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Orientalische Religionen in der Antike
Ägypten, Israel, Alter Orient

Oriental Religions in Antiquity

Egypt, Israel, Ancient Near East

(ORA)

Herausgegeben von / Edited by

Angelika Berlejung (Leipzig)
Joachim Friedrich Quack (Heidelberg)
Annette Zgoll (Göttingen)

15
 W. G. Lambert

Ancient Mesopotamian Religion

and Mythology

Selected Essays

Edited by
A. R. George and T. M. Oshima

Mohr Siebeck
Wilfred G. Lambert (1926–2011), 1959–64 Associate Professor and Chair of Oriental Seminary,
Johns Hopkins University; 1970–93 Professor of Assyriology, University of Birmingham; 1971 Fel-
low of the British Academy; 2010 identification of pieces from a cuneiform tablet that was inscribed
with the same text as the Cyrus Cylinder with Irving Finkel; also noted for his new discoveries in
relation to the Gilgamesh text.

Andrew R. George, born 1955; 1985 PhD in Assyriology under the supervision of Wilfred G. Lam-
bert; since 1983 he has taught Akkadian and Sumerian language and literature at SOAS, University
of London, where he is now Professor of Babylonian; 2006 Fellow of the British Academy; 2012
Honorary Member of the American Oriental Society.

Takayoshi M. Oshima, born 1967; PhD in Assyriology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Israel; 2008–10 Alexander-von-Humboldt fellow at the University of Leipzig in Germany; 2010–13
research fellow at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena (project of the German Research Foun-
dation (DFG)); since 2015 another DFG project at the University of Leipzig.

ISBN 978-3-16-153674-8 / eISBN 978-3-16-160604-5 unveränderte eBook-Ausgabe 2021

ISSN 1869-0513 (Orientalische Religionen in der Antike)
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie;
detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

© 2016 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany. www.mohr.de

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by
copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions,
translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems.
The book was printed by Gulde-Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei
Spinner in Ottersweier.
Printed in Germany.
 Preface and Acknowledgements

The late W. G. Lambert (1926–2011) was one of the foremost Assyriologists of the lat-
ter part of the twentieth century. His principle legacy is a large number of superb criti-
cal editions of Babylonian literary compositions. Many of the texts he edited were on
religious and mythological subjects. He will always be recalled as the editor of the
Babylonian Job (Ludlul bel nemeqi, also known as the Poem of the Righteous Suffer-
er), the Babylonian Flood Story (Atra-hasis) and the Babylonian Creation Epic (Enuma
elish). Decades of deep engagement with these and other ancient Mesopotamian texts
gave direction to much of his research and led him to acquire a deep knowledge of an-
cient Mesopotamian religion and mythology. The present book collects twenty-three
essays on these topics that he published between the years 1958 and 2004. These en-
dure not only as the legacy of one of the greatest authorities on ancient Mesopotamian
religion and mythology, but also because they all still make statements of considerable
validity and importance. Many remain milestones in the fields of Mesopotamian reli-
gion and mythology.
The idea of collecting Lambert’s essays in a volume of the series Oriental Religions
in Antiquity was first mooted when he was still alive. Two years after his death the idea
was revived and we received an invitation to edit the volume from Professor Angelika
Berlejung on behalf of the series’ editors. George was responsible for the choice and
organization of the essays, and wrote the Introduction. Oshima managed the scanning
process, copy-edited the results and compiled the list of abbreviations, bibliography
and indexes. All the essays have been reset for this volume and lightly edited to achieve
a consistent house style. Small corrections have been made to some. Matters of sub-
stance have been corrected where Lambert indicated such by handwritten annotations
in his own copies of the essays; published errata et corrigenda have been incorporated;
and obvious typographical errors have been put right. References to unpublished tablets
and forthcoming works have been adjusted where these last are now published. Other
references have been added to indicate more modern editions of cited texts, but we
have not sought to make these exhaustive.
We should like to thank the series’ editors for their invitation to participate, Mr Felix
Hagemeyer for assisting Oshima, and Dr Henning Ziebritzki at Mohr Siebeck for his
help and advice in many matters. We record our gratitude to those who hold rights of
reproduction over the essays, especially those many who were generous enough to
make no charge for giving the necessary permissions.

ARG
TMO
16.xii.14
  
Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... V

List of Permissions ....................................................................................................... IX
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................. XIII

Introduction by A.R. George ........................................................................................1

I: Introductory Considerations .................................................................................9

Morals in Mesopotamia .................................................................................................11

Ancient Mesopotamian Gods: Superstition, Philosophy, Theology .............................28

II: The Gods of Ancient Mesopotamia ................................................................37

The Historical Development of the Mesopotamian Pantheon:

A Study in Sophisticated Polytheism ............................................................................39
Goddesses in the Pantheon: A Reflection of Women in Society? .................................49
The Mesopotamian Background of the Hurrian Pantheon ............................................56
The Pantheon of Mari ....................................................................................................62
The God Assur ...............................................................................................................81
Ishtar of Nineveh ...........................................................................................................86

III: The Mythology of Ancient Mesopotamia ................................................93

Der Mythos im Alten Mesopotamien, sein Werden und Vergehen ..............................95

The Cosmology of Sumer and Babylon ......................................................................108
The Theology of Death ................................................................................................122
The Relationship of Sumerian and Babylonian Myth as Seen in Accounts of
Creation .......................................................................................................................134
Ninurta Mythology in the Babylonian Epic of Creation .............................................143
Myth and Ritual as Conceived by the Babylonians .....................................................148
VIII Table of Contents

IV: The Religion of Ancient Mesopotamia ....................................................155

The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient

Mesopotamian Religion ...............................................................................................157
Syncretism and Religious Controversy in Babylonia ..................................................166
Donations of Food and Drink to the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia ..........................171
The Cult of Ishtar of Babylon ......................................................................................180
The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners .................................................................183
Devotion: The Languages of Religion and Love .........................................................200

V: Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel ..................................................................213

Old Testament Mythology in its Ancient Near Eastern Context ............................215

Destiny and Divine Intervention in Babylon and Israel ..............................................229
The Flood in Sumerian, Babylonian and Biblical Sources ..........................................235

Bibliography .................................................................................................................245

Index of Cited, Quoted and Edited Texts .....................................................................261

Index of Sumerian, Akkadian and Other Ancient Languages ......................................266

Subject Index ................................................................................................................269

 List of Permissions

“Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia”, Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Ge-

nootschap “Ex Oriente Lux” 15 (Leuven: VEGEOL, 1958), pp. 184–96. Reprinted
by permission of the Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux”, Leu-
ven.
“Ancient Mesopotamian Gods: Superstition, Philosophy, Theology”, Revue de
l’histoire des religions vol. 207 no. 2 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1990),
pp. 115–30. Reprinted with the consent of Armand Colin, Paris, and by permission
of the author’s academic executor.
“The Historical Development of the Mesopotamian Pantheon: A Study in Sophisticated
Polytheism”, in H. GOEDICKE and J.J.M. ROBERTS eds., Unity and Diversity: Essays
in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East (Baltimore and
London, 1975), pp. 191–200. © 1975 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprint-
ed by permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.
“Goddesses in the Pantheon: A Reflection of Women in Society?”, in J.-M. DURAND
ed., La femme dans le Proche-Orient Antique: Compte rendu de la XXXIIIe Ren-
contre Assyriologique Internationale (Paris, 7–10 Juillet 1986), (Paris: Éditions Re-
cherche sur les civilisations, 1987), pp. 125–30. Reprinted by permission of Jean-
Marie Durand.
“The Mesopotamian Background of the Hurrian Pantheon”, Revue hittite et asianique
36 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1978), pp. 129–34. Reprinted by permission of Éditions
Klincksieck, Paris.
“The Pantheon of Mari”, Mari, Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires 4: Actes du
colloque international du C.N.R.S. 620, “A propos d’un cinquantenaire: Mari, bilan
et perspectives” (Strasbourg, 29, 30 juin, 1er juillet 1983), (Paris: Éditions Recher-
che sur les civilisations, 1985), pp. 525–39. Reprinted by permission of Jean-Marie
Durand.
“The God Assur”, Iraq 45 (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1983), pp.
82–86. Reprinted by permission of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Ger-
trude Bell Memorial), London.
“Ishtar of Nineveh”, Iraq 66 (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2004),
pp. 35–39. Reprinted by permission of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq
(Gertrude Bell Memorial), London.
X List of Permissions

“Der Mythos im Alten Mesopotamien, sein Werden und Vergehen”, Zeitschrift für Re-
ligion und Geistesgeschichte 26 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), pp. 1–16. Reprinted by
permission of Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.
“The Cosmology of Sumer and Babylon”, in C. BLACKER and M. LOEWE eds., Ancient
Cosmologies (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975), pp. 42–65 and 2 pls. Reprinted with
the consent of Harper Collins and by permission of the author’s academic executor.
“The Theology of Death”, in B. ALSTER ed., Death in Mesopotamia: Papers Read at
the XXXVIe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (Mesopotamia, Copenhagen
Studies in Assyriology 8; Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1980), pp. 53–66. Re-
printed by permission of the author’s academic executor.
“The Relationship of Sumerian and Babylonian Myth as Seen in Accounts of Crea-
tion”, in D. CHARPIN and F. JOANNÈS eds., La circulation des biens, des personnes
et des idées dans le Proche-Orient ancien: Actes de la XXXVIIIe Rencontre Assyrio-
logique Internationale (Paris, 8–10 juillet 1991) (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les
civilisations, 1992), pp. 129–35. Reprinted by permission of Jean-Marie Durand.
“Ninurta Mythology in the Babylonian Epic of Creation”, in K. HECKER and W. SOM-
MERFELD eds., Keilschriftliche Literaturen: Ausgewählte Vorträge der XXXII. Ren-
contre Assyriologique Internationale Münster, 8–12, 7, 1985, (Berliner Beitrage
zum Vorderen Orient 6; Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1986), pp. 55–60. Reprinted with
the consent of Dietrich Reimer Verlag GmbH and by permission of the author’s ac-
ademic executor.
“Myth and Ritual as Conceived by the Babylonians”, Journal of Semitic Studies 13
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1968), pp. 104–12. Reprinted by permis-
sion of Oxford University Press, Oxford.
“The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopo-
tamian Religion”, in W.S. MCMULLOUGH ed., The Seed of Wisdom: Essays in Hon-
our of T.J. Meek (Toronto, 1964), pp. 3–13. © 1964 University of Toronto Press.
Reprinted by permission of the University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
“Syncretism and Religious Controversy in Babylonia”, Altorientalische Forschungen
24 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), pp. 158–62. Reprinted by permission of Walter de
Gruyter GmbH, Berlin.
“Donations of Food and Drink to the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia”, in J.
QUAEGEBEUR ed., Ritual and Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the
International Conference organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the
17th to the 20th of April 1991 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 55; Leuven: Peeters,
1993), pp. 191–201. Reprinted by permission of Peeters, Leuven.
“The Cult of Ishtar of Babylon”, in Le temple et le culte. Compte rendu de la vingtième
Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale organisée à Leiden du 3 au 7 juillet 1972
(PIHANS 37; Leiden and Istanbul 1975), pp. 104–106. Reprinted by permission of
NINO Publications, Leiden.
 List of Permissions XI

“The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners”, in S.M. MAUL ed., Festschrift für Rykle
Borger zum seinem 65. Geburtstag am 24. Mai 1994: tikip santakki mala bašmu ...
(Cuneiform Monographs 10; Groningen: Styx Publications, 1998), pp. 141–58. Re-
printed by permission of Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.
“Devotion: The Languages of Religion and Love”, in M. MINDLIN, M.J. GELLER, and
J.E. WANSBROUGH eds., Figurative Language in the Ancient Near East (London:
SOAS, 1987), pp. 25–39. Reprinted by permission of the School of Oriental and Af-
rican Studies, University of London.
“Old Testament Mythology in its Ancient Near Eastern Context”, in J.A. EMERTON ed.,
Papers Read at the Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the
Old Testament Held Aug. 24–29, 1986, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Je-
rusalem, Israel (Supplement to Vetus testamentum; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), pp.
124–43. Reprinted by permission of Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.
“Destiny and Divine Intervention in Babylon and Israel”, in M.A. BEEK et al., The Wit-
ness of Tradition: Papers Read at the Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference
Held at Woudschoten, 1970, (A.S. VAN DER WOUDE ed., Oudtestamentische Studiën:
Namens Het Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland, XVII; Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1972), pp. 65–72. Reprinted by permission of Koninklijke Brill, Leiden.
“The Flood in Sumerian, Babylonian and Biblical Sources”, Bulletin of the Canadian
Society for Mesopotamian Studies 5 (Toronto, 1983), pp. 27–40. Reprinted by per-
mission of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies.
 List of Abbreviations

