United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Water, being one of the means of purification frequently referred to in the texts, acquires a symbolical significance among the Babylonians, as among so many other nations. Ea, therefore, as the water-god of the ancient sacred town, Eridu, acquires additional popularity through this circumstance. The titles that he receives in the texts emphasize his power to heal and protect.
Confining ourselves here to the earlier phases of Ea, it seems probable that he was originally regarded as the god of Eridu, one of the most ancient of the holy cities of Southern Babylonia, now represented by Abu-Shahrein, and which once stood on the shores of the Persian Gulf.
In the great temple of Marduk there was a fountain in which the gods and the Anunnaki, according to a Babylonian hymn, 'bathe their countenance'; and when to this notice it be added that another hymn praises them as the 'shining chiefs' of the ancient city of Eridu, it will be apparent that the conceptions attached to this group span the entire period of Babylonian-Assyrian history.
The text then relates the founding by the god of five cities, probably "in clean places", that is to say on hallowed ground. The . . . of these cities, Eridu, he gave to the leader, Nu- dimmud, Thirdly, Larak he gave to Pabilkharsag, Fourthly, Sippar he gave to the hero, the Sun-god, Fifthly, Shuruppak he gave to "the God of Shuruppak",
The composite nature of the text is discussed by Professor Jastrow in his Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions, pp. 89 ff.; and in his paper in the Journ. Amer. Or. Soc., Vol. XXXVI , pp. 279 ff.; he has analysed it into two main versions, which he suggests originated in Eridu and Nippur respectively.
Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, which are thus shown to be the oldest religious centers of the Euphrates Valley, were indissolubly associated in the minds of the people with the beginning of order in the universe.
It is clear that the myth of Cannes points to foreign intercourse as the ultimate cause of Babylonian culture. It is natural that such should have been the case. Commerce is still the great civiliser, and the traders and sailors of Eridu created tastes and needs which they sought to satisfy.
The bright house of the gods was not yet built on the bright place, No reed grew and no tree was formed, No brick was laid nor any brick edifice reared, No house erected, no city built, No city reared, no conglomeration formed. Nippur was not reared, E-Kur not erected. Erech was not reared, E-Anna not erected. The deep not formed, Eridu not reared.
Ur-Bau, when erecting a sanctuary to Ea at Girsu, significantly calls the god 'the king of Eridu. The sanctuary is not, in this case, the dwelling-place of the god. We are justified, therefore, in going back many centuries, before reaching the period when Ea was, merely, the local god of Eridu.
The two latter are evidently inconsistent with each other. But the story about the son of Ea and Davkina has an important further development. He is said to be the sun-god of spring, to whom the heat of summer is fatal, and who dies in June. It is when moisture is failing from the ground that he is bemoaned. His home is in Eden, for Eden belongs to Babylonian legend, which places it near Eridu.
Word Of The Day