On his portrait-stela king Shamsi-Rammanu the younger (B.C. 825-812), the grandson of Asurnasirpal, wears the cross only, hanging from his neck-chain and in the text invokes, according to Dr. von Luschan, only Nindar, who has been proven to be Shamash under another name or title. Nindar is identified in Professor Jastrow's hand-book with Ninsia, “a god of considerable importance, imported perhaps from some ancient site of Lagash” ... who “disappeared from the later pantheon.” ... (op. cit. pp. 90 and 91). It is interesting to find that the king, who like his ancient predecessor the Patesi or religious chief Shamsi-Ramman (B.C. 1850) bears the name of the god Shamash, wears as his only ornament [pg 357] the cross which so obviously expresses the royal title, “lord of the four regions.”
From Professor Jastrow (p. 107), we learn that it was customary for the early rulers of Babylon, at the beginning or the close of their dedicatory inscriptions, to parade a list of the divinities associated with the districts that they controlled. Gudea, for instance, enumerates eighteen deities, and these may be taken as indicative of the territorial extent of Gudea's jurisdiction. This custom affords an interesting explanation of the sculptured emblems of divinities and the invocations of their names on the above stelæ and shows that Asurnasirpal and his grandson ruled four districts from a fifth situated in the centre, whose emblem was the mound with four horns or the cross, both emblems of the royal “lord of the four regions.”
Bearing this custom in mind, we next note that, on his stela at the British Museum, Shalmaneser II, the son of Asurnasirpal, invokes not only three different divinities, but also one more than his father or son. His invocation is to Ashur, Shamash and Ishtar and to the Babylonian triad Anu, Bel and Ea. The emblems of the first three divinities are the same as on the stelæ of his father and son, i. e. the winged disk, the mound-shaped, horned cap and the eight-rayed star. To Anu, Bel and Ea pertain the emblematic lightning bolt and moon which are clearly visible; and a third, almost effaced, group which, upon examination by Mr. Pinches, revealed the presence of six stars or circles. Dr. von Luschan infers that originally the group consisted of seven circles and was the same as that sculptured on the stelæ of Sargon (at Berlin), the bas-reliefs at Nahr-el-Kelb and at Bavian. On each of these the circles are grouped in two horizontal rows of three circles while the seventh circle stands to the right, in front and midway between both rows.
If we assume that the lightning bolt pertained to Anu, the upper, and the moon, the emblem of Night, to Ea, the lower firmament, we find that the seven-fold group falls to the lot of Bel and seems to coincide exactly with the recorded fact that the famous zikkurat of Bel at Babylon, for instance, consisted of seven stories; and that it was known as “the house of the seven divisions [regions] of the world,” and that Babylon actually was at one time a seven-fold state, with seven “mountains”=gods=earthly rulers.
Final, positive proof that Assyria, under Sargon II and Esarhaddon, like ancient Babylon, was organized into seven “districts,” seems to be furnished by the seven symbols carved on their stelæ, accompanied by the group of seven circles which obviously expresses the same as the cuneiform character in the inscribed invocation, namely, the word “seven-fold-one” or “seven in one,”[102] which was obviously an appropriate designation for the empire as a whole, consisting as it did of seven tribal districts, associated with the seven directions in space to each of which was assigned a god, a mountain house, a color, an animal, a celestial body, a day and a symbol.
An extremely suggestive juxtaposition of the numeral seven and a circle containing a group of five circles, resembling a flower with four petals, occurs on the Bavian tablet already cited, on which are also carved two emblems: the moon and winged disk; one compact detached group consisting of four altars (three surrounded by horns and one surmounted by a ram's head) and a second detached group consisting of a base into which four staffs or sceptres are inserted. These recur on the fine Sendschirli stela of Esarhaddon about which a few words remain to be said. It exhibits the numeral seven=the “seven in one” sign before the king, accompanied by four divinities mounted on animals, the first two being the god riding a double monster, and the seated goddess, both wearing the cone on the high royal cap. Carved close to the king's hand is the group of four staffs or sceptres, inserted in a horizontal base, which appear to be the emblems of his lordship over the four regions. Three of these are the same as on the Bavian relief: the first surmounted by a cone-shaped object[103] beneath which are two hanging ends of ribbons; the second consisting of a plain single staff, split so as to form two; the third surmounted by two animal heads, each with a single horn. The fourth [pg 359] sceptre on Esarhaddon's stela is like that represented as inserted into one of the altars on the Bavian stela, and terminates in a recurved ram's head. The fourth in the Bavian group of sceptres somewhat resembles the trident tripartite emblem which occurs on the Sargon stela and the Esarhaddon stela of Nahr-el-Kelb (figured by Dr. Luschan, op. cit. p. 20).