Aa Lexical series á A = nâqu. See CIVIL, MSL 14

AAA University of Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology Issued by the Institute of
Archaeology
AASOR The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research: AASOR XXXI = GOETZE, The
Laws of Eshnunna
ABRT CRAIG, Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts: Prayers, Oracles, Hymns &c.
AfK Archiv für Keilschriftforschung
AfO Archiv für Orientforschung
AIPHOS Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves
ANET PRITCHARD, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
AnOr Analecta Orientalia, Commentationes Scientificae de Rebus Orientis Antiqui
AnSt Anatolian Studies
AO Tablets in the collections of the Musée du Louvre
AoF Altorientalische Forschungen
AOS American Oriental Series
AOTAT GRESSMANN, Altorientalische Texte zum Alten Testament
ARET Archivi reali di Ebla, Testi: ARET 1 = ARCHI, Testi amministrativi; ARET 2 = EDZARD, Ver-
waltungstexte; ARET 3 = ARCHI and BIGA, Testi amministrativi; ARET 4 = BIGA and MILA-
NO, Testi amministrativi; ARET 5 = EDZARD, Hymnen, Beschwörungen und Verwandtes
ARM Archives royales de Mari: ARM 3 = KUPPER, Correspondance de Kibri-Dagan; ARM 8 =
BOYER, Textes juridiques; ARM 10 = DOSSIN, Correspondance féminine; ARM 13= DOSSIN,
et al., Textes divers; ARM 16/1 = BIROT, KUPPER, and ROUAULT, Répertoire analytique: ARM
21 = DURAND, Textes administratifs des salles 134 et 160 du palais de Mari: ARM 23 =
BARDET et al., Archives administratives de Mari I
BA Beiträge zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissenschaft
BaF Baghdader Forschungen
BAL BORGER, Babylonisch-assyrische Lesestücke
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BBR ZIMMERN, Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion
BBSt KING, Babylonian Boundary Stones and Memorial-Tablets in the British Museum
BE The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania: BE 1 = HILPRECHT, Old Baby-
lonian Inscriptions Chiefly from Nippur: BE 14 = CLAY, Documents from the Temple Archives
of Nippur
BIN Babylonian Inscriptions in the Collection of James B. Nies, Yale University: BIN 8 = HACK-
MAN, Sumerian and Akkadian Administrative Texts
BiOr Bibliotheca Orientalis
BMS KING, Babylonian Magic and Sorcery
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
BWL LAMBERT, Babylonian Wisdom Literature
CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
CBS Tablets in the collections of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Phila-
delphia
CRRA Compte rendu, Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale
CT Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &c., in the British Museum
XIV List of Abbreviations

CUSAS Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology: CUSAS 17 = GEORGE ed., Cunei-
form Royal Inscriptions and Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection
DP ALLOTTE, Documents présargoniques
Ea Lexical series ea A = nâqu. See CIVIL, MSL 14
ED Early Dynastic
FAS Freiburger altorientalische Studien
HSS Harvard Semitic Studies: HSS 10 = MEEK, Excavations at Nuzi vol. 3; HSS 37 = ABUSCH et
al. eds., Lingering over Words
Idu Lexical series Á = idu
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
Igituh Lexical series Igituḫ = tāmartu. Igituh short version pub. LANDSBERGER and GURNEY AfO 18,
pp. 81ff.
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
K Tablets in the Koujunjik collection of the British Museum
KAH SCHROEDER, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur historischen Inhalts
KAR EBELING, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts
KAV SCHROEDER, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur verschiedenen Inhalts
KTU DIETRICH, LORETZ, and SANMARTÍN, Die Keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit
Lugale Sumerian Myth Lugal-e
MAD Materials for the Assyrian Dictionary: MAD 22 = GELB, Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar,
2nd ed.; MAD 3 = idem, Glossary of Old Akkadian; MAD 5 = idem, Sargonic Texts in the
Ashmolean Museum
Malku Synonym list malku = šarru
MAM Mission archéologique de Mari: PARROT, MAM 2/3 = Le palais; MAM 3 = idem, Les temples
d’Ishtarat et de Ninni-Zaza; MAM 4 = idem, Le «Trésor» d’Ur
MAOG Mitteilungen der altorientalischen Gesellschaft
MARI Mari, Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires
MDP Mémoires de la délégation en Perse: MDP 2 = SCHEIL, Textes élamites–sémitiques 1; MDP 14
= idem, Textes élamites–sémitiques 5
MEE Materiali Epigrafici di Ebla: MEE 2 = PETTINATO, Testi amministrativi della biblioteca L.
2769; MEE 4 = idem, Testi lessicali bilingui della biblioteca L. 2769
MRS Mission de Ras Shamra
MSL Materialien zum Sumerischen Lexikon/Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon: MSL 3, see HAL-
LOCK et al.; MSL 4, see LANDSBERGER et al.; MSL 10, see LANDSBERGER; MSL 12 and MSL
14, see CIVIL; MSL 16, see FINKEL.
MVAG Mitteilungen der vorderasiatisch-aegyptischen Gesellschaft
N.A.B.U Nouvelles assyriologiques brèves et utilitaires
OB Old Babylonian
OIP Oriental Institute Publications: OIP 2 = LUCKENBILL, The Annals of Sennacherib; OIP 99 =
BIGGS, Inscriptions from Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh
OrAnt Oriens Antiquus
OrNS Orientalia Nova Series
PAPS Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
PBS Publications of the Babylonian Section, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania: PBS
I/2 = LUTZ, Selected Sumerian and Babylonian Texts; PBS IV/1 = POEBEL, Historical Texts
PRAK DE GENOUILLAC, Premières recherches archéologiques à Kich: Mission d’Henri de Genouil-
lac 1911–1912
PRU Le palais royal d’Ugarit
PSBA Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology
 List of Abbreviations XV

R RAWLINSON, The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia: IIR = RAWLINSON and NORRIS, The
Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 2; IVR2 = RAWLINSON and PINCHES, The Cunei-
form Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 4, 2nd ed.; VR = RAWLINSON and PINCHES, The Cunei-
form Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. 5.
RA Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale
RB Revue biblique
RG Répertoire géographique des textes cunéiformes: RG I = EDZARD, FARBER and SOLLBERGER,
Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der präsargonischen und sargonischen Zeit; RG II = EDZARD
and FARBER, Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der 3. Dynastie von Ur; RG III = GRONEBERG,
Die Orts- und Gewässernamen der altbabylonischen Zeit
RHA Revue Hittite et Asianique
RIMA The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Assyrian Periods: RIMA 1 = GRAYSON, Assyrian
Rulers of the Third and Second Millennium BC
RIMB The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Babylonian Periods: RIMB 2 = FRAME, Rulers of
Babylonia: From the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination
RIME The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia, Early Periods: RIME 1 = FRAYNE, Presargonic Peri-
od; RIME 2 = idem, Sargonid and Gutian Periods; RIME 3/1 = EDZARD, Gudea and His
Dynasty; RIME 3/2 = FRAYNE, Ur III Period; RIME 4 = idem, Old Babylonian Period
RINAP The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period: RINAP 4 = LEICHTY, The Royal Inscrip-
tions of Esarhaddon, King of Assyria (680–669 BC)
RTC THUREAU-DANGIN, Recueil de tablettes chaldéennes
Sa Lexical series Syllabary A = HALLOCK, MSL 3, pp. 3–45
SAA State Archives of Assyria
SAALT State Archives of Assyria Literary Texts
SBH REISNER, Sumerisch-babylonische Hymnen nach Thontafeln griechischer Zeit
ŠL DEIMEL, Šumerisches Lexikon
SLB Studia ad tabulas cuneiformas collectas ab F.M.Th. de Liagre Böhl pertinentia
SLT CHIERA, Sumerian Lexical Texts from the Temple School of Nippur
SLTN KRAMER, Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istan-
bul
StOr Studia Orientalia
SVAT EBELING, Stiftungen und Vorschriften für assyrische Tempel
TCL Musée du Louvre, Département des Antiquités Orientales, Textes Cunéiformes
TCS Texts from Cuneiform Sources: TCS 3 = SJÖBERG and BERGMANN, The Collection of the Su-
merian Temple Hymns
TIM Texts in the Iraq Museum: TIM IX = VAN DIJK, Texts in the Iraq Museum, vol. 9
UET Ur Excavations Texts: UET 5 = FIGULLA and MARTIN, Letters and Documents of the Old-
Babylonian Period; UET 8/2 = SOLLBERGER, Royal Inscriptions Pt. 2
UF Ugarit Forschungen
UnDiv GOEDICKE and ROBERTS eds., Unity and Diversity
UVB Vorläufiger Bericht über die von dem Deutschen Archäologischen Institut und der Deutschen
Orient-Gesellschaft aus Mitteln der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft unternommenen Aus-
grabungen in Uruk-Warka
VAB Vorderasiatische Bibliothek: VAB 1 = THUREAU-DANGIN, Die sumerischen und akkadischen
Königsinschriften; VAB 4 = LANGDON, Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften; VAB 7 =
STRECK, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergang Niniveh’s
VS Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler der königlichen Museen zu Berlin
YBT See YOS
YOS Yale Oriental Series, Babylonian Texts: YOS 1 = CLAY, Miscellaneous Inscriptions in the
Yale Babylonian Collection; YOS 4 = KEISER, Selected Temple Documents of the Ur Dynasty;
YOS 9 = STEPHENS, Votive and Historical Texts from Babylonia and Assyria; YOS 11 = VAN
DIJK, GOETZE, and HUSSEY, Early Mesopotamian Incantations and Rituals
XVI List of Abbreviations

WVDOG Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft

ZA Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft
 Introduction

By A.R. George

In approaching ancient religion and mythology, W. G. Lambert espoused no theory; in

fact, he deliberately ignored it. For him this was a badge of honour, for he owned up to
it several times in print. He recognised only one methodology: to start with the text in
front of him. The confrontation of the text, his intellect and his knowledge was the pro-
cess that produced understanding. His approach privileged the primary sources over
any previous scholarly commentary. He acknowledged the foundational statements of
the pioneering generation, commenting in 1983 of books written by Jastrow in 1898
and Dhorme in 1910, “the older writers on religion are often of great value still” (p. 82
n. 7). But much secondary literature and analytical discussion were deemed superseded
and did not enter the discussion.
This method, which one obituary described as Lambert’s “own brand of Assyriolo-
gy”, was fully formed from very early in his research career. Already in 1960, in the
introduction to his first book, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, he repudiated what he
called the “strait jacket of twentieth-century thinking” and sought only to understand
ancient sources on their own terms and in their ancient intellectual context: “only by
immersing oneself in the literature is it possible to feel the spirit which moves the writ-
er”. Accordingly, this selection of essays does not reveal the evolution of a mind in re-
sponse to the intellectual currents of the late twentieth century. It records instead how a
unique intellect deployed exceptional skills in the reading and interpretation of ancient
sources and wrote up the results with unmatched clarity and economy of expression.
Lambert belonged to probably the last generation of European scholars who came to
Assyriology through Bible studies. He had a very formative Christadelphian upbring-
ing, in which, as he later wrote, “an interest in antiquity and the Bible went hand in
hand”,1 and remained a very active member of Christadelphian ecclesia all his life. Un-
surprisingly, the Old Testament was a frame of reference that frequently arose in his
response to ancient Mesopotamian texts and ideas. Many of the essays collected here
make comparisons with the religious thought and mythology embedded in the Bible.
Often these are negative. Lambert devoted all his intellectual energy to study of the
Babylonians but this did not grant them exemption from his disapproval. He placed
their religious thought in a historical narrative of human progress and, unsurprisingly
for a committed Christadelphian, found it wanting.
The essays collected in this book are arranged not in order of date of publication but
thematically. The anthology begins with two pieces that are written for a readership

1 Autobiographical memoir reproduced in Irving Finkel and Alasdair Livingstone’s obituary,

“Professor Wilfred George Lambert (February 26, 1926–November 9, 2011)”, Archiv für Orientfor-
schung 52 (2011), pp. 397–401.
2 Introduction

whose interests extend beyond Assyriology. They give important historical, cultural
and geographical context, as well as introducing two essential components of religion
and mythology: the moral life and gods. The core of the book is eighteen essays, six
each on the pantheon, on mythology, and on religion. The selection is rounded off by
three essays that study ancient Mesopotamian religion and mythology in relation to the
Hebrew Bible.
The first essay in the anthology is “Morals in ancient Mesopotamia” (1958). Lam-
bert wrote this piece while he was completing Babylonian Wisdom Literature. The ge-
neric term “wisdom literature” brings together those Babylonian literary compositions
that, in Lambert’s own definition, “correspond in subject-matter with the Hebrew Wis-
dom books.”2 What they held in common was not style, language or subject matter, but
a concern with ethical and moral problems, and with how people might respond to the
problems inherent in the human condition. The essay concentrates on the former, study-
ing “moral exhortations” such as the Sumerian Instructions of Shuruppak and the Baby-
lonian Counsels of Wisdom; law codes which exemplify moral behaviour; and proverbs
and sayings as sources of popular wisdom. It sets them in a framework of political, eth-
nic and social history. Lambert makes a synchronic sociological distinction between
ideal moral standards proclaimed by intellectuals and the morality of the common peo-
ple, but also a diachronic ethnic distinction between the Sumerians and Babylonians
that might be more nuanced were it expressed today. He makes a case for a “moral de-
generation” in Babylonia as a consequence of the increased currency of the idea that
suffering and misfortune were not the “haphazard work of evil demons”, as formerly
understood, but a consequence of sin, identified or not. For Lambert the outcome was
that “Babylonian thinkers found themselves compelled to deny any intuitive knowledge
of good and evil”. He holds this in implicit contrast to what he identifies earlier in the
essay as the “keener moral sense of the Hebrews”.
The second essay, on “Ancient Mesopotamian Gods” (1990), is placed up front be-
cause it presents the basic facts about the Babylonians’ gods and pantheon, set in useful
contextualizing remarks on Babylonian ecology and economy. It summarizes Lam-
bert’s ideas on the history of the pantheon, which had crystallized during the 1970s,
when his research was mainly focused on the reconstruction of the Sumero-Babylonian
god-lists and their explication. The essay also explores the nature of divinity in ancient
Mesopotamia, which extended beyond the greater and lesser gods of the pantheon to
features of the built and natural environment, such as temple fittings, and rivers and
hills.
The organization and history of the Babylonians’ pantheon are more fully studied in
an earlier essay, on “The Historical Development of the Mesopotamian Pantheon”
(1975). One of the themes is the historical tendency of Babylonian theologians to move
through syncretism and equation towards monotheism. Ultimately Lambert judges this
a failure, both because the process never led to absolute monotheism (demons remain-
ing outside) and because the project to exalt the god Marduk of Babylon over all other
gods was not supported in all quarters.

2 Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Oxford 1960, p. 2.

 Introduction 3

The phenomenon of monotheism is a case where Lambert could have engaged with
a vast non-Assyriological literature but chose not to. He notes that it is a compromised
concept, “since many Christian churches have strongly professed monotheism while
believing in a supernatural personal devil” (p. 47), and “belief in a devil or demons has
not been held to invalidate claims to monotheism on the part of major world religions
of the Christian era” (p. 32). The cult of Marduk, the god most promoted by Babyloni-
an theologians as the sole divine power in the universe, nevertheless allowed him a
wife, Zarpanitu, and son, Nabû. A matching trinity, headed by Assur, was advocated by
intellectuals in Assyria. Other scholars, notably Simo Parpola and the Helsinki school
that he founded, have seen these theological developments as ancestral to the Christian
monotheistic dogma of a trinity that is three divine personalities in one. This mystery is
rejected by Christadelphians, for whom Jesus Christ is not God the Son but the Son of
God. Perhaps for this reason Lambert did not make the same observation.
The rise of feminism in the 1970s led to greater attention to gender and women in
the academy, and the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale of 1986 duly concen-
trated on the topic Woman in the Ancient Near East. Lambert’s contribution, the fourth
essay in this volume, was a response to an argument advanced ten years earlier by
Samuel Noah Kramer. Kramer observed that in the third millennium BC some women
and goddesses of Sumer could exercise greater power and influence than their Babylo-
nian successors of later eras, and maintained that sexual discrimination was to blame.
Lambert’s careful analysis of the evidence for the status of “Goddesses in the Panthe-
on” (1987) attributed the decline in importance of the goddesses of Sumer not to in-
creasing discrimination but to a combination of the economic decline of their cult cen-
tres and a tendency to syncretize them all as manifestations of the second-ranking Ish-
tar. He does not argue, however, that Babylonian women were free from sexist oppres-
sion. Soon afterwards, in 1990, the Babylonians’ view of woman as the inferior sex
was succinctly put in a newly discovered line of the poem Enuma elish. This poem
forms the centre piece of Lambert’s posthumous book Babylonian Creation Myths
(2013). The line of interest occurs when two young gods in turn, each having failed ab-
jectly to subdue their ancestor, the goddess Tiamat, nevertheless reassure their leader
(II 92 // 116): “no matter how great a woman’s strength, it is no match for a man”.
Two other collective studies of the gods of Mesopotamia consider regional or local
pantheons that differ from the Sumero-Babylonian pattern. In “The Mesopotamian
Background of the Hurrian Pantheon” (1978) Lambert responds to a study of the Hur-
rian pantheon by E. Laroche. Hurrian was a language spoken in north Mesopotamia
and adjacent regions in the first part of the second millennium BC. Its mythology was
particularly influential among the Hittites of Anatolia. Lambert’s essay compares the
organization of Laroche’s pantheon, as known from Syria and Anatolia, with the Baby-
lonian pantheon of the same period. He notes a contrast in the composition of the top
rank: a single god in the Hurrian pantheon, but a group of three or four deities in Baby-
lonia. Lambert finds other evidence for the single-god model in north Mesopotamia
(Dagan) and Assyria (Assur), and, less securely, in mid-third-millennium Sumer (En-
lil), and suggests that it is older and more widespread than was previously thought.
The gods of an early second-millennium city in north-west Mesopotamia are consid-
ered in “The Pantheon of Mari” (1985). Here Lambert uses accounts from the admin-
4 Introduction

istration of temple cults to gauge the extent and membership of a local pantheon, and
then makes a case-study of the god Itur-Mer and certain other deities associated with
Mari, using evidence from all periods. Itur-Mer, a local form of the north Mesopotami-
an storm-god Wer, was the chief deity of Mari and the surrounding district, but subor-
dinate in the regional pantheon headed by Dagan.
Two further essays make studies of individual deities. “The God Assur” (1983) de-
velops Benno Landsberger’s idea, that Assur was the deified city of the same name,
and suggests that he was originally the numen loci of the crag on which the settlement
was located. “Ishtar of Nineveh” (2004) explores the goddess Ishtar in Assyria, and
adds to the dossier of evidence in characteristic fashion, by presenting a previously un-
published text on the topic.
Two complementary and partly overlapping essays introduce the section on mythol-
ogy. Both are much informed by the research Lambert had conducted in writing Baby-
lonian Creation Myths, which was already in first draft in the early 1970s. In “Der My-
thos im alten Mesopotamien” (1974) Lambert considers the development of Mesopo-
tamian mythology over time and then examines the mythology of origins. Some of the
same ground is covered in “The Cosmology of Sumer and Babylon” (1975), where he
uses the mythology of origins and the ancestral deities to explore the ancient Mesopo-
tamians’ various ideas on cosmogony and on the geography of the completed universe.3
The question, “What was there first?”, was answered variously, according to different
traditions: earth, water or time. Both essays make unfavourable comparisons with the
ideas of pre-Socratic philosophers, on the one hand, and with Hebrew monotheism on
the other. For Lambert religious thinking is a search after truth, and what he identified
as the Babylonians’ errors in this field “served as a background against which others
later drew closer to the truth”.
A category of god that does not coincide with more modern ideas is the “dead” god.
Gods are, almost by definition, immortal. In the ancient Near East the notion of “dying
and rising” gods was well entrenched, especially in the cults of Dumuzi, Tammuz and
other deities of season. In Mesopotamian mythology the category of “dead” gods is
well populated. Apart from Dumuzi, the category contains various ancestral deities
who were slain by younger gods in myths of succession, and also gods who were sacri-
ficed in order to create mankind. These dead gods dwelt in the Netherworld, alongside
the shades of dead humans. In addition to explaining the mythology of death and dead
gods, Lambert’s article on “The Theology of Death” (1980) makes a diachronic study
of the divine rulers of the Netherworld and their court over time.
Two essays anticipate the content and argument of Babylonian Creation Myths.
“Ninurta Mythology in the Babylonian Epic of Creation” (1986) studies the motif of
monster-slaying in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. It shows how a mythological
role originally played by Ninurta is central to the revisionist mythology of Enuma elish,
whose composer deliberately adapted literary traditions about Ninurta to make the god
Marduk the hero of all myth. In Enuma elish Marduk not only slays the monsters, but

3 The topic of cosmic geography was later more fully explored by one of Lambert’s research
students: W. HOROWITZ, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, (Mesopotamian Civilizations 8),
Winona Lake 1998, 2011.
 Introduction 5

also creates mankind. Study of the history of Mesopotamian ideas about the creation of
mankind had already led Lambert to play a leading role in editing and publishing the
classic Old Babylonian poem on this topic, Atra-hasis.4 The creation mythology of
Atra-hasis recurs in a Sumerian mythological narrative called Enki and Ninmah, as
Lambert demonstrates in “The Relationship of Sumerian and Babylonian Myth as Seen
in Accounts of Creation” (1992). The passage of Enki and Ninmah edited and ex-
plained in this essay, in a masterly exposition of philological method, offers a foretaste
of the edition of the whole poem in Babylonian Creation Myths. The title of the essay
is chosen in response to a commonly held view, that literary production in Sumerian
and in Akkadian reflected the cultures of two different peoples. The historical devel-
opment in which Akkadian replaced Sumerian as the vernacular language of southern
Mesopotamia was long seen as the displacement of one people by another, an enduring
legacy of Breasted’s Ancient Times (1916), and elsewhere Lambert is fond of con-
trasting Sumerians and Semites. It is now apparent that the linguistic and cultural histo-
ry of ancient Mesopotamia cannot be interpreted simply in ethnic terms. Lambert’s
conclusion, that myths elaborated in Sumerian and Akkadian narratives are “manifesta-
tions of a single culture”, is an early recognition of cultural continuity in early Mesopo-
tamia.
Because the poem Enuma elish was recited to Marduk during the preparations for
the New Year rituals at Babylon, it was often cited by T. H. Gaster and other adherents
of the Myth and Ritual school to show how a myth might be used in a ritual. In “Myth
and Ritual as Conceived by the Babylonians” (1968), Lambert brings evidence to refute
any notion that Enuma elish was composed especially for the ritual, and sees its use in
the cult as secondary. He then examines the use of myth in exorcism, for which there is
much evidence in the form of explanatory texts which make equations between materi-
als used in rituals of exorcism and mythological characters. These texts show the work
of an ancient school of Myth and Ritual, but again the conclusion does not favour an
integration of the two, finding that the mythology and the magic are related “in a highly
artificial manner”. The explanatory texts have subsequently been studied in more de-
tail,5 but the use of myth in Sumero-Babylonian magic incantations, to provide an aeti-
ology of evil, needs further investigation.
It is well known that Enuma elish is, as it were, a manifesto of a religious reform
that sought to exalt Marduk, the god of Babylon, over all others. In researching the po-
em’s date for Babylonian Creation Myths Lambert early came to the view that the con-
sensus of scholarly opinion was wrong: it was not a product of the Old Babylonian pe-
riod, when Marduk was not yet king of the gods, but of a time when Marduk’s statue
was retrieved from exile in Elam and reinstalled in Babylon amid great religious fer-
vour. He sets out his argument in the essay on “The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar I: A
Turning Point in the History of Ancient Mesopotamian Religion” (1964), which was
immediately influential and is still one of his most cited papers. It is also an early ex-
ample of one of his typical methods: to append to his essays an edition of a hitherto un-

4 W.G. L AMBERT and A.R. M ILLARD , Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, Oxford
1969.
5 By one of Lambert’s research students: A. L IVINGSTONE, Mystical and Mythological Works of
Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, Oxford 1986.
6 Introduction

published or badly edited cuneiform text that added substantially to the evidence and
justified the authority of his argument.
The same method is deployed in the following essay, on “Syncretism and Religious
Controversy in Babylonia” (1997). This is a very brief introduction to a very large top-
ic, and reprises a theme already explored in “The Historical Development of the Meso-
potamian Pantheon”. The essay is perhaps only a vehicle for making available the ap-
pended cuneiform text, but it gets to the heart of the issue with typical economy and
clarity. Babylonian theologians thought syncretistically, leading in the most extreme
form to the equation of all gods with Marduk, “so that something approaching mono-
theism resulted”. Standing in the way of this progress were the highly conservative
temple cults, which had a vested interest in retaining the individual identities of the dif-
ferent deities. The text itself is a combination of ritual address and theological exegesis.
Lambert was fond of pointing out that the ancient Mesopotamians “made their gods
in their own image”, so reversing the biblical idea, though he knew well enough the
Babylonian antecedent of that idea, expressed in Enki and Ninmah when the god Enki
creates man only by first “reflecting upon his own blood and body”. Babylonian gods
resided like kings in palaces (“temples”), presided over a court of family, courtiers and
servants, and needed food, drink and clothing. Lambert’s essay on “Donations of Food
and Drink to the Gods in Ancient Mesopotamia” (1993) carefully distinguishes the
Babylonians’ practice of feeding the gods from the sacramental sacrifice of the Old
Testament, studies the Babylonian terms for cultic offerings, and cites the textual evi-
dence (mainly Atra-hasis and Enuma elish) in support of the practice: according to my-
thology, the human race was created expressly to provide the gods with food, drink and
clothing, and for no other purpose.
Babylonian temple ritual is also the topic of the next essay, on “The Cult of Ishtar of
Babylon” (1975). This short paper focuses on the public rituals that were enacted in
Babylon in celebration of the goddess Ishtar’s relationship with the city god, Marduk,
and his wife, Zarpanitu. Nothing at all was known of these rituals until Lambert dis-
covered fragments of them, and published them in two philological studies in 1959 and
1976. The ritual agenda were accompanied by distinctive, but exceedingly difficult,
dicenda, which Lambert characterized as “Divine Love Lyrics”, a title that has stuck.
The lyrics, full of amorousness, jealousy and crude language, reveal Marduk, Ishtar and
Zarpanitu enmeshed in a divine ménage-à-trois. The essay republished here asks the
question, “How was the ritual performed?” It remains unanswerable.
An ancient Mesopotamian ritual of very different sort was that prescribed for the
asking of oracular questions in the commonest form of divination, extispicy. Extispicy
was a technique of communicating with the gods, in which a highly trained diviner
would ask a question on the subject of his client’s future well-being or prospects of
success in business, war and other aspects of life where divine guidance was considered
necessary. In the ritual the diviner prepared himself and a lamb, asked the question,
slaughtered the lamb, disembowelled it and sought an answer to his question in the
configuration of the carcase and internal organs, especially the liver and lungs. Lam-
bert’s essay on “The Qualifications of Babylonian Diviners” (1998) is a study of the
lore attached to the figure of the diviner. This lore includes the diviners’ myth of char-
ter, for the craft was held to be god-given, and the requirement of physical perfection,
 Introduction 7

similar to that prescribed for priests in other religions (Lambert compares Leviticus and
ancient Egypt but does not mention the Pope). Though the Babylonian diviner was not
a priest, he mediated between the worlds of gods and men, so purity and absence of de-
fect were necessary in order not to compromise the quality of the message. Most of the
lore is contained in a fascinating Babylonian text edited at the end of the article.
The last essay in the section on religion is a philological paper delivered to a confer-
ence on figurative language, “Devotion: The Languages of Religion and Love” (1987).6
It explores the use of shared imagery in religious and love poetry. The most productive
semantic fields centre on fruits, gardens and ploughing, and draw comparisons with the
Hebrew Bible, especially the Song of Songs. Lambert observes a lack of self-
abasement in Babylonian love poetry and contrasts the European tradition. Recently
published Old Babylonian love poetry goes some way to making good the lack.7
The final section turns to the Bible. We have chosen not to include Lambert’s early
essay on “A new look at the Babylonian background of Genesis”, which has already
been twice reprinted.8 Instead we conclude with three other essays in which he set out
to study ancient Mesopotamian and Old Testament mythology and theology in compar-
ative perspective. In “Old Testament Mythology in its Ancient Near Eastern Context”
(1988), Lambert prefaces a history of ancient Near Eastern myth and surveys of early
Levantine (Syro-Palestinian) mythology, as known from Ebla and Ugarit, and cultural
history, to four case studies that illustrate how Ugaritic mythology can be illuminated
from Mesopotamian sources, and how the mythology of Mesopotamia and Ugarit can
help elucidate survivals of myth in the Old Testament.9 The short essay on “Destiny
and Divine Intervention in Babylon and Israel” (1972) finds that both civilizations
shared a “Deuteronomic view of divine intervention in human affairs”, but contrasts the
Hebrews’ belief in a national destiny directed progressively by their god with the Baby-
lonians’ idea that human history was the struggle to maintain or reinstate a fixed and
unchanging divinely ordained order.
The last essay in this anthology is the text of a paper given to a non-academic audi-
ence in Toronto in 1982 and published as “The Flood in Sumerian, Babylonian and
Biblical Sources” (1983). From the style it is clear that the essay is a transcript of a rec-
orded lecture given, as was Lambert’s usual practice, extempore. Had he written it up
himself, the vocabulary would have been more select and the style more formal, but the
contents would have been the same. It is republished here not just because the volume
would otherwise lack any study of the Flood myth, to which Lambert made a signal
contribution, but also to celebrate in these spoken words the unusual clarity and sim-

