57
Images of Babylonian soldiers
lined the Ishtar Gate, which led to
the city of Babylon. Effigies of gods
were paraded from the gate to the
city along the Processional Way.
See also: Created for a purpose 32 ■ Renewing life through ritual 51 ■ Beliefs
that mirror society 80–81 ■ A rational world 92–99
ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL BELIEFS
In the 4th millennium BCE, the
Sumerian people inhabited the
region. The population of Sumer
was concentrated in about a dozen
city-states; each was ruled by
a king, but political power was
vested in the high priests of each
city’s religion. The Sumerians
worshipped a pantheon of gods,
including Enki, god of water and
fertility, and Anu, god of heaven.
When the Babylonians began to
settle in Mesopotamia in the 3rd
millennium BCE, they absorbed the
Sumerians and their culture—
including some aspects of their
mythology—into their own empire.
The Babylonian leaders used the
Sumerian mythology to reinforce
the hierarchy they established,
which helped to assert their power
over their own people and the
supplanted Sumerians.
Babylonian religion
Central to the Babylonian religion
was the epic creation story of the
Enûma Elish, recorded on seven
clay tablets. The sequence of
events it relates had largely been
adapted from earlier Sumerian
mythology, but in this retelling
featured Babylonian deities—in
particular Marduk, son of the
Sumerian god Enki and the rightful
heir to Anu. The story tells of
Marduk as the leader of a hierarchy
of young deities, whose victory over
the older gods, including the
creator god, Tiamat (see box, right)
gave him the power to create and
organize the universe, which he
ruled from his chosen home of
Babylon. The Enûma Elish provided
an obvious analogy to the takeover
of Sumer and founding of Babylon,
but Marduk’s ascendancy over the
other gods and his ordering of the
world also served as a metaphor
for the sovereignty of Babylonian
kings and their authority to make
and enforce laws.A mark of kingship
To reinforce the idea of Babylonian
dominance and to unify the empire,
the Enûma Elish was recited and
acted out in an annual New Year
festival, known as the Akitu, which
was held at the time of the spring
equinox. This performance did
more than mark the calendrical
movement from one year to the
next; it was a ritualized re-creation
and reenergizing of the cosmos,
which enabled Marduk to settle
the destinies of the stars and
planets for the year ahead. Both
in its mythology and its ritual, the
Akitu was fundamentally about
legitimizing kingship; it was a
public demonstration that the
Babylonian monarch held his
authority directly from the god.
By recreating Marduk’s triumph
over Tiamat, the centrality of
Babylon was also reaffirmed. ■I hereby name it Babylon,
home of the great gods.
We shall make it the
center of religion.
Marduk, in the
Enûma ElishThe Enûma Elish
The Akitu ritual re-created the
creation story of the Enûma
Elish. This begins before
time, when only Apsu (the
freshwater ocean) and Tiamat
(the saltwater ocean) exist.
Apsu and Tiamat give birth
to the primal gods, including
Anshar and Kishu, the
horizons of the sky and the
earth, who themselves beget
Anu, the god of the sky, and
Ea (the Sumerian Enki), the
god of the earth and water.
The shouts of the young gods
disturb Apsu and Tiamat’s
peace, so Apsu attempts to
destroy them, but is killed by
Ea. At the site of this struggle,
the god Ea creates a temple for
himself, which he names Apsu
(after his father), where his
son Marduk is born. To avenge
her husband, Tiamat wages
war on Marduk, and puts her
son Qingu in command of her
forces. Marduk agrees to fight
Tiamat’s army, if all the other
gods accept him as king, with
sovereignty over the universe.
Marduk then kills Tiamat and
Qingu, and brings order to
the universe. From Qingu’s
blood he creates mankind.