The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations Part 26

At Nippur the clay images chiefly represent Bel and Belit either separately or in combination, but figurines of Ishtar have also been found, in some cases representing her as nursing a child (Jastrow, _op.

cit._ p. 674). It is probable that the symbols of duality connected with Ishtar had some reference to the mystic unity and duality of the mother and unborn child, and suggested the installation of the G.o.ddess as the most appropriate personification of creative and life-giving central power.(98)

It is as interesting to follow the complex train of thought which created an Ishtar as it is to realize that curious fact that, contrary to views held elsewhere, it was the male principle that was at one time most distinctly a.s.sociated with earth in Babylonia-a.s.syria, while femininity was linked to the nocturnal heaven. It is probable that priesthood encouraged the popular adoption of Bel, the masculine Polaris, as an earth, sun and morning-star G.o.d, while his consort Belit became a heaven, moon and evening-star G.o.ddess. Doubtlessly at an early period the cult of Polaris and the registration of circ.u.mpolar rotation was guarded in secrecy by the astronomer-priests. Tempting as it is to linger among the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of the Babylonian-a.s.syrian pantheon and to follow the spread of their influence, I shall limit myself to pointing out the change of government that accompanied the development and establishment of various divergent cults.

Indications that, as in China at the present day, a combined heaven and earth cult was practised in Babylonia-a.s.syria by male and female representatives of heaven and earth, are furnished by various detached pieces of information gleaned from Professor Jastrow's work. The priest-king was the "child" of Bel, and his living representative. As such he bore the divine t.i.tles of supreme lord, ruled the four regions of the earth, and became the representative of earth. Pagan authorities state that a virgin priestess officiated at times in the sanctuary of Bel and that there were three cla.s.ses of priestesses devoted to the cult of Ishtar. They were called "the sacred ones" and carried out a mysterious ritual which had, however, originated "from nave conceptions connected with the worship of the G.o.ddess of fertility."

The use of sacred water and of fermented intoxicating wine entered into the cult of the life-giving principle and Babylonia ultimately becomes a.s.sociated with "Mystery" and "the golden cup full of abominations"

(Revelations XVII). Large terra cotta vases or jars have been found at Nippur and elsewhere, standing in front of the altar, and "the depth at which they were found is an indication of the antiquity and stability of the forms of worship in Babylonian temples. It may be proper to recall that, in the Solomonic temple likewise, there were a series of jars that stood near the great altar in the court" (Jastrow, p. 653). One of the oldest sacred basins found in the ruins of a Babylonian temple "has a frieze of female figures in it, holding in their outstretched hands flagons from which they pour water," a fact which establishes the ritualistic a.s.sociation of female priestesses with water.

The later a.s.sociation of Ishtar with the moon and with the evening star, "the leader of the heavenly procession of stars," naturally exerted an influence over the ceremonial rites performed by the high priestess or queen, the living image of the G.o.ddess. "Mythological a.s.sociations appear to have played a part in identifying the planet Venus with the G.o.ddess....

A widely spread nature myth, symbolizing the change of seasons, represents Ishtar the personification of fertility, the great mother of all that manifests life, as proceeding to the region of darkness and remaining there for some time. The disappearance of the planet Venus at certain seasons ... [and re-appearance] ... suggested the identification of this planet with Ishtar." The foregoing affords an explanation why Ishtar should have become identified with the west and also naturally suggests the probability that the cult of Ishtar gradually imposed upon its priestesses and its votaries of the female s.e.x, the ceremonial observance of periods of retirement and seclusion, coinciding with the disappearance of the moon and evening star.

A critical examination of the accounts preserved of the Phnician or Canaanite religion reveals that it consisted of an idealistic development of the Ishtar cult of a.s.syria. The fact that, ultimately, in Phnicia, the cult of the female Astarte almost superseded that of the male Baal and that their joint cult, introduced into Palestine, seriously rivalled the monotheism of the Israelites, furnishes another indication that we have to deal here with the same marked divergence of cults which we have seen to result from a common basis in ancient America. In studying the Phnician conception of Astarte as recorded by various authors, one is struck by its comparative refinement and ideality although, as in ancient America, the cult of the female principle of nature was also accompanied by secret licentious ceremonials.

