Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria

by Zénaïde A. Ragozin

"I will tell thee, Izdubar, how I was saved from the flood," begins Hâsisadra, in answer to his descendant's question, "also will I impart to thee the decree of the great gods. Thou knowest Surippak, the city that is by the Euphrates. This city was already very ancient when the gods were moved in their hearts to ordain a great deluge, all of them, their father Anu, their councillor the warlike Bel, their throne-bearer Ninîb, their leader Ennugi. The lord of inscrutable wisdom, the god Êa, was with them and imparted to me their decision. 'Listen,' he said, 'and attend! Man of Surippak, son of Ubaratutu,[BF] go out of thy house and build thee a ship. They are willed to destroy the seed of life; but thou preserve it and bring into the ship seed of every kind of life. The ship which thou shalt build let it be ... in length, and ... in width and height,[B] and cover it also with a deck.' When I heard this I spoke to Êa, my lord: 'If I construct the ship as thou biddest me, O lord, the people and their elders will laugh at me.' But Êa opened his lips once more and spoke to me his servant: 'Men have rebelled against me, and I will do judgment on them, high and low. But do thou close the door of the ship when the time comes and I tell thee of it. Then enter the ship and bring into it thy store of grain, all thy property, thy family, thy men-servants and thy women-servants, and also thy next of kin. The cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the fields, I shall send to thee myself, that they may be safe behind thy door.'—Then I built the ship and provided it with stores of food and drink; I divided the interior into ... compartments.[BG] I saw to the chinks and filled them; I poured bitumen over its outer side and over its inner side. All that I possessed I brought together and stowed it in the ship; all that I had of gold, of silver, of the seed of life of every kind; all my men-servants and my women-servants, the cattle of the field, the wild beasts of the field, and also my nearest friends. Then, when Shamash brought round the appointed time, a voice spoke to me:—'This evening the heavens will rain destruction, wherefore go thou into the ship and close thy door. The appointed time has come,' spoke the voice, 'this evening the heavens will rain destruction.' And greatly I feared the sunset of that day, the day on which I was to begin my voyage. I was sore afraid. Yet I entered into the ship and closed the door behind me, to shut off the ship. And I confided the great ship to the pilot, with all its freight.—Then a great black cloud rises from the depths of the heavens, and Ramân thunders in the midst of it, while Nebo and Nergal encounter each other, and the Throne-bearers walk over mountains and vales. The mighty god of Pestilence lets loose the whirlwinds; Ninîb unceasingly makes the canals to overflow; the Anunnaki bring up floods from the depths of the earth, which quakes at their violence. Ramân's mass of waters rises even to heaven; light is changed into darkness. Confusion and devastation fills the earth. Brother looks not after brother, men have no thought for one another. In the heavens the very gods are afraid; they seek a refuge in the highest heaven of Anu; as a dog in its lair, the gods crouch by the railing of heaven. Ishtar cries aloud with sorrow: 'Behold, all is turned into mud, as I foretold to the gods! I prophesied this disaster and the extermination of my creatures—men. But I do not give them birth that they may fill the sea like the brood of fishes.' Then the gods wept with her and sat lamenting on one spot. For six days and seven nights wind, flood and storm reigned supreme; but at dawn of the seventh day the tempest decreased, the waters, which had battled like a mighty host, abated their violence; the sea retired, and storm and flood both ceased. I steered about the sea, lamenting that the homesteads of men were changed into mud. The corpses drifted about like logs. I opened a port-hole, and when the light of day fell on my face I shivered and sat down and wept. I steered over the countries which now were a terrible sea. Then a piece of land rose out of the waters. The ship steered towards the land Nizir. The mountain of the land Nizir held fast the ship and did not let it go. Thus it was on the first and on the second day, on the third and the fourth, also on the fifth and sixth days. At dawn of the seventh day I took out a dove and sent it forth. The dove went forth to and fro, but found no resting-place and returned. Then I took out a swallow and sent it forth. The swallow went forth, to and fro, but found no resting-place and returned. Then I took out a raven and sent it forth. The raven went forth, and when it saw that the waters had abated, it came near again, cautiously wading through the water, but did not return. Then I let out all the animals, to the four winds of heaven, and offered a sacrifice. I raised an altar on the highest summit of the mountain, placed the sacred vessels on it seven by seven, and spread reeds, cedar-wood and sweet herbs under them. The gods smelled a savor; the gods smelled a sweet savor; like flies they swarmed around the sacrifice. And when the goddess Ishtar came, she spread out on high the great bows of her father Anu:—'By the necklace of my neck,' she said, 'I shall be mindful of these days, never shall I lose the memory of them! May all the gods come to the altar; Bel alone shall not come, for that he controlled not his wrath, and brought on the deluge, and gave up my men to destruction.' When after that Bel came nigh and saw the ship, he was perplexed, and his heart was filled with anger against the gods and against the spirits of Heaven:—'Not a soul shall escape,' he cried; 'not one man shall come alive out of destruction!' Then the god Ninîb opened his lips and spoke, addressing the warlike Bel:—'Who but Êa can have done this? Êa knew, and informed him of everything.' Then Êa opened his lips and spoke, addressing the warlike Bel:—'Thou art the mighty leader of the gods: but why hast thou acted thus recklessly and brought on this deluge? Let the sinner suffer for his sin and the evil-doer for his misdeeds; but to this man be gracious that he may not be destroyed, and incline towards him favorably, that he may be preserved. And instead of bringing on another deluge, let lions and hyenas come and take from the number of men; send a famine to unpeople the earth; let the god of Pestilence lay men low. I have not imparted to Hâsisadra the decision of the great gods: I only sent him a dream, and he understood the warning.'—Then Bel came to his senses. He entered the ship, took hold of my hand and lifted me up; he also lifted up my wife and laid her hand in mine. Then he turned towards us, stood between us and spoke this blessing on us:—'Until now Hâsisadra was only human: but now he shall be raised to be equal with the gods, together with his wife. He shall dwell in the distant land, by the mouth of the rivers.' Then they took me and translated me to the distant land by the mouth of the rivers."

18. Such is the great Chaldean Epic, the discovery of which produced so profound a sensation, not to say excitement, not only among special scholars, but in the reading world generally, while the full importance of it in the history of human culture cannot yet be realized at this early stage of our historical studies, but will appear more and more clearly as their course takes us to later nations and other lands. We will here linger over the poem only long enough to justify and explain the name given to it in the title of this chapter, of "Mythical Epos."

19. Were the hero Izdubar a purely human person, it would be a matter of much wonder how the small nucleus of historical fact which the story of his adventures contains should have become entwined and overgrown with such a disproportionate quantity of the most extravagant fiction, oftentimes downright monstrous in its fancifulness. But the story is one far older than that of any mere human hero and relates to one far mightier: it is the story of the Sun in his progress through the year, retracing his career of increasing splendor as the spring advances to midsummer, the height of his power when he reaches the month represented in the Zodiac by the sign of the Lion, then the decay of his strength as he pales and sickens in the autumn, and at last his restoration to youth and vigor after he has passed the Waters of Death—Winter, the death of the year, the season of nature's deathlike torpor, out of which the sun has not strength sufficient to rouse her, until spring comes back and the circle begins again. An examination of the Accadian calendar, adopted by the more scientifically inclined Semites, shows that the names of most of the months and the signs by which they were represented on the maps of the corresponding constellations of the Zodiac, directly answer to various incidents of the poem, following, too, in the same order, which is that of the respective seasons of the year,—which, be it noted, began with the spring, in the middle of our month of March. If we compare the calendar months with the tablets of the poem we will find that they, in almost every case, correspond. As the first tablet is unfortunately still missing, we cannot judge how far it may have answered to the name of the first month—"the Altar of Bel." But the second month, called that of "the Propitious Bull," or the "Friendly Bull," very well corresponds to the second tablet which ends with Izdubar's sending for the seer Êabâni, half bull half man, while the name and sign of the third, "the Twins," clearly alludes to the bond of friendship concluded between the two heroes, who became inseparable. Their victory over the tyrant Khumbaba in the fifth tablet is symbolized by the sign representing the victory of the Lion over the Bull, often abbreviated into that of the Lion alone, a sign plainly enough interpreted by the name "Month of Fire," so appropriate to the hottest and driest of seasons even in moderate climes—July-August. What makes this interpretation absolutely conclusive is the fact that in the symbolical imagery of all the poetry of the East, the Lion represents the principle of heat, of fire. The seventh tablet, containing the wooing of the hero by the goddess Ishtar, is too plainly reproduced in the name of the corresponding month, "the Month of the Message of Ishtar," to need explanation. The sign, too, is that of a woman with a bow, the usual mode of representing the goddess. The sign of the eighth month, "the Scorpion," commemorates the gigantic Warders of the Sun, half men half scorpions, whom Izdubar encounters when he starts on his journey to the land of the dead. The ninth month is called "the Cloudy," surely a meet name for November-December, and in no way inconsistent with the contents of the ninth tablet, which shows Izdubar navigating the "Waters of Death." In the tenth month (December-January), the sun reaches his very lowest point, that of the winter solstice with its shortest days, whence the name "Month of the Cavern of the Setting Sun," and the tenth tablet tells how Izdubar reached the goal of his journey, the land of the illustrious dead, to which his great ancestor has been translated. To the eleventh month, "the Month of the Curse of Rain," with the sign of the Waterman,—(January-February being in the low lands of the two rivers the time of the most violent and continuous rains)—answers the eleventh tablet with the account of the Deluge. The "Fishes of Êa" accompany the sun in the twelfth month, the last of the dark season, as he emerges, purified and invigorated, to resume his triumphant career with the beginning of the new year. From the context and sequence of the myth, it would appear that the name of the first month, "the Altar of Bel," must have had something to do with the reconciliation of the god after the Deluge, from which humanity may be said to take a new beginning, which would make the name a most auspicious one for the new year, while the sign—a Ram—might allude to the animal sacrificed on the altar. Each month being placed under the protection of some particular deity it is worthy of notice that Anu and Bel are the patrons of the first month, Êa of the second, (in connection with the wisdom of Êabâni, who is called "the creature of Êa,") while Ishtar presides over the sixth, ("Message of Ishtar,") and Ramân, the god of the atmosphere, of rain and storm and thunder, over the eleventh, ("the Curse of Rain").

