{"product_id":"2940015756470","title":"History of Egypt, Chald\u0026aelig;a, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12)","description":"CHAPTER I--ANCIENT CHALDÆA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Creation, the Deluge, the history of the gods--The country, its\u003cbr\u003ecities its inhabitants, its early dynasties.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Illustration: 002a.jpg]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when\u003cbr\u003enothing below had as yet received the name of earth,* Apsu, the Ocean,\u003cbr\u003ewho first was their father, and Chaos-Tiâmat, who gave birth to them\u003cbr\u003eall, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes\u003cbr\u003ewhich bore no fruit.\"** Life germinated slowly in this inert mass, in\u003cbr\u003ewhich the elements of our world lay still in confusion: when at length\u003cbr\u003eit did spring up, it was but feebly, and at rare intervals, through\u003cbr\u003ethe hatching of divine couples devoid of personality and almost without\u003cbr\u003eform. \"In the time when the gods were not created, not one as yet, when\u003cbr\u003ethey had neither been called by their names, nor had their destinies\u003cbr\u003ebeen assigned to them by fate, gods manifested themselves. Lakhmu and\u003cbr\u003eLakhamu were the first to appear, and waxed great for ages; then Anshar\u003cbr\u003eand Kishar were produced after them. Days were added to days, and years\u003cbr\u003ewere heaped upon years: Anu, Inlil, and Ea were born in their turn, for\u003cbr\u003eAnshar and Kishar had given them birth.\" As the generations emanated one\u003cbr\u003efrom the other, their vitality increased, and the personality of each\u003cbr\u003ebecame more clearly defined; the last generation included none but\u003cbr\u003ebeings of an original character and clearly marked individuality. Anu,\u003cbr\u003ethe sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night; Inlil-Bel,\u003cbr\u003ethe king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and the\u003cbr\u003epersonification of wisdom.*** Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into\u003cbr\u003eAnat, Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse\u003cbr\u003ewhom he had deduced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these\u003cbr\u003efruitful pairs, and the impulse once given, the world was rapidly\u003cbr\u003epeopled by their descendants. Sin, Shamash, and Kamman, who presided\u003cbr\u003erespectively over the moon, the sun, and the air, were all three of\u003cbr\u003eequal rank; next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach, Nergal,\u003cbr\u003ethe warrior-goddess Ishtar, and Nebo; then a whole army of lesser\u003cbr\u003edeities, who ranged themselves around Anu as round a supreme master.\u003cbr\u003eTiâmat, finding her domain becoming more and more restricted owing\u003cbr\u003eto the activity of the others, desired to raise battalion against\u003cbr\u003ebattalion, and set herself to create unceasingly; but her offspring,\u003cbr\u003emade in her own image, appeared like those incongruous phantoms which\u003cbr\u003emen see in dreams, and which are made up of members borrowed from a\u003cbr\u003escore of different animals. They appeared in the form of bulls with\u003cbr\u003ehuman heads, of horses with the snouts of dogs, of dogs with quadruple\u003cbr\u003ebodies springing from a single fish-like tail. Some of them had the beak\u003cbr\u003eof an eagle or a hawk; others, four wings and two faces; others, the\u003cbr\u003elegs and horns of a goat; others, again, the hind quarters of a horse\u003cbr\u003eand the whole body of a man. Tiâmat furnished them with terrible\u003cbr\u003eweapons, placed them under the command of her husband Kingu, and set out\u003cbr\u003eto war against the gods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     * In Chaldæa, as in Egypt, nothing was supposed to have a\u003cbr\u003e     real existence until it had received its name: the sentence\u003cbr\u003e     quoted in the text means practically, that at that time\u003cbr\u003e     there was neither heaven nor earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     ** Apsu has been transliterated kiracruv [in Greek], by the\u003cbr\u003e     author an extract from whose works has been preserved by\u003cbr\u003e     Damascius. He gives a different version of the tradition,\u003cbr\u003e     according to which the amorphous goddess Mummu-Tiâmat\u003cbr\u003e     consisted of two persons. The first, Tauthé, was the wife of\u003cbr\u003e     Apasôn; the second, Moymis, was the son of Apasôn and of\u003cbr\u003e     Tauthé. The last part of the sentence is very obscure in the\u003cbr\u003e     Assyrian text, and has been translated in a variety of\u003cbr\u003e     different ways. It seems to contain a comparison between\u003cbr\u003e     Apsû and Mummu-Tiâmat on the one hand, and the reeds and\u003cbr\u003e     clumps of rushes so common in Chaldæa on the other; the two\u003cbr\u003e     divinities remain inert and unfruitful, like water-plants\u003cbr\u003e     which have not yet manifested their exuberant growth.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47174808535280,"sku":"2940015756470","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015756470","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}