The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

The excavations at Nippur have afforded us for the first time a general view of a sacred quarter in an ancient Babylonian city. The extent of the quarter was considerable. Dr. Peters' estimate is eight areas for the zikkurat and surrounding structures, and to this we may add several acres more, since beyond the limits of the great terrace there were buildings to the southeast and southwest, used for religious purposes. It is likely that the extent of E-Sagila at Babylon was even greater. Outside of the temple area at Nippur, Peters[1343] and Haynes unearthed a court of considerable size, lined with brick columns. The court was open to the sky, but the columns supported a roof which was apparently of wood. Similar courts have been found elsewhere, so that we are justified in regarding the Nippur structure as characteristic of the architecture of Babylonia. The court was attached to an edifice of considerable size, which contained among other things rooms in which the temple records were kept. The entrance to the court was by a large gateway, supported on each side by a brick column, double the diameter of those that surrounded the court. While the nature of the building is not perfectly clear, still the presence of the temple archives and the gateway make it probable that the structure was used in connection with the cult of some deity worshipped at Nippur. Lending weight to this supposition are the points of resemblance between this structure and the sacred edifices of the ancient Hebrews and Arabs.

A court of sixty columns—made of wood, quadrangular in shape, with the supports and tops of metal—was the characteristic feature of the tabernacle.[1344] Within this court, open to the sky, the people gathered for worship. The altar and the basin for ablutions stood in the court, while the holy tent containing the ark was set up near the eastern end of the place. Similarly at Mecca,[1345] the Kaaba, the pulpit, and the sacred fountain are grouped within a space enclosed on all sides by colonnades. Again, surrounding the Solomonic temple on three sides was a spacious court. This court was enclosed with colonnades.[1346] It may well be, therefore, that the edifice around or near the fine court of columns at Nippur was a sacred structure, erected in honor of some deity. The two large brick columns at the entrance to the Nippur court are paralleled in the case of the Solomonic temple by the two large columns, known as Yakhin and Boaz, that stood at the gateway. These names are as yet unexplained. Their symbolic character, apart from other evidence, may be concluded from the circumstance that, as Schick has shown,[1347] the columns stood free, and did not serve as a support for any part of the gateway.[1348] There is no need, therefore, for any hesitation in comparing these two columns, whose presence in the Solomonic structure is certainly due to foreign influence, to those found at Nippur.[1349]

That the columns at Nippur were erected in accordance with recognized custom follows from De Sarzec's discovery of two enormous round columns within the sacred quarter of Lagash.[1350] In the light of Peters' excavations, the significance of the columns at Lagash becomes clear. Unfortunately, De Sarzec's excavations at Lagash at the point of the mound in question were interrupted, but he gives reasons for believing that other columns existed near the two large ones found by him.[1351] There is, therefore, every reason to conclude that at Lagash, as at Nippur and no doubt elsewhere, the two columns belonged to a great gateway leading into a large court of columns. That these columns served a symbolic purpose in the Babylonian temple as they did at Jerusalem, cannot be maintained with certainty, but is eminently likely.

The court of columns was surrounded by a series of rooms. If the view taken of the building is correct, these rooms were used for the temple administration. However this may be, there can be no doubt that the structures of various size found around the zikkurat at Nippur served as dwellings for the priests and the temple attendants, as stalls for the temple cattle, as shops for the manufacture and sale of votive objects, and the like. Within the temple area proper were the schools where young priests were trained to be scribes, and received instructions in the doctrines and rites. The astronomical observatories, too, were situated near the temple. The schools served, as they still do in the orient, as the gathering-place of the mature scholars. The systematized pantheon, and the cosmological and astronomical systems represent the outcome of the intellectual activity that manifested itself within the sacred quarters of the cities of Babylonia. The execution of justice being in the hands of the priests, the sacred area also contained the rooms where the judges sat. It is interesting to note that Gudea mentions a hall of judgment in the temple to Nin-girsu at Lagash. The number of such buildings attached to the temple precinct varied, of course, according to the needs and growth of each place. In Nippur, the numbers appear to have been very large.

