by Harvey Kraft
To complete the test of Marduk’s credentials to take the helm of the pantheon, the Assembly of Gods ordered him to destroy the Universe and then reconstitute it in a new form using only the power of his Word.36 This he did causing the world to evaporate upon his command. Next Marduk refashioned a new cosmogony from the parts of Tiamat that he tore into pieces. From half of Tiamat’s body he recreated the astral paradise (“Bright House of Heaven”) and the netherworld (“House of Dust”) and from the other half he recreated the Earth. From her head he crafted the mountains; from her spit he conjured rainclouds; and from the water in her eyes he made the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Why did Marduk rip Tiamat apart?
This act may be read as a rejection by the Babylonian clergy of the Sumerian female priestesses, such as those dedicated to the worship of the Moon God (Sum. Nannar; Akk. Sin). The new clergy identified Sinners, the Moon Worshippers, with chaos and darkness, a view tied to stories of corruption and sexual depravity associated with the Sumer/Akkad clergy prior to its fall. The killing and dismembering of Tiamat suggested that the all-male Marduk clergy held the priestesses responsible for the Epic Drought. Tiamat’s portrayal as a dangerous female dragon expressed their disdain for women priestesses. They considered the nature of women to be sensual and mercurial, which they equated with destabilizing the proper worship of the gods. By killing her they symbolically erased the entire lineage of gods and spirits who had been her progeny. With that action the blame for the Epic Drought had been placed on the feminine aspect of nature represented by women whom the new priests equated with undermining the stability and order of society.
The underlying message delivered herein would have profound consequences for generations to come. From this point forward, for millennia, male-dominated societies would spread forth from Babylon. Built on the premise that “women must be controlled to prevent them from creating chaos,” this gender bias expanded. Henceforth, the inclusion of the “weaker sex” in leadership positions would be limited, especially in regard to religious institutions. Religious dogma demanded that men must take charge of women because they were too weak to harness their inherent nature on their own. From this point forward, Babylon declared that the male form would be depicted as the source from which all gods emanated. Marduk was the new model for deities, no longer born of intercourse between male and female gods. He was called upon to display the superior strength and mental toughness of the divine male-source who recreated the cosmos.
Marduk, the newly established Almighty God, went forth to redesign the sky sectioning it into twelve constellations of stars. By doing away with the old cosmos he proved that he could make stars disappear at dawn and by creating a new Heavenly dome he showed that he could make them reappear at dusk. He also assigned the stars three paths and appointed the three overseer gods of Heaven, Earth, and Waters (Anum, Enlil and Enki), now demoted to his underlings, as their guides. He also designated three primary stars37 to the twelve constellations, honoring the three kingdoms encompassed by the Babylonian Empire. But the three lands also had a symbolic meaning that proposed a revolutionary cosmic idea: in every direction of astral space there were other “planets,” each with a triple-tier structure like this one—each with its own Heaven, Earth and Underworld. This meant that Marduk was the God of the Universe.
Having established a new imperial cosmos and a new hierarchical natural order, Marduk next added humanity to the Earth world. Inviting his wise father, the Water God, to create the first man called Lullu out of blood and bone, he then instructed Man to proliferate his kind so that the gods may have a reliable partner in maintaining the stability of world order, ever vigilant of the threats to it by the demonic forces of disorder.
To celebrate his victory and the establishment of a new cosmic order, Marduk built the Esagila, a towering temple in the midst of Babylon. At the “Gate of God” he gathered all the gods around him and appointed them to various stations in Heaven. To complete the reformation hundreds of new younger gods (Akk. igigi) surrounded Marduk and showered him with praise. They lauded him with fifty-one honorary names, including sole recognition of the holy title Lord God (Bel), which associated him with the largest of the planets Jupiter38 (Sum. Nibiru), and conferred upon him many more reverent epithets, salutations and appellations. In concert, all the gods, both old and new, took their place in the Esagila rotunda (representing Marduk’s Universe) and pledged their eternal allegiance. Finally, Marduk declared that all the gods had emanated from Him39 putting an end to the creation of gods by sexual means.
With the ascension of Marduk the Hammurabi reign would be backed by an authoritative, almighty and fair Supreme God capable of creating, with the power to deconstruct or recreate the Universe at will with a mere Word. He was the master enabler and Prime Mover of all Nature, and the Universal Lawmaker, bringer of order to Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld.
The grandeur of Marduk’s new ziggurat temple at Esagila, and the scope of his legions testified to his supremacy and commanding authority, and by association, reflected equal attributes upon the Babylonian king, Hammurabi, the earthly host of the dominion of the King of the Universe, and the builder of Esagila.
But keeping hold on his vast territory would prove to be challenging. Having invaded his neighbors, Elam (southern Iran), located to the east of Babylon, and Assyria to the northwest, he would have to spend the rest of his days engaged with the expansion and defense of the Babylonian Empire. Hammurabi’s effort to dominate his neighbors and to rein in lawlessness required that he go to war continually to keep numerous tribes from invading parts of his large domain.
MOUNTAIN LIONS
Metaphor-embedded messages had been the vehicle seers used for advancing various cosmic and ontological concepts in an ever-evolving debate. Their “dream” literature recorded their engagements about the origins, challenges and meanings of life. But the ability of seers to produce new mythic visions waned among the city-state clergy just as a new wave of nomad visionaries were delving deeper into the cosmic realm.
The Lion-Sun shamans (Aryans) from Eurasia had been conversing with the deities for thousands of years. They represented the religious beliefs of many tribal traditions, including the Hittites, Mitanni, and proto-Steppes People. The Aryan sages were at the vanguard of a federation of hundreds of tribes carrying with them numerous ancestral traditions and many god or spirit names. This amalgam of sages fostered a tolerance for all deities numbering more than a thousand.
Starting with the Epic Drought hundreds of Arya-led tribes migrated in waves along a west-to-east swash across Eurasia (39°–40° N. parallel) from Eastern Europe to the Black Sea across to the Caspian Sea and the Steppes. They moved on wheels drawn by oxen and horses. Driving across vast regions they searched for lands to exploit, whether they were open or required conquest.
On the way they encountered the Amorite Babylonians and other Mesopotamians and learned about their religions. Beginning in earnest from 1650 BCE to 1450 BCE they drove southward settling along north central to south central Asia in Greater Aryana (today Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and India).
Like all established religions of their time, the Lion-Sun Fellowship also inherited a vital version of the Mondial Cosmology, as well as a rich mystic language, Sanskrit. Holding ceremonies around the worship of fire the Lion-Sun seers composed poetic hymns replete with cosmic concepts proposed by their active trance-visionary shaman culture. The Aryan shamans were engaged in an ongoing identification of deities and conversations.
Eventually when they reached the Indus Valley, they unveiled their cosmology in the collected hymns of the Rig Veda, a composition of their journey to paradise. At the beginning, they worshipped a pantheon of solar gods who lived along the upper reaches of Meru, the Cosmic Mountain of the Arya sages, including:
Mitra, the God of Heavenly Light, who binds the world using the sun’s illumination to bring harmonious order
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bsp; Varuna, the God of the Moving Sky who oversees the sun’s travel at night through the Underworld, and the regulation of Nature, Earth and the Waters, Mitra’s complementary counterpart
The solar twins, the Nasatya, representing the heat of the sun and its elemental fire in the ceremonial altar
Indra, the Lord of the Sun’s Power, the one who lifts up the sun at dawn, and the great protector who causes the rain by stabbing the Great Rain Serpent (Vrtra) with thunder and lightning
The nomad forces of the Aryan Hittites felled the defenses of Babylon and had carried off the idol of Marduk. After nearly 300 years the Amorite dynasty fell. But choosing not to occupy the area, they made room for the arrival of the Kassites, a Zagros Mountains (Iran plateau) culture who repeatedly tried but failed to take the city. Once they gained control of Babylon, however, the Kassites honored the history of the city. They immediately negotiated with the Hittites for the return of Marduk to his temple in Esagila where he would resume his post as chief God. They also kept the effective administrative bureaucracy Hammurabi had established.
The Kassites ruled from Babylon for nearly 400 relatively stable years (1595–1157 BCE). During their caretaker era,40 Babylonia was no longer a threat to its neighbors. The Kassites preferred to live and let live. They had no desire to dominate other parts of the region. Focused on diplomacy and economics, they did manage to keep the peace with surrounding lands through royal marriages and beneficial trade relationships. They turned Babylon into a wealthy commercial center. They acquired and distributed Nubian-mined gold from Egypt and lapis lazuli stones from mines in the Central Asian mountains (Badakhshan in Aghanistan). They specialized in dealing with the import and export needs of surrounding countries from the Mediterranean to India.
The Kassites upheld the Babylonian pantheon of Marduk to keep the peace, but personally their royal family kept their faith in the mountain deities of their homeland, where Mashu, the Mesopotamian name for the Cosmic Mountain, was itself the personification of the “Supreme God in Heaven.“
COSMIC MOVEMENTS
Ancient seer-astronomers followed the motion of celestial bodies in and out of the firmament, the sky dome separating the world from outer space. At dusk the Sun (Akk. Shamash) opened the western gate of Heaven (Akk. Ganzer) and descended down a lapis lazuli (astral) stairway into the Underworld where it would undertake its nightly crossing. To insure the Sun’s uninterrupted transit throughout the night the temples held Opening of the Gate41 ceremonies at dawn to pray for its successful voyage. In Sumerian myths the gates were located high atop the Cosmic Mountain. For a man to cross into Heaven or the Underworld, he would need to reach the gate by “flying“ on the back of a cosmic eagle,42 pass into the other side by “walking“ through a darkcold cosmic cave-tunnel,43 and after that find the cosmic stairway44 connecting the mortal realm to the tiers below and above and use it to “ascend or descend” into the other worlds.
The hidden gates provided a theological explanation for the celestial movements. But, behind it was an understanding of the cosmic order and the possibility that they could predict it. The Sumerian seer-astronomers were following up on the work of prehistoric observers who had made markings on megalith stones to indicate the positions of the astral bodies. But Sumer, the inventors of writing, added something new to the practice. They invented a basic mathematical system they could use to measure distance, time and relationships of celestial objects.
Sumer devised the sexagesimal number system (base-60 and its divisible or multiple numerals) allowing for measurements related to celestial dynamics. For example, time (sixty minutes), calendar (twelve months), circle (360 degrees), constellations (twelve divisions of 30 degrees each). This rudimentary math allowed for measurements of earth-sky angle coordinates like the ecliptic path of the sun, azimuth, and procession of solstice and equinox.
But not until the advent of Babylonian astronomy would anyone figure out the periodic repetition of celestial movements. Astronomical observation had a particularly strong resurgence once Kassite-occupied Babylon became an Assyrian vassal (1330 BCE). During this time, commercial enterprises demanded the divination services of the clergy. The work required more research and the collection of past efforts in this area.
The Babylonians embarked on a large-scale project to detail astronomical information and perfect their proficiency in identifying auguries written in the sky. Using the Sumerian system they measured celestial data and linked it with calendar dating and historical references forming a massive relational database they would use for predictive analysis. During this lengthy and productive period they recorded the Enuma Anu Enlil,45 a comprehensive digest of omens and advisories attempting to align the positions and behaviors of the moon, sun, and stars with datestamped data on weather activities, social and natural events. Assuming a coincidental link between phenomenal events on the ground and the celestial configurations observed at the same time, the clergy interpreted what could happen, where and when. They concluded that the cyclical repetition of astral “patterns” relative to earthly “experiences” would provide foresight in anticipation of favorable versus detrimental outcomes.
The astronomer-scribes (tupsar) of the first and middle Babylonian Kingdoms (1950–1157 BCE) had chronicled the paths of the moon and the visible planets, solar conjunctions, intervals between star appearances, heliacal risings (stars becoming visible in the eastern horizon at dawn). They identified paired constellations, those that rise and set together, as well as zenith-horizon pairs. They also invented sundials and water clocks, and the solar calendar.
The Babylonian star catalogues46 demarcated the sky with a grid graph composed of declination and ascension lines enabling the expression of stars in degrees and relative mathematical coordinates. They plotted the three brightest “celestial gods” lighting the sky (Moon, Sun, Venus), but ran into a problem in trying to record the countless numbers of stars. As it would be impossible to deify so many “smaller gods,” the priest-observers organized them into constellations. By connecting the brightest points in a section of the sky, they drew animistic pictograms, relating the star clusters to animal spirits.
The Babylonians imagined the “World System” to be shaped like a spheroid divided by the surface into two mirror-image hemispheres. The top half, a convex hemisphere, included the atmosphere, sky dome and three layers of Heaven. The concave underside hemisphere consisted of the terrestrial land and below it groundwater, and further down was the netherworld.
Arising from the world sphere was the Cosmic Mountain, the invisible centerpiece anchoring the triple-tiered world-system. It represented the visible solar system as well as the unseen spiritual domains. The celestial bodies, the Sun and Moon, gained access into the sky dome through its horizon gates and continued their motion through the underworld. The brightest objects in the sky were deemed to be far-away Cosmic Mountains with gateways to other distant heavens.
THE OBSERVATORY
For nearly a thousand years the shadow of Assyria hung over the head of Babylon. Under the thumb of Assyrian Kings, Babylon was too weak to defend the territory of the Old Babylonian Empire. As it became a vassal of the Assyrians, its influence diminished.
Several Semitic nations moved into its neighborhood during this period (1000 BCE) including the Chaldean and Aramean people. The Chaldean Kingdom settled in the vicinity of Babylon at the head of the Persian Gulf. The Arameans made a home, Aram, in northeast Mesopotamia (southern Syria) bordering with Israel. Over the next few hundred years both cultures would have a profound influence on Babylon.
Easily adaptable Aramaic evolved into several dialects that became the day-to-day spoken language across Mesopotamia from Canaan to Babylon.
The Chaldean seaport, established near the ruins of ancient Eridu, became a hub for trade and information from other cultures, and a stopover for seafaring explorers using the stars to navigate. This connection inspired the Chaldeans to rekindle interest in the astral explorations and mappings initiated
by the seer-astronomers of Sumer/Akkad.
Nabonassar (aka Nabu-Nasir), a Chaldean king of Babylon (747–733 BCE), reawakened the city to its cosmic heritage. With him came significantly stepped up efforts in recording the precision and frequency of astral movements. The new impetus for astronomical observations inspired the mapping of celestial placements and alignments, the development of celestial brightness metrics, and the discovery of the eighteen-year lunar eclipse cycle. Although sun-moon eclipses were originally associated with evil omens, the stargazers of Chaldean Babylon saw them in a different light, as one of the critical alignments for unlocking the mysteries of the Universe.
The Assyrians had allowed the Chaldeans to take charge of Babylon as long as they paid proper tribute. But Nabonassar failed to hold onto the city when the Assyrian kings decided to assert direct dominance over Babylon. After its repeated attempts to become independent, the Assyrians grew weary of its rebellious nature and razed Babylon to the ground. It would be some one hundred fifty years before the Chaldean King Naboplassar united with the Medians, also under the occupation of a brutal Assyrian regime. Together the allies would finally turn the tables on their common enemy. They conquered the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and looted its temples. From the ashes of the Assyrian Empire emerged two new powers the Babylonian and Median Empires.
Naboplassar and his successor, his son the King Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE) re-established Babylon as the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from southern Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean. While consolidating his territories Nebuchadnezzar ran into resistance in Judea. To display his might and send a message to all the new vassals of his empire, he sacked the capital of Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple of Solomon.47 Following the practice of deportation invented by the Assyrians, he ordered the capture of the Judeans and their exile to Babylon along with precious items looted from their temple and treasury. Religious relics of conquered peoples were installed in Marduk’s Temple complex to show that their gods had become subservient to Babylon.