Title: History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12)
Author: G. Maspero
Editor: A. H. Sayce
Translator: M. L. McClure
Release date: December 16, 2005 [eBook #17323]
Most recently updated: December 13, 2020
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger
CONTENTS
CHAPTER II—THE TEMPLES AND THE GODS OF CHALDÆA
CHAPTER III—CHALDÆAN CIVILIZATION
APPENDIX—THE PHARAOHS OF THE ANCIENT AND MIDDLE EMPIRES
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece.jpg El Hammam (the Bath)
006.jpg One of the Eagle-headed Genii.
009.jpg Bel-merodach, Armed With the Thunderbolt, Does Battle With the Tumultuous Tiamat.
011.jpg a Kufa Laden With Stones, and Manned by A Crew Of Four Men.
012.jpg the World As Conceived by The ChaldÆans
025.jpg Gigantic ChaldÆan Reeds
027.jpg the Marshes About The Confluence of The Kerkha And Tigris.
030.jpg the Gathering of The Spathes Of The Male Palm Tree
032.jpg a Winged Genius Holding in his Hand the Spathe Of The Male Date-palm.
033.jpg the Heavily Maned Lion Wounded by an Arrow And Vomiting Blood.
034.jpg the Urus in Act of Charging
035.jpg a Herd of Onagers Pursued by Dogs and Wounded By Arrows.
036.jpg the Chief Domestic Animals Op The Regions of The Euphrates.
037.jpg the Sow and Her Litter Making Their Way Through A Bed of Reeds.
042.jpg Two Fish-like Deities of the ChaldÆans.
045.jpg Page With One of the Tablets Of The Deluge Series.
048.jpg Shamashnapishtim Shut Into the Ark.
051.jpg the JudÎ Mountains Sometimes Identified With Tub Ntsib Mountains.
057.jpg Gilgames Strangles a Lion.
060.jpg Gilgames Fights, on the Left With a Bull, On The Right With Eabani.
068.jpg Gilgames and Eabani Fighting With Monsters.
071.jpg the Scorpion-men of The Mountains Of MÂshu."
073.jpg Gilgames and Arad-ea Navigating Their Vessel.
082.jpg Gilgames Struggles With a Lion
96.jpg the Seal of Shargani-shar-ali: Gilgames Waters The Celestial Ox.
096a.jpg Painting in Color of Charioteer
098.jpg Page Image: the Arms Op The City and Kings Of Lagash
099.jpg Fragment of Bas-relief by UrninÂ, King Of Lagash.
101.jpg Idingiranagin Holding the Totem of Lagash.
102.jpg Idingiranagin in his Chariot Leading His Troops.
103.jpg Page Image. Vultures Feeding Upon the Dead.
104.jpg Piling up the Mound of The Dead After The Battle.
105.jpg King Urnina and his Family.
109.jpg Sitting Statue of Gudea
111.jpg Plan of the Ruins Of Mughîer
112.jpg Statues from Telloh. And Head of One Of The Statue of Gudea.
114.jpg Plan of the Ruins Of Abu-shahreyn
115.jpg an Arab Crossing the Tigris in a “kufa.”
117.jpg an Assyrian Kelek Laden With Building-stone.
126.jpg Plan of the Ruins Of Wakka
128.jpg a ChaldÆan Stamped Brick.
134.jpg the Temple of Nannar at Uru, Approximately Restored.
135.jpg the Temple of Uru in Its Present State, According To Taylor
136.jpg Further View of the Temple Of Uru
141.jpg Sin Delivered by Merodach from the Assault of The Seven Evil Spirits.
142.jpg Struggle Between a Good and an Evil Genius.
145.jpg the God Ningibsu, Patron of Lagash.
152.jpg the Adoration of The Mace and The Whip.
169.jpg the God Sun Receives The Homage of Two Worshippers.
170.jpg Shamash Sets Out, in the Morning, from The Interior of the Heaven by The Eastern Gate.
171.jpg Shamash in his Shrine, His Emblem Before Him On The Altar.
173.jpg Ishtar Holding Her Star Before Sin.
177.jpg the Birds of The Tempest
178.jpg Ramman Armed With an Axe.
179.jpg Ramman, the God of Tempests and Thunder.
186.jpg Shamash Fights With zu and the Storm Birds.
186a.jpg the Plenisphere Taken from The Temple Of Tentyra
186b.jpg Text of the Plenisphere
190.jpg Ishtar As a Warrior-goddess
203.jpg a Votary Led to the God To Receive The Reward Of The Sacrifice
204.jpg the Sacrifice: a Goat Presented to Ishtar.
205.jpg the God Shamash Seizes With his Left Hand The Smoke of the Sacrifice.
208.jpg Decorated Wrappings from a Mummy (color)
209.jpg Chald.an Coffin in the Form of a Jar
209a.jpg a Vaulted Tomb in Uru
210.jpg ChaldÆan Tomb With Domed Roof.
111.jpg Chaldean Tomb With Flat Roof.
213.jpg the Interior of The Tomb
220.jpg the Goddess Allat Passes Through The Nether Regions in Her Bark.
221.jpg Nergal, the God of Hades; Back View.
226.jpg Ishtar Despoiled of Her Garments in Hades
229.jpg Dumuzi Rejuvenated on the Knees of Ishtar.
233.jpg Etana Carried to Heaven by an Eagle.
244.jpg the King Urnina Bearing The “kufa.”
248.jpg the Plan of a Palace Built by Gudea.
249.jpg Terra-cotta Barrel-right
250.jpg Plan of the Existing Buildings Of Telloh.
251.jpg Decoration of Coloured Cones on the Façade at Uruk
252.jpg Pilasters of the Facade Of Gudea’s Palace
255.jpg Stone Socket of One Of the Doors in The Palace Of Gudea.( Right)
258.jpg Stand of Black Stone from the Palace Of Telloh.
262.jpg Female Servant Bare to the Waist.(left)
262.jpg Costume of a ChaldÆn Lady (right)
266.jpg a Soldier Bringing Prisoners and Spoil.
268.jpg Manuscript on Papyrus in Heiroglyphics
279.jpg the Tablet of Tell-sifr, Broken to Show The Two Texts.
280.jpg Tablet Bearing the Impress of a Seal
294.jpg an Egyptian Slave Merchant
208a.jpg Chaldean Houses at Uru.
208b Plans of Houses Excavated at Eridu and Ubu.
300.jpg ChaldÆan Household Utensils in Terra-cotta
311a.jpg ChaldÆan Stone Implements.
311b.jpg ChaldÆan Stone Hammer Bearing an Inscription.
312.jpg ChaldÆn Implements of Bronze
313.jpg Vase of Silver. And Bull Of Copper.
315.jpg ChaldÆan Cylinder Exhibiting Traces of The Different Tools Used by the Engraver
318-text.jpg Egyptian Manuscript
322.jpg the Michaux Stone (left)
323.jpg the Other Side of The Michaux Stone (right)
324.jpg Two Rows of Shadufs on the Bank Of a River.
325.jpg ChaldÆan Farming Operations.
329b.jpg Scenes of Pastoral Life in ChaldÆa.
332.jpg ChaldÆan Carrying a Fish. (left)
333.jpg the Onager Taken With The Lasso.
340.jpg ChaldÆan Map of the World.
354.jpg Magic Nail of Terra Cotta
355.jpg Egyptian Cornice Bearing the Cartouches of Ramses I.
357.jpg Lists of the Pharaohs Of The Ancient Empire
358.jpg Lists on the Monuments
359.jpg Lists on the Monuments
360.jpg Lists on the Monuments
The Creation, the Deluge, the history of the gods—The country, its cities its inhabitants, its early dynasties.
“In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when nothing below had as yet received the name of earth,* Apsu, the Ocean, who first was their father, and Chaos-Tiâmat, who gave birth to them all, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes which bore no fruit.” ** Life germinated slowly in this inert mass, in which the elements of our world lay still in confusion: when at length it did spring up, it was but feebly, and at rare intervals, through the hatching of divine couples devoid of personality and almost without form. “In the time when the gods were not created, not one as yet, when they had neither been called by their names, nor had their destinies been assigned to them by fate, gods manifested themselves. Lakhmu and Lakhamu were the first to appear, and waxed great for ages; then Anshar and Kishar were produced after them. Days were added to days, and years were heaped upon years: Anu, Inlil, and Ea were born in their turn, for Anshar and Kishar had given them birth.” As the generations emanated one from the other, their vitality increased, and the personality of each became more clearly defined; the last generation included none but beings of an original character and clearly marked individuality. Anu, the sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night; Inlil-Bel, the king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and the personification of wisdom.*** Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into Anat, Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse whom he had deduced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these fruitful pairs, and the impulse once given, the world was rapidly peopled by their descendants. Sin, Shamash, and Kamman, who presided respectively over the moon, the sun, and the air, were all three of equal rank; next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach, Nergal, the warrior-goddess Ishtar, and Nebo; then a whole army of lesser deities, who ranged themselves around Anu as round a supreme master. Tiâmat, finding her domain becoming more and more restricted owing to the activity of the others, desired to raise battalion against battalion, and set herself to create unceasingly; but her offspring, made in her own image, appeared like those incongruous phantoms which men see in dreams, and which are made up of members borrowed from a score of different animals. They appeared in the form of bulls with human heads, of horses with the snouts of dogs, of dogs with quadruple bodies springing from a single fish-like tail. Some of them had the beak of an eagle or a hawk; others, four wings and two faces; others, the legs and horns of a goat; others, again, the hind quarters of a horse and the whole body of a man. Tiâmat furnished them with terrible weapons, placed them under the command of her husband Kingu, and set out to war against the gods.
At first they knew not whom to send against her. Anshar despatched his son Anu; but Anu was afraid, and made no attempt to oppose her. He sent Ea; but Ea, like Anu, grew pale with fear, and did not venture to attack her. Merodach, the son of Ea, was the only one who believed himself strong enough to conquer her. The gods, summoned to a solemn banquet in the palace of Anshar, unanimously chose him to be their champion, and proclaimed him king. “Thou, thou art glorious among the great gods, thy will is second to none, thy bidding is Anu; Marduk (Merodach), thou art glorious among the great gods, thy will is second to none,* thy bidding is Anu.** From this day, that which thou orderest may not be changed, the power to raise or to abase shall be in thy hand, the word of thy mouth shall endure, and thy commandment shall not meet with opposition. None of the gods shall transgress thy law; but wheresoever a sanctuary of the gods is decorated, the place where they shall give their oracles shall be thy place.*** Marduk, it is thou who art our avenger! We bestow on thee the attributes of a king; the whole of all that exists, thou hast it, and everywhere thy word shall be exalted. Thy weapons shall not be turned aside, they shall strike thy enemy. O master, who trusts in thee, spare thou, his life; but the god who hath done evil, put out his life like water. They clad their champion in a garment, and thus addressed him: ‘Thy will, master, shall be that of the gods. Speak the word, ‘Let it be so,’ it shall be so. Thus open thy mouth, this garment shall disappear; say unto it, ‘Return,’ and the garment shall be there.” He spoke with his lips, the garment disappeared; he said unto it, “Return,” and the garment was restored.
Merodach having been once convinced by this evidence that he had the power of doing everything and of undoing everything at his pleasure, the gods handed to him the sceptre, the throne, the crown, the insignia of supreme rule, and greeted him with their acclamations: “Be King!—Go! Cut short the life of Tiâmat, and let the wind carry her blood to the hidden extremities of the universe.” * He equipped himself carefully for the struggle. “He made a bow and placed his mark upon it;” ** he had a spear brought to him and fitted a point to it; the god lifted the lance, brandished it in his right hand, then hung the bow and quiver at his side. He placed a thunderbolt before him, filled his body with a devouring flame, then made a net in which to catch the anarchic Tiâmat; he placed the four winds in such a way that she could not escape, south and north, east and west, and with his own hand he brought them the net, the gift of his father Anu. “He created the hurricane, the evil wind, the storm, the tempest, the four winds, the seven winds, the waterspout, the wind that is second to none; then he let loose the winds he had created, all seven of them, in order to bewilder the anarchic Tiâmat by charging behind her. And the master of the waterspout raised his mighty weapon, he mounted his chariot, a work without its equal, formidable; he installed himself therein, tied the four reins to the side, and darted forth, pitiless, torrent-like, swift.”
He passed through the serried ranks of the monsters and penetrated as far as Tiâmat, and provoked her with his cries. “‘Thou hast rebelled against the sovereignty of the gods, thou hast plotted evil against them, and hast desired that my fathers should taste of thy malevolence; therefore thy host shall be reduced to slavery, thy weapons shall be torn from thee. Come, then, thou and I must give battle to one another!’ Tiâmat, when she heard him, flew into a fury, she became mad with rage; then Tiâmat howled, she raised herself savagely to her full height, and planted her feet firmly on the earth. She pronounced an incantation, recited her formula, and called to her aid the gods of the combat, both them and their weapons. They drew near one to another, Tiâmat and Marduk, wisest of the gods: They flung themselves into the combat, they met one another in the struggle. Then the master unfolded his net and seized her; he caused the hurricane which waited behind him to pass in front of him, and, when Tiâmat opened her mouth to swallow him, he thrust the hurricane into it so that the monster could not close her jaws again. The mighty wind filled her paunch, her breast swelled, her maw was split. Marduk gave a straight thrust with his lance, burst open the paunch, pierced the interior, tore the breast, then bound the monster and deprived her of life. When he had vanquished Tiâmat, who had been their leader, her army was disbanded, her host was scattered, and the gods, her allies, who had marched beside her, trembled, were scared, and fled.” He seized hold of them, and of Kingu their chief, and brought them bound in chains before the throne of his father.
He had saved the gods from ruin, but this was the least part of his task; he had still to sweep out of space the huge carcase which encumbered it, and to separate its ill-assorted elements, and arrange them afresh for the benefit of the conquerors. He returned to Tiâmat whom he had bound in chains. He placed his foot upon her, with his unerring knife he cut into the upper part of her; then he cut the blood-vessels, and caused the blood to be carried by the north wind to the hidden places. And the gods saw his face, they rejoiced, they gave themselves up to gladness, and sent him a present, a tribute of peace; then he recovered his calm, he contemplated the corpse, raised it and wrought marvels.
He split it in two as one does a fish for drying; then he hung up one of the halves on high, which became the heavens; the other half he spread out under his feet to form the earth, and made the universe such as men have since known it. As in Egypt, the world was a kind of enclosed chamber balanced on the bosom of the eternal waters.* The earth, which forms the lower part of it, or floor, is something like an overturned boat in appearance, and hollow underneath, not like one of the narrow skiffs in use among other races, but a kufa, or kind of semicircular boat such as the tribes of the Lower Euphrates have made use of from earliest antiquity down to our own times.
The earth rises gradually from the extremities to the centre, like a great mountain, of which the snow-region, where the Euphrates finds its source, approximately marks the summit. It was at first supposed to be divided into seven zones, placed one on the top of the other along its sides, like the stories of a temple; later on it was divided into four “houses,” each of which, like the “houses” of Egypt, corresponded with one of the four cardinal points, and was under the rule of particular gods. Near the foot of the mountain, the edges of the so-called boat curve abruptly outwards, and surround the earth with a continuous wall of uniform height having no opening. The waters accumulated in the hollow thus formed, as in a ditch; it was a narrow and mysterious sea, an ocean stream, which no living man might cross save with permission from on high, and whose waves rigorously separated the domain of men from the regions reserved to the gods. The heavens rose above the “mountain of the world” like a boldly formed dome, the circumference of which rested on the top of the wall in the same way as the upper structures of a house rest on its foundations. Merodach wrought it out of a hard resisting metal which shone brilliantly during the day in the rays of the sun, and at night appeared only as a dark blue surface, strewn irregularly with luminous stars. He left it quite solid in the southern regions, but tunnelled it in the north, by contriving within it a huge cavern which communicated with external space by means of two doors placed at the east and the west.* The sun came forth each morning by the first of these doors; he mounted to the zenith, following the internal base of the cupola from east to south; then he slowly descended again to the western door, and re-entered the tunnel in the firmament, where he spent the night,** Merodach regulated the course of the whole universe on the movements of the sun. He instituted the year and divided it into twelve months. To each month he assigned three decans, each of whom exercised his influence successively for a period of ten days; he then placed the procession of the days under the authority of Nibiru, in order that none of them should wander from his track and be lost. “He lighted the moon that she might rule the night, and made her a star of night that she might indicate the days:*** ‘From month to month, without ceasing, shape thy disk,**** and at the beginning of the month kindle thyself in the evening, lighting up thy horns so as to make the heavens distinguishable; on the seventh day, show to me thy disk; and on the fifteenth, let thy two halves be full from month to month.’” He cleared a path for the planets, and four of them he entrusted to four gods; the fifth, our Jupiter, he reserved for himself, and appointed him to be shepherd of this celestial flock; in order that all the gods might have their image visible in the sky, he mapped out on the vault of heaven groups of stars which he allotted to them, and which seemed to men like representations of real or fabulous beings, fishes with the heads of rams, lions, bulls, goats and scorpions.