Marduk

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Lead too short Template:Infobox deity Template:Contains special characters Template:Mesopotamian myth

Marduk (Template:IPAc-en;<ref>Template:Cite Collins Dictionary</ref> cuneiform: Template:Cuneiform ᵈAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: Template:Transliteration "calf of the sun; solar calf"; Template:Hebrew Name) is a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of Babylon who eventually rose to prominence in the 1st millennium BC. In Babylon, Marduk was worshipped in the temple Esagila. His symbol is the spade and he is associated with the Mušḫuššu.Template:Sfn

By the 1st millennium BC, Marduk had become astrologically associated with the planet Jupiter. He was a prominent figure in Babylonian cosmology, especially in the Enūma Eliš creation myth.

NameEdit

The name of Marduk was solely spelled as ^dAMAR.UTU in the Old Babylonian Period, although other spellings such as MES and ^dŠA.ZU were also in use since the Kassite Period. In the 1st millennium BC, the ideograms ^dŠU and KU were regularly used.Template:Sfn The logogram for Adad is also occasionally used to spell Marduk.Template:Sfn

Texts from the Old Babylonian period support the pronunciation Marutu or Marutuk, with the shortened spelling Martuk or Marduk attested starting from the Kassite period. His name in Hebrew, Merodak, supports the longer version,Template:Sfn and First Millennium Assyrian and Babylonian texts employ the long spelling when the circumstances call for the precise form of the name.Template:Sfn The personal name Martuku is not to be confused with the god Marduk.Template:Sfn Marduk was commonly called Bēl (lord) in the First Millennium BC.Template:Sfn

The etymology for the name Marduk is generally understood to be derived from ^damar-utu-(a)k, meaning "bull-calf of Utu".Template:Sfn Sommerfield suggests this is used to explain the name Marduk in the Enuma Elish as "He is the 'son of the sunTemplate:Refn' of the gods, radiant is he."Template:Sfn While the name may suggest a relationship with Shamash, Marduk has no genealogy with the sun god.Template:Sfn However, Babylon was closely associated with the city of Sippar in this period, which may have been the reason for the name.Template:Sfn

HistoryEdit

3rd millennium BCEdit

Marduk, along with the city of Babylon, was unimportantTemplate:Sfn and sparsely attested in the 3rd millennium BC. The earliest mention of Marduk comes from a fragmentary inscription, most likely dating to the Early Dynastic II period. It is left by an unnamed ruler of the city of BAR.KI.BAR (likely BabylonTemplate:Sfn) who constructed a temple for Marduk.Template:Sfn A text from the Fara period seems to mention Marduk without the divine determinative, and a fragment of a god list from Abu Salabikh contains ^dutu-ama[r], likely Marduk written with reversed sign order.Template:Sfn A dubious reference to Marduk in the Ur III period comes from the possible personal name “Amar-Sin is the star of Marduk",Template:Sfn although Johandi suggests that the god Martu who appeared together with Enki and Damgalnuna in the Ur III period could possibly refer instead to the similarly named Marduk who is otherwise missing in Ur III documentation, as Martu is later attested to have a different parentage (Anu and Urash) and Marduk is later considered the son of Enki/Ea.Template:Sfn If so, this could be evidence that Marduk was already part of the pantheon of Eridu in the Ur III period.

Old Babylonian periodEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Under Sumu-la-El, Marduk appeared in oaths and several year names,Template:Sfn namely year name 22, which recorded fashioning a throne for Marduk, and year name 24, which recorded making a statue for Zarpanitum.Template:Sfn Marduk also started to appear in theophoric names, which would become more frequent in the following decades but would remain rare, appearing in less than 1% of names, although it would grow to 1-2% under Hammurabi.Template:Sfn During the reigns of Sabium, Apil-Sin and Sin-muballit, Marduk started to be mentioned outside of the city of Babylon and was invoked alongside local gods in cities subject to the Babylonian kings.Template:Sfn Starting from the reign of Hammurabi, sanctuaries to Marduk were found in other cities.Template:Sfn

