorance in this particular. At most there may be a halting between two
possibilities. The difficulties that still hinder the complete
understanding of passages in texts, arise in part from the mutilated
condition in which, unfortunately, so many of the tablets and cylinders
are found, and in part from a still imperfect knowledge of the
lexicography of the language. For many a word occurring only once or
twice, and for which neither text nor comparison with cognate languages
offers a satisfactory clue, ignorance must be confessed, or at best, a
conjecture hazarded, until its more frequent occurrence enables us to
settle the question at issue. Such settlements of disputed questions are
taking place all the time; and with the activity with which the study of
the language and antiquities of Mesopotamia is being pushed by scholars
in this country, in England, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway,
and Holland, and with the constant accession of new material through
excavations and publications, there is no reason to despair of clearing
up the obscurities, still remaining in the precious texts that a
fortunate chance has preserved for us.

IV.

A question that still remains to be considered as to the origin of the
cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia, may properly be introduced in
connection with this account of the excavations and decipherment, though
it is needless to enter into it in detail.

The "Persian" style of wedge-writing is a direct derivative of the
Babylonian, introduced in the times of the Achaemenians, and it is
nothing but a simplification in form and principle of the more
cumbersome and complicated Babylonian. Instead of a combination of as
many as ten and fifteen wedges to make one sign, we have in the Persian
never more than five, and frequently only three; and instead of writing
words by syllables, sounds alone were employed, and the syllabary of
several hundred signs reduced to forty-two, while the ideographic style
was practically abolished.

The second style of cuneiform, generally known as Median or Susian,[13]
is again only a slight modification of the "Persian." Besides these
three, there is a fourth language (spoken in the northwestern district
of Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and the Orontes), known as
"Mitanni," the exact status of which has not been clearly ascertained,
but which has been adapted to cuneiform characters. A fifth variety,
found on tablets from Cappadocia, represents again a modification of the
ordinary writing met with in Babylonia. In the inscriptions of Mitanni,
the writing is a mixture of ideographs and syllables, just as in
Mesopotamia, while the so-called "Cappadocian" tablets are written in a
corrupt Babylonian, corresponding in degree to the "corrupt" forms that
the signs take on. In Mesopotamia itself, quite a number of styles
exist, some due to local influences, others the result of changes that
took place in the course of time. In the oldest period known, that is
from 4000 to 3000 B.C., the writing is linear rather than wedge-shaped.
The linear writing is the modification that the original pictures
underwent in being adapted for engraving on stone; the wedges are the
modification natural to the use of clay, though when once the wedges
became the standard method, the greater frequency with which clay as
against stone came to be used, led to an imitation of the wedges by
those who cut out the characters on stone. In consequence, there
developed two varieties of wedge-writing: the one that may be termed
lapidary, used for the stone inscriptions, the official historical
records, and such legal documents as were prepared with especial care;
the other cursive, occurring only on legal and commercial clay tablets,
and becoming more frequent as we approach the latest period of
Babylonian writing, which extends to within a few decades of our era. In
Assyria, finally, a special variety of cuneiform developed that is
easily distinguished from the Babylonian by its greater neatness and the
more vertical position of the wedges.

The origin of all the styles and varieties of cuneiform writing is,
therefore, to be sought in Mesopotamia; and within Mesopotamia, in that
part of it where culture begins--the extreme south; but beyond saying
that the writing is a direct development from picture writing, there is
little of any definite character that can be maintained. We do not know
when the writing originated, we only know that in the oldest
inscriptions it is already fully developed.