Topic: Semitic Mythology

[Prometheus]

1916 Semitic Mythology
pag.39: The Hebrew
tradition connected
their ancestral home
with SYRIA,  (so NOT PALESTINE !) also page 72 Habiru OR saishu Dilmun Saudi Arabia?
and especially with the “land
of the rivers,” the region of Harran and
Paddan on the river Balih.
https://archive.org/details/mythologyofallra51gray/page/n5



https://archive.org/details/ShlomoSandTheInventionOfTheJewishPeople2009
https://archive.org/details/ShlomoSandTheInventionOfTheLandOfIsrail_201801/page/n23
https://archive.org/details/SandHowIStoppedBeingAJew

THE MYTHOLOGY OF ALL RACES


Volume V
SEMITIC




SEMITIC


BY

STEPHEN HERBERT LANGDON, M.A.

JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD
FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
MARY W. SHILLITO READER IN AND PROFESSOR
OF ASSYRIOLOGY


VOLUME V



ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY • BOSTON
M DCCCC XXXI



l\


A



Copyright, 1931

By Marshall Jones Company, Incorporated

Copyrighted in Great Britain

All rights reserved including the right to re-
produce this hook or parts thereof in any form

Printed July, 1931


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY


THE PLIMPTON PRESS • NORWOOD • MASSACHUSETTS


TO

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND FACULTY

OF THE

UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
BY A FORMER SCHOLAR OF THE SEMINARY


-f ^ OQO
-L O G O


Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2016


https://archive.org/details/mythologyofallra51gray


CONTENTS


PAGE

Introduction xv

Chapter I. Geographical and Linguistic Distribution

OF Semitic Races, and Deities i

II. The Sumero-Accadian Pantheon .... 88

III. The Legend of Etana and the Plant of

Birth i66

IV. The Myth of Adapa and Adam 175

V. The Sumerian Legends of Tagtug and

Paradise 190

VI. Legends of the Deluge 203

VII. The Epic of Gilgamish 234

VIII. Legends of the Destruction of Men, or

THE Poem of Ea and Atarhasis 270

IX. The Babylonian Epic of Creation and Simi-
lar Semitic Myths 277

X. The Descent of Ishtar to Arallu .... 326

XI. Tammuz and Ishtar 336

XII. The Devils, Demons, Good and Evil Spirits 352

Notes 375

Bibliography 419

Index 433



ILLUSTRATIONS


FIGURES AND PLATES PAGE

1 Sabaean Altar 3

A. Grohmann, Gottersymbole, Abb. 88.

2 Lapis-lazuli Seal 4

Delaporte , i, PI. 35, No. 7.

3 Copper Coin with Crescent and Disk 4

From cast supplied by the British Museum. See p. 377, n. 9.

4 Copper Coin Shewing Sacred Baetyl 16

G. F. Hill , PL iv. 2.

5 Basalt Statue of Busares 17

Syria, V. PI. xx. No. 2.

6 Tyche of Antioch 18

Journal of Hellenic studies, ix, after P. Gardner.

7 Tyche of Damascus 19

Journal Asiatique, 1904, PI. i, No. 2.

8 Head of Tyche 1 9

G. F. Hill ,Pl. vi. 10.

9 The Assyrian Tyche 23

Sidney Smith, History of Assyria, p. 233.

10 Venus as Goddess of War 24

Langdon [h], PI. i, No. 1.

11 Ishtar’s War Chariot 27

Langdon [d], PI. vii, No. 2.

12 Enkidu and the Bull of Heaven 29

A. Boissier, Note sur deux cylindres orientaux, p. 9.

13 Egyptian Bas-relief, Shewing ‘Anat facing 30

H. Gressmann, Texte und Bilder^ PI. cxiv, opp. p. 30.

14 Hesi-Nekht Astart of Beth-shan facing 32

From photograph supplied by the University Museum, Philadel-
phia, opp. p. 31.

15 Terra-cotta Shrine of Beth-shan 31

Museum Journal, Vol. xvii, p. 295.

16 Ishtar Parakyptousa 32

D. G. Hogarth, Efhesus, PI. 28, No. 5.

17 Terra-cotta Movable Altar 33

W. Andrae, Die Archaischen Ischtar-Temfel, Taf. 17.


ILLUSTRATIONS


X

FIGURES AND PLATES PAGE

1 8 Nude Ishtar 34

R. Koldewey, Das wiedererstehende Babylon, p. 271.

19 Azizos and Monimos 35

Revue Archeologique, 1903, Part ii, p. 130.

After R. Dusseaud.

20 ‘Ate of Hierapolis 36

E. Babelon, Les Rots Perses, p. lii, Fig. 15.

21 Atargatis 36

H. Strong and J. Garstang, The Syrian Goddess, p. 70.

22 Western Type of Adad-Rimmon 39

Revue d^Assyriologie, xiii, p. 16, PI. ii, No. 16, after V. Scheil.

23 Yaw, Coin of Gaza 43

G. F. Hill, Coins of Palestine, PI. xix, 29.

24 Astart-Yaw 44

E. Babelon, Les Rois Perses, PI. viii. No. 7.

25 Stele of Mikal of Beisan jacing 44

Museum Journal, xix, p. 150. See pp. 46-8.

26 Bas-relief from Moab 46

H. Gressmann, Texte und Bilder^ Abb. 617.

27 Phoenician Deity, from Amrith 47

Ibid. Abb. 307.

28 SealofAddumu 48

Catalogue De Clercq, Vol. i. No. 386.

29 Seal of Rameses II 49

Museum Journal, xx, p. 55.

30 Coin of Tyre, Melkart on Sea-horse 51

E. Babelon, Les Rois Perses, PI. xxxv. No. 13.

31 Colonial Coin of Tyre with Sun Pillars 51

Ibid, xxxvii. No. 16.

32 Coin of Tyre 53

Ibid, xxxv. No. 20.

33 Sun-symbol of Tyre in Chariot 54

Ibid, xxxii, No. 15.

34 Tessara from Palmyra 57

Comptes Rendus de PAcademie frangaise, 1903, p. 277.

35 Bas-relief; Semia, Solar Deity, Adad 59

Revue Archeologique, 1904, Part ii, p. 249.

36 Sumerian Roll Seal 60

Otto Weber, Siegelbilder, No. 375.

37 Palmyrene Altar 62

Memoir es de PInstitut frangais, xx, PI. i. No. i.

After Layard.


ILLUSTRATIONS


XI


FIGURES AND PLATES PAGE

38 El with Wings. Astarte 68

E. Babelon, Les Rots Perses, PI. xxvii, No. 4.

39 Seal Shewing Two-headed Marduk 69

Babyloniaca, ix, p. 78, No. 128, after Contenau.

40 Stele of Yehaw-Melek 70

H. Gressmann, Texts uni Bilder^ Abb. 516.

41 Coin of Elagabalus. Eshmun the Healer 77

G. F. Hill, Coins of Phoenicia, PI. x, No. 14.

42 Statue of Dagan 8 1

Archiv fur Keilschriftforschung, iii, p. iii, after Nassoubi.

43 Coin Shewing Dagon 83

G. F. Hill, Coins of Phoenicia, PI. xlv. No. i.

44 Babylonian Bronze Plaque 85

Bronze Plaque in Collection de Clercq, after Catalogue De Clercq
ii, PI. xxxiv.

45 Assyrian Cone Seal with Fish-men 86

W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, No. 659.

46 Pictograph for Earth-goddess 90

Design by the author.

47 Grain-goddess 90

Catalogue De Clercq, No. 140.

48 God with Overflowing Waters 95

Revue d' Assyriologie, v, p. 131.

49 Winged Angel with Water of Life 96

Museum Journal, xviii, p. 75.

50 Gilgamish with Jar of Overflowing Water 98

Catalogue De Clercq, No. 46.

51 Boundary Stone of Melishipak facing 106

Delegation en Perse, i, PL xvi, opp. p. 105.

52 Top of a Water Jar IIO

Langdon, S. [d], PI. xiii. No. 2.

53 Mother and Child Ill

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

54 Ningirsu 116

Delaporte L. , p. 13, T. no.

55 Marduk in Chariot 118

W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, No. 127.

56 Musrussu 127

R. Koldewey, Das wiedererstehenie Babylon, Fig. 31.


ILLUSTRATIONS


xii

FIGURES AND PLATES PAGE

57 Ninurta Pursuing Musrussu 131

W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, No. 579.

58 Seal from Kish 133

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

59 Terra-cotta Bas-relief from Kish 137

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

60 Sun-god and Hammurabi 149

Delegation en Perse, iv, PI. iii.

61 Four-pointed Star 150

Babyloniaca, ii, p. 144.

62 Model of Statue of Shamash 151

H. C. Rawlinson, Inscriptions of Western Asia, v, PI. 57.

63 Coin of Caracalla Shewing Moon-god 154

Hill, G. F. , PI. xii. No. 8.

64 Assyrian Seal. Marduk and Nabu 159

Delaporte, L. [c], PI. 88, A 686.

65 Combat of Eagle and Serpent 1 70

Museum Journal, xix, p. 392, No. 28.

66 Etana on Eagle 172

O. Weber, Siegelbilder, No. 404.

67 Ilabrat or Papsukkal 176

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

68 Serpent and Tree of Life (?) 177

Delegation en Perse, xii. Fig. 288, after Toscane. See p. 179.

69 Woman and Serpent 178

Ibid., Fig. 299, after Toscane, see p. 179.

70 The Temptation According to Sumerian Myth 179

W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, No. 388.

71 Deity Offering Poppy Branch to a Worshipper 186

L. W. King, History of Sumer and Accad, p. 246.

72 Goddess Offering Palm Branch to Three Gods .... 187

Delaporte, L. [a]. No. 81.

73 Mother-goddess, Worshipper, and Tammuz 188

Ibid., No. III.

74 Flood Stratum at Kish facing 216

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition, opp.
p. 204.

75 Babylonian Map of the World 217

From CT. xxii, PL 48, after R. C. Thompson. Restored conjec-
turally, with omission of cuneiform text.

76 Enkidu in Combat with Two Lions 237

Revue d'Assyriologie, vi, p. 156, PI. i. No. 4.


ILLUSTRATIONS xlii

FIGURES AND PLATES PAGE

77 Gilgamish and Enkidu 238

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

78 Gilgamish, Enkidu, and Ishtar 245

Louis Speelers, Catalogue des Intailles et Emfreintes Orientates des
Musees Royaux du Cinquantenaire, p. 166.

79 Terra-cotta Mask of Humbaba 254

Revue d’Assyriologie, xxii, p. 23.

80 Terra-cotta Bas-relief of Humbaba 255

Ibid., p. 25.

81 Combat of Marduk and a Dragon 278

Otto Weber, Siegelbilder, No. 3 1 1 .

82 Combat of Marduk and Zu 279

W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, No. 580.

83 Combat of Marduk and Scorpion-man 280

Delaporte, L. [c], No. 652.

84 Combat of Marduk and the Eagle-headed Lion 281

W. H. Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, No. 585.

85 Marduk in Combat with Winged Lion 282

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

86 Combat of Marduk and a Dragon (Ostrich) 283

Delaporte, L. [a]. No. 330.

87 Man in Combat with Sphinx 284

Ibid., No. 325.

88 The Dragon Musrussu 285

Revue d’Assyriologie, vi, p. 96.

89 The Constellations Leo and Hydra as Musrussu .... 286

Archiv fiir Keilschriftforschung, iv, PI. v.

90 Marduk and Musrussu . 301

F. Weissbach, Babylonische Miscellen, p. 16.

91 Constellations Corvus, Hydra, and Virgo 305

Revue d’Assyriologie, xvi, p. 135.

92 The Pleiades. Moon in Taurus 305

Archiv fiir Keilschriftforschung, iv, PI. v.

93 The Tower of Babel 309

Journal of the Society of Oriental Research, xiv, p. 2.

94 Bas-relief of Ishtar 331

From photograph by the Oxford-Field Museum Expedition.

95 The Arabian Ghoul 353

C. M. Doughty, W anderings in Arabia, i, p. 54.

96 Assyrian Winged 359

L. W. King, Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities^
p. 10, PI. iv.


XIV


ILLUSTRATIONS


FIGURES AND PLATES PAGE

97 The Sumerian Lamassu 360

H. R. Hall, Assyrian Sculptures, PI. Ixviii, BM. 90954.

98 Lamashtu Sent on Her Journey jacing 368

Photograph from Beiblatt zuni Jahrbuch des Konigl-Preusz.
Kunstsatnlung. See p. 417, note 39, opposite p. 367.

99 Babylonian Amulet. Expulsion of Lamashtu 368

F. Weissbach, Babylonische Miscellen, p. 42.

100 Babylonian Amulet. Seven Devils and Lamashtu .... 370

Revue d'Assyriologie, xviii, PI. i, No. 2, after F. Thureau-Dangin.

1 01 Pazuzu, Demon of the Winds 371

Museum Journal, viii (1917), p. 43.

102 Head of Pazuzu

Revue d’Assyriologie, xi, p. 57.


372


INTRODUCTION


T he subject of this book offered such great difficulties in
the vastness of its material, in its contents, time, and geo-
graphical extent, in its significance as the presentation of the
mythology and religion of those cognate races, on whose soil
arose three great religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity,
and Mohammedanism, that the author has been embarrassed
by the difficulty of selecting what is strictly essential. Since the
notable effort of W. Robertson Smith to compass in a single
volume the religion of the Semitic races in his Religion of the
Semites (1889, 1894, 1901), in which the most important of
all Semitic races, the Accadian, was almost entirely neglected,
and the equally valuable survey by M. P. Lagrange, l^tudes sur
les religions semitiques (1903, 1905), the material, especially
in Cuneiform, South Arabian, and Phoenician, has increased to
such extent that the whole subject appears in a new light. This
book has been written almost entirely from the sources in the
original languages, Sumerian, Accadian, Hebrew, Phoenician,
Aramaic, Himyaritic (South Arabic), and Arabic. In the case
of the sources in the last two mentioned languages I have had
from time to time the invaluable assistance of my colleague.
Dr. D. S. Margoliouth, Laudian Professor of Arabic. On all
important points the specialists are requested to refer to the
notes j more especially have I felt bound to state in these the
philological reasons for arguments and translations based upon
Sumerian and Accadian texts. Here the new material is so im-
portant, and in some cases utilized for the first time, that the
notes are necessarily numerous.

In the translation of Sumerian and Accadian texts a few pe-
culiarities must be made clear to the general reader. Words in


XVI


INTRODUCTION


italics indicate that the meaning of the corresponding words of
the texts has not been fully established. It may appear incon-
sistent to find both “ land” and “ Land” in the translations;
“ Land ” is employed only when the Sumerian kalam-ma, Ac-
cadian matu, refer to the “ home-land,” that is, Sumer, Accad,
Babylonia, Assyria. In this book “ Accadian ” means the
Semitic languages of Babylonia and Assyria, which are funda-
mentally identical. Sumerian is not a Semitic language, but no
discussion of Semitic religion is possible without the Sumerian
sources. This language belongs to the agglutinating group, and
was spoken by the earliest inhabitants of Mesopotamia. They
founded the great cities of that land, Opis, Sippar, Kish, Nip-
pur, Erech, Ellasar, Shuruppak, Ur, Eridu, Lagash, etc., long
before 4000 b.c., and formulated the religious system which
the Accadians adopted. The date of the entry of the Semites
into Mesopotamia is uncertain, and it is even debatable whether
they are not as ancient in that land as the Sumerians themselves.
The entire evidence of the very early inscriptions proves that
the Sumerians not only invented the pictographic script, which
they developed into the more easily written cuneiform script,
but that they already had a very considerable literature, and a
great pantheon, when the Semites learned to write, and adopted
their religion and culture. The new material, now rapidly in-
creasing for the study of the most remote period of writing, tends
to confirm this view of the origin of Babylonian and Assyrian
mythology and religion. In taking a general survey of the
whole field of Semitic religion, over the wide territory of
Western Asia, and through the four thousand years and more
in which it ran its course, it is clear that it can be classified into
two large groups. The religion and mythology of all those
Semitic peoples, which, by accident of geographical contiguity
and cultural influence, came into contact with the advanced and
affluent civilization of Sumer and Accad, Babylonia and As-
syria, became heavy borrowers from that source. Sumero-
Babylonian cults established themselves in the very midst of


INTRODUCTION


xvii


the old Canaanitish, Aramaean, Phoenician, Moabite, and
Nabataean cults. The mythological conceptions of their own
deities were assimilated to or transformed by the doctrines
taught in the great temples of Sumer and Accad. Their
legends and myths are almost entirely of Sumero-Babylonian
origin. The cult of Tammuz, the lord of weeping and the
resurrection, appears firmily established at Gebal on the shores
of the Mediterranean at an early period. On the other hand
there is only the religion of Arabia, which remained entirely
outside the mission of the higher culture and theology of Sumer
and Accad.

There are, then, only two great currents of mythology and
religion in the Semitic lands — the Sumero-Babylonian of the
east and north, and the Arabian of the south. In the great cur-
rent of the northern stream are mingled many pure Semitic
sources in the west. Some of their cults, notably that of Adad,
actually influenced the mythology of Sumer and Accad. Of
these two systems of mythology, the Sumero-Babylonian is
Infinitely more profound and elaborate. Here alone great
mythological poems and epics were written, which attempted
to grapple with the problems of life, the origin of the universe,
the relation of the gods to men, the salvation of their souls.

In exposing the fundamental facts of the mythologies of the
western group, the history of Hebrew religion is a unique ele-
ment in the vast Semitic field. Although from the beginning
and during its entire evolution the religion of this small
Canaanitish people was constantly influenced by Babylonian
mythology, they alone of all the western peoples seem to have
understood the Import of the profound problems conveyed in
the guise of the legendary poems and epic verse of Babylonia
and Assyria. Converted into their own magnificent Hebrew
prose and poetry and in terms of their conception of deity,
Sumero-Babylonian theology and mythology found there their
greatest interpreter and means of transmission to the religions
which became the heirs of the ancient Semitic world. And it


INTRODUCTION


xviii

must be obvious to all unprejudiced minds, who have a clear
view of the whole sphere of Semitic religions, that Hebrew reli-
gion stands entirely apart and reached a higher plane at the
hands of “ Jehovah’s ” prophets. The author was bound to con-
fine himself strictly to mythology in this volume. In the pro-
phetic works of the Hebrew sources much mythology survives,
and use of it may lead to the inference that their place in the
history of religions does not differ essentially from the great
poets and teachers of Babylonia. This is clearly untrue. The
evolution of Hebrew religion is unique in the history of the
Semites.

Some of the views and arguments in this book undoubtedly
invite criticism. The quo warranto for all statements has been
defined in the notes and elucidated in the text. After long
study of the Semitic and Sumerian sources I have become con-
vinced that totemism and demonology have nothing to do with
the origins of Sumerian or Semitic religions. The former can-
not be proved at all} the latter is a secondary aspect of them.
I may fail to carry conviction in concluding that, both in Su-
merian and Semitic religions, monotheism preceded polytheism
and belief in good and evil spirits. The evidence and reasons
for this conclusion, so contrary to accepted and current views,
have been set down with care and with the perception of ad-
verse criticism. It is, I trust, the conclusion of knowledge and
not of audacious preconception.

To the editor of this series. Canon John A. MacCulloch, I am
indebted for his valuable proof-reading and assistance in edi-
torial details. I feel that I have put upon him an unusual
amount of labour in editing my manuscript, and I am grateful
to him for his assistance. My friends, Pere Schell, Professor of
Assyriology at the Sorbonne, Dr. F. Thureau-Dangin, Profes-
sor Zimmern of Leipzig, and many others have constantly kept
me supplied with their books and articles before they were ac-
cessible in ordinary commerce. The works of these three bril-
liant scholars have been of special value in the elucidation of

[Prometheus]

INTRODUCTION


XIX


cuneiform religious texts. Of particular value also have been
the voluminous and excellent copies of Sumerian texts by Pro-
fessor Chiera of Chicago, and the vast erudition of Professor
Bruno Meissner of Berlin and Professor Arthur Ungnad of
Breslau. The copies and interpretations of religious texts by
Professor Erich Ebeling of Berlin and Dr. R. C. Thompson of
Oxford reveal their great service in the preparation of this book
by the numerous references to their copies in the notes. The
numerous articles of Rene Dussaud cited there mark a distinct
advance in the interpretation of the religion of the Aramaeans
and Phoenicians. In my renewed study of the entire religious
literature of Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria I have often had
occasion to ask for collations of and information concerning
tablets in the British Museum. Mr. C. J. Gadd, Assistant in
the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, has ever
served me well with courtesy and accuracy. On matters in-
volving special knowledge of Egypt, Professor F. LI. Griffith
and Dr. A. M. Blackman have supplied me with the necessary
information.

A word to those who are not Semitic scholars should be added
concerning the pronunciation of the name of the Hebrew deity
Yaw. Phonetically this should have been written Yau. The
last letter is a semi-labial vowel and in my opinion no diph-
thongal sound should be inferred from the spelling adopted in
this book. If the word be written Ya-vf^ the reader will obtain
a pronunciation as accurate as a transcription can convey.

It is still impossible to utilize the newly found and recently
deciphered Phoenician inscriptions, written in a cuneiform al-
phabet. Charles Virolleaud, who first published some of the
tablets from Ras Shamra, near Minet-el-Beida in Syria, on the
shore of the Mediterranean Sea {Syria^ 1929, pp. 304—310),
writes that he has now been able to study large mythological
texts and that the language is classical Phoenician, of the fif-
teenth century b.c. It is obvious, therefore, that the early
Phoenician religion will soon be better understood. None of


XX


INTRODUCTION


these tablets containing the names of the Phoenician deities has
been published up to this date. The author must, therefore,
give his signature to this book in the hope that the new revela-
tion from Ras Shamra will support the views of the Phoenician
pantheon set forth here, and confirm the place which he has
assigned to it in the history of Semitic mythology.

S. LANGDON

Jesus College, Oxford
March 19, 1931


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


BY

STEPHEN HERBERT LANGDON



SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


CHAPTER I

GEOGRAPHICAL AND LINGUISTIC
DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC
RACES, AND DEITIES

T he Semitic speaking peoples are divided geographically
into the eastern, western, northern, and southern groups.
Philologically these are known respectively as the Accadian,
Canaanitish, Aramaean, and Arabic races. The Accadian or
Mesopotamian branch possesses by far the oldest records of
any Semitic language, and it is so called because the first purely
Semitic line of kings reigned at Accad, a city near Sippar, be-
tween the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, the modern ruins called
ed-Deir.^ As a geographical term, “ Accad ” designates the cen-
tral part of the Mesopotamian Valley as far south as the
great cities Kish and Babylon, a region first occupied by the
Sumerians. Undoubtedly this part of Mesopotamia was known
as Accad, before 2732 b.c., when Sargon the ancient founded
the city Agade and the empire of the Accadians which com-
prised the whole of Western Asia.^ It is difficult to fix an
approximate date for the arrival of the Accadians in Mesopota-
mia. The Sumerians had founded cities all along the
Euphrates and Tigris before 4000 b.c., and their earliest cul-
ture as revealed by excavations at Kish, Jemdet Nasr, Shurup-
pak, and Ur cannot be placed later than 5000 b.c. Among the
kings who ruled in the first kingdom of the land at Kish, said
to have been founded immediately after the Flood, there
are seven Accadian names out of a total of twenty-three kings.®


2


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


This dynasty ruled approximately 3400-3170 b.c., hence it
may be assumed that this Semitic race arrived among the
Sumerians in the Kish area as early as the middle of the
fourth millennium b.c. Linguistically the Accadian language
is closely allied to Himyaritic, Sabaean, and Minaean or the
South Arabian branch of the Semitic people, and the few
Semitic deities which survived in the vast Sumerian pantheon
adopted by the Accadians supports the inference drawn from
comparative Semitic philology. Among the Semitic deities
whose names survived, when the Accadians adopted the entire
Sumerian pantheon, are Shamash the Sun-god and Ashdar the
Mother-goddess, identified with the planet Venus.^ Both
of these deities are common to all early Semitic peoples, but
Ashdar, as the word is first written on Sumerian monuments,
is the only direct phonetic reproduction of the South Arabian
‘Athtar, there the name of the planet Venus.

It must be admitted that, although the Semitic race can be
traced to a period circa 3300 b.c. in Accad, only one Semitic
name of a deity occurs on any of their monuments or in any
Sumerian or Accadian inscription before the age of Dungi of
LFr (2381-2326).® In fact Asdar is the only Semitic divine
name which occurs in the early period. The word for sun
and the Sun-god is invariably written with the Sumerian ideo-
gram for sun, babhary utUy and even the Semitic name of the
Sun-god does not appear before the first Babylonian dynasty.®
The phonetic pronunciation of the name of the Sun-god among
the Semites of Accad, when they first appear In history at
least 2500 years before we have any Semitic inscriptions out-
side the Mesopotamian area, appears to have been Sham-shuy
and although this word is pronounced Shamsu by the Mlnaeans
and Sabaeans when their inscriptions begin, it must be assumed
that Shamsu is an example of dissimilation in Arabic. The
Accadian form is the one regularly employed in the Canaanitish
and Aramaic inscriptions. The sporadic form samsu occurs
toward the end of the first dynasty.^


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


3


Assuming that South Arabia is the original home of the
Semitic peoples, the theory adopted by the writer of this vol-
ume, it follows from the evidence of Minaean, Sabaean, and
Qatabanian inscriptions from Arabia Felix, modern Yemen,
and Hadramut, that the three principal and perhaps the only
deities originally worshipped by the Semites are the Sun,
Venus, and the Moon,
all astral deities.®

The sun and moon
in South Arabia, whose
monuments and in-
scriptions are dated
from about the ninth
to the second century
B.C., are symbolically
represented by a cres-
cent and disk (Fig. i).

This is also the sym-
bolism of these two
deities, which con-
stantly occurs in Su-
mero-Accadian sym-
bolism (Fig. 2). This
same symbolism occurs
frequently on coins of
the South Arabian people in Abyssinia, right down to the period
in which they were converted to Christianity in the fourth cen-
tury A.D. See Fig. 3. This is a copper coin and bears the
Greek inscription Ousannes Basileus AksomUon Bisi Tisene^
“ Ousannes King of the Aksomites, of the tribe Tisene.” The
head is that of the king, on obverse with a crown, and on re-
verse without a crown.® It is, therefore, clear that the Semites
who first appear in history so completely mingled with Sumerian
culture, more than 2000 years before there is any inscriptional
evidence about them elsewhere, were South Arabians. South



Fig. I. Sabaean Altar, Shewing Crescent
AND Disk


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


4

Arabian inscriptions have been found in Mesopotamia and at
Koweit on the Arabian shore of the Persian gulf near the
boundary of Iraqd® But the date of Himyaritic Minaean civili-
zation in the Yemen cannot be reduced to a late period merely
because their monuments do not begin before the first millen-



nium B.c. Their culture and religion are of hoary antiquity
and clearly extended along the entire eastern Arabian sea-coast
and the Persian Gulf. Magan and Meluhha of Sumerian
geography lay on the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf, and

Magan was almost certainly identical
with the land of the Gerraei of the
Greek geographers. It was then this
Semitic people who entered Mesopo-
tamia before 3000 b.c., from Magan
and Arabia Felix, bringing with them
the ancient Semitic deities of South
Arabia. The names of the three prin-
cipal deities were Shamshu, ‘Athtar, and
"Zr'™ Shahar the Moon-god.

In South Arabia the Sun-god is a
female deity, and ‘Athtar, or god of the planet Venus, is a male
deity. But the Accadians, having identified these deities with
the Sumerian Sun-god, Utu or Babbar of Ellasar and Sippar,



Fig. 3

Crescent and Disk



DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


5


and with the Sumerian Innini, the Mother-goddess and the
planet Venus, reversed the genders of these deities, a change
which was latterly imposed upon the entire North and West
Semitic religions. In South Arabian there are many names for
the Moon-god, Shahar, the name common to all Arabic dia-
lects, Warah, “ the Wanderer,” Kahil, “ the Old One,” Wadd,
“the Loving,” Ilmuqah, of unknown meaning} and he is
frequently referred to as aby “ father,” ^amniy “ ancestor,”
“uncle.” None of these names for the Moon-god survived
in Accadian. According to D. Nielsen the South Arabian deity
Ilah, or II, which is also the common Semitic word for “ god,”
and corresponds to the Hebrew and Aramaic deity El, Elohim,
is one of the names of the Moon-god. The North Arabic al-
ilah = Allah, who became the supreme and only god of Mo-
hammedan religion, and El, El 5 him of the Northern Hebrew
tribes who with Yaw, a deity of the Southern Hebrew tribes,
became the supreme deity of Hebrew monotheism, would thus
originally denote the ancient and prehistoric Moon-god. On
this theory there will be more to say when the deities of the
Canaanites are discussed.

In Accadian it is the Sumerian name of the Moon-god which
is invariably used from first to last in their inscriptions, namely
Zu-en, commonly pronounced Sin. There is no doubt at all
concerning the Sumerian derivation of this name.^^ It occurs
twice in a Himyaritic inscription written S-i-n, clearly the god
Sin,^® where it cannot possibly be an Arabic name, but an im-
portation from Babylonian. Nabunidus, the last king of Baby-
lon (555—538 B.C.), is known to have resided for some time at
Teima in Arabia, north of El-‘ 01 a, where South Arabian in-
scriptions have been found, and it is certain that Babylonian in-
fluence pervaded the whole of South Arabia from a very early
period.

If the name Sin is the origin of the word Smai, Mount
Sinai, which occurs in early documents of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, not earlier than lOOO b.c., then this mountain range in


6


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


the extreme north-western part of Arabia and especially its
principal mountain, Horeb, connected with the worship of
the Hebrew gods Yaw and Elohim, must have been an ancient
North Arabian centre of Moon worship, and the name itself is
taken from the Sumero-Babylonian Sin, after the name had
been transmitted to Arabia, and replaced some older Arabic
name for “ moon ” as the name of these mountains. In any
case this Sumerian name of the Moon-god was known to the
Hebrews; for it occurs in the names Shenazzar (sixth cen-
tury) and Shinab, king of Admah ; and the Canaanitish cult of
the moon was actually favoured by the kings of Judah before the
reign of Josiah.^® Job reflects the well-known Semitic sun and
moon worship in his remonstrance against this pagan practice:

“ If seeing the sun when it shone,

And the moon moving gloriously along,

My heart was secretly enticed.

And my hand kissed my mouth.”

It is, therefore, certain that Semitic religion in its most primi-
tive form begins with three astral deities. Sun, Moon, and
Venus, and that they came into contact with Sumerian civiliza-
tion at such an early period that the real Semitic characteristics
of these deities were totally transformed by the Sumerians.
Sumerian religion is based upon a vast pantheon and is ex-
tremely polytheistic. It was completely adopted by the
Accadians, and through the later Babylonian and Assyrian
kingdoms this extreme type of polytheism, rich in mythology
and theological speculation, influenced the religious beliefs
of nearly every Semitic race in Western Asia. Semitic religion,
pure and undefiled, must be sought in those impenetrable areas
of Arabia, where the great light of Sumer and Accad did not
shine, and in those stray references to the old Semitic cults
which survived in Syria and Phoenicia and Canaan. In these
latter lands, along the Mediterranean sea-coast, Egyptian in-
fluence must also be considered. But it was not important.
When we come to deal with the mythology and theology of


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


7


the Northern and Western Semitic races, we shall see that Baby-
lonia is the source from which they absorbed all their fundamen-
tal ideas, and this process began when the first South Arabian
invasion of Sumer occurred and the first Semitic people learned
the arts of civilization from the Sumerians of Mesopotamia.

Arabian religion has no mythology at all concerning the gods
and goddesses of its pantheon. A few names of Arabic deities
of pre-Islamic times have survived in the Coran of Moham-
med, who founded a thorough monotheism on the deity Allah,
the old Ilah, or title of the Moon-god Wadd, Shahar, Ilmuqah
of the earlier pantheon.^® It is an idea common to all primi-
tive Semitic tribes that they descended from their patron deity,
not in the sense that this deity was a deified man, or that he
was a plant or animal (totemism), but in the sense that he was
their divine creator.^® The Minaeans described themselves as
sons of Wadd, the Qatabanians as sons of ‘Amm, and the
Sabaeans as sons of Ilmuqah, all titles of the Moon-god. This
idea of a god as father or ancestor of a tribe reveals itself in
proper names over the whole Semitic area. In South Arabic
Abikarib, “ My father is gracious,” is a very common personal
name, in which ah^ “ father,” refers to one of the deities, prob-
ably the Moon-god.®® This fatherhood of god is particularly
emphasized in early Accadian names, Abum-ilum, “ god is
father,” Abu-tab, “ the father is good,” Sin-abu-su, “ Sin
is his father.” The gods are also regarded as brothers and
sisters of men. “ Brother ” and “ sister ” in personal names
occur only in Accadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian, or in
Semitic lands under Babylonian influence, and probably refer
to Tammuz and his sister Ishtar, and may well be direct epithets
of these two deities.®® A name like Ahi-saduq, on a seal of
the Amoritic period,®® meaning “ My brother is righteous,”
undoubtedly describes a deity as “ My brother.” Ammi-
sadugu, “ My uncle is righteous,” is an exact parallel.

The description of a deity as “ brother ” is not found in
Arabic at any period. This mythological family relation of


8


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


god and man is common in Canaanitish, including Hebrew, and
in the Aramaic group j in Accadian it appears in the earliest
Semitic inscriptions.^^ Ahu-tab, “ the brother is good,” on a
monument of Manistusu of the 27th century b.c., is exactly
parallel to Ahi-tub, a common Hebrew name occurring not
earlier than the eleventh century b.c. In early Accadian,
Ahu-issap, “ The brother increases,” Ahu-ilum, “ El is
brother,” Salim-ahu, “ the brother is happy,” Ili-ahi, “ My
god is my brother,” Ahum-ilum, “ El is a brother,” clearly
demonstrate that this idea was firmly rooted in the mythology
of the Semites from prehistoric times.^® Since they are in
reality South Arabians, where Semitic religious ideas are re-
tained in their most primitive forms, it is inexplicable that the
“ brotherhood of god ” is not found there, or in the South
Arabian kingdom of Abyssinia, or in any of the North Arabian
centres to which Minaean-Sabaean culture spread, as at al ‘Ola
(in Minaean and Lihyanian inscriptions) or in the Hauran
(in Safaitic inscriptions).^® In Hebrew Ahi-yah, “ My brother
is Yah,” reveals this mythological relation between Yaw, the
tribal god of the Hebrews, and his people, as does also Ahi-
melek, where melek is either a title of Yaw, or the name of an
old Canaanitish deity. This idea is particularly prominent in
Hebrew. Ahi-ezer “ My brother is help,” Ahi-qam, in As-
syrian Ahiya-qamu,*^ “ My brother is risen Ahi-ram, in
Assyrian Ahi-ramu, “ My brother is supreme,” and in Ahi-
ram, king of Gebal, early Phoenician, circa 900 b.c.^® Its occur-
rence at Gebal, centre of the West Semitic cult of Adonis and
Astarte, i.e., of Tammuz and Ishtar, taken in connection with the
almost complete absence of the “ brotherhood of god ” in Ara-
bian religion where Babylonian religion had little influence,
would support the theory that “ brother,” when applied to
deities like Yaw, Melek, and Adonis, actually refers to these
deities as the dying and resurrected god, brother of the Earth-
goddess Astarte, Ishtar. Names like Ahu-bani, which occurs in
Babylonian not earlier than the Cassite period, compared with


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


9

Sin-bani, “ Sin is creator,” Marduk-bani, Enlil-bani, Shamash-
bani, clearly prove that, even in Assyria and Babylonian,
“ brother ” is a title of any god and cannot refer to Tammuz or
Adonis, as it invariably does in Sumerian.

[Prometheus]

It must be admitted that any Semitic deity could be addressed
as the “ brother ” of the worshippers, in the same way as he
was called ah^ “ father,” or *ammu “ uncle,” “ ancestor j ”
and unless the “ brotherhood ” title can be attributed to the
Tammuz-Ishtar myth, it is difficult to explain this aspect of
Semitic mythology, in which the gods as “ brothers ” appear
as creators of their people.®^ The view of most Semitic scholars,
who follow W. R. Smith, is that the early Semites actually re-
garded themselves as related to deified persons, or in the final
instance to animals or plants from which the various Semitic
tribes supposed themselves descended. On this view totemism
is the original religion of the Semitic races, and the principal
argument used to support this theory is the widespread primitive
Semitic custom of naming men and women from animals, trees,
and plants. In early Accadian Shelibum, “ fox,” is a very com-
mon personal name,*^ which occurs in all periods of later
Babylonian and Assyrian history} Sha^albim is the name of a
Canaanitish town,®® and Shu‘al, “ fox,” is a good Hebrew name.
Bugakum, for Buqaqum, in early Accadian, probably means
“ flea,” and occurs as Baqqu in Babylonian. Burasu, “ the pine-
tree,” is a name occurring frequently in late Babylonian.
Zumbu “ the fly,” Zumba (hypocoristic), Hahhuru, “ raven,” ®*
Suluppa, “ date-fruit ” (hypocoristic), occur in late Babylonian
and Assyrian. Totemism is also argued from the reference to
baetylia and wooden pillars in Jeremiah ii. 27, where the wor-
shippers of the Canaanitish Baalim say to the “ tree,” i.e.
wooden pillar, “ thou art my father,” and to the “ stone,” “ thou
hast begotten me.” Here the ashera, or wooden pillar, and the
baetyl are, however, only symbols of deities. (See below under
baetylia). The word jor, “ rock,” is apparently a title both of
the Hebrew god Yaw and of an Aramaic deity.®®


10


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


In Mesopotamian Semitic names this aspect of nomenclature
is, therefore, extremely rare, and almost absent in the early
period. There is here a tendency to increase the use of ani-
mal names, and in a period of such advanced culture as the
Neo-Babylonian, there is no question about primitive totem-
istic ideas being present. It is impossible to study primitive
Bedouin culture even in the very earliest Accadian, before
3000 B.C., and Sumerian civilization had attained an ad-
vanced stage of culture before 4000 b.c. But the history of
animal and plant names among the Semites in Mesopotamia
proves that persons were called after plants and animals
because of some striking characteristics of the persons so
named.®®

Animal names are far more common in Canaanite Hebrew,
and Arabic 5 in Hebrew they occur chiefly as tribal or city names,
and belong entirely to the period before the Exile, Deborah,
“ the bee,” Ze’eb (a Midianite), “ the wolf,” a name extremely
common in Arabic of all periods,®^ Khagab, Khagabah, “ the
locust,” a family name of the Nethinim. In view of these facts,
G. B. Gray, Hebrew Proper Names, pp. 99—108, concluded
that primitive Semitic religion, or in any case Canaanitish reli-
gion, began with totemism. If this were true of Semitic reli-
gions we are bound to start with totemistic mythology. The
Semitic deities would be by origin animals or plants from which
the far-flung Semitic tribes, clans, and races are sprung. The
next stage would be that in which these deities are spoken of
as “ father,” “ brother,” “ ancestor,” or “ uncle ” i^amm,
halu), that is as divine and also natural relatives of a clan. The
argument, so far as animal names of clans and persons go,
seems to be disproved by the history of this custom in Accadian-
Babylonian and in Arabian religions. In South Arabia, which
affords the oldest inscriptions of Arabic, this custom is rare,
but it increases and becomes prolific in late pre-Islamic times,
and this is also true of Babylonia. Although the South Ara-
bians and the Accadians are far advanced beyond the primitive


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


II


Bedouin stage in the periods when their inscriptions begin, their
history shows that it is characteristic of the Semites to use ani-
mal names in times of advanced culture, when there is no pos-
sible influence of primitive totemism. I, therefore, reject the
totemistic theory absolutely. Early Canaanitish and Hebrew
religions are far beyond primitive totemism (if it ever existed
among them) in the period when any definite information can
be obtained about them, and the prevalence of animal names in
early Hebrew history is probably due to a peculiar inclination
of this Semitic race.

All Semitic tribes appear to have started with a single tribal
deity whom they regard as the divine creator of his people, and
this deity seems to have been astral, the sun, or the moon, or
the planet Venus. The South Arabians of Aksum in Abyssinia
speak of their gods ‘ Astar (= Athtar = Venus), Medr or
Behr ( Earth-god ),^® and Mehrem, as “ they who begat
them.” The Moabites, a Canaanitish tribe, are called “ the
people of Kemoshj he (Kemosh) gave his sons as fugitives and
his daughters into captivity.” Here Kemosh is described as
father of the Moabites. Moses is commanded by Yaw to say
to Pharoah, “ Israel is my son, my first-born,” and the old
Hebrew song says of Yaw:

“ Is not He thy father, who produced thee?

Did He not make thee and establish thee ? ”

The same song speaks of Yaw as a “ rock ” that begat Israel
and as “ El who travailed with thee,” as a woman at child
birth.** “ I am a father to Israel and Ephraim is my first-born,”
writes Jeremiah, describing Yaw’s relation to the Hebrews, and
Ephraim is called the son of Yaw.**

To complete the evidence for this Semitic mythological con-
cept of the fatherhood of god, the following names from vari-
ous religions are selected. A king of Tyre (Phoenician) in the
fourteenth century b.c. is called Abi-milki, “ My father is my
king.” Here “ father ” stands for the god of Tyre, Melqart,

V— 3


12


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


whose name is explained by the Greeks as “ Heracles the
primeval father.” In Accadian, we have Pir’-Shamash, “ the
offspring of Shamash,” Ashur-ban-apli, “ Ashur is the creator
of the son ”j Apil-ili-shu, “ son of his god ” in Aramaic, Bir-
Atar, “ Son of Atar ” Bar-Rakib, “ Son of Rakib,” a king of
Ya’di} Bar-‘Ata, “son of Ata”j Bath-‘Ata, “Daughter of
Ata.” More difficult to verify by clear evidence is the paral-
lel conception, “ the motherhood ” of Semitic goddesses, and
consequently the title “ sister ” applied to them, corresponding
to the title “ brother ” of male deities. In Accadian, Baby-
lonian, and Assyrian religion, the virgin Earth-mother god-
desses, Innini-Ishtar, Nintud, Aruru, Ninhursag, Ninlil, are all
Sumerian, and borrowed by the Semites in prehistoric times. In
Sumerian mythology the creatress of mankind is this Earth-
mother goddess, and the “ motherhood of the goddess ” forms
the basis of an entire school of theology at Nippur, distinguished
from the school of theology at Eridu. At Nippur it is the
Earth-goddess Aruru or Mami who is said to have created man
from clay, a legend which will be discussed in its proper place.
This legend of the creation of man from clay is of Sumerian
origin, although the legend is preserved in Accadian texts only.'*®
In Sumerian legend the Earth-god Enlil is the brother
of the virgin Earth-mother Aruru,®® and when in Baby-
lonian and West Semitic religion a god is described as
“ brother,” it is extremely probable that the great Earth-god
(who is also a Sun-god) of Sumer or a West Semitic deity,
who has borrowed this aspect of Sumerian mythology, is
meant.

The Sumerian Earth-mother is repeatedly referred to in
Sumerian and Babylonian names as the mother of mankind —
Ninmar-ama-dim, “ Ninmar is a creating mother ”j Ama-
numun-zid, “the mother legitimate seed (has given) ”j Bau-
ama-mu, “ Bau is my mother.” This mythological doctrine is
thoroughly accepted in Babylonian religion. A poem has the
line: “ All creatures with the breath of life are the handiwork


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


13


of Aruru,” and a prayer begins: “ O Gula, the mother, bearer
of the dark-headed people.” In early Accadian, this my-
thology is already firmly established among the Semites,
although it does not appear to belong to their primitive religion.
Ummi-tabat, “ My mother is good ”j Asdar-ummi, “ Ishtar is
my mother ” j the latter name is common in Babylonia. Ummu-
tabat, “ the mother is good,” occurs in the fifth century in Baby-
lonia. Belit-umma-nu, “ Beltis is our mother,” has the same
meaning as “ Sarpanit is our mother.” Istar-ummi-sarri-ni,
“ Ishtar is the mother of our king Mannu-ki-ummi, “ Who
is like the mother? ” Although the Babylonian feminine par-
ticiple mu^alUttUy “ the bearer,” is not found yet in any text,®*
but only the form alittu (construct alidat), it is extremely prob-
able that this title of the Babylonian Earth-goddess, chiefly
known in the West as Ashtoreth, is the original of Mylitta,®® a
name used by the Assyrians for Aphrodite.

In West Semitic this mythology is apparently almost un-
known. In Canaanitish there is only the Phoenician name ’Am-
‘Ashtart, “ the mother is Ashtoreth.” ®® In Hebrew there
is no evidence at all.®^ But names of deities in Phoenicia like
Melk-‘Ashtart, at Hammon near Tyre, Eshmun-‘Ashtart at
Carthage, ‘Ashtar-Kemosh, of the Moabites, clearly prove that
the Mother-goddess of the West Semitic races held even a
greater place in their religion than the local gods of their most
important cults. These names are taken to be construct forma-
tions by W. W. Baudissin {Adonis und Esmun, pp. 264-266)
and explained as “ Melk of the temple of Astarte,” i.e., the
Tyrian god Melquart worshipped in Astarte’s temple. Ashtar-
Kemosh would be Astarte worshipped in the temple of Ke-
mosh.®® Now these great Canaanitish gods, Eshmun, Kemosh,
Melqart, and Adon of Gebal, are sometimes regarded as the
husbands, sometimes as the sons, sometimes as the brothers of
the Earth-goddess Astarte, as we know from Sumerian and
Babylonian religion. In the West Semitic sources the title
“ sister ” for this goddess cannot be defended except by infer-


14


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


ence from the widespread title of the gods as “ brother,” and
the title is undoubtedly based upon this Semitic mythology.
The Earth-goddess, Astarte, who is by name the South
Arabian male deity Athtar and there the planet Venus, is em-
phatically a Babylonian deity in North and West Semitic reli-
gions. The entire mythology of Astarte goes back to the Su-
merian Ininni = Ashdar = Ishtar, goddess of Venus and
mother, wife, and lover of the Sumerian dying god Tammuz.
This is Inextricably united with the other fundamental Sumerian
mythological concept of the Earth-god Enlil, father of man-
kind, and his sister the Earth-goddess Aruru, Gula, Bau, Nin-
hursag, Nintud, commonly called in Babylonia Belit-ilani,
“ Queen of the gods.” In certain cults she is also the wife of
the Earth-god, as Ninlil, wife of Enlil, at Nippur, or Bau, wife
of Ningirsu, son of Enlil, at Lagash, or of Zamama, son of
Enlil, at Kish. In South Arabia the male deity ‘Athtar is the
planet Venus, and has no inherent connection at all with the
philologically identical feminine name ‘Ashtart of the Canaan-
ites. The West Semitic Earth-goddess, sister of all Canaanite
deities, El, Melqart, Eshmun, Yaw, Kemosh, is called Ashtar
(Moabite), or ‘Ashtart, because the Semitic race with their male
Venus came into contact with the Sumerian people, who wor-
shipped the female Innini, a Mother-goddess and the planet
Venus, at the dawn of history. ‘Athtar becomes now Ashdar
and Ishtar in Babylonia, and a Mother-goddess. In the West
the old Semitic deity ‘Ashtar is turned into a feminine form,
‘Ashtart, to conform to the Babylonian mythology, which un-
doubtedly suppressed primitive Semitic religious ideas among
the Aramaic and Canaanitish peoples. The word was pro-
nounced ‘Ashtoreth by the later Hebrews, when the monotheis-
tic teaching of Moses and the prophets prevailed. This is only
an attempt to cast ridicule upon the name of the Mother-
goddess of earlier polytheism by reading the consonants
of her name with vowels of the Hebrew word for
“ abomination,” “ shame,” hosheth. In Western Semitic


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


15


religions ‘Ashtart represents the Sumero-Babylonian Mother-
goddess, Gula, Bau, Aruru, etc., rather than Innini-Ninsianna-
Ishtar, who is both Venus and the Mother-goddess. In Canaan-
itish religion ‘Ashtart is not the planet Venus. That is clear by
the Greek identifications of this goddess with Ge, “ the earth,”
sister of Uranus, in Sanchounyathdn, and the regular identifica-
tion of Astarte with Aphrodite, who is never identified with the
planet Venus.

In South Arabian religion the Mother-goddess is the Sun-
goddess, and there is no mythology there in which she is the
sister of a deity, or evidence that any Arabian deity is her
brother. In North Arabic religion, as represented on the Safaite
inscriptions of Hauran, the Mother-goddess is Hat, Allat, Hal-
lat.®® Since Herodotus in his History says that the Arabian
Aphrodite was named ’Alilat and ’Alitta, and Alitta is the
Babylonian title of the Mother-goddess (Alittu), it is clear that,
even in North Arabia, Babylonian mythology is the determining
element also.®^ Since Hat of South Arabia is the Sun-goddess,
and probably also among the Thamudic Lihyanians at al-‘01a,
who are only Northern Minaeans, naturally Hat survives in
Islamic tradition as a Sun -goddess.®^ But in North Arabia
Hat, “ the goddess,” has been subjected to Babylonian influences
as was Ashtart of the Canaanites. Here the goddess is the Earth-
mother, and when we are dealing with North Arabian religion,
the great sphere of Babylonian mythology and theology has been
entered.®® In fact there are only two large groups of Semitic
religions j on the one hand there is the Minaean-Sabaean
Qatabanian, including Abyssinia and the Thamudic-Minaean re-
ligion } on the other hand there is the Babylonian- Assyrian reli-
gion of Mesopotamia, which from prehistoric times moulded
the mythological and theological concepts of all Semitic races
of the Northern and Western Semitic areas, in Syria, Phoenicia,
Palestine, and Trans- Jordania.

Babylonian influence becomes particularly prominent in the
great Nabataean kingdom whose principal capitals were Petra


i6


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


and Damascus, and whose history can be traced from their first
mention by Ashurbanipal in the middle of the seventh cen-
tury B.C., to their absorption into the Roman Empire in io6 a.d.
They were a North Arabic race who used the Aramaic script,
and their principal male deity is Dusura, rendered into Greek
as Dousares, and identified by the Greeks with Dionysus.®® The
name means “ he of Shara ” {^dhu Sara), i.e., “ he of the moun-
tain range esh-shara,^ at Petra,®® and he is a Sun-god according
to Strabo.®^ Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, writing
in the fourth century, preserves the only
illuminating information about the mythol-
ogy of this great cult of the Nabataeans.
As he was born and educated in Palestine,
and served in a monastic order there, his
statement must be taken authoritatively.
He says that the Nabataeans praised the vir-
gin whose Arabic name is XaajSoG.®® In
Nabataean the Arabic nominative ending in
u is regularly preserved in proper names,
and Epiphanius undoubtedly heard the word ka^bu, “ square
stone,” symbol in Nabataean religion for both Dusares and the
great Mother-goddess Allat of the Nabataeans. An Arabic
writer®® says that a four-sided stone was worshipped as Allat,
who in a Nabataean inscription was called “ Mother of the
gods.” On Fig. 4 is seen the reverse of a copper coin of the Ro-
man emperor Trajan Decius, struck at Bostra, shewing the
sacred baetyl or stone pillar of Dusares, bearing the inscription
actia dusaria, “ the Dusarean games.” Suidas, the Greek lexi-
cographer, under the word devaaprjs, says that the object of
Dusares’ worship was a black stone, four feet high and two feet
wide, standing on a base of gold. Moreover Epiphanius states
that Dusares was the oflFspring of the virgin Chaabou and only
son of the “ lord ” {deairdrov The panegyrarchs of Naba-
taean cities came to Petra to assist in the festival of his birth,
which was celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December.^®



Fig. 4. Copper Coin
Shewing Sacred
Baetyl


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


17


Worship of a dying god,
son of the Earth-mother, was
the principal cult of this North
Arabian people during the pe-
riod immediately before and
after the life of Jesus of Naza-
reth in Palestine. The title
of the Mother-goddess Allat
is “ Mother of the gods ”
here, and a translation of the
title of the great Mother-
goddess of Babylonia, hHet
ilani, “ queen of the gods,”
whose title in Sumerian is also
goddess Mother.” Du-
sares and Allat of the Naba-
taeans are an Arabian reflex
of the great Babylonian myth
of Tammuz and Ishtar, and
if the god is identified with
Dionysus, the original char-
acter common to both is that of
a Sun-god and patron of fer-
tility. Strabo describes the
Nabataeans as a particularly
abstemious people 5 the Greeks
and Romans called Dusares
the Arabian Dionysus or
Bacchus} and a statue of him
found in the Hauran (see Fig.
5) portrays him as a deity of
the vine. The cornucopia and
patera are also characteristic
of Dusares on coins of Na-
bataean cities. As an Arabian



Fig. 5. Basalt Statue of Dusares,
Patron OF THE Vine. From the
Hauran


1 8 SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY

Bacchus, Dusares is a Greek and Roman deity j as a god of
Fertility, represented by a baetyl, he is a local Arabic Earth
and Sun deity; and, as son of the virgin Earth-goddess, he
is a Babylonian deity. The celebration of his birth in De-
cember at Petra and the northern cities of Bostra and Adraa

in the Hauran with games and
festivities is a replica of the
spring festivities at Babylon,
when the death, burial, and
resurrection of Marduk were
celebrated with weeping, which
was exchanged for re j oicing.’^’^
The meaning of the actia du-
sarla at Petra may be inferred
from the similar festival at
Alexandria in Egypt, there
called after an unexplained
Egyptian word Kikellia, or in
Greek the Cronia, which also
occurred by night on the twenty-
fifth of December. In this festi-
val an image of a babe was taken
from the temple sanctuary and
greeted with loud acclamation
by the worshippers, saying,
“ the Virgin has begotten.” On
the night of the fifth of Decem-
ber occurred a festival before the image of Core; it ended with
bringing forth from beneath the earth the image of Aion,^® which
was carried seven times around the inner sanctuary of Core’s
temple. The image was then returned to its place below the sur-
face of the earth. Epiphanius, in whose writings this Egyptian
cult is described, identifies the virgin mother of this myth with
the Greek Under-world goddess Core, as he does the virgin
mother of Dusares, Chaabu of the Nabataeans. There is a wide

[Prometheus]

Fig. 6. Tyche of Antioch


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


19



Fig,


Nabataean Coin.
Tyche of Damascus.
Aretas III


syncretism here in this Arabic religion, composed of Babylonian,
Greek, and Egyptian elements j and beyond all doubt the
Nabataeans possessed an elaborate cult of Tammuz and Ishtar,
of Osiris and Isis, of Dionysus and Basilinna, the equiva-
lent of Proserpine-Core, in which this
deity was represented as a youth, son
of the Mother-goddess, who was re-
born yearly in midwinter and who
died in the summer.^®

The Mother-goddess of the Nab-
ataeans, Allat, identified with Core
by the Greeks, is essentially the
North Semitic Ashtart, and the
Babylonian Ishtar. But she was also
identified with the Greek Tyche, and
more especially with Tyche of Antioch, whose representation on
coins throughout the Nabataean kingdom is taken from the beau-
tiful creation of the sculptor Eutychides (see Fig. 6).®“ Char-
acteristic of this type of the Mother-goddess as Fortuna or, more
properly, goddess of fate, is the mural crown and cornucopia.

The statue of Tyche of Antioch repre-
sents her seated on a rock, and from the
rock at her feet springs a youth, symbol
of the river Orontes at Antioch. Fig. 7
shews the Tyche of Damascus, seated
on a rock, from which the River-god
springs at her feetj she wears the tur-
reted mural crown, and holds a cornu-
copia. Copper coins bearing the figure
of the Arabian Fortuna are found at
Adraa, Bostra, Esbus (Heshbdn), Gerasa, Medaba, Philadel-
phia (‘Amman), and Petra. The same type is found on coins
of the great Arabian city Carrhae of the Romans, Harran of
the Babylonians and Assyrians j at Singara,®^ and at Ephesus.®®
Apparently the chief goddess of any Semitic city was known



Fig. 8. Head of Tyche.
Philadelphia. Marcus
Aurelius


20 SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY

as “ Tyche of the city,” from the period of Alexander the
Great.

Allat of Petra and throughout the Nabataean kingdom thus
becomes the Fortuna or defender of her cities, and the mural
crown represents the turreted walls of her holy places.®® At the
entrance to Petra stand the imposing ruins of a temple of the
Tyche of this city, and in a niche over the portico is a statue of
Allat figured as the guardian Fortuna of her city.®® Tyche of
Palmyra is Atargatis,®^ the great Mother-goddess of that city,
represented on the mural paintings of Doura on the Euphrates
with mural crown j here the genius of the holy fountain, Ephka,
of Palmyra, appears as a nude maiden springing from the rock
on which the Mother-goddess sitsj beside her in the same pose
sits the Mother-goddess of Doura, Tux’? Aoupas. The genius
of the Euphrates, who springs from the rock on which she sits,
is here a bearded man. In most of the ubiquitous representa-
tions of this Semitic City-goddess, she bears the cornucopia,
symbol of abundance, a purely Greek conception, as on the statue
of Tyche of Doura.®® The Mother-goddess of Doura bears
the Babylonian name Nana,®® type of Ishtarj ®® at Doura and
throughout Western Asia she is habitually identified with Arte-
mis. Nana is also a virgin goddess like Artemis and specially
connected with the cult of Nebo at Barsippa. Although the
representations of this type of Mother-goddess in Semitic cities
of North Arabia and Syria in the Greek and Roman periods
have been preserved only under the influence of Greek art, the
goddess of Fate, especially as protectress of cities, is surely of
Semitic origin. The Nabataean goddess Manawatu,®^ plural
of the form Manat,®^ which occurs in Thamudic, i.e., before the
Nabataean period, consequently belongs to the old South
Arabian pantheon. The Coran writes the name Manatun; and
manijjaty plural manaja, is an ordinary Arabic word for “ fate,”
“ death.” Also zawwa-al-manijjaty “ the shears of fate,” ®®
supports the evidence from early Arabic and Nabataean in-
scriptions for assuming that the Arabian Mother-goddess ®‘‘ was


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


21


a goddess who fixed the fates of mankind, of cities, and of na-
tions. A goddess of Fate, whose name is based upon the verb
or m-n-jy can be traced throughout Semitic mythology.
She appears in Hebrew as Mem in the post-exilic accusation of
Deutero-Isaiah:

“As for you who abandon Yaw, forgetful of my holy mount;

Preparing for Gad a table, and filling for Meni spiced wine.”

Etymologically, the form Mem is masculine, but the deity is a
goddess and belongs also to the Assyrian pantheon, where
Ishtar has the titles “ goddess Minu-anni,” “ Minu-ullu,” she
who “ apportions unto men sanction or denial.” A hymn
whose original belongs to the literature of early Babylonia,
glorifies Ishtar in the following lines:

“Mistress of habitations, lover of peoples, twin sister of [Shamash],

(Goddess) Minu-anni, the passionate, the perfect,

(Goddess) Minu-ulla, the lofty, arrayed in glory.”

In Babylonia Ishtar, identical with Canaanite Ashtoreth, be-
came the goddess of Fate, of good and adverse Fortune, and at
an early period.®® Moreover, in this aspect of Babylonian and
Assyrian mythology, she is here described as protectress of
habitations, precisely the character of the ubiquitous Tyche with
the mural crown in Nabataean, Aramaic, and Asiatic Greek
religious art. Manat is known to have been worshipped
throughout South Arabia from the early period, especially by
the tribes Aus and Chazrag, and her principal cult was at Qudaid
between Mecca and Medina. According to Arabian tradition,
she was represented by a rectangular stone there, and Moham-
med found her cult most difficult to suppress even at Mecca
itself.^®®

In Assyria, at least after the ninth century b.c., and in Baby-
lonia, perhaps from the early period, Ishtar was regarded as
the goddess of Fate, under the title Shimti, a word for “ fate ”
peculiar to the Accadian language.^®^ All Mother-goddesses in


22


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Babylonian religion appear in this role as Moira, and Bau is
addressed, “ Fate of kings,^®^ Lady of Adab.” And the seven
Mother-goddesses of Nippur, Babylon, Barsippa, Der, Uruk,
Agade, and Hursagkalamma are described as “ the goddesses,
the Fates,” whereby the “ Seven Fates ” correspond to the
three Molrae of Greece. The pluralis majestatis stmatiy
“ fates,” is repeatedly employed for the goddess Fate, as well
as for the various Fate-goddesses.^®* This title of Fate, For-
tuna, Tyche, is not only the prototype of the North Arabian,
Aramaic, and Canaanite goddess of Fate, but the names Meni
and Shlmti were widely employed in those regions. Simi is
called the daughter of Hadad in Syriac, and Juno-Sima, daugh-
ter of Balmarcod, occurs in a bilingual Greek and Latin inscrip-
tion *®® from Deir-el-QaFa near Beyrout, where there was a
temple of the god Balmarcod.*®® The dedication is to Balmar-
cod, Hera, and Sima.*®^ Martialis, a Roman governor, built a
temple to Kvpia Sr^yuea, according to an inscription found
near Homs (Emesa),*®® and at Homs has been found a fine bas-
relief with three deities j in the centre, between two gods,
stands the veiled figure of the goddess Seimia, identified with
Athena. Near and behind her head is the star of the Babylo-
nian Ishtar in a circle.*®® Proper names in the Roman period are
Abedsimioi, “ Servant of Simi,” Amassemia (Arabic in Hau-
ran), Sumaios (Nabataean). The name survives to modern
times in the Arabic names of villages in Syria — Kafar-Shima,
Bet-Shama, and Shamat.**®

A Syrian deity AshTma was imported into Samaria in 722 b.c.,
from Hamath on the Orontes, and there seems to be no doubt
concerning her identity with the Assyrian Shimtl,*** in view of
the father-mother deity Ashim-Bethel, worshipped by the
Aramaic speaking Jews in Southern Egypt in the fifth century
B.C., who appears as Symbetylos in a Greek inscription from
Northern Syria.**®

The goddess of Fate belongs, therefore, to the mythology of
all Semitic races, and personifies the fatalism so characteristic


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


23


of them in their religions. The northern and western type is
influenced by the Assyrian Meni, Shimtij the widely spread
representation of Tyche in Syria and Arabia (see Figs. 6-8) pre-
serves the mural crown of the Assyrian Shimti (see Fig. 9).
This representation of Ishtar with the mural crown, preserves



Fig. 9. The Assyrian Tyche with Mural Crown, Bas-relief from

Nimrud


an attribute which connects this type with the Ishtar of battle.^’^®
Logical is the identification with Athena, goddess of battle, pro-
tectress of the state and defender of kings.

