The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

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

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Festivals.

We have seen[1532] that in the developed system of the Babylonian
religion, every day of the year had some significance, and that certain
days in each month--so, _e.g._, the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th--had
a special significance. It has also been pointed out that in different
religious centers, the days singled out for special significance
differed. In view of this, we must be prepared to find that the festival
days were not the same in all parts of Babylonia, nor necessarily
identical in the various periods of Babylonian and Assyrian history.

The common name for festival was _isinnu_. If we may judge from the use
of _assinnu_ as a general name for priest,[1533]--a servant of a
deity,--the underlying stem appears to signify simply 'to serve.'
Another name that reveals more as to the character of the Babylonian
festivals is _tashiltu_, which is used as a synonym for 'joy, delight.'
The festivals were indeed joyous occasions, marked by abundance of
offerings and merry-making, though, as we shall see, the somber note in
the rejoicings was not absent. The kings dedicate their temples and
palaces amidst manifestation of rejoicing. They pray that the gods may
occupy the dwellings prepared for them "in joy and jubilance,"[1534] and
the reference to festivals in the historical texts are all of such a
character as to make us feel that the Babylonian could appreciate the
Biblical injunction to "rejoice"[1535] in the divine presence, on the
occasions set apart as, in a peculiar sense, sacred.

Defective as our knowledge of the ancient Babylonian festivals still is,
the material at our disposal shows that at a comparatively early period,
there was one day in the year on which a festival was celebrated in
honor of a god or goddess that had a more important character than any
other. In the developed zodiacal system of Babylonia each month is
sacred to a deity.[1536] This system was perfected under the direct
influence of the theological schools of Babylonia, but so much of it, at
all events, rests upon ancient traditions which assigns a month to each
god; and since Marduk is not accorded the first place, but takes his
position in a group of solar deities, and since, moreover, these solar
deities have a position in the calendar which accords with their
specific solar character,[1537] we may proceed a step further and assume
with some confidence that the Babylonian scholars were guided--in large
part, at least--by ancient traditions in parceling out the months as
they did. Anu, Bel, and Ea, it is true, may have been assigned to the
first three months because of the preeminent position of these three
gods as a special triad; but even here the antiquity of the triad
furnishes a guarantee that the association of some month with some deity
belongs to a very ancient period of Babylonian history. This being the
case, it would be natural that the first day of the month sacred to a
deity would be regarded as his or her festival _par excellence_, and in
the case of the cult of a deity spreading beyond its original limits,
this festival would assume a more general character. On this day the
people would come from all parts of the district within which the cult
was carried on, to pay their homage to the god or goddess. In the days
of Gudea, we find Bau occupying this superior rank. Her festival had
assumed such importance as to serve for reckoning the commencement of
the year.

Hence it became known simply as the day of zag-muku,[1538] that is, the
New Year's Day.[1539] Whether this festival of Bau was recognized as the
New Year's Day throughout Babylonia, we do not know, but it must have
been observed in a considerably extensive district, or Gudea would have
made the attempt to give some festival connected with his favorite deity
Nin-girsu this character. As it is, he can only combine Bau's festival
with the cult of Nin-girsu, by making the New Year's Day the occasion of
a symbolical marriage between the god and the goddess. Nin-girsu is
represented as offering marriage gifts to Bau,[1540] on the Zagmuku. How
early Bau came to occupy so significant a rank has not been ascertained.
It is her quality as the 'great mother,' as the goddess of fertility and
abundance,[1541] rather than any political supremacy of the district in
which she was worshipped, that constitutes the chief factor in giving
Bau this preeminence, just as we have found in the case of the other
great goddesses of Babylonia,--Nina, Nana, Ishtar,--specific traits and
not political importance lending them the significance they acquired.

At one time we may well suppose that the festival of En-lil at Nippur,
which brought worshippers from all parts of Babylonia, was recognized as
a 'New Year's Day,' and we may some day find evidence that at a still
earlier period the first day of a month sacred to some other god,--Sin
or Shamash or Nana-Ishtar of Erech,--was recognized in some districts as
the starting-point for the year; but to an agricultural community, the
spring, when the seeds are sown, or the fall, after the harvest has been
gathered, are the two most natural periods for reckoning the beginning
of the year. Since we know that at the time when Babylon acquired her
supremacy the year began in the spring, the conservatism attaching to
religious observances makes it more than probable that Bau's festival
also fell in the spring.

