Prophetical, Educational and Playing Cards

by Mrs. John King Van Rensselaer

It was to Nebo that the Assyrian kings ascribed their wisdom, for he was deemed to be the source of all knowledge, and the wonderful inventor of the art of writing that enabled the wise men who were his priests to preserve the records of the different reigns and the history of wars, the description of buildings and their donors, of deeds of valour and of charity, for the enlightenment of posterity.

The great temple built at Calah in the time of Ram-man-nerari III (812-783 B. C.) is inscribed with a dedicatory inscription placed by the king on the statue of Nebo. It closes with the sentence:

“Oh! posterity, trust in Nabu,
Trust in no other god.”

Nebo was also the patron of agriculture, who taught the husbandmen when to plant, the best time for irrigating, and a favourable time for the harvest. Being the messenger from heaven to earth, one of his symbols was the lightning. This emblem is preserved on the Japanese cards, although it is probably accidental. A hymn to Nebo attests his having lightning as an attribute, and the tablet upon which it was transcribed in cuneiform characters has been translated as follows:

“Lord of Borsippa, Son of E-Sagila! Oh, Lord, to thy power
There is no rival. Oh, Nebo, to thy Temple E-Zida there is no rival,
Or to thy home, Babylon. Thy weapon is the lightning,
From the mouth of which no breath does issue or blood flow.
Thy commands are as unchangeable as the Heavens,
Where thou art Supreme.”

The chief temple of Nebo was at Borsippa, on the opposite side of the Euphrates to Babylon; the town was sometimes called Babylon II. Nebo’s temple was styled E-Zida, the true house, and E-Sagila signified the lofty house, which was the temple of his father, Marduk. The connection with lightning is too marked to be overlooked when studying the derivation of Mercury’s attributes from those of Nebo.

The mighty king Ashur-banapal invokes Nebo on thousands of tablets that have been found in his great library. Nebo is called “the opener of the ears to understanding,” “he who gives the sceptre of sovereignty to kings, that they may rule over all lands,” “the upholder of the world,” “the general overlord and the seer.” All these attributes were combined with the scientific attainments of Nebo, and he was proclaimed as the inventor of language and the art of writing, together with being the great teacher and encourager of learning and scientific investigations. This is all emphasised by his numerous titles, such as “Speaker,” which is said to be derived from his name, signifying “to speak,” or “one who announces the fate of mankind,” which was another inheritance of Mercury’s when he was called the “Messenger of the Gods.” The attribute, then, in both cases, was the emblematic Sceptre of the ruler, the caduceus. The Sceptre was also named by the Assyrians “the Proclaimer,” and was variously represented, sometimes by the Staff with twisted serpents, although in earlier times it was generally pictured as stylus, which was closely copied in the representations of Thoth. The entwining serpents of the caduceus sacred to Mercury were directly inherited from votive emblems peculiar to the Babylonians, and they received force and significance after the rods of the Egyptian magi were turned into serpents and swallowed by the rod of Aaron.

When Nebo is called “Ilu-tashmit,” or god of Revelations, who teaches through his invention of writing and of speech, he is then regarded as a soothsayer or prophet. The Hebrew word for prophet is Nabi, and this leads to the interesting discussion that was started by Mr. Chatto in his “History of Playing Cards” (page 22), when he speculates on the name of Naibi, given to cards by the earliest Italian writers who mention them. As Naypes or Naipes is still the name printed on the wrappers and on the Four of Cups of Spanish cards, it evidently was connected with prophesy, and this card has peculiar values and significances among the gypsy fortune-tellers. Mr. Chatto states that in Hindustani the word Na-eeb or Naib signifies a viceroy or overlord, and quotes from “several Spanish writers” who have “decidedly asserted that the word Naipes, signifying cards, whatever it might originally have meant, was derived from the Arabic.” All the writers on playing cards quote from Corvelluzzo, who states: “In the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens and is with them called Naib.” The Arabian “divining arrows” are always made from a tree called Nabaa.

This little history, which is one of the earliest records of cards that were then no longer considered prophetic, has seemed to close all inquiry into the birth of games or their vehicle. No inquiry was therefore made into anything preceding this period. However, had cards been regarded as the survival of one of the most ancient of cults, connected with it by its traditions of prophesy or fortune-telling, the true story might have been unravelled centuries ago, for a study of the traditions, religions or superstitions of Africa and Asia would have revealed that Naibi (the name given at that time to cards) meant prophesy or revelation, and was inherited from the great “Writer on the Tablets of Fate,” Nebo the prophet, the Assyrian god. The prophets of the Bible were called Nabi, and it seems to be no accident that the mountain dedicated to Nebo and bearing his name should have been selected for the death place of the great prophet, Moses.

In the earliest histories of Assyrian mythology Nebo was not the influential personage that he became afterwards. But it was still early days when he was accorded the honour of having one of the planets named for him, which afterwards became identified with Mercury. When Nebo took his place among the mystic seven great gods, he found associated with him Marduk (or Jupiter), Nergal (or Mars), Ishtar (or Venus), Nineb (or Saturn), the Sun, represented in a chariot drawn by horses, as copied in the seventh card of the Atouts, and the Moon (Nan-nar), who was called the “Heifer of Anu,” and was the presiding genius. She received the name because the horns of the new moon resembled those of a cow. Her Assyrian temple was at Ur of the Chaldeans, and she was also worshipped in Egypt and is represented by the eighteenth Atout. Her horns are always typical of wisdom and prophesy, and, as such, are used on Michael Angelo’s famous statue of Moses.