All these names of Fate in the Aramaic-Canaanite languages
are of Babylonian origin. The indigenous deity is the god
Gad, who is a god of Fate, of Good Fortune, derived from
the common Semitic verb gadad, “ to cut off.” His worship
by the Hebrews has been mentioned above.^^* A similar deity


24


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


of the Arabians was Sa‘d, worshipped as a stone (baetyl) at
Gudda,“® and another Arabian deity of the same character is
found in the title of the Mother-goddess Allat, Rusa, “ good
fortune.” This Arabian goddess was widely worshipped among
the Sabaean-Himyaritic tribes of Hauran in Syria, and among
the Aramaeans of Syria. At Palmyra her name appears as
Arsa, and is there used for Venus as the evening star.’^^® This
widely spread Semitic myth of a goddess of Fate, which is only
a special aspect of the Mother-goddess, is certainly based upon



Fig. io. Venus as Goddess of War, with Star Symbol. Assyrian Seal


astrology and the planet Venus. The Arabian Allat,^^^ Rusa,
Arsa, became a goddess of Fortune by assimilation to the Baby-
lonian Ishtar, identified with Venus, the Sumerian Ninsianna,
Innini. Venus is both morning and evening star. Phosphorus
and Hesperus, and various titles of the Arabian Allat, such as
Sa‘d and ‘Uzza, have dual forms, Sa‘dan,^^® ‘Uzza, “the two
planets Venus.” In Babylonia the morning star is called the
“ male Venus,” and the evening star the “ female Venus.”
But in both aspects Ishtar is always a goddess in Babylonian
mythology. She is sometimes described by “ Ishtar of Agade ”
as morning star, and “ Ishtar of Erech ” as evening star.^^®
A long metrical poem describes Ishtar:


“ At sunrise she is mistress {belk\ at sunset she is votaress.”



DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


25


Mythology set in here at an early period and determined Ishtar,
and consequently the western goddesses Astarte, Allat, as a
double character. As morning star she is goddess of War (in
the West ‘Anat)/^^ and as everung star patroness of love and
harlotry.^^® For this reason the western goddesses of Fate
were worshipped on house-tops, where baked cakes were offered
to them, an obviously astral cult, and it could be served by
women only. So important did the favour of the goddess of
this lucky planet seem to the Arabians and Aramaeans that they
frequently made human sacrifices to her. Particularly beauti-
ful are the Sumerian and Babylonian hymns addressed to the
“ Queen of Heaven,” and although none of this religious litera-
ture of the cult of Allat, Astarte, Rusa, and Tyche has survived
in Aramaic, North Arabian, Canaanitish, and Hebrew, it is cer-
tain that noble songs of this kind were sung by them to the god-
dess of the morning and evening star.

“ To the pure flame that fills the heavens,

To the light of Heaven, Ishtar, who shines like the sun.

To the mighty Queen of Heaven, Ishtar, I address greeting


That she fix the fate of the lands.

May she rise faithfully at dawn of day.

May she fulfil the decrees (of fate) at the dark of the moon.”

These hymns to the planet of fate and war were accompanied
by offerings of wine, roasted cakes, and incense.^^® The cult of
the “ Queen of Heaven ” was widely spread in Canaan and
observed by the Hebrews also. Jeremiah censured this idolatry
in two famous passages.

“ The women knead dough to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven.”

And the Hebrews themselves admitted to the great prophet that
they and their fathers, their kings and princes, had always burnt
incense to the “ Queen of Heaven ” and poured out drink of-
ferings to her in the cities of Judah.^^^


26


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


As morning star Ishtar and Astarte are the War-goddess in
Babylonia and among all West Semitic people, where she has
the special name ‘Anat. This myth is of Sumerian origin.

“ The long bow, mighty of battle she holds in her hand.

With her left arm she lays low (the foe).

The queen of battle, the loud crying, utters a cry of wailing.”

So runs an ancient Sumerian hymn, and Hammurabi,^^® the
famous king of Babylon, composed a long mythical poem in
Semitic verse concerning her. So terrible was her love of war
that her patron deity Ea became enraged against her.

“ She descended, she mounted on high,

While raged the roar of her voice.

At the reins she stood not,^^®

But went forth in her might.

Her protector trembled in terror.

The god Ea, the wise one.

Was filled with wrath against her.”

The gods in council appealed to Ea to create a rival goddess,
that the goddess of war be held in check. He created Saltu
(“Hostility,” “Discord”), to oppose Ishtar, and sent her
forth with warning of the dread fury of the goddess of War.^®^

“ Her soul is rage, a storm of the ocean.

But it shall not conquer thee.

Thy plans shall cause to perish
All the ways

Of the mistress of peoples, the votaress;

O Saltu, though she rage again and again,

And her face (rage) fearfully
Yet shalt thou return in safety.^*

Alarmed by the reports of her rival, Ishtar sent her messenger,
Ninsubur, to bring a description of her. The report of her was
vivid and disquieting. She was the foe of the people and not
their friend, like Ishtar. “Her desire was to conquer, she
roared, hurled weapons, and thundered, and none could op-
pose her in battle.”


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


27


Agusaya, “ the loud crying,” a goddess who is usually identi-
fied with Ishtar herself, was sent by the “ Lady of Battle ” to
subdue the terrible Saltu. She went to Ea and said: “Why
[O Ea, thou wise one], didst thou create [this Saltu] ? Whose
mouth is like the waters in full
flood.” Ea promised Agusaya
that he would cause Saltu to
cease making war against Ishtar
if she were elevated to the rank
of a goddess and mankind told
of her miraculous birth. “ May
she exist forever. Let sound of
liturgical lament be instituted
in the eternal rituals.” Ham-
murabi, in the epilogue of this
mythological poem, describes
the powers of each one of these
goddesses of War, Ishtar who is
supreme and whose orders the
terrible Saltu (“ Discord ”)
must obeyj Agusaya the power-
ful j Saltu creation of Ea, whose
greatness he proclaimed among
all peoples.^^^

The point of this early Ac-
cadian poem is that the warlike
goddess of the morning star has
a rival in “ Discord ” or “ Hos-
tility,” even more dreadful than herself. These are only titles
of the War-goddess exalted by the early Semites into separate
deities.^®® The reason for the ancient Sumerian identification of
the planet Venus with the beautiful goddess of Love and War
may only be surmised. This myth arose in hoary antiquity, be-
fore 3000 B.C., and forms one of the principal features of Baby-
lonian, Assyrian, Aramaic, and Canaanitish religion. Capricious

V— 4



Fig. II. Ishtar’s War Chariot.
Model from Kish


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


in love, wilful in action, Ishtar was a constant source of trouble
to the gods. She had no consort and really loved only the un-
fortunate youth Tammuz, who perished annually with the dy-
ing corn. By her beauty, demigods, men, and beasts were se-
duced to their destruction. In the sixth book of the Epic of
Gilgamish is told a legend of how she yearly sends Tammuz to
his doom and then decrees wailings for his departure. A bird
of many colours she loved,

“ But him thou smotest and brokest his wing.

He sits in the forest crying, alas my wing.”

She loved a lion, and then dug seven and seven pits for him,
and a horse, honoured in battle, and then smote him with whip,
spur, and lash. She received homage and worship from a herds-
man, and smote him, turning him to a jackal. Ishullunu, the
gardener of her father (the Heaven-god), had been one of her
devout worshippers. Him she beheld and desired greatly, prof-
fering rich repast and voluptuous pleasure. Ishullunu^®® re-
jected her shameful advances. Him she turned into a hog( ?
and caused him to live in misery.

When Gilgamish returned from his conflict with Humbaba,
he put on new raiment, and set his crown upon his head. The
halo of his victories, the beauty of the home-returned warrior,
fascinated the goddess. She proposed marriage, and Gilgamish
scornfully recounted her many love intrigues:

“ What husband would thou love always?

And me likewise thou lovest and wouldst make me even as they are.”

Ishtar flew to heaven in anger and appealed to Anu her father
to punish the insolent Gilgamish, by creating a “bull of
Heaven” to destroy him. In case of his refusal, she threat-
ened to call forth the dead from Hell to consume the living.
And so Anu created the Gudanna, “ celestial bull,” that is the
constellation Taurus, the bull of Heaven, which draws the


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


29


Plough star (Triangulum). This constellation, rising in early
May (Hammurabi period), announces the scorching heat of
the climate of Sumer and Accad. Hence Anu warned Ishtar
that the bull would bring seven years of hunger on the land.
But Ishtar, faithful to her character as Mother-goddess, had
gathered provisions for seven years. Gilgamish and his friend
Enkidu,^^® however, slew the celestial bull,^®® “ which descended
from Heaven.” In rage Ishtar mounted the wall of Erech and
cursed Gilgamish. The heroes replied by throwing the right



Fig. 12. Enkidu in Combat with the Bull of Heaven. Ishtar Beholds

THE Fight


leg of the bull in her face. Ishtar assembled the temple pros-
titutes of Erech and mourned over the severed leg of the divine
bull.^"“

This astral connexion of the great Sumerian and Semitic
Mother-goddess resulted in a widely spread worship of her
under various titles throughout Western Asia, among the Ara-
maeans, Hebrews, Phoenicians, and Canaanites. As deity of
fate, of war, or of sexual reproduction, Ishtar (and Astarte) is
fundamentally the Sumerian goddess of the planet Venus;
Among the Western Semites her name as War-goddess is
‘Anata, Hanata, as it occurs in the earliest known cuneiform
texts of the Hammurabi period.^^^ Ancient Canaanite city


30

[Prometheus]

SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


names contain her title, Beth-‘Anath, Beth-‘Anoth, ‘Anathoth.
Her worship as goddess of War in Syria and Canaan was so
famous that it spread to Egypt, and is mentioned frequently
in hieroglyphic texts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
King Setho’s team of war-horses was called “ ‘Anat is content,”
and Ramses’ sword “ ‘Anat is victorious.” Fig. 13 shews in
the upper register the lewd type of the Mother-goddess, the
great Astarte. She stands on a lion (also symbolic of Ishtar
in Babylonia and Assyria), holding in one hand serpents, sym-
bolic of the life of the earth, and in the other lotus blooms,
symbolic of love. The inscription calls her Qadesh, Queen of
Heaven. Qadishtu, an ordinary word in Babylonian for “ har-
lot,” is also a title of Ishtar as patroness of temple prostitutes,
and so are probably the Phoenician Qadisht and Hebrew Qe-
desha titles of Astarte.^^® On her right is the Egyptian god
Min and on her left the great Syrian god Reshep, holding
spear and ank. Of Reshep the text says: “Reshep, the great
god, lord of the heavens, ruler of the nineness.” In the lower
register is the seated War-goddess ‘Anat, described in the text,
“ Queen of Heaven, Mistress of the gods.” ‘Anat is identi-
fied with Athena Soteira on an inscription from Cyprus.^**
That ‘Anat is Astarte has been proved by an Egyptian bas-
relief of the fourteenth century found at Beth-Shan, an ancient
city of Canaan, north of Jerusalem (Fig. 14). Here Qadesh-
Astarte is described by ‘Anat, “ Queen of Heaven, Mistress of
the gods.” Astarte is known to have had a temple at Beth-
Shan, and when the Philistines defeated the army of Israel and
slew Saul, they fastened his body to the walls of Beth-Shan and
placed his armour in the temple of Astarte.^^® Small shrines
bearing on their roofs figures of doves were found in the older
strata of her temple here, and the dove is constantly associated
with this goddess in Syria,’^^ and sacred to her among the Semites
generally. At Babylon a model of a dove in terra-cotta was
found in a brick box beneath the entrance of a door of the temple
of the Mother-goddess Ninmah.'^^® Doves and turtledoves were



Fig. 13. Egyptian Bas-relief Shewing ‘Anat. Dynasty XIX





Fig. 15. Terra-cotta Shrine of Beth-Shan






32


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


the only birds admitted in Hebrew sacrifices and rituals of puri-
fication. In the court of the inner shrine of Ishtar at Assur^^®
stood many small terra-cotta shrines in two stages, with win-
dows, and adorned on the cross sections with rows of doves, on
the roof with lions, and on the sides with serpents, all animals
symbolic of Ishtar. On the Beth-Shan shrines a nude figure sits
looking out from the upper window, holding birds in each

hand. A serpent^®®
winds upward from a
window on each side
of these Canaanite
shrines. They are
probably little mov-
able prayer-altars, car-
ried by each worship-
per for his devotions
before the eternal
Earth-goddess, mother
of men, protectress
and patroness of all
life.^®^

In Fig. 15, the
nude Ishtar who sits in
the upper window represents a widely spread Babylonian and
Canaanitish myth of the so-called Aphrodite Parakyptousa or
Venus Prospiciens, referred to by Ovid, whose cult is particularly
well known in Cyprus, both by similar clay models of houses and
in a local myth preserved by Plutarch. It is said that at Salamis
a harlot sat peeping out of a window and enticed many lovers, one
of whom, because of her cruel flirtations, died of unrequited love.
As the body of the beautiful youth was carried past her house on
its journey to the grave, she again looked from her window, not
in remorse, but gloating in triumph over the victim of her at-
tractions. Aphrodite in rage turned her into stone.^®* The cult
of Aphrodite, patroness of harlotry and lewd love, in Cyprus



Fig. 16. Ishtar Parakyptousa. Assyrian
Ivory Plaque



Fic. 14. Hesi-Nekht Astarte of Beth-Shan Wearing Head-dress
OF the Syrian Goddess, with Two Feathers






DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


33

was borrowed from Phoenicia, and eventually from Babylonia.
Faithless enticer of men with her beauty, she is represented on
Assyrian monuments also as Parakyptousa. Fig. i6 shews an
ivory panel from the palace of Ashurnasirpal (ninth cen-
tury), obviously of Phoeni-
cian handicraft, found in the
palace at Calah.

Ishtar, the harlot, who peers
from the window, was known
in Babylonia and Assyria as
Kilili.^®^ She brought woe
upon men and distracted their
minds. In such cases the
priests performed magic ritu- ^
als and the patient prayed to
her. A eunuch must sing a
lament to her. The prayer of
the afflicted man began:

“ Thou art Kilili who leans
from the window, . . . who
perceives the words of men
. . . causing the maiden to
depart from her couch.”

“ Thou hast brought me loss,
thy limbs upon me thou hast
put, O great Ishtar.” Kilili
mushirtu is the Babylonian
title of this seductive divinity, and means precisely “ Kilili
who leans out”} she was known as “the queen of the win-
dows.” A demon who cries at the window of a mushirtu^
i.e., “ harlot,” is cursed in the name of the gods.^” The
Sumerian titles are Absusu and Abtagigi, corresponding to
Kilili and Sahirtu, “ she who leans from windows,” “ she who
loiters about,” “ sends messages.” Abtagigi of messages and
Kilili of the windows are evil spirits which bring woe to men.^®®



Fig. 17. Terra-cotta Movable Al-
tar OF Worshipper before Ishtar of
Assur



SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


34

She is the “ Beltis of wall and colonnade,” who sits in the re-
cesses of the city walls to entice men to their perditiond®° The
clay models of dove-cotes and altars in which Ishtar appears
at the windows with doves in her hands, or on which doves
stand, lend force to the assumption that
Kilili is identical with the Accadian word
kililuy kuUlu, some kind of birdd®^

Undoubtedly the sacrifice of doves in
the Hebrew rituals of expiation is a rem-
nant of this bird sacred to Astarte. Ishtar
of Nineveh was sent to Egypt by Tushratta,
king of the Mitanni, at the very time when
the Hebrews of the age of Moses were in-
vading Canaan, in order that the king of
Egypt might learn to worship herd®^ The
myth of Ishtar, Astarte, Atargatis, is one of
the principal factors in Sumerian and Sem-
itic religion. She is often represented as
a mother with a child at her breasts (the
Babylonian Nintud); Fig. i8 is an exam-
ple of a clay figurine, which is found in
abundance in Babylonia and Assyria.^®*
Common and ubiquitous throughout Meso-
potamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, is
this nude figure of Ishtar as the goddess of
Love and Harlotry. It is found prolifically
in Babylonia from the West Semitic period onward, in Elam,
Syria, among the Hittites, Egypt, the Aegean islands, Asia
Minor, Phoenicia, and Canaan.^®* It would seem that a figurine
of this Aphrodite Vulgaris was possessed by every household,
and many carried cylinder seals with the nude goddess engraved
upon them. These are probably examples of the household
gods called teraphim by the Hebrews. The tale of Jacob and
Rachel of early Hebrew folk-lore contains a vivid account of
how Rachel would not leave her Aramaean home without the



Fig. 1 8. Nude Ishtar
Early Babylonian


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


35


household gods/®® which she brought with her in the migration
to Canaan, but which were put aside by Jacob before he reached
Bethel, the shrine of the god El, and hidden under an oak
by Shechemd®® David’s wife found teraphim ready to hand
in his house, when she deceived Saul by substituting them
for David in his bedd®^ Even the prophet Hosea, zealous
advocate of the worship of Yaw, asserts that religion is im-



Fig. 19. Azizos AND Monimos, Companions of the Sun as an Eagle. Mural
Decoration from Temple Court of Baitocaice

possible without pillars, ephods, and teraphim.^®® In Assyria
an adopted son had no claims on the “ gods ” of his adopting
father/®®

At Edessa in the late period the morning and evening stars
bear Arabic names j both are masculine and are represented in
art as two youths, companions of the sun. Their names are
Azizos, “ the powerful,” the morning star, and Monimos,
“ the beneficent,” the evening star. These correspond to the
Palmyrene couple Arsu and ‘Azizu, where Arsu is undoubtedly
the female Venus, the evening star.^^® A monument of Baito-
caice (Fig. 19) shews the mythological conception of the two
phases of the planet Venus conceived as precursor and fol-
lower of the sun. This is based upon an astronomical observa-
tion discovered by the Sumerians in remote antiquity. Venus


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


36


is never more than 48 degrees before the sun in the morning or
after him at sunset, and hence Ishtar is also known as the twin
sister of Shamashd^^ The masculine gender of the double
Venus at Edessa is apparently either a survival of the ancient
South Arabian Athtar, or due to Greek influence (Phosphorus



Fig. 20. ‘Ate of Hierapolis Riding a Lion. Obverse
(left), Seated Figure of Adad


and Hesperus At Ferzol near Baalbek there is a rock
sculpture of the Syrian Sun-god riding a horse and led by the
youth Azizos.^^®

The Mother-goddess of the Aramaeans in the late period was
Atargatis, a Greek transcription of ‘Atar-‘Ate, corrupted also

to Tar-‘ata, hence Greek and Latin
Derketd. This double name contains
the ordinary Arabian name of Venus
Athtar and the Aramaic name of the
Mother-goddess, ^Ate, ^Ata, ‘Atta.^^^
Fig. 20 shews ‘Ate riding a lion, usual
animal symbol of Ishtar of Assyria j on
a similar coin before the lion stands the
dove, associated with her in all Sem-
itic mythology. On this coin of Alex-
ander, she wears a veil falling to the waist. The obverse has
the seated figure of Adad, the principal male deity of Hier-
opolis, the older Nappigi, Nanpigi, Greek Bambyce, which
was renamed Hierapolis by Seleucos Nicator (312-281 b.c.).



DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


37


Atargatis and Adad are called “ the Syrian gods of the Hiero-
politans” on the coin, seen in Fig. 2i. Atargatis sits on a
throne decorated with two lions, and Adad’s throne has two
bulls.

Lucian, in his account of the Syrian goddess, refers to the
shrine of Hierapolis as follows. Between the statues of Zeus
(Adad) and Hera (Atargatis) stands a peculiar image of gold,
which the Assyrians (i.e. Syrians) call ffrjfxrjiosj “a sym-
bol.” In his time (latter part of second century a.d.) the
Syrians, themselves, could not tell whether it represented
Dionysus, Deucalion, or Semiramis. On its top perched a dove,
and each year it was taken to the Mediterranean Sea to bring
water, which was poured into a cavern beneath the temple.
The myth ran that when Deucalion’s ark floated on the waters
of the Deluge, a cavern miraculously yawned at Hierapolis and
received the waters of the Flood. In memory of this sign of
divine intervention he founded a temple to Juno over the
cavern, and instituted the annual ritual of bringing water from
the sea and pouring it into the cavern.’”

Adad and Atargatis are described by Macrobius, a Roman
writer of the fourth century a.d., as the Sun-god and Earth-
goddess of Syria.”® But Adad, whose symbolic animal is a bull
in Assyria and Babylonia, is certainly not a Sun-god, and
Macrobius has confused the Sun-god of the Aramaeans, Malak-
bel of Palmyra, and the older and original Aramaic El, Rakkab,
Rakeb-El, Reshef, with Adad. There are three principal
Aramaic and Canaanite deities under various names, the Sun-
god (animal symbol the horse), the Rain and Thunder-god,
and the Earth-goddess. The Hebrews, who are apparently
a Canaanitish people, had these same deities, El, Sun-god,
Yaw, the Rain and Thunder-god, and Astarte.

Bambyce, the ancient Nappigi, is said to have been founded
by the legendary Babylonian survivor of the Deluge, Sisythus,
in Lucian, a corruption of Xisouthros, the Sumerian Ziusudra.
Lucian, like all Greek and Roman writers of the period, trans-


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


38

forms Semitic mythology into Greek and Roman terms and
assigns the legend of the Flood to the Greek Deucalion. This
Sumerian legend, based as we now know upon an ancient catas-
trophe in lower Mesopotamia, looms largely in the mythology
of Asia. Among the Aramaeans it has been preserved only
in this highly distorted form of a late writer. He says,
repeating the legend as the Greeks told it, that in the Deluge
the race of men perished to a man. This first race became
rebellious, did unholy deeds, disregarded the sanctity of oaths
and hospitality, and behaved cruelly to suppliants. The
earth discharged volumes of waters, rivers descended from
Heaven, and the sea mounted high. Deucalion alone was
saved, for he was wise and pious. He placed his wives and
children in an ark and entered in. There came to him into the
ark boars, horses, lions, serpents, all beasts which roam the
earth in couples. Zeus (i.e. Adad) had ordered it. They
floated on the waters as long as the Flood remained. From the
native Aramaeans of Bambyce Lucian learned the fable al-
ready cited concerning the cavern which swallowed the Flood.
Ritual followed myth here, and men came yearly from Syria,
Arabia, and beyond the Euphrates (Assyria of the earlier
period), to bring water from the sea to pour into the cavern.

According to the Babylonian version Adad let loose the tor-
rents of Heaven upon the world, and Ishtar wailed over the
destruction of mankind whom she had borne. In this version
is told also how Utnapishtim (= Ziusudra) sent forth a dove
from the ark on the seventh day of the Deluge. The ark (?)
and dove are seen in Fig. 21, where a Roman standard has
been added to it. A coin of Caracalla has the same design of
an ark (?) and dove, with Adad and Atargatis.^®® The Ara-
maean version of the Deluge proves that Adad and Ata had
been assimilated to the Babylonian Adad and Ishtar; Hittite
influence upon Semitic cults is a very secondary matter here,
and entirely negligible in the study of the larger issues of
Semitic mythology.


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


39

Adad, Hadad, Reshef, and the Sun-god El, Rakkab, Malak-
Bel, are the principal male deities o£ all West Semitic peoples.
The god of Rain, Thunder, and Lightning has the title Ba‘al
Lebanan, “ Lord of the Lebanon,” and was so known among
the Sidonians. Rammanu,^®^ Ramimu, Ragimu, Murtaznu,
Murta’imu,^®® “ the Thunderer,” are names current in Baby-
lonia, where he was also known as Ilhallabu, “ god of
Aleppo.” Adad and Rammanu occur together as names of
the same deity.^®® Adad of Padda in Syria had the special
name Bardad,^®® and he was known at Hamath as Iluwir,^®^
a title composed of
the Semitic word ilu^

“ god,” and Sumerian
wir, mir, the word for
“ wind ” and “ rain-
storm.” The Hebrew
tradition connected
their ancestral home
with Syria, and espe-
cially with the “land
of the rivers,” the re-
gion of Harran and
Paddan on the river Balih. As god of the Lebanons {bel sadt)^
the Sumerians call Adad “ god Marru,” Marri, and the Accadi-
ans Ilumarru. This deity was identified with the Sumerian god
Mer, Imi, Rihamun, Mermer, Iskur, all words for “ wind,”
“storm,” “ roaring Nimgirgirri, Nimgigri, Nigir, “light-
ning ”} consequently Adad-Ramman became one of the princi-
pal Babylonian and Assyrian deities, consistently associated
with the Sun-god Shamash. These two gods are particularly
concerned with omens and divination in Babylonia. On the
monuments Adad is represented standing upon a bull, hurl-
ing a thunderbolt in his right hand and holding forked light-
ning in his left. A crouching bull with a two forked bolt
of lightning rising from his back, a figure consisting of three



40


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


forks of lightning, are his symbols/®® A Sumerian hymn
describes Adad in the following verses:

“ ‘ Lord Iskur, gigantic steer and glorious ’ is thy name.

‘ Father Iskur, lord that rideth the storm,’ is thy name.

Thy splendour covers the land like a garment.

At thy thunder the great mountain, father Enlil, is shaken.

At thy rumbling the great mother Ninlil trembles.

Enlil sent forth his son Iskur, saying:

‘ Who, my son, directeth the storm, causeth to descend the storm?
The lightning thy messenger goeth before (thee).

The foe doeth evil against the father thy creator, but who maketh him-
self like thee?

Destroy thou the foe with thy right hand, and let thy left hand pluck
him away.’

Iskur gave ear to the words of the father his creator.

Father Iskur, who went forth from the temple, storm of sonorous
voice.

Who from the temple and city went forth, the young lion.”

The poem at the end refers to a famous myth concerning the
bird of the storm, Zu, who stole the tablets of fate from the
temple of Enlil in Duranki. The gods assembled in consterna-
tion and appealed to Adad:

“ O strong Adad, thou smiter, let not thy battle-front waver.

Smite thou Zu with thy weapon.

Thy name shall be great in the assembly of the gods.

Among the gods, thy brothers, shalt thou have no rival.
Sanctuaries shall come into being and be built.

In the four quarters make thou thy cult cities.”

This Accadian poem attributes the defeat of Zu and the re-
covery of the tablets of fate to the god Lugalbanda, after
Adad, Ishtar, and Shara had refused to seek the terrible Zu in
the mountains. It is clear from the older Sumerian poem that
Iskur did obey his father Enlil and conquered Zuj the Ac-
cadian form of the myth is only a redaction of the legend from
some school of poets who desired to glorify their god Lugal-
banda (Ninurta). An early Accadian fragment preserves a
similar myth. Adad’s fury had decimated the land and de-


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


41


stroyed the living/®^ Enlil summoned the Mother-goddess
Belit-ili, and ordered her to appease her brother. In the end
Enlil met Adad and addressed him:

“ O first among thy brothers, thou bull of the heavens,

In my land thou hast poured out misery unto silence.

I accorded thee sanctuaries to rule over.

May the king on behalf of his fathers fear thee.

Hear thou his prayers.

Cause abundance to rain upon his land.”

[Prometheus]

Adad’s fury is appeased by the grant of divine authority to ap-
point and defend the rulers of Babylonia. This divine ap-
pointment of kings by the Rain and Mountain-god of the
Aramaeans and Hebrews appears repeatedly in their mythol-
ogy. Adad, El, Reshef, Rakib-El, and Shamash gave Panamu
of Yadi the sceptre of Aleppo.^®^ So also is Yaw,^®® god of the
Children of Israel, described in the ancient Hebrew “ Song of
the Sea,” as a man of war: “ Thou sendest forth thy wrath,
consuming them like stubble, and with the blast of thy nostrils
the waters were piled up. Thou didst blow with thy wind,
the sea covered them.” Yaw appeared unto his people in a
cloud, and revealed himself on the mountains in fire, dark-
ness, and clouds, and spoke out of the midst of fire. The
“ Book of the Wars of Yahweh ” and the “ Book of
Jashar ” were two collections of ancient Hebrew martial
songs. From the latter collection come the “ Song of the
Bow ” and the hymn of Joshua at the battle of Gibeon. It
is extremely probable that Jashar is a title of the Babylonian
Adad.®®^ Jashar means “ the just,” and the corresponding
Accadian word Ishar appears as a title of Adad and Nergal in
Babylonian and Assyrian. The “ Book of Jashar ” may well
mean the book of the Canaanitish and Aramaean Thunder-god
Adad, and all the more since Paddan of Syria is written Padda
in Assyrian, and a name of Nergal (often confused with Adad)
is Ishar-padda. Already in the period of Ur (end of the
twenty-third century) Ishar-badan, apparently “ Ishar of


42


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Padan,” occurs as a proper name, and the god Ishar-padan,
variant Ishar-padda, occurs in southern Babylonia in the period
when, according to tradition, Abraham migrated from Ur of the
Chaldees by way of Harran in Syria.

Job describes El, in the late period when Yaw and El had
been identified, in verses similar to the Sumerian and Accadian
hymns :

“ Hearken unto the rumbling of his voice,

And to the muttering that goeth out of his mouth.

He letteth it go under the whole Heaven
And lightning to the ends of the earth.”

As the Aramaean kings derived their rights to sceptre and
throne from Adad, so also Saul of Benjamin became the first
king of Israel by the direction of Yaw.^®® Jeroboam re-
ceived the same divine commission to rule over the ten
northern tribes of Solomon’s disrupted kingdom from Yaw.

All mythological references to the principal deity of the
twelve tribes of Israel, who appear to have been only a part of
the greater Hebrew people, indicate that he was identical with
the Amorite and Aramaean deity Hadad, Adad, Ilumarru,
and the Sumerian Mer. The name was originally written
Yaw, as is proved by the earliest written records of Samaria,
and among Samaritan exiles in Assyria, where the deity has in-
variably this form in all proper names. As an Aramaic
deity Yaw occurs in the name of a king of Hamath who was
captured by Sargon in 720 b.c. The name is written Ya-u-
bi-’-di, i.e., “ god Yaw is my help.” The element is
frequently employed with deities of the Aramaic pantheon,
as in Atar-bi’di, Mar ^“®-bi’di, Sagil-bi’di, Adadi-bi’di, Bed-El,
Hadba’d, ““ Apil-Addu-ba’di. The Jewish colony of Elephan-
tine in Southern Egypt, in the sixth and fifth centuries b.c.,
wrote in Aramaic and pronounced the name of their principal
deity Yaw.^“ In the sacred writings of the Jews this original
name is correctly preserved in proper names as Yaw and Yah,
but for some unexplained reason it was extended into a verbal


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 43

form, apparently Yahweh, “ He causes to be,” and then
pointed with the vowels of the word Addnai, and pronounced
Adonai, whence the modern reading, Jehovah. In this book I
use the form Yaw. A name Yahweh, Jehovah, never existed.