In the Astarte cult of Phnicia we have precisely what might be expected to have been evolved by the descendants of an ancient race of star-watchers who, powerfully impressed by the ant.i.thesis of light and darkness and having become a nation of traders and seafarers, naturally adopted the nocturnal heaven and guiding stars as their chief object of worship. It does not seem improbable that it was to the less degrading a.s.sociation of the female principle with the nocturnal heaven(99) that woman owed, in lapse of time, the higher position she was accorded in the countries directly influenced by the Phnician civilization, and notably in Greece and Rome.

In Phnicia, Astarte-Ishtar became the G.o.ddess of love and marriage. In Babylonia-a.s.syria the high-priestess, the living representative of the G.o.ddess, who, like the planet-G.o.ddess, periodically retired into darkness and seclusion and led a shadowy existence, appears to have originally shared equal honors with the "lord of earth" and to have delivered oracular utterances in subterraneous chambers. Throughout Babylonia, New Year's Day, which coincided with the beginning of the rainy season, was the occasion of "the marriage of the G.o.d and the G.o.ddess" _par excellence_, a rite which symbolized the "meeting of Heaven and Earth."

Circ.u.mstantial evidence seems to prove, moreover, that, as in Peru, the annual consecrated union of the male and female personification of heaven and earth was followed by the marriage of young persons throughout the land, a custom which furnishes another indication of the original existence of an annual mating season for the human race. As it was at this period also that the priesthood approached the papakhu, the inner sanctuary, also termed the "a.s.sembly-room," "chamber of the oracle" and "of fates," and transmitted to the people the irrevocable decrees of Marduk, it seems as though these ancient rulers practised a similar "abundance of lying and deceit for the advantage of the governed" as that advocated by Plato in his Republic;(100) exerted a stern control over the alliances formed and the number of marriages celebrated and endeavored to make these, as far as possible, sacred. The mere record that the a.s.syrian king Ashurbanipal claims to be the offspring of a pair of divinities personifying heaven and earth, appears to show that he was the offspring of the sacred divine union of the high priest and priestess, _i. e._ of divine birth. It is interesting to collate a few disconnected facts which appear to ill.u.s.trate the natural and inevitable result of the inst.i.tution of two cults ruled by separate representatives.

Sin-Gashid, of the dynasty of Uruk, mentions a temple built for the G.o.d and his consort, as "the seat of their joy." At Babylon, the "mother of great G.o.ds" dwelt within the precincts of the temple on the east side of the Euphrates known as Esagila, "the lofty house." When the city of Babylon extended as far as to include Borsippa, the temple known as Ezida, "the true house," was built for Marduk=Bel. At Lagash the temple of the "good lady" and mother stood in one quarter known as the "brilliant town"

while the temple of her consort stood in the other of the two most ancient quarters of the town. The above facts acquire double significance when collated with the well-known fact that the palace of Semiramis, the great queen of Babylon, was built on the west bank of the Euphrates, opposite to the ancient palace of the king. A bridge united these royal residences which were otherwise separated by the river.

Under Semiramis, Babylonia was a nation under a single female ruler and this usurpation of power by a woman, accompanied as it was by the predominance of the originally nave cult which had unconsciously fostered and ministered to perversion and depravity, preceded the decadence, disintegration and ultimate downfall of the empire. Many centuries previous, the instalment of a female sovereign preceded the ruin of another empire in what we may a.s.sume to have been precisely the same way.

Professor Sayce informs us that, "about 3800 B.C., in northern Babylonia and in the city of Agade or Akkad, arose the empire of Sargani-sarali=Sargon, and that Sargon's son, Naram-Sin, succeeded him in 3750 B.C. and continued the conquests of his grandfather.... Naram-Sin's son was Bingam-sar-ali. A queen, Ellat-gula, seems to have sat upon the throne not much later, and with her the dynasty may have come to an end.

At any rate the empire of Akkad is heard of no more. But it left behind it a profound impression in western Asia, whose art and culture became Babylonian" (_op. cit._).

The process of disintegration, which caused the Babylonian empire to crumble away, was doubtlessly hastened by its division into four regions, each of which in latter times possessed its capital and became the centre of various independent forms of rival cults. During many centuries Babylonia was closely a.s.sociated with the cult of Marduk-Bel, the "lord of rest;" while Shamash, another form of the central supreme lord, was the deity of Larsa and Sippar.

At one time Ur became the headquarters for the cult of the moon-G.o.d Sin or Nannar. As, according to Babylonian notions, the sun does not properly belong to the heavens and plays an insignificant part in the calendrical system in comparison with the moon, sun-worship proper does not seem to have existed in Babylonia. At the same time it would seem as though when the "primitive sun"=Polaris became the hidden, secret G.o.d of the priest-astronomers, who determined the seasons by Ursa Major, the populace was taught to regard Bel as the personification of the diurnal sun and of the herald of day, the morning star.

When it is borne in mind how, as the empire spread, new cities were founded on the plan of the metropolis, that each of these must therefore have been, in turn, governed by a pair of minor rulers, and had its own minor zikkurat, we can understand the various indications that exist showing how the ancient sacred capital of the state became the place of reunion for the minor "G.o.ds," who a.s.sembled there annually in the main sanctuary, and the fact that each minor chief necessarily required his dwelling place and tribal council-chamber, would account for the "references to zikkurats ... or special sanctuaries of some kind, which were erected within the sacred precinct of the main capital ..." (Jastrow, p. 637).

When it is realized that each zikkurat was an artificial "mountain" the description of Babylon in Revelations XVIII becomes clearly intelligible and is seen to apply to the seven-fold organization of the ancient empire which had become the centre of the debasing earth-worship ultimately identified with a female G.o.ddess. "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth.... I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast ... having seven heads.... The seven heads are seven _mountains_, on which the woman sitteth ... and there are seven kings"....

Future investigation will doubtlessly furnish us with exact knowledge concerning the original relation of the governors of the "four regions" to the central ruler and of the "seven divisions" of the state to each other.

It would be desirable to establish whether each territorial division and tribe bore the name of its tribal ancestor and whether these names agree with those of the seven chief "G.o.ds" of the pantheon, each of whom is a.s.sociated with a celestial body, a day of the seven-day period and, as shown in the bas-relief already cited, with a different animal. I am strongly tempted to see in the latter traces of tribal totems and to connect the days of the week with the seven divisions of the population and some established form of rotation, employed for the government of the state, a.n.a.logous to that I have found out in Ancient Mexico. With regard to the regulation of the calendar by certain officials, the following facts are important: Professor Sayce tells us that, "in a.s.syria, the high-priest was the equal of the king and the king himself was a priest and the adopted child of Bel." Under him were a number of grades of officials and officers. The land was divided into provinces whose "governors were selected from the highest aristocracy and who alone had the privilege of sharing with the king the office of limmu or eponymous archon after whom the year was named." This office, which finds its a.n.a.logy in China and Central America, is more clearly explained in the following pa.s.sage: "The a.s.syrians were endowed with a keen sense of history and had invented a system of reckoning time by means of certain officers called limmi, who gave their names to the year" (Sayce, _op.

cit._ p. 255).

Venturing to make a general statement, as a suggestion for future investigation, I should say that the ultimate result of the inst.i.tution of two cults which were bound to grow in opposite directions, was the fall of the Babylonian empire under the degrading growth of perversion and depravity, linked to the cult of earth and night and bi-s.e.xuality, and the rise of the a.s.syrian empire with a cult in which the ideas of light and darkness, night and day preponderated over those of s.e.x. It may possibly have been as a reaction and protest against the prevailing rites of Babylonia that influenced the a.s.syrians in their adoption of two male rulers, the high-priest and the king. On the other hand, there are indications showing that possibly, in order to evade the ceremonial obligations of their position as the representative of the principle of fertility, several "G.o.ddesses" or female rulers of Babylonia transferred their seat of government, or placed the reins of government into the hands of a king. Thus Hammurabi tells us that he has restored the temple of the "lady" or "great lady" of Hallabi, a town near Sippar and that she had conferred upon him supreme authority over the Babylonian states, then engaged in fighting with each other. It is obvious that, as soon as concealment and mystery increasingly surrounded the cult of the female principle, and warfare became habitual, the power and role of the female ruler must have become more and more "shadowy" and finally dwindled to the utterance of sacred oracles in dark concealed places of retirement and safety. Ultimately the cult of Ishtar appears to have become absolutely secret and hidden and shrouded in mystery and darkness. Its priestesses became the most famous oracle-givers of a.s.syria who imparted "divine knowledge concealed from men." In the eighth century B.C., Arbela became the centre of the cult of Ishtar and "developed a special school of theology marked by the attempt to accord a superior position to the G.o.ddess. In a series of eight oracles addressed to Esarhaddon six are given forth by women" (Jastrow, p. 342).

Inevitable as was the disintegration of the original state and religion, continual efforts appear to have been made even in Babylonia itself, to check the growth of a debasing ritual and the constant increase of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses which were installed as the rulers of each new town that was founded on the plan of the metropolis. Professor Jastrow tells us that "whenever the kings in their inscriptions mention the regular sacrifices, it is in almost all cases with reference to their re-inst.i.tution of an old custom that had been allowed to fall into neglect (owing to the political disturbances which always affected the temples) and not as an innovation" ... (_op. cit._ p. 667). The tablet of Sippara, on which the image of Shamash is restored by the king on an ancient model, has already been described and on it appears the four-spoked wheel, the expressive symbol of a "primitive Sun." The primeval conception of a single, stable, changeless and central celestial power was evidently adhered to in ancient Babylonia by a small but faithful minority, and the constant growth of debasing practices and the manufacture of symbolical images to which reverence was paid and which were ultimately worshipped, awakened its constant disapproval and abhorrence. At a remote period we find the adherents to a stern monotheism establishing the Babylonian province of

CANAAN.

The following account of the Hebrew religion, translated from Spamer's work (p. 297) already cited, will be found instructive:

"Originally there was no difference between the religion of the Hebrews and that of the neighboring tribes. The lord=Baal of Moab was named Kamosh, that of the Hebrews Yahwe. Yahwe was the national G.o.d, above all the G.o.d of battle.... Altars made of earth or unhewn stone were erected for him on mountains, hills or under green trees; next to the altar stood either a stone column (Ma.s.seba) or a sacred tree (Ashera). In the temple the image of Yahwe represented him in human form or, as in Dan or Bethel, in that of a bull. Next to Yahwe were other G.o.ds: first, Baal, the supreme lord of the world, who had a special temple in Jerusalem; secondly, Astarte, to whom Solomon built an altar near Jerusalem.

"Solomon had also built altars to Kamosh, the G.o.d of the Moabites, to Milkom, the G.o.d of the Ammonites and in his temple other G.o.ds beside Yahwe were worshipped; amongst them a demi-G.o.d and a serpent of bra.s.s (Neshushtan) which was abolished later on by Hiskia. All of these G.o.ds, who were also worshipped by the neighbors of the enemies of Israel, became secondary to the tribal G.o.d to whom Israel owed its greatness.

"Yahwe becomes the first and mightiest, and is identified with El, the supreme G.o.d of the Semites, whose individuality is vague. On the other hand 'the Baal,' the princ.i.p.al G.o.d of all neighboring people, especially of the Phnicians, possesses a marked individuality which excludes his identification with other G.o.ds. He is worshipped in separate centres of cult and becomes the rival of Yahwe...." The rivalry and the struggle for religious and political supremacy between the priests, prophets and followers of Yahwe, the G.o.d of heaven, and Baal, the lord of earth, culminated in about B.C. 837, when the temple of the latter was destroyed and his priesthood killed.

"It was not until about 750 B.C., however, that the national G.o.d Yahwe became the acknowledged sole G.o.d of the universe next to whom all other G.o.ds were as mere phantoms.... A remarkable transformation took place about this time in the conception of a divinity and of morality; the moral precepts of religion were developed and clearly formulated and the ten commandments promulgated. As time progressed the voices of prophets and priesthood became more and more loud in condemnation of the use of idols and symbols of divinity. Hosea especially denounced the cult of Yahwe under the form of a bull; Jeremias went so far as to disapprove of the holy ark itself which stood in the temple of Jerusalem.

"Later on, when, about B.C. 621, one of the most important events in the history of mankind had taken place and the book of the law, the Sepher Hathora, was discovered by the high priest in the temple of Jerusalem, during its restoration, the Hebrew religion was reformed, reorganized and reestablished on lines which favored the development of more refined and elevated religious teachings. All idols and symbols were abolished. Naught could destroy, however, the deeply rooted idea that it was in Jerusalem alone, or Mount Sion, that Yahwe was to be worshipped. This was the chosen site to which offerings and t.i.thes were to be carried. As the chosen people of Yahwe, Israel was also to be a holy nation which was to distinguish itself by its superior religion and morality and, in order to do so, was to keep itself rigidly apart and aloof from other people.

"Thus this little nation cultivated and perfected the religious capabilities of the human race and laid the foundation for Christianity and the Islam."

Jerusalem, the ancient capital, occupied almost the centre of Canaan and was founded on Mount Zion, the highest elevation in the district. From time immemorial Jerusalem has indeed contained a spot reputed to mark the centre of the world and a sacred stone is also venerated there to this day and is now a.s.sociated, in a curious way, with the biblical account of Jacob's dream of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven.

It was obviously as a result of their deeply ingrained ideal of central power that the Israelites who migrated from Ur, the seat of moon-worship, and wandered into Palestine, engaged in a long struggle which ended in their successful capture, in 1050 B.C., of Jerusalem, the sacred city, situated in the centre of the land. The importance of this conquest to the Israelites can only be rightly estimated when it is realized that, during countless centuries, this single branch of the Semitic race had adhered to the cult of the central, changeless, ever-present and light-giving guiding star, and gradually developed the higher conception of an invisible, omnipotent and omniscient G.o.d. It will be seen that, while other branches of their race gradually developed separate cults of the dual principles of nature, they had remained faithful to the primeval recognition of a single pole-star and, rising to a loftier conception, const.i.tuted themselves the champions of a pure monotheism, disconnected from the cult of heaven and earth or sun and moon which, a.s.sociated with dual reproductive principles, justly became the horror and abomination of the Israelites. It is interesting to recall the fact that, about 908 B.C., Jezebel, the wife of Ahab and daughter of the king of Tyre, set up the cult of the dual principles of nature in Israel and, destroying the priests and prophets of Jehovah, built a temple to Baal and Astarte and appointed 450 priests and 500 prophets to the respective service of these divinities. This historical incident furnishes a striking instance of the united cult of the Above and Below in direct antagonism to that of the Centre which had already developed into a definite and pure monotheism.(101)

a.s.sYRIA.

A study of the a.s.syrian symbols of royalty, which I recently had an opportunity of making at the British Museum, has led me to the conclusion that, in a.s.syria, during many centuries, a perfect equilibrium was maintained throughout the state which, by a strict coordination of all its parts, represented a harmonious ent.i.ty.

An observation I have made, which may be worth noting, is that a.s.syria seems to occupy, in relation to Babylonia, somewhat the same position as Peru to the more ancient and greater centres of culture in Mexico and Central America. In the latter the original ground-plan of the archaic civilization seems to be lost and hidden under the ruin and devastation caused by the growth of diverging cults. In Peru and a.s.syria alike we seem to have examples of organizations starting afresh on the old plan or reversions to the primitive type of civil and religious government in which simplicity, order, balance and harmony were again restored and maintained. If I may venture to hazard a general observation about the ancient civilizations of Western Asia I should say that, whereas the primeval centre of primitive pole-star worship in Babylonia had, in course of time, brought forth as its highest development the monotheism of the Israelites, and as its lowest the cults of Ishtar and Bel, it also appears to have given birth to a reproduction of its former self, to the a.s.syrian empire, in which the most ancient form of culture was preserved intact, and in time spread its influence not only to other nations but also back to Babylonia itself.

As in Peru, it appears to have been the policy of the kings of a.s.syria, who had before them the results of an opposite course pursued at Babylonia, to discountenance the manufacture of symbolical images and the establishment of minor centres of government, the leading motive being to maintain the ideal of an absolute centralization of temporal and spiritual government and power. It is the opinion of leading a.s.syriologists that a.s.syria was a colony founded by Semitic Babylonians and this conclusion is corroborated by the view I have advanced, namely, that, as Babylonia degenerated and abandoned the primeval ideas which nourished the germ of monotheism, those who adhered to this ideal after prolonged struggles separated themselves from their ancient mother, and founded new colonies, the administration and religion of which they established according to their wider experience and more advanced intellectual and moral development. A characteristic of a.s.syria seems to have been the inst.i.tution of two male rulers, the high-priest and the king and the cult of the diurnal and nocturnal heaven, of day and night. As these features are in marked contrast to the Babylonian male and female rulers and the cult of heaven and earth and the reproductive principles, it would seem as though they had developed themselves from a prolonged cult of heaven alone by the inhabitants of Northern Babylonia, or that they were the result of a reform led about by the abuses to which the Babylonian cult had led. A curious development worth mentioning, even out of its chronological order, was when the a.s.syrian king Esarhaddon placed his two sons as single rulers upon the thrones of Babylonia and a.s.syria. It is known that these two brothers ruled in peace during twenty years and that then a great rebellion against the a.s.syrian rule took place, which ended in the conquest and destruction of Babylonia and the death of its king, whose half-brother, the a.s.syrian ruler Asurbanipal, thus became the sole ruler of a.s.syria and Babylonia.

Professor Jastrow tells us that, "as compared with Babylonia, a.s.syria was poor in the number of her temples.... The a.s.syrian rulers were much more concerned in rearing grand edifices for themselves. While the G.o.ds were not neglected in a.s.syria, one hears much more of the magnificent palaces erected by the kings than of temples and shrines."

The above data suffice to show that the tendency of the a.s.syrian monarchs was to indulge in self-glorification and to forget what some of his subjects never could: that his position had originally been that of an earthly representative only of a higher central, celestial power. As among some branches of the Semitic race, the conception of a divinity became more and more elevated until it reached the ideal of the Yahwe, "the only true G.o.d who was jealous of other G.o.ds and could brook none beside him."

To these uncompromising adherents of pure monotheism the royal t.i.tles of the a.s.syrian kings who styled themselves the rulers of the centre, of the four quarters of the earth and of the heavens, must indeed have appeared as a sacrilege.

The existence of such opposite views clearly explains the ultimate outbreak of hatred and war between monotheistic Israel and Juda and the ancient empires of Western Asia which shared, with them, a remote but common origin.

Returning to a.s.syria we find that this empire also, as it extended its four-fold capital a.s.sur into four provinces and developed the cult of the high central power and the Heaven and Earth, gradually prepared in turn its own downfall by an inevitable process of disintegration. In time two great capitals grew up, situated to the northeast and northwest of the ancient metropolis of a.s.sur, the original seat of the "kings of the four regions." These capitals were Ninive, divided into four cities, and Arbela, also a "four-city." The fact that the latter capital was the seat of Ishtar worship, further proves that, at one time, a definite separation of cults had also supervened in a.s.syria and that a.s.sur and Ninive may at one time have been respectively centres of Polaris and sun worship. It is well known that when about B.C. 606 the great a.s.syrian empire was destroyed, it had four royal residences: Ninive, Dur-Sarrukin, Kalash and a.s.sur, which were then burnt and levelled to the ground, never to be rebuilt.

Let us now examine the emblems of "divine royalty" exhibited on the famous portrait stelae of a.s.syrian kings preserved at the British Museum which strikingly confirm the view I advanced that the four-spoked wheel of Shamash on the Sippara tablet was the ancient restored image of the "primitive sun" Polaris and of circ.u.mpolar rotation.

The a.s.syrian kings on the British Museum stelae are represented as wearing the cross, between the signs for the moon and planet Venus, that occurs on the Sippara tablet. The four-spoked wheel thus explains itself as a "wheel-cross" and is found to have been employed in a.s.syria alternately with the plain cross; for the portrait statue of Asurnasirpal (about B.C.

880) represents the king wearing a chain about his neck from which hangs a cross between the Ishtar and moon emblems, and next to a symbol representing the lightning bolt of Ramman. In the background, next to the king's head, five emblems are sculptured, three of which are identical with those hanging from the chain, _i. e._ the eight-rayed "sun" of Ishtar, the moon Sin and the lightning bolt of Ramman. The _fifth emblem_ consists of the royal conical cap with four horns and is represented separately to the right while the other four symbols form a compact group.

In the text a.s.sur, Ramman, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar are invoked. As the symbols of Ishtar and Sin can be identified by the Sippara tablet, and the winged disk unquestionably pertains to a.s.sur and the lightning bolt to Ramman, we find that the cap, simulating the central "holy mound" with four horns, must be the symbol of the remaining G.o.d Shamash. This inference appears to be corroborated by the circ.u.mstance that the _seventh_ month was sacred to Shamash and that it was in this month that the lord of the holy mound built the seven-staged tower of Babylon. These facts authorize us to formulate the conclusion that the four-spoked wheel of the Sippara tablet, the cross hanging to the king's chain and the four-horned cap which, like the "square altar with four horns," simulated the "holy mound," were alike symbols of Shamash, the "primitive Sun."

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 t.i.tle.

Nindar is identified in Professor Jastrow's hand-book with Ninsia, "a G.o.d 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 G.o.d Shamash, wears as his only ornament the cross which so obviously expresses the royal t.i.tle, "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 a.s.sociated 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 stelae 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 stelae 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 stelae 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 a.s.sume 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"=G.o.ds=earthly rulers.

Final, positive proof that a.s.syria, under Sargon II and Esarhaddon, like ancient Babylon, was organized into seven "districts," seems to be furnished by the seven symbols carved on their stelae, 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"