A fresh examination of the bas-relief of Maltaya, described by Layard and already alluded to, reveals a suggestive differentiation in the representations of the seven divinities in a row, at each end of which, facing the procession, stands a king. Considering that in Assyria there were governors, the limmi, who held offices of limited duration and gave their names to their years of office, the query naturally suggests itself whether the two “kings” may not also have ruled for fixed periods of seven years, each one of which bore the name of one of the seven divisions.
It being an accepted fact that the institution of the Sabbath was of Chaldean and Babylonian origin, it is permissible to assign to the same source the institution of the seven-year period described in Leviticus xxv: “But the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land.... And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty-nine years.... And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year”....
Addressing to Assyriologists an appeal for fuller knowledge concerning the ancient calendar periods of Babylonia-Assyria, I now revert to the Maltaya bas-relief and point out that, of the seven divinities, the two principal ones, a god and goddess, wear a form of cap encircled by horns and surmounted by a cone. One of these two deities is distinguished from all others by his larger size and by the fact that he stands on a double animal and heads the procession holding a recurved sceptre in his hand. Behind him follows the goddess Ishtar, holding a large ring in her right hand. Her throne, as on the Sendschirli stela, exhibits a ring surmounting its high back, to the side of which a group of four circles or disks are attached. As several centres of Ishtar cult, already mentioned, have been designated as fourfold cities it seems possible that the four disks alluded to this fact, while the ring crowning the top of the throne, and that she holds, constitutes one of her emblems.... However this may be, both monuments exhibit kings associated with the number seven and Ishtar, the seated goddess, associated [pg 360] with the number four; facts which claim further investigation and may lead to interesting verifications of the numerical systems of the Assyrians. It should be mentioned here that the heads of the five remaining divinities, on the Maltaya bas-relief, are surmounted by a wheel with spokes and that one holds a recurved sceptre, like that of the first, another bears the lightning bolt of Ramman, while three carry the same peculiar double symbol also held by Shamash on the Sippara tablet. It consists of a large ring like that held by Ishtar and a short staff possibly a fire-stick. In each case the fingers of the right hand of the deity clasp the middle of the staff and the ring and the appearance of the combined rod and circle closely resembles the upper portion of the Egyptian crux ansata. Professor von Luschan has, indeed, expressed the opinion that the ring or circle (of Ishtar) the rod and circle (of Shamash) and the crux ansata must have analogous meanings, a view I fully share and shall further support in dealing with the Egyptian symbol.
The following data will be found to substantiate further the evidence produced concerning the seven-fold organization of Babylonia-Assyria. One of the finest bas-relief tablets at the British Museum excavated by Layard from the ruins of Asurnasirpal's palace at Nimroud represents in its centre the sacred conventionalized ashera=tree, above which is the winged circle, from the centre of which issues the half figure of the god Assur (cf. fig. [71], 1). To its right stand two winged figures wearing the conical crown with four horns, and necklaces from which hang its reproduction in miniature, also the cross, the symbol of Ishtar and the moon. To the left of the tree stand two personages, wearing the high cap with a flat top, central cone and hanging ends, such as are frequently represented as worn by the kings. The natural inference would be that the winged figures wearing the cap with horns represent high-priests and that a double hierarchy corresponding to the dual monarchy probably existed at one time, the result being “four lords,” two celestial and two terrestrial, corresponding to the “four regions,” two of which pertained to the Above or the heaven and two to the Below or earth. A curious indication that at one time there were four separate rulers of the four regions is furnished by the cap with four horns and the altar whose four corners terminated in horns, when they are connected with the passage in Revelations xvii, which refers to Babylonian symbolism and [pg 361] states: “And the ten horns that thou sawest are ten kings.” Professor Jastrow states that “similar horns existed on the Hebrew and Phœnician altars,” and that “if we may believe Herodotus, the great altars at Babylon were made of gold” (p. 652).