Some have argued that the god Yaw was a Moon-god, but
the sources both Aramaic and Hebrew indicate his identity with
the Rain and Thunder-god Adad. A coin from Gaza in
Southern Philistia, fourth century b.c.,
the period of the Jewish subjection to
the last of the Persian kings, has the
only known representation of this He-
brew deity. The letters Y H W are
incised just above the hawk(?) which
the god holds in his outstretched left
hand. Fig. 23. He wears a himation,

leaving the upper part of the body Fig. 23. Yaw, Coin of Gaza.

1 j V • j t- 1 Fourth Century, b.c.

bare, and sits upon a winged wheel.

The right arm is wrapped in his garment. At his feet is a
mask. Because of the winged chariot and mask it has been
suggested that Yaw had been identified with Dionysus on ac-
count of a somewhat similar drawing of the Greek deity on a
vase where he rides in a chariot drawn by a satyr.^®® The coin
was certainly minted under Greek influence, and consequently
others have compared Yaw on his winged chariot to Trip-
tolemos of Syria, who is represented on a wagon drawn by two
dragons. It is more likely that Yaw of Gaza really represents
the Hebrew, Phoenician and Aramaic Sun-god El, Elohim,
whom the monotheistic tendencies of the Hebrews had long
since identified with Yaw. Sanchounyathon, an historian of
Gebal, whose lost writings are preserved by Eusebius, and who
in turn quotes them from Philo Byblius, is said to have dedi-
cated his History of Phoenicia to Abibalos, king of the Beru-
tians. This is probably Abiba‘al, king of Gebal, who lived in the
reign of Osorkon I (tenth century). Sanchounyathdn was un-
doubtedly a Phoenician writer of that period, as the statement of



44


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Porphyry, preserved in Eusebius, asserts. He based his his-
tory upon Yerombalos, a priest of Yeuo, undoubtedly the god
Yaw, who is thus proved to have been worshipped at Gebal as
early as lOOO b.c. In a mound north-west of Beisan, modern
Ta‘annek, has been found a letter of the fifteenth century writ-
ten in cuneiform by Ahi-Yami, which
proves that Yaw was a deity of the
Canaanites.

An Aramaic Sun-god is Rakib El,

“ charioteer of El,” corresponding to
the Sumerian god Bunene rMh nar-
kahtly “ charioteer ” of the Sun-god,
“ who sits in the chariot-seat, whose on-
C^oin'of^Gaza'^^'^' is irresistible, who harnesses

the powerful mules, whose knees rest
not, who travels before thee at thy coming and going.”
The Sun-god is called the “ Rider,” Rakkab, in the name of
the Aramaean king of Samal, Bar-Rakkab,^“® and a citizen of
Samal is Bi’li-Rakkabi, “ My lord is my charioteer.”

Yaw was associated with the Canaanitish Mother-goddess,
‘Ashtart-‘Anat, as we know from the name of the deity of the
Jews at Elephantine, ‘Anat-Yaw, where two other father-
mother titles of divinities occur, such as Ashim-Bethel, ‘Anat-
Bethel, in which titles of Astarte are combined with the Sun-god
Bethel. It is precisely at Gaza, where Yaw as a Sun-god ap-
pears on a coin (Fig. 23), that coins frequently bear the figure
of this ‘Ash tart- Yaw, Anat-Yaw, Anat-Bethel, corresponding
to the Phoenician Melk-‘Ashtart, Eshmun-‘Ashtart. Fig. 24, of
the Persian period, is characteristic of this type of male-female,
or female-male deity, and the heads, being joined, prove that
under these names was worshipped a deity who combines the
attributes of both.^^^

An Aramaean and Canaanite deity is Reshep, concerning
whose identity with Adad and Yaw there are not unanimous
opinions.^^^ In the list of Aramaic deities of Zenjirli, early
eighth century, he is placed between El and Rekub-El, both





Fig. 25. Stele of Mikal of Beisan



DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


45

Sun-gods. A principal centre of his cult was Sidon of Phoenicia,
where a section of the city was known as Eres-Reshep, or, as some
divide the letters, Eres-Reshpam, or Reshepim, the later Greek
Apollonia at Sidon, and the modern Arabic Arsuf.^^® From
Sidon his cult spread to Cyprus, where he is identified on bi-
lingual inscriptions with Apollo.^^^ An Egyptian stele of the
twelfth century b.c. identifies Reshef with Saramana, or §ala-
mana, and represents him as a god of War with shield and battle-
axe.^^“ The deity Shulmanu appears in Assyria in the thirteenth
century and at Sidon in the third century, and in a Greek in-
scription from Northern Syria as Selamanes.^^^ A king of Moab
has the name Salamanu in the time of Ahaz of Judah. Hosea
(x.14), in a hopelessly corrupt passage, preserves the name
Shalman. Since Ishtar of Assur is called Shulmamtu, “ she
of the city Shulman,” it is obvious that the Assyrian god is
identical with the name of some city, as Adad was called
Iluhallabu, after the city Aleppo. Shulmanu, and Shalman
are probably identical with the ancient name of Jerusalem,
Shalem,^^® where Malkizedek was king and priest of the god
El in the days of Abraham (twenty-first century). The name
of this city was written Salim in the correspondence of Abdihiba,
king of Jerusalem, with Amenophis of Egypt in the fifteenth
century, but with the Sumerian prefix, uru^ “ city,” and con-
sequently U-ru-sa-lim replaced the older name before the
age of Moses and became Jerusalem of the later period. By
adding the locative ending an^ the name of the city became also
Salman, and its god El was called Ilu-Salman in Assyria, and in
Babylonia Sulman. Babylonian culture and religion exercised
a powerful influence on the whole region as is proved also by
the name of a city near Jerusalem in the days of Abdihiba, Bet-
Ninurta, or Bet-Anussat,^^^ “ House of the god Ninurta,”
where the cult of the Sumerian War-god Ninurta must have
been adopted by the Canaanites before this period, as also at
Beth-Ninurta near Gebal in Syria.^^^

The two Canaanite deities of Salem were, therefore, El, i.e.,


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


46

Salman, the Sun-god and Astarte or Salmanitu.^^® Reshef-Sha-
lamana, the War-god on the Egyptian stele, is almost certainly a
Sun-god, and the identification of Reshef with Apollo, also a
Sun-god, is correct. A Phoenician press seal mentions the god
Melqart-Resef.^’* Melqart, the local god of Tyre, was a Sun-
god. The Egyptian monument. Fig. 13, characterizes Reshef

by the head of a gazelle on the
forehead of the god, and a
number of Egyptian monu-
ments bearing the name of
Reshef have the same conical
crown and gazelle head. He is
usually represented brandishing
axe or spear and defending him-
self with a shield.^^® At Belsan,
in the temple of the local god,
has been found the stele of
Mekel, “ god of Beth-Shan ”
(Fig. 25).^^« Here Mekel,
identified by inscriptions with
Reshef, has a high conical
crown, decorated by two long
ribbons, one falling from the
Fig. 26. Bas-relief from Moab crown and ending in a tassel.

The other falls from the band
above the ears and on the fore-crown are the two bull horns,
characteristic of Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian deitles.^^^
The pointed full beard, long high nose and cranial lineaments,
indicate with surety a Semitic deity. Before him stand Ame-
nemapt and his son Paremheb, Egyptian builders of the temple
in the reign of Thotmes III (fifteenth century). Since the
Egyptians represented Set-Sutek, the god of Thunder and
Lightning, in much the same way (having horns and one long
ribbon falling from the top of the crown), it is argued by some
that Reshef is a form of Adad.^^® Fig. 26 shews the only figure




DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


47


a


of a deity from Moab, which may be re- ^ ^

garded as Kemosh, god of the Moabites.

The same ribbon, here curled at the end,
and affording some reason to suppose that
it originally represents the tail of a lion or
some animal, falls from the top of a low
crown. Apparently neither gazelle head
nor two horn design is added to the fore-
head} the god holds a spear in readiness to
attack, and a lion in miniature stands be-
hind him. But in Babylonian iconography
the lion symbolized the Sun-god Nergal,
and the bull represents Adad in all Semitic
symbolism. Kemosh is frequently men-
tioned on the stele of Mesha‘, king of
Moab, and a father-mother goddess,

Ashtar-Kemosh, occurs there, but no in-
formation can be derived concerning the
nature of this deity from the contents of
the inscription.^^®

This West Semitic type of Sun-god is
also illustrated by Fig. 27, from Amrith,
on the sea-coast north of Gebal. Since the
stele carries a fragmentary Phoenician in-
scription, it cannot be earlier than the
tenth century. This Phoenician deity has
the same ribbon falling from the top of
the crown, and the fore part has a decora-
tion which has not even remote resemblance
to a bull’s horns or a gazelle’s head. He
wields a boomerang and holds a young lion
in his left hand. The deity also stands on a
lion, which walks on mountain tops. His character as a Sun-
god is clearly defined by the winged sun-disk} above his
head is the combined Babylonian symbol of sun and moon.®®’




Fig. 27. Phoenician
Deity, from Amrith


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


48

Fig. 28 is a seal of Addumu, king of Sidon, and from the same
period as the Amarna Letters.^®^ The deity hurling a spear and
guarding himself with a shield is clearly Reshef, who appears
on a seal of “ Annipi, son of Addume, king of the city Sidon.”

It cannot be assumed that the hanging ribbon and bull’s horns
are specifically characteristic of Adad-Set-Sutek, the Thunder-
god, or that gazelle head, spear, and shield are the only icono-
graphic signs of the War-god Reshef j for he is also represented
with two ribbons falling from the crown, and on a seal of
Rameses II, from Beisan, Mekel is represented as Reshef (Fig.



29). According to those who have seen this seal, the forehead
of the crown has a miniature gazelle head. Two ribbons fly
from the top of the conical crown of the War-god advancing
to battle, and since here he holds the battle-axe in his left hand,
Pere Vincent has finely observed that this is another connection
with the “ ambidexter Apollo.”

If Mekel on the stele of Beisan (Fig. 25) has iconographic
similarity to Egyptian representations of the Thunder-god, this
is due to syncretism and confusion of types. The double name
Reshef-Mekel occurs in inscriptions from Cyprus,^®® and once
it is falsely rendered into Greek by Apollo of Amyclae in
Lacedaemon.^®^ Reshef of Eliyath (Tamassos) in Cyprus is
rendered into Greek by Apollo the Eliyathian.®®® It is, there-


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


49


fore, certain that this deity, whose worship has been found in
Moab, Canaan, throughout Phoenicia, Syria, and Cyprus, is
really Nergal, the terrible Sumerian and Babylonian Sun-god
of the fierce summer heat, sender of pestilence, fire, and plague,
lord of the lower world, and implacable judge of the souls of
the dead.

Mekel and Reshef are, therefore, titles of Nergal. Con-
cerning the meaning of the verb rasafu, “ to blaze,” “ to burn,”
there is no doubt, and Nergal or, more correctly, Nergal as


-rxM! — 7F> // \//, V'

^ tTTTl





Fig. 29. Seal of Rameses II, from Beisan

specifically the Fire-god Girra, is called rasfu, “ the Scorcher,”
or rasubbu in Babylonia.^^° The verb also occurs as sardpUy
and the god Sharrapu is a West Semitic deity, identified by the
Assyrians with Lugalgirra, i.e., Nergal as Pest-god.^^^ The
Janus nature of Nergal, the Sumerian personification of the
sun’s heat, is due to the division of the year into two parts,
the period of fierce heat and the period of cold 5 hence he was
known in the West as Sharrapu, “ Scorcher,” and Birdu,
“ Cold,” “ Chill,” the Meslamtae of the Assyrians. The
specialized aspects of this Sun-god resulted in his being on the
one hand a devouring deity of fire and heat, of war and pesti-


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


50

lence, and on the other hand as “ he who rises from Meslam,”
the beneficent god who returns from his sojourn in Hell after
the winter solstice to reclothe the earth in verdure and supply
it with grain and fruit. From summer solstice to winter solstice
he descends to Hell, and hence he became the lord of Arallu
and supreme judge of the souls of the dead. From this concep-
tion of the god of the lower world as the scorching heat of the
midsummer sun and a withering fire, arose in later times the
myth of Gehenna as a fiery place in Hell where the wicked are
for ever tortured.

The Egyptian and Phoenician writing of the name com-
monly read Mikal does not supply evidence for its vocalization,
and Makkal, Mukal, etc., may all be considered. In view of
the common Phoenician and Canaanitish custom • of casting
human victims into furnaces of fire (Topheth) as sacrifices to
this relentless deity of the lower world, the natural meaning
to be placed upon this word is “ Devourer,” from the verb
akal^ “ to eat.” But since Ge Hinnom, “ Valley of Hin-
nom,” or “Valley of the Sons of Hinnom,” near Jerusalem,
was a Canaanitish centre of the worship of Malik, to whom
human sacrifices were made,^* it is possible that this god of
Beth-Shan is the same deity and to be read by metathesis
Makil ---- Malik.

Not obvious is the use of this word maliky “ king,” as a title
of the Sun-god Nergal, or as a proper name for him. Nergal
is defined as the god Malik by the Assyrian scribes,^® and the
word means “ Counsellor,” “ Adviser.” It seems to have
been applied to him as the deity of pastures, flocks, and the
earth’s fertility, and not in the role of the sun’s torrid heat.
However this may be, Malik came to be one of the principal
names of this deity in both aspects throughout the West, and
at Tyre, his principal cult centre, he has the name Melqart, for
Malk-qart, “ Melek of the city.” At Hammon near Tyre
the father-mother deity Melk-‘Astarte preserves the original
title of the Sun-god of Tyre.^® The Sun-god of Babylonia,


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


51



Fig. 30. Coin of Tyre.
Melqart on Sea-Horse


Phoenicia, Syria, and Canaan, especially the dreaded power of
the summer heat, is always the connotation of the title Malik
(Moloch). At Tyre and Gebal the deity appears in the fif-
teenth century in the names Abdi-Milki,^^® Ili-Milki, or Mil-
kili, king of a district near Jerusalem,

Milkuru of Gebal j Milki-u-ri, an
Aramaean.^®® A king of Tyre in the
time of Alexander was Azemilkos,

“ My strength is Melek.” On the
coins of Tyre Melqart is represented
as a bearded god riding the waves of
the Mediterranean Sea on the back of
a winged hippocampus. In his right
hand he draws a bow, and in his left
hand are held the reins of the flying sea-horse. On coins of the
Tyrian colonies the stone pillar, universal symbol of the Sun-
god, is a sure indication of the character of Malik of Tyre. A
Greek inscription below the two pillars reads “ holy rocks,”

Sanchounyathdn preserves a myth
concerning the two sun-pillars of the
cult at Tyre, which probably represent
the double aspects of the Phoenician
Sun-god Melqart. He says that his-
tory began at Tyre with Hypsu-
ranios,^®^ inventor of huts, and his
brother Ousoos, inventor of clothing
made from skins. When these were
dead, the Tyrians consecrated “ posts ”
to them and worshipped two pillars (stele) which Ous5os had
consecrated to fire and wind.

[Prometheus]

The cult of Melqart, who, by the accident of being the local
god of a great Phoenician seaport, became a patron of sea-faring
men, passed into Greek mythology as Melicertes, to whom
human sacrifices were made at Tenedos, As a solar deity, fol-
lowing the universal Semitic mythology of the sojourn of the



Fig. 31. Colonial Coin of
Tyre with Sun Pillars


52


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Sun-god in the lower world until the days begin to lengthen
at the winter solstice, the Tyrians celebrated the resurrection
of Melqart on the second day of the Macedonian month Peritios,
corresponding to Tyrian February-March.^®® At this festival a
great fire was lighted, and “ having lost his old age in fire he
obtains in exchange his youth ” j there was in consequence a
feast on the second of this month throughout Syria called dies
natalis Solis invictiy “ Natal day of the unconquerable Sun.”
Another legend ran that he perished in fire at Tyre where was
his sepulchre} the Phoenician colony at Gades (Cadiz) in
Spain also had a sepulchre of Melqart, and there was one of
Melicertes at Corinth.^®® This legend of the death and burial
of the Sun-god of Tyre is undoubtedly based upon the legend
of the tomb of Bel-Marduk at Babylon. As Marduk rose from
his tomb at the New Year festival, so also the Tyrians believed
their Sun-god to come forth from his tomb, symbol of his annual
sleep of death in the lower world. At Aphaca in the Lebanons,
east of Gebal, was the tomb of Ba‘al, who, as shall be seen, is
probably Adonis of Gebal, also a Sun-god. The burning of
the image of Melqart, the Tyrian Hercules, that by passing
through fire he may receive his youth again to revive the life
of a dying world, seems to have been peculiar to Tyre and the
lands to which his cult spread.

It may be presumed from the human sacrifices to Malik in
Canaan and to Melqart as Cronus at Carthage that the
Phoenicians offered the first-born in the fire which celebrated
the victory of Sol invictuSy and insured themselves against the
wrath of the relentless god. The Melek of Tyre was identified
with Hercules, and the coins of Tyre (Fig. 32) from 126 b.c.
to 225 A.D., bear the head of the Greek Hercules, with lion-skin
knotted round his neck. The design of the older Mel-
qart (Fig. 30), who is represented as god of the chase riding on
a sea-horse, may have led to his identification with Hercules,
ubiquitously represented on coins clothed in a lion’s skin, draw-
ing bow with arrow, and brandishing a massive club,^®® the


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


53


so-called Tyrian Hercules of Citium. There is another mytho-
logical connection between the Nergal-Malik type of Sun-
god of Tyre and the Greek deity, whose battles with the lions
of Mount Cithaeron and the Nemea, with the Arcadian stag,
the Erymanthian boar, and the Cretan bull, caused the Tyrians
to find in his deeds a similarity to their mythological tales of
Melqart. In fact one of the titles of Melqart is Sed, “ the
Hunter,” and the god has the double title, Sed-Melqart, at
Carthage. This epithet of Melqart has not been found for



Nergal in Babylonian, but Sa-i-id nakirim, “ Hunter of the
foe,” is used of Ninurta, god of the spring Sun.“® Since Ba‘al-
Hamman, principal male deity of Carthage,^®® is identified with
Hercules,®®® and Melqart occurs repeatedly at Carthage in
proper names, the identity of Ba‘al-Hamman with Sed-Mel-
qart is certain. Ba‘al-Hamman of the Phoenician colony at
Carthage is only a new name for the Sun-god of the mother-city
Tyre, and is taken directly from the cult centre Hamman near
Tyre,®®^ where the double deity Melk-‘Ashtart was worshipped.
Astarte of Tyre became the great goddess and principal deity
of Carthage} the double deity Sed-Tanit, corresponding to
Melk-‘Ashtart of Hamman, also emerges in the mythological
nomenclature of Carthage.®®®



54


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


The Sun-god was known as the god Sed, “ the Hunter,” at
Tyre and Carthage.^®* Sanchounyathon made use of trust-
worthy sources when he said that Agreus, the Hunter, and
Halleus, the Fisherman, were descendants of Samem-roumos,*®*
a title of the Sun-god, at Tyre. Here minor aspects of Mel-
qart are personified and treated as deities in his pantheon, an
ordinary Sumerian method. Agreus and Halieus ^®® begat
two brothers, one of whom was called Chrysdr, inventor of
hook, bait, fishing line, and small fishing boats, and was the
first who sailed. After his death he was deified under the
name Diamichius. From them descended Technites and
Geinos, who invented brick making.^®^ These begat Agros,

Agroueros, or Agrotes, “ the Farmer.”
To him the Phoenicians built a statue
and “ a temple drawn by oxen.” At
Gebal Agrotes was the greatest of
the gods. Since Agrotes also means
“ Hunter,” the name was applied to the
Sun-god El of Gebal. The statue and
temple drawn by oxen clearly refer to

Fig. 33. Sun-symbol of thg chariot of the Sun-god drawn by
Tyre in Chariot . 1 • r 1 • r

tour horses, a design found on coins ot
every city which emphasized the sun-cult. A chariot with four
horses driven by Helios stood on the gable of the magnificent
temple of the sun at Ba^albek, and coins of that city represent the
fagade of the temple mounted by the chariot of the sun.^®®
At Emesa (Homs) the sacred baetyl of Elagabal stands on
a chariot drawn by four horses.^®® The myth of the Sun-god
and his chariot and charioteer is of Babylonian origin,^^®
and a coin of Tyre has Melqart and his charioteer drawing
a chariot with four horses.®^^ Josiah destroyed the horses and
chariots of the sun at the entrance to the temple of Yaw
in Jerusalem (2 Kings, xxiii.ii), by which the Hebrew
chronicler means images of chariots and horses dedicated to
the Sun-god of Salem. A late Jewish writer in the Book



DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 55

of Enoch refers to the wind-driven chariot of the sun and
moon.

Sed, “ the Hunter,” has no connection with Shamash, Mel-
qart, Elagabal, Rakkab, etc., as the chariot rider of the sun.
“ The Hunter ” as an aspect of the Western Sun-god represents
rather Ninurta of the Sumerian pantheon. Ninurta, read ap-
parently Nimurta in dialectic Sumerian, is probably the origin
of the name Nimrod, the famous hunter of Hebrew mythology.
This myth, incorporated in one of the oldest Hebrew docu-
ments,^^^ reveals his Babylonian origin 5 for he is said to have
founded Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh,^^® in Shine^ar
(Sumer). If Calneh is an error for Kullaba, a part of Erech, at
least two of these cities, Erech and Kullaba, were connected
with the exploits of the hero Gilgamish, and since Nimurta is
mentioned as the god of Kullaba,^^^ there seems to be a confu-
sion of two myths in the Hebrew legend. Nimrod, the mighty
hunter before Yaw, and son of Kush,^^® is clearly the Gilgamish
of Babylonian mythology; and Nimrod, founder of cities in
Sumer, and latterly builder of Nineveh, Rehoboth-lr, Calah,
and Resen between Nineveh and Calah in Assyria, is surely
Nimurta, the god of the spring Sun, son of the Earth-god Enlil
of Nippur. The myth of Nimrod is preserved by a stray refer-
ence in early Hebrew literature. Genesis x.8-12, and referred
to again by the late compiler of i Chronicles i. 10. The prophet
Micah calls Assyria “ the land of Nimrod.”

There is here a remnant of an ancient and widely spread
Semitic myth, originating in Sumer and Accad, concerning the
Sun-god Nimurta, who, in the original Sumerian Epic of Crea-
tion, defeated the dragon of chaos and founded cities. Since
Nineveh appears in history in the fifteenth century, and Calah
was founded by Shalmanasar I (thirteenth century), this leg-
end cannot be earlier. Nimurta was the principal deity of
Calah, and called “ the dweller of Calah.” In Sumero-
Babylonian religion he is the War-god and the planet Saturn,
and there is no myth concerning his hunting exploits, except in


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


56

connection with his hunting the foes of Babylonia. This aspect
of the Babylonian Nimurta must be assumed, for it surely ex-
isted, and the Phoenician Sed is the western reproduction of
this Semitic myth of the Sun-god as a hunter.

At Palmyra, the ancient Tadmar,^^^ the principal deities
were Yarhi-Bel, Agli-Bel, and Atargatis. Yarhi-Bel is regu-
larly transcribed Yaribolos in the Greek translations of Palmy-
rene texts,^^® and is proved by the tessara shewn in Fig. 34 to
be the Sun-god, and another name for the Aramaean Sun-god
Malak-Bel.^^® On the left stands the Sun-god, recognizable
by the rays of light spreading from his head. The Aramaic
inscription has the letters y-r-h-y-h-l. On the right is the
Moon-god, determined by the crescent which stands behind
his neck. The Aramaic inscription has the letters ^ -g-l-b-w-l.
On p. 22 reference was made to the bas-relief of Emesa (Fig.
35) on which Seimia, a title of the Mother-goddess of the
Aramaeans, Ate, Atargatis, Arabian Allat, is defined by a
Greek inscription as Athena. She stands between two deities j
on the left is the solar deity with rays of light spreading from
his headj he wears the dress of a Roman soldier specifying
him as a Warrior-god. On the right stands the figure of a
deity in oriental garb, holding a spear, and above his head
is the Greek word Kerauno, “ thunderbolt,” identifying him
with the Semitic god Adad. The monument is thought to be
broken away at the left, where a fourth deity may have
stood.^®^ Be that as it may, the Greek inscription, as preserved,
has Yarebol, Aglibbl, and Sei[mia]. Agli-Bol, the Moon-
god, does not appear on the monument and may be the
figure which conjecturally stood on the left. Seimia then
stands between the two Sun-gods of Palmyra, Malak-Bel and
Yarhi-B 31 , and before Yarhi-Bol the Greek text has prob-
ably Bel 5 .

The Palmyrene name of the Sun-god, Malak-Bel, often
called simply Bel, is of Babylonian origin, as the borrowed
name of the great god of Babylon, Marduk or Belu, proves.





Fig. 34. Tessara from Palmyra with Sun-god (left) and Moon-god

(right)


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


58

The local pronunciation of their god Ba‘al was Bol. Since no
Semitic word malaky for “ king,” “ counsellor,” exists, it is
impossible to connect this solar deity of central Syria with the
god Malik. Malik in Phoenician and Canaanitish mythology
is the Babylonian Nergal and Nimurta. Malak-Bel was iden-
tified by the Greeks with Zeus, and by the Romans with Sol
sanctissinms. At Palmyra the gods Agli-Bol and Malak-Bel
occur in that order, precisely as, in Babylonia and Assyria, Sin
and Shamash is a fixed sequence.^®^ Malak-Bel has been in-
terpreted to mean “ the messenger of Bel.” The messenger
of Bel of Babylon was Nabu,^®^ god of letters and writing.
Nabu has essentially and historically no connection with the
sunj he probably became the messenger of the Sun-god Mar-
duk, because he had been identified with the planet Mercury.
This planet is never seen except in the morning or evening
twilight, since it stands in close proximity to the sun. For this
reason Malak-Bol of Syria has been identified with Mercury.^®®
It has been assumed that Malak-Bel is simply a metathesis for
Bel-malak,^®® “ Bel has counselled,” but the Semites did not
form names of deities in that way. The god Balmalage,
listed among Phoenician deities by a scribe of Asarhaddon,^®^
is certainly compounded from the West Semitic general title
of deities, Ba‘al, and malaky “ messenger,” as it occurs in Punic
inscriptions, Ba'al-malak,^®® where the writing permits no doubt.
A Messenger-god Malak must have been well known among
West Semitic peoples. It is found in the Edomite divine name
Qaush-malaka.^®® Qaush seems to have been the national deity
of this people who occupied the mountainous region south of
Judea.^®*^ The personal name Il-ma-la-[ku] occurs in an
Assyrian contract, with Aramaic transcription El-malak.®®^
Malak-Bel is identified with Mercury in a Greek inscrip-
tion of Abila (Suk-Barada) in the Anti-Lebanon, north-west of
Damascus.

A marble altar from Palmyra, dedicated by Tiberius
Claudius Felix to Malak-Bel and the gods of Tadmor in



I Ape B 6^ A cO A rA I B WA fi)/< A I C6i;

' oyire pccoTHpiACAYi oy- k os:!: ^


Fig, 35. Bas-relief, Shewing Seimia between the Solar Deity (left)
AND AdAD (right)


V — 6


6o


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Greek, and to Sol sanctissimus in Latin, has a myth of the
sun portrayed in art.^®® The four sides of the altar represent
the birth, youth, middle age, and old age of the diurnal or
annual life of the sun. On the back side Malak-Bel, as a naked
boy, issues from the top of a cypress-tree bearing on his shoul-
ders a ram. Only the upper part of his body has emerged.
Here is the rising sun born on the eastern horizon of the wooded
Lebanon sky-line, precisely as in Babylonian art he rises over
the mountains of Elam. Fig. 36, a Sumerian seal of about the



twenty-fifth century, shews the Sun-god, Babbar, Shamash,
emerging from the wooded mountains of the east, holding in his
left hand the key with which he unlocks the gate of sunrise.
Above him stands the winged figure of Innini, Ishtar, the morn-
ing star, and, from behind, the god Immer, Adad, sends show-
ers upon mountain and plain. The bull, symbol of the
Rain and Thunder-god, lies at his feet. On the left stands a
god with a bow, probably representing the Sun-god as a hunter,
and the lion of the sun with open jaws rushes at the celestial
hunter from the left. The eagle, Sumerian symbol of the
luminary which takes its daily flight across the vault of Heaven
and traverses the celestial dominion of the stars and constella-
tions, descends towards the rising sun from the storm-clouds of
Adad.


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


6i


In Sumerian art Shamash is invariably represented, even at
his rising, as an old man. For his various aspects, they have
special forms of the solar deity, as Ninurta for the morning
or spring sun, Nergal for the midday or summer sun. The
myth of the naked youth rising from the wooded hills of the
Lebanons, the good shepherd bearing a ram on his shoulders,
cannot be traced to Babylonian mythology, unless the myth of
the shepherd Tammuz lies at the basis of this late Semitic
iconography.

The right side of the altar shews Malak-Bel driving a chariot
drawn by four winged griffins j behind him stands the winged
goddess of Victory, who places a crown upon his head. This
scene represents the youth of the sun mounting victoriously
toward the vault of heaven.^®'* The front of the altar (Fig. 37 )
has the bust of Malak-Bel supported by an eagle. From his
head spring the brilliant rays of the midday sun.^®® The left
side has the bust of the bearded Sun-god, with hood and sickle.
This is Cronos, the setting sun (or autumn sun), after he has
run his course and descends toward the western horizon in his
old age.^®® A monument of Palmyra represents the two great
gods of Palmyra, Malak-Bel and Agli-Bol, sun and moon,^®^
standing with hands clasped before a cypress-tree. On the
left is Malak-Bel, a youth with a sickle, and on the right
Agli-B31, in garb of a Roman soldier j a crescent stands
behind his shoulders precisely as on the Palmyrene tessara,
Fig- 34-

The close relation between the Thunder and Rain-god,
Ramman-Adad, and the Sun-god in Semitic mythology is one
of the aspects of Babylonian religion most prominent and most
difficult to explain. The Earth-god Enlil of Sumerian re-
ligion is by origin “ Lord of the Wind,” god of the vast Under-
world, whence come the winds and storms, his son is Ishkur,
Immer, Mur, and the Semitic god of Winds, Rain, and Light-
ning, Adad.®®® On the other hand the Sun-god Ninurta
is also the son of Enlil, and Enlil himself is identified with



SOimiMCT ISSI M0«^¥M
Tll“C WPll¥3“lPiLlX- IT
CLA¥1D1( A-HUE LFJS“iT

V@TVM4@LYgl?m«T-ILai^J«S'I^KSl®

C^L®lEJMSgS*ei°G©M° HD



Fig. 37. Palmyrene Altar, Front View


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 63

Shamash. The mythological origin of these diverse concep-
tions seems to be that the sun and the winds issue from the vast
infernal regions of the dominion of Enlil, lord of both upper
and lower worlds. Undoubtedly the Greek myth of Aeolus, to
whom Zeus gave control of the winds, which he let forth from
the caves of the mountains, has been ultimately derived from
this ancient Sumerian conception of the Earth-god.^®® Shamash
and Adad are the two supreme gods of Divination in Babylonia
and Assyria. It is, therefore, not surprising that, among
the Aramaeans, Adad, Ramman, Ilumer, is often confused
with the Sun-God Malak-Bel, Yarhi-Bol, or that Yaw
of the Hebrews completely absorbed the character of the Sun-
god El.

