Life and Thought in the Ancient Near East

New Year’s Day in Babylon

New Year’s Day in Babylon I n the Babylonian New Year’s Festival, a twelve-day event that took place at the spring equinox (March–April of our calendar), we recognize two major themes of Mesopotamian religious and political life, which have been artfully blended together: from earliest times, on the one hand, the theme of renewal of life, the onset, once again, of agricultural growth and abundance; on the other, an assertion that political and social stability will continue during the new year—therefore, an af‹rmation, though infused with apprehension, that nature itself and the state and human society would continue to function in a benignly harmonious way.1 We have come to Babylon to observe this most pivotal event in its ritual history. The sight of its great outer walls as we approach down the Euphrates River from the north reveals how great and powerful this ancient city had become. From a much smaller town in the time of Hammurabi, almost two thousand years earlier, Babylon had endured to become a fabled capital city known far and wide in the ancient Near East. Our boat docks at one of the city’s quays, and now we will walk the city’s streets to identify a few of the chief buildings and monuments. As we begin, we see a bridge across the river that connects the older civic and religious center on the east bank with a newer residential district on the west. Eight gates are set in the walls, but we shall enter the city through the beautiful Ishtar Gate, named after the Babylonian goddess of love and war. Its entry arch is set in a massive structure whose piers and walls are covered with colored glazed bricks. Gracefully executed ‹gures of bulls and dragons are set in the walls, a wonderfully impressive entrance to the city (a reduced-sized reconstruction of this gate exists in the Vorderasiatischen Museum of Berlin). Once through this ceremonial gate we encounter huge citadels with massive defensive walls and palace and temple precincts, which de‹ne the skyline of the city. As we walk southward along the broad processional thoroughfare we soon see two magni‹cent temple complexes. The ‹rst is called Etemenanki, which 12 means, in the oldest, Sumerian, language of Mesopotamia, “The House [Temple] at the boundary of the heaven and earth.” The second is called Esagila, or “The House [Temple] which raises up its head.” This was the abode of Marduk/Bel, head of the Babylonian pantheon and patron deity of Babylon itself. Within the precinct of Etemenanki stands a ziggurat , which was an edi‹ce in the shape of a stepped pyramid. Not far away, beautifying the city’s landscape, we can see the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Unlike the kinds of houses of worship we are familiar with, where people join together in prayer and participate in the divine service, Mesopotamian temples were structures wherein the gods and their households were physically in residence. The statues and other images of these gods were not merely representations or symbols but rather were considered to be the deities themselves. The ancient Babylonian temple was not a public building. At best, people could congregate in its outermost courts. Since the statues were treated as though they were alive, they had to be awakened in the morning, dressed, fed, carried about, and tended to in innumerable ways by the temple staffs, which consisted of large numbers of priests of various grades and functions and many specialists in performance of rites and rituals. These could be exorcists, slaughterers of sacri‹cial animals, artisans who created sacerdotal objects in precious metals and woods, musicians, and singers. Women were included in the temple staffs, notably to function in fertility rites. Because a temple in a Mesopotamian city or town was a large landholder , dating from most ancient times, it had economic functions and had to maintain facilities such as accounting of‹ces, stables or other enclosures for sacri‹cial animals, archives, and facilities for the training of acolytes and scribes. All in all, the temple was a complicated and very busy divine household that would rival the structure and functions of a modern, multifunctional corporation. Returning now to the precinct of the temple Etemenanki, we look brie›y at the ziggurat, whose origins as a religious edi‹ce go back to earliest Sumerian civilization in lower Mesopotamia (about 3000). On top of this structure was placed some sort of chapel, whether...