6 Corrected in the light of Lambert’s notes in Nouvelles assyriologiques brèves et utilitaires

1989, p. 14 no. 17.
7 A.R. G EORGE, Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Bethesda 2009, no. 9 “I
Shall Be a Slave to You”.
8 Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 16 (1965), pp. 285–300; reprinted with postscript in H.-P.
M ÜLLER ed., Babylonien und Israel: historische, religiöse und sprachliche Beziehungen, Darmstadt
1991, pp. 94–113; with further postscript in R.S. H ESS and D.T. TSUMURA eds., “I Studied Inscrip-
tions from Before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Gene-
sis 1–11, (Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 4), Winona Lake 1994, pp. 96–113.
9 We have omitted the article’s technical appendices from the present reprinting.
8 Introduction

plicity with which an extraordinary scholar was able to communicate, directly and
compellingly, the results of his unmatched scholarship and learning.
I: Introductory Considerations
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia∗

This is a vast and intricate topic.1 Vast, because it covers the period 3000–300 BC; in-
tricate, because anything more than an objective cataloguing of phenomena implies an
understanding of the ancient Mesopotamian view of life, as well as a knowledge of so-
cial and political history. Despite the vastness of the period it is possible to speak of
ancient Mesopotamian civilization. From 3000 BC onwards a continuity of culture can
be traced in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Changes of course occurred long before 300
BC, but there is no difficulty in seeing the connections of the few temple schools of
Babylonian learning which survived Alexander’s time, like isolated peaks in a flood of
alien culture, with the temples of nearly 3,000 years earlier.
The founders of Mesopotamian culture were the Sumerians, a people of uncertain
origin, who came either by sea up the Persian Gulf, or overland through Persia, to their
settling place on the fertile alluvium at the mouths of the twin rivers. By 3000 BC they
had already built up an extraordinarily fine and well-integrated civilization. Its further
development can best be described in terms of the immigrations of other peoples into
this area, though it must not be forgotten that internal growth was as great a factor in
this evolution as external influence. Two outside areas provided Mesopotamia with
fresh waves of population. The Euphrates valley was a route taken by successive
groups of Semites, debouching, according to a generally held view, from the Arabian
and Syrian deserts. The mountains to the north were an area from which hardy and of-
ten barbarous tribes coming from the Caucasus region were wont to spread out over the
prosperous plains of the Tigris-Euphrates valley.
The first substantial thrust into Sumerian territory was Semitic, and by c. 2300 BC
the Old Akkadians, who had presumably come along the Euphrates route, were power-
ful enough to seize the hegemony of Sumer, and to proceed to establish an empire
stretching to the Mediterranean. The venture was ill-fated, and the brief Old Akkadian
period ended in chaos, as mountainous tribes, the Guti, descended on the fertile land

∗ First published in Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux

15 (1958), pp. 184–96.
1 There is very little written on this subject directly, but mention may be made of W. VON
SODEN, ZDMG 89, pp. 143–69; H. FRANKFORT and others, The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient
Man (also published as Before Philosophy), chs. V–VII by T. JACOBSEN; and S.N. K RAMER, Sume-
rian Theology and Ethics in the Harvard Theological Review 49, pp. 45–62. For the convenience of
those who do not read the ancient languages the references to ancient works are to translations
wherever possible, and especially to Ancient Near Eastern Texts1,2, ed. J.B. PRITCHARD (ANET),
and Altorientalische Texte zum alten Testament2, ed. H. G RESSMANN (AOTAT2). [In the original, an
asterisk (*) following a citation referred the reader to Lambert’s then forthcoming Babylonian Wis-
dom Literature (Oxford, 1960). These have been replaced by BWL and page number.]
12 Introductory Considerations

and for a time were undisputed masters. They were never accepted, however, by the
inhabitants, and soon they were driven out (c. 2000 BC), so that no cultural legacy of
their stay need be looked for. A revival of Sumerian power followed under the Third
Dynasty of Ur, though Semitic influence was now strong. This dynasty fell to a fresh
wave of Semitic migrants, the Amorites, who proceeded to take over and settle many
Sumerian cities. Out of several Amorite dynasties which sprang up, that of Babylon
outlived and suppressed the rest, and under Hammurabi (c. 1700 BC) reached a climax
of political and cultural glory. In time Babylon fell to the barbarous Cassites from the
mountains (c. 1500 BC). Unlike the Guti, the Cassites had come to stay, and their dyn-
asty of some four centuries enabled them to become completely assimilated to the na-
tive culture, which was itself undergoing a profound change during these times. Gener-
ally the country seemed in a stagnant phase, for the new masters brought little if any-
thing in the matter of cultural attainments, unless the domesticated horse can be put in
this category. Spiritually, however, a ferment was taking place among the priests and
scholars. When the Cassite dynasty fell c. 1150 BC the centre of the world had gravitat-
ed from southern to northern Mesopotamia. Contemporary with the Cassites a new
power had arisen in the area from the Kurdistan highlands across the upper reaches of
the Tigris and Euphrates to the Mediterranean. The bulk of the new immigrants were
Hurrians, the Horites of the Old Testament, but the ruling aristocracy were the Indo-
European Mitanni, famed for their horse-rearing. This power lasted only some two and
a half centuries, and it fell in part to the rising power of Assyria on the upper Tigris,
and in part to the Hittite kingdom in Asia Minor. This rise of Assyria was accompanied
by a continued state of decline for Babylon, as its power was weakened from about
1000 BC by a fresh wave of Semitic migration. The Aramaeans were moving down the
Euphrates and by 700 BC they constituted the bulk of the population of southern Meso-
potamia. By this time the military might of Assyria had waned, and for a brief spell (c.
600–550) the old glories of Babylon were revived by such kings as Nebuchadnezzar,
though in fact the kingdom was as much Aramaean as it had been Amorite previously.
The Persians put an end to the resuscitated Babylon, and gradually Babylonian civiliza-
tion gave way to an Aramaean world with first Persian, then Greek, and finally Roman
masters. It is little short of a miracle that a handful of priestly families in Babylon itself
kept the old traditions alive until the first century AD.2
From this survey of history certain peoples can be singled out for attention. The
greatest cultural originality lay with the Sumerians. Of the Semitic groups, first the Old
Akkadians and then the Amorites played a great part in moulding the phases of Meso-
potamian culture. It is not always easy to say just what each group contributed, but cer-
tainly contributions of no small consequence were transmitted as these two groups were
absorbed into the older culture. In each case the amalgamation was exceedingly fertile.
The Assyrians can lay no such claim to originality. In most cultural matters they were
borrowers and, like the Romans from the Greeks, tended to obscure any original fea-
tures in their civilization with importations from Babylonia. Their pattern of life was

2 For a fuller account of this history see in German A. M OORTGAT in A. S CHARFF and A.
M OORTGAT, Ägypten und Vorderasien im Altertum; and H. SCHMÖKEL, Geschichte des alten Vor-
derasien. In English a less full treatment is given in the relevant chapters of J. FINEGAN, Light from
the Ancient Past.
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 13

certainly different, but that is largely accounted for by the needs of a state which grew
up and thrived on militarism, and by the influence of the Hurro-Mitannian civilization.
The contribution of the Aramaeans was not very great. A more or less fixed pattern of
thought had been worked out before they arrived. They must have altered profoundly
the tone of everyday life, but their influence was least on the priestly scholars. Since
they were constantly being increased by further immigration they eventually imposed
their own civilization on their hosts, but in the process they absorbed some of the more
popular elements of Babylonian culture and passed them on to the Near Eastern world.
This last matter raises a very important point. Morals in any age can be divided into
two categories: the standards actually practised among the mass of the population, and
the ideals proclaimed by thinkers or prophets. The degree of divergence between these
two standards differs from age to age, and even within one period urban and rural
communities, for example, may not be uniform. In the ancient world the only works
written about morals are the compositions or compilations of scholars. The descriptive
anthropologist did not exist. It will be understood that popular moral standards can only
be found by a careful scrutiny of all the evidence which may reflect them. The written
ethical texts themselves fall into two main groups: direct moral exhortations, and
hymns which contain sections devoted to this matter. In Sumerian the former category
is represented by one named work, the Instructions of Shuruppak. Shuruppak was the
father of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah. As in Genesis, the Sumerian flood was an evi-
dence of the gods’ displeasure with mankind, and admonitions are therefore given in
connection with it. Noah transmitted to the human race a group of commandments,3
and Ziusudra, his counterpart, received a corpus of moral teaching from his father. On-
ly a small portion of this text is yet published.4 A fragment of a Babylonian translation
is also known, preserved on an Assyrian tablet of about 1100 BC,5 which is an indica-
tion of the popularity of the work. Parts of other similar Sumerian works are also
known, and they are for the moment the best representatives of this genre of Sumerian
literature.6 In Babylonian there is also a collection of similar material, more prolix in
style, and usually termed Counsels of Wisdom by modern scholars.7 An independent
paragraph of another Babylonian work of the same kind has also survived.8 The second
category of ethical texts, hymns, is best known from hymns to gods or goddesses of
justice. Those to the sun-god, the Sumerian Utu or Babylonian Shamash, usually al-
lude, at least in a general way, to his concern for justice, and a few enter into lengthy
exhortations. Perhaps the best example is a long hymn to Shamash of 200 lines of Bab-

3 Genesis 9: 1–17. The divine ordinances were developed so that in Rabbinic literature they are a
series of laws binding on the whole human race (see E. SCHÜRER, History of the Jewish People in
the Time of Jesus Christ (English translation), II/2, p. 318).
4 See S.N. K RAMER , From the Tablets of Sumer, p. 290. [See now B. A LSTER, Wisdom of An-
cient Sumer, Bethesda 2005, pp. 31–220.]
5 KAR 27 apud H. Z IMMERN , ZA 30, pp. 185–87; and W.F. A LBRIGHT, JAOS 38, pp. 60–65.
[BWL, pp. 92–95.]
6 J.J.A. VAN D IJK , La sagesse suméro-accadienne, pp. 100ff.
7 AOTAT 2, pp. 291–93; ANET, pp. 426–27. [BWL, pp. 96–107.]
8 M ACMILLAN, BA 5, pp. 562–64; 624–25. [BWL, pp. 107–109.]
14 Introductory Considerations

ylonian, which contains material very similar in scope to the direct moral exhortations.9
A Sumerian hymn to Nanshe, and a bilingual Sumero-Akkadian hymn to Ninurta are
other noteworthy examples.10
The material indirectly throwing light on moral standards is almost unlimited in
quantity. Any document or remain which helps to build up a more complete picture of
the workings of ancient Mesopotamian society is relevant. Some have a very direct
bearing, such as the Second Tablet of the incantation series known as Shurpu,11 in that
it gives a long list of possible sins. Legal documents are also very valuable. Study of
ancient Mesopotamian law has advanced rapidly during the last fifty years, but com-
paratively little has been done to extract its sociological significance, since the scholars
who have studied it have been mostly philologists or legal experts. A brief orientation
is required here. The earliest piece of Mesopotamian jurisprudence is the decrees of
Urukagina, ruler of the Sumerian city of Lagash c. 2350 BC. To judge from the diverse
wording of the several copies, they must have been delivered orally, and they served to
rectify certain specific social evils.12 Formal Sumerian law codes are known from Ur-
Namma13 of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2050 BC) and Lipit-Ishtar14 of Isin (c. 1870).
These have long prologues which are, inter alia, statements of the raison d’être of the
following laws. Neither is preserved completely, but it is possible to calculate the miss-
ing space of Lipit-Ishtar’s code, and to estimate that the laws must have numbered
about 100. In the Semitic dialects the first law code preserved comes from the town of
Eshnunna.15 Its author is not known, but it is probably not later than 1800 BC. The best
known of all are the laws of Hammurabi (c. 1700 BC).16 The Eshnunna laws are briefer
and less well drafted than the code of Lipit-Ishtar; they number only 60, and instead of
a prologue there is only a date-formula, unfortunately incomplete. Hammurabi’s code
marks a great stride forward. It contained over 250 laws. From Assyrian scribes we
have part of a legal corpus from about 1100 BC.17 The greater part of the preserved mat-
ter deals with the legal position and rights and duties of women. Apart from formal
codes kings from time to time issued decrees (Babylonian ṣimdat šarrim) to deal with
special circumstances. Most of these have perished, but a long decree little different

