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Overview
CHAPTER I--ANCIENT CHALDÆA
The Creation, the Deluge, the history of the gods--The country, its
cities its inhabitants, its early dynasties.
[Illustration: 002a.jpg]
"In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when
nothing below had as yet received the name of earth,* Apsu, the Ocean,
who first was their father, and Chaos-Tiâmat, who gave birth to them
all, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes
which bore no fruit."** Life germinated slowly in this inert mass, in
which the elements of our world lay still in confusion: when at length
it did spring up, it was but feebly, and at rare intervals, through
the hatching of divine couples devoid of personality and almost without
form. "In the time when the gods were not created, not one as yet, when
they had neither been called by their names, nor had their destinies
been assigned to them by fate, gods manifested themselves. Lakhmu and
Lakhamu were the first to appear, and waxed great for ages; then Anshar
and Kishar were produced after them. Days were added to days, and years
were heaped upon years: Anu, Inlil, and Ea were born in their turn, for
Anshar and Kishar had given them birth." As the generations emanated one
from the other, their vitality increased, and the personality of each
became more clearly defined; the last generation included none but
beings of an original character and clearly marked individuality. Anu,
the sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night; Inlil-Bel,
the king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and the
personification of wisdom.*** Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into
Anat, Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse
whom he had deduced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these
fruitful pairs, and the impulse once given, the world was rapidly
peopled by their descendants. Sin, Shamash, and Kamman, who presided
respectively over the moon, the sun, and the air, were all three of
equal rank; next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach, Nergal,
the warrior-goddess Ishtar, and Nebo; then a whole army of lesser
deities, who ranged themselves around Anu as round a supreme master.
Tiâmat, finding her domain becoming more and more restricted owing
to the activity of the others, desired to raise battalion against
battalion, and set herself to create unceasingly; but her offspring,
made in her own image, appeared like those incongruous phantoms which
men see in dreams, and which are made up of members borrowed from a
score of different animals. They appeared in the form of bulls with
human heads, of horses with the snouts of dogs, of dogs with quadruple
bodies springing from a single fish-like tail. Some of them had the beak
of an eagle or a hawk; others, four wings and two faces; others, the
legs and horns of a goat; others, again, the hind quarters of a horse
and the whole body of a man. Tiâmat furnished them with terrible
weapons, placed them under the command of her husband Kingu, and set out
to war against the gods.
* In Chaldæa, as in Egypt, nothing was supposed to have a
real existence until it had received its name: the sentence
quoted in the text means practically, that at that time
there was neither heaven nor earth.
** Apsu has been transliterated kiracruv [in Greek], by the
author an extract from whose works has been preserved by
Damascius. He gives a different version of the tradition,
according to which the amorphous goddess Mummu-Tiâmat
consisted of two persons. The first, Tauthé, was the wife of
Apasôn; the second, Moymis, was the son of Apasôn and of
Tauthé. The last part of the sentence is very obscure in the
Assyrian text, and has been translated in a variety of
different ways. It seems to contain a comparison between
Apsû and Mummu-Tiâmat on the one hand, and the reeds and
clumps of rushes so common in Chaldæa on the other; the two
divinities remain inert and unfruitful, like water-plants
which have not yet manifested their exuberant growth.
The Creation, the Deluge, the history of the gods--The country, its
cities its inhabitants, its early dynasties.
[Illustration: 002a.jpg]
"In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when
nothing below had as yet received the name of earth,* Apsu, the Ocean,
who first was their father, and Chaos-Tiâmat, who gave birth to them
all, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes
which bore no fruit."** Life germinated slowly in this inert mass, in
which the elements of our world lay still in confusion: when at length
it did spring up, it was but feebly, and at rare intervals, through
the hatching of divine couples devoid of personality and almost without
form. "In the time when the gods were not created, not one as yet, when
they had neither been called by their names, nor had their destinies
been assigned to them by fate, gods manifested themselves. Lakhmu and
Lakhamu were the first to appear, and waxed great for ages; then Anshar
and Kishar were produced after them. Days were added to days, and years
were heaped upon years: Anu, Inlil, and Ea were born in their turn, for
Anshar and Kishar had given them birth." As the generations emanated one
from the other, their vitality increased, and the personality of each
became more clearly defined; the last generation included none but
beings of an original character and clearly marked individuality. Anu,
the sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night; Inlil-Bel,
the king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and the
personification of wisdom.*** Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into
Anat, Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse
whom he had deduced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these
fruitful pairs, and the impulse once given, the world was rapidly
peopled by their descendants. Sin, Shamash, and Kamman, who presided
respectively over the moon, the sun, and the air, were all three of
equal rank; next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach, Nergal,
the warrior-goddess Ishtar, and Nebo; then a whole army of lesser
deities, who ranged themselves around Anu as round a supreme master.
Tiâmat, finding her domain becoming more and more restricted owing
to the activity of the others, desired to raise battalion against
battalion, and set herself to create unceasingly; but her offspring,
made in her own image, appeared like those incongruous phantoms which
men see in dreams, and which are made up of members borrowed from a
score of different animals. They appeared in the form of bulls with
human heads, of horses with the snouts of dogs, of dogs with quadruple
bodies springing from a single fish-like tail. Some of them had the beak
of an eagle or a hawk; others, four wings and two faces; others, the
legs and horns of a goat; others, again, the hind quarters of a horse
and the whole body of a man. Tiâmat furnished them with terrible
weapons, placed them under the command of her husband Kingu, and set out
to war against the gods.
* In Chaldæa, as in Egypt, nothing was supposed to have a
real existence until it had received its name: the sentence
quoted in the text means practically, that at that time
there was neither heaven nor earth.
** Apsu has been transliterated kiracruv [in Greek], by the
author an extract from whose works has been preserved by
Damascius. He gives a different version of the tradition,
according to which the amorphous goddess Mummu-Tiâmat
consisted of two persons. The first, Tauthé, was the wife of
Apasôn; the second, Moymis, was the son of Apasôn and of
Tauthé. The last part of the sentence is very obscure in the
Assyrian text, and has been translated in a variety of
different ways. It seems to contain a comparison between
Apsû and Mummu-Tiâmat on the one hand, and the reeds and
clumps of rushes so common in Chaldæa on the other; the two
divinities remain inert and unfruitful, like water-plants
which have not yet manifested their exuberant growth.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940015756470 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | SAP |
| Publication date: | 12/07/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 250 KB |
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