The Babylonian Conception of Heaven and Hell/Death and Burial
Death and Burial.
To the Babylonian death was the "inevitable," "night-like" fate, which "in accordance with primæval law" brings to an end all human glory. All his prayers were for long life, old age, and terrestrial immortality in his posterity. "Make my years to endure like the bricks of Ibarra, prolong them into eternity," prayed Nebuchadnezzar. An ancient blessing ran:
Bel and Beltis in Ekur grant unto him the lot of (long) life;
Ea and Damkina in ocean give unto him life of long years!"
It is told in the legendary story of one of the heroes of ancient Babylonia how he found a plant the eating of which restored the aged to youth. "Dear life" might be lengthened out by conduct well-pleasing to the gods. Tiglath Pilesar says of his grandfather: "The work of his hands and his sacrifices were well pleasing to the gods, and thus he attained unto extreme old age." Nabonidos, the last Chaldæan-Babylonian king, prays to the Moon-god: "Keep me from sin against thy great Godhead, and a life of far-off days grant unto me as a gift," while for Belsazar, his first born, he prays: "Cause the fear of thy sublime godhead to dwell in his heart that he consent not to sin; may he be satisfied with abundance of life!" The formal curses at the end of the royal inscriptions show, on the other hand, that destruction of posterity and sudden death were regarded as punishments for offences against gods and men. He who should destroy the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar is threatened as follows: "May the god Ramman command that he live not a day longer. Let his name and seed be exterminated out of the land." "So long as heaven and earth endure be his seed destroyed," runs another terrible curse: "his name blotted out, his posterity overthrown, may his life end in hunger and misery, may his corpse be cast out, no burial shall it receive."
None, however, could ultimately escape the fate of death. Sudden and unexpected dawns the day "that sets not free." "Life is cut off like a reed." "He who at evening is living, in the morning he is dead." Many a man dies on a day that was not "the day of his fate." The lot, the fate of man being determined by the gods in the chamber of destiny, hence the day of death was known as the "day of fate"; of one who died it was said "the day of his fate tore him away," but of a suicide: "Terror overpowered him, and he went to death by his own will, not by that of the gods." No herb grown might be the antidote of death; no spell could avail against it. "So long as we build houses," says the Babylonian Noah, "so long as we seal (i.e., conclude treaties), so long as brothers quarrel, so long as there is hatred on earth, so long as rivers swell in flood, . . . no image (for purposes of exorcism?) will be made of death."
The laments over the lot and doom of death are often striking. In one of the religious texts from the library of Asurbanipal we read of one "the joy of whose heart is the fear of the gods," and to whom, nevertheless, "the day is sighing, the night weeping, the month wailing, the year lamentation: . . . Into dark bonds was I cast; a dagger pierced me; the wound was deep; . . . in the night it suffered me not to breathe freely for a moment; my joints were torn and loosened; on my couch . . . as a bull, as a sheep, was I wet with my urine; . . . no exorciser expelled my sickness; no priest put an end to my infirmity; no god helped; none took my hand; no god had compassion on me; no goddess came to my side; the grave was open; . . . ere I was yet dead was the funeral dirge due." . . . Then at length redemption drew nigh. Another instance runs as follows: "Death is the covering of my couch; already have I struck up the lament (lit., tones of the flute)." It is in keeping with the character of Babylonian mourning that at a certain episode in the story of the Flood, Istar "shrieked like a woman in travail, because the corpses of mankind filled the sea like fish spawn." "The gods wept with her over the Anunaki, the gods lay crouched (at the celestial lattice of Anu); they abode there weeping, their lips firmly closed."
Again and again the Babylonian legends give poetic utterance to the thought that all splendour vanishes, all strength fails before the might of death. "The Journey of Ishtar in Hades" tells how life died away on earth when the goddess sank into the Underworld. Even the death goddess mourns and "sinks down like a reed that is cut through," and says:
for the men will I weep, who leave their wives,
for the women will I weep, who [turn] from the loins of their husbands,
for the little children will I weep, who before their time [make an end?]
Go, watchman, open to her the gate.
Seize her, according to the laws of old."
For by these laws all adornment must be left behind, and naked must man pass into the world of the dead.
The first gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking the great crown from off her head.
"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou the great crown from off mv head?" "Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
The second gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking from her ears the jewels.
"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from my ears the jewels?"
"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
The third gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking from off her neck the chain.
"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from off my neck the chain?"
"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
The fourth gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking away the ornaments from her bosom.
"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou away from my bosom the ornaments?"
"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
The fifth gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking the jewelled girdle from her loins.
"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from my loins the jewelled girdle?"
"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
The sixth gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking the bangles from her wrists and ankles. "Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from my wrists and ankles the bangles?"
"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
The seventh gate he let her pass; he divested her, taking from her body the garment.
"Wherefore, O! warder, takest thou from my body the garment?"
"Enter, lady, for such is the decree of the death goddess."
When it is told further how she was smitten with sickness in the eyes, sickness in the loins, sickness in the feet, sickness in the heart, sickness in the head, this is doubtless meant to indicate that death is the destruction of all the senses, and that all that is of the body must fall to corruption.
A passage in the Gilgamesh epic, extremely interesting for the history of civilisation and usually[1] interpreted as a lament by Gilgamesh over his friend Eabani, runs: "To a temple [no more thou goest] in white garments [no more thou clothest thyself] . . . with perfumed fat of bulls no more thou anointest thyself, so that men crowd round thee for the fragrance; the bow thou no longer settest on the ground (to draw it), those who were wounded by the bow surround thee; the sceptre no more thou carriest in thine hand, the spirits of the dead ban (?) thee; bangles no more thou puttest upon thine ankles, no (war-) cry raisest thou evermore on earth; thy wife whom thou lovedst thou kissest no more; thy wife whom thou hatedst thou smitest no more; thy daughter whom thou lovedst thou kissest no more; thy daughter whom thou hatedst thou smitest no more, the woe of the Underworld hath seized upon thee."
The misery of death was a special theme of song at the rites of mourning for the spring god Tammuz (Adonis), who each year sank into the world of the dead at the approach of winter. One lament for Tammuz recalls to mind the gardens and flower-pots used in the Phoenician and Greek Adonis cult, the forced growth and rapid fading of the plants. It runs: "Thou shepherd and lord, spouse of Istar, king of the Underworld, king of the dwelling-place of the waters; thou O shepherd art a seed corn that drank no water in the furrow, whose germ bore no fruit in the field, a young sapling that has not been planted by the water course, a sapling, whose root has been cut, a plant that drank no water in the furrow." In another Tammuz dirge we read : "Thou treadest (?) the closed way, the path without return . . . he departed, descended to the bosom of the Underworld . . . the Sun-god sent him down to the land of the dead, with lamentations was he filled on the day when he fell into great tribulation, in the month that let not his life come to completion, on the path where all is at end for man ('that brings the children of men to rest,' adds the scribe), to the wailing of the deed, he, the hero, to the far off invisible land."
Some little knowledge of Babylonian funeral customs can be gained from the scenes and inscriptions. The corpse was preserved by means of milk, honey, oil, and salt; it was swathed in linen, strewn with spices, and laid on a stone bier. In the so-called Hades reliefs the fore- arms of the corpse point upward. Wailers, both male and female, are in attendance at the funeral, lamenting and playing the flute; the relatives are present in "rent garments" or in mourning garb; libations, incense, dirges, prayers, and perhaps animal sacrifices forming part of the rites. On the reverse side of an unpublished fragment from the library of Asurbanipal, the obverse of which represents a royal burial, is the inscription: "The wives lamented, the friends replied," pointing evidently to the use on such occasions of antiphonal singing between men and women.
The accompanying action and gestures were violent as with all Orientals. The mourner wept, rent his garments, tore or shaved off his hair, cast himself down upon the ground (see Job i. 20) scarred his face, beat his loins. In the annals of Sargon it is said of a mourning Babylonian: "He fell down upon the ground, rent his garment, took the razor, broke forth into wailing."
Babylonians and Assyrians buried their dead; with them as with the Hebrews the burning of the corpse, except in case of necessity, was reckoned indignity and disgrace. The "vulture stela" found in the ruins of Ur of the Chaldees represents in one of its reliefs the burial of those slain in battle. Kings and great nobles were buried in temples and palaces, while the graves of the common people lay without the city. The ancient Babylonian king Gudea states incidentally that he has built the temple according to the Number Fifty, and erected within it a mausoleum of cedar wood. It would seem, therefore, that Babylonian temples like the Egyptian pyramids conceal beneath them royal tombs. Another majestic place of burial was the palace of Sargon I., a king famous in legend; certain of the Kassite kings were buried "in the palace of Sargon." In the annals of Asurbanipal mention is made of cemeteries at Babylon, Sippar, and Kutha, and Sanherib tells how a flood in the little river Tebilti had so disturbed the royal tombs in the midst of Ninev]] as to lay bare the sarcophagi. Great care was lavished on furnishing the graves of the rich and the great. The Assyrian fragment mentioned above (page 11) describes the funeral ceremonies at the death of a king. "In royal oil I laid him, with meet solemnity, the gate of his grave, of his place of rest have I closed with strong copper and have made fast his . . . Vessels of gold and silver, all that pertains to the furnishing of the tomb, (also) the emblems of his authority which he loved have I presented before the Sun god and laid them in his grave with the father who begat me. Gifts gave I to the princes, to the Anunaki, and to the gods who inhabit the earth," i.e., the Underworld. Drinking vessels and dishes of food for the dead were not only laid with them in the tomb, but were also placed upon it. Special care was taken to supply the manes of the dead with water to drink, and to this end apparently cisterns were made in the cemeteries. "If the dead have none to care for him," concludes the Twelve Tablet epic, "then is he consumed by gnawing hunger, vainly he languishes for refreshment; what is cast out on the street that he eats." The libations, regularly offered on the anniversary of death, formed the most important item in the worship of the dead, and the responsibility for offering them rested in the first place on the surviving son. In a deed fixing a boundary any man who should remove the boundary stone is cursed as follows: " May Ninib, lord of landmarks, rob him of his son, the Water-pourer." The commemoration day of the dead is called "the day of the feast of the dead," "day of dejection," "day of lamentatation," "day of mourning." The nak me priests, or "water pourers," performed the libation rites at the graves. "At the mourning festival of libations to the manes of my royal ancestors," says Asurbanipal, "I put on the garments of mourning and bestowed a boon on gods and men, on the dead and on the living." To this is added a penitential prayer spoken by the king at the graves of his ancestors. In his annals, however, he tells us that to his slain enemies he denied the Dirge of the Water-pourer. Bloody sacrifices of vengeance were also made at the tomb. The same king relates how he ordered prisoners of war to be slaughtered near to a colossal bull, on the scene of the murder of his grandfather Sanherib, as a solemn festival in honour of the deceased monarch.
To be deprived of the prescribed rites of burial was regarded as a terrible thing. The curse on him who should destroy the sacred inscriptions of the Assyrian kings is: " In famine shall his life end, his corpse shall be cast out and receive no burial." Elsewhere we are told that burial rites were refused to a rebel who had committed suicide. When conquered foes were to be treated with special ignominy the tombs of their ancestors were destroyed that the repose of the dead within them might be disturbed, and the prophecy of Jeremiah (viii. i, cf. Baruch ii. 24) that the bones of the Jewish kings, priests, prophets, and citizens will be taken from their graves and scattered beneath the sun is in strict accordance with the cruel war customs of Babylonians and Assyrians. Asurbanipal tells how after the overthrow of Elam he destroyed the sanctuaries of the land, and then uncovered and ravaged the mausoleums of the kings; "their bones I carried with me to Assyria, unrest laid I on their shades, and cut them off from the funerary rites of libation." King Sanherib was not satisfied with carrying off by ship the property and subjects of Merodachbaladan, he must needs also bring out from their mausoleum the bones of that unhappy king's predecessors. Again we are told how conquered kings, confined in the notorious Cage which stood to the east of Nineveh, were compelled for the special delectation of the populace to break in pieces the bones of their ancestors. No wonder many kings chose the sites of their tombs in the inaccessible swamps of the Euphrates, better to protect their sepulchres from profanation: so says Arrian, and his statement is supported by the inscriptions.
It cannot be averred absolutely that any of the graves hitherto discovered in Mesopotamia are of primitive origin. Certainly the cemeteries discovered at Nimrud, Kuyundshik, and Khorsabad, are not Assyrian; as for Babylonian cemeteries there is no fixing of their date. In some tombs, such for example as the sepulchral mound discovered by Taylor among the ruins of Ur, the seal cylinders found indicate high antiquity. The mounds, which mark the sites of ancient cemeteries, have been kept so dry by means of careful drainage through clay pipes that the vaulting of the tombs and the clay sarcophagi are preserved in perfect condition. The tombs of Ur are those for which there is most reason to assume an Early Babylonian date. These are of two kinds: one type consists of an oval cover of clay, something like an inverted dish, about seven feet long, five feet high and two and a half feet broad; the other is a brick vault, seven feet long, five feet high, and three feet broad. Among the skeletons traces have been found of linen swathings, and in the tombs vessels of clay and copper, some of them containing the remains of date kernels. The massive cemented urns which were found containing remains of skeletons among the ruins of Warka (Erekh) are undoubtedly of later date, perhaps belonging even to the Parthian period.
In 1887 Robert Koldewey, now director of a German excavation in the ruins of Babylon, chanced, during a short expedition in Surghul and El-Hiba (seven hours south-east of Shatra in the triangle formed by the Euphrates, Tigris and Shat-el-Hai), to discover two cemeteries containing dwellings for the dead, and massive tombs for the remains of bodies that had been burned. Examination of the ashes showed that the jewels of the women, the weapons, tools and seals of the men, and the playthings of the children, had been burned along with their bodies. Traces of animal sacrifices and of incense were recognised, as well as remains of vessels and food for the dead; there were also clay idols, human and animal. The many fountains discovered among the ruins of the cemetery testify to the zeal with which the dead were supplied with water for drinking. But these cinerary cemeteries are not Ancient Babylonian, as Koldewey would have us believe: the ancient Babylonians did not burn their dead.
Important conclusions as to Babylonian practices and beliefs in relation to death may be expected from the excavations at Niffer (Nippur). Observations made in the mounds of Niffer and Abu-Habba (Sippar) have shown that these ancient cities were divided into three sections: the temple quarter, the city of the living and the city of the dead.