9 AOTAT 2, pp. 244–47; ANET, pp. 387–89; and A. F ALKENSTEIN and W. VON S ODEN , Sumeri-
sche und akkadische Hymnen und Gebete, pp. 240–47. [BWL, pp. 121–38.]
10 Hymn to Nanshe: S.N. K RAMER , in Bulletin, University Museum, Philadelphia, 16/2, pp. 29–
34. Hymn to Ninurta: J.J.A. VAN D IJK, La sagesse suméro-accadienne, pp. 114–18. [BWL, pp. 118–
20.]
11 A much needed new edition of this series prepared by Miss E. Reiner is appearing as a Bei-
heft to AfO [now E. REINER, Šurpu: A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations, (AfO B
11)].
12 See S.N. K RAMER in Israel Exploration Journal 3, pp. 217–32. [See now D. F RAYNE, RIME
1, pp. 248–75.]
13 S.N. K RAMER and A. F ALKENSTEIN, OrNS 23, pp. 40–51. [See now M. C IVIL in CUSAS 17,
pp. 220–86.]
14 ANET, pp. 159–61.
15 ANET, pp. 161–63; A. G OETZE, AASOR XXXI.
16 ANET, pp. 163–80; G.R. D RIVER and J.C. M ILES, The Babylonian Laws, I, II.
17 ANET, pp. 180–88.
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 15

from a set of laws is known from king Ammi-ṣaduqa of Babylon (c. 1570), though only
one small piece is yet published.18
Three points in connection with the law codes at once strike the modern reader. The
first is that the laws seem to avoid studiously any general principles. “Thou shalt not
kill, thou shalt not steal” are lacking. The Eshnunna laws do not deal with murder.
Manslaughter, however, is involved in several, such as the law about keeping a goring
ox.19 Similarly with theft; the crime as such is not even mentioned. However, there is a
law which prescribes death for a nocturnal burglar, but a fine for one apprehended by
day.20 This is characteristic of all the law codes. They are remarkable for the very pre-
cise and fixed circumstances for which they regulate. Clearly they were not intended as
a comprehensive set of rules for society. They presume a fixed body of accepted norms
and proceed to legislate for those cases where growth and change of society gave rise
to circumstances for which no traditional ruling existed. In particular the very complex
commercial life with its inherent dangers of the profit motive needed regulating, and
for that reason the Mesopotamian laws seem to the modern reader to have a very secu-
lar flavour. The Hebrew social laws offer a very welcome contrast. Economically and
socially the Hebrews were much less developed than the Mesopotamians, so that com-
mercial law is much less extensive. The keener moral sense of the Hebrews, however,
resulted in a grasping of the vital character of basic moral principles, so that the Ten
Commandments are a more direct statement of standards than anything preserved in
Mesopotamian law.
A second factor deserving attention in connection with law, and one which cuts
across what is written in the preceding paragraph, is the growth of a legal tradition.
Once incorporated in a code, a given law is liable to turn up in later codes whether or
not it was vital to the life of the community concerned. In attempting to use the laws as
social documents the constant legacy must be remembered. To some extent old laws
were brought up-to-date and were worded more explicitly.
The third and most perplexing observation to be made is that these laws do not seem
to have been observed. It is quite certain that two contracting parties were free to disre-
gard the requirements of the law if they so wished. Nor was there any adequate ma-
chinery for insuring that laws were observed. Knowledge of legal proceedings is pre-
served in hundreds of cuneiform records, and other documents showing how business
was transacted have turned up in their thousands, but never once is a law cited or re-
ferred to. Only very rarely is a royal decree (ṣimdat šarrim) mentioned. With some of
Hammurabi’s laws the suspicion is aroused that they never could be enforced. If, for
example, every surgeon who performed an unsuccessful operation was punished by
having his hand cut off,21 the whole profession would obviously disappear from socie-
ty.
At the risk of oversimplifying the matter, the following conclusions will at least help
to throw light on the nature of Mesopotamian law. It is a combination of two very di-

18 C.J. G ADD apud Symbolae Koschaker, pp. 102–105; cf. B. L ANDSBERGER , JCS 8, p. 63 148.
[See now F.R. KRAUS, Königliche Verfügungen in altbabylonischer Zeit, Leiden 1984.]
19 §§ 53–55.
20 §§ 12–13.
21 § 218.
16 Introductory Considerations

verse elements. On the one hand it offers precise regulations for specific needs of so-
ciety, and incorporates some old traditional rulings. On the other hand it offers an ideal
of legal decisions to be taken as a pattern rather than a working manual. Behind this
structure the true nature of Mesopotamian social behaviour stands out very clearly. De-
spite the advanced and complicated commercial life, morals were still very much in the
“tribal” stage. Everyone knew the basic requirements in social life, and there was no
need to have them put in writing. All citizens, but especially the rulers, were guardians
of the standards demanded and were presumed to uphold them in their respective
spheres: rulers over cities, elders over districts and quarters of cities, and parents over
children.
If then morals were a concern of the community at large, it is natural to expect to
find evidence of popular teaching such as ordinary people could understand and use. A
criterion of what is and what is not popular in ethical precepts can be stated. That
which spreads most easily from one culture to another can be considered popular. A
comparison of the spread of Aesopic material over Europe and Asia with the spread of
Aristotle’s works brings out the great mobility of popular teaching. We must not be too
strict in our definition of “teaching”: Mickey Mouse and the comics of today have their
popular ethical standards, and the ancient world did not lack similar material.
There is good reason for believing that the Sumerian and Babylonian texts contain-
ing moral exhortation, to which reference has already been made, are popular precepts.
The material is made up of short mutually independent sections such as could easily be
committed to memory. The mobility of the material can be seen from the following ex-
tracts:
Do not show an angry face where there is a dispute. When a dispute, like fire, is consuming someone,
seek to extinguish it!
Sumerian Precepts22
Do not frequent a law court, do not loiter where there is a dispute, for in the dispute they will have you as
a testifier, then you will be made their witness and they will bring you to a lawsuit not your own to af-
firm. When confronted with a dispute, go your way; pay no attention to it. Should it be a dispute of your
own, extinguish the flame!
Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom23
Stand not between persons quarrelling, because from a bad word there comes a quarrel, from a quarrel
there comes war, from war there comes fighting, and you will be forced to bear witness; but run from
thence and rest yourself.
Arabic version of an Ahiqar saying24
If there is a quarrel in a street, do not go that way, lest as you pass you get involved in some unpleasant-
ness. For, if you undertake to separate them, you will receive blows and get your clothes torn. If you
stand there and watch, you will be required to give witness before the court. Let it be your abomination
to receive blows, and refrain from giving false witness.
Syriac text of Menander the Egyptian25

22 J.J.A. VAN D IJK , La sagesse suméro-accadienne, p. 106, 17–18. [See now B. A LSTER, Wisdom
of Ancient Sumer, Bethesda 2005, p. 247.]
23 Lines 31–37. [BWL, p. 101.]
24 F.C. C ONYBEARE, J. R ENDEL H ARRIS and A.S. L EWIS, The Story of Aḥiḳar, p. 137, 54.
25 J.-P. A UDET, RB 59, p. 65, 20.
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 17

Despite the differences of these extracts the similarities show beyond doubt a deri-
vation from one and the same popular theme. The first two share the metaphor of ex-
tinguishing a fire. All but the first have the same warning about the danger of being
compelled to be a witness. The very content of the theme is popular, and a poor man’s
philosophy. The rich and powerful need not be so careful of quarrels. As well as
themes it is even possible to isolate moralising dictums, as in the following extracts:
Do not insult the downtrodden and [...] Do not sneer at them autocratically. With this a man’s god is an-
gry, it is not pleasing to Shamash, who will repay him with evil. Give food to eat, beer to drink, grant
what is asked, provide for and honour. In this a man’s god takes pleasure, it is pleasing to Shamash, who
will repay him with favour. Do charitable deeds, render service all your days.
Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom26
You give the unscrupulous judge experience of fetters; you make him who accepts a present and yet lets
justice miscarry bear his punishment. As for him who declines a present, but nevertheless takes the part
of the weak, it is pleasing to Shamash, and he will prolong his life ...... What is he benefited who invests
money in unscrupulous trading missions? He is disappointed in the matter of profit and loses his capital.
As for him who invests money in distant trading missions and pays one shekel per ..., it is pleasing to
Shamash, and he will prolong his life. ... As for the honest merchant who weighs out loans (of corn) by
the maximum standard, thus multiplying kindness, it is pleasing to Shamash and he will prolong his life.
Babylonian Shamash Hymn27
What is not pleasing to Shamash I have not done.
Babylonian inscription of king Kudur-Mabug, c. 1780 BC28
Two things [which] are meet, and the third pleasing to Shamash: one who dr[inks] wine and gives it to
drink, one who guards wisdom, and one who hears a word and does not tell.
Aramaic Ahiqar saying29

One can almost hear the street-corner moralists in Babylon condemning this as “not
pleasing to Shamash”, and condoning that as “pleasing to Shamash”. More material of
this kind can be found, but only one text has claim to contain popular sayings in an un-
contaminated form. It is a tablet written in Assyria during the reign of Sargon II (716
BC),30 and linguistic evidence suggests that in its present form at least the sayings are
little older than the tablet. Thus the material is from the time when Aramaic influence
was strong, and this may well account for several sayings which exhibit a typically
Semitic revulsion for the pig, e.g.:
The pig is not fit for a temple, lacks sense, is not allowed to tread on pavements, an abomination to all
the gods, an abhorrence to (his) god, accursed by Shamash. III 15–1631

The Sumerians had no such objection to the pig, and this marks therefore a Semitic fea-
ture of these popular sayings.

26Lines 57–65. [BWL, pp. 101–103.]

27Lines 97–119. [BWL, p. 133.]
28 RA 11, p. 92, I 6–7.
29 ANET, p. 428b, vi 92–93. [See now B. P ORTEN and A. Y ARDENI, Textbook of Aramaic Docu-
ments from Ancient Egypt, vol. 3, Jerusalem 1993, p. 49, 95 (187).]
30 E. E BELING , MAOG 2/3, pp. 40–50. [BWL, pp. 214–20.]
31 [BWL, p. 215.]
18 Introductory Considerations

From such popular material it is possible to obtain some idea of the moral ideals and
standards of ordinary people. In the first place they had a definite set of standards
which were observed because it would invoke divine displeasure to transgress them.
Shamash was the god in particular who presided over these matters, and there is a con-
siderable quantity of evidence showing the popular esteem for this god, who just
missed being one of the great gods in the priestly pantheon. To transgress one of the
accepted rules would result, in the long run at least, in punishment. Tyrants and bullies,
thieves and liars will all eventually receive their due reward in this life. One of the
popular sayings goes:
The sycophant stands in court at the city gate. Right and left he hands out bribes. The warrior Shamash
knows his misdeeds. IV 8–1032

Another reads:
The maligner speaks hostile words before the ruler, talking cunningly, uttering slander. The ruler, think-
ing it over, prays to Shamash, “Shamash, you know! Hold him responsible for the blood of the people”.
IV 11–1433

One of these sayings is also found, slightly altered, as an Aesopic fable, and this clearly
implies a moral from the dialogue of the two creatures:
A mosquito, as it settled on an elephant, said, “Brother, did I press your side? I will make off at the wa-
tering place.” The elephant replied to the mosquito, “I do not care whether you get on – what is it to have
you? – nor do I care whether you get off.” III 50–5434

In other words, Do not overestimate your own importance.

Thus the philosophy of the ordinary people was not very profound: a belief that right
ultimately prevails, with a liberal seasoning of common-sense maxims for surmounting
the trials of life. It has, indeed, very much in common with the everyday philosophies
of many peoples in the ancient Near East and even further afield.
The intelligentsia of ancient Mesopotamia evolved their doctrine of ethics from their
Weltanschauung. From the very beginning the Mesopotamian view of the universe had
been in theory and practice theocentric. The gods had created the universe and man
came into being purely to serve the gods. The relationship was that of slave to master
so that ethical theory was very simple: right conduct was to fulfil the divine commands,
sin was a neglect so to do, or to do anything displeasing to the heavenly lords. Sinners
could expect to be punished, while the dutiful could hope for crumbs of reward to fall
from their masters’ tables. All such recompense had to be paid off in this life since the
ancient Mesopotamians looked for no bliss in the afterlife. The souls of the departed, it
was believed, if proper burial and funerary offerings were provided, would cross the
Hubur river, the Babylonian Styx, and enter the subterranean realm. There is reference
to a judgement there, and one text even promises differing kinds of eternity according
to one’s achievements on earth (a spirit is being questioned about the underworld):

32 [BWL, pp. 218–19.]

33 [Ibid.]
34 [BWL, pp. 216–19.]
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 19

“Have you seen him who was slain in battle?” “I have. His mother and father care for him, and his wife
weeps over him.” “Have you seen him whose body lies in the open country?” “I have. In the underworld
his spirit has no rest.” “Have you seen him whose spirit has no one to care for it?” “I have. He eats the
pot-scrapings and scraps which lie in the streets.”35

This extract is immediately preceded by lines which promise a slightly better position
for those with large families, but unfortunately they are too damaged to render a trans-
lation purposeful. The family allowances of the ancients were apparently not paid until
death. However, contrary to the impression which these passages might give, it is cer-
tain that an afterlife played no real part in the cosmological thinking of the Sumerians,
Babylonians, or Assyrians. The underworld was a dreaded, gloomy place:
... to the house of darkness, the dwelling Irkalla, to the house from which those who enter do not depart,
to the road from which there is no turning back, to the house wherein those who enter are bereft of light,
where dust is their fare, and clay their food, who see no light, but dwell in darkness, who are clad in a
garment of wings like birds. Over door and bolt dust is spread ....36

A gloomy foreboding of this kind gave a certain pessimistic tinge to Mesopotamian

thought. A Sumerian king and warrior hero from the very dawn of history, Gilgamesh,
is said in later tradition to have been overcome with this thought, and these words are
attributed to him:
Who, my friend, can scale hea[ven]? The gods live with Shamash for ever, but the days of mankind are
numbered. Whatever they do is wind.37

Another writer has this line:

Mankind and their achievements alike come to an end.38

In short, All is vanity and vexation of spirit.

