lambert - myth and ritual

MYTH AND RITUAL AS CONCEIVEDBY THE BABYLONIANS1

By W. G. LAMBERT

Since current English usage requires capitals in a title, it must bestated that this paper concerns myth and ritual with small letters.Myth and Ritual with capitals is something that has been pro-pagated by S. H. Hooke and has roused much interest in OldTestament circles. Yet there has been no proper "school" ofMyth and Ritual and the phrase has served more as a talkingpoint than as representing a particular set of views. As such itsinfluence has been good, but the discussion has all too rarelyresulted in definite conclusions, and the present need is to collectmore evidence rather than to take sides on the various issues thathave been raised. The present contribution therefore is con-cerned simply with collecting facts and drawing such conclusionsas they obviously present, of which the most important is thatthe Babylonians had their own school of Myth and Ritual.

The Babylonian material can be divided into two categories,simple and sophisticated. This distinction also correspondsroughly with the sequence in time. The simple material is fromthe second millennium B.C., the sophisticated from the first. Agood example of the simple material is the Atra-basis epic.2 Thisstory of the creation and early history of man is now best knownfrom a late Old Babylonian edition of c. 1600 B.C. It begins bytelling how Enlil, the chief god, took up his residence on theearth and put the other gods to work digging the rivers. Suchtoil was found excessive by the divine labourers, and so theyburnt their tools and surrounded the house of Enlil, threateningdire consequences if they were not relieved of the hard work.After consultations it was decided to create man to take over thehard labour of the universe; and a complicated process of creationensued. First, Mami, the mother goddess, mixed clay withthe flesh and blood of a slaughtered god, and on this mixture thegreat gods spat. Next Enki, god of skills and wisdom, trod the

1 This paper, presented here in honour of my teacher of Hebrew, was readto Manchester University Egyptian and Oriental Society on 18 October 1965.

2 See the edition by die present writer and A. R. Millard, Atra-basls, TheBabylonian Story oftbe Flood (Clarendon Press, Oxford, in the press).

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day like a potter, then Mami took fourteen lumps of clay andput them in two rows, placing what is called " the brick" betweenthem. Birth goddesses, fourteen in number, took one lump eachand moulded it, seven into males, seven into females. The gesta-tion period of nine months followed, but the text is broken atthis point. However, the period was spent by the moulded clayfigurines in some kind of womb and at the end of it they emerged.At this the mother goddess exclaimed:

I have created! My hands have made (man) 1Let the midwife rejoice in the prostitute's house.Where the expectant mother gives birth,Where the mother of the babe severs herself,Let the brick be in place for nine days. (i, 289-94)

The myth suddenly turns from telling what happened in thebeginning to offering advice on midwifery, though this text(contrary to what has been said repeatedly) was never used as anincantation in childbirth. The reason for this sudden change isthat the myth was not considered to have happened once and forall in the beginning. Some of it at least was held to recur at everyhuman birth. Mami therefore instructs generations to come onproper use of the "brick". This object is also named in othertexts, and was probably not a single builder's brick, but a brickstructure on which women underwent their labour. In any case,for the present consideration the actual object is less importantthan its function. Clearly at the time of this epic's composition itwas normal practice to put this "brick" where the birth wouldtake place. The specification that it had to be there for nine daysproves what we would have conjectured without this information,that birth was considered not simply as a biological process, butalso as a magic rite. Here, then, the author of the epic has com-bined myth and ritual, but they are very unhappily connected. Inthe belief that human births continue at least elements of theoriginal creation of the human race, the "brick" that was used inactual births has been dragged into a myth which has no real usefor it. It was simply put between the two rows of seven lumps ofclay and served no practical purpose in the mixing of clay andmoulding of figurines. There is every reason to hold that in thiscase myth and ritual were originally separate. No doubt the riteof using a "brick" at births and the basic elements of the mythwere centuries old, and the introduction of the "brick" intomyth would seem to be a secondary development.

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A further example from the simple category is the Epic ofCreation, Enuma Elis to use the native title.1 This has long beenheralded as an important example of a myth for use in the cult.The well-known story is of how Marduk killed the monsterTiamat ("Sea") and thereby made himself supreme in theBabylonian pantheon. It is known that in the course of the NewYear festival at Babylon a battle in which Marduk defeatedTiamat was ritually enacted.2 It is also known that in the courseof the same festival Enuma Elis was recited to the statue ofMarduk by a priest.3 At first glance the connexion of the twoevents seems obvious, though the claim that the myth was com-posed especially for use in the ritual does not necessarily follow.Another item of the festival was the Determining of the Destinies(settling the course of events in human history for the followingyear) and also (it has been alleged) the death and resurrection ofMarduk and a ritual marriage. Such items certainly build up amost exciting kind of festival, and it is small wonder that somehave been tempted to make this the exegetical key to obscureallusions in Hebrew poetry and much more besides.

A more sober, critical analysis of the evidence does not givesuch colourful material. First, some historical perspective mustbe introduced. The festival under consideration took place underthe Late Babylonian kings, that is, from 625 to 539 B.C. Evidencefrom Late Assyrian sources, both literary and other, enables us toconclude that the festival in Babylon was essentially the samefrom about 750 B.C. How much farther back it went, and to whatextent other towns had similar festivals, are questions on whichalmost no evidence exists. Furthermore, no single piece of evi-dence tells of any death or resurrection of Marduk, and in the lackof such evidence it must be excluded from the discussion. Thesame holds for the sacred marriage. The present writer has beenunable to find any scrap of evidence that Marduk was involved ina sacred marriage in the course of the New Year festival. It isknown that ritual marriages in which the king participated wereheld some 1,400 years earlier, under the Third Dynasty of Ur,4

1 A convenient, though now incomplete, translation is that of A. Heidel,Tie Babylonian Genesis. A new critical edition by the present writer, in anadvanced state of preparation, discusses many of the matters referred to inthis paper. Where possible, previous publications of relevant material arereferred to.

2 See provisionally W. G. Lambert, Iraq xxv (1963), 189-90.3 F. Thureau-Dangin, RJtue/s accadiens, p. 136.4 See e.g. S. N. Kramer, The Summons, p. 254.

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but it is unsound scholarship to telescope items so widely spacedin time. However, the Determining of the Destinies is com-pletely certain, and the battle with Tiamat is alluded to. Theformer took place twice, on the jth or 6th day of Nisan andagain on the i ith. At the first occurrence Nabu, son of Marduk,had precedence; at the second Marduk had precedence. But thedouble occurrence is still strange. The battle took place betweenthe two Determinings of the Destinies. The day is given in threetexts: one names the 8th of Nisan, another the ioth, and the thirdthe n th . This discrepancy is not necessarily due to scribal error.The precise day could have varied from time to time. At allevents it witnessed a procession of the gods and goddesses,though whether the statues or only cult symbols were carried isunknown. First they went in chariots along a processional streetof the city. Then they were transferred to boats and went alonga canal outside the city to the Akltu house. Here Mardukachieved victory, apparently by having his statue (or cult symbol)placed on top of a dais representing the sea. At this the accom-panying gods heaped presents on him and extolled his victory.The evidence on which this reconstruction of events is based isscrappy, so that it is possible that the actual events were muchmore detailed; but certainly a myth was presumed, and this forcesthe important question: is Eniima Elis this cult myth in writtenform?

The mere recitation during the New Year festival is of lessconsequence than has been allowed. The text of the ritual for thefourth day, which does survive, prescribes its reading on that dayin the evening. This was at least four days prior to the Aklturitual, not in connexion with it. Only very recently it has becomeknown from a similar ritual for the month Kislimu that EniimaEM was also recited on the fourth day of that month. Sinceevidence for the other ten months is lacking, it must be con-sidered at least a possibility that it was recited on the fourth dayof every month, and that the day, rather than the month, was theconditioning factor. If this is true, the recitation in Nisan loses itsspecial significance.

Another approach to this. question is to inquire if the epicshows signs of having been written for cultic use. There is in facta neglected Epilogue which states that the purpose of the text isto educate mankind generally in the greatness of Marduk. At onetime it was popular to consider this Epilogue a late addition, butthere is no stylistic or other reason in support of such a view, and

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no one has yet made this suggestion for the very similar Epilogueto the Erra Myth.1 Internal signs of cultic influence are generallyabsent. There is no mention of the Akltu rites, and the onlyallusion occurs in the section containing the fifty names ofMarduk. This, however, is known to have been originally aseparate document, since parts of it still survive independently ofthe epic, and its allusions often contradict the epic's own story.

In this case, therefore, there is clearly a myth presupposed inthe rites of the Akltu house, a public ritual of Babylon. But thewritten form of the myth known to us does not seem to havebeen written for recitation in a ritual at all. This use seems to besecondary, and may have taken place once every month. At leastit is known for Nisan and Kislimu.

A much more difficult block of the simple category is presentedby incantation myths, since incantations are a largely unworkedfield. Accordingly the comments here will be extremely brief. Torecite an incantation was to bring magic into play. On the magiclevel, then, a myth within an incantation was part of the meansof achieving the end in view, toward which ritual acts were alsoperformed. But it must be observed that only a small minority ofincantations contain myths,2 so that there was nothing special, onthe magic level, in a myth. The end could be achieved just as wellwithout it. It was being an incantation, not being a myth, thatcounted. It is, then, relevant to ask what the function of themyths was on the rational plane. Usually it was aetiological. Thesituation was that a demon had attacked a man. This may bestated in as few as three words, but rarely the myth of theparticular demon's origin is prefixed to the statement of its mis-deed. In terms of literary structure this is embellishment. For thereal purpose of the incantation, such as driving out the demon,the myth is clearly dispensable. With this qualification it can besaid that incantation myths are examples of myth occurringwithin ritual.

The sophisticated material bearing on myth and ritual aroseout of a long chain of development. In the third millennium B.C.,despite the existence of writing, knowledge of the various rituals

1 F. Gossmann, Das Era-Epos, p. 36; also Iraq xxrv (1962), 12 j .2 In the modern world the interest in incantations with myths has been

very considerable, and one or two have been translated into Europeanlanguages more times than any other cuneiform tests. It must not be forgottenthat these are not typical, and that many hundreds of incantations not con-taining myths lie unpublished in museums.

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was passed on by experience and orally. There was no written"order of service". In the second millennium detailed prescrip-tions for rites were committed to writing. In the first millenniumcommentaries expounding the meaning of the various acts werecompiled. Some of these are brief sections added at convenientpoints to prescriptions for rituals, but there are full texts whichpresume knowledge of the rites and explain their meaning. Thisis the work of the ancient myth and ritual school. One simpleexample comes in a text containing instructions for the per-formance of rites in connexion with the making of a divinestatue.1 It is specified that at a certain point in the proceedingsnine bricks must be laid in a row. It is not clear whether thesebricks served any particular function other than by their presence.At the end of the tablet which gives these instructions there is alist of nine deities followed by the explanation: "these are thegods whose bricks are placed in the bit mummu", the latter beingthe place where divine statues were made. In other words, thebricks were understood to be representations of the nine gods,who participated in the rites in this way. Another example of thesame kind occurs in the rituals for the reskinning of a ritualdrum.2 There is a section which simply gives a list of names ofdeities in groups: first three, then two, and then seven. Oneedition of this text offers nothing in explanation of these names,but another edition explains the last' group as fhe seven sons ofEnmes'arra (an obscure group of deities): "the sons of Enmes'arraare heaps of flour". In other words, when the ritual requires theplacing of seven heaps of flour on the floor, these were under-stood to represent the presences of the seven sons of Enmes'arra.In cases like the two just described there is no way of assessing thevalidity of the explanation offered. Was the understanding of thebricks and heaps of flour really inherent in those things from veryearly times, or is the explanation an attempt to put meaning intotraditional rites, the true meaning of which (if there ever was oneof this kind) had long since been forgotten ? The more elaborateexpositions permit the formulation of an answer.

The drumskin ritual itself is the subject of a most elaboratecommentary. This was published by no less a scholar than thegreat Thureau-Dangin, but he failed to grasp its character, as maybe judged from his description of it as "une sorte de re'sume' de

1 One copy is published by E. Ebeling, Tod und Leben, pp. 110 ff., but newduplicates now restore the text.

2 F. Thureau-Dangin, op. cit. pp. i ff.

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la theologie du kalu, sous la forme d'une enumeration de dieuxdont la nature et le role sont exprimes par des assimilations ad'autres divinites,pardes epithetes ou glosses explicatives".1 Thereverse of the tablet actually gives a diagram of the scene, withthe bull which will provide the skin in one corner with the drum.Then at various points occur divine names in groups, amongwhich are prominent the three, two and seven already mentioned.The text takes up the three, two and seven first, devoting oneparagraph to each group, and explains their characters in the wayslisted by Thureau-Dangin. Not everything is understood in thisobscure text, and unfortunately too little of the ritual on whichit comments is preserved for the validity of the comments to beassessed.

Another ancient commentary of the same genre explains a textthat seems to be totally lost, though it was of such a commontype that it can be reconstructed from the commentary withoutdifficulty. The ritual served for curing a sick man. To this end thedoor of the chamber in which he lay was rubbed with gypsumand bitumen, a magic circle of flour was laid around his bed, andthree heaps of flour were placed on the floor. A second magiccircle was drawn in front of the bed, a drum (?) and cymbal (?)were placed by the sick man's head, and so on. In the com-mentary2 each of these items is identified with a divine being.The gypsum is the god Ninurta; the bitumen is the Asakkudemon; the circle of flour is the gods Lugalgirra and Meslamtaea;the other magic circle is the mythological Net, the drum andcymbal are Anu and Enlil; and so on. One important phrase isadded to these otherwise jejune identifications: "Ninurta willpursue (or, pursues) Asakku." Here is the key to this whole genreof ritual commentaries. There is a Sumerian myth of a conflictbetween Ninurta and the Asakku demon, in which the god ofcourse prevailed. Demons were held responsible for disease.Thus, when the rites described were enacted, the various identi-fications served to re-enact this mythological battle. Ninurta and

1 F. Thureau-Dangin, Revue d'Assyriologie xvi (1919), 144 ff.2 J. N. Strassmaier, Zeitscbrift fur Assyriologie vi, 241 ff.; H. Zimmem,

Zum babyloniscben Neujabrsfest, 1 (Bericbte iiber die Verbandlungen der KoniglicbenSacbsiscben Gesellscbaft der Wissenscbafteti %u Leipzig, Pbilologiscb-bistoriscbeKlasse, j6. Band), pp. 128-9; S. A. Pallis, Tbe Babylonian Akitu Festival,pp. 209-10. (It cannot be too much stressed that this last work is altogetherunreliable and antiquated. And its irritating habit of giving quotations ofBabylonian texts in transliteration without translation makes it useless formany readers.)

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Asakku were introduced in this way into the sick man's bedroomin the gypsum and bitumen with which the door was rubbed.Just as in time past Ninurta vanquished the Asakku demon, soagain the battle was fought, and with the overthrow of thedemon the sick man would be cured.

Even from the brief account that has been given of this healingritual and its commentary it is obvious that the rites themselvesspeak a very different language from their alleged explanation.The former, with their rubbing the door of the sick man's roomand placing a circle around his bed, belong to very widespreadmagic rites for driving away demons and keeping them at bay.The circle around the bed serves as a barrier to demonic entry,and the rubbing of the door makes that an effective barrier too.Yet the commentary explains that of the two substances used torub the door one is the evil demon, the other the beneficent god.And one magic circle is identified with two gods. It is very clearthat a traditional ritual has been mismated with a traditionalmyth. Beyond a certain common intellectual background theyare unrelated, properly speaking.

Several other examples of exactly the same kind could be given.They demonstrate that this kind of interpretation of ritual was anormal feature of intellectual life in the Mesopotamia of the firstmillennium B.C. There is, indeed, a compendium surviving whichhelps to explain the ineptitude of many of the identifications.1 Itcontains, among other things, a list of sixty-seven objects andsubstances commonly used in rituals, each of which is equatedwith a deity or demon. The 46th and 47th are gypsum andbitumen. The former is explained as Ninurta, as in the textdescribed, but the latter is not given as Asakku, but as River, adeity in Mesopotamian mythology. Thus the Babylonian school ofMyth and Ritual was occupied in explaining traditional rituals asre-enactments of traditional myths in what, to us, is a highlyartificial manner.

Can any broad conclusions be drawn from this disparate andoften obscure evidence? Surprisingly one principle stands out.Whether one takes the birth-brick in Atra-hasts, the evidence ofthe Akitu rites compared with the Epic of Creation, or the first-millennium commentaries on ritual performances, in all cases

1 Two pieces are published: H. Zimmern, Beitrage %ur Kenntnis der babyloni-scbtn Religion, p. 135, no. 27; and S. H. Langdon, Summon Liturgies andPsalms (^University of Pennsylvania, The University Museum, Publications of theBabylonian Section, vol. x, no. 4), no. 12, pp. 330 ff.

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alike there is the fundamental presupposition that myths whichwe should suppose were regarded as having happened once andfor all in the remote past, in fact were conceived to be recurringat regular intervals in the world in which the Babylonian authorslived. This phenomenon has been noted before by students ofcomparative religion in the case of creation myths;1 what issurprising is the recurrence of the same principle in such diversematerials. Incantation myths are the only exception, but it hasalready been observed that they are not closely knit in the ritualsto which they belong, but are embellishments of literary character.Many questions can be asked concerning the principle that hasbeen discovered. What kind of intellectual and emotional pro-cesses led to this belief in recurring myths ? Were the Egyptians,and perhaps the Canaanites and Hebrews also, influenced by thiskind of thought? Was this perhaps a common Near Easternpattern? However relevant and important these questions maybe, this is not the place to attempt answers to them, since thepresent paper is limited to ascertaining the facts of the relation-ship of myth and ritual in ancient Mesopotamia.

1 R. Pettaz2oni goes almost this far:" What happened in the beginning hasan exemplary and defining value for what is happening today and will happenin the future. The present world is nothing but a reproduction of the worldof myth; myth is therefore the sine qua non of all existence, the Magna Cartaof every institution." (Essays on the History of Religions (Supplements toNumen, i), p. 26.)

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