20. The solar nature of the adventurous career attributed to the favorite national hero of Chaldea, now universally admitted, was first pointed out by Sir Henry Rawlinson: but it was François Lenormant who followed it out and established it in its details. His conclusions on the subject are given in such clear and forcible language, that it is a pleasure to reproduce them:[BH]—"1st. The Chaldeans and Babylonians had, concerning the twelve months of the year, myths for the most part belonging to the series of traditions anterior to the separation of the great races of mankind which descended from the highlands of Pamir, since we find analogous myths among the pure Semites and other nations. As early as the time when they dwelt on the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, they connected these myths with the different epochs of the year, not with a view to agricultural occupations, but in connection with the great periodical phenomena of the atmosphere and the different stations in the sun's yearly course, as they occurred in that particular region; hence the signs characterizing the twelve solar mansions in the Zodiac and the symbolical names given to the months by the Accads.—2d. It was those myths, strung together in their successive order, which served as foundation to the epic story of Izdubar, the fiery and solar hero, and in the poem which was copied at Erech by Asshurbanipal's order each of them formed the subject of one of the twelve tablets, making up the number of twelve separate books or chapters answering the twelve months of the year."—Even though the evidence is apparently so complete as not to need further confirmation, it is curious to note that the signs which compose the name of Izdubar convey the meaning "mass of fire," while Hâsisadra's Accadian name means "the sun of life," "the morning sun," and his father's name, Ubaratutu, is translated "the glow of sunset."

21. George Smith indignantly repudiated this mythic interpretation of the hero's exploits, and claimed for them a strictly historical character. But we have seen that the two are by no means incompatible, since history, when handed down through centuries by mere oral tradition, is liable to many vicissitudes in the telling and retelling, and people are sure to arrange their favorite and most familiar stories, the mythical signification of which has long been forgotten, around the central figure of the heroes they love best, around the most important but vaguely recollected events in their national life. Hence it came to pass that identically the same stories, with but slight local variations, were told of heroes in different nations and countries; for the stock of original, or, as one may say, primary myths is comparatively small and the same for all, dating back to a time when mankind was not yet divided. In the course of ages and migrations it has been altered, like a rich hereditary robe, to fit and adorn many and very different persons.

22. One of the prettiest, oldest, and most universally favorite solar myths is the one which represents the Sun as a divine being, youthful and of surpassing beauty, beloved by or wedded to an equally powerful goddess, but meeting a premature death by accident and descending into the dark land of shades, from which, however, after a time he returns as glorious and beautiful as before. In this poetical fancy, the land of shades symbolizes the numb and lifeless period of winter as aptly as the Waters of Death in the Izdubar Epic, while the seeming death of the young god answers to the sickening of the hero at that declining season of the year when the sun's rays lose their vigor and are overcome by the powers of darkness and cold. The goddess who loves the fair young god, and mourns him with passionate grief, until her wailings and prayers recall him from his deathlike trance, is Nature herself, loving, bountiful, ever productive, but pale, and bare, and powerless in her widowhood, while the sun-god, the spring of life whence she draws her very being, lies captive in the bonds of their common foe, grim Winter, which is but a form of Death itself. Their reunion at the god's resurrection in spring is the great wedding-feast, the revel and holiday-time of the world.

23. This simple and perfectly transparent myth has been worked out more or less elaborately in all the countries of the East, and has found its way in some form or other into all the nations of the three great white races—of Japhet, Shem, and Ham—yet here again the precedence in point of time seems due to the older and more primitive—the Yellow or Turanian race; for the most ancient, and probably original form of it is the one which was inherited by the Semitic settlers of Chaldea from their Shumiro-Accadian predecessors, as shown by the Accadian name of the young solar god, Dumuzi, "the unfortunate husband of the goddess Ishtar," as he is called in the sixth tablet of the Izdubar epic. The name has been translated "Divine Offspring," but in later times lost all signification, being corrupted into Tammuz. In some Accadian hymns he is invoked as "the Shepherd, the lord Dumuzi, the lover of Ishtar." Well could a nomadic and pastoral people poetically liken the sun to a shepherd, whose flocks were the fleecy clouds as they speed across the vast plains of heaven or the bright, innumerable stars. This comparison, as pretty as it is natural, kept its hold in all ages and nations on the popular fancy, which played on it an infinite variety of ingenious changes, but it is only cuneiform science which has proved that it could be traced back to the very earliest race whose culture has left its mark on the world.

24. Of Dumuzi's tragic death no text deciphered until now unfortunately gives the details. Only the remarkable fragment about the black pine of Eridhu, "marking the centre of the earth, in the dark forest, into the heart whereof man hath not penetrated," (see p. [287]) tantalizingly ends with these suggestive words: "Within it Dumuzi...." Scholars have found reason for conjecturing that this fragment was the beginning of a mythical narrative recounting Dumuzi's death, which must have been represented as taking place in that dark and sacred forest of Eridhu,—probably through the agency of a wild beast sent against him by a jealous and hostile power, just as the bull created by Anu was sent against Izdubar.[BI] One thing, however, is sure, that both in the earlier (Turanian) and in the later (Semitic) calendary of Chaldea, there was a month set apart in honor and for the festival of Dumuzi. It was the month of June-July, beginning at the summer solstice, when the days begin to shorten, and the sun to decline towards its lower winter point—a retrograde movement, ingeniously indicated by the Zodiacal sign of that month, the Cancer or Crab. The festival of Dumuzi lasted during the six first days of the month, with processions and ceremonies bearing two distinct characters. The worshippers at first assembled in the guise of mourners, with lamentations and loud wailings, tearing of clothes and of hair, as though celebrating the young god's funeral, while on the sixth day his resurrection and reunion to Ishtar was commemorated with the noisiest, most extravagant demonstrations of rejoicing. This custom is alluded to in Izdubar's scornful answer to Ishtar's love-message, when he says to her: "Thou lovedst Dumuzi, for whom they mourn year after year," and was witnessed by the Jews when they were carried prisoners to Babylon as late as 600 b.c., as expressly mentioned by Ezekiel, the prophet of the Captivity:—"Then he brought me to the door of the Lord's house which was towards the north; and behold, there sat the women weeping for Tammuz." (Ezekiel, iii. 14.)

25. A favorite version of Dumuzi's resurrection was that which told how Ishtar herself followed him into the Lower World, to claim him from their common foe, and thus yielded herself for a time into the power of her rival, the dread Queen of the Dead, who held her captive, and would not have released her but for the direct interference of the great gods. This was a rich mine of epic material, from which songs and stories must have flowed plentifully. We are lucky enough to possess a short epic on the subject, in one tablet, one of the chief gems of the indefatigable George Smith's discoveries,—a poem of great literary beauty, and nearly complete to within a few lines of the end, which are badly injured and scarcely legible. It is known under the name of "The Descent of Ishtar," as it relates only this one incident of the myth. The opening lines are unsurpassed for splendid poetry and sombre grandeur in any, even the most advanced literature.

26. "Towards the land whence there is no return, towards the house of corruption, Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, has turned her mind ... towards the dwelling that has an entrance but no exit, towards the road that may be travelled but not retraced, towards the hall from which the light of day is shut out, where hunger feeds on dust and mud, where light is never seen, where the shades of the dead dwell in the dark, clothed with wings like birds. On the lintel of the gate and in the lock dust lies accumulated.—Ishtar, when she reached the land whence there is no return, to the keeper of the gate signified her command: 'Keeper, open thy gate that I may pass. If thou openest not and I may not enter, I will smite the gate, and break the lock, I will demolish the threshold and enter by force; then will I let loose the dead to return to the earth, that they may live and eat again; I will make the risen dead more numerous than the living.' The gate-keeper opened his lips and spoke:—'Be appeased, O Lady, and let me go and report thy name to Allat the Queen.'"