94 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
Babylonian religious literature makes frequent mention of these same gates. 
These are not simply the seven gates of the lower world through which Ishtar 
passed, to be stripped of her ornaments and garments, but also the gates of the 
morning and evening. ‘They are mentioned in the “Seven Tablets of Creation”’ 
(King, 1, p. 78, lines 9-11); 
He [Marduk] opened great gates on both sides; 
He made strong the bolt on the left and on the right. 
Between them he fixed the zenith. 
Here, in this Babylonian form of the Chaldean story, it is Marduk who is the crea- 
tor, but who replaces other gods, Bel or Ea, who were, very likely, successively 
the earlier creators. What was the exact meaning of these gates is indicated (v., 
p. 127, lines 8-14): 
When Anu, Bel, and Ea, 
The great gods, through their sure counsel 
Fixed the bounds of heaven and earth, 
And to the hands of the great gods entrusted 
The creation of the day and the renewal of the months which they might behold, 
And mankind beheld the Sun-god in the gate of his going forth, 
In the midst of heaven and earth they created him. 
In this syncretic version, in which the three great gods, Anu, Bel, and Ea, are rep- 
resented as the creators of all things, the gates of the heavens are particularly 
described as those through which the sun passes. A hymn to Shamash thus 
begins (Jastrow, “ Religion,” p. 301): 
O Shamash, out of the horizon of heaven thou issuest forth. 
The bolt of the bright heavens thou openest, 
The door of heaven thou dost open. 
O Shamash, over the world dost thou raise thy head; 
O Shamash, with the glory of heaven thou coverest the world. 
That there was a gate also at the setting of the sun appears in another hymn 
(2b25° p.2303): 
O Sun-god, in the horizon of heaven at thy setting, 
May the enclosure of the pure heavens greet thee, 
May the gate of heaven approach thee, 
May the directing god, the messenger who loves thee, direct thy way. 
Other passages of the same tenor might be quoted, but it is sufficient to quote 
one more in which the mountains out of which the sun rises are mentioned (thus 
translated by Jastrow, in note to my article mentioned above): 
O Sun, in thy rising out of the great mountain, 
In thy rising out of the great mountain, the mountain of fate, 
In thy rising out of the mountain, the place of destinies. 
Such passages as these, I venture to think, quite justify the interpretation of 
this favorite poetic scene now generally accepted. We see, on these cylinders, 
which are all of an early period, antedating Gudea, the Sun-god Shamash, at his 
rising out of the mountains of the East, in Elam, the Mountains of Nizir. He has 
passed through the Gates of the Morning, and the porter, the “directing god,” 
perhaps, the “ Misaru,” has opened the gates to him. This “directing god,” how- 
ever, may be the additional figure, garbed like a god, whom we see in figs. 244, or 251; 
or, perhaps, he may be quite otherwise represented, as in the famous bas-relief from 
