Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
Here, too, we have one god towering above the others, only to a still greater degree even than Marduk in Babylonia. Marduk, while absorbing the rôle of the old Bel, is still bound to acknowledge the fathership of Ea. For a time he has to fear the rivalry of Nabu, and we have seen that during the Cassitic rule, the glory of Marduk is somewhat dimmed.
'Tashmitum' is an abstract noun in Assyrian, signifying 'revelation. As such, it is bestowed in historical texts upon Nabu himself, who is called itu tashimêti, 'god of revelation. Nabu is, above all, a 'revealing' god, revealing knowledge, the art of writing, and the method of ruling.
The former significantly calls him the 'writer of everything, and as for Ashurbanabal, almost every tablet in the great literary collection that he made at Nineveh closes with a solemn invocation to Nabu and his consort Tashmitum, to whom he offers thanks for having opened his ears to receive wisdom, and who persuaded him to make the vast literary treasures of the past accessible to his subjects.
L. W. King and R. C. Thompson on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum, and have resulted in the discovery of many early remains in the lower strata of the mound, in addition to the finding of new portions of the two palaces already known and partly excavated, the identification of a third palace, and the finding of an ancient temple dedicated to Nabû, whose existence had already been inferred from a study of the Assyrian inscriptions.* All these diggings at Babylon, at Ashur, and at Nineveh throw more light upon the history of the country during the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, and will be referred to later in the volume.
Nebuchadnezzar, for example, tells us that he provided for a sacrifice of six lambs daily in the temple E-shidlam at Cuthah, sacred to Nergal and Laz; while for Nabu's temple at Borsippa, the daily sacrifices were arranged on a still larger scale, and included two fattened bulls of perfect form, sixteen smaller animals, besides offerings of fish, birds, leek, various kinds of wine, honey, cream, and the finest oil, all intended, as the king tells us, for the table of Nabu and his consort.
However this may be, the double ceremony became to such an extent the noteworthy feature of the Zagmuku or Akitu that when the chroniclers wish to indicate that, because of political disturbances, the festival was not celebrated, they use the simple formula: Nabu did not come to Babylon. The Akitu festival brought worshippers from all parts of Babylonia and Assyria to the capitol.
One is inclined to suspect that this popularity of the Nabu cult is a trace of Assyrian influence. But whatever may have been Nebopolassar's intention in exalting Nabu at the cost of Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar restores the old relationship between the two. For him Nabu is again merely the son of Marduk, and he honors Nabu in this capacity.
In later times, among the Assyrians, the Nabu cult, as already intimated, grows in popularity. The northern monarchs, in fact, seem to give Nabu the preference over Marduk. They do not tire of proclaiming him as the source of wisdom. The staff is his symbol, which is interpreted in a double sense, as the writer's stylus and as the ruler's sceptre.
The thought of E-Sagila and E-Zida must have stored up emotions in the breast of a Babylonian and Assyrian, that can only be compared to a pious Mohammedan's enthusiasm for Mecca, or the longing of an ardent Hebrew for Jerusalem. The hymns to Marduk and Nabu voice this emotion.
Tashmitum. The consort of Nabu was permitted to share the honors in the temple of Nabu at Calah, but beyond this and Ashurbanabal's constant association of Tashmitum with Nabu in the subscript to his tablets, she appears only when the kings of Assyria coming to Babylonia as they were wont to do, in order to perform sacrifices, enumerate the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon. Ea.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking