Mesopotamian religion is attested in written texts for the first three thousand years of recorded history. All the same, I shall begin with a few words about the early Mesopotamian view of human life, the gods, and the city. It should be noted that my understanding of early Mesopotamian religious history follows in the main the approach of Thorkild Jacobsen (see especially Jacobsen, 1976; see also Wiggermann, 1995).
The purpose of human life, the purpose of the community, was to serve the gods, to provide them with whatever needs a powerful ruling class, specifically a landed aristocracy, would require. Paramount forms of care are shelter and food. But they represent the developed or classical form of theology and were probably not the original ideology or theology of god and temple. For in the earliest periods, the divine powers were forces of nature, powers experienced in those natural phenomena that were of importance for the survival and growth of the settlers and settlements. In the main, in these early periods, the gods were not human in form.
Gods were linked to specific settlements, and the two, god and settlement, developed together. During the Ubaid period, that is, down to the end of the fifth millennium, we have indications of cult places evolving in the midst of developing villages and towns. It is probable that these cult places served as storehouses for the community and as focal points for rituals directed to the aforementioned powers of nature: rituals of thanks and rituals of revitalization.
As noted, the gods in this period probably had not yet attained a predominantly human physical and social form. They were the forces of nature on which the original settlements had depended for their sustenance. The goal of the earlier rituals was to keep these forces present, vital, and productive. And the cult place would have served as the place where the rites centering upon these forces were carried out. Some of these rites involved the bringing of offerings by the community as expressions of thanks, and perhaps even to allay communal guilt; others took the form of agricultural, magical rituals and served to revitalize nature. These expressions of thanks and magical rituals later became rites of offering and rites of the hieros gamos (sacred marriage), respectively.
Eventually, however, the powers in natural phenomena were anthropomorphized as the masters of the city, the ones who gave sustenance and care to the city and upon whom the city depended. Certainly by the beginning of the third millennium, the characteristic and defining forms of classical Mesopotamian theology had emerged. This new theology was part of the evolution of early civilization and of the development of hierarchical structures within the cities. Naturalistic gods were now seen as manorial lords, as the divine equivalents to the newly emerging human chieftains and kings. Along with a human form, the gods were given families and households. Most important, their homes were now seen as manors or palaces, that is, the temples were now treated as the divine equivalent of the human ruler’s abode. Hence, older cultic centers now became the classic Mesopotamian temples in which the god and his family were treated by his subjects as the ruling class of the city.
In the course of time, then, the nature of the temple and cult changed. There was a shift of emphasis from storage to presentation. The original temples may have served as communal storehouses. This economic function was never lost, and temples developed many rooms and buildings that served for production, storage, and distribution. But the central rooms of the temple were the god’s cella; the temple developed from a locus for natural power to an abode for a divine ruler.
In Mesopotamia, then, by the third millennium the temple had evolved into the god’s home. It was believed that the god had built the city for his or her own residence and sustenance. The god was now regarded as the primary owner of the city, and the city existed in order to support his or her needs. Thus, the temple was not simply a dwelling place to which a god repaired occasionally, but rather a permanent home in which the god and his family lived continually.
The earlier communal festivals, which derived from magical rites for prosperity, remained important for the cult. Communal religion now included a number of annual and ad hoc rituals. Mention should be made of the hieros gamos ritual, various divine processions, the Akitu New Year festival, and laments over dying gods. The king was involved in most, if not all, of these ceremonies; in addition, there were royal rituals, such as those that were performed on the occasion of the enthronement of a new ruler.
But let us focus here instead on the daily service of the god in his temple as reflected in sources from the first millennium bce. The god sat in his cella in the form of a divine statue made of wood overlaid with precious materials and valuable garments. The statue was both alive and holy, having attained identity with a god by means of the “washing of the mouth” ritual. Each day the god and his family were awakened, bathed, clothed, fed, and entertained.1 This daily regimen is nicely illustrated by temple ritual texts from Uruk: there were two main meals during the day, one in the morning and one in the evening, and each of these meals was divided into a lesser and greater course (see, e.g., Sachs, 1969, 343–345; and Linssen, 2004). These meals included beer, wine, cereals, loaves of bread, cakes, meat, etc. Liquid offerings seem to have been poured out as libations. Food was treated differently; after being placed on the god’s table and magically “eaten” by the god, it was distributed to the temple personnel and the king.
The central act of the daily cult was not a sacrifice, in the sense of giving the food over to a fire that consumes it, nor was it the slaughtering of an animal and the pouring out of its blood. Rather, food was placed before the god and consumed by him through that mysterious act that characterizes Babylonian religiosity. As A. Leo Oppenheim noted,
Looking at the sacrifice from the religious point of view, we find coming into focus another critical point in that circulatory system, the consumption of the sacrificial repast by the deity, the transubstantiation of the physical offerings into that source of strength and power the deity was thought to need for effective functioning. Exactly as, in the existence of the image, the critical point was its physical manufacture, so was the act of food in the sacrificial repast. It represents the central mysterium that provided the effective ratio essendi for the cult practice of the daily meals and all that it entailed in economic, social, and political respects.
(Oppenheim, 1977, 191)
The act of killing the animal that provides sustenance to the god is almost hidden behind the construct of feeding the god, a construct that emerges out of a combination of the earlier function of the temple as a place of offering and storage and the later image of feeding a divine king in his palace.
Liturgically, various Sumerian lamentations (mainly, balags and eršemmas) formed the basis of the daily temple service in the first millennium bce (for a recent concise introduction to both city laments and cultic laments, see Löhnert, 2011).2 They focused on the anger of the god, gave expression to the fear of communal abandonment and destruction, and attempted to assuage the god so that he/she would remain calm and relent (Cohen, 1981, 1988; more recently, Löhnert, 2009; Gabbay, 2014a, 2014b [and references there to the works of S. M. Maul]). Thus, for example, during the daily ceremony of “the awakening of the temple,” a balag followed by an eršemma were recited (Linssen, 2004, 27–36).
Basic to Mesopotamian religion is the belief not only that the human community must serve the gods, but also that even when it does so, the gods may still bring destruction upon it; the gods are capricious. (This mentality exists also on the level of the individual.) Mesopotamian civilization is pervaded with a sense of the uncertainty of life. Regardless of one’s actions, the anger of gods could easily be aroused and could destroy individual or communal life. Hence, various rituals were performed prophylactically. Nonetheless, it is perplexing that the aforementioned laments served as the basis of the temple liturgy even when the city and the temple were not under actual threat. Clearly, Mesopotamian society was traumatized. This mentality may simply reflect the frequent periods of warfare and destruction endured by the country or perhaps its climatic conditions. The answer to this conundrum may possibly lie in the formative stages of Mesopotamian civilization rather than in its later history. Perhaps the fear of divine anger central to the daily cult and to so much else in Mesopotamian ritual life is a reflection of a fundamental anxiety that came into being originally as part of the pioneering spirit of building cities and creating civilization in Mesopotamia. Here I follow the lead of Henri Frankfort. In discussing the birth of cities in Mesopotamia, Frankfort noted:
Small wonder, then, that the boldness of those early people who undertook to found permanent settlements in the shifting plain had its obverse in anxiety; that the self-assertion which this city—its organization, its institutions, citizenship itself—implied was overshadowed by apprehension. The tension between courage and the awareness of man’s dependence on superhuman power found a precarious equilibrium in a peculiarly Mesopotamian conception. It was a conception which was elaborated in theology, but which likewise informed the practical organization of society: the city was conceived to be ruled by a god.
(Frankfort, 1956 [1951], 54)
What Frankfort wrote about the founding of the Mesopotamian city might also explain, I think, the fundamental and ongoing apprehension and uncertainty that come to expression in so many areas of Mesopotamian cultural life and the manner in which religion attempted to deal with the underlying anxiety, anxiety that would likely have been aggravated by ongoing historical and ecological conditions.
In Mesopotamia, the city was required to care for its anthropomorphized divine rulers. A classical expression of this human responsibility to the gods is found in the story of Atrahasīs (Lambert and Millard, 1969). The myth is made up of two originally separate parts; each part was an independent solution to the problem of the role of humans in the world. Originally, the gods created cities and lived there by themselves. Because humans had not yet been created, the gods themselves were required to do all the work necessary for their own survival. Not surprisingly, they found the labor of maintaining the cities and of producing and preparing food wearisome and burdensome. The worker gods rebelled and threw down their tools. This impasse was resolved by means of a solution devised by the god Ea (a not uncommon motif in Mesopotamian literature): humanity was created from clay mixed with the blood and flesh of the leader of the rebellion so that they might work and care for the gods. The act of creation was executed by Ea with the assistance of the Mother-goddess. Humans now produced food for the gods. But as we learn in the second part of the myth, humans also reproduced in larger numbers than expected and created a disturbance in the world (human numbers and noise probably reflect problems of city life), so that the great god Enlil, ruler of the earth, could not sleep peacefully. After trying unsuccessfully to decimate humanity, Enlil finally decided to exterminate them by means of a flood. As a consequence, the gods suffered from starvation, for there was no one to provide food for them. One man, Atrahasīs by name, was saved by Ea, the god who had originally conceived the idea of creating humans. After the flood Atrahasīs sacrificed food to the gods on the mountain on which his ark had landed. The gods were delighted with the offering, and their hunger was sated. And now, a new cosmic order was permanently instituted, for the gods realized their folly and recognized their need for human beings. Humanity would never again be destroyed and would permanently provide food for the gods in the form of offerings, but the cost of maintaining a human population would be reduced, for limits would now be placed on the ability of humans to reproduce as well as on the length of the human life span. Thus, humans were given a permanent place in the established order, but their numbers would be limited and death would be institutionalized.3
The city cult centered on its temples. Thus, the temple became the home of the god and his family just as the palace served those same purposes for the ruler; moreover, the rites of the temple reflected in part the way of life of the ruler. The temple was the center of an urban world. The temple and the feeding and care of its gods defined the primary community of the dwellers in the land between the two rivers. To serve the god by supporting and participating in the economy of the temple constituted the mark of membership in the urban community, a community which thus replaced or, at least, overshadowed membership in one or another kinship community such as the family or clan.
The Mesopotamian pantheon derived from a series of local groupings of gods. These local pantheons reflected the natural forces of specific regions; the natural forces represented especially those phenomena that were of economic significance to the local community. Thus, for example, the area of Eridu is marshland and the native gods represent swamps, water, fish, and fowl. Similarly, the pantheon of Ur centers on ox-herding, that of Uruk on date orchards, that of the area north of Uruk in the Eden on shepherding. These phenomena were originally perceived as impersonal forces or numina; the god was perceived as being immanent in the phenomenon. With the development of city-states and the emergence of human rulers as central to their leadership, the gods were also perceived in human images—in anthropomorphic terms—and as transcendental powers behind various natural and cultural phenomena; they were treated and cared for in the same way as rulers. Each set of local gods was seen as the rulers/owners of a settlement. Thus, different city-states belonged to different gods; for example, Enki/Ea was the chief god of Eridu; An and Inanna were in charge of Uruk; Nanna and his consort were responsible for Ur.4
Beginning as local groups, the organization of the gods and their leadership changed over the millennia. During the third millennium these newly anthropomorphized gods were integrated into a larger body and were organized into a regional pantheon centered in Nippur, perhaps in parallel to some form of unification or federation on the human level. In the course of time, the gods assumed first the form of a regional or ethnic pantheon, then that of a national pantheon; with the growth of imperialism, the gods became a universal pantheon with a single ruler. In the first millennium, the main imperial states prior to the Persian domination were the Assyrian and then the Babylonian empires. In spite of whatever changes took place on a regional level over the millennia, the local temples and cults remained viable and the center of religious life of the individual cities.
The Mesopotamian pantheon, already in the third millennium, comprised the gods of the Sumerian and of the Semitic populations, and even syncretized them. The main gods of Babylonia were An, Enlil, Enki/Ea, a mother-goddess, Nanna/Sîn, Utu/Shamash, Inanna/Ishtar, Ninurta, Nergal, Marduk, Nabû, and Aššur. Each individual god was associated with a specific locality but by nature was associated, even identified, with a cosmic and/or human area of activity. A city, a person, or a text may at a certain moment focus on an individual god, but Mesopotamian religions always remain polytheistic. I should emphasize that even with the supremacy of Marduk during the first millennium and the apparent existence of some henotheistic tendencies among some of the intellectuals, Mesopotamia remained polytheistic, with its several cities maintaining the cults of their gods.
Rather than discuss all the main gods of Mesopotamia listed in the preceding paragraph (for these gods, see, e.g., Jacobsen, 1976, chap. 4), I focus instead on Marduk, the divine ruler of the Neo-Babylonian empire, but also make some mention of Aššur, the supreme god of the Neo-Assyrian empire.
Marduk was the god of Babylon and the supreme ruler of the Mesopotamian universe. Beginning as the local god and patron of Babylon, Marduk became the master of the Babylonian national state, the king of the gods, and the absolute ruler of the universe. (For a detailed and nuanced but perhaps somewhat dated understanding of Marduk, see Abusch, 1995 [2nd rev. ed., 1999]).
Marduk’s ascension to the head of the pantheon and the expansion of his powers are related to the gradual elevation of Babylon to preeminence. During the Old Babylonian period, Marduk was incorporated into the Mesopotamian pantheon and considered to be the son of Enki/Ea and a member of the Eridu circle. The connection with Ea probably arose from the desire to link Babylon and Marduk with Eridu, its traditions, and its god Ea; the priests of Babylon were thus able to link Marduk to a major god other than Enlil and a venerable tradition other than Nippur. While there are indications that Marduk was emerging as supreme ruler already during the Kassite period and early in the second Isin period, Marduk seems neither to have replaced the high gods of Babylonia nor to have ascended to the head of the pantheon during most of the second millennium. His elevation seems to have been first publicly articulated only during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1125–1104 bce), when this king restored the plundered statue of Marduk to Babylon. Now, in addition to Marduk’s rule over the city of Babylon, there was an open claim for Marduk’s dominion over the gods and over the whole land. Thus, only late in the second millennium did Marduk take on many of Enlil’s roles and become not only lord of the land but also king of the gods.
During the first millennium, culminating in the Neo-Babylonian empire, the notion of Marduk as king of the gods was systematically carried through to its logical conclusion. This is evident from first-millennium documents describing the Akitu New Year festival in the spring; for at that season, the gods all assembled in Babylon, where Marduk was declared king and destinies for the New Year were determined. Marduk’s cult spread to Assyria before the Sargonids, but it was especially in the eighth to seventh centuries bce, when Assyria attempted to control Babylon, that interesting developments and conflicts surrounding Marduk and Babylon arose. The Assyrians had difficulty assimilating the Marduk cult or even defining an efficacious and stable relationship with Marduk and his city. An extreme form of the conflict is attested during the reign of Sennacherib (704–681 bce) when Aššur was cast in the role of Marduk and assumed his deeds, or Marduk was made to function at the behest of Aššur/Anshar.
Here we should mention two relatively late documents that articulate Marduk’s role as supreme god.
Enūma eliš, the so-called Babylonian Genesis, was recited before Marduk on the fourth day of the month of Nisannu during the Akitu New Year festival. Central themes of the work are the creation of the cosmos, the placement of Babylon in the center of the divine world, and the elevation of Marduk to the position of ruler of the gods. In addition, Enūma eliš also contains a Mesopotamian theory of the evolution of kingship and presents that theory through the story of Marduk (Lambert, 2013).
In the course of the last century, various dates have been suggested for Enūma eliš. In the first flush of rediscovery of the Old Babylonian period and the Code of Hammurapi, the composition of Enūma eliš was dated to that period. More recently, several dates in the latter half of the second millennium have been proposed. Most notably, W. G. Lambert has argued that Enūma eliš was composed during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I as a work celebrating Marduk’s official elevation to leadership of the pantheon. (For various reasons, I am not yet convinced of this date.)5
Another work that centers on Marduk is Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, the so-called Babylonian Job. The point of this composition is to convey the notion that everything—misfortune and fortune—comes from Marduk and that all other forces and considerations are secondary (on the role of Marduk in Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, see, e.g.,W. L. Moran, 2002, 182–200, esp. pp. 187, 193–195; cf. Abusch, 2017a). A traditional, or perhaps simply conventional, religious position is replaced by the all-encompassing Marduk theism. The speaker starts from the premise that his personal (or family) gods were the cause of his suffering, only to discover that, in fact, Marduk is responsible for both suffering and deliverance from suffering. (For the most recent edition of Ludlul bēl nēmeqi, see Oshima, 2014.)
Aššur was the chief god of the Neo-Assyrian empire. The Assyrian pantheon developed somewhat differently from its Babylonian counterpart. Aššur originally was the local numen of the city of that name. With the emergence of Assyrian kingship and the Assyrian state (in the fourteenth century), the god Aššur took on the guise of a full Mesopotamian god and even became the supreme god at the time of the Assyrian empire. A number of Babylonian gods were imported into Assyria, most notably Enlil, Ninurta, and Nabû. During the time of the Sargonids, especially under Sennacherib, Babylonian mythology and rituals centering on Marduk were assigned to Aššur.
Religious or magical acts are undertaken either by an individual on his own behalf or by an exorcist (āšipu) against harmful supernatural forces so as to eliminate them and protect against future attack. The exorcist tries to determine the cause of distress and finds the cause in either personalistic or mechanistic powers within the supernatural universe. The individual may be harmed by various supernatural powers or agencies; some of these are gods, demons, ghosts, tutelary gods, witches, evil omens, curses, and sins.
In addition to the gods, there are, of course, other supernatural beings, the most important of which are the personal gods, demons, ghosts, and witches. These are addressed primarily in the magical cult or cult of the individual and his family.
The cult of the individual is directed to the service of the family or personal god. Stated succinctly, the personal god or the family god was the god of the individual as a social being. The personal god is the personification of the individual’s powers of strength and effectiveness; he is also the personification of right and wrong action. He represents and rewards either effective/realistic actions or proper actions, or both. In the first place, the personal god is a projection of the individual’s powers of effectiveness and procreation. In this role, he is an aspect of ego. But in a clan context, he also represents group or clan norms as well as the responsibility to maintain them. Hence, the personal god is also an aspect of superego or conscience. The personal god was thus an externalization of both the ego and the superego, a representation of the self in the form of externalized, divinized figures, and was viewed as a divine parent.6 As an example of the service required of the human and the help expected in return, note the following passage in Ludlul bēl nēmeqi Tablet II:
4 I called to (my) god, but he did not turn his face to me,
5 I prayed to (my) goddess, but she did not lift her head to me…
12 Like one who had not made libations for his god
13 And did not invoke his goddess at a meal,
…
19 Who did not invoke his god when he ate his food
20 And abandoned his goddess, did not bring a flour-offering.
…
(Translation based upon Lambert, 1960, 39, and Lenzi and Annus, 2010, 35, with minor modifications; cf. Abusch, 2017a, 52, 55n10.)
In the main, demons were regarded as evil and as wholly unsympathetic to human life.7 They personified those destructive powers and events that were unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overwhelming. Originally, at least, they were not part of the cosmos and truly represented the “other.” They were constrained neither by institutions nor by morals. Unlike the gods (who, admittedly, were occasionally demonic), most demons were barely anthropomorphic or anthropopathic (at least, they did not have those feelings that were regarded as humane and civilized). Especially in the early periods of Mesopotamian civilization, demons were modeled upon irresistible natural forces, animals, external enemies and bandits, and the minions of newly emerging warlords or leaders trying to extend their rule. Initially they were even outside the control of the gods. But in the later periods, parallel to—or as a reflection of—the expansion of the powers and reach of the Mesopotamian state, areas and powers that earlier were uncontrollable now became part of an expanded cosmic structure. Demons, too, were integrated into the cosmos; they now came under the control of the gods, and whereas earlier demons lived mainly in the wild, now they lived in the netherworld together with the dead.
167 They are the Seven, they are the Seven,
168 they are the Seven from the source of the Apsû,
169 they are the Seven adorned in heaven,
170 they grew up in a cella in the source of the Apsû.
171 They are neither male nor female,
172 they are the wraiths who flit about,
173 they neither marry nor bear children.
174 They do not know how to spare or save (anyone),
175 nor do they heed prayer or supplication.
176 They are horses bred in the mountains,
177 they (are the) evil ones of Ea, the throne bearers of gods.
178 They always hang about in the street, to cause disruption in the thoroughfare.
179 They are evil, they are evil,
180 they are the Seven, they are the Seven, twice seven are they.
181 They were adjured by heaven, adjured by earth.
(Udug. ḫul V 167–181; translation: Geller, 2016, 211–213)
Eṭemmu (Sumerian gidim) is a spirit, more properly a ghost. After death, what remained was the lifeless body and some form of intangible but visible and audible “spirit.” Wind imagery is associated with ghosts (and demons). Normally, the dead body was buried; moreover, the dead were to be the recipients of ongoing mortuary rites. The unburied or disinterred dead and even those who did not receive proper mortuary rites could become roaming and troublesome ghosts; some texts suggest that they could be relegated to the formless and chaotic world sometimes associated with steppe and winds and could even become part of the demonic world that was neither human nor god, male nor female. (Hence, gidim/eṭemmu could become associated with the demonic class udug/utukku and even be designated as such.) Mention should also be made of the dead who had led unfulfilled lives and were drawn back to the world of the living, either out of envy or malice, or out of the desire to complete “unfinished business” (the líl group). Ghosts that plague the living may either belong to one’s own family or be strangers who have attached themselves to the victim.
The ghost which has set upon me, keeps harassing me, and [does not quit me] day or [nig]ht,
Be it a stranger ghost,
Be it a forgotten ghost,
Be it a ghost without a name,
Be it a ghost that has no one to provide for it,
Be it a ghost of someone who [has no one to invoke his name],
Be it a ghost of someone killed by a weapon,
Be it a ghost of someone who died for a sin against a god or for a crime against a king,
[Place] it [in the care of the ghosts of its family],
May it accept this and let me go free!
(CT 23 15, 6-9; translation: Foster, 2005, 990)
Witchcraft in Mesopotamian sources normally refers to malevolent destructive magic performed usually, though not exclusively, by a human witch, kaššāpu (m.)/kaššāptu (f.). These illegitimate practitioners of magic were motivated by malice and evil intent and used forms of destructive magic to harm other human beings. The belief in witchcraft reflected a feeling of human interdependence and a sense of vulnerability and was the personification of actual or perceived interhuman animosity and conflict. Although lists of witches include both male and female forms, the witch is usually depicted as a woman. The witch was able to control or harm her victim by means of indirect contact (reflecting the belief in the underlying principles of sympathetic magic [analogy and contiguity]): she could steal objects that had been in contact with and represented her victim, make an image in the likeness of her victim and then twist its limbs so that he suffered agony and debilitating disease, prepare figurines and bury them in holes in the wall or in the ground, feed statues to animals, or open up a grave and place the representation of her victim in the lap of a dead person, thus effecting a marriage of her victim and a corpse. Sometimes there was direct contact between victim and witch, for she was also said to cause her victim to incorporate witchcraft by means of food, drink, washing, and ointment; she was described as one who could directly seize and harm the various parts of the victim’s body, could even push, press, and strike his chest and back. In addition to such manipulations and activities, the witch could form an evil word in her heart and utter an incantation. She could send signs that were thought to result in misfortune, evil omens that augured doom.
Though she had special powers, the witch was a human being, but as time went on she also developed a demonic form. Thus, eventually, the witch was also imagined as a demonic being who was able to set other demons against her victim.
The witch, she who roams the streets,
Who continually intrudes into houses,
Who prowls in alleys,
Who spies about the broad ways—
She keeps turning around from front to back,
Standing, in the street she turns foot (progress) around,
(And) in the broad way she cuts off (commercial) traffic.
She robbed the fine young man of his virility,
She carried off the attractiveness of the fine young woman,
With her malignant stare she took away her charms.
She looked at the young man and (thereby) robbed his vitality,
She looked at the young woman and (thereby) carried off her attractiveness.
The witch has seen me and has come after me,
With her venom, she has cut off (commercial) traffic,
With her spittle, she has cut off my trading,
She has driven away my god and goddess from my person.
(Maqlû III 1–16; translation: Abusch, 2016, 305)
Having defined the causal agents and chains of causation, the exorcist would then undertake magical acts (that is, manual rites) and utter magical speeches (that is, oral rites); these manual and oral rites constituted āšipūtu (the exorcist’s craft). Many of these acts and speeches were modeled on types of actions undertaken and types of speeches uttered in the everyday world to deal with actual beings and objects. Depending on the understanding of the cause of distress, the magical actions could take the form of acts of destruction, substitution, bribery and gift giving, burial, transference, binding and imprisonment, or expulsion. The addresses could be either incantations or prayers. These utterances could take the form of demand, request, praise, or other modes of address; these utterances would have been directed either to beneficent natural forces or ceremonial objects, or to the evil beings or forces themselves.
As examples of supplications of the individual, we may cite here two texts drawn from the Akkadian šuilla corpus. Nergal no. 2 and Marduk no. 2 are well-wrought invocations; they compare favorably with the finest examples of individual petitions in the biblical Psalter.8
The prayer Nergal no. 2 typifies the corpus of general šuilla prayers. It contains the three expected sections: (1) a hymnic introduction in which the god is invoked, described, and praised (1–10); (2) a supplication centering upon a petition to the god asking him or her to come to the aid of the petitioner. This central part of the prayer may also include a lament in which the supplicant describes his suffering and perhaps its cause (11–23). (3) Finally, a promise of praise should the deity grant the petition and allow the petitioner to regain a normal life (24). The sections are clearly articulated; they are thematically well developed and, in the main, they have a formal shape.
1 Mighty lord, exalted son of Nunamnir,
2 Foremost among the Anunnakki, lord of battle,
3 Offspring of Kutušar, the great queen,
4 Nergal, all powerful among the gods, beloved of Ninmenna.
5 You are manifest in the bright heavens, your station is exalted,
6 You are great in the netherworld, you have no rival.
7 Together with Ea, your counsel is preeminent in the assembly of the gods.
8 Together with Sin, you observe everything in the heavens.
9 Enlil, your father, gave to you the black-headed ones, all the living, and
10 He entrusted into your hands the herds, the animals.
11 I, so-and-so, son of so-and-so, your servant:
12 The anger of god and goddess has beset me so that
13 Expenses and losses befall my estate (and)
14 Giving orders but not being obeyed keep me awake.
15 Because you are sparing, my lord, I have turned toward your divinity,
16 Because you are compassionate, I have sought you,
17 Because you are merciful, I have stood before you,
18 Because you are favorably inclined, I have looked upon your face.
19 Regard me favorably and hear my supplication.
20 May your furious heart become calm toward me,
21 Pardon my sin, my error, and my misdeed,
22 May the wrath (lit. knots of your innards) of your great divinity speedily be appeased (lit. disentangled) for me,
23 The offended, angry, and irate god and goddess may be reconciled with me.
24 Then will I declare your great deeds and sing your praise!
(Nergal šuilla no. 2; translation: Abusch, 2017b, 16–17)
In contrast to the šuilla to Nergal, the Marduk prayer does not follow the standard form of the type (Introductory Hymn, Prayer, Concluding Benediction); it displays a new pattern: Introductory Hymn (1–9); Capsule šuilla (10–12); Prayer for Success (13–21); Capsule šuilla (22–24); Concluding Benediction (25–27). The form of this šuilla was the result of innovation.
1 Famed mighty one, chieftain of Eridu,
2 Exalted prince, first-born of Nudimmud,
3 Raging Marduk, restorer of rejoicing to E’engura.
4 Lord of Esagila, hope of Babylon,
5 Lover of Ezida, preserver of life,
6 Lone one of Emahtila, multiplier of life.
7 Protection of the land, savior of the multitudes of people,
8 The single great one of chapels everywhere,
9 Your name is sweetly hymned by the people everywhere.
10 O Marduk, great lord,
11 By your affirmative decree, may I live and be well,
12 I will then constantly praise your godhead.
13 Whatsoever I seek may I attain,
14 Place effective speech in my mouth,
15 Fashion an agreeable word in my mind,
16 May courtier and attendant seek agreement on my behalf,
17 May my god stand at my right,
18 May my goddess stand at my left,
19 May the guardian-deity be constantly at my side,
20 Grant me (the power) to speak, to be heard, and to meet with consent (so that)
21 Whatsoever words I utter may meet with consent.
22 O Marduk, great lord, grant me my life,
23 Decree for me a healthy life,
24 In joyfully serving you regularly will I (then) find satisfaction.
25 May Enlil rejoice over you, may Ea exult over you,
26 May the gods of the universe bless you,
27 May the great gods make you happy.
(Marduk šuilla no. 2; translation: Abusch, 1983)
We would be remiss if we did not mention some Mesopotamian beliefs about death and the netherworld here in connection with our discussion of the religious life of the individual.
Death called forth a number of rituals. The body must be buried; otherwise, the ghost will have no rest and will not find its place in the community of the dead, usually associated with the netherworld. In addition, burial is crucial for future care: the dead are to be the recipients of ongoing mortuary rites, which include invocations of the name of the deceased, presentations of food, and libations of water. In this way the dead are cared for and their memory is preserved.9
Burial constitutes a rite of passage, both integrating the dead into the cosmic order and maintaining connections between the living and the dead. The living and dead maintain a permanent relationship and form an ongoing community, and thus burial was crucial because it allowed for the preservation and maintenance of the deceased’s identity after death and for his continued connection with both the living and dead members of the family. Thus, whatever other purposes it served, burial of the body preserved the identity of the deceased and provided a focus and locus for the ghost’s continued existence, for its relationship and place, that is, among the living and the dead. Of course, the conception of the netherworld changed in the course of time. Whereas in descriptions from the early second millennium, this realm is inhabited primarily by the dead (who are still human in form, though they lack animation and energy), later visions are more horrific and describe a netherworld inhabited by monsters and demons as well as by the dead (who no longer look human).
We conclude our reflections on Mesopotamian religion with a short notice about the Epic of Gilgamesh, a profound Mesopotamian reflection on the meaning of life and death (for an edition, see George, 2003; for a collection of my studies of the epic, see Abusch, 2015a, 2015b).
There are at least three major versions of the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh. Around 1700 bce, a Babylonian author created a unified epic about the hero Gilgamesh. This Old Babylonian (OB) account of Gilgamesh is the earliest, perhaps also the most immediately felt and compelling, version of the Akkadian epic. Subsequent to the OB period, the epic circulated throughout the ancient Near East. Not surprisingly, the work underwent many changes and developments, and a number of new versions took form in Akkadian as well as in other languages. The Babylonian version(s) changed and developed during the course of the second and early first millennium. While a number of new recensions and versions took form, the Standard Babylonian eleven- and twelve-tablet versions represent without doubt the two most important post–Old Babylonian Akkadian versions that we possess.
Gilgamesh is presented as an individual who lives on a heroic plane and exists in spiritual isolation. But such a life is unbearable. Gilgamesh seeks immortality as a human being, and in all three versions of the text, he learns that this is impossible. In the Old Babylonian version, Gilgamesh finds a meaningful context within the bosom of the family, creating children who represent him in the future, and accepts the role of builder-king. In the eleven-tablet version, he becomes a responsible ruler who rules his community with wisdom and creates human cultural achievements that outlast his own reign and are passed down to future generations. In the twelve-tablet version, he readies himself to become a normal god who judges dead human beings for eternity.
The story draws together the many strands that make up the identity of Gilgamesh: man, hero, king, god. Gilgamesh must learn to live. He must find ways to express his tremendous personal energy but still act in a manner that accords with the limits and responsibilities imposed upon him by his society and universe. But the work emphasizes the theme of death and explores the realization that in spite of even the greatest achievements and powers, a human is nonetheless powerless against death. Thus, in the final analysis, Gilgamesh must also come to terms with his own nature and prepare for death, for he is both a man and a god, and as both he will experience loss and will die.