Among the Aramaeans and Phoenicians there is a deity Bal-
shamin, Balshameme,®®® “ Lord of the Heavens.” In Palmy-
rene inscriptions he has the titles “ the good and rewarding
god,” and “ lord of the world.” ®®® The Greek translation
of Ba‘al-shamin on an altar from Tayyibe, north-east of
Palmyra, is Zeus megistos kerauniosy i.e., “ Most mighty Zeus,
Thunder (er).” ®®® There is, therefore, no doubt but that Bal-
shamm is Adad. Plautus transcribes Ba‘alshamim, the Phoeni-
cian form in Punic inscriptions, by Balsamem. The title occurs
in inscriptions from Phoenicia,®®* among the Nabataeans of
Hauran (south of Damascus),®®® in Sardinia,®®® and among the
Arabians of the Hauran in the Christian period.®®^ Since all
these Phoenician, Aramaic, Nabataean, and Safaitic inscriptions
derive from the late period, second century b.c. to the second
century a.d., it was at first supposed that “ Lord of the
Heavens ” revealed a monotheistic title of the great Semitic
Rain and Thunder-god Adad, taken from the late Hebrew
title of Yaw, el hassamainiy “ god of the Heavens.” ®®® But
this assertion, even when it was made, ignored the occurrence of
this god already found among Phoenician deities in the time
of Esarhaddon, and any monotheistic idea was invalidated by
the occurrence of Ba‘alsamin with the god Shai‘haqaum and the


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


64

goddess Lat in Safaitic. Moreover Teshub, the Hittite Adad,
has the title “ lord of the Heavens and Earth ” in Accadian
cuneiform treaties between the Hittites and Mitannians, in the
fifteenth and fourteenth centuries b.c., and the Hittite Sun-god
is called “ lord of the Heavens ” in the same documents. A
Palmyrene inscription renders Ba‘alshamin by “ Helios ” in
the Greek version/” and Syriac writers translate Zeus Olympios
by Ba‘alshamm. Hesychius, the Greek lexicographer, renders
Ramas, i.e., Ramman = Adad, by “ Zeus hypsistos,” but Philo
Byblius identified Kurios ouranou, “ lord of the Heavens ”
with Helios, the Sun-god. This title, Balsamin, therefore, be-
gan in the Hittite religion for both Adad and Shamash. The
West Semitic peoples then use it as the name of the god of
the Skies, either Adad or Shamash. This is only another
example of the persistent confusion of these two Semitic
deities.®^"

[Prometheus]

There is a legend of a certain Ahiqar, a wise scribe and
counsellor of Senecherib, king of Assyria, preserved in an
Aramaic source found at Elephantine in Egypt, of the fifth
century b.c., which latterly became a subject of folk-lore
throughout the ancient east.^^^ In his old age Ahiqar lamented
that he had no son to continue his services at the court of
Assyria, and appealed to the gods to give him an heir that
he might be trained in the philosophy and political wisdom
with which he had so successfully served the Assyrian em-
pire. According to the Arabic version of this tale he appealed
to the “ Most high god, creator of the Heavens and Earth,”
to give him a boy, that he might be consoled by him, and be
present at his death to close his eyes and bury him. The
Armenian version preserves a more polytheistic account of this
part of the story. He went before the gods with offerings and
prayed: “ O my lords and gods, Belshim and Shimil and Shamin,
ordain and give to me male seed.” The gods, however, re-
fused his supplication, but ordered him to adopt his sister’s son
Nathan. The remainder of the story of Ahiqar does not con-


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 65

cern Semitic mythology, but the occurrence of Belshim in the
Armenian version, who is clearly the Balshamm and Balsha-
meme of Aramaic and Phoenician mythology, as the first of the
gods to whom Ahiqar appealed, proves how firmly this title of
the great Semitic deity had supplanted the older name Adad in
the late period. For Balshamm has been found in Armenian
sources outside their version of Ahiqar.

The Semitic word for “god,” whose root is unknown, but
common to all Semitic languages, is ilu (Accadian), el (Canaan-
itish, Himyaritic, Aramaic)} strengthened triliteraU^® forms,
Hebrew eloah^ Aramaic elah, Arabic ilah (Himyaritic, North
Arabic). In Accadian, ilu regularly represents Sumerian digir^
dingiTy^^ which is written with an ideogram meaning “ high,”
“ Heaven.” It seems plausible to assume that this Semitic
general word originally denoted a Sky-god. It is difficult to
suppose that in the oldest Arabian religion the word could have
had special reference to the sun, for there the sun is feminine.
But Semitic religion begins with the worship of sun, moon, and
the planet Venus, and hence their word for “god” probably
does mean “ high,” “ heavenly.”

This word, like hafaly Accadian hHu, became a specific name
for a deity in Semitic religion. This is, however, a local and not
a general aspect of their mythology, ilu never became the name
of any special god in Babylonia, nor did dingir in Sumerian.
The only instance of this in Babylonia is the use of the word
Bel for Marduk of Babylon. Wherever this title is employed
in West Semitic religion Marduk is meant, never Enlil of Nip-
pur} dingir and ilu are employed for specific gods only in the
phrase, “ his god ” or “ my god,” where the word “ god ” re-
fers to the special protecting deity of a Sumerian or an Acca-
dian.®^®

Among the Aramaeans, Phoenicians, and Canaanites El seems
to have become a special name for Shamash, due to the pre-
ponderant importance of this deity. The early Aramaic in-
scriptions mention the deity Rakib-El,®^® which defines El as a


66


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Sun-god. These texts have four titles of the Sun-god or as-
pects of the sun in the same line, El, Reshef, Rakib-El, and
Shamash.®^® El, Rakib-El, and Shamash occur together, and
El occurs also in Sabaean with Athtar. Here El or II is cer-
tainly used for the principal deity of the Sabaean pantheon,
Ilmuqah, the Moon-god, in the sense of “ the god.” El
was the name of the principal deity of Gebal.®^^ Sanchounya-
thdn has ’Elioun, and says that he was called Hypsistos, “ most
high”} this is the Greek transcription of the Canaanite word
^elyofif “ most high,” used as a title of the Hebrew deity, El, in
the story of Melchizedek and Abraham, where El is appar-
ently the god of Salem.®"® In later Hebrew mythology, when
monotheism or complete syncretism of the deities Yaw and El
prevailed, the title elyon is also applied to Yaw. In the com-
plicated scheme of the pantheon at Gebal, as handed down by
Sanchounyath5n, Berouth was the wife of Elioun, and they
begat Uranos (Heaven), and Ge, the Earth-goddess. There
is, here, apparently a mutilated transformation of the Sumero-
Babylonian pantheon at the head of whose hereditary scheme
stand Anu and Antu, the Sky-god and his wife. Hypsistos was
slain in conflict with wild beasts, and was deified. Sanchounya-
thon, or the redactors of his original works, treats these deities
as ancient heroes, after the manner of Greek mythology. The
legend of the death of Elioun or Hypsistos is undoubtedly
based upon the cult of Adonis of Gebal, whose wounding by a
boar in the precipitous mountain valley of the Adonis River,
which flows from Aphaca in the Lebanon and reaches the sea at
Gebal, is one of the episodes in this cult.

From Uranos and Ge sprang Ilos, called Cronos, Betulos,
Dagon, and Atlas. Ilos or Cronos drove his father Elioun
from the kingdom and founded Byblos (Gebal). The com-
•rades of Ilos are called Eloeim in this source, a transcription
of the Phoenician ®®^ or Hebrew eldhim, “ gods.” Ilos or El had
a son Sadidus, whose name is apparently derived from Shaddai,
a Hebrew title of El.®®® El is depicted as having been a cruel


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 67

tyrant of Gebalj being suspicious of Atlas, his brother, he cast
him into a deep cavern and buried him, and for the same reason
he dispatched Sadidos with a sword and severed the head of his
own daughter. He married Astarte, Rhea, and Dione, daugh-
ters of his own father. Astarte was the Ba^alat or Beltis of
Gebal. She and her brother El are the Aphrodite and Adonis
of the most famous of all Semitic legends, which will be dis-
cussed in the Chapter on Tammuz and Ishtar. By her El had
seven daughters called the Titanides, one of whom was married
to Sydycos, who begat Asclepius, that is the Greek equivalent
of Esmun, god of Sidon. In Sanchounyathdn’s genealogy of the
gods of Tyre, where Melqart-Hypsuranios corresponds to El
of Gebal, Sydycos and (his brother) Misor occur. These names
are Greek transcriptions of the Semitic words sedeq^ “ justice,”
and mtshoTy “ righteousness.” Sanchounyathon translates both
names by adjectives, “ the just ” and “ the easily freed.” The
Greek translation of Misor has confused the verb mashary “ to
let loose,” with the noun mtshor, which could not occur unless
the Greek, or original Phoenician, writer was dealing with Baby-
lonian names. Babylonian mythology has two attendants of
Shamash, Kittu, who stands at his right, and Misaru, who
stands at his left.^^® MTsharu obtained considerable vogue in
West Semitic religion, for he is repeatedly associated with Adad
and his consort Shala.®^^ At Erech he was worshipped in the
temple of Adad.®^® Kittu appears in the Phoenician pan-
theon as Sydyc, either a West Semitic translation or from a
Babylonian name which has not been found.

That El was the special name of the “ Ba‘al of Gebal,” as he
was called by the Egyptians, is proved by the emphasis laid
upon this title by the inhabitants of that city in their proper
names. El-ba‘al, “ El is lord,” is the name of an ancient
king.^^® In the Persian period names of kings of Gebal are
Elpa‘al,^^“ “ El has made,” ‘Ainel,^^^ “ Eye of El.” He is
often described simply as Ba‘al, “ lord,” in names of Gebal, e.g.,
‘Azba‘al, “ Might of Ba^al,” Yeharba‘al.®^® On coins of


68


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


Gebal El is represented with six wings, two pairs extended from
the back in flight, and one pair below, drooping at rest. Fig.
38, obverse, of the year 80 b.c., has the head of Astarte or
Beltis of Gebal with mural crown, identifying her with Tyche.
The reverse has the winged El, characteristic of coins of the
period of the Seleucidae, from Antiochus Epiphanes onward.
He holds a long wand or sceptre. Sanchounyathon thus de-
scribes this deity: “ He has four eyes, two behind and two be-
fore, two of which are closed in sleep. On his shoulders are four



Fig. 38. El (right) with Wings. Obverse (left), Astarte


wings, two in the act of flying, and two reposing at rest. The
symbol meant that while he slept he also watched, and while he
flew he also rested.”

This myth, combined with the representation on the coins,
proves that it rests upon the Babylonian conception of the course
of the sun by day and his repose in the lower world by night.
He is a Janus figure, and representations of this deity who looks
both ways are as old as the age of the Sumerian priest-king
Gudea of Lagash, and as late as the fifth century.^^® Fig. 39, a
seal from Arrapha, shews the god Marduk with two heads
looking right and left. These heads, however, have mythologi-
cal faces, half bird and half animal, with grinning jaws. Ap-
parently here the twin-demon Nergal type of Sun-god is repre-
sented beside the symbol of the sun, a four-rayed star in a circle,


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 69

supported by a staff. On another seal from Arrapha the two-
headed monster has two wings and supports the same sun sym-
boL®^® Nergal, or the Sun-god, as a hostile deity of the sun’s
heat and of the lower world, is frequently called the twin god,
and as such his names are Lugalgirra and Meslamtaea. His
symbol on monuments is a pillar with two lion heads, dos a doSy
looking right to left.®®’ The winged sun disk in various forms
begins to appear in the Cassite period and on seals of Arrapha it
is frequent.®®® Fig. 40, from the top of a stele of Yehaw-melek,




Fig. 39. Seal Shewing Two-headed Marduk

king of Gebal, fifth century, shews this king in Persian dress,
offering a libation to Astarte or Beltis of Gebal. A large sun
disk of Assyrian type spreads out its wings above the scene. The
goddess is here represented as the Egyptian Hathor.

The Janus nature of El of Gebal accords perfectly with
Babylonian mythology. The Epic of Creation has the follow-
ing description of Marduk:

“ Four were his eyes and four his ears.

When he moved his lips, fire blazed forth.

Four ears grew large,

And the eyes behold all things even as he (Ea).”

The mythological conception of the winged Sun-god is also
revealed in Hebrew poetry, where the idea undoubtedly sur-


70


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


vived from the earlier type of their own El or El5him. “ Hide
me under the shadow of thy wings,” in a prayer to Yaw j “ The
sons of men put their trust in the shadow of thy wings,” in a
hymn to Him (as El5him) ; Boaz welcomed the Moabite
woman Ruth to his land and religion with the words: “Yaw,
the god of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust ”j
a prayer to God (Elohim) has: “I put my trust in the covert



of thy wings.”®*® The figure in these passages is commonly
supposed to be taken from a bird protecting her young j this is
clearly the simile in Deuteronomy xxxii.ii and Psalm xci. 4 .
Mythology and simile are probably combined in Hebrew
poetry j for there is no doubt but that Eldhim, Elyon, Shad-
dai, which occur in some of these passages, are identical
with El, the Sun-god of Phoenicia and the Aramaeans. El
or Cronos of Gebal invented the scimitar®** and spear. The
scimitar is held in the hand of figurines of both the single-
and double-headed Ashur, Sun-god of Assyria, found in


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


71

strata of the twenty-fourth century at the ancient capital of
Assyria.®^^

The influence of Babylonian mythology upon El of the West
Semitic races is unmistakable. He is both Shamash, the benefi-
cent, and Nergal, the dreadful. As god of the lower world
his name Malcandros appears in a myth preserved by Plutarch.
This famous story, told or referred to in many Greek sources of
the early Christian period, has been reconstructed by Baudissin.
According to Plutarch,®^® Osiris, who had been treacherously
put into a coffin by his brother Set and flung into the Nile,
floated down the Nile and out into the Mediterranean Sea. The
coffin finally drifted to the harbour of Gebal (Byblos), and was
washed ashore. An erica-Xxzt grew up suddenly and enclosed
the coffin. Malcandros, king of Gebal, cut down this tree and
used it as a pillar of his house, not knowing that it contained the
body of Osiris. Isis, sister of Osiris, wandered up and down
Egypt seeking her lost husband and brother. Somehow in-
formation came to her that his body was in the pillar of the
house of Malcandros, whither she went and sat down by a well
to weep. Astarte, queen of Gebal, attracted by her sorrow, and
by the divine aroma which she had breathed upon the queen’s
handmaidens, received her into her house and made her nurse of
her child. By night she fluttered about the pillar with mourn-
ful twittering. She finally revealed her identity and begged
for the pillar, which they gave her. Having cut out the body
of Osiris she fell upon it in loud lament, and returned with it to
Egypt. The pillar she wrapped in fine linen, anointed it and
gave it to Malcandros and Astarte. It stood in the temple of
Osiris, i.e., Adonis, at Gebal even unto the days of Plutarch.

Malcandros or Malcander is clearly a title of El, derived
from Malk-addir, “ Malk the mighty the title Melk, Malk,
“king,” of the Sun-god, more especially of Nergal, has been
discussed.®** A king of Gebal in the Persian period was Adar-
malk.®*® This is surely the same name as that of the god
Adrammelek, whose worship was introduced into Samaria by


72


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


the Sepharvites in the eighth century, and to whom they burned
their children in fire.®^® By a new interpretation of the inscrip-
tion of Eshmun‘azar of Sidon, a mythological passage in the
curse against those who open his sarcophagus should probably
read : “ May they have no resting-place with the Shades, nor be
buried in a grave, nor have son or seed in their stead, and may
the holy gods imprison them with Malkaddir.” The con-
ception of souls of the dead held captive in Hell by Nergal is
Babylonian also.

The Hebrew deity El, whose character as a Sun-god has been
repeatedly mentioned, and whose name occurs also quite regu-
larly in the plural Elohim, but employed as a singular, is the
god of the Habiru, a people who appear in various kingdoms
and local city dynasties of Babylonia and Assyria from the
twenty-second century until the Cassite period, among the
Hittites, and as an invading warlike tribe in Syria, Phoenicia,
and Canaan in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries. I am
entering upon debatable ground here when I assume that the
Habiru and their god Ilani (plural always written ideographi-
cally) are identical with the Hebrews and their god Elohim.
There seems to be no doubt at all but that this is the casej every
argument against it has been specious and without conviction.
Accepting this thesis, the Hebrews had served for six centuries
as mercenary soldiers and traders among the Babylonians, As-
syrians, Hittites, Mitannians, and Aramaeans before they en-
tered and occupied Canaan; and, granted that their persistent
use of ilani Habiri, “ the Habiru gods,” is, in reality, a
singular like the Hebrew El5him, it follows that it is identical
with the Hebrew god El, Elah, Elohim. Phoenician also uses
the word “gods” as a singular.®^® This is a common usage
among Canaanitish scribes of the period of the Habiru invasions
into Syria and Palestine. So, for example, Shuwardata of Kelte
calls Pharaoh, “ my god and my sun,” in the text actually “ my
gods and my Shamash.” A man of Qadesh in Northern Syria
writes to Pharaoh attributing his defeat of the invading Habiru


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


73

to the fact that “ his godhead ” and “ sunship ” went before his
face. Here the plural ilanu is used as an abstract noun, as is also
the word “ god Shamash.” In Hittite the Habirite god is called
Uani Habiriyas, Habiries^ “ Habirite gods.” That the Ha-
birites, or, as I assume, the Hebrews, in the days of their wan-
derings in Babylonia, from the days of Abraham “ the Hebrew ”
and Hammurabi (Amraphel), had a deity known to the peoples
with whom they came into contact as “ the Hebrew god,” is
proved by a list of nine gods and goddesses worshipped in the
temple of Adad at the old capital of Assyria, in a text at least as
old as the twelfth century. Here the singular, ilu Habiru oc-
curs, which I take to mean not “ god Habiru,” but “ Habirite
god,” or, if ilu is here, as in ildni Habiriy a specific name of a
deity, i.e., El, the “ Habirite El.” The genitive and accusative
of this gentilic word is Habin and the nominative plural should
be ildni Habiru or the “ Hebrew Elbhim ” in the texts of the
Hittite capital, Boghazkeui.

There are no important myths in Hebrew religion concerning
either of their two deities El and Yaw, but if the origin of the
god Elohim in the Old Testament can be explained as a direct
survival of the Habirite ildni, it is obvious that their long asso-
ciation with Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite re-
ligion explains the great Babylonian myths which appear in He-
brew mythology. The myths of Creation in Genesis i-ii, of
Paradise and the Fall of Man (iii), and of the Flood (vi— ix),
are admittedly of Babylonian origin, and all three in the He-
brew account are compiled from two versions in which El5him
or Yaw appears respectively. It is extremely difficult to de-
cide which of these sources is the older, but if the Habiru
are the Hebrews, clearly those sources of these myths in
which the deity El5him appears are the originals. Yaw, the
Rain- and Thunder-god, appears to be a West Semitic deity
unknown to them under that name until they entered Canaan.
The meaning of this name being wholly unknown, but his
identity with the god Adad certain, it is imprudent to reject


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


74

the supposition that it is not a purely Habirite or Hebrew
word for the deity of rains, storms, and winds, and as old
as the god Elohim among them. There are purely Hebrew
myths such as the communication of the tables of the law on
Mount Sinai, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the
plagues in Egypt, Balaam and the ass, Jonah and the whale,
Samson and Delilah. The myth of the ten prediluvian patri-
archs is Babylonian. Of all these only those of Babylonian
origin confront us with problems of universal dimensions. In
the Chapters on Sumerian and Babylonian myths these will be
considered. The Hebrew national legends will be discussed in
their proper connections. Here, in preparation for those Chap-
ters, it is necessary to point out the reasons for the almost com-
plete ascendancy of Babylonian mythology in the greater mytho-
logical documents of the Old Testament and the historical
reasons for it.®®^

[Prometheus]

An important Phoenician deity was Eshmun of Sidon, identi-
fied by the Greeks with Asclepius, god of Medicine, whose
symbol was the serpent. In the Greek sources he was the son of
Sydycos, which we have seen to be a title of the Sun-god as “ Jus-
tice.” Sanchounyath5n, however, says that the Cabiri were de-
scended from Sydycos, and that others, descended from these,
discovered medicinal herbs, the cure of poisons and charms.
According to others there were eight Cabiri of whom Esmounos
was the last, and so certain Greeks derived his name from the
Semitic word shemonay “ eight.” Others say that he, being
beautiful, was loved by Astronoe, the Phoenician goddess and
mother of the gods. While hunting in the groves he saw the
goddess pursuing himj being hard pressed in the chase by the
amorous goddess, who was about to capture him, Esmounos cut
off his own genitals with an axe. In remorse Astronoe sum-
moned Paeon and turned the youth into a god by generative
heat. The Phoenicians, therefore, called him Esmoun because
of the heat of life. This tradition is based upon the Semitic
word es/i, “ fire,” and some fanciful ( ? ) explanation for mown.


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


75


In any case Damascius, by whom this story has been preserved,
evidently means that Esmoun signifies “ he who restores the
heat of life,” and, taken with the more ancient Phoenician source
in Sanchounyathdn, it is clear that this deity was 'par excellence
a “ healer ” of the sick, precisely as was his Sumerian counter-
part Tammuz.^®*

The self-mutilation of Eshmun belongs to the category of
myths concerning other gods loved by the Mother-goddess, and
defines him at once as one of the dying gods of Semitic religion,
like Adonis, Tammuz, and the Phrygian Attis. A distorted
form of this myth, by which the comely young god, who is the
incarnation of vegetation, knowing his inevitable death and
descent to the lower world, rejects the love of the Earth-god-
dess and castrates himself in supreme sacrifice for the life of
mankind, is told by Lucian concerning Combabus, at Hierap-
olis.®^® Eshmun is called Addni, “ My lord,” or Ad5n, “ Lord,”
in Phoenician inscriptions from Cyprus where his cult flour-
ished.®®® A trilingual Latin, Greek, and Punic inscription from
the island of Sardinia mentions an altar dedicated to Ad5n Esh-
mun or Asclepius, with the Greek and Latin title Merre, cor-
responding to the Phoenician “ Me’arreh,” if that is the read-
ing,®®^ which may mean “ Wanderer.” “ Wanderer ” would
describe Eshmun as the young god who dies yearly with the
corn before the sickle, and wanders in the lower world until his
annual resurrection with the springtime verdure. Tammuz is
also called in Sumerian “ the wanderer on the plains of the
lower world.” ®®® In the Sardinian text an altar is dedicated
to Eshmun by one Cleon, because the god had healed him. It
seems evident, therefore, that Eshmun, whose cult has been
found also at Beirut ®®® near Gebal (Byblus), is identical with
the same type of dying god, Adonis of Gebal, whose cult was
also firmly established in Cyprus.®®® For some reason this title
adoniy “ my lord,” became the peculiar title of the dying god
of Gebal, and survived in its Greek form Adonis j the myths con-
cerning him and his cult will be discussed in the Chapter on

V— 7


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


76

Tammuz and Ishtar. At Gebal statues of three deities were
found in the court of a temple of the Egyptian period, and these
have been identified with Astarte, El, and the later Adonis or
Eshmun.^®^ The local name of the dying god of Gebal, son
and lover of Astarte, is said to be represented by the Egyptian
Khay-taou, god of the region of Gebal and the Adonis valley,
on a seal of the sixth dynasty.®®^ A suggestion that this word
means “ He who manifests himself as one warming ” has been
made by Professor Montet, and, if this be true, the connection
with the name Eshmun as god of generative heat as suggested
above is certain. Tammuz is often addressed in Sumerian as
“ my lord,” “ my hero,” ®®® and there is no doubt but that this
entire cult of a dying god who descends yearly to the shades of
the nether world, mourned with annual wailings by women, and
in imitation of whose supreme sacrifice his priests emasculated
themselves in the cults of Phoenicia, Phrygia, and Rome,
is either wholly of Sumerian and Babylonian origin, or pro-
foundly influenced by the Tammuz cult. In any case Christian
writers state definitely that Tammuz was Adonis.®®* Jerome
speaks of the cult of “ Tammuz who is Adonis ” in his own day
at Bethlehem, where the lover of Venus was bewailed in a

J.J. 365

grotto.

The ordinary expression characteristic of Tammuz wailings
in Sumerian was a kalag, in Babylonian wai itluy “ Alas ! O
hero.” The kings of Judah were bewailed at their death with
the phrase hoi addn, “ Alas! O lord ” (Jeremiah xxxiv.5), and
it may be conjectured that the Phoenician and Canaanitish wail-
ing for the dying god of vegetation was hoi adonl, “ Alas my
lord.” The original Phoenician pronunciation of this word
was aduny and it belongs to the Phoenician and Hebrew vocabu-
lary exclusively.®®® This appellative for the son of the Mother-
goddess Astarte in West Semitic religion cannot be borrowed
from Babylonia, nor is it likely that hoi adon is a translation of
wai itlu. The conclusion is that this cult of a dying god belongs
to the oldest mythology of Semitic religion, or to Phoenician,


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


77


Canaanitish, and Aramaean mythology j it has already been
noted among the Nabataean Arabians under Dusares, but can-
not be traced in South Arabia. It belongs to the sphere of
Semitic religion profoundly influenced by Babylonia. In its
development it was essentially the Tammuz cult transplanted
to Phoenicia. The plural adonim
like elim and eldhim, “gods,” is
also used as a singular in Phoenician,
and, in the Old Testament, Yaw is
constantly addressed as adonaty “ my
lords,” for “ my lord,” parallel to
the Phoenician title adorn. This
title, “ my lord,” has been found in
Phoenician with Eshmun only, and
there is consequently hardly any Fig. 41. Coin of Elagabalus.
doubt but that Adonis of Gebal is the ”

same god. In Hebrew adorn and addnai appear to be exclusively
used of the god Yaw, latterly in fact pointed with the vowels
of Addnaiy as Yahdwah, Yehowah. There is clearly no mytho-
logical connection between Eshmun, Adonis, and the Hebrew
deity YaW',®®^ who has been identified with Adad above.

From the Roman period come coins with the figure of a
youthful god who stands between two serpents. None of these
can safely be attributed to Sidon, but the similarity to the Greek
representations of Asclepius has convinced scholars that these
depict Eshmun, “ the Healer.” Fig. 41 shews one of these
types from Beyrutus (Beirut), just south of Gebal. A coin of
Sidon shews him leaning on a staff about which a serpent
winds.®®® The serpent is symbolic of the generative and healing
powers of the earth, and is associated with both the Earth-
goddess and her dying son and lover in Sumerian, Babylonian,
and West Semitic mythology. Ningishzida, one of the names
of the young god as principle of arboreal life, in Sumerian
mythology called the companion of Tammuz, is represented
from early times with a serpent springing from each shoulder.




SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


78

An omen of the Babylonians was that if a child was born with a
head like a serpent it was a mystery sent by Ningishzida.®^®
Both Tammuz and his mother bore the title ama-usumgal-
anna, “ mother-great-serpent of Heaven,” that is the serpent
deity who emanated from the Heaven-god Ann.®” The corn
goddess Nidaba has serpents springing from her shoulders. A
shrine of Astarte from Beisan has a serpent climbing upward
along its front from a lower window (Fig. 15), and a curious
vase with apertures, from her temple at Beisan, has two serpents
twining in and out of them.’*’'^ The Sumerians and Babylonians,
as usual, made this aspect of the god and goddess of Vegetation
and Healing into special serpent deities, but in West Sem-
itic religion where this tendency to create a vast pantheon by
deification of special aspects of nature did not obtain, there
is no trace of a special serpent deity who is god or goddess of
Healing.

Worship of the serpent deity, as god of Healing, that is Esh-
mun, must have been extremely popular in Canaan and Philistia.
It was Yaw himself who directed Moses to set up a brazen ser-
pent upon a pole, and those bitten by serpents were healed when
they looked upon it.”® This legend arose in the early days of
Hebrew mythology to explain the worship of Nehushtan, a
brazen serpent set upon a pole, a practice which survived until
the reformation of Hezekiah.®^^

The last important deity, undoubtedly of Semitic origin,
whose cults were so widely spread that he must be included in
this sketch of their mythology, was Dagon or, as he appears in
cuneiform documents, Dagan, Dagun. In him we have one of
the few Semitic gods who represent the specific deification of
corn and agriculture. He appears first in the Amorite or Ara-
maean kingdom, Mari, on the upper Euphrates, below the
kingdom of Hana, whose capital was TIrqa, modern Asharah,
below the mouth of the Habur. The king of Mari in the days
of Naram-Sin (twenty-seventh century) was Migir-Dagan,
“ Favourite of Dagan ” j Sargon, founder of the dynasty of


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES


79

Agade worshipped in Tululi, and Dagan gave this famous
Semitic king the lands of the whole upper Euphrates even to the
Mediterranean sea-board.^^® By the martial aid of the weapons
of Dagan, Naram-Sin conquered the whole of the Phoenician
coast and the Taurus region.®^® At an early period the Sumeri-
ans included him in their own pantheon, a distinction conferred
upon no foreign deity after 2000 b.c. But here he was given
only a minor position as attendant of the Earth-god Enlil.®^^
Wherever the Semitic religion asserts itself in Babylonia and
Assyria from the age of Sargon onward, and is not completely
submerged in Sumerian orthodox forms, the god Dagan appears
with persistence. This is particularly true of personal names
of Semites at all times, from the period of Agade onward and
especially among the Western Semites, who founded the
dynasties of Isin and Babylon.®^® No Sumerian personal name,
in which Dagan is the divine name, has been found, although the
name of a city in Sumer called Bit-Gimil-Dagan in the kingdom
of Dungi is always written in ideograms,®*® and the personal
name Gimil-Dagan is also occasionally written in Sumerian
fashion.®®^ Few names with Dagan have Accadian forma-
tions, such as Idin-Dagan and Ishme-Dagan, Iti-Dagan, Silli-
Dagan, Silush-Dagan, Nur-Dagan. The majority have West
Semitic verbal forms and meanings, as Yashub-Dagan, “ Dagan
turns back,” i.e., repents of his wrath, corresponding to the
Hebrew name Yashubj Yashmah-Dagan, “ Dagan hears ”j
Yawi-Dagan, “Dagan loves Hisni-Dagan, “Dagan is my
strength”; Yahmu-Dagan, “Dagan protects (?) ”; Yassib-
Dagan, “Dagan establishes”; Sumu-Dagan; Nahum-Dagan,
“ Dagan is friendly.” Of special importance is the name of
Izrah-Dagan at Hana on the middle Euphrates, from which
most of these names come, and where Dagan was one of the
principal deities at an early period. This name means literally,
Dagan sows,” and it furnishes one of the evidences on which
the statement that Dagan was a corn deity rests.®*® It corre-
sponds to the Hebrew Jezreel. Unfortunately the verbal root


8o


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


has also a secondary meaning, “ to beget,” and both names may
mean “ Dagan begets,” “ El begets.” The original name is,
therefore, Dagan, and its Phoenician form Dagon, as transcribed
in Greek, followed the normal phonetic change, as in the He-
brew Dagon.^®® The word is identical with the Hebrew and
Phoenician word dagariy “ corn,” found in no other Semitic lan-
guage, which agrees with all the Assyriological evidence that
this deity is exclusively Canaanitish. Again the statement of the
early Phoenician historian must be taken as authoritative. Ura-
nus (Heaven) married his sister Ge (Earth), and had by her
four sons, Ilos (El) or Cronos, Betylus, Dag5n, “ which is
bread-corn,” and Atlas. And Dag5n, after he had discovered
bread-corn and the plough, was named Zeus Arotrios, “ Zeus the
farmer.”

In Assyrian mythology Dagan was associated with the
Earth-god Enlil, and regarded as one of the deities who sat in
judgment on the souls of the dead in the lower world with
Nergal and Misharu, “ the divine judges,” and others in the
“ house of the ordeal.” He appears in cuneiform inscriptions
as the principal deity of the ancient Canaanite and Aramaean
centres of Mari and Hana between Hit and the mouth of the
Habur on the Euphrates, including the Padan Aram and Har-
ran of early Hebrew history. Shamshi-Adad I, king of Assyria,
“ worshipper of Dagan,” built a temple to this god at Tirga,
called Ekisiga, “ House of sacrifices (to the dead),” and
Hammurabi, his great southern contemporary, conquered the
province Mari to the south of Tirga by the might of Dagan “ his
creator.” The three Semitic deities of this, the oldest Semitic
centre whose mythology has been preserved not completely con-
taminated with Sumerian theology, were Shamash, Dagan, and
Idurmer.®®® These are clearly the Sun-god, the god of Fer-
tility, and the Rain and Thunder-god Adadj for the enigmati-
cal iturmer or idurmer must be connected with Ilumer.®®^

In Fig. 42 is shewn the only statue of a god which can be
safely regarded as the mighty Dagan of Semitic mythology.



Fig. 42. Statue of Dagan


82


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


The dress is late Sumerian, and so is the posture of the hands j
both dress and posture are those of a Sumerian at prayer.
The full beard and moustache after the Assyrian style prove
the Semitic character; the horned turban shews that it is a deity.
Since it is dedicated to a god (whose name is broken away) by
a governor of Mari under a king of Ur in the twenty-fourth
century, and it carries a curse in the name of Ishtar, Dagan, and
Enki against him who should destroy the inscription, it is well
nigh certain that this is Dagan. Adopted into Babylonian
mythology as a god of agriculture, he was said to sit in the lower
world, where before him through all eternity the seven children
of the infernal deity Enmesharra were kept in bondage.®*®
Ishtar is described as “ the creation and offspring of Dagan,” in
a Babylonian hymn,®*® which proves that he had been identified
with the great Earth-god of Sumerian religion, Enlil.

The widely spread worship of Dagan among the Western
Semites is proved by the statements of Hebrew writers. His
cult appears in the far south of Philistia, at the coast cities Gaza
and Ashdod. The Nazirite Samson, of whom a legend is told
in Judges xiii-xvii, to explain the Hebrew custom of compelling
men consecrated to the service of Yaw to be unshorn, met his
death at Gaza. When he was brought, bound and blinded, into
that city, the Philistines praised their god Dagon {eld him
Dagon). And a legend of the same period of early Hebrew
history is told concerning “ the ark of the covenant of Yaw,”
which they took from Shiloh and brought into their camp as
they were pitched for battle against the Philistines. In the
battle the ark of Yaw was captured and taken to Ashdod and
set before Dagdn in his temple. Such divine power had the
ark that, when the Philistines returned to their temple the
following morning, the statue of Dagdn was found fallen on
its face before it. Dagdn was restored to his place, but on the
following morning his statue lay in fragments on the threshold;
the head and hands were broken from the torso,®®® after the
manner of statues found by excavators to this day in the temples


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 83

of Babylonia. It was to Ashdod (Azotus) that Apollonius,
general of Demetrius II, fled after the battle with Jonathan,
ally of Alexander Balas. He and the remnants of his army
took refuge in the temple of Dagon.®®^

According to the writer of i Chronicles x.io, the Philistines
fastened the head of Saul in the temple of Dagon, which must
mean that they carried it away to Philistiaj for the parallel
passage, i Samuel xxxi.io, says that they fastened his body to
the wall of Bethshan, where stood two temples, one to Ash-
taroth and one to Reshef-Mikel.®®^ It
is certain that Dagdn has no connection
with Mikel, and a temple of Dagon at
Bethshan is most improbable. The
sources do not agree, but the variant
adds emphasis to all the other refer-
ences in Hebrew literature. Dagdn
was the most important deity of Phi-
listia. His cult in this region may be fig. 43. Coin of Unknown

as old as that at Marl on the Euphrates, Supposed to Repre-

, 1 r r •• r 1 • Dagon

but the hrst reference to it is found in

the name of a city king of southern Palestine, Dagan-takala,
“ Trust in Dagan,” fifteenth century.®®®

By falsely deriving Dagon from the word dag, “ fish,” Jew-
ish rabbis of the Middle Ages described him as a Fish-god,
having from the navel up the form of a man, but downward the
form of a fish.®®* On coins of the northern Phoenician city
Aradus (Persian period) a marine deity of the kind, which may
have suggested this Interpretation, occurs frequently.®®® Fig.
43 is a coin from some unknown city, supposed by some to come
from Ashdod (Azotus), because of the abbreviated mint signa-
ture AZ, or perhaps Ascalon.®®® This coin is also of the Persian
period and has a half human and half fish deity. On the
Aradus coins he holds a dolphin in each hand by the tail, but
on this coin he has the trident of Poseidon and a wreath. Ac-
cording to Jerome, Dagon was the god of Ascalon, Gaza, and



SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


84

all the cities of the Philistines. Whether the Philistines were
of Semitic stock or not, their great deity Dagon certainly was
Semitic, and one of the great gods of the far flung occupation
of western lands — Syria, Phoenicia, Philistia, Canaan, Moab,
by that branch of the Semitic race.

[Prometheus]

In late Greek sources there is a myth concerning the great
Syrian goddess Atargatis at Ascalon, where her name was cor-
rupted to Derketo. Here a large pool full of fish in a temenos
was sacred to her. She is described as having a woman’s face
and body to the waist, but the lower part had the form of a fish.
Perhaps this myth was transferred to Dag5n, which would rein-
force the erroneous myth taken from the derivation of the con-
fusion of Dag5n with the word for “ fish.” It is certain that the
Fish-deity on the coins of Phoenicia is not Dagdn, unless this
erroneous myth had arisen already in the fifth century b.c. A
monument of Nineveh, representing a minor deity fertilizing
the date-palm, wearing a cowl and hood to represent a fish, has
been repeatedly published in popular books as the god Dagon.^®^
Priests often clothed themselves in a garment in the form of
a fish, when officiating in rituals of purification, symbolic of the
power of the Water deity Enki of Eridu, god of Lustration. In
the third register of Fig. 44 a man possessed of one of the seven
devils, who appear in the second register, lies on a bed, and a
priest, robed to represent the Fish-god Enki, stands at his
head, another at his feet.®®® Two brick boxes, each contain-
ing seven terra-cotta figurines of the deity in fish robe, all ap-
parently without horns on the cowl to indicate a deity, were
found beneath the pavement of a late building at Ur.®®® These
were laid down to invoke the protection of the Water-god.
In religious texts they are called the images of the “ seven wise
ones,” with bodies of fish. There are three types: (i) In their
right hands they carry a “ purifier,” and in their left hands
a water bucket. These were buried under the door-sill of the
chamber of lustrations {kummu). (2) In their right hands
they carry a date spathe, and their left hands are held to their



Fig, 44. Babylonian Bronze Plaque, Shewing Priest Robed to
Represent the Fish-god Enki



86


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


breasts. These were buried opposite the gateway and behind
the chair of the owner of a house. (3). In their right hands
they carry a great spear, while they place their left hands on
their breasts. These were buried in the centre of the house
before the chair. Late Assyrian seals have fish-men (Fig.
45) very similar to those which occur on the Phoenician coins
of Aradus, and here two streams of water descend to them from
a vase, or descend from them to a vase. This fish-man of As-
syria is probably one of the
dragons of Chaos, called Kulili,
conquered by Marduk in the
creation myth. He was identi-
fied with the constellation
Aquarius. The fish-man of
Phoenicia is certainly not Aqua-
rius, but a deity of the coast
cities. Since Anu, the Heaven-
god in Sumerian, has the title
Gula, and the constellation
Gula was Aquarius, it is entirely
possible that the fish-man on
Fig. 45 represents a Rain-god,
and in Phoenicia the fish-man would be naturally identified
with the greatest god of their pantheon, Adad. At all events
the representation of the god of Aradus is of Assyrian origin.
There seems to be no connection at all between Adad, a Sky-
god, intimately associated with Anu in Babylonia, and Dagon,
an Earth deity. Dagon has been connected also with Odakhn,
the name of the fish-man who, like Oannes, emerged from the
sea in the time of the seventh prediluvian king to reveal to
men science and letters. But this is impossible, and Odakdn is
more likely the Graecized form of Uttuku.'*®®

In closing this survey of the more important deities who in
various races can be surely described as of genuinely Semitic
origin, special mention should be made of the preponderate



Fig. 45. Assyrian Cone Seal with
Fish-men


DISTRIBUTION OF SEMITIC RACES 87

importance of the moon among the Semites of South Arabia, and
the almost total absence of this cult among North Semitic races.
Among the Northern Semitic peoples only one deity, who is
surely a Moon-god, has been found, namely Agli-Bol of
Palmyra in the late period. Even this local name for the Moon-
god may be an Aramaic title and translation of some Babylo-
nian aspect of the Moon-god of Harran. There is no North
Semitic Moon-god at all who had in any way general acceptance
in their religion. In the next Chapter, where the major Su-
merian deities are discussed, the moon cult, which obtained con-
siderable vogue in West and North Semitic lands in the late
period, will be found to have been entirely of Babylonian origin.
In contrast to South Semitic religion, the cult of the Sun-god is
characteristic of Aramaic and Canaanitish religion.

[Prometheus]

CHAPTER II


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON

T he Sumerian pantheon in variety and numbers exceeds
that of both Greek and Roman religions combined. A
simple list of their deities would fill a large volume and contain
more than five thousand names. The Accadians, Babylonians,
and Assyrians added a few minor deities to this enormous pan-
theon, but in the great scholastic period of Sumerian theology,
the pantheon was reduced to a logical scheme (twenty-fifth to
twenty-third centuries), the temple liturgies for daily use in
the church calendar, for festivals and expiation rituals, appeared
then in their final canonical forms. This pantheon and the
liturgies and litanies which were based upon it, were accepted
as sacred and canonical by the Semites of Babylonia and Assyria,
and remained essentially unchanged throughout the temple
worship of both kingdoms until the end of the Assyrian empire
in 612 B.c. In Babylonia the adherents of this great religious
system continued it unmolested by their Persian, Greek, and
Parthian conquerors after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian king-
dom in 538 B.C., and Babylonian editions of Sumerian temple
liturgies, lists of gods, and myths were used and read as late
as the second century b.c. It is this vast influence in time and
space (for the West and North Semitic peoples were constantly
in more or less intensive contact with and often subject to the
mighty empires of Agade, Ur (Sumerian), Babylon, Ashur,
and Nineveh) which so completely transformed Aramaean,
Phoenician, and Hebrew mythology and religion. Any com-
plete survey of Semitic mythology without Sumerian is impos-
sible in our time, and in the discussion of the great pantheon,
adopted by the Babylonians and Assyrians, the reader must bear


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 89

in mind that the author is presenting the pantheon of the great-
est ancient Semitic people in Sumerian terms, as they themselves
thought of it and believed in it.

The complicated Sumerian pantheon was obviously the work
of theologians and of gradual growth. Almost all the names
of deities express some aspect of nature worship, some personi-
fication of natural powers, ethical or cultural functions, per-
fectly intelligible to the Sumerologist. The names of their
oldest trinity. An, “ Heaven-god,” Enlil, “ Earth-god,” and
Enki, “ Water-god,” are not lost in the mysteries of folk-lore.
They are names given to definite mythological conceptions by
clear thinking theologians and accepted in popular religion.
Whether they were called by other unintelligible popular names
in the prehistoric period, when they wandered on the Iranian
plateau long before 5000 b.c., is a question for which we have
no answer. As it was evolved after their occupation of Meso-
potamia, the pantheon is the product of theology and not of
natural religion. The earliest written records from which
any information concerning the Sumerian deities can be ob-
tained is found twenty-five feet below modern plain level at
Kish and at a prehistoric site, modern Jemdet Nasr, seventeen
miles north-east of Kish,^ and from a period area 4000 b.c.
On the prehistoric tablets only the trinity An, Enlil, Enki is
found, possibly Babbar the Sun-god also. Since in their my-
thology all the gods descended from An, the Sky-god, it is
extremely probable that the priests who constructed this pan-
theon were monotheists at an earlier stage, having only the
god An, a word which actually means “ high.” This is to be
expected, for we have here not a mythology springing from
primitive religion, but speculation based upon nature, spiritual,
and ethical values. The tablets are frequently covered with
curious seals, but it is difficult to discover any mythology on
them; wild and tame animals are frequent, especially the ser-
pent, and some fantastic monsters,^ and in one case there is a man
holding a long serpent.® On one seal there is a design of a tower


90


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


rising by five stages to a smaller but higher top stage on only one
side, which may possibly prove that they had already begun to
build towers of this kind as symbols of the earth and sacred to
the Earth-godd It is obvious that the serpent was already re-
garded as symbolic of the generative powers of the
earth in this very early period, but the Earth-mother
goddess, whose primitive pictograph (Fig. 46) ap-
parently represents a serpent winding around a
staff, does not appear on the pictographic inscriptions
which have been recovered.® On seals of the primi- Fig. 46.
tive period the Grain-goddess appears with a minor Pictograph
male deity (see Fig. 47), who is also a deity of ^°goddes™'
vegetation. The latter may be Tammuzj he is here
represented with a beard, but Tammuz is invariably described as
a child or youth. Very primitive seals represent a male deity
whose upper parts are human,® but whose lower parts are a long
coiled serpent, undoubtedly the serpent deity Mush, whose



Fig. 47. Grain-goddess, with a Male Deity of Vegetation, probably

Tammuz


Accadian names Sherah, “ grain,” “ vegetation,” and Shahan,
“ fire,” clearly reveal his connection with the generative powers
of the earth and the heat of the sun. However, one of the para-
site Tammuz forms was Ningishzida a tree deity, who is invari-
ably represented with a mythical serpent springing from each
shoulder, and he too always appears bearded.^ The cult of the



THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 91

Earth-goddess and her son, the young god of vegetation, belongs
to the early period. By giving special names to the diverse
functions of each deity the theologians obtained an enormous
pantheon, and by assigning special functions of the three great
gods to their sons, and again giving special names to their
functions, the parent tree became a forest of gods and minor
deities. In addition to this, at an early period the constella-
tions, fixed stars, and planets were identified with various
deities. Astral names were, therefore, invented for each deity,
which added a very large number of names to the pantheon.
As soon as any given deity became patron of a special religious
or intellectual activity, they received additional names for
these activities. For example, the Earth-goddess, as female
principle of An, received the title Ninanna, Nininni, Innini,
but, as goddess of child-birth, Nintud, Aruru, Ninhursag, Nin-
karraka, and as the planet Venus, Ninanaslanna, Ninsianna,
Ninsinna, Ninisinna, “ Heavenly lady, light of heaven as
patroness of medicine she was Gula. These are all regarded
as separate goddesses in the cults and literature. Each of the
great deities received as many as fifty to a hundred different
names, and they had their attendants and courts in Heaven
or in the lower world, wherever mythological fancy placed
their abode. They had their musicians, messengers, counsellors,
bakers, butlers, barbers, gardeners, throne-bearers, priests of
sacrifices, watchmen, shepherds, commissioners, envoys, boat-
men, sword-bearers, wizards,® gate-keepers, charioteers, etc.

Anu was the first of the gods of civilized man, descended
through a line of divine beings, beginning with Apsu, the nether
sea of fresh water, and Tiamat, the dragon of the ocean. This
late theological speculation by which the gods and all things
were created from water was certainly no part of the original
system, which apparently was monotheistic to begin with, at
least in the Sumerian religion as it has come down to us. The
later speculative system is set forth at the beginning of the
Accadian or Babylonian Epic of Creation.


92


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


“ When on high the Heavens were not named,

And below a home existed not,

Apsu, the primeval, their engenderer.

And the ‘ Form ’ Tiamat, bearer of all of them.

Mingled their waters together;

The secret chambers were not constructed and marsh-lands were not
seen;

When none of the gods had been brought into being.

And they were not named, and had not been assigned (their) destinies,
Then were created the gods in the midst thereof.

Lahmu and Lahamu were brought into being and they were named.
For ages they grew up and became lofty.

Anshar and Kishar were created more excellent than they.

The days lengthened and the years increased.

Anu their son, the rival of his fathers —

Anshar made Anu his first-born equal (to himself).

And as to Anu, he begat Nudimmud,

Nudimmud, begetter of his fathers was he.”

In these seventeen opening lines the Epic on the origin of the
gods according to later theories makes Anu the first actual per-
sonal deity; for Anshar and Kishar mean simply “host of
Heaven,” “ host of Earth,” or male and female creative spirits
of what is above and beneath. From Anu descended the water
deity Enki, latterly called Ea, “ god of the house of the waters,”
who as creator of mankind received the title Nudimmud, “ crea-
tor of the form of man.” The Earth-god Enlil is nowhere
described as the son of Anu.® His name means literally, “ Lord
of the wind ”; for the winds were supposed to issue from the
caverns of his vast abode in the nether world.^®

The texts which first contain the fully developed early pan-
theon come from Shuruppak in southern Sumer, and from a
period more than 500 years later than the pictographic tablets
of Kish.^^ Not until this period does the Moon-god appear
under the title en-zu, i.e., zu-en, latterly Sin, but his princi-
pal title is Nanna, which means “ lord of Heaven,” the same
word as Ninanna, Innini. Here the Moon-god has already re-
ceived the title, “ Lord of wisdom,” as a god of divination. Sin.
The scribes of this early period place An, Enlil, Innini, Enki,


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON


93

Nanna, Utu, in that order at the head o£ the pantheon, that
is Heaven, Earth, Earth-goddess as female principle of
Heaven, Water-god, Moon-god, Sun-god. The two sons of the
Earth-god, Ninurta and Nergal, who figure so largely in later
Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, do not yet appear by
name; earlier titles of Ninurta, god of the spring sun, are
already here, as Ningirsu and Ninsubur; while Lugalmeslam,
“ King of Meslam,” i.e., of the underworld, and Gir, prove that
the mythology concerning the terrible deity of summer heat and
winter’s cold, Nergal, was already part of their religion.

Above I concluded that the Semitic word for “ god ”
meant originally, “ he who is high,” a Sky-god; and here also
I believe that their religion began with monotheism ; they prob-
ably worshipped El, Ilah, as their first deity, a Sky-god, cor-
responding to the Babylonian Anu, and the Greek Zeus. In
Sumerian, the word for “ god,” dinglr^ also means, “ shining,”
“ bright,” and the sign used for writing dingir also stands for
An, the Sky-god; the word also means “ high,” “ Heaven.”
An is the only Sumerian deity whose ideogram is never pre-
ceded by the determinative for “ god.” They write dingir
Enlil, “ god Enlil,” dingir Sin, “ god Sin,” etc., but never dingir
An. Surely this means that An (Anu) is not only older than
other deities, but An was in the beginning “ god,” “ the Sky-
god.” The ideogram for writing “ god,” “ high,” “ Heaven,”
“ bright,” and for the god An, was the picture of a star. In the
minds of the earliest Sumerians dingir Enlil, dingir Enki, etc.,
really mean An-Enlil, An-Enki, etc. ; that is Enlil, Enki, etc.,
are only aspects of the father Anu. On seals of the pictographic
tablets and on painted pots of that prehistoric period, the pic-
ture of a star constantly occurs.’^ This star sign is almost the
only religious symbol in this primitive age. These facts cannot
be explained without assuming monotheism in the beginning.

For the purpose of discussing the Sumerian and Babylonian
myths it is not necessary or possible within the compass of a
popular book to name and describe the prolific number of


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


94

deities. Only those on whose cults is built the main structure
of their mythology are more specifically defined here. An, or
as he shall be henceforth named in the Accadian form, Anu,
had his principal cult at Erech where he was worshipped in
Eanna, “ house of Heaven,” with the still more important
virgin deity Innini-Ishtar. As father of all gods he remained
in most distant contact with mankind, and is rather a theological
principle than a cult deity. In a theological list (and in these
lists of all periods Anu always stands at the beginning) his name
is replaced by the Sumerian and Accadian words for “ god.”
According to the myth of Etana, Anu had his throne in the
highest or third Heaven where Etana sought the magical plant
of birth, and in the Adapa myth at the gate of Anu stood Tam-
muz and Ningishzida. Here Anu kept the bread and water
of eternal life. From Anu descended the authority of kings at
the beginning of political institutions upon earth.^® The as-
tronomers divided the fixed stars into three parallel bands
called the “ way of Anu,” “ way of Enlil,” and “ way of Ea.”
The band of Anu included those stars in what seemed to them
the highest part of heaven along the ecliptic. The northern
band was the “ way of Enlil,” and the southern the “ way of
Ea.” As a constellation he was placed in the “ yoke of the
wagon star ” among the northern polar stars, about which
the firmament revolves.""® At Erech each morning of the
year sacrifices were made to the polar stars of Anu and
his wife Antum, and from the top of the stage tower prayers
were said to their constellations as they rose by night. A
prayer to the polar star began, “ O star of Anu, prince of the
heavens.” ”

The myth of three Heavens was current in Babylonia and
Assyria as early as the tenth century. The lowest Heaven was
the sphere of the seven planets and was said to have been
adorned with jasper."® The middle Heaven was the abode of
the three hundred Igigi, or gods of the upper world, as dis-
tinguished from the three hundred Anunnaki, or gods of the


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 95

lower world. It was adorned with saggilmud stone, and here
Marduk sat in a shrine of lapis lazuli, adorned with byssus and
sapphire. This is the plane of the constellations of the three
“ ways ” of Enlil, Anu, and Ea. In the highest Heaven sat
Anu, wherein also the three hundred Igigi sat. It was adorned
with luludata stone. It was here that Etana sought the sammu
sa aladi^ “ plant of birth,” that his wife might bear an heir to
the throne of Kish. This legend of three Heavens reappears
in the pre-Christian Jewish period, in the dream of Levi.^® A



later legend of seven Heavens appears in the Book of the Secrets
of Enoch Here Enoch ascended by seven stages on the wings
of angels, and in the seventh Heaven found the throne of
God.

The bread and water of immortal life, which Anu kept in
the highest Heaven, is extremely ancient, and is referred to in
Sumerian art by the overflowing vase, often held in the hands
of a god, who has been identified with the god of Springs and
Rivers (Enki, Ea) by many.^^ Fig. 48 is a good example of
the god with overflowing waters, whom I take to be Anu with
the waters of eternal life, from which Gilgamish fills his jar
on this seal. The waters descend to figures of Capricorn and


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


96

Aquarius (see p. 86) and the latter constellation belongs to
the “ way ” of Anu.^* That the vase of overflowing water,
often with a plant springing from it, belongs to the god who is
throned in high Heaven, is proved by Fig. 49, from a bas-relief
of Ur-Nammu of Ur. Here a winged angel descends from
Heaven with the vase from which the waters of eternal life fall
to a jar held in the outstretched hand of the pious king. The



scene occurs at the top of both sides of this bas-relief on which
other scenes represent him in prayer before a vase from which
springs a palm with overhanging fruit j into it the king
pours the water of Heaven, from the vase in which he had re-
ceived it from the angel.

An incantation for childbirth contains this same legend of
angels descending from Heaven with jars of oil and water to
lave the body of the “ handmaid of the Moon-god,” when in
pain she bore the divine calf Amarga. This myth runs as fol-
lows:


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 97

10. “ Only ‘ cow of Sin,’ ‘ Maid of Sin,’ is her name.

She was adorned with adornments.

She was luxurious in form. Sin saw her and loved her.

With the light of Sin, with a sheen (?) he provided her.

He caused her to have control of the herds.

15. They that are shepherded walk after her.

She rules over the plants as she waters them.

They give her water to drink abundantly at the watering place.
In the secret place of the herdsmen, where shepherds see not.
The restless young bull mounted the cow taking her virginity.

20. When her days were ended, her months completed.

The cow was in agony, she quivered in pain.

The shepherd, with bowed face, and all the herdsmen wailed for
her.

At her wailing, at the cry of her travail, Nannar was aroused.

Sin in Heaven heard her cry, and lifted his hand to the Heavens.
25. Two female genii of Heaven descended, perfect ones; one bore
an oil jar.

The second let fall water for travail in birth; with the oil jar she
touched her face.

With water for travail in birth she sprinkled all her body.

A second time she touched her face with the oil jar.

With water for travail in birth she sprinkled all her body.

30. When for the third time she touched her.

The calf fell to the earth like a gazelle.

‘ Amarga ’ he created, the name of the calf.

As the ‘ Maid of Sin ’ gave birth happily.

May this handmaiden who travails bear.”

A tree, probably the laurus nohilis {eru), was sacred to Anu,
and also the tamarisk. A staflF of laurus nobilis was supposed to
aid women in childbirth.^^ This myth of the water of life,
bread of life, plant of birth, and probably that of the plant
of life, also current in Sumerian mythology, is surely the origin
of the manna in Hebrew mythology, said to be the exudation of
the tamarisk. Yaw rained bread from Heaven, which the
Israelites called man, during their wanderings in Sinai 5 it
must have occurred to a people familiar with this Babylonian
myth to call the food so miraculously sent by nature, “ bread
from Heaven.” The tree sacred to Anu was called ma-nu in
Sumerian, and is persistently connected with the tamarisk and


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


98

date-palm in the texts. Not impossibly is the Hebrew term
taken directly from this Sumerian word.

The angels who descended to aid Ishtar in the birth of her
son Tammuz are confused with natural procreation of animals
in the myth translated above j for in the myth of the birth of
Tammuz, Ishtar is always a virgin goddess. This descent
of angels seems to have given Isaiah the inspiration for his
vision of the seraphim. When king Uzziah died he saw Adonai
(Yaw) sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and over Him
stood seraphim, each with six wings. “ Woe is me! for I am

[Prometheus]

Fig. 50. Gilgamish with Jar of Overflowing Water

undone j because I am a man of unclean lips,” said the prophet.
One of the seraphim descended, having a live coal which he
had taken with tongs from the altar ; with this coal he touched
the mouth of the prophet, saying: “ Lo| this hath touched thy
lips, thy sin is purged.”

The tamarisk was said to have been created in Heaven along
with the date-palm,^® and these are surely connected with the
plant which springs from the overflowing jar on seals and
monuments. The seal (Fig. 50) of Ibnisharri, dedicated to
Shargalisharri, king of Agade, shews Gilgamish holding the
overflowing jar of water from which springs the plant of life.
From it drinks Gudanna, the bull of Heaven (p. 28). Gilga-
mish in Sumerian mythology was the deified hero, who, fearing
death, sought for the plant of life in the island beyond the





THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 99

seas. On seals he is repeatedly associated with the overflowing
jar, and in one example the jar pours out water to him from
the sky.®° Anu’s sacred number was “ sixty.”

Enlil the Earth-god was, strictly speaking, only the god
of the upper world, in distinction from the underworld, where
reigned the terrible goddess Ereshkigal. His name “ lord of
the winds ” is taken from the myth of a cave of winds in the
interior of the earth apparently, but in later times the control
of the winds was given to the god Ishkur, Mir, Mur, identified
with the West Semitic Adad, Ramman (see p. 61). This
original character of Enlil as god of Storms and Rains is un-
mistakable. The world was thought of as a vast mountain
{kur^ and named Ekur, “ house of the mountain,” in the in-
terior of which stood the hursag mountain, called also “ moun-
tain of Arallu.” Hursag is described as the place where the
winds dwell,” and a prayer has the following lines:

“ O great Enlil, tm-hur-sag^ whose head rivals the Heavens,

Whose foundation is laid in the pure abyss,

Who reposes in the lands like a furious wild bull,

Whose horns gleam like the rays of the Sun-god.”

Imhursag means “ Wind of the underworld mountain.” The
stage tower of his temple Ekur at Nippur bore the name
E-imhursag, and one of his titles was “ Wind of the earth.”
Ningirsu, “ lord of floods,” was his son, and his father named
him “ King of the Storm of Enlil.” The functions of all
his sons, Ninurta, god of War and sol invictus, the spring sun,
Ishkur, Ningirsu, and Nergal, originally belonged to him, but
in the later specialization of deities he, like Anu, has only
abstract relations with men as the powerful deity of the earth.
Rarely does he appear as an agricultural deity. “ O my lord,
the ploughshare thou hast caused to impregnate (the earth), the
harrow thou hast caused to impregnate (the earth).”®® In
the liturgies he has almost exclusively the character of a ter-
rible, wrathful god who brings disaster upon his own people


lOO


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


for their sins and upon the enemies of Sumer. The agent of
his anger is always the “ Word ” which issues from his mouth,
and goes though the world causing calamity, flood, hurricane,
fire, pillage of cities, hunger, and exile. The word of wrath
may be uttered by any one of his great sons, but it is primarily
the prerogative of the “ Earth Mountain ” of Ekur. Anu has the
beneficent angels of the waters of life. EnliPs messengers
are those of vengeance and destruction. Their names are
Kingaludda, Kengida, Uddagubba, and the Fire-god Gibil.®*
This myth found its way into Hebrew religion:

“He sendeth his commandment upon earth;

His Word runneth very swiftly.”

In late Jewish mythology the description is as terrible as that
of the Babylonian liturgies:

“ Thine all-powerful Word leaped down from the royal throne,

A stern warrior, into the midst of the doomed land.

Bearing as a sharp sword thine unfeigned commandment.

And standing filled all things with death.”

Every liturgy contained a hymn to this Word of Wrath; a
good example is cited here from a lament on the destruction of
Ur, where the disaster is attributed to the word of Nannar, the
god of that city and son of Enlil.

“ In those days the spirit of wrath upon that city was sent and the city
lamented.

Father Nannar upon the city of master- workmen sent it and the
people lamented.

In those days the spirit of wrath descended upon the Land and the
people lamented.

Her people thou hast caused to sit outside her without water-jars.
Within her reed baskets were cast in the ways and the people
lamented.

The great city gate and the highways with dead were choked.^*

No Sumerian myth of any importance in a literary sense has
survived, concerning Enlil,®® although it is possible that to him


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON loi


the Sumerians first attributed the creation of the world, an act
latterly attributed to his son Ninurta, and by the Babylonians
to Marduk, This myth seems to have survived in only one
passage of a hymn:

“ The foundation of the Heavens thou hast made and no hand shall
undermine it.

The vault of the Heavens thou hast made and none can ascend it.”

Throughout Babylonian mythology there persists a legend of
the “ Tablets of Fate ” which originally belonged to Enlil,
and concerning their theft by the dragon Zu the following
myth has been preserved in Accadian. It existed in a Sumerian
original, as is proved by one of the tablets of the series.^® The
storm dragon Zu saw the royal power of Enlil, the crown of
his sovereignty, the robes of his divinity, and the Tablets of
Fate in his possession.

“ He conceived in his heart to seize the Enlilship,

(saying) ‘ I will take possession of the Tablets of Fate of the gods,
And I will control the orders of all the gods.

I will occupy the throne and be master of decrees.’

He waited at the entrance of the throne-room, which he saw, at day-
break.