We may assume, likewise, that at Sippar, Uruk, Ur, and Larsa the zikkurat was the center of a considerable group of buildings, while at Babylon in the days of her greatest power, the temple area of E-Sagila must have presented the appearance of a little city by itself, shut off from the rest of the town by a wall which invariably enclosed the sacred quarter. Within this large wall there were smaller ones, marking the several divisions of the temple buildings. The construction of the smaller edifices does not appear to have varied from the ordinary form chosen for the one-story dwelling-houses in the city proper. The material used for all structures—the large and the small ones—was brick. In earlier times the bricks were merely dried in the sun. The buildings, as a consequence, suffered much from the influence of the heat and rain, and required frequent repairs. Often the tower would crumble away, and an entirely new edifice would have to be erected. The later custom of kiln-dried bricks was an improvement, and still more solidity was insured when the exterior series of brick was glazed. In the older buildings, the bricks were merely piled together, without cement. Afterwards straw was mixed with the clay, but as early as Gudea's days the bitumen, abounding in the valley, became the common cement employed in all edifices of importance. Wood was used in the case of smaller sanctuaries (as also in palaces) for the roof, and the kings often refer with pride to the efforts they made to obtain the precious cedars of the Lebanon forests for their building enterprises.

The decoration was confined largely to the façades, the doors, and the floors. A pleasing effect also was produced by the judicious distribution of glazed and enameled bricks in the walls. Colors were used with still greater lavishness in the decorations of the interior. The brilliancy was heightened by the use of precious stones and gold and silver for the walls and floors and ceilings. The aim of the builders was, as they constantly tell us, to make the buildings as brilliant as the sunlight. The decorations of the brick walls and floors suggest textile patterns, and to account for this, some scholars have supposed that prior to the use of colored bricks, it was customary to cover the walls and floors of temples and palaces with draperies and rugs. The suggestion lacks proof, but has much in its favor. In exterior architecture no profound changes were ever introduced, but within the prescribed limits, the builders did their utmost to make their edifices testimonials of their zeal and power. They imported gold, copper, and diorite from the Sinai peninsula and Arabia, precious stones from Armenia and the Upper Euphrates, wood from Bahrein and from various parts of the Amanus range, and so all quarters of the ancient world of culture were ransacked for contributions to add to the splendor of the Babylonian and Assyrian cities. Much care was bestowed in the course of time upon the portals.

The wooden gates were covered with bronze, in which art of decoration great skill was developed.[1352] The columns of stone appear only in Assyrian edifices as decorations in the front of palaces, supporting a portal or portico that projects from the temple proper.[1353] The introduction appears to be due to foreign influence, perhaps Hittite.[1354]

To determine the interior arrangement of a sacred structure, we have two small Assyrian temples, excavated by Layard at Nimrod, to serve as our guide.[1355] A long hall constituted the chief feature. At the extreme end of this hall was a small room, in which stood a statue of the god to whom the temple was dedicated. This room, known as the papakhu or parakku, was the most sacred part of the temple, and it is doubtful whether any but the king or the highest officials had access to it. Certainly, no one could approach the presence of the deity without the mediation of a priest. Both terms for this room convey the idea of its being "shut off"[1356] from the rest of the building, precisely as the holy of holies in the temple of Jerusalem containing the ark, was separated from the central hall. Gudea[1357] describes the papakhu as the "dark" (or inner) chamber.

We are fortunate in having a pictorial representation of such a papakhu. A stone tablet found at Sippar[1358] represents Shamash seated in the "holy of holies" of the temple E-Babbara. The god sits on a low throne. In front of him is an altar table on which rests a wheel with radiant spokes,—a symbol of the sun-god. Into this sanctuary the worshipper, who is none other than the king Nabubaliddin, is led by a priest. The king is at pains to tell us in the inscription attached to the design, that he was careful to restore the image of Shamash after an ancient model, and his motive in adding an illustration to this tablet is that future builders may have no excuse for not being equally careful. We may, therefore, take the illustration as a sample of the general character of the sacred chambers in the Babylonian and Assyrian temples in the great centers. The papakhu was decorated with great lavishness. The floors and walls and also the ceiling were studded with precious stones. We may believe Herodotus[1359] when he tells us that the statue of Marduk in his temple at Babylon and the table in front of it was of gold. It was to the papakhu that the priests retired when they desired to obtain an oracle direct from the god; and as in the course of time the sanctity of the spot increased, we may well suppose that the occasions when the deity was directly approached in his papakhu became rarer.

Through the influence of the schools attached to the Marduk cult at Babylon, the New Year's Festival—the character of which we will have occasion to explain later on—came to be regarded as the season most appropriate for approaching the oracular chamber. During this festival, Marduk was supposed to decide the fate of mankind for the whole year, and the intercession of the priests on the occasion was fraught with great importance.

A special significance, moreover, came to be attached to the sacred chamber in the Marduk temple. Complementing in a measure, the cosmological associations that have been noted in connection with the zikkurat, the papakhu of Marduk was regarded as an imitation of a cosmical 'sacred chamber.' As the zikkurat represented the mountain on which the gods were born and where they were once supposed to dwell, so the sacred room was regarded as the reproduction of a portion of the great mountain where the gods assembled in solemn council. This council chamber was situated at the eastern end of the great mountain, and was known as Du-azagga, that is, 'brilliant chamber.' The chamber itself constituted the innermost recess of the eastern limit of the mountain, and the special part of the mountain in which it lay was known as Ubshu-kenna, written with the ideographic equivalents to 'assembly room.' It will be apparent that such a view of the papakhu is the result of theological speculation, and is not due, as is the conception of the zikkurat, to popular beliefs.

The assembly of the gods presupposes a systematization of the pantheon, and the fact that it is only the papakhu in Marduk's temple which is known as Du-azagga[1360] is a sufficient indication of the influences at work which produced this conception. In the creation epic, there is a reference to the Ubshu-kenna[1361] which shows the main purpose of a divine assembly in the eyes of the priests of Babylon. The gods meet there in order to do homage to Marduk. They gather around the victorious vanquisher of Tiâmat, as the princes gather round the throne of the supreme ruler,—the king of Babylon and of Babylonia.

One can see, however, that, as is generally the case with theological doctrines, there is a popular starting-point from which these views were developed. The Du-azagga is older than the Ubshu-kenna. Situated in the extreme east, the 'brilliant chamber' is evidently the place whence the sun rises in the morning. A hymn to Shamash[1362] expressly speaks of the sun rising out of the Du-azagga, and, since the sun also appears to rise up out of the ocean, the Du-azagga is placed at a point close to the great Apsu, which flows underneath the mountain. In confirmation of this view, a syllabary[1363] identifies the Du-azagga with the Apsu. Marduk, by virtue of his original quality as a solar deity, would naturally be pictured as coming forth from Du-azagga. In this sense the title Mar-Du-azaga,[1364] 'son of Du-azagga,' is applied to him, just as he is called Mar-Apsi, the son of Apsu. But the same conception would hold good of Shamash, of Ninib, and of some other solar deities, though not of all. That Du-azagga came to be especially associated with Marduk is due simply to the preëminent rank that he came to occupy. Whether there was also a popular basis for the conception of an Ubshu-kenna, an 'assembly room' of the gods, is a question more difficult to answer. Certainly, the view that the gods gathered together in one place belongs to an age which attempted to fix, at least in some measure, the relationship of the divine beings to one another.

The popular phase of the conception of a general assembly house could, in any case, hardly have proceeded further than the assumption of some particular part of the great mountain, where the gods were wont to come together. The connection of this assembly place with the Du-azagga is distinctly the work of the theologians of Babylon. In their desire to make Marduk the central figure of the pantheon, they bring all the gods to his side. The Ubshu-kenna is thus transferred to the region whence the sun issues on his daily journey. The 'chamber' of Marduk becomes the most sacred spot in this region, and the Ubshu-kenna the general name for the region itself. As Marduk in Babylon was surrounded by his court, so in Ubshu-kenna the gods assemble to pay homage to the one freely acknowledged by them as the greatest, and who is pictured as sitting on his throne in Du-azagga. The further speculation which brought the gods together yearly on the occasion of the great Marduk festival belongs likewise, and as a matter of course, to the period when Marduk's sway was undisputed.

The ideas that were thus attached to the papakhu in E-Sagila are a valuable indication of the sanctity attached to that part of the temple where the god sat enthroned. In a general way, what holds good of Marduk's papakhu applies to every sacred chamber in a temple, and no doubt views were once current of the papakhu of Bel at Nippur and of the 'holy of holies' in E-Babbara[1365] and elsewhere that formed in some measure, a parallel to what the Marduk priests told of their favorite sanctuary.

Coming back now to the large hall which led into the papakhu, the absence of bas-reliefs in this hall in the case of the Assyrian temples excavated by Layard, suggests that the walls of this hall were not lined with sculptured slabs, as was the case in the large rooms of the palaces; and we may conclude that in Babylonian temples, likewise, the decoration of the walls was confined as a general thing to enameled bricks, interspersed, perhaps, with metallic panels, and that mythological scenes—such as the contest with Tiâmat or Gilgamesh's adventures—were only occasionally portrayed. An aim which, as the rulers themselves tell us in their inscriptions, they always kept in view was to make both the exterior and interior of the temples resplendent with brilliant coloring—"brilliant as the sun." At the entrances to the Assyrian temples stood lions, chiseled out of soft limestone or the harder alabaster. At Telloh various fragments of large lion heads were found,[1366] so that there is every reason not only to trace this custom to Babylonia, but to carry it back to a very early period. Besides the lion, a favorite religious symbol, as we have seen,[1367] was the bull, and, since Nebuchadnezzar speaks of retaining the "bull" statue of the old temple to Nanâ (or Ishtar) at Erech, we may suppose that the representation of colossal bulls at the entrances to the temples also belongs to the characteristic features of Babylonian religious architecture.

The lion, it will be recalled, is more particularly the symbol of Nergal, but he appears originally, like the bull, to have been a symbol of other gods as well—perhaps, indeed, of the gods in general. Similarly, the eagle, which becomes the special symbol of Ashur, appears prominently on the monuments of Entemena[1368] and other ancient rulers, centuries before the Ashur cult comes into prominence.

In the large court in front of the zikkurats there stood the jars used in connection with the cult, and the presence of these jars furthermore suggests that there was an altar in the great court, precisely as in the case of the Solomonic temple.[1369] In the larger of the temples found by Layard, there was a smaller hall in front of the large one. We may assume that the same was the case with the larger temples of Babylonia, and this three-fold division of the interior,—the vestibule, or pronaos, the main hall, or naos, and the papakhu,—further warrants the comparison of a Babylonian sacred edifice with the Solomonic temple,[1370] where likewise we have the vestibule, the hall known as the 'holy' part, and the 'holy of holies,' the one leading into the other. As to the further disposition of the rooms in the main temple, we must be content to wait for further excavations. What we know is sufficient to warrant the supposition that there was practical uniformity in the interior arrangement of the Babylonian and Assyrian temples. What variation there existed was probably confined to the decoration of the walls, doorways, and to the façades. Meanwhile, it is something to have reached general results. The zikkurat was surrounded by a varying number of shrines that were used as places of assembly for worshippers. The latter gathered also in the large court in front of the zikkurat, where the chief altar probably stood.[1371] In the large halls of the shrines, there were in all probabilities likewise altars.

It seems natural to suppose that the hall of judgment, mentioned already in Gudea's inscription,[1372] was attached to some shrine. Besides the zikkurats and shrines, there were smaller structures used as dwellings for the priests and temple officials, for storehouses, for the archives, and as stalls for the animals to be used in the sacrifices. At Nippur a smithy was found near the temple precinct. There were workshops near the temple where the furnishings for the temple, such as the curtains and the utensils, were made, and there were magazines where votive tablets and offerings were manufactured and sold. The number of these structures varied, naturally, in each religious center, and increased in proportion to the growth of the center. The zikkurat, the great court, the shrines, and the smaller structures formed a sacred precinct, and it was this precinct as a whole that constituted the temple in the larger sense, and received some appropriate name. Thus E-Kur at Nippur, E-Sagila at Babylon, E-Zida at Borsippa are used to denote the entire sacred precinct in these cities, and not merely the chief structure. The zikkurat always had a special name of its own.

A factor that contributed largely to the growth of the sacred precinct in the large centers was the circumstance that the political importance of such centers as Nippur, Lagash, Ur, Babylon, and Nineveh led the rulers to group around the worship of the chief deity, the cult of the minor ones who constituted the family or the court of the chief god. The kings measured their importance by the number of the gods upon whose assistance they could rely. The priests came to the assistance of the kings in connecting the gods of the royal pantheon in such a way, as to satisfy the pride of both their royal and divine masters.[1373] The ambition of the kings, more especially of the Assyrian empire, led also to the addition of foreign deities to the pantheon. For these also shrines were built within or near the sacred precinct.

Gudea sets the example for his successors by parading a large pantheon at the close of his inscriptions,[1374] and a list of temples in Lagash, recently published by Scheil,[1375] shows that most, if not all, of the gods invoked by the ruler had a sanctuary erected in his or her honor. There were, as we have seen, several quarters in Lagash, and therefore several sacred precincts, so that we cannot be certain that all of these sanctuaries stood in one and the same quarter. But, since the list in question furnishes the name of no less than thirteen sacred edifices, we are certain that as many as four or five smaller chapels surrounded the precinct in which stood the great temple E-Ninnu, sacred to Gudea's chief god Ningirsu-Ninib.

