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Updated: May 21, 2025
The ends of the earth span the great Apsu. The following line specifies the shape given to Esharra: The great structure Esharra, which he made as a heavenly vault. The earth is not a sphere according to Babylonian ideas, but a hollow hemisphere having an appearance exactly like the vault of heaven, but placed in position beneath the heavenly canopy.
This act in the drama of creation is referred to in the following lines, though in a manner, that is not free from obscurity. The earth is pictured as a great structure placed over the Apsu and corresponding in dimension with it at least in one direction. The lord measured out the structure of Apsu. Corresponding to it, he fashioned a great structure Esharra.
The parcelling out of these three divisions among Anu, Bel, and Ea is therefore merely alluded to in the closing line of the fourth tablet: He established the districts of Anu, Bel, and Ea. The narrative assumes what we know from other sources, that the heavens constitute the domain of Anu, Esharra belongs to Bel, while Apsu belongs to Ea.
As a hemisphere it suggests the picture of a mountain, rising at one end, mounting to a culminating point, and descending at the other end. Hence by the side of Esharra, another name by which the earth was known was Ekur, that is, 'the mountain house. Diodorus Seculus, in speaking of the Babylonian cosmology, employs a happy illustration.
That such tendencies to glorify Ashur may justly be sought for in part of the religious literature is proved by a version of one of the series of tablets giving an account of the creation, and which assigns to Anshar the work of building Esharra, i.e., the earth, that, according to another version, belongs to Marduk.
The upper 'rainbow' is formed by one-half of the carcass of Tiâmat stretched across in semi-circular shape; the lower one is the great structure Esharra made by Marduk, while the Apsu underneath is the dwelling of Ea. The creation epic, it may be noted once more, takes much for granted. Its chief aim being to glorify Marduk, but little emphasis is laid upon details of interest to us.
Esharra is a poetical designation of the earth and signifies, as Jensen has satisfactorily shown, "house of fullness" or "house of fertility." The earth is regarded as a great structure, and placed as it is over the Apsu, its size is dependent upon the latter. Its measurement from one end to the other cannot exceed the width of the Apsu, nor can it be any narrower.
Esharra, the earth, is in existence and the Apsu appears to include all waters, but that the epic treated of the creation of plant and animal life and then of the creation of man is eminently likely.
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