As Enlil washed himself with clean water.

And had mounted the throne, and put on his crown,

The Tablets of Fate he seized in his hand.

He took possession of Enlilship, the ‘ casting ’ of decrees.

Zu flew away hastening to the mountains.”

This was a supreme disaster for the gods. The laws which
govern the universe had been written on tablets in the conclave
of the gods and worn on the breast of the supreme ruler of the
world. Silence fell on all and they turned to Anu their father
and counsellor, who said to his sons:

“ Who will slay Zu and

Make glorious his name among the habitations? ”

First he summoned his son Adad who refused to follow the
dreadful dragon j for “ Who is like Zu among the gods, thy


102


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


sons? ” He then summoned another god (whose name is
broken away), and still a third god, Shara, both of whom re-
fused in the same words. This part of the myth is parallel to
the scene in the Epic of Creation, where Ea, Enlil (?), and
Anu also feared to attack the dragon Tiamat. Finally it was
the god Lugalbanda, or Ninurta, the son of Enlil, who found
the nest of Zu in the fabulous mountain Sabu, and by the aid
of the Wine-goddess Ninkasi rescued the Tablets of Fate.^^ It
was also Ninurta, who, in the Sumerian myth of creation, slew
the dragon of chaos.

Apparently the Tablets of Fate originally belonged to Tia-
mat, the female dragon of the sea, before the earth was created.
She gave them to her chief supporter Kingu in her conflict with
the gods. According to the Babylonian version, it was Marduk,
who destroyed Tiamat and bound Kingu, who bore the Tablets
of Fate on his breast. These Marduk took from him and ever
after kept them on his breast. Ninurta is called the smiter of
Zu in the Babylonian legends. The Tablets of Fate of the
gods were written for each year in the assembly hall of Enlil,
the Ubsukkinna, in the conclave of gods at the beginning
of the New Year, a myth latterly transferred to Marduk
of Babylon. Nabu, scribe of the gods, was said to carry
them. The name Enlil survived in western sources only in the
account of Babylonian theogony by Damascius, a Syrian, who
became head of the Neo-Platonic school at Athens, end of
the fifth century a.d. His theogony is based upon the Baby-
lonian Epic of Creation. Enlil was never known as Bel by the
Babylonians.^^

Of more importance for mythology is the third member of
the original trinity, Enki of Eridu at the mouth of the Eu-
phrates. The name means “ Lord of the earth,” by which is
meant the lower world where dwell the Anunnaki in the Apsu,
or sea from which the Sumerians supposed fountains and rivers
to spring. He was essentially the god of fresh water, and con-
sequently he and the Eridu theogony, Marduk, Gibil, are deities


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 103

of lustration. The title e-a^ “ god of the house of water,” does
not appear until the period of Dungi of Ur, and henceforth
became the favourite name, almost invariably employed by the
Accadian texts in bilingual inscriptions for the Sumerian title
Enki. The Greek writers knew only this title, which appears
as ’Aos in Damascius, and ’Qavvrjs (Oannes) in Berossus.
The latter Greek writer, who was himself a Babylonian priest
of Bel-Marduk in the age of Alexander, reports the following
myth. In the remote past, before the Flood, men lived in
lawless manner like beasts of the field. Then appeared Oannes
from the sea. He had the body of a fish, and under the fish’s
head he had another head, but his feet were like those of a
man, subjoined to the tail. He passed the day among men,
and taught them letters, science, arts, laws, construction of
cities and temples, and geometry. He also introduced agricul-
ture and all which would soften their manners and humanize
their lives. Since that time nothing has been added to improve
upon his instructions. By night he retired into the sea. Ac-
cording to one excerpt of Berossus (Alexander Polyhistor)
this revelation occurred in the time of Alorus (Sumerian Alu-
lim), the first of the ten pre-diluvian kings, but Apollodorus
reports Berossus to have placed it in the reign of the fourth
king Ammenon. Altogether Oannes is said to have made
four appearances as a fish-man at intervals of enormous dura-
tion exceeding thirty thousand years, each time in a different
reign.

A description of Ea as Lahmu of the sea, which was current
as late as the age of Berossus, has been preserved in Assyrian.
“ The head is that of a serpent} on his nose are depicted . . . }
from his mouth drips water} he is provided with . . . like a
sea-serpent} thrice are his . . . ringed} he is provided with
... on his cheek} his body is a skate fish and encrusted with
stars} the claws of his feet are his soles, which have no heels.”
Ea is the Sumerian patron of arts and philosophy, and his cult
at Eridu represents one of the two great schools of Sumerian


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


1 04

and Babylonian theology. Here they taught the philosophy
borrowed by Ionian philosophers, namely that all things ema-
nated from water, and came into existence by the creative Word,
Mummu of Ea.'** To him the Sumerians of the Eridu school
attributed the creation of man from clay, “ Lord of mankind,
whose hand fashioned man.” One of their myths has this
version. The gods created Heaven and Earth, and all crea-
tures with the breath of life, and then the god Ninigikug
(= Ea) created two small creatures whom among living crea-
tures he made most glorious.*®

Another prayer recited at the restoration of a temple has
this myth:

“ When Ann had created the Heavens,

And Nudimmud (Ea) had created the Apsu as his abode,

Ea gathered clay from the Apsu and

Created the god of Brick-making (Kulla) for the restoration (of
temples).

He created cane-brake and forest(? ) for the work of his creation(? )
He created the god of carpenters, moulders, and Arazu, as completers
of the work of his creation (? ).

He created the mountains and the seas for . . .

He created the god of goldsmiths, smithies, jewellers, and sculptors
for the deeds of . . .
and their rich produce for offerings ...

He created the Corn-goddess, the goddess of Flocks and

Wine, Ningishzid, Ninsar ... as those who enrich the fixed
sacrifices.

He created Uduntamkur and Uduntamnag, they who support the
offerings.

He created Kugsugga, mighty priest of the gods, as the executor of the
ritual orders.

He created the king as a restorer of [holy places]

He created man as the maker of . .

Ea was the god of all mystic learning and the Mummu or crea-
tive Word, Logos, which made all things, and fashioned the
things begotten.*® The doctrine was applied by the Alex-
andrian author of the Wisdom of Solomon to the Hebrew
god Yaw:


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 105

“ Oh God of the fathers, and Lord who keepest mercy,

Who madest all things by thy Word,

And by thy Wisdom thou didst form man.” '*®

He was regarded as the god of the Tigris and Euphrates, of
rivers and fountains. As such his title is Engur, an ordinary
word for “ river,” and in rituals of purification the River-
goddess is addressed in the following mystic hymn:

“ Thou River, creatress of all things,®®

When the great gods dug thee, on thy bank they placed
Mercy. Within thee Ea, king of the Apsu, built his abode.

They gave thee the Flood, the unequalled.

Fire, rage, splendour, and terror,

Ea and Marduk gave thee.

Thou judgest the judgment of men.

O great River, far-famed River, River of sanctuaries.

Thy waters are release ; receive from me prayer.”

In the theological lists Enki has numerous titles as patron of
the arts. Dunga and Lumha are Ea of singers and psalmists.
This myth reappears in Hebrew, in the early document con-
cerning the patrons of arts, where Lamech = Lumha is said
to have been the father of three sons, Jabal, patron of tents and
flocks, Jubal, of music, and Tubal-cain, of the forge. Ninbubu
is Ea of sailors, Nindubarra of shipmenders, Nurra of potters.
There are thirty-six titles of this kind in the official list.

The conception of his form which seems to have been most
prevalent in Babylonian mythology is that of the monster called
Darabzu, “ Antelope of the nether-sea ” in the official lists, and
Kusarikku, “ fish-ram,” or Suhurmashu, “ skate-goat,” in popu-
lar mythology. The latter names agree with the description
of Oannes, preserved by Berossus, and with the emblem of this
god on the monuments, usually a composite creature, with
fore-parts of a goat and body of a fish. A good example of this
symbol is seen on Fig. 51, first register, where the trinity Anu,
Enlil, and Ea stand in a row, Anu and Enlil being represented
by tall horned turbans resting on a throne, and Ea by the goat-


io6


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


fish, which also supports a low throne.®^ On this throne stands
also a symbol of Ea, a pillar with ram’s head. The names
Kusarikku and Suhurmashu were also used for Capricorn and
one of the monsters of chaos in the train of the dragon Tiamat.
Images and bas-reliefs of this “ antelope of the Apsu ” must
have been common} Berossus, describing the fish-man Oannes,
says that a likeness of him had been preserved even to his day,
and it may be that the fish-man on Phoenician coins was derived
from this type of Oannes. Images of the fish-ram of the deep
to represent Ea were made by the Sumerians, and Gimil-Sin,
king of Ur, promulgated a date by the formula, “ Year when
the ship of the antelope of the Apsu was completed.”

The principal role of Ea in mythology is as a god of purifica-
tion in the water rituals, called rituals of the “ house of bap-
tism,” and “ house of washing,” all of which belonged to a
great Sumerian series called en e-nu-ru, “ Incantation of the
house of Nuru,” taken from the title of Ea, Nunurra. In these
rituals there occurs a myth introduced by the priesthood of
Babylon, in which Ea, after learning of the wicked machinations
of the seven devils, sends his son Marduk to expel them by
magical operations. A good example occurs in the sixteenth
tablet of the series called udug hul-mes or in Accadian utukke
limnutiy “ the evil devils.” Here the object of the long series
of incantations is to defend the king and the nation against the
malign influences of the seven devils during the three days of
the moon’s eclipse. The astronomers discovered that the pe-
riod of the dark of the moon was due to natural laws, but the ex-
planation was that the seven devils had invaded the vault of
Heaven and surrounded the Moon-god, obscuring his visage.

“ Enlil saw the eclipse of the hero Sin in Heaven, and
The lord hailed his messenger Nusku.

Tidings of my son Sin who in Heaven has been woefully darkened,
Repeat to Ea in the Deep.

Nusku gave heed to the word of his lord.

To Ea in the Deep he set foot quickly.



Fig. 51. Boundary Stone of Melishipak. Cassite
Period, Twelfth Century, b.c.



THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 107

To the prince, the far-famed ‘ leading goat,’ the lord Nudimmud.
Nusku repeated the word of his lord straightway.

Ea in the Deep heard this matter.

He bit his lip and his mouth was filled with woe cries.

Ea called to his son Marduk, informing him of the matter.

Go, O my son, Marduk.

Of the princely son, the Crescent Sin, woeful is his eclipse,

His eclipse in Heaven has been brought about.

The seven evil gods, the slayers, fearless are they.

The seven evil gods like a cyclone went forth and enter the Land.
They have come up against the Land like a storm.

And the front of the crescent of Sin wrathfully they surround.

The hero Shamash and Adad the heroic they have turned to their side.”

Here as usual in these texts follow directions for the magic
ritual. The priests entering upon their rituals to drive out
demons say:

“ I am a man of Enki,

I am a man of Damgalnunna,®®

I am the messenger of Marduk.

To heal his sickness

The great lord Enki (Ea) has given me warrant.

His holy curse he has put with my curse.

His holy mouth he has put with my mouth.

His wizardry he has put with my wizardry.

His intercession he has put with my intercession.

Verily that which is in the body of the sick man devastates the sanc-
tuaries.

By the incantation of Ea may these wicked ones be expelled.”

Few prayers to Ea have survived in Sumerian and Accadian.
One long Sumerian hymn glorifying his temple and cult at
Eridu describes him as “ creator of fates,” “ who causes peoples
to spring up like grass.” An Accadian prayer to him under
the tide, “ Enlil of intelligence ” (Enlilbanda), begins:

“ King of Wisdom, maker of intelligence.

Far-famed leading goat, adornment of the ‘ House of the Deep.’
Enlilbanda, the skilled, the protecting angel.

Valiant one of Eridu, adviser of the Igigi.


To the great gods thou givest counsel.

O Ea, by thy incantation of life, raise the dying.”

V— 9

[Prometheus]

SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


io8

This deity is invariably described as the friend and saviour of
men, and there are no references in all the vast religious litera-
ture to his anger and vengeance, except where he is included
with other gods and invoked to destroy those who violate con-
tracts,®®

For this reason the mythical being called the fish-ram ob-
tained the title karubu^ rendered above by “ protecting angel.”
The Accadian word was undoubtedly borrowed in Hebrew my-
thology as keruby “ cherub.” The word has strictly speaking
the meaning “ one who is favourable,” “ who js benign,”
“ who intercedes for,” and images of them were set at the gates
of temples and palaces to place these under the protection of
the mighty god of wisdom and mystic powers. Asarhaddon
placed images of lions, the murderous Zu, Lahmu, and the
god Kuribu at the entrances to the gates of the temple of Ishtar
in Arbela.®^ These were all, in reality, monsters of chaos, iden-
tified with constellations, subdued by Marduk and made to
serve the gods. Kuribu, Karubu, or Karibu, the mythical being
of Ea, serves in mythology as the fish-ram, symbol of the god
of the Deep, and also as Capricorn.

In religion and mythology, of even greater importance than
these three heads of the trinity, Anu, Enlil, and Enki, is the
Sumerian Mother-goddess, whose character was so manifold
that she became many distinct goddesses. In Chapter I the
paramount importance of the Earth-goddess Astarte among all
the West Semitic races was emphasized. Babylonian religion
caused a profound revolution throughout the West in the name
and gender of the Arabian and original Semitic goddess of the
planet Venus. The great and ubiquitous cult of the virgin
Earth-goddess in Canaan, Phoenicia, and Syria seems to have
been entirely borrowed from Babylonia. As already suggested,
the primitive name of this Sumerian goddess seems to have been
Ninanna, Innini, “ Queen of Heaven,” but the pictograph first
used to write her name represents a serpent twining on a staff.
The name probably rests upon the primitive identification with


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 109

the planet Venus, and upon the theological principle that she
was created by Anu, the Heaven-god, as his female counterpart.
Three main types of the Earth-goddess, together with their
minor manifestations, are clearly recognizable, Innini, the
Semitic Ishtar, Mah, “ the mighty goddess,” Accadian Belit-ili,
“ Queen of the gods,” and the underworld goddess Eresh-
kigal.

The order in the official Assyrian theogony places the Earth-
mother-goddess dingir-Mah immediately after the Earth-god
Enlil, and she was in fact his sister. The supreme importance
of this goddess is obvious by the place and nature of her symbol
among the emblems of the gods. On Fig. 51 her throne fol-
lows those of the trinity, Anu, Enlil, Ea, and supports a curious
object, a broad band shaped like the Greek letter 12, Omega
inverted. On one throne, where it follows the symbols of
Marduk and Nebo (first two symbols in third register here),
this band lies flat on the throne, with ends coiled inward, not
outward as here. On other monuments the Omega symbol
stands alone without a throne, and in a position exactly like
Omega. This symbol is called markasu rahuy “ the great band ”
of the Esikilla, “ holy house.” The word markasu, “ band,”
“ rope ” is employed in Babylonian philosophy for the cosmic
principle which unites all things, and is used also in the sense of
“ support,” the divine power and law which hold the universe
together. It is employed more often of the god of the first
principle, water, Enki-Ea, and of his sons Marduk and Nebo.
Ninlil, wife of Enlil, frequently identified with Mah, ruled
the constellation Margldda, Ursa major, the wagon star, which
was also called the “ band of the Heavens,” because it remains
fixed at the pole of the Heavens.

After the multifarious activities of the Earth-goddess were
apportioned to the three major types, for Mah or Belit-ili was
reserved in particular the protection and increase of animal life.
She it was who, in the teaching of the great theological school
of the cult of Enlil and Ninlil of Nippur, created man from


no


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


clay, and her salient character is the goddess of Childbirth.
Under a minor form (Gula) she became the patroness of
medicine. Essentially an unmarried goddess, her minor types,
Bau, Gula, became wives of the sons of Enlil, Ningirsu,
Ninurta, as Erishkigal became the wife of Nergal, son of Enlil.
The official pantheon gives forty-one names for dingir-Mah,
among which the scribes indicate five as the most important.
These are Ninmah, “ Mighty queen,” Ninhursag, “ Queen of



Fig. 52. Top Portion of a Water Jar in Grave of the Palace at Kish

the earth mountain,” Nintur (dialectic Sentur), “ Queen, the
womb,” Ninmea, or Nunusesmea, “ Queen who allots the
fates,” and Ninsikilla, “ the pure Queen.” Under the last title
she was wife of her son Nesu (dialectic Lisi). The god Nesu
is known almost entirely by his star Antares in Scorpio, which
was also identified with Nebo.

Among other titles which appear in the myths are Aruru,
Nintud, “ Queen who bears,” Amatudda, “ Bearing mother,”
Amadubad, “ Mother who opens the lap (womb),” and Mama,
Mami. It is extraordinary that the theological lists give her a
husband by name Shulpae, in reality a name of Marduk as the
planet Jupiter. Every city had a temple, usually named Emah,


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON in


or at least a shrine to this goddess, but her principal cult centres
were Adab and Kesh in southern Sumer, and at Kish (near
Babylon), said to have been the first city founded after the
Flood, and certainly the oldest Sumerian capital. Here her
temple was named Hursagkalamma, restored by Nebuchadnez-
zar with enormous proportions, and relics of her cult are found
at great depth beneath the plain here. At one period the dead
were provided with large water- jars which
bore broad handles with rude busts of this
goddess of Birth and Healing. See Fig.

52. When Merodachbaladan restored her
temple at Hursagkalamma (a name given
to this part of Kish), he addressed her:

“ Ninlil, great queen, far-famed queen,
merciful mother, who sits in the house of
the world, the revered.” A description
has been preserved, which does not en-
tirely agree with the very human and beau-
tiful figures of her, found abundantly in
nearly all periods in Babylonia, especially
at Kish.®® Although these figurines do not
have the head-dress of a goddess, the fre-
quency with which they occur at her prin-
cipal cult centres, establishes their identifi-
cation with Ninmah, Aruru, or Ninhursag.

An Assyrian text describes her as follows: “The head (has) a
turban and . . . j she is provided with knots on the turban
like earth flies j with a . . . and her hand is human j she
binds on a waist-band, leaving her breast openj in her left arm
she carries a child, which feeds at her breast j with her right
arm she caresses itj from her head to her waist-band she has
the naked body of a woman j from her waist-band to the soles
she is covered with scales like a serpent} her navel is placed
in a waist-band.”

References to Mah as she who gave birth to man, in the



Fig. 53. Figure of
Mother and Child
FROM Late Period


II2


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


sense that she created him from clay, are numerous in my-
thology. In this sense the texts usually employ the title Aruru.
A bilingual poem, in which the traditions of the Eridu and
Nippur school were combined, describes the creation of the
world as follows:

“ All the lands were sea.

When the interior of the sea was a well,

Then Eridu was made and Esagilla created.

Esagilla, which in the Deep, the “ King of the Holy Chamber ”
inhabited.

Babylon was made and Esagilla completed.

The gods, the Anunnaki, together made (them).

The holy city they named ‘ Abode of the joy of their hearts.’

Marduk assembled wicker-work on the face of the waters.

He created dust and heaped it up with the wicker-work
To cause the gods to dwell in the abode of the joy of their hearts,
Mankind he created.

Aruru with him created the seed of mankind.”

This is a late Babylonian version of creation in which Marduk
replaces Enki-Ea. In a myth of the destruction of mankind by
drought, famine, and pestilence, it was Mami who recreated
men from clay at the command of Ea. She is here called
“ Mother womb, creatress of destiny,” Having uttered an
incantation over clay, she placed seven pieces of clay at her right
hand, and seven at her leftj between them she put a baked
brick. These became seven and seven childbearing wombs,
seven creating males, and seven creating females. She de-
signed them in her own likeness.®® The same myth describes
in the next episode how a deluge destroyed mankind, and
Mami, summoned by the gods, was told to “ create lullu ®® that
he bear the yoke.” As in the myth translated above, man was
necessary to the happiness of the gods. In this episode, pre-
served only on a fragment from the old Babylonian version,
Mami made man from clay and Ea charged the gods to slay
a god that Ninhursag might mix the clay with his flesh and
blood.®’^ Another text says that Anu wept when the demoness
Lamastu destroyed children with plague, and Aruru-Belit-ili’s


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 113

eyes flowed with tears, saying, “ Why should we permit those
whom we created to perish? ”

The myth of the Mother-goddess and her son and husband
who died yearly and descended for a time to the underworld
to be rescued and restored to his wife and mother, generally
appears in Sumerian and especially Babylonian religion at Erech
in the cult of Innini and Dumuzi, Ishtar and Tammuz, but
the older form of this myth in Sumerian seems to have been
associated with the cult of Nintur, Ninhursag, Aruru, and her
son and husband Nesu. It is perhaps a coincidence that the
ancient pictograph for tur consists of the pictures for right and
left hand, and that Nintur = Mami created men from pieces of
clay at her right and left hand.®® The sign tur certainly means
“ bearing womb ” in Nintur, “ Queen of the womb,” and the
same sign developed a form read Ul, “ feeble,” “ decrepit,” also
the word for “ man,” lily Accadian liluy lulluy who was created
from clay by this goddess. The same sign has the meaning
“ ill,” “ pain,” “ sickness ” {tur)y and her son, the dying god,
is described in one hymn as mu-lu-Ul, “ the feeble one.” It
seems, then, that the most ancient titles of this goddess refer
to her having created man and to her having borne the dying
god. Man, the mortal one, whose life-blood and flesh sprang
from a god himself, walks forever in the shadow of death, as
does his divine brother the god Lil, or Nesu.^® A Sumerian
hymn also speaks of the dying god as the brother of Nintur —
Ninhursag:

“ How long, O my brother, O son of Gashanmah?

For my brother I utter lament, utter lament, utter lament always.

I utter lament, a chant of woe for the hero.

I repeat, ‘ how long,’ I repeat ‘ how long,’ ever repeat ‘ how long.’

O hero, thy mother repeats ‘ how long.’

She cries, ‘ O my son, whither shall I entrust thee?

O my brother, from thy resting-place arise, thy mother seeks thee.’

The brother to his sister replied,

‘ Deliver me, O my sister, deliver me.


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


114

The place where I He is dust of the earth ; the slayers repose there.
Restless is my sleep, the wicked dwell there.

O my sister, where I sleep I rise not.

May my mother, who seeks me, free me from imprisonment.’ ”

In this text Lil imprisoned in Arallu is restored to the world
by a magic ritual in which a couch is prepared for his soul.
Throughout this text the Mother-goddess as his sister has the
name Egime, the a-tur {tur)y and his mother, Ninhursag. Ap-
parently the god Shulpae (= Enlil) is assumed to be the father
of the dying god in this text, which is contrary to the entire
contents of the myth, where a virgin birth is always presumed.
In the theological lists pertaining to this myth of Nintur and
Lil, the names Lillu, Nesu, and Assirgi occur for the son of the
goddess Mah.

Not only did the Sumerians and Babylonians believe that
Arum, Nintur, etc., had created man from clay, but when cir-
cumstances required, she was summoned by the gods to create a
man for some special purpose. When Gilgamish sorely op-
pressed the people of Erech the gods heard their wailing [and
said to Arum] :

“ Thou hast created an impetuous son [like a wild bull high is his head].
He has no rival; forth go his weapons.

With the lasso are sent forth his . . .

The men of Erech were cast in misery in their abodes.

Gilgamish leaves not a son to his father.

Day and night he is violent . . .

He is the shepherd of Erech of the sheepfolds.

He is their shepherd and . . .

The strong, the glorified, knower of . . .

Gilgamish leaves not a maiden to [her mother].

Nor the daughter of warrior, nor the betrothed of a man.

Anu? heard their (the people’s) wailing.

They called for the great Aruru (saying),

‘Thou hast created [Gilgamish],

And now create his likeness.

Let [his soul] be like the spirit of his heart.

Let them rival each other, and Erech have peace.’

When Aruru heard this, she created in her mind an image of Anu.


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 115

Aruru washed her hands, clay she gathered and cast it on the field.

[In the field] she created the hero Enkidu, the hostile offspring, the
army of Ninurta.”

Here Aruru at the beginning of the Epic of Gilgamish is said
to have created both Gilgamish and the wild man Enkidu. In
later parts of the Epic the goddess Ninsun, called the ri-im-tum
or ri-mat, “ wild cow,” is repeatedly named as the mother of
Gilgamish.^®

The sons of Enlil, Ninurta and Nergal, are the deities of
supreme importance in the Sumerian mythology, and it was a
tribute to the outstanding figure of Ninurta, that the Baby-
lonians attributed to Marduk the role originally assumed by
Ninurta in the great myth of creation, and as a Sun-god. The
original name was Ninurash, and urash is a word for “ morning-
light,” hence his wife (Bau, Gula), has the title Ninudzalli,
“ Lady of the morning-light.” This is the deity Sol invictus
and the War-god of Sumer and Babylonia. On Fig. 51 the
symbol of Ninurta (second from left in second register) is
a weapon with eagle’s head,’^ standing between a winged griffon
(Nergal) and his other symbol, the eagle. In the fourth regis-
ter, the last symbol on the right has an eagle perched on a pil-
lar, also a symbol of Ninurta.^® The eagle on a pillar is also
called “ the twin gods of battle, Shuqamuna and Shumaliya,”
and one monument has these names of the twin gods inscribed
beside the shaft.'^^ To the right of the eagle in the second regis-
ter stands another symbol of the War-god, a weapon with
panther’s head. The two weapons of Ninurta with heads of an
eagle and panther are called the gods Sharur and Shargaz
on one monument.^®

The eagle, therefore, was the symbol of the Sun-god as the
spring and morning sun, victorious over the powers of dark-
ness and the underworld through which he passed nightly.
Although Shuqamuna and Shumaliya are called “ twin gods,”
Shumaliya is known to be a goddess. Like all Sun-gods, how-
ever, Ninurta was also a twin god, and hence one of the most


ii6


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


common Sumerian names for him was “ god-Mash,” the twin
god, expressing his two original aspects as god of the sun above
and below the equator, the beneficent spring sun, and the hostile
god of summer heat and winter’s cold. It is true that to Nergal
was latterly assigned the character of the hostile phases of
the sun, and Ninurta received the propitious powers of that
luminary, but he also retains in many minor aspects traces of



Fig. 54. Ningirsu


the ancient duality. The two names of Mash are Umunlua and
Umunesiga, apparently “ Lord who gives plenty ” and “ Lord
the cruel.”

In mythology Ninurta’s supreme function is war on behalf of
the gods or his people. Ningirsu, the name for him at Lagash,
appears on the seal (Fig. 54) holding a curved weapon with
lion’s head on his left shoulder j a lion’s head springs from
each shoulder, and his right hand holds seven weapons, each
with feline heads. The throne has two crossing lions on its
side, symbols of war, and below the inscription, “ Urdun, priest
of incantations of Ningirsu,” stands the lion-headed eagle, em-
blem of all types of the War-god. In this case the eagle has
two heads characteristic of the twin god, but often only one
head. The emblems of all those cities, where the cult of the
War-god under various local names was prominent, consisted


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 117

of a lion-headed eagle grasping in each talon the haunch of a
wild animal. At Lagash, where he had the title Ningirsu, his
emblem is the eagle grasping two lions in this manner; at
Umma (modern Djokha) the animals are ibexes; at Kish,
the seat of the principal cult of the War-god Zamama, the ani-
mals are stags or antelopes, and on the emblem of Kish the
head of the eagle is natural, not lion-headed.®^ Emblems of
this kind from unknown sites on which the eagle does not have
the lion’s head, and with other animals, such as rams,®* are quite
numerous.®® The principal god of Elam, Nin-Shushinak,
“Lord of Susa,” or simply Shushinak, was identified with
Ninurta.®® On painted vases of great antiquity from Susa, the
eagle grasps two aquatic birds, and it occurs also on bitumen
vases.®^ At Tal Ubaid near Ur the finest deep bas-relief (in
copper) of this emblem ever recovered, has the lion-headed
eagle grasping two deer.®® The pottery of Susa has also the
deployed eagle alone, which is probably not identical with the
eagle (with or without lion’s head), symbol of the War-god,
but stands for the bird of the sun simply.®® The original name
of the deployed eagle grasping lions and other animals is “ Bird
Imgig,” always called a god, but in later times “ Bird Im-
dugud,” or Zu, that is “ Storm-bird.” In the myth of Zu,
enemy of the gods, cited above, he was conquered by Ninurta,
and for this reason henceforth became his symbol. The eagle
with deployed wings and rapacious talons appears also in Hit-
tite iconography where it sometimes occurs grasping two ser-
pents.®® The symbol spread from Sumer to Asia Minor and
thence to Europe where it survives to this day. The persistence
of the sun cult at Jerusalem reappears in the golden eagle
placed by Herod on the roof of the temple of Yaw in Jerusalem,
which scandalized the high priest Matthias. He and the pious
Judas cast it down and thereby incurred the supreme penalty of
death at the hands of the dying Herod.®’

The Sumerian legend of the conquest of the dragon of the
storm and chaos, the monster Zu or Imgig, by Ninurta, has

[Prometheus]

ii8


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


been preserved only in stray references of later literature, but
it formed the basis for the elaborate Babylonian Epic of Crea-
tion in which Marduk subdued the female dragon of chaos,
there called Tiamat, and her host. As he, with his weapon
Sharur, “ the cyclone,” rode to battle in a wagon whose roar
shook heaven and Earth, so also Marduk “ took up the ‘ cy-
clone ’ his great weapon and drove the chariot of the storm, the
unopposable and terrible.” Fig. 5 5 shews him driving a winged
dragon, fore-parts lion and hind-parts with tail and feet of an
eagle. A liturgy refers to this old Sumerian myth. The legend



Fig. 55. Marduk Driving Chariot with Winged Dragon


of a gigantic conflict between the Sun-god and the demon of
darkness “ in the beginning,” when the champion of the gods
created the world, established the stars in their places, and
the planets in their courses, presupposed an age when “ darkness
was on the face of the deep,” and when “ Eldhim said, ‘ Let
there be light and there was light,’ ” in the words of the late
compiler of Hebrew traditions.®^ Ninurta is addressed by Anu
and Enlil and ordered to subdue the dragon of chaos, ushumgal,
the “ Great Sea Serpent,” and his ally Zu:

“ Lord of the encompassing net, lord full of terror,

Advance, ride forth; O lord, advance, ride forth.

Great champion, whose word bringeth joy; O lord advance, ride forth.

May great Anu see thee ; O lord, advance, ride forth.

Thou that boldest in leash the Zu-bird ; O lord advance, ride forth.

O lord establish thou thy foundations, yea thou alone, over thy foes.”


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 119

In this mythology the eagle, bird of the sun, is clearly dis-
tinct from Imgig or Zu, the ally of the ushumgal or sea-serpent.
On the monuments of all periods the eagle stands for Ninurta
as Sol invictuSy and the eagle with rapacious claws is the storm
bird subdued by this god. This is evident because Ninurta as
Zamama was identified with the constellation Aquila. The
eagle as symbol in Aramaean and Phoenician (see Fig. 19)
is most probably taken directly from this ancient Sumerian
iconography.®^ On Fig. 36, a seal of about the twenty-fifth
century, the eagle is associated with the rising sun, and Fig. 37
shews the midday sun supported on the wings of an eagle, on
an altar of Palmyra. On the other hand the eagle-dragon,
Imgig, was identified with the constellation Pegasus.®*

Ninurta was the subject of two long Sumerian epics and many
hymns. Of the two epics one known as “ The king, the day, the
sheen of whose splendour is far-famed” consisted of about
fourteen tablets in the late bilingual Assyrian version. Tablets
II— IX are almost entirely missing at present. Tablet I is a
hymn in glorification of Ninurta, son of Enlil, as the War-god
who defeats the foes of Sumer:

“ Hero whose powerful net overwhelms the foe.

Ninurta, the royal son, to whom his father prostrates himself afar off.
When Bau prays to him for the king.

When Ninurta the lord, son of Enlil, decrees fate,

Then the weapon of the lord turns its attention to the mountain,®®
The god Sharur cries to the lord Ninurta:

‘ O lord, loftily placed among all lords,

O son, who sat not with a nurse, whom the strength of milk [fed
not].

On that hero, as on a bull, I place my confidence.

My lord, merciful to his city, solicitous for his mother.

Scaled the mountain and scattered seed far and wide.

And the plants with one accord named him as their king.’ ”

Here begins an obscure myth which runs through the entire
epic, the hostility of the various stones and how they were sub-
dued by Ninurta and assigned to various uses. If the earth’s


120


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


vegetation sprang from the sowing of this god, the stones were
hostile and the foes of civilization. The su stone, the sagkal
stone, dolerlte, the wz stone, the “ mountain stone,” and their
leader the alabaster, devastated the cities. “ From the moun-
tain there went forth a poisonous tooth, scurrying, and at his
(Ninurta’s) side the gods of his city cowered on the earth.”
Whether this assault of the stones and the mountain serpent
upon Ninurta’s city (Nippur) refers to some invasion of Sumer
in remote antiquity or to a nature myth is uncertain. Ninurta
turned his face to that place and prepared for war. The Tigris
paled and trembled at his fury. He rode to battle in his ship
Magurmuntae and his people knew not whither he had gone.
The birds in the land of the foe were smitten and their feathers
fell to earth j the thunder of Adad smote the fish of the Deep,
and their cattle were deafened.

“ He caused dogs to consume the hostile land like milk.

The invader cried to his wife and son,

But could not ward off the arm of the lord Ninurta.

His weapon was mingled with dust on the mountain and the Plague
had no compassion.

The divine Sharur weapon raised his hand on high to his lord (saying) :
‘ O hero, what has befallen thee?

The wrath of the mountain hast thou not smitten? ’ ”

It is impossible to follow the course of this epic in the broken
condition of the sources at this point. On one fragment the
myth of the naming of stones, which forms the important epi-
sode later on, is referred to.®® With Tablet IX begins an ad-
dress of Ninurta’s wife Bau or Gula.

“ The lord, soul of Enlil, who is adorned with crown upon his head,
The hero, whose power is not suited to be guided (by others).

Who hastened in majesty, whom (Enlil) sent for my husband.
Whom he begat for my spouse, when roof was not provided.

The son of Enlil rested [«o^], he turned not back his face.

The faithful man whom the faithful woman bore, has come to Eshu-
mera ’®® the place of which his eyes are fond.

I will ‘ sever the cord ’ for the strong lord.’^“’

I am queen alone, and I will go to the eternal lord.”


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 121


In the broken passage which follows, Ban prays to Ninurta for
some purpose not given on the fragment, and Ninurta’s reply
contains references to her entering the “ hostile land ” and
reigning there as its queen. Here begins the famous episode of
Ninurta’s addresses to twenty different stones. This myth is
referred to in a hymn to Ninurta:

“ The gypsum on the mountain thou didst trample upon.”

The first address does not preserve the name of the stone. It
began:

“ Once on a time, when Ninurta decreed fates,

Then in, the Land lived the X stone, it is said. Verily this is so.”

The fragmentary lines of this section possibly addressed to the
gypsum {kassu) afford no intelligible text. The second address
began :

“ My lord stood upon the X stone.”

and the whole of this section is missing. The third section began
near the end of Tablet X as follows:

“ My king stood upon the shammu-^tone.

To the illatu and the porphyry he cried.

Ninurta, son of Enlil, decreed their fates.’®*

Ninurta, the lord, son of Enlil cursed it :

‘ O shammu-stont, since in the mountain thou wentest up,

Since for my seizing thou didst bind me.

Since for my slaying thou didst smite me.

I am the lord Ninurta; since in my far-famed abode thou didst ter-
rify me.

May the powerful hero, possessor of strength, the superior, decrease
thy form.

O shammu-stont, may thy brothers pour thee out like meal.

Unto their descendants verily thou shalt be an object of woe, and their
corpses rule thou.

Thou art strong, but let thy wailing be, and thou perish by piercing.
Like a great wild bull, whom many slew, be (this) given as thy
portion,

O shammu-stont, in battle like a dog which the shepherd with weapon
overpowered.


122


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


I am lord; “ Porphyry for piercing,” this be thy name.’

Once on a time, when Ninurta decreed fates.

Then in the Land the illatu-stont, the porphyry, was pierced. Verily
this is so.”

In a fourth address Ninurta stood upon the j«-stone and the
basalt, and cursed them: “Like moths I will annihilate you.”
Goldsmith and smithy should use them. The fifth stone was
sagkalag, literally “chief stone.” This section is almost en-
tirely lost. The last two lines are:

“ Once on a time, when Ninurta decreed fates.

Then in the Land the sagkalag-stont did evil work (?), it is said.
Verily this is so.”

The sixth stone was dolerite, which is said to come from the
“ upper land ” and from Magan (Oman). This stone received
a good fate at the hands of Ninurta:

“ The king, who secures his name unto life of remote times.

Who makes his statue for eternity.

In Eninnu,^®^ temple which is filled with things desirable.

At the place of mortuary sacrifices . . . for seemly use may set
thee.**

The seventh address is to the stone and it is cursed:

“ Lie thou like a swine in thy work.

Be cast aside and for no purpose shalt thou be used, perish by pulveri-
zation.

He that finds thee shalt return thee to the water.”

The eighth stone, alalluniy received a good fate:

“ O alalluy possessor of wisdom, thou that reposest, verily thou shalt
put on my glory.

In the foreign land and likewise in the Land shalt thou proclaim my
name.

Thy greatness shall resist pulverization.

In the clash of arms, O hero, him whom thou slayest grandly cause
to perish.

The Land shall praise thee kindly and hold thee in honour.”


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 123

The ninth stone is the “mountain stone,” which received a
place of unparalleled honour:

“ O praised one, the light of whose eyes is cast abroad,

O mountain stone who in the hostile land hast raised a roar of wrath.
Who utterest a roar in battle, wrathfully, terribly.

Him whom my hand conquered not victoriously.

Whom with the cruel ones I bound not,

Shalt thou scatter at the feet of thy people.

Like gold shall they treasure thee.

O hero whom I bound, not have I rested until I gave thee life.”

Marble, the tenth stone, received an illustrious destiny. It
should be used for ornament in the temples and be the delight
of the gods. The eleventh stone, the algamish, is cursed with a
harsh fate:

“ Since thou didst plot against my advance,

Go thou before the craftsmen.

Its name shall be called ‘ Algamish ’ when the daily offering is
brought.”

The twelfth stone, dusu^ is grouped with the hulalu and por-
phyry, and received a good fate,^®® but the third stone, with
which porphyry was grouped, received an evil destiny. This
section is almost entirely missing in the texts j it ends:

“ May the land with homage bow down to thee.”

The thirteenth stone was chalcedony which was cursed with a
hard fate:

“ For thy . . . may the horn lacerate thee, and be thou laid for
adornment.

Set thy face upon one unworthy of thee.

Be thou torn like a mourner’s garment.

The copper-smith shall be set over thee and sever thee with chisel.
The man who brings thy flesh for enmity.

The carpenter who is able to do his work well.

Shall slay thee like death, and flay thee like ry^.”

The fourteenth address to the immana-stont is almost entirely
lost, but from the first line it is clear that it received an evil fate.


124


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


The fifteenth address begins with the maUd-stonty but like sec-
tions three, four, and twelve, other stones are grouped with the
one addressed. Here the dubban-y ukittum-y and gashurra-
stones seem to be species of the mashid. They are destined unto
fame. The sixteenth stone, shagaray is exalted to the chief place
among stones:

“ When thou fleest may every people,

With awe in the builded cities, resting-places of the goddess Ninhursag,
Chant songs of praise because of it.”

With the beginning of the address to the seventeenth stone,
marhushay which received a good fate, the text of the epic is
lost, and we know the names of the five remaining stones from
the catalogue only.

A Sumerian epic to Ninurta in three tablets was known by its
first line Ana-gim gim-muy “ He who like Anu . . .” The
theme of this epic is also war, the conquest of foreign lands, and
the triumphant return of Ninurta to his city Nippur. Of Tablet
I there are only a few references to the warlike power of
Ninurta, the wall of the hostile land, and how in his rage he
smote their gods. A section of Tablet II has the following
lines :

“ Anu in the midst of Heaven gave him fearful splendour.

The Annunaki, the great gods attain it not.

The lord went forth like a cyclone,

Ninurta, destroyer of the wall of the hostile land, went forth like a
cyclone.

Like a storm he raged on the foundation of Heaven.

When by the command of Enlil he took his way to Ekur,

He, the hero of the gods, casting a shadow of glory over the Land,
Even toward Nippur, far away, not near,

Nusku, the far-famed messenger of Enlil, came forth to meet him
in Ekur,

Speaking a word of greeting to the lord Ninurta:

‘ Thy fearful splendour has covered the house of Enlil like a garment.
At the noise of the rumbling of thy chariot
Heaven and Earth tremble as thou comest.


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 125

When thou Hftest thy arm a shadow stretches far.

The Annunaki flee in terror even to the host of them.

0 terrify not thy father in his abode.

And cause not the Annunaki to tremble in the dwelling Ubshu-
kinnu.’ ”

At the beginning of the third Tablet Ninurta is replying to
Nusku before his father Enlil and the divine court of Ekur:

“ The warriors, whom I have bound, shall bear a nose-cord like a
goring ox.

The kings, whom I have bound, shall bow their faces (to me) even
as to Shamash.

1 am the mighty cyclone of Enlil who on the mountain was irre-

sistible.

I am the lord Ninurta, let them kneel at the mention of my name.
When Anu, light of the gods,

Anu [a . . . ] chose in his great might, I am he.

By the weapon shattering the high mountains I am he that has war-
rant for kingship.”

He then praises Nippur as his beloved city and the city of his
brothers. Then the god Ninkarnunna, defined as the barber of
Ninurta in other texts, stood before Ninurta and said:

“ O lord, in thy city which thou lovest, may thy heart be at rest.

In the temple of Nippur, thy city, which thou lovest, may thy heart
be at rest.

When thou joyfully enterest the temple Shumera, the dwelling place
of thy heart’s contentment.

Say to thy wife, the maiden, queen of Nippur,

What is in thy heart, say to her what is in thy mind.

Say to her the kindly words of one who is forever king.”

Then Ninkarnunna with words of homage laved his heart with
gift of cool waters. “ These were the things which he said to
him to glorify his decrees forever.” “ When thou enterest into
Eshumera gloriously.” Ninurta looked kindly upon his wife,
the queen of Nippur, and told her what was in his heart and
mind, and the kindly words of one who is forever king. The
epic closes with the following lines:


126


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


“ The warrior whose valour is made most glorious,

Whose greatness in the temple of Enlil filled the world,

The lord, destroyer of the mountains, the unrivalled,

Wrathfully unchained his mighty battle.

The warrior went forth in his might,

Ninurta, the mighty son of Ekur.

O illustrious one of the father that begetteth, far-famed is thy praise.”

Lugallcurdub, a minor deity in the court of Ningirsu of La-
gash, is described in the following passage, where Gudea places
an image of him beside Ningirsu (= Ninurta) in the temple.
“ To hold the mace of seven heads, to open the door of the
temple Enkar, ‘ gate of battle,’ to prepare the sword blade,
the ml-lby the quiver, the raging hurra, and the plan of battle,
to devastate all lands hostile to Enlil, for the lord Ningirsu,
and at his orders, he (Gudea) caused the warrior to enter be-
side him, his lieutenant Lugalkur-dub, who with the weapon
sharur of battle subdues the lands, the chief lieutenant of
Eninnu, falcon of the hostile land.” Beside this deity Gudea
also placed “ the second lieutenant,” described as kur-su-na, the
raven, that he might destroy the hostile land with “ the mi-ib
of Anu, which like a lion rages over the mountains, and with
the sharur, the cyclone of battle, that its terrible sound wreak
destruction and restrain their hearts.”’”® In another passage
Gudea presented this War-god with the following symbols of
battle. “ The chariot ‘ subduer of the foreign land,’ bearing
splendour, clothed in terror, and its young ass, ‘panther of
sweet voice,’ with its coachman, the mace of seven heads, weapon
of battle, which the regions bear not, smiter in battle, the mi-ib,
weapon of hulalu-stont, with head of a panther, which turns
not back against the foreign land, the sword of nine emblems,
arm of valiance, the bow which roars like an ash forest, the
angry arrow of battle which darts like lightning, the quiver
which puts out its tongue against the gnashing wild beasts and
the serpent dragon.”””

These passages are principally concerned with wars against
the enemies of Sumer, but at the end of the last passage there


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 127

is a mythological reference to the mushuHu, “ raging serpent,”
or serpent dragon, which is one of the eleven dragons of Tiamat
in the Epic of Creation. In mythological representations of
Marduk this dragon seems to have been the one with which
the memorable primeval battle of the Sun-god with the dragons
of darkness was principally associated. On Fig. 51, third regis-
ter, first symbol, the throne of Marduk with spade is sup-
ported by the dragon which he subdued in his victory over



Fig. 56. Mushussu from Wall at Gate of Babylon


Tiamat. Fig. 56 shews one of the mushussu designed in white
glaze on a blue background on the walls of the gate of Baby-
lon. Gudea adorned the lock-blocks of the door of the tem-
ple of Ningirsu with figures of two monsters of chaos, hasmu
(viper) and nmshussuy which occur together among the dragons
of Tiamat.”^ On pp. 117-8 other references to the original
myth of Ninurta and the battle with the dragons were given.

A fragment, which probably belongs somewhere among the
scantily preserved Tablets II-VIII of the epic discussed
above,^^® contains several lines of a hymn of praise by Ninurta
himself concerning his weapons:


128

[Prometheus]

SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


“ In my right hand I bear my divine sharur.

In my left hand I bear my divine shargaz.

The divine ‘ lion with fifty teeth,’ sickle of my Anuship, I bear.

My divine ‘ merciless lion,’ shattering the mountain, I bear.

My weapon agasilikku^ which consumes the dead like the great
dragon, I bear.

My heavy weapon of Anu, shattering the mountains, I bear.

My weapon nunu with seven wings, subduing the mountains, I bear.

The wild cow of battle, my wicked net of the hostile land, I bear.

The sword, sabre of my Anuship, severing the necks, I bear.

My mighty snare of battle, from whose hand the mountains flee not,
I bear.

The help of man, the long bow, arm of my battle, I bear.

Ram that attacks man, my quiver, the cyclone, I bear.

My boomerang and shield, devastating the house of the hostile land,
I bear.

My weapon with fifty heads, cyclone of battle, I bear.

My mace with seven heads, which like the mighty serpent with seven
heads murder does, I bear.

My weapon with seven heads, wrathful crusher of battle, power of
Heaven and Earth, before which the wicked escape not, I bear.

My divine Kurrashurur (‘god who causes the mountain distress’),
whose brightness like day-light is sent forth, I bear.

My divine Erimanutuk (‘ god whose power the wicked withstand
not’), establisher of Heaven and Earth, I bear.

The weapon whose splendour (covers) the Land, grandly made fit
for my right arm, (adorned) with gold and lapis lazuli, which
stands as object of admiration, my divine ‘ Help,’ I bear.

My weapon with fifty heads, which consumes in conflagration the
hostile land, I bear.”

With the names of these twenty weapons the tablet breaks away,
and other weapons probably followed here. The faculty of
deifying aspects and activities of gods is well illustrated here.
In this hymn seven of these weapons are called “gods,” and
a theological list gives five deified weapons as names of the
gods worshipped in various cities, one of which is the city Kar-
Ninurta, “ Wall of Ninurta.” The references in these hymns
to Ninurta’s conquest of the “ mountain ” refers to the wars of
the Sumerians with the inhabitants of the hill countries to the
north and east of Sumer, and the obscure myth of Ninurta and


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 129

the cursing or decreeing good and evil fates to stones may be
indirectly connected with these ancient wars and legends.

Of more purely mythical nature is the legend of the six-
headed wild goat slain in the mountain by Ninurta and men-
tioned in the following hymn:

“ Hero in thy going against the hostile land,

Honoured one who from the womb of woman didst not issue,

What is in the Deep, what that thou hast not attained?

What in sea and earth can increase thee?

The self-exalted stone thou didst destroy and the plants altogether thou
hast crushed.

The gods thou hast annihilated with destruction,^’^®

And the gods of Heaven stood by thee for battle.

The gods of Earth at thy call lapsed into silence.

The Anunnaki bowed their faces to thee.

The six-headed wild ram thou didst slay in the mountains.

The gypsum in the mountain thou didst trample upon.

The poisonous tooth of the sky thou hast broken.

When thou hast cried without, the people without thou didst prostrate.

When thou hast cried within, the people within thou didst prostrate.

When thou hast cried over the valleys with blood were they filled.

When thou hast cried over the habitations, thou didst count them as
heaps of ruins.”

The reference to a six-headed ram in the mountains refers to a
monster of the Elamitic land, Yamutbal,^^^ and to ancient wars
between the Sumerians and that mountainous country, which
the word “ mountain ” in all these myths designates. In mem-
ory of Ninurta’s victory over this land, Gudea placed an image
of the six-headed ram, which the hero (Ningirsu) slew, in the
portico of the “ gate of battle ” at Lagash.^^® The “ poisonous
tooth ” refers to a mythical bird, called in parallel texts the erin-
bird with claws,^^® also referred to by Gudea as the <?rm-bird
which lifts its eye upon the bull.” In the myth of Etana and
the eagle there is an episode of Zu, the eagle, which preyed upon
the carcass of a bull and was ensnared by a serpent. The
“ poisonous tooth ” occurred also in the epic discussed above.

The mythological poems, therefore, consistently describe the


130


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


War-god as he who leads the armies of Sumer to victory over
the mountainous lands east of the Tigris, and in these legends
appear mythical monsters, which seem to belong also to the
more famous myth of this sun-god’s conflict with the dragons
of darkness. Zu and Mushussu, the eagle and serpent dragon,
both occur in the passages cited above,’^’ and concern the same
region, where Sumerian traditions place the exploits of the War
and Sun-god j it became latterly the home of Iranians, whose
principal myth is identical with the battle of Ninurta with the
dragons of primeval chaos. Indra of Indian mythology slew
the demon Ahi (Serpent), and in that battle Heaven and
Earth trembled in fearj in the same manner Heaven and Earth,
and the gods on high and below, trembled at the fury of
Ninurta’s battle with the dragons. Another form of the Iranian
myth of the conflict of light and darkness is the battle of Trita
and the three-headed and six-eyed serpent Visvarupa in the
Veda.’^^ The Iranian myth is told of Ahura Mazda or Thrae-
taona and the three- jawed, triple-headed, six-eyed Azhi, rep-
resented as a being with two serpents springing from his shoul-
ders.’^® Another form of Thraetaona is Verethraghna who
subdued Azhi (=Ahi) and Vishapa, “he whose saliva is
poisonous.” There can be hardly any doubt but that Azhi is
the serpent dragon mushussu or the serpent with seven heads
mentioned in the hymn to Ninurta.’®* And Vishapa is surely
connected with Zu, “ the poisonous tooth.” Ninurta and the
dragons correspond so closely to Ahura Mazda and the similar
Iranian myth that it would be remarkable if this entire Indian
and Iranian legend was not ultimately Sumerian. The annual
victory of the spring sun over the period of winter’s darkness
probably suggested to the Sumerians the idea that in the begin-
ning all was a watery chaos ruled over by the serpent dragon
and her host when “darkness was on the face of the deep.”
After his conquest of the dragons and latterly of the moun-
tainous lands hostile to Sumer, the gods entrusted Ninurta
with the “ Tablets of Fate,” precisely as in the later Marduk


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 13 1

version that deity received them as a reward for his victory
over Tiamatd^® Fig. 57, from a seal of a comparatively late
period, shews the god Ninurta, or, in the later period, Marduk
or Ashur, pursuing the mushussu. In his right hand he holds
a weapon with six heads, and hurls a thunderbolt with his left
hand. The usual representation of this myth is the god with
drawn bow aiming an arrow at a winged lion; sometimes
the lion has an eagle’s head, and the god himself four wings in
late glyptique.’^® Sometimes the god wields a sickle attached



Fig. 57. Ninurta Pursuing the Musgussu

to a long handle. On some seals the animals are natural
eagles, ostriches, rams, and roe-bucks, a winged horse, and
unicorn.

Like all gods who were “ sons,” Ninurta was originally also
Tammuz, son of the Earth-mother, and died each year with
perishing vegetation. Few traces of his connection with that
myth and cult remain, as it was almost entirely suppressed by
the Tammuz cult. The most direct survivals are the myths of
Lil and Nintur’^ and of Marduk and Ishtar, both of which
correspond to Tammuz and Ishtar. Ab-u or Es-u, one of the
principal titles of Tammuz, is also a title of Ninurta.’^® Ni-
nurta was regent of the month Tammuz and has also the title


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


132

Ni(n)kilim, “Lord of swine,” in the earliest Sumerian textsd^®
The cult of Nikilim spread to the west, where he was wor-
shipped at an unknown site, Diniktud®” The Accadian word for
“ pig,” humusiruy is used as a title for Ninurta, and is followed
by another title, sugannunnay “ lord of the sea coast,” by which
Phoenicia is probably meant/®^ Aramaic transcriptions of the
name nin-ib in the Persian period give the pronunciation
Anushat, or Anmasht, or Enmasht, or Ennammasht. When
we take into consideration that klUniy “pig,” is also rendered
by nammashtUy^'^ “ small cattle,” probably also in a special
sense “ swine,” it is possible that Ninurta’s title may be
Ennammasht, “ Lord of swine.” It is, therefore, certain
that the pig was sacred to Ninurta, and possible that he was
known both in Babylonia and throughout the West as “Lord
of Swine.” In any case as War-god, he was associated with the
western War-god, who is there always the Sky- and Thunder-
god Adad, Ishar, Yaw. This probably explains why the pig,
at least among the worshippers of Yaw, i.e., the Hebrews, was
tabu and its flesh forbidden to be eaten. This animal was
well known in Sumer and Babylonia, but, in the innumerable
records of offerings and economic transactions, it practically
never occurs as a food, and a temple calendar forbids it to be
eaten on the thirtieth of the fifth month. A fable in Assyrian
states that the pig is unclean and an abomination to the gods.
It is difficult to understand why the Sumerians, Babylonians,
and Canaanites kept pigs at all j for it seems clear that none of
these peoples used them much for food.

The cult of Ninurta spread to the West in early times, and
a temple of Ninurta at Gebal is mentioned in the fifteenth cen-
tury, It was precisely at Gebal that the famous legend of the
annual wounding by a boar, in the wild and mountainous val-
ley of the Adonis, was told. The seal (Fig. 58) from Kish,
where Ninurta’s principal cult under the name Zamama as
War-god existed from prehistoric times, may possibly be con-
nected with a legend of the killing of Nikilim by a wild boar.


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 133

The meaning of the scene is obscure, and the figure of the
person lancing a spear from the top of a palm tree may not be
a deity. It may be connected with the motif of the Sun-god
appearing from a tree discussed in Chapter There was

also a city, Beth-Ninurta, near Jerusalem, in the same period.^®®
Since the god Damu, a regular title of Tammuz, was also a
deity of Gebal,^®® and since Damu also appears for Gula, wife
of Ninurta, it is obvious that not only the Adonis cult of Gebal



was borrowed from the Tammuz cult of Sumer, but that Ni-
nurta, Nikilim, “the lord of swine,” has a direct connection
with the Sumerian and Phoenician cults of the dying god.

The myths of the War-god of Sumer and Babylonia were
attached by the Hebrews to their own Yaw, who as Sky- and
Thunder-god fills this role in their mythology, or to the older
Hebrew deity, the Sun-god El, Eloah. With the myth illus-
trated by Fig. 57 compare the Hebrew survival in Job xxvi.
12-13:

“ Through his power the sea was stilled,

And by his adroitness he smote Rahab.

By his wind the Heavens are brightened;

His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.”

The primeval battle of the Sun-god with the dragons of the
watery chaos appears in the late hymn to Yaw:


134


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


“ Thou hast rent asunder the sea by thy power,

Thou hast broken the heads of the dragons on the waters.
Thou hast smitten the heads of Leviathan,

And given him as food to the wild beasts.”

Here Leviathan with many heads is reminiscent of the battle
of Ninurta and the six-headed ram. Yaw and the battle with
the dragons was a familiar theme in the visions of late Hebrew
poets. In the vision of a poet who prophesied the vengeance of
Yaw upon a sinful world, in which only His own people should
be saved, the dragon legend is used as a symbol of His punish-
ment of Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt:

“ In that day Yaw will take vengeance.

With his sword, harsh, great, and powerful,

Upon Leviathan, the fleeing serpent.

And upon Leviathan, the coiling serpent.

And will strangle the dragon which is the sea.”

Job attributed the legend to El in the verses:

“ Eloah doth not turn back his anger;

The helpers of Rahab did stoop under him.”

In the troubled period of the Jewish Exile a poet appealed to
Yaw to shew again his power as in the ancient days when He
smote Rahab and pierced the dragon.^^®

Ninurta, however, was identified with Saturn (not with
Mars), called sag-us, or in Accadian, kaimanUy “the steady
star.” Amos accused his countrymen of the Northern King-
dom (Samaria) of bearing their images, Sikkut, “your king,”
and Kiyyun. One of the names of Ninurta was Sakkut,^^^
otherwise called Etalak, who with his companion, Latarak,
stood at the gate of sunrise to open the gate for the entering of
Shamash. We have already seen that the title maliky “ king,”
was popular in Canaan for the Sun-god, and in fact the Septua-
gint renders Amos v.26 by “ ye have borne the tent of Moloch.”
Ninurta, as god who opens the gate of sunrise, is a twin-god,
and a hymn to him has the following lines:


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 135

“ The gate of Heaven thou didst open.

The bolt of Heaven thou didst seize away.

The lock-pin of Heaven thou didst lift.

The lock-rail of Heaven thou didst pull back.”

Sikkut is a corruption of the popular name Sakkut as god of
Sunrise, and Kiyyun is a false vocalization in Hebrew for Kay-
wan, as the Septuagint Raiphan for Kaiphan proves.

Ninurta was, therefore, a deity whose cult was firmly estab-
lished in Canaan, as War-god, as Sun-god, as Saturn, and as
brother of the Earth-goddess Astarte or Ashtoreth. As Tam-
muz or “ brother,” Yaw appears in the Hebrew names Ahi-
Yaw, “ My brother is Yaw,” and in Ahi-Melek, “ My brother
is Malik,” and in many other names, survivals of this Baby-
lonian myth from the older Canaanitish religion. At Gebal
the name of an official, Abdi-Ninurta, in the fifteenth century,
proves the popularity of this deity in the home of the cults of
El and Adonis. In astrology Ninurta was identified under
various names with the complex of stars Sirius, called “ the ar-
row,” the Bow-star composed of €, 5 ,t of Cams Major, and
/c,X of Puppis and Orion, wherein the Babylonians probably
saw a gigantic hunter drawing an arrow on his bow.

In Chapter I the character and western forms of Nergal, the
Sumerian deity of the summer and winter sun, and counterpart
of Ninurta, were described in detail. The oldest known title
of this underworld deity is Lugalmeslam, “ King of Meslam.”
Meslam, the pronunciation of which is uncertain, is apparently
a cosmological word for a mythical chamber in the underworld
where the Sun-god remained during the night-time. The ordi-
nary title in the later periods is “ god who comes forth from
Meslam.” Most of the titles of this deity describe him as
formidable agent of death and pestilence, lord of the grave,
and judge of those that die. The title by which he was best
known, Gir-unu-gal, “ Mighty one of the vast abode,” became
Nergal in West Semitic transcriptions and must have been so
pronounced by the Babylonians. Other titles are “Raging


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


136

King of the earth,” “ Raging god,” “ Lion, the slayer,” “ He
who lies in wait for man on a journey,” and the Babylonians
named him “ the evil god,” that is Satan, who like Nergal in
Western mythology, was lord of the fires of Hell. This deity
is by origin undoubtedly the god of the burning sun, and his
title Gira means “ fire.” A text says that “ Shamash and Ner-
gal are one,” and his Accadian name umu means “ heat.” Like
his brother, Ninurta, he is also a god of War who carries merci-
less weapons. Also the moon, during its period of darkness at
the end of the month, belonged to the realm of Nergal in the
lower world, and offerings were made to him on those days.
On Fig. 51 his emblem is seen in the second register, first fig-
ure on the left, a winged lion on which stands a weapon with
two lion heads, characteristic of the Janus nature of Nergal,
god of inferno and pestilence on earth. Fig. 59, a terra-cotta
bas-relief from Kish, has the head of a deity, who should be
Zamama, the War-god. On the left stands the weapon with
panther’s head, symbol of Ninurta-Zamama, but on the right
the weapon with two lion heads of Nergal. There is a sun disc
at the side of the head. The combination of the emblems of
Ninurta and Nergal found on the site of the principal cult of the
War-god proves that the Babylonians had difficulty in distin-
guishing them.

But as a Fire-god and lord of the lower world he is also
god of flocks and foaling (Shagan), and he increases grain and
gives life to men. A prayer to him has the following lines:

“ O lord, powerful, exalted, first-born of Nunamnir,’^^

First among the Anunnaki, lord of battle.

Thou art become prince in Arallu; no rival hast thou.

With Sin in Heaven thou perceivest all things.

Enlil, thy father, gave thee the black-headed people, the totality of
creatures.

He entrusted to thy hand the cattle of the field,
and animals.”

A prayer to him as the planet Mars calls him the “ merciful
god ” who gives life to the dying.


THE SUMERO-ACCADIAN PANTHEON 137

Under the title Gira, Ira, Irra, Nergal appears in a long
Accadian myth known as “ King of all habitations ” or the
“ Series Irra,” said to have been revealed by night to a scribe
Kabti-ilani-Marduk. The name of the scribe and the fact that
no Sumerian original has been found, prove that it was written



Fig. 59. Terra-cotta Bas-relief from Kish, with
Head of the War-god


at Babylon either during or after the age of Hammurabi.^'*^
It was Ishum, messenger of Irra, who revealed the poem to this
scribe, and Irra was pleased by it saying: “ Whosoever reveres
this song shall accumulate riches in his sanctuary. The king
who magnifies the verses shall rule the regions. The psalmist
who chants it shall not die by pestilence. In the house where
this tablet is placed, though Irra rage and the seven gods slay,
the sword of pestilence shall not come nigh, but peace is pro-


SEMITIC MYTHOLOGY


138

vided for it.” The argument of the poem, which in the Nine-
vite edition occupied five tablets and about five hundred or
more lines, cannot be followed in many parts owing to numer-
ous lacunae in our present material.