After the ancient religious and political centers of the south yielded
their privileges to Babylon, it was natural for the priests of Marduk to
covet the honor of the New Year's festival for the new head of the
pantheon. Accordingly, we find the Zagmuku transformed into a Marduk
festival. That it did not originally belong to Marduk follows from the
fact that it was celebrated in the month of Nisan,--the first
month,--whereas the month sacred to Marduk was Arakh-shamna (or
Marcheshwan),--the eighth month. The deliberate transfer of the Zagmuku
to Marduk is also indicated by the fact that the festival of Nisan has
another name by which it is more commonly designated,--Akitu.[1542] The
name seems to have been originally a general term for a festival, and it
is natural that Marduk's festival should have come to be known as _the_
festival, just as among the Hebrews the annual fall pilgrimage to the
sanctuary at Jerusalem became known as _the_ Hag,--the pilgrimage _par
excellence_. To distinguish it from other festivals, Marduk's festival
is sometimes spoken of as the "great" or the "lofty" Akitu. The first
day was properly the Zagmuku, whereas the Akitu itself extended at
least over the first eleven days of Nisan[1543] and may indeed have
lasted the entire month; but Zagmuku was also used for the festival
period. The New Year's Day was marked by a solemn procession. The
union of Nabu and Marduk was symbolized by a visit which the former
paid to his father, the chief of the Babylonian pantheon. In his ship,
magnificently fitted out,[1544] Nabu was carried along the street known
as Ai-ibur-shabu,[1545] leading from Borsippa across the Euphrates to
Babylon.

The street was handsomely paved,[1546] and everything was done to
heighten the impressiveness of the ceremony. The visit of Nabu marked
the homage of the gods to Marduk; and Nabu set the example for other
gods, who were all supposed to assemble in E-Sagila during the great
festival. We have already pointed out that the cult of Nabu at Borsippa
at one time was regarded with greater sanctity than the Marduk worship
in Babylon. As a concession to the former supremacy of Nabu, the priests
of E-Sagila, carrying the statue of Marduk, escorted Nabu back to
Borsippa. The return visit raises the suspicion that it was originally
Marduk who was obliged to pay an annual homage to Nabu.

However this may be, the double ceremony became to such an extent the
noteworthy feature of the Zagmuku or Akitu that when the chroniclers
wish to indicate that, because of political disturbances, the festival
was not celebrated, they use the simple formula:

Nabu did not come to Babylon.
Bel [_i.e._, Marduk] did not march out.[1547]

The Akitu festival brought worshippers from all parts of Babylonia and
Assyria to the capitol. Kings and subjects alike paid their devotions to
Marduk. The former approached the divine presence directly, and, seizing
hold of the hands of Marduk's statue, were admitted into a kind of
covenant with the god. The ceremony became the formal rite of royal
installation in Babylonia. "To seize the hands of Bel" was equivalent to
legitimizing one's claim to the throne of Babylonia, and the chroniclers
of the south consistently decline to recognize Assyrian rulers as kings
of Babylonia until they have come to Babylon and "seized the hands of
Bel."[1548] That this ceremony was annually performed by the kings of
Babylonia after the union of the southern states is quite certain. It
marked a renewal of the pledge between the king and his god. The
Assyrian kings, however, contented themselves with a single visit. Of
Tiglathpileser II.[1549] and Sargon,[1550] we know that they came to
Babylonia for the purpose of performing the old ceremony; and others did
the same.

The eighth and eleventh days of the festival month were invested with
special sanctity. On these days all the gods were brought together in
the "chamber of fates" of Marduk's temple. In symbolical imitation of
the assembly of the gods in Ubshu-kenna,[1551] Marduk sits on his throne
and the gods are represented as standing in humble submission before
him, while he decrees the fates of mankind for the coming year. The
Zagmuku festival in its developed form has striking points of
resemblance to the Jewish New Year's Day. On this day, according to the
popular Jewish tradition, God sits in judgment with a book before Him in
which He inscribes the fate of mankind. Nine days of probation are
allowed, and on the tenth day--the Day of Atonement--the fates are
sealed. The Jewish New Year is known as Rosh-hash-shana,[1552] which is
an exact equivalent of the Babylonian _resh shatti_ (or zag-muku). A
difference, however, between the Babylonian and the Jewish festival is
that the latter is celebrated in the seventh month. It is not correct,
therefore, to assume that the Hebrews borrowed their Rosh-hash-shana
from the Babylonians. Even after they adopted the Babylonian
calendar,[1553] they continued to regard the seventh month--the harvest
month--as the beginning of the year. That among the Babylonians the
seventh month also had a sacred character may be concluded from the
meaning of the ideographs with which the name is written.[1554] The
question may, therefore, be raised whether at an earlier period and in
some religious center--Nippur, Sippar, or perhaps Ur--the seventh month
may not have been celebrated as the Zagmuku. At all events, we must for
the present assume that the Hebrews developed their New Year's Day,
which they may have originally received from Babylonia, independently of
Marduk's festival, though, since the Rosh-hash-shana does not come into
prominence among the Jews until the period of the so-called Babylonian
exile, the possibility of a direct Babylonian influence in the _later_
conceptions connected with the day cannot be denied.[1555]

Of the other festivals of the Babylonians and Assyrians but few details
are known. Several references have already been made to the Tammuz
festival.[1556] Originally a solar festival, celebrated in the fourth
month at the approach of the summer solstice, it became through the
association of ideas suggested by the mourning of Ishtar for her lost
consort Tammuz a kind of 'All Souls' Day,' on which the people
remembered their dead. Dirges were sung by the wailing women to the
accompaniment of musical instruments; offerings were made to the dead,
and it is plausible to assume that visits were paid to the graves. The
mourning was followed by a festival of rejoicing, symbolizing the return
of the solar-god. The Tammuz festival appears to have had a strong hold
upon the masses, by reason of the popularity of the Tammuz myth; nor was
it limited to the Babylonians. Among the Phoenicians the cult of Tammuz,
known by his title Adon (whence Adonis), was maintained to a late
period, and the Hebrews, likewise, as late as the days of Ezekiel,[1557]
commemorated with rites of mourning the lost Tammuz. The calendar of the
Jewish Church still marks the 17th day of Tammuz as a fast, and Houtsma
has shown[1558] that the association of the day with the capture of
Jerusalem by the Romans represents merely the attempt to give an ancient
festival a worthier interpretation. The day was originally connected
with the Tammuz cult. Eerdmans[1559] has recently endeavored to show
that the festival of Hosein, celebrated by the Shiitic sect of
Mohammedanism in memory of the tragic death of the son of Ali, is in
reality a survival of the Babylonian-Phoenician Tammuz festival. The
spread of the Tammuz-Adonis myth and cult to the Greeks[1560] is but
another indication of the popularity of this ancient Semitic festival.

The old Zagmuku festival in honor of Bau and the Tammuz festival,
celebrated in spring and summer, respectively, are also closely
associated with agricultural life. The spring as the seedtime is, as we
have seen, a natural period for beginning the calculation of the New
Year, while a first harvest of the wheat and barley is reaped in
Babylonia at the time of the summer solstice. We should expect,
therefore, to find a third festival in the fall, at the close of the
harvest and just before the winter rains set in. The seventh
month--Tishri--was a sacred month among the ancient Hebrews as well as
among the Babylonians, but up to the present no distinct traces of a
festival period in Tishri have been found in Babylonian texts. We must
content ourselves, therefore, with the conjecture, above thrown out,
that an Akitu was originally celebrated in this month at some ancient
religious center of the Euphrates Valley. Further publications of
cuneiform texts may throw light upon this point. The unpublished
material in European and American museums harbors many surprises.

In Ashurbanabal's annals[1561] there is an interesting reference to a
festival celebrated in honor of the goddess Gula, the goddess of
healing,[1562] on the twelfth day of Iyyar, the second month. The
festival is described ideographically as Si-gar,[1563] but from the fact
that the same ideographs are used elsewhere to describe a day sacred to
Sin and Shamash,[1564] it would appear that Si-gar is not a specific
appellation, but a general name again for festival. This month Iyyar and
this particular day, as a "favorable one," is chosen by Ashurbanabal for
his installation as king of Assyria. The same month is selected for a
formal pilgrimage to Babylonia for the purpose of restoring to E-Sagila
a statue of Marduk that a previous Assyrian king had taken from its
place,[1565] and Lehmann is probably correct in concluding[1566] that
this month of Iyyar was a particularly sacred one in Assyria, emphasized
with intent perhaps by the kings, as an offset against the sacredness of
Nisan in Babylonia.

Festivals in honor of Ninib were celebrated in Calah in the months of
Elul--the sixth month--and Shabat--the eleventh month.[1567] The sixth
month, it will be recalled, is sacred to Ishtar.[1568] Ninib being a
solar deity, his festival in Elul was evidently of a solar character.
From Ashurbanabal,[1569] again, we learn that the 25th day of Siwan--the
third month--was sacred to Belit of Babylon, and on that day a
procession took place in her honor. The Belit meant is Sarpanitum in her
original and independent role as a goddess of fertility. The statue of
the goddess, carried about, presumably in her ship, formed the chief
feature of the procession. Ashurbanabal chooses this "favorable" day as
the one on which to break up camp in the course of one of his military
expeditions. We would naturally expect to find a festival month devoted
to the god Ashur in Assyria. This month was Elul--the sixth month.[1570]
The choice of this month lends weight to the supposition that Ashur was
originally a solar deity.[1571] The honors once paid to Ninib in Calah
in this month could thus easily be transferred to the head of the
Assyrian pantheon. Although in the calendar the sixth month is sacred to
Ishtar, her festival was celebrated in the fifth month, known as
Ab.[1572] This lack of correspondence between the calendar and the
festivals is an indication of the greater antiquity of the latter.

In the great temple to Shamash at Sippar, there appear to have been
several days that were marked by religious observances.
Nabubaliddin[1573] (ninth century) emphasizes that he presented rich
garments to the temple for use on six days of the year,--the 7th day of
Nisan (first month), 10th of Iyyar (second month), 3rd of Elul (sixth
month), 7th of Tishri (seventh month), 15th of Arakh-shamna (or
Marcheshwan, eighth month), and the 15th of Adar (twelfth month). These
garments are given to Shamash, to his consort Malkatu, and to
Bunene.[1574] Since from a passage in a Babylonian chronicle[1575] it
appears that it was customary for Shamash on his festival to leave his
temple, we may conclude that the garments were put on Shamash and his
associates, for the solemn procession on the six days in question.

The festivals in Nisan and Elul are distinctly of a solar character. The
choice of two other months immediately following Nisan and Elul cannot
be accidental. The interval of thirty-three days between the Nisan and
Iyyar festivals and thirty-four days between the Elul and Tishri
festivals may represent a sacred period.[1576] Tishri, moreover, as has
been pointed out, is a sacred month in a peculiar sense. Marcheshwan, it
may be well to bear in mind, is sacred to Marduk,--a solar deity,--while
the 15th of Adar, curiously enough, is an old solar festival that,
modified and connected with historical reminiscences, became popular
among the Jews of Persia and Babylonia during the Persian supremacy in
the Semitic Orient, and survives to this day under the name of the Purim
festival.[1577] At all events, the six days may be safely regarded as
connected in some way, direct or indirect, with solar worships, and it
is natural to find that in so prominent a center of sun-worship as
Sippar, _all_ the solar festivals were properly and solemnly observed.

It is disappointing that up to the present so little has been
ascertained of the details of the moon-cult--the great rival to Shamash
worship--in the old cities of Ur and Harran. In the Babylonian calendar,
the third month--Siwan--is sacred to Sin, but since, as we have found,
the festivals in honor of the gods do not always correspond to the
assignment of the months, we cannot be certain that in this month a
special festival in honor of Sin was observed. Lastly, besides the
regular and fixed festivals, the kings, and more especially the Assyrian
rulers, did not hesitate to institute special festivals in memory of
some event that contributed to their glory. Agumkakrimi[1578] instituted
a festival upon restoring the statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum to
Babylon, and Sargon does the same upon restoring the palace at
Calah.[1579] Dedications of temples and palaces were in general marked
by festivities, and so when the kings return in triumph from their wars,
laden with spoils and captives, popular rejoicings were instituted. But
such festivals were merely sporadic, and, while marked by religious
ceremonies, were chiefly occasions of general jollification combined
with homage to the rulers. Such a festival was not called an _isinnu_,
but a _nigatu_,[1580]--a 'merrymaking.'[1581] More directly connected
with the cult was a ceremony observed in Assyria upon the installation
of an official, known as the _limmu_, who during his year of service
enjoyed the privilege of having official documents dated with his
name.[1582] The ceremony involved a running[1583] of some kind, and
reminds one of the running between the two hills Marwa and Safa in Mekka
that forms part of the religious observances in connection with a visit
to the Kaaba.[1584] The name of the ceremony appears to have been puru
(or buru). To connect this word with the Jewish festival of Purim, as
Sayce proposes,[1585] is wholly unwarranted. The character of the Puru
ceremony points to its being an ancient custom, the real significance of
which in the course of time became lost. Fast days instituted for
periods of distress might also be added to the cult, but these, too,
like the special festivals, were not permanent institutions. For such
occasions many of the penitential psalms which were discussed in a
previous chapter[1586] were composed. To conciliate angered gods whose
temples had been devastated in days of turmoil, atonement and
purification rites were observed. So Ashurbanabal[1587] upon his
conquest of Babylonian cities tells us that he pacified the gods of the
south with penitential psalms and purified the temples by magic rites;
and Nabubaliddin,[1588] incidental to his restoration of the Shamash
cult at Sippar, refers to an interesting ceremony of purification, which
consisted in his taking water and washing his mouth according to the
purification ritual of Ea and Marduk,[1589] preliminary to bringing
sacrifices to Shamash in his shrine. Sippar had been overrun by
nomads,[1590] the temple had been defiled, and before sacrifices could
again be offered, the sacred edifice and sacred quarter had to be
purified. The king's action was a symbol of this purification. Many such
customs must have been in vogue in Babylonia and Assyria. Some--and
these were the oldest--were of popular origin. On the seal cylinders
there is frequently represented a pole or a conventionalized form of a
tree, generally in connection with a design illustrating the worship of
a deity.[1591] This symbol is clearly a survival of some tree
worship[1592] that was once popular. The comparison with the _ashera_ or
pole worship among Phoenicians and Hebrews[1593] is fully justified, and
is a proof of the great antiquity of the symbol, which, without becoming
a formal part of the later cult, retained in some measure a hold upon
the popular mind. Other symbols and customs were introduced under the
influence of the doctrines unfolded in the schools of thought in the
various intellectual centers, and as an expression of the teachings of
the priests. The cult of Babylonia, even more so than the literature, is
a compound of these two factors,--popular beliefs and the theological
elaboration and systematization of these beliefs. In the course of this
elaboration, many new ideas and new rites were introduced. The official
cult passed in some important particulars far beyond popular practices.

FOOTNOTES:

[1311] _Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europaer_, pp. 126-141.

[1312] Gen. xi. 4.

[1313] _E.g._, Tiglathpileser I., col. vii. ll. 102, 103; Meissner,
_Altbabylonisches Privatrecht_, no. 46; Nebopolassar Cylinder
(Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, i. 1, pls. 32, 33), col. i.
l. 38. Or 'as high as mountains'; _e.g._, Nebuchadnezzar II., IR. 58,
col. viii. ll. 61-63; and so frequently the Neo-Babylonian kings.

[1314] _Kosmologie_, pp. 185-195.

[1315] Or _Kharsag-gal-kurkura_; see p. 558.

[1316] See p. 458.

[1317] _Ekurrati_; Delitzsch, _Assyr. Handwoerterbuch_, p. 718b.

[1318] IR. 35, no. 3, 22.

[1319] See below.

[1320] Hebrew _Bamoth_. Through the opposition of the Hebrew prophets,
the term acquires distasteful associations that were originally foreign
to it.

[1321] See Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 124 _seq._

[1322] IIR. 50, obverse.

[1323] Perhaps, however, these several names all designate a single
zikkurat.

[1324] Peters' _Nippur_, i. 246; ii. 120.

[1325] For the meaning of this phrase, see Winckler's _Altorientalische
Forschungen_, iii. 208-222, and Jensen's _Kosmologie_, p. 167.

[1326] From Heuzey's note in De Sarzec, _Decourveries en Chaldee_, p.
31, it would appear that at Lagash there was a zikkurat of modest
proportions, but Dr. Peters informs me that from his observations at
Telloh, he questions whether the building in question represents a
zikkurat at all, though, as we know from other sources, a zikkurat
existed there in the days of Gudea.

[1327] _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, xviii.

[1328] Of Sargon's zikkurat at Khorsabad, also, only four stories have
been found. Perrot and Chiplez (_History of Art in Chaldaea and
Assyria_, i. 388) suppose that there may have been seven.

[1329] _E.g._ Perrot and Chiplez, _ib._ p. 128. Hommel, _Geschichte
Babyloniens und Assyriens_, p. 19.

[1330] Peters (_Nippur_, i. 214) found many yellow-colored bricks at
Borsippa.

[1331] Book I, Sec. 98.

[1332] See a paper by E. W. Hopkins on _The Holy Numbers of the
Rig-Veda_ (Oriental Studies, Boston, 1894, pp. 141-147).

[1333] Written ideographically, as the names of the zikkurats and of all
sacred edifices invariably are.

[1334] See above, p. 459.