In the Old Babylonian Period, while Marduk is acknowledged to be the ruler of the people,Template:Sfn there is no evidence that Hammurabi or his successors promoted Marduk at the expense of other gods.Template:Sfn Enlil was still recognized as the highest authority, and Marduk was far from being the pantheon head,Template:Sfn instead appearing to be a mediator between the great gods and Hammurabi.Template:Sfn This is also expressed in inscriptions from Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna, expressing that he receives Enlil's orders through the other gods, such as Ishtar, Zababa, Shamash and of course Marduk.Template:Sfn

A key development during the Old Babylonian period was the association of Marduk with the pantheon of Eridu. Marduk was syncretized with Asalluhi in the later half of the Old Babylonian period, and the opening of the Code of Hammurabi identify Ea as the father of Marduk,Template:Sfn a genealogy that would remain canonical. God lists from the Old Babylonian period sometimes place him within the circle of Enki.Template:Sfn TCL 15 10 lists Asalluhi and Marduk as separate gods, but close together in the list. Lambert suggests that this may be an intrusion by another scribe, and that the editor scribe did so under the belief that Marduk and Asalluhi were the same god.Template:Sfn Johandi on the other hand suggests that Marduk and Asalluhi were not seen as the same god, but were viewed to be related to one another.Template:Sfn The Nippur God List also lists Asalluhi and Marduk separately, with Marduk appearing seventy names before Asalluhi.Template:Sfn In the Weidner god list, however, it appears that Marduk and Asalluhi were viewed as the same god.Template:Sfn

According to the Marduk prophecy and inscriptions of Agum II, the statue of Marduk and Zarpanitum were removed from Babylon by Mursili I during his raid on Babylon (middle chronology 1595 BC), which was returned during the reign of Agum II.Template:Sfn

Middle Babylonian periodEdit

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} In the Kassite period, theophoric names containing Marduk grew to over 10%, and the local temple to Marduk in Nippur was firmly integrated and well established.Template:Sfn The Kassite kings sometimes gave Marduk pompous epithets,Template:Sfn showing Marduk's growing popularity, however Enlil still ranks as the most important Mesopotamian god, still heading the list along with Anu and Ea. At least five Kassite kings bore theophoric names containing Enlil,Template:Sfn and Kassite kings, especially Nazi-Maruttash and Kudur-Enlil, are known to have visited Nippur at the beginning of the year.Template:Sfn Kurigalzu calls himself the "regent of Enlil"Template:Sfn and Dur-Kurigalzu's temple complex holds temples to Enlil, Ninlil and Ninurta.Template:Sfn

There are two administrative documents from Nippur from the reigns of two Kassite kings, perhaps Nazi-Maruttash and Shagarakti-Shuriash, that mention the celebration of the akitu festival connected to Marduk.Template:Sfn Another text claims the late Kassite king Adad-shuma-usur embarked on a pilgrimage from Babylon to Borsippa and Kutha, Marduk, Nabu and Nergal respectively.Template:Sfn However, there are reasons to doubt the historicity of these texts, especially the alleged journey of Adad-shuma-usur since the trio of Marduk, Nabu and Nergal fit the ideology of the 1st millennium BC.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, the texts could be evidence that the rise of Marduk was a gradual process that began before Nebuchadnezzar I.Template:Sfn Similarly, in the god list An = Anum the number 50, Enlil's number, was assigned to Marduk instead.Template:Sfn

A private document dating to the reign of Ashur-uballit I in Assyria refers to a sanctuary of Marduk in the city of Assur. A gate of Marduk was also attested in Assur in the 13th Century.Template:Sfn Similar to the Neo-Assyrian period, Marduk was mentioned to receive offerings and gifts in Assur. In the Coronation text of Tukulti-Ninurta, Marduk even received the same amount of offerings as Ashur.Template:Sfn The statue of Marduk was carried off by Tukulti-Ninurta I to Assyria, where it would stay until it was returned. The cult of Marduk in Assyria would remain attested in the Neo-Assyrian period.

Marduk was found in Ugarit in an Akkadian hymn that may have been part of the scribal school curriculum.Template:Sfn

During the Kassite period, Nabu, previously the scribe of Marduk, came to be viewed as Marduk's son.Template:Sfn

Second dynasty of IsinEdit

By the time of the Isin II dynasty, an established syncretism of Babylon and Nippur (and by extension Marