188 



T. G. PINCHES^ LL.D.^ M.R.A.S., ON 



(The remainder of the inscription is too mutilated for a 

 satisfactory translation.) 



Whether I have succeeded in giving better renderings of 

 certain difficult passages time alone will show, but two or three 

 points come out with prominence. At the beginning of this 

 long paragraph, in which I have inserted some words to make 

 up the sense, it seems clear that the reproach levelled against 

 Nabonidus, accusing him of removing the gods from their 

 shrines, was correct. This, how^ever, would seem to have been 

 a common practice in days of national danger, such as he felt 

 the country to be in, and it is perfectly certain that he would 

 have been blamed if he had not done it. The god Bel, referred 

 to in connection with the New-Year festival, is Bel-Merodach, 

 and on this occasion it was the custom for the other great gods 

 of Babylonia to visit the head of the pantheon in the capital 

 wherein his chief shrine lay. This was situated in the temple 



E-sagila(sce p. 181). .The meeting place of the deities was called 

 Ubsukina — a counterpart and namesake of the heavenly 

 meeting-place wherein their divine feasts took place. The 

 following is a description of the ceremonies which were 

 performed at the shrine of Merodach at Babylon: 



" The gods, all of them — the gods of Borsippa, Cuthah, Kis, 

 and the gods of the cities, all, to take the hands of Kayanu, the 

 great lord Merodach, will go to Babylon, and with him, at the 

 is^ew-Year festival, in the holy place of the King (i.e., Merodach 

 himself), will offer a gift before him. As for that day, on its 

 appearance, Anu and Ellila will go from Erecli and Nippur to 

 Babylon to take the hands of Kayanu-Bel, and will march in 

 procession with him. To tlie temple of offerings all the great 

 gods will go together to Babylon." 



The tablet which gives these instructions also seems to detail 

 the reason why the ceremony was performed — it was apparently 

 to be present when Merodach was represented as going down to 

 the prison where the captive gods, who, at the Creation, had 

 resisted the gods of heaven, were confined. There Merodach 

 was regarded as going, opening the gates of the prison, and 

 comforting them. The expression here used is a very interesting 

 one, for it reads i7ias ressimu, " he raiseth their head," and it is 

 apparently owing to this ceremony that the Temple of 

 Belus was called E-sagila, " the house of head-raising," for it 

 was there that " the merciful Merodach " became reconciled to 

 the gods who had been his enemies. An unsuspected beauty in 

 the Legend of Merodach here meets us. 



Erom this inscription it would seem that the gods of Sippar, 



