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ikhet_sekhmetAs with so many books, I'll have to come back and give this one a proper read. In the meantime, a few notes.
The New Year's festival was Mesopotamia's "most important religious ceremony". The Creation epic was recited. Marduk's statue was carried in procession to a temple outside Babylon, symbolising his going into combat with Tiamat, and was carried back to his own temple in triumph. The statues of other gods were brought to Babylon for the ceremony.
A sacred marriage was held between Marduk and his consort Sarpanit, enacted by a priest and priestess - possibly by the king and queen. In one ceremony, the king laid his royal insignia before the statue of the god, knelt before the high priest, and declared he hadn't committed any sins. The priest then slapped him in the face twice before returning the insignia. Fiore points out the king was not considered a god - in Egypt, such humiliation would have been blasphemous. If he shed tears, this was a good omen.
Fiore notes the "disappearance of the god during the sixth and seventh days" of the New Year festival, resulting in "a general disorder accompanied by lamentations which last until the god makes his reappearance in the temple two days later." I assume he means Marduk disappeared, symbolising Tammuz's sojourn in the Netherworld.
In Sumerian times, cities including Ur and Uruk celebrated two New Year's festivals, one in spring and one in autumn.
(The New Year's festival is of special interest to me, as I wrote about it in my novel Walking to Babylon.)
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Fiore, Silvestro. Voices From the Clay: the development of Assyro-Babylonian Literature. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965.
The New Year's festival was Mesopotamia's "most important religious ceremony". The Creation epic was recited. Marduk's statue was carried in procession to a temple outside Babylon, symbolising his going into combat with Tiamat, and was carried back to his own temple in triumph. The statues of other gods were brought to Babylon for the ceremony.
A sacred marriage was held between Marduk and his consort Sarpanit, enacted by a priest and priestess - possibly by the king and queen. In one ceremony, the king laid his royal insignia before the statue of the god, knelt before the high priest, and declared he hadn't committed any sins. The priest then slapped him in the face twice before returning the insignia. Fiore points out the king was not considered a god - in Egypt, such humiliation would have been blasphemous. If he shed tears, this was a good omen.
Fiore notes the "disappearance of the god during the sixth and seventh days" of the New Year festival, resulting in "a general disorder accompanied by lamentations which last until the god makes his reappearance in the temple two days later." I assume he means Marduk disappeared, symbolising Tammuz's sojourn in the Netherworld.
In Sumerian times, cities including Ur and Uruk celebrated two New Year's festivals, one in spring and one in autumn.
(The New Year's festival is of special interest to me, as I wrote about it in my novel Walking to Babylon.)
__
Fiore, Silvestro. Voices From the Clay: the development of Assyro-Babylonian Literature. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965.
