Shamash - The Babylonian sun-godIn this
thread we have already talked about several deities from the Middle East. Here I want to present another one, from whom most of you, I think, have never heard: The Babylonian sun-god Shamash.
The coin:Syria, Seleukia and Pieria,
Emesa,
Macrinus, AD 217-218
AE - Billon-tetradrachm, 25.5.mm, 13.17g
obv. AVT KM OP CE(?) -
MAKRINOC C-E-B
laureate
bust r.
rev. DHMARX EZ VPATOC PP
Eagle with opened wings, stg. frontal,
head l., holding
wreath in beak; between
his legs
bust of Shamash, draped (and
cuirassed),
radiate, r.
below beak H (for
officina)
Prieur 987;
Bellinger 199
about VF
Mythology:Shamash is the common name of the sun-god in
Babylonia and
Assyria. The Semitic name signifies something like 'bright, shiny'. The ancient Sumerians has called him Utu. The moon-god Sin (Nannar) was the son of the god Enlil. The sun-god Shamah in turn was the son of Sin. In the early morning he raised from the mountains in the East, rays emanating from
his shoulders, went in
his chariot dragged by fiery
mules over the sky to the
West, where he in the evening entered through the gates of
West the Underworld. These gates opened to the Mt.Mashu (Gilgamesh, tabl.IX) and were guarded by scorpion-men, half
scorpion, half
man. Like the sun disperses the darkness and sees all, so Shamash brings evil and injustice to light. Shamash was the god of justice. He punished the bad and rewards the
good.
Background:Both in early and in late inscriptions Shamash is designated as the 'offspring of Sin (Nannar)', i.e. of the moon-god, and since, in an enumeration of the Babylonian
pantheon. Shamash so to say belongs to a second generation of gods, or even to a third one (Aren't that similarities to the Greek gods?). Sin generally takes precedence of Shamash, it is in relationship, presumably, to the moon-god that the sun-god appears as the dependent power. Such a supposition would accord with the prominence acquired by the moon in the calendar and in astrological calculations, as well as with the fact that the moon-cult belongs to the nomadic and therefore earlier stage of civilization, whereas the sun-god rises to full importance only after the agricultural stage has been reached. The two chief centres of sun-worship in
Babylonia were Sippara (Sippar), represented by the mounds at Abu Habba, and Larsa, represented by the modern Senkerah. At both places the chief sanctuary bore the name E-barra, meaning 'the shining house# - a direct allusion to the brilliancy of the sun-god. Of the two temples, that at Sippara was the more famous, but temples to Shamash were erected in all large centres - as Babylon, Ur, Nippur and Niniveh.
The attribute most commonly associated with Shamash is justice. Hammurabi attributes to Shamash the inspiration that led him to gather the existing laws and legal procedures into a code, and in the design accompanying the code the
king represents himself in an attitude of adoration before Shamash as the embodiment of the idea of justice. Several centuries before Hammurabi, Ur-Engur,
king of Ur (c. 2600 BC) declared that he rendered decisions 'according to the just laws of Shamash'. It was a logical consequence of this conception of the sun-god that he was regarded also as the one who released the sufferer from the grasp of the demons. The sick
man, therefore, appeals to Shamash as the god who can be depended upon to
help those who are suffering unjustly. This aspect of the sun-god is vividly brought out in the hymns addressed to him, which are, therefore, among the finest productions in the entire realm of Babylonian literature. In the
library of
king Assurbanipal (668-633 BC) fragments of hymns were found were Shamash is celebrated as universal god, as god of earth and Underworld and Saviour.
It is evident from our material that the Shamash cults at Sippara and Larsa so overshadowed local sun-deities elsewhere as to lead to an absorption of the minor deities by the predominating one. In the systematized Babylonian
pantheon these minor sun-gods become attendants of Shamash. Such are Bunene, spoken of as
his chariot driver, whose consort is Atgimakh, Kettu ("justice") and Mesharu ("right"), who are introduced as servitors of Shamash. Other sun-deities, as Ninib and Nergal, in earlier times the
patron deities of important centres, retained their independent existence as certain phases of the sun, Ninib becoming the sun-god of the morning and of the
spring time, and Nergal the sun-god of the noon and of the summer solstice, while Shamash was viewed as the sun-god in general.
Together with Sin and Ishtar, Shamash forms a second triad by the
side of Anu, Bel and Ea. The three powers, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar, symbolized the three great forces of nature, the sun, the moon and the life-giving force of the earth. At times, instead of Ishtar, we find Hadad, the storm-god, associated with Sin and Shamash, and it may be that these two sets of triads represent the doctrines of two different schools of theological thought in
Babylonia which were subsequently harmonized by the recognition of a group consisting of all four deities.
The consort of Shamash was known as Aya. She, however, is rarely mentioned in the inscriptions except in combination with Shamash.
Like mentioned above the Babylonian
king Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC) should have got
his famous code of law, the Codex Hammurabi, which is suggested as oldest written code of law, from the sun-god Shamash. At top of the
stele where the
cuneiform texts are
engraved we see Shamash throning and handing over the Codex to
king Hammurabi.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, whose last version was written c.1200 BC on twelve tablets, Shamash plays an important role as personal god of Gilgamesh and as victorious fighter. It was Shamash who challenged Gilgamesh,
king of Uruk, to defeat Chumbaba, the guardian of the cedar
woods in Lebanon. Gilgamesh together with
his consort Enkidu promised to extinguish from earth all evil. In the evening before they left Uruk they sacrificed cool water to Shamash (tabl. III). When fighting against Chumbaba Shamash helped them by arousing twelfe havy gales against the monster. Later, as thanks for defeating the heaven's
bull who was send by Ishtar against them, Enkidu and Gilgamesh sacrificed to Shamash again (Epic of Gilgamesh, tabl. VI).
In later times we find Shamash as
part of individual names too, so in Shamash-shum-ukin, who was
king of Babylon in 668-548 BC. But that phenomena we know already from Mithras. When in the Holy Bible in the Book of Kings is the talk of horses and a
chariot which was set by the kings of Juda before the temple of Jerusalem in honour of the sun, which then were removed by Josia (7th century BC), then the horses and the
chariot of Shamash is meant (
Bellinger, 427).
Later Shamash was the sun-god of the Arabs especially of those from Hatra, an indepent kingdom between
Parthia and the
Roman Syria. Hatra issued coins showing the
portrait of Shamash in the time of the Severians. Its
legend was Aramaic HTR DSMS (Hatra of Shamash). I have added a pic of
SNG Copenhagen 232.
We find Shamash in the Judaism too. Here it is a kind of helper-candle which is used during Chanukah to set fire to the Mitzvah candles. Theses were sacred and should not be violated by such profane acts like lighting candles. The Shamash was not allowed to be exstinguished during the festivities.
I have added the following pics:
(1) a pic from the top of Hammurabi's
stele showing the scene where Shamash, seated l., handed over to
king Hammurabi, stg. r., the text of the Codex Hammurabi.
(2) a pic of the tablet of Shamash from the 9th century BC, found in Sippar/Southern Iraque, today in the British Museum. This tablet reports a fascinating story: The restauration of the image and the temple of the sun-god. The
cuneiform text describes how the Temple of Shamash at Sippar
had fallen into decay and the image of the god
had been destroyed. During the reign of Nabu-apla-iddina, however, a
terracotta model of the statue was found on the far
side of the Euphrates and the
king ordered a new image be constructed of gold and
lapis lazuli. The text then confirms and extends the privileges of the temple.
The tablet was discovered some 250 years later by
King Nabopolassar (625-605 BC), who placed it for safe keeping, together with a record of
his own name, in the
pottery box. The clay impressions of the carved panel were placed as protection over the
face of the
stone. The original one placed by Nabu-apla-iddina was broken when the
stone tablet was recovered by Nabopolassar. He replaced it with a new one while keeping the original safely in the box with the tablet.
At top of the tablet we see Shamash seated on the right, holding emblems of
his authority, a staff and ring, and the
king with two attendants on the left. In the center, on an
altar, is a large 4-point sun image, with additional small wavy rays between the points, an old symbol for Shamash himself.
(3) A pic of the coin from Hatra with the
bust of Shamash on the
obv.Sources:
-
Wikipedia- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- The Codex Hammurabi
- Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 (online)
-
www.sungaya.de (Das schwarze Netz)
-
www.britishmuseum.org- H.J.W.Drijvers, Monotheismus und Polytheismus in der haträischen Religion, Proceedings of the Xiith International Congress of the Int. Assoc. for the
History of Religions, 1970).
Best regards