The civilization of Babylonia and Assyria

Its remains, language, history, religion, commerce, law, art, and literature

by Morris Jastrow | 1915 | 168,585 words

This work attempts to present a study of the unprecedented civilizations that flourished in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley many thousands of years ago. Spreading northward into present-day Turkey and Iran, the land known by the Greeks as Mesopotamia flourished until just before the Christian era....

There are good reasons for believing that a deity whose name is provisionally read as Ninib, but the real pronunciation of which was probably Enmasht, [1] was an earlier patron deity of Nippur who was forced to yield his position to the all-conquering Enlil. If, as has been made probable, [2] this deity was of Amoritic origin, whose cult was brought to Babylonia by Semites coming from the northwest, we would have a further proof for the thesis which assumes that the Semitic settlers preceded the Sumerians in the Euphrates Valley. The secondary position of Ninib after the advent of Enlil is indicated by the title "son of Enlil" or "offspring of E-kur", [3] almost invariably attached to his name in invocations.

This relationship of father and son is merely the formula to find a place for two deities associated with the same centre, or to indicate a control of one centre by the other, just as the designation of one deity as the servant of another or as holding some official rank in the service of a god is the manner in which Babylonian priests expressed, in the case of two gods representing originally the same natural power, the supremacy of the one over the other. Ninib in contrast to Enlil is a solar deity, who protects the fields, causes the verdure to grow and brings prosperity and the blessings of rich crops to the population.

It is from Ninib that Enlil takes over the milder attributes of an agricultural deity, a Baal or "lord" of the fields, but in return Ninib, adopted by the Sumerians, becomes like his father, a war-god, armed for the fray and whose presence is felt in the thick of battle. Indeed, so prominently is this trait emphasized, especially in the votive and historical inscriptions of both Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, that it overshadows the original solar and beneficent character of Ninib. One of these hymns, shading off into an incantation for the exorcising of a demon of disease, begins : [4]

"0, Ninib, mighty god, warrior, ruler of the Anunnaki, controller of the Igigi, [5]
Judge of all things, who shuts off the door of darkness, who dissipates the obscurity, [6]
Who renders decisions for mankind in their settlements,
Resplendent lord, bestowing power on the land through his decision,
Who seizes the demon Ti'u [7] and drives him back to his place.
Merciful one, granting life, bringing the dead to life,
Who controls right and justice, destroying evil( ?),
Whose active weapon destroys all enemies."

The solar character of Ninib is clearly revealed in the power ascribed to him of dissipating darkness, as well as in epithets emphasizing his brilliancy. In the course of the hymn he is expressly described as a "burning fire", with a direct allusion to the glow of the sun's rays. The sun-gods, moreover, are always associated in the religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria with justice and the punishment of the evildoers.

His enemies are the evil-doers, the law breakers who are brought to justice and punished in accord with the righteous decrees that are traced back to him. It is Ninib, the sun-god, who is celebrated as the one who renders decisions, who dispenses justice to all mankind, who overthrows evil and scatters the enemies who are identified with evil-doers. Even as a warrior, Ninib does not cast off his role as a judge. His weapon is raised in order to smite evil. The cause of his subjects is a just one, and therefore he accords them his powerful aid.

His temple in Nippur, known as E-shu-me-du, occupies a rank only second to E-kur itself; and as a trace of the former's independent position occupied by Ninib, the New Year's day continued, even after Enlil had become the head of the pantheon, to be celebrated as the festival of Ninib when gifts were offered to him and his consort Gula, and ceremonies enacted in his temple, symbolical of his marriage at the beginning of a new year. His festival was also the occasion when the fates of individuals for the coming year were decided by him.

The beneficent character of Ninib crops out also in assigning to him and his consort the power of healing, to which references are likewise made in the quoted hymn. Ninib saves his subjects from the clutches of the demons of disease. It is in this sense that he is spoken of as bringing those near death back to life. The other more aggressive aspect leads to making Ninib the deity who presides over the chase of wild animals a favorite sport of the Assyrian kings. The chase is a species of warfare and it seemed natural, therefore, to dedicate the spoils of the chase to Ninib and to pour out libations to him over the dead bodies of lions and wild bulls [8]laid low by royal hunters.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

See Clay, Amurru, p. 197. The names of the gods (as to a large extent proper names in general) being written in ideographic form, we cannot in all cases be sure of the exact pronunciation, particularly when the names are Akkadian and merely written in their Sumerian form.

[2]:

Clay, ib., p. 121. If the god Enmasht is of Semitic origin, then we must assume that the Sumerian element En, meaning "lord", was attached to the name by the Sumerians to whom also the method of writing the name as Nin-ib must be due. The problem is an exceedingly complicated one and cannot be discussed here. "Amorite", it should be added, is a general designation for northwestern Syria.

[3]:

The name of Enlil 's temple is often used for the god himself.

[4]:

See Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 470-472.

[5]:

A collective name, like Anunnaki, for a group of minor deities.

[6]:

Sc. "of the night".

[7]:

A demon of disease, the cause of troubles having their seat in the head.

[8]:

See Plate LV in Chapter VII.

Like what you read? Consider supporting this website: