United States or Gambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They have been sometimes regarded as really a portion of the ancient Babylon; but this view is wholly incompatible with the cuneiform records, which distinctly assign to the ruins in question the name of Borsip or Borsippa, a place known with certainty to have been distinct from, though in the neighborhood of, the capital.
The chief objects of Babylonian worship were Bel, Merodach, and Nebo. Nebo, the special deity of Borsippa, seems to have been regarded as a sort of powerful patron-saint under whose protection it was important to place individuals. During the period of the later kingdom, no divine element is so common in names.
It will be recalled that up to very late times the tradition survived that her dwelling-place was Borsippa. This is never said of Sarpanitum. Despite, therefore, the amalgamation of Sarpanitum and Erua, the association of the latter with Nabu's dwelling-place remains impressed upon the memory of the Babylonian scholars, at least.
It did not seem consistent with this devotion to Marduk that Hammurabi and his successors should also recognize Nabu. Policy dictated that Nabu should be ignored, that the attempt must be made to replace his worship, even in Borsippa, by that of Marduk. Viewed in this light, Hammurabi's establishment of the Marduk cult in Borsippa assumes a peculiar significance.
Either there was no statue at the time at Borsippa, or the cult was of such insignificance that the capture of the god was not considered of sufficient moment to occupy the thoughts of the enemy, as little as it did that of the rulers of Babylon at the time.
Every New Year's day the son paid a visit to his father, on which occasion the statue of Nabu was carried in solemn procession from Borsippa across the river, and along the main street of Babylon leading to the temple of Marduk; and in return the father deity accompanied his son part way on the trip back to E-Zida.
Additionally, from shelves set up in the days of Khammurabi the Amraphel of Genesis Nippur has yielded ghostly tablets and Borsippa treasuries of Babylonian ken. These, the eldest revelations of the divine, are the last that man has deciphered. The altars and people that heard them first, the marble temples, the ivory palaces, the murderous throngs, are dust.
Sayce has already suggested that Borsippa may have originally stood on an inlet of the Persian Gulf. Nabu is inferior to Ea, and were it not for the priority of Marduk, he would have become in Babylonian theology, the son of Ea. Since this distinction is given to Marduk, no direct indication of an original relationship to Ea has survived.
The zikkurat, the great court, the shrines, and the smaller structures formed a sacred precinct, and it was this precinct as a whole that constituted the temple in the larger sense, and received some appropriate name. Thus E-Kur at Nippur, E-Sagila at Babylon, E-Zida at Borsippa are used to denote the entire sacred precinct in these cities, and not merely the chief structure.
It then contains prayers and invocations to the Gods, Merodach and Nebo. The extent of N.'s power is spoken of it reaches from one sea to the other. An account is then given of the wonders of Babylon, viz.: 1. The great temple of Merodach. Various other temples in Babylon and Borsippa.
Word Of The Day