The list is headed by the sanctuary to Nin-girsu. There follow temples to Bau, to Nin-gishzida, Nin-mar, Ninâ, Dumuzi-zu-aba, Nin-si-a, Ga-tum-dug known to us from the inscriptions of Gudea, besides others, like Shabra (?), Nin-sun, Nin-tu, that appear here for the first time. In Nippur, we find traces of the worship of Belit (or Nin-lil), of Ninib, and of Nusku, though with the exception of the first named, the worship of these gods has not been traced back further than the days of the Cassite dynasty. Subsequent excavations may, of course, change the present aspect; but one gains the impression from the most ancient inscriptions found at Nippur that at an early period Bel was a god much like the Hebrew Yahwe, "jealous" of having others at his side. Such a conception would help to account for the title 'lord' being applied to him above all others, and also aids us in understanding the lasting impression he made upon the people of Babylonia,—an impression so profound that when the time came for En-lil to yield his supremacy to Marduk, no better means could be found of emphasizing the latter's authority, than by transferring to him the names and titles of the older Bel.[1376] In this respect, however, Nippur was an exception, and in later times the Bel cult was affected by the same influences that led Gudea to group around the sanctuary to Nin-girsu, edifices sacred to other gods and goddesses.

Lugalzaggisi[1377] of Erech enumerates an extensive pantheon,[1378] which contains most of the chief deities, and from which we may conclude that the temple of Nanâ was similarly the center of a large precinct in which the cult of other deities was carried on. When we come to the cult of Marduk at Babylon and of Nabu at Borsippa, the inscriptions, chiefly those of Nebuchadnezzar, come to our aid in showing us the arrangement of the various chapels that were comprised within the sacred precincts of E-Sagila and E-Zida, respectively. In the first place, the close relationship between Marduk and Nabu was emphasized by placing a papakhu to Nabu in the precinct of E-Sagila, which—built in imitation of E-Zida at Borsippa—was called by the same name.[1379] This papakhu, it would seem, was independent of a special temple to Nabu known as E-Makh-tila, and which lay in Borsippa. The consort of Marduk, Sarpanitum, likewise had her temple in Babylon, and naturally close to the chief sanctuary of Marduk.[1380] Ea, the father of Marduk, had a small sanctuary known as E-kar-zaginna in the sacred precinct.[1381] It does not follow, of course, that all the temples in a center like Babylon or Borsippa were concentrated in one place.

Indeed, when Nebuchadnezzar speaks of three temples to Gula being erected in Borsippa,[1382] it is certain that they could not have been within the precinct of E-Zida, and so the temples to Shamash and Ramman, Sin and Ishtar, as well as to Nabu in Babylon, had an independent position; but we are at least warranted in concluding that they were not far removed from E-Sagila, and so, likewise, the numerous temples enumerated by Nebuchadnezzar as erected or improved by him in Borsippa were not far distant from Nabu's sanctuary,—the famous E-Zida. The palaces of the kings were also erected near the temples. In Babylon, we know that before Nebuchadnezzar's days, the palace stood so close to E-Sagila that an enlargement of it was impossible without encroaching on the sacred quarter.[1383] The tendency to combine with the worship of the chief god, the cult of others is as characteristic of Assyrian rulers as of their Babylonian predecessors. We are fortunate in possessing an extensive list,[1384] enumerating the various deities worshipped in the temples of Assyria, and the occasions on which they are to be invoked. The information to be gained from this list is all the more welcome since the Assyrian kings are chiefly interested in transmitting an account of their military expeditions, and tell us comparatively little of the religious edifices in their capitols. From this list we learn that in the old temple sacred to Anu and Ramman,[1385] in the city of Ashur—the oldest Assyrian temple known to us,[1386]—some twenty deities were worshipped.

Images at least of these deities must have stood in the temple;[1387] but, since there is a distinct reference zikkurats[1388] in the list, for some of them special sanctuaries of some kind must have been erected within the precinct. From the same list we learn that there was a temple to Marduk[1389] in Ashur in which the cult of the Shamash, Sarpanitum, Ramman, Ninib, Anunit was also carried on; similarly, in the temples of Ashur, of Gula, and of Ninib, other gods were worshipped. Provisions of some kind for the cult of these deities must have been made, and one cannot escape the conclusion that in the Assyrian capitols, the sacred precincts likewise covered considerable territory, and that the tendency existed towards a steady increase of the structures erected in connection with the cult of the patron deity. Sennacherib proudly describes Nineveh as the city which contained the shrines of all gods and goddesses.[1390]