In Sumerian times the whole country was organised to fulfil the theocentric ideal.
Each city state had its own god or gods. They were the actual owners of the city and the
surrounding land. On earth a ruler was charged with the duties of supervision, much
like a bailiff. The houses of the gods, the temples, were not only places of worship, but
also economic centres, and certainly the most imposing group of buildings in the whole
city. Much of the land belonging to the city was directly owned and worked for the god
with an organization not altogether unlike that of a Soviet collective farm. Sumer con-
sisted of many such communities each devoted to its own god or gods. The fate of each
city in the frequent struggles for power was intimately bound up with the deities con-
cerned. A ravaged city was as much a pain to the divine owners as to the human occu-
pants. The incoming Old Akkadians and Amorites soon broke up this theocratic organ-
ization and gradually the ideas about the gods also changed. To the Babylonians the
gods were to a far greater extent an organised group with a unified purpose than they
had been to the Sumerians. The heavenly counsel gradually acquired a single-
mindedness, with profound consequences for the Mesopotamian idea of sin. Misfortune

35 A. H EIDEL, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels 2, p. 101, 148–53. [See now A.R.
G EORGE, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Oxford 2003, pp. 734–35.]
36 A. H EIDEL , op. cit., p. 121, 4–11. [See now G EORGE, op. cit., pp. 644–45, 184–91.]
37 ANET, p. 79 (iv) 5–8. [See now G EORGE, op. cit., pp. 200–201, 140–43.]
38 M ACMILLAN, BA 5, p. 624, 10. [BWL, p. 109.]
20 Introductory Considerations

among the Sumerians seems often to have been interpreted as the haphazard work of
evil demons. Once the gods worked together for a single purpose these evil spirits were
considered to be under control and to have no power to attack the righteous. Now all
personal and collective suffering came to be regarded as punishment for sin.
These basic concepts and their applications to life were applied to ethical problems
with a ruthless consistency. The most common sphere of morals in the relation of man
to man was thrust into the background as a subordinate aspect of what is pleasing to the
gods. While this was utilitarianism in that it seeks the greatest pleasure for the most
important beings, the human race might suffer a maximum of discomfort in its
achievement. The Assyrian god Assur had a martial spirit, and it was for his pleasure
that Assyrian kings piled up the heads of their enemies like heaps of corn. The loss of
dignity which the human race suffered by being the slaves of the gods had bad conse-
quences for the moral life. All standards were set by the gods and the human con-
science played no part, according to the moral theorists, in the grasping and interpreting
of them. The gods spoke, and men should give unquestioning obedience. This submis-
sion, however, was a cause of moral degeneration, for Babylonian thinkers found them-
selves compelled to deny any intuitive knowledge of good and evil on the part of man.
Mankind is deaf and knows nothing at all. What knowledge has anyone at all? He knows not whether he
has done a good or a bad deed.39
People do not know [...] evil and that which is not fit to be seen. A god reveals what is fair and what is
foul. He who has his god, his sins are warded off. He who has no god, his iniquities are many.40

The reasoning here is quite transparent. All misfortune springs from sin. Misfortune
may occur without any consciousness of sin, therefore mankind has no intuitive sense
of right and wrong, and must seek this from divine revelation. More tender souls could
not accept in individual cases that sin had actually been committed, and these Babylo-
nian Jobs had to resign themselves ultimately to a non liquet. The stouthearted intellec-
tuals followed their reasoning to its logical end, and silenced their consciences with the
simple deductions.
Since social responsibility was not regarded as a secular duty or as a social contract
between fellow men, but as an aspect of duty to the gods, more intellectual theorizing
was required to explain just how this was so. The Sumerian myth of Enki and Inanna41
throws a bright light on this matter. The story goes that Enki, the wise god of Eridu,
was owner of sundry arts of civilization, which Inanna wishes to obtain for her own
city of Uruk. Each of these arts is called a me, an untranslatable word, since there is no
corresponding concept in modern European thought. It has been rendered “divine
norm”, and that is perhaps the best approximation to its real sense. In the story the mes
are physical objects. Inanna accordingly makes the journey to Eridu, where she is en-

39 L ANGDON , OECT 6, p. 43, 29–34. [See now S.M. Maul, ‘Herzberuhigungsklagen’, Wiesbaden
1988, p. 234.]
40 H EHN , BA 5, p. 370, K 3419, col. ii + K 3186, 40–43. [Republished by L AMBERT, AfO 19
(1959–60), p. 57. See also P 1 in T. O SHIMA, Babylonian Prayers to Marduk, Tübingen 2011, pp.
85–96.]
41 S.N. K RAMER , Sumerian Mythology, pp. 64–68. [Now G. F ARBER -F LÜGGE , Der Mythos
“Inanna und Enki”, Rome 1973.]
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 21

tertained by Enki. Under the influence of the food and drink Enki yields to Inanna’s
requests, and she quickly seizes her opportunity, loads the mes on her boat, and makes
off with all possible expedition to her own city. When Enki recovers from his banquet,
he recovers his senses and realises his folly. The rest of the story is the account of his
trying to have the boat of Inanna stopped, and of Inanna’s evading all the traps and de-
livering the precious cargo to the townsfolk of Uruk. The importance of this story lies
in its listing of the mes. Rulership is represented by several; the crafts are present: the
carpenter, scribe, weaver, etc.; the arts are represented by music. These we would have
expected. What is surprising to a western mind is such items as: the annual flood, enmi-
ty, falsehood, weariness, rejoicing of the heart, the rebel land, purification, and sexual
intercourse. The theory behind this is clear enough: not only the physical universe is
the creation of the gods, but every aspect of human society is equally a divine prescrip-
tion, and not a human invention. The Sumerian thinkers held that at one time mankind
had lived like animals:
They knew not the eating of bread, knew not the putting on of clothes, ate plants with their mouths like
sheep, drank water from the ditch.42

At a given point of time “kingship was lowered from heaven”, and after the flood a
repetition of this occurred.43 There are many indications that this concept of kingship
continued as the accepted theory of rulership until much later times.
The implications of this theory of social institutions were the basis of ancient Meso-
potamian morality, at least in theory. All human institutions are the gift of the gods, and
to disregard or attempt to alter them is sin. Thus one Babylonian preacher, whose
words on the vanity of existence were quoted above, nevertheless advises his readers:
Take thought for your livestock, remember the planting.44

This is not a common-sense rule to ward off starvation, but a necessity for pleasing the
gods.
Agriculture is a divinely given institution. Similarly one of the Babylonian Jobs de-
clares that he intends becoming a vagrant to escape the evils of organised society:
I will abandon my home ... like a robber I will roam over the vast open country, I will go from house to
house and ward off hunger ....45

His friend at once chides him with irreverence and folly.

In a world thus constituted rulers had a heavy responsibility to shoulder as guardians
of divine principles. The ideal is stated in a bilingual proverb:
The command of the palace, like Anu’s, is sure. Like Shamash, the king loves righteousness and hates
evil.46

Their responsibility to dispense justice is a frequent topic in royal inscriptions, and es-
pecially in the prologues to the law codes. Listen to Ur-Namma speaking of his reign:

42 S.N. K RAMER, Sumerian Mythology, pp. 72–73. [Now P. A TTINGER, ZA 74 (1984), pp. 1–52.]
43 ANET, p. 265.
44 M ACMILLAN, BA 5, p. 624, 14. [BWL, pp. 108–109.]
45 L ANDSBERGER, ZA 43, p. 57, 133–43; ANET, pp. 439–40, 133–43. [BWL, pp. 77–79.]
46 K 4160+13184. [BWL, p. 234.]
22 Introductory Considerations

He did away with(?) the duties, the “big” sailors, those who forcefully seized the oxen, seized the sheep,
seized the donkeys ... He fashioned the 1 bronze sila, regulated the 1 mina, regulated the 1 shekel of sil-
ver (and) stone ... The orphan was not given over to the rich, the widow was not given over to the power-
ful, the man of one shekel was [not] given over to the man of the mina ....47

One of the most interesting statements of the ideal kingdom is given in a letter ad-
dressed to a Late Assyrian king. The writer wished to present a petition to the king, but
had been unable to find a courtier who would take up his case, so in desperation he
writes to the king direct and first tries flattery:
The gods of heaven and earth are exalted in the reign of the king my lord. Old men dance, young men
sing, women and maidens gladly perform the task of womenhood and enjoy intercourse. Sons and
daughters are born, procreation goes smoothly. Him whose sins condemned him to death, the king my
lord lets live. You release him who was in prison for many years. They who were sick for many days
recover. The hungry are satisfied, the parched are cared for, the naked are clothed with garments.48

Despite the mercenary use to which these words were put, there is no difficulty in per-
ceiving the lively social conscience which makes possible such a picture of Messianic
bliss. Other petitioners resorted to a more material form of persuasion, the giving of
presents. Here one must beware of supposing that bribery as such was a crime. Judges
in Mesopotamia commonly accepted such in the same spirit as a modern counsel takes
his fees, and some Assyrian tablets are known which record the receipt of such
“fees”,49 so that their giving was certainly not underhand. The dangers of such a system
are obvious, and passages have been quoted above which condemn abuses.
There are two pieces of literature which specifically advise rulers. The one is a
warning to kings of Babylon against taxing the citizens of Babylon, Sippar and Nippur,
and against misappropriation of their goods. The writer gives an abstract quality and
solemn assurance to his warnings by putting them in omen style:
If a king does not heed justice, his people will be thrown into chaos, and his land will be devastated... If
he improperly convicts a citizen of Sippar, but acquits a foreigner, Shamash, judge of heaven and earth,
will set up a foreign justice in his land, where the princes and judges will not heed justice ....50

The other piece is a section of the Counsels of Wisdom, which offers advice to a pro-
spective vizier:
My son, if it be the wish of the prince that you are his, if you attach his closely guarded seal to your per-
son, open his treasure house, enter within, for apart from you there is no one else (who may do this). Un-
limited wealth you will find inside, but do not covet any of this, nor set your mind on double-dealing.
For afterwards the matter will be investigated and the double-dealing of which you are guilty will be
made known ....51

This is the one section of the Counsels of Wisdom which does not have a general appli-
cation, and the very practical reasoning is striking. The dangers of being found out and
not the anger of the gods are the touchstone.

47
S.N. K RAMER and A. FALKENSTEIN, OrNS 23, pp. 46–47. [Now D. FRAYNE, RIME 3/2 p. 48.]
48
L. W ATERMAN, Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire I, no. 2. [Now S. PARPOLA,
SAA 10, no. 226.]
49 J.J. F INKELSTEIN , JAOS 72, pp. 77–80.
50 F.M.Th. B ÖHL, MAOG 11/3, pp. 1ff. [BWL, p. 113.]
51 Lines 81–89. [BWL, p. 103.]
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 23

In particular duties were laid on the king in large numbers. He was responsible for
any lapse in the provision of offerings or in any other matter at any one of the many
temples under his supervision. Royal inscriptions are full of the details of rebuilding
and redecorating shrines. Donations of votive offerings to the temples were also often
regarded as the most important events in a year. All the lavishing of wealth on the gods
was no impractical matter. The success of the state depended on divine favour more
than on any human schemes. With this in mind the king had to be particularly punctili-
ous in the matter of ritual. In Babylon the king in person must participate in the New
Year festival when the gods met and decided the fate of Babylon for the ensuing year.
During the time of this celebration the king was compelled to go before the statue in
which Bel resided and there the priest removed his regalia. Then the priest dragged him
by the ears to the ground, and he recited, “I have not sinned, Lord of the Lands, I have
not trespassed against your divinity. I have not caused the ruin of Babylon, I have not
decreed its dispersion ....” After Bel’s reply, communicated by the priest, the regalia
were returned, but at that point the priest had the duty of slapping the king’s face. A
flow of tears was a guarantee of a successful year, and their absence of the reverse, so it
may be presumed that the priest would make good use of the strength of his arm.52 On
more than one occasion Assyrian kings had cause to complain of the ritual restrictions
which their religious advisors inflicted on them. The following is an extract from a let-
ter from such advisors answering a complaint:
One day has passed since the king began fasting and has not eaten a morsel. He asks, “How long?” To-
day the king may eat no food. The king is a commoner. At the beginning of the month the moon will
appear, so the king says, “Release me! Have I not been kept waiting? It is the beginning of the month!
Let me eat food and drink wine!” But is Jupiter the moon? Afterwards for a whole year let the king de-
mand food. We have considered the matter, made our prescription, and written to the king.53

It is a matter for surprise that with such a control over kings the priestly class did not
obtrude itself into government more frequently.
Kings and rulers represented the first subordinate grade in the hierarchy of the an-
cient Mesopotamian universe. As they submitted to the will of the gods, so others sub-
mitted to them and to the gods. Social responsibility for the individual consisted in
submitting to all authorities and in doing good to those in need. In the inscriptions of
Esarhaddon there is an account of the wickedness of the Babylonians which led to the
sacking of their town by Sennacherib:
They oppressed the poor and gave him into the hand of the powerful, in the city there was tyranny, the
receiving of bribes. Every day without fail they plundered each other’s goods. The son cursed his father
in the street, the slave [abjured] his master, [the slave girl] did not listen to her mistress ... They laid
hands on the property of Esaggil, the temple of the gods, and sold silver, gold and precious stones to the
land of Elam.54

52 ANET, p. 334, 415ff.

53 L. W ATERMAN, The Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire I, no. 78. [See now S.
PARPOLA, SAA 10, no. 196.]
54 R. B ORGER, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Königs von Assyrien, pp. 12–13. [Cf. E. L EICHTY ,
RINAP 4, p. 195, i 18b–33; p. 203, i 20–37a; p. 220, i 1'–16'.]
24 Introductory Considerations

Here the disobedience of slaves to masters and filial disrespect is put on much the same
level as plundering temple treasures as a cause of divine anger.
If the first point of social morals was respect for authority, the second was certainly
fair dealing and humanity with one’s fellow creatures. Thus unscrupulous business
practices are condemned in the Shamash Hymn, as quoted above. The bilingual hymn
to Ninurta in a gallery of rogues lists: “One who utters slander, who is guilty of back-
biting, who spreads vile rumours about his equal, who lays malign charges against his
brother ...”.55 Kindness to those in need is enjoined in a dialogue between a man and his
god, where the god speaks:
Anoint the parched, feed the hungry, satisfy the thirsty with water.56

At the lowest, social morality consisted in not transgressing those customs which had
come to be considered socially proper, and so morally right. In Assyria, for example,
all respectable women were required to be veiled in public places. Street prostitutes and
slave girls on the other hand might not go veiled in public. The enforcement of this rule
was severe, and a man who failed to report a breach was beaten with fifty stripes. Simi-
larly in the palaces of the Assyrian kings rules were drawn up for the conduct of the
ladies of the harem. One made by Tiglathpileser I reads:
If a woman of the palace with exposed hips or not wearing her panties(?) called to a courtier, “[......] ...
let me send you”, and he delayed and spoke with her, he shall be beaten with 100 stripes. The one who
witnesses to this shall take the man’s clothing, and he shall be tied up with his own belt.57

In the matter of religious observances the private citizen had duties much like the
king:
Every day worship your god. Sacrifice and benediction are the proper accompaniment of incense. Pre-
sent your free-will offering to your god, for this is proper toward the gods. Prayer, supplication, and
prostration offer him daily, and you will get your reward. Then you will have full communion with your
god. In your wisdom study the tablet. Reverence begets favour, sacrifice prolongs life, and prayer atones
for guilt.58

To what extent people actually cultivated their personal gods is not known. There were
certainly some who treated their god as a milch cow, and did not hesitate to demand a
better return for their services or ...! The impression is gained that everyday religion
was dominated by fear of evil powers and black magic rather than by a positive wor-
ship of gods. And not without good reason. The world was conceived to be full of evil
demons who might cause trouble in any sphere of life. If they had attacked, the right
ritual should effect the cure. There is an abundance of such rituals from the priestly
schools, and the tradition of “Chaldeans” which the Babylonian religion left on its
neighbours is an evidence of the predominating part which such rites held. Humans, as
well as devils, might work evil against a person by the black arts, and here too the ap-

55
J.J.A. VAN D IJK, La sagesse suméro-accadienne, p. 115, Face 5–10. [BWL, p. 119.]
56
J. NOUGAYROL, RB 59, pp. 239ff., 62–63; cf. W. VON SODEN, OrNS 26, p. 319. [W.G. LAM-
BERT in F. R OCHBERG -H ALTON ed., Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical
Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, New Haven 1987, p. 193.]
57 E. W EIDNER , AfO 17, p. 287, 105–107.
58 Lines 135–45. [BWL, p. 105.]
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 25

propriate ritual was required. A study of the spells used, such as we have them from the
compilations of the priests, shows that they do go back to a popular tradition in some
cases, but this whole field of magic is too big and too remote from our topic to be pur-
sued further here.
Against this kind of background in life morals and magic were inextricably con-
fused. There was no distinction, such as we tend to make, between morally right and
ritually proper. The god was just as angry with the eating of ritually impure food as
with oppressing the widow and orphan. His anger would be appeased no less with the
ritual offering than with a reformed life. This was certainly one of the greatest defects
of Mesopotamian thought, for it allowed the less salubrious elements to thrive un-
checked.
Sexual life is that sphere where Mesopotamian standards different most from our
own. The basic cause underlying the phenomena is the worship of the Sumerian Inanna
and her Babylonian successor Ishtar. Many members of the Mesopotamian pantheons
were personifications of parts or aspects of nature. Among other truths, it had been
grasped that “all life depends on love alone”. It was then only logical that sexual poten-
cy should be personified in a goddess of love and procreation. Add to this the fact that
the Sumerians, like the Eskimos, had no sense of modesty about these matters, and the
way is prepared for understanding the position. Thus the Sumerian signs for “male” and
“female” are originally simplified drawings of the sexual parts, and “married person”
was expressed by a juxtaposition of the two. In married life a dual set of standards was
involved, one for the wife and one for the husband. The wife was circumscribed, and
adultery was a serious crime for which the punishment could be death. The woman and
the adulterer had done wrong against the husband. The husband contrariwise was in no
way expected to limit his sexual life to his own bedroom. Provided that he kept clear of
other men’s wives, he was quite free. With certain restrictions for special cases, the du-
al standard is also seen in the matter of divorce. According to Hammurabi’s laws a
husband is not compelled to have a very good reason for divorcing his wife, but a wife
must produce strong evidence of her husband’s cruelty before she may leave him. A
husband was also free, within certain limits, to have more than one wife, and concu-
bines and slave girls were thought nothing of, but polyandry was unknown. Unfortu-
nately the normal institution of marriage was not considered adequate glorification of
Inanna-Ishtar, nor did it fulfil a vital role in the life of society.
The sexual act was a profound symbol of fertility, and in the New Year festival it
was performed by a priest, who was also the ruler in early times, and a priestess as a
means of securing general fertility within the state. The rite is portrayed on a few cylin-
der seals, and there are stray allusions to it; otherwise, however, it is little known. The
same applies to cult prostitution. No one doubts its prevalence, especially with the cult
of Ishtar, but little is known of its functioning. The names of various categories of
priestesses are known, all highly respectable persons since kings even dedicated their
daughters, but it is not known if all, or some, or even none of these were especially re-
ligious prostitutes. Money was presumably paid for favours received despite its being a
glorification of a goddess. The swarms of street women may have differed from the
cult prostitutes only in not having other religious duties to perform, for they too were ex
officio devotees of Ishtar. As well as women, men “whose manhood Ishtar has changed
26 Introductory Considerations

into womanhood” offered themselves. Odd allusions in literary texts allow a lurid pic-
ture to be painted of streets and gardens abounding with mating couples. Though there
is no evidence for the use of contraceptives, coitus per anum was practised to avoid
pregnancy. The price of such debauchery was partly paid in venereal disease, and a
large corpus of incantations for recovering lost sexual virility attests the results.
The impression is sometimes given that no protest was ever raised against these ex-
cesses. So far as street women are concerned this is not the case. A bilingual text
known from an Old Babylonian copy (c. 1700 BC) reads:
Why have you slandered the daughter of a citizen, your equal, and called her a street woman so that her
husband left her?59

Similarly the Babylonian Counsels of Wisdom advise against marrying such a lady:
Do not marry a prostitute, whose husbands are legion, a temple harlot who is dedicated to a god, a cour-
tesan whose favours are many. In your trouble she will not support you, in your dispute she will be a
mocker; there is no reverence or submissiveness with her. Even if she dominate your house, get her out,
for she has directed her attention elsewhere. (A variant of the last line is also attested: She will disrupt
the house she enters, and her partner will not assert himself.)60

Here no distinction is made between different species of the kind, but all alike are con-
demned as unfit for marriage. Though the condemnation does not go farther than this, it
may well be a rationalization of a revulsion at this institution.
One matter of sexual life remains. There is quite a remarkable tradition about the
early king and Sumerian hero, Gilgamesh. As to the reliability of such a tradition, there
is an increasing weight of evidence which suggests that while such traditions have been
worked up by the artist so that motives tend to get altered and other changes take place,
nevertheless there does seem to be a sound historical kernel behind them. In the Baby-
lonian Gilgamesh Epic the story is told of how the hero practised what is variously
termed ius primae noctis or droit de seigneur. The passages concerned unfortunately
contain several obscure phrases, but the following lines, which speak about Gilgamesh,
are clear:
He will have intercourse with the destined wife: he first, the husband afterwards.61

The place where this took place is “The House of Kinship” (Babylonian bīt emūti). An
important question about this anthropologically interesting phenomenon is whether it
was just an isolated occurrence attesting the tyranny of Gilgamesh, or whether it was a
regular part of ancient Mesopotamian life. Such a happening could easily be limited to
one particular man of exceptional virility, as was the case with “King Benjamin” Pur-
nell, head of the House of David communistic Christian sect in America during the first
quarter of the 20th century. From court proceedings instituted against him in 1923 it ap-
peared that he had been living in luxury with the unmarried girls of the community, and
had been initiating them in a manner more carnal than was proper for a spiritual leader.
To avoid scandal the girls were married off to the young men of the community as oc-

59
Quoted CAD Ḫ, p. 101a.
60
Lines 72–80. [BWL p. 103.]
61 ANET, p. 78, (iv) 34–36. [See now G EORGE, Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, pp. 178–79, 159–
60.]
 Morals in Ancient Mesopotamia 27

casion required.62 Was this the case with Gilgamesh? From the little we know of early
Sumerian rulers it is clear that they were also the highest religious rank in their towns.
Herodotus, at a much later period, supplies some evidence. He gives an account of a
custom, which is obviously an eyewitness report, whether his own or some other’s need
not be discussed. He states63 that once in their lives all Babylonian women were com-
pelled to offer themselves at a shrine of Ishtar (rendered Aphrodite by Herodotus), and
to give their services to the first man who approached them, in return for a piece of sil-
ver. Commentators hasten to assert that there must be some mistake here, a confusion
with the ordinary religious prostitution.64 However, this was so well known in the
whole of the Near East that it is difficult to believe that an eyewitness in Babylon could
possibly mistake it for something else. If we accept the reliability of the account, one
question needs to be put, which our informant obviously failed to put. At which period
in a woman’s life was this act obligatory? The only answer which has any show of
plausibility is, just before marriage, and, if this was the case, it is a confirmation that
the droit de seigneur continued as a social institution until late times in ancient Meso-
potamian history. It may be added that Herodotus’ account is confirmed by some allu-
sions in the Epistle of Jeremy, 43. This question could also be pursued in other direc-
tions. Was the bīt aštammi, certainly a bawdy house, the same as the bīt emūti? Was the
deflowering of virgins carried on there throughout ancient Mesopotamian history? The
evidence is too slight to permit further speculation.
Probably no one would accuse the Sumerians of having low moral standards.
Though their whole system of thought and life was very foreign judged by contempo-
rary Western standards, there is an earnestness and sincerity about their civilization
which compensates for those social institutions which seem morally revolting to us.
The Babylonian way of life which developed out of this has, in contrast, been con-
demned both in antiquity and in modern times. There is certainly an element of truth in
the alleged low moral standards, and it may well be that the Semitic mind was too emo-
tional to operate healthily within social forms which suited the Sumerians. Strictly
speaking, however, we have little real evidence for a judgement, and there has certainly
been some exaggeration, especially in the ancient Jewish writers. The Epistle of Jeremy
says of the Babylonian gods:
They can save no man from death, neither deliver the weak from the mighty. They cannot restore the
blind man to his sight, nor deliver any that is in distress. They can show no mercy to the widow, nor do
good to the fatherless. (36–38).

Actually all these points are claimed by the gods and goddesses of Babylon, and their
followers professed to apply such standards in their lives.

62 E.T. C LARK, The Small Sects of America2, p. 154.

63 Book I, 199.
64 W.W. H OW and J. W ELLS, A Commentary on Herodotus I, p. 151.
 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods
Superstition, Philosophy, Theology∗

First, a few words on the subject-title. The area “Mesopotamia” is wider than the area I
shall deal with mostly, which is the terrain roughly between the modern Baghdad and
Basra. This small area was a cultural powerhouse in the ancient world, Sumerian in the
third millennium BC, Babylonian in the second and first millennia. The terms “supersti-
tion”, “philosophy” and “theology” have been deliberately chosen as raw, crude terms
to avoid a powerful terminology which would take over the subject by imposing its
own concepts on the discussion. By “superstition” the emotional content of religion is
meant; “philosophy” is used to refer to the rational element in religion (with an implicit
objection to those who might wish to assert that abstract thought began with the
Greeks); and “theology” refers to the amalgam of these emotional and rational ele-
ments.
The area concerned, the southern end of the Mesopotamian plain, is not particularly
hospitable for human habitation. It is watered by the flooding of the Tigris and Euphra-
tes in the late spring and early summer, but for most of the year is dry, lacking any use-
ful rainfall, and naturally devoid of trees and most plant life, apart from the marshes
adjacent to the Persian Gulf. In summer the climate becomes unbearably hot, while the
winter is chilly. The main natural resources were clay, since it is an alluvial plain, and
reeds, which grew especially in the marshes. There is no local source for metals, and
not much useful stone is within reach. Yet this area sprang ahead of the surrounding
regions in material culture at about the end of the fourth millennium BC and remained a
cultural leader until the spread of Hellenism after Alexander. The reasons can only be
guessed, but the inhospitable terrain may be one of the factors. After 3000 BC there was
little village settlement, towns composed most of the places where humans lived. One
factor in this development was certainly the need for the mass organization of human
labour to irrigate the cultivable land as the flood rose. The digging and maintenance of
canals (the latter especially as the flood rose) required central direction within each city
or group of cities. In turn the cities resulted in a specialization of crafts that would have
been impossible or unlikely in a village culture. Wealthy government of a village cul-
ture could of course provide resources for craftsmen supplying luxury items, but the
early Sumerian city states provided the bases for both material and intellectual devel-
opments. Furthermore, there is no trace of tribal organization. The cities proved melt-
ing-pots for whoever lived there.
From the times of the earliest surviving knowledge Sumerian city governors were
involved with religion ex officio. The largest buildings in each city were the temples,

∗ First published in Revue de l’histoire des religions vol. 207 no. 2 (1990), pp. 115–30.
 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods 29

built and maintained by the governments of the cities. In each temple there was a deity
who was its owner, and that god in the most important temple in each city was consid-
ered the owner of the city. In practice he or she owned land around the city, employed
labour (both free and serf) to work the land, to look after domestic animals, and to en-
gage in all the various arts and crafts of which the temple had need. Thus the temples
were not simply places of worship, but were large economic organizations, and in this
sense could be compared with Medieval manors. The very name reveals the concept.
The Sumerian word for temple was é “house”, the same word as used for any human’s
house. And this anthropomorphic concept extends much further. The chief deity of any
temple was not the only occupant. There was his or her spouse, their children and,
sometimes, other relatives, then their servants and officials, all considered divine. As an
extreme, in the temple of Marduk, city god of Babylon, it is known that during at least
the period c. 1500 to c. 300 BC Marduk had four divine dogs named “Snatcher”,
“Seizer”, “He got it” and “He howled”, and his wife Zarpanitum had two divine hair-
dressers.1 The Sumero-Babylonian temple was a divine court modelled on human
courts.
According to local mythology the human race had been created by the gods to re-
lieve them of the hard labour of producing their daily bread. This practically meant that
the government had to supply meals to statues of the gods twice daily, and had to
clothe these statues, periodically providing new garments. In addition other items of
personal possession such as seals and jewellery were supplied, and everything had to be
of the best. Hence the need for fields, workers, skilled and specialized craftsmen, work-
shops, etc. So far as practicable temples were self-supporting, though rulers regularly
made personal gifts, and booty of war often found its way to the gods. It was the duty
of the ruler to keep watch over the temples and to take such action as might be neces-
sary to ensure that they prospered. The concept of the divine court not only replicated
human courts, but one may suspect it had served another purpose in prehistoric times.
As will be explained shortly, each city needed the help of the whole pantheon of gods,
and the divine court provided the means of keeping alive the cults of gods within each
city which otherwise might have suffered attrition and have died out. This system of
city-supported temples was practically the concern of the rulers. The temples were not
places of communal city worship. Access to the actual temple building housing the di-
vine statues was highly restricted, and only certain of the temple craftsmen e.g. were
allowed inside. So while the ordinary citizens would certainly be well informed about
the major city deities in the temples and could share in the spirit of the major festivals,
their own religion was something separate, to which we shall return.
In fact the official city cults were from the beginning largely dominated and devel-
oped by theologians. Sumer had been a land of city states traditionally, yet culturally
unified in language and religion. Thanks to the invention of writing at the end of the
fourth millennium BC it is possible to know something of the concepts held of the Su-
mero-Babylonian gods, and so to note how systematic was the pantheon as a pantheon.
There is virtually no duplication in the Sumerian city patron gods, despite the city state
organization of the country and the frequent intercity warfare. Since each city could

1 CT 24, pl. 16, 19–22 and pl. 15, 11–12 and duplicates.
30 Introductory Considerations

only prosper with the co-operation of a whole host of different gods, one is forced to
the conclusion that in prehistoric times there had been a kind of ecumenical conference
in which it had been worked out how the major gods could each be head of one city, so
that so far as practical all the major deities would be thus honoured. The other gods tra-
ditionally worshipped in each locality were then worked into the cults of the major city
gods.
The number of different names of gods and goddesses is in the thousands, but that
does not mean so many separate deities. The moon-god was called both Nanna and
Suen or Sîn, but there was only one moon-god, and there were in fact other less used
names by which he is on occasion called. However, all the better-known gods and god-
desses pertain to particular parts and aspects of nature as known and conceived by the
Sumerians and Babylonians. There was a god of heaven as a cosmic location, a goddess
of the earth, both a god and goddess conceived in various sources as ruler of the neth-
erworld. The sun, moon and Venus were also considered deities, the first two male, the
third, as in Classical antiquity, female. However, most stars, constellations and planets
were thought of as heavenly stations of deities with other major abodes elsewhere. Oc-
casionally mistakes were made, and since they held that all rivers and springs drew on a
vast subterranean lake, there was a deity presiding over that cosmic area. Cosmic func-
tions and processes were also represented in the pantheon by deities concerned with
them. There was a god of the storm, more than one deity of cereals, a god of cattle, and
various deities concerned with the human crafts: of dairy farming, of brewing, weav-
ing, etc. It would seem that there was no aspect of the universe as they knew and con-
ceived it for which there was not at least one patron deity. That those with obviously
greater cosmic importance, such as the goddess of the earth, are more important than
those concerned with human crafts, such as weaving, may imply both the strength of a
millennia-long tradition and common sense on the part of the ancient theologians.
Thus the official pantheon of Sumer and Babylon is easily seen as the outcome of
reflection on the universe: these ancients were surrounded by forces of nature, real or
imagined, which they identified as persons of superhuman power. There was always
some ambiguity about the precise relationship of the deity to the aspect of nature,
whether, for example, the sun-god was in very fact the actual fiery ball moving across
the sky, or whether he was not of human form, living in a palace and directing the actu-
al solar body in its daily motions from a distance. Probably they were not so conscious
of such problems as we are.
Certain developments in the understanding of this pantheon can be observed over
the course of history, and these are revealing for the ancient conceptions of the gods.
The most conspicuous one, which continued all down history, was the outcome of tak-
ing an overall view of the gods of all the cities. Just as the Greeks tended to identify
foreign gods with the nearest one in their own religion, so Sumerian and Babylonian
thinkers identified similar gods as judged by their attributes though they were entirely
separate in their cults and in their names. Obviously the sun-god Utu of Larsa was the
same as the sun-god Shamash of Sippar, but the process went beyond such undeniable
identities and proceeded to equate gods and goddesses which were only similar in cer-
tain but not all of their attributes. Thus Ningirsu of Lagash, Ninurta of Nippur, and
Zababa of Kish were alike considered the chief son of Enlil, and were so identified, but
 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods 31

so far as knowledge is available it would seem that in the earliest known times they
were in other aspects by no means identical. In some cases, such as with the god of a
big town and the gods of nearby smaller towns, it may be suspected that power politics
resulted in the major god of the big town swallowing up the smaller gods of the neigh-
bouring smaller towns. Marduk of Babylon became identified with Tutu of Borsippa.
Thus by both theological thinking and by the power of priests of major temples the to-
tal number of different gods was diminished over the centuries. One practical result of
this was an increase in the names of the major gods. A name was not merely an identi-
fication tag, but had meaning, either the actual philological meaning of the word or
combination of words, or a meaning extracted from the name by what we would con-
sider bogus philology. Names were split into syllables and were then interpreted from
the many Sumerian monosyllabic roots, many of which were homophones of other
Sumerian roots with totally different meanings. The system was sufficiently flexible
that almost any desired meaning could be extracted from a name by this method. Thus
each name had one or more meanings, which enshrined theological truth about the god
to whom the name belonged. In the later second and in the first millennium Marduk
had fifty names, the total consisting of his own names and epithets, then those of other
gods whom he had absorbed by being equated with them by the theologians. The final
step in this process also involved Marduk, who by the late second millennium had be-
come head of the pantheon. Some theologians took the final step of identifying all the
major male deities of the pantheon with him, so that a kind of monotheism resulted.
However, his spouse Zarpanitum and all the other goddesses (perhaps conceived as
identified with Zarpanitum) remained as separate beings, and presumably demons also
retained their identities. However, belief in a devil or demons has not been held to in-
validate claims to monotheism on the part of major world religions of the Christian era.
Before Marduk achieved headship of the pantheon there were other concepts of or-
ganization within the pantheon. So far as our knowledge goes back there had always
been more and less important gods, so judged either from their cosmic significance, or
from the prestige of their cities, or from a combination of both. From the end of the
third millennium to the end of the second millennium there was a committee of top
gods who exercised power, in a sequence which also illustrates their concept of the
physical universe. An (Sumerian) or Anu (Babylonian) bore as name the Sumerian
noun “sky”, and that was his sphere. He was a kind of president of a socialist state:
nominal head but not wielding day-to-day power except in emergencies. Between
heaven and earth there was a gap in which human activity took place. The god of this
space was Enlil. He lived on earth in his town Nippur and so concerned himself with
human activity, being the most important god for the human race. The earth itself was
considered female, presumably as the recipient of the fertilizing rain sent down by fa-
ther heaven, and a third member of this committee was the Mother Goddess, known by
a variety of names: Ninhursag, Nintu, Aruru, and Belet-ili. Her position in the top
committee is not invariable – she can be lacking – but the reason for her position is
clear. She occurs below the space in the universe in which humans operate. The final
member of the Committee was Enki (Sumerian) or Ea (Babylonian), both names of un-
known meaning. He was god of the subterranean lake, called Apsû, from which all
springs and rivers draw their water.
32 Introductory Considerations

Thus the second-millennium committee of three or four was replaced by a single

head in the first millennium. But generally there was a remarkable conservatism about
the Mesopotamian gods. They remained in the same temples over the millennia, since
the temple sites were holy and could not be moved. Only the total decline of a city
could result in a cult dying out. Within any cult, however, there could be major changes
over the centuries in the courtiers and other minor gods. Each deity was present in the
temple in a cult image. The majority of these were, it seems, anthropomorphic, though
some may have been of composite monsters. In the second and first millennia these
statues were made of wood, decorated with precious metal and precious stones. At least
to the intellectual Babylonians their religion was not a crude image worship. The statue
was conceived as a less than permanent abode of the divine essence. When a new statue
was made or an old one repaired it was put through a series of rituals which resulted in
the divine presence taking up its abode in the statue, and when a statue was seriously
damaged or worn, it was believed that the divine presence was withdrawn. All this ap-
plied only to the temple statue. Other representations of the gods were also made, some
were indeed mass produced in clay figurines, but these were not the very gods, and did
not go through the rites of vivification.
The question has been raised whether there was not something less developed be-
hind this highly sophisticated scheme of gods as aspects of nature. So far as the organi-
zation of the gods in city temples is concerned the earliest surviving evidence merely
confirms that no major changes took place over history except in the organization of
the gods into a pantheon, and except where cities completely died out and ceased to be
inhabited. There have been suggestions, however, that the anthropomorphic representa-
tions were preceded by a theriomorphic stage. A. Spycket and T. Jacobsen have been
the main contenders for views of this kind.2 In historical times gods had symbols by
which they were generally known, and Jacobsen has argued that these are survivals of a
pre-anthropomorphic stage of religion. In the historical eras the functions of these sym-
bols, which may be manufactured objects or natural things in whole or part, is well
known. First, the major temple statues were so holy that they were not available for
many purposes for which divine presence was needed. In a court, for example, oaths
were taken in gods’ names, and a presence of the god in some form was essential. A
model of the appropriate symbol served instead of the statue. Thus for Marduk, a spade
was the symbol and no doubt something more elaborate and expensive than a work-
man’s spade was made, but we know that oaths on particular occasions were taken by
the Spade of Marduk. Secondly, in art it was impossible for the most part to distinguish
anthropomorphic gods or goddesses, and especially in small scale art. Thus on seals, if
one wanted the presence of the moon-god depicted, it was usual to put a lunar crescent,
which was technically very simple to engrave, and was very easily recognised. Fur-
thermore, it is known that down the course of history at least a few deities changed
their symbols. The sun-god Shamash was identified by a saw, presumably a symbol of
justice, from c. 2300–1600 BC, but simultaneously by a depiction of the solar disc, but

2 A. S PYCKET, Les statues de culte dans les textes mésopotamiens des origines à la Ire dynastie
de Babylone (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique, 9), Paris 1968; T. JACOBSEN, Toward the Image of
Tammuz, Cambridge, Mass. 1970, pp. 1–38.
 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods 33

only the latter is used on boundary stones c. 1400–1000 BC. The goddess Ishhara was
represented by a viper c. 1800 BC, but by a scorpion c. 1400–1000 BC. Some of these
symbols occur in prehistoric art, so that, no doubt as symbols, they had great antiquity,
but it is not possible to argue that therefore they attest a pre-anthropomorphic stage of
religion. Supporting evidence is lacking. Spycket offers fuller arguments: (i) that no
actual statues have been found from before 2000 BC which are certainly statues of dei-
ties, (ii) that in third-millennium texts statues of rulers are mentioned, but never statues
of gods. The lack of certain examples of third millennium divine statues, if archaeolog-
ically assured (opinion is perhaps not uniform), can be explained either by the accidents
of discovery, or by this and two other factors. It is known that divine statues were rich-
ly adorned with precious metal and stones, so plunderers would be tempted to destroy
them for their materials or to take them, and if the custom of later times of making the
statues from wood prevailed already in the third millennium, then they would not of
course survive in the wet soil of southern Iraq. The lack of mention of divine statues in
texts is not significant since after 2000 BC, when the use of statues for gods is not in
dispute, there is a similar lack of mention of the physical objects. Kings speak of “the
god”, etc. and almost never allude to statues.3 Spycket’s further suggestion that when
the Early Dynastic rulers of Lagash state that they “fashioned” a named deity it means
that they fashioned a statue of themselves and put it in the temple of the named deity,
while grammatically just possible, has not found favour with Sumerian scholars, and
would only be justified if it were known that these rulers did not have statues of their
gods made.
Though the evidence for a pre-anthropomorphic stage of Sumerian religion is at pre-
sent unconvincing, there is evidence for forms of religion which seem to be survivals
from a period before the extreme systematisation which characterises Sumerian and
Babylonian religion. Two kinds of source supply such information, incantations and
personal names. The occurrence of this old material in incantations is explained from
the nature of the texts. They were magic spells, and their effectiveness depended on the
precise form of words. Thus they should not have been altered if they were to be used
successfully. So they preserve all kinds of archaic matter which does not occur in e.g.
hymns and prayers to gods. Many personal names have a divine name as one element,
so that their study is important for the history of religions. Also they come from the
whole spectrum of ancient society, while official religion was the preserve of the
priests and the ruling classes. In this connection it must be stressed that there is no evi-
dence for popular religion among Sumerians and Babylonians being concerned general-
ly with a totally different pantheon from that of state religion. Though the forms of
worship were of course on a much humbler scale, at the niche at home, or at the street
corner shrine, the personal names of workers generally attest the same gods as are
known from the city pantheons. In certain cases, however, there is reason to hold that
some of these personal names were of north Mesopotamian origin, and attest to forms
of religion there, where the Sumerian system did not reach.
The first noteworthy matter from this material is that the concept of the gods as as-
pects of nature extends where it does not in official Sumero-Babylonian religion. The

3 See CAD, I/J, where the seventh meaning of ilu “god” is “image of a deity”.
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