fragments of miscellaneous texts.

atarpi.—punishment of world.—riddle of wise man.—nature and universal presence of air.—sinuri.—divining by fracture of reed.—the foundling.—tower of babel.—obscurity of legend.—not noticed by berosus.—fragmentary tablet.—destruction of tower.—dispersion.—site of the tower.—meaning of babel.—chedor-laomer.—the destruction of sodom and gomorrah.

number of stories of a similar character to those of genesis, though not directly connected with the latter, have been included in this chapter, together with two fragments which probably relate, the one to the tower of babel, the other to the destruction of the cities of the plain. the first and principal text is the story of atarpi, or atarpi nisu, “atarpi the man.” this story is on a tablet in six columns, and there is only one copy of it. it is terribly mutilated, very little being preserved except column iii., but there are numerous repetitions throughout the text. the inscription has originally been a long one, probably extending to about 400 lines of writing, and the text156 differs from the generality of these inscriptions, being very obscure and difficult. in consequence of this and other reasons, only an outline of most of the story is given here.

we are first told of a quarrel between a mother named zibanit and her daughter, and that the mother shuts the door of the house, and turns her daughter adrift, the words of the original being “the mother to the daughter opens not her door.” the doings of a man named zamu have some connection with the affair, his “descending into the street on getting” something being mentioned immediately before the expulsion of the daughter; and at the close we are told of atarpi, sometimes called atarpi-nisu, or atarpi the “man” who had his couch beside the river of the north, and was pious to the gods, but took no notice of these things. when the story next opens, we find the god bel calling together an assembly of the gods his sons, and relating to them that he is angry at the sin of the world, stating also that he will bring down upon it disease, tempest, distress, madness, burning and sickness. this is followed by the statement that these things came to pass, and atarpi then invoked his god hea to remove these evils. for a whole year, it would seem, he interceded for the people, and at last hea answered, and announced his resolve to destroy the people. after this the story reads:

1. (hea called) his assembly (by the river) of the north; he said to the gods his sons:

2. ...... i made them 157

3. .... shall not stretch until before he turns.

4. their famine i observe,

5. their shame the woman takes not;

6. i will look to judge the people?

7. in their stomach let famine dwell,

8. above let rimmon drink up his rain,

9. let him drink up below, let not the flood be carried in the canals,

10. let it remove from the field its inundations,

11. let the corn-god give over increase, let blackness overspread the corn,

12. let the plowed fields bring forth thorns,

13. let the growth of their fruit perish, let food not come forth from it, let bread not be produced,

14. let distress also be spread over the people,

15. may favour be shut up, and good not be given.

—–———–———–———–

16. he looked also to judge the people,

17. in their stomach dwelt famine,

18. above rimmon drank up his rain,

19. he drank it up below, the flood was not carried in the canals,

20. it removed from the field its inundations,

21. the corn-god gave over increase, blackness spread over the corn,

22. the plowed fields brought forth thorns, the growth of their fruit perished,

23. food came not forth from it, bread was not produced,

24. distress was spread over the people,

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25. favour was shut up, good was not given.

—–———–———–———–

this will serve to show the style of the tablet. the instrument of punishment was apparently famine from want of rain.

here the story is again lost, and where it recommences hea is making a speech, directing another person to cut something into portions, and place seven on each side, and then to build brickwork round them. after this comes a single fragment, the connection of which with the former part is obscure.

1. seated was the goddess ....

2. to her face also he gave ....

—–———–———–———–

3. anu opened his mouth and speaks; he said to (nusku);

4. nusku open thy gate; thy weapons (take)

5. in the assembly of the great gods when ....

6. their speech? ....

7. anu sent m ....

8. your king sent ....

at present no satisfactory story can be made out of the detached fragments of this tablet, but it evidently belongs to the mythical portion of babylonian history, and it is impossible not to compare the unsuccessful intercession of the righteous man atarpi with the pleadings of abraham on behalf of the cities of the plain.

the next text is a single fragment, k 2407, be159longing to a curious story of a wise man who puts a riddle to the gods.

k 2407.

(many lines lost.)

1. the clothing of the god ....

2. what in the house is (fixed) ....

3. what in the secret place is ....

4. what is in the foundation of the house ....

5. what on the floor of the house is fixed, what ...

6. what the lower part ....

7. what by the sides of the house goes down ....

8. what in the ditch of the house broad nigitstsi ....

9. what roars like a bull, what brays like an ass,

10. what flutters like a sail, what bleats like a sheep,

11. what barks like a dog,

12. what growls like a bear,

13. what into the fundament of a man enters, what into the fundament of a woman enters.

14. then lugal-girra (nergal) heard the wise word the son of the people

15. asked, and all the gods he urged (to solve it):

16. let your solution be produced, that i may bring back your answer.

after this there is a mutilated passage containing the names, titles, and actions of the gods who consider the riddle. it is evident that it is air or wind160 which the wise man means in his riddle, for this is everywhere, and in its sounds imitates the cries of animals.

next we have another single fragment about a person named sinuri, who uses a divining rod to ascertain the meaning of a dream.

1. sinuri with the cut reed pondered ....

2. with his right hand he broke it, and sinuri speaks and thus says:

3. now the plant of nusku, the shrub? of samas art thou.

4. judge, thou judgest (or divinest), divine concerning this dream,

5. which in the evening, at midnight, or in the morning,

6. has come, which thou knowest, but i do not know.

7. if it be good may its good not be lost to me,

8. if it be evil may its evil not happen to me.

there are some more obscure and broken lines, but no indication as to the story to which it belongs.

a specimen of early babylonian folklore may fitly be added here. it is a bilingual fragment which treats of a foundling who was picked up in the streets and finally became a great scholar. unfortunately both the beginning and the end of the story are wanting.

1. he who father and mother had not,

2. who his father (and) his mother knew not,

3. in the gutter (was) his going, in the street (his) entering.

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4. from the mouth of the dogs one took him,

5. from the mouth of the ravens one put him away.

6. in the presence of the soothsayer the .... of his mouth one took.

7. the sole of his feet with the seal the soothsayer has marked.

8. to a nurse he gave him.

9. to his nurse for three years, corn, a cradle (?)

10. (and) clothing he guaranteed.

11. then and ever he hid from him how he was taken (from the streets).

12. his rearer he rooted out (?).

13. the ..... of the milk of mankind he gave him, and

14. as his own son he made him.

15. as his own son he inscribed him.

16. a knowledge of writing he made him possess.

17. for his education (he cared).

one of the most obscure incidents in the book of genesis is undoubtedly the building of the tower of babel. so far as we can judge from the fragments of his copyists, there was no reference to it in the work of berosus, and early writers had to quote from writers of more than doubtful authority in order to confirm it.

men engaged in building columns; from babylonian cylinder.

there is also no representation on any of the babylonian gems which can with any certainty be described as belonging to this story. mr. smith, however, picked out three from a series of these carvings162 which he thought might be distorted representations of the event. in these and some others of the same character, figures have their hands on tall piles, as if erecting them; and there is a god always represented near in much the same attitude. there is no proper163 proportion between the supposed structure and the men, and no stress can consequently be laid on the representations. the babylonian origin of the story is, however, self-evident. according to genesis, mankind after the flood travelled from the east, that is from kharsak-kurra, “the mountain of the east,” now elwend, where the accadians believed the ark to have rested, to the plain of shinar or sumir. both alexander polyhistor and abydenus state that the building of the tower of babel was known to babylonian history, babel, in fact, being the native form of the name which the greeks changed into babylon. the legend of etana given in the last chapter seems to imply that the tower was supposed to have been built under the superintendence of this mythical hero. however that may be, a fragment of the native story of its construction was discovered by mr. smith, and though shockingly mutilated, is sufficient to show what the babylonians themselves believed on the matter.

it is evident from the wording of the fragment that it was preceded by at least one tablet, describing the sin of the people in building the tower. the fragment preserved belongs to a tablet containing from four to six columns of writing, of which portions of four remain. the principal part is the beginning of column i.

column i.

1. .... them the father ....

2. the thought of his heart was evil,

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3. .... he the father of all the gods had repudiated;

4. the thought of his heart was evil,

5. .... of babylon he hastens to the submission (?),

6. [small] and great he confounded (on) the mound.

7. .... of babylon he hastens to the submission,

8. [small] and great he confounded (on) the mound.

9. their walls all the day he founded;

10. for their destruction (punishment) in the night

11. .... he did not leave a remainder.

12. in his anger also (his) secret counsel he pours out:

13. [to] confound (their) speeches he set his face.

14. he gave the command, he made strange their counsel

15. .... the going he inspected it.

16. .... he took (selected) a shrine.

there is a small fragment of column ii., but the connection with column i. is not apparent.

column ii.

1. sar-tuli-elli (the king of the illustrious mound, i.e. anu) destroys (or punishes).

2. in front had anu lifted up ....

3. to bel-esir his father ....

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4. since his heart also ....

5. who carried the command ....

6. in those days also ....

7. he lifted him up ....

8. the goddess dav-kina ....

9. my son i rise and ....

10. his number(?) ....

11. he did not ....

there is a third portion on the same tablet belonging to a column on the other side, either the third or the fifth.

reverse column iii. or v.

1. in ....

2. they blew and ....

3. for future times ....

4. the god of no government went ....

5. he said, like heaven and earth ....

6. his path they went ....

7. fiercely they fronted his presence ....

8. he saw them and the earth ....

9. since a stop they did not (make) ....

10. of the gods ....

11. the gods they revolted against ....

12. offspring ....

13. they weep hot tears for babylon;

14. bitterly they wept (for babylon);

15. their heart also ....

these fragments are so remarkable that it is most unfortunate we have not the remainder of the tablet.

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in the first part we have the anger of bel, the father of the gods, at the sin of those who were building the walls of babylon and the mound of tower or palace. this mound is termed “the illustrious,” and the god anu who destroyed the builders is accordingly called sar-tuli-elli, “the king of the illustrious mound.” since the accadian name of the month tisri, our october, was “the month of the illustrious mound,” it would appear that the construction of it was believed to have taken place at the time of the autumnal equinox. the builders were punished by the deity, and the walls that had been set up in the day were destroyed at night. prof. delitzsch has drawn attention to a possible reference to this legend in an accadian hymn in which the poet says to merodach, “found during the day, destroy during the night.” it is plain from the first lines that the whole attempt was directed against the gods; in fact, that like the giants and titans in greek mythology, whose assault on zeus is probably but an echo of the old babylonian tale, conveyed to greece through the hands of the ph?nicians, the builders of the tower of babylon intended to scale the sky. they were, however, confounded on the mound, as well as their speech (tammasle). it is interesting to find the very same word signifying “to confound” used in the babylonian as in the hebrew account, namely balal, or rather balah. we may also notice that the hebrew writer once (gen. xi. 7.) adopts the polytheistic language of the accadian scribe; the167 lord being made to say “let us go down, and there confound their language.”

view of the birs nimrud, the supposed site of the tower of babel.

the last column shows that the winds finally destroyed the impious work of the babylonians. this fully accords with the legend reported by alexander polyhistor. for a time babylon was given over to the god of lawlessness; but at last the gods repented of the evil they had done, and order was once more restored. the shrine mentioned in the sixteenth line of the first column may receive some light from the fact that the accadian name of nisan or march was “the month of the upright altar,” or “of the altar of bel,” and that nisan corresponded with the vernal equinox just as tisri did with the autumnal equinox.

view of the babil mound at babylon, the site of the temple of bel.

the etymology of the name of babel from balbel, “to confound,” suggested in genesis is one of those “popular etymologies” or plays on words of which168 the old testament writers are so fond. thus, for instance, the name of joseph is connected first with ’asaph “to take away,” and then with yasaph “to add” (gen. xxx. 23, 24.), and the name of the moabite city dibon is changed into dimon by isaiah (xv. 9) to indicate that its “waters shall be full of blood,” hebrew dam. babel is the assyrian bab-ili “the gate of god” (or, as it is occasionally written in the plural, bab-ili “gate of the gods”), which was the semitic translation of the old accadian name of the town ca-dimirra with the same meaning. this is not the only instance in which the original accadian names of babylonian cities were literally translated into semitic babylonian after the semitic conquest of the country. it is possible that the name had some reference to the building of the tower. babylon was first made a capital by khammuragas, the leader of the coss?an dynasty, a169 position which it never afterwards lost; but the first antediluvian king of chaldea, alorus, according to barosus, was a native of the place.

tower in stages, from an assyrian bas-relief.

the actual site of the tower of babel, beyond the mere fact that it was somewhere in babylon, has not yet been settled. it is generally considered to be represented by the great pile of birs nimrud, which stood in borsippa, the suburb of babylon, and was dedicated to nebo and called “the temple of the seven lights” or planets. this ruin has been examined by sir henry rawlinson; details of his170 operations here are given in the “journal of the royal asiatic society,” vol. xviii., and rawlinson’s “ancient monarchies,” p. 544. sir henry discovered by excavation that the tower consisted of seven stages of brickwork on an earthen platform, each stage being of a different colour. this is explained by the fact that it was devoted to the seven planets. the height of the earthen platform was not ascertained, but the first stage, which was an exact square, was 272 feet each way, and 26 feet high, the bricks being blackened with bitumen; this stage is supposed to have been dedicated to the planet saturn. the second stage was a square of 230 feet, 26 feet high, faced with orange-coloured bricks; supposed to have been dedicated to jupiter. the third stage, 188 feet square, and 26 feet high, faced with red bricks, was probably dedicated to mars. the fourth stage, 146 feet square, and 15 feet high, was probably dedicated to the sun, and is thought by sir h. rawlinson to have been originally plated with gold. the fifth stage is supposed to have been 104, the sixth 62, and the seventh 20 feet square, but the top was too ruinous to decide these measurements. these stages were probably dedicated to venus, mercury, and the moon. each stage of the building was not set in the centre of the stage on which it rested, but was placed 30 feet from the front, and 12 feet from the back. the ruin at present rises 154 feet above the level of the plain, and is the most imposing pile in the whole country. according171 to nebuchadnezzar it had been built to the height of 42 cubits by “a former king,” who however had not completed its summit, and it had long been in a ruinous condition when nebuchadnezzar undertook to restore and finish it. prof. schrader imagines that the long period during which it had remained an unfinished ruin caused the growth of the legend which saw in it a monument of the overthrow of human presumption, the diversity of languages in babylonia being sufficient to account for the localization of the confusion of tongues in the country.

sir henry rawlinson now proposes to place the tower or tul ellu at the ruins now called amrán, within the city of babylon itself. here he thinks were the temple of anu, on the site of the ruined tower, a chapel dedicated to nebo, an altar of merodach, the royal palace (now represented by the mound of the kasr), and the hanging gardens, all enclosed by a common wall. the quarter of babylon thus enclosed he would identify with the calneh of the bible, principally on the ground that the septuagint rendering of isaiah x. 9 is, “have i not taken the region above babylon and chalanne where the tower was built?”

a third site has been claimed for the tower on the babil or mujellibeh mound on the north side of babylon. this represents the famous temple of belus or bel, whose great festival marked the beginning of the year and the vernal equinox. but there is no evidence to support this third opinion.

in the babylonian and assyrian sculptures there172 are occasionally representations of towers similar in style to the supposed tower of babel; one of these is given on the stone of merodach baladan i., opposite p. 236 of mr. smith’s “assyrian discoveries;” another occurs on the sculptures at nineveh, representing the city of babylon; this tower, however, cannot represent the borsippa pile, since it consists of only five stages.

besides the tower of babel, the destruction of sodom and gomorrah by fire from heaven may also have been known to the accadians. we learn from genesis xiv. that the cities of the plain were among the conquests of chedor-laomer and his allies, and there is some reason for thinking that the history of chedor-laomer’s campaign may have been derived from the babylonian state archives. at all events amraphel or amarpel, the king of sumir, is mentioned first, although chedor-laomer was the paramount sovereign and the leader of the expedition. the expedition must have taken place during the period when, as we learn from the inscriptions, babylonia was subject to the monarchs of elam, though subordinate princes were ruling over the states into which it was divided at the time. though the name of chedor-laomer has not been found, laomer or lagamar appears as an elamite god, and several of the elamite kings bore names compounded with kudur “a servant,” as kudur-nankhunte, “the servant of the god nankhunte,” kudur-mabug, “the servant of mabug,” and the like. arioch, king of ellasar, which probably173 stands for al larsa, “the city of larsa,” has the same name as eri-acu (“the servant of the moon-god”), the son of the elamite monarch kudur-mabug, who reigned over larsa during his father’s lifetime, and was eventually overthrown by the coss?an conqueror khammuragas.

the text which perhaps relates to the destruction of the guilty cities is a bilingual one, much mutilated, and runs as follows:—

1. an overthrow came from the midst of the deep (the waters above the firmament).

2. the fated punishment from the midst of heaven descended.

3. a storm like a plummet the earth (overwhelmed).

4. towards the four winds the destroying flood like fire burnt.

5. the inhabitants of the city it had caused to be tormented; their bodies it consumed.

6. in city and country it spread death, and the flames as they rose overthrew.

7. freeman and slave were equal, and the high places it filled.

8. in heaven and earth like a thunderstorm it had rained; a prey it made.

9. to a place of refuge the gods hastened, and in a throng collected.

10. its mighty (onset) they fled from, and like a garment it concealed (the guilty).

11. they (feared), and death (overtook them).

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12. (their) feet and hands (it embraced).

13. ..........

14. their body it consumed.

15. ..... as for the city, its foundations it defiled.

16. .... with (glory?) and breadth his mouth he filled.

17. this man the voice (of the thunder) called; the thunderbolt descended;

18. during the day it flashed; grievously (it fell).

here the fragment breaks off. it is possible that the person referred to in line 17 was the pious man who like lot escaped the destruction that befell his neighbours.

decoration

izdubar strangling a lion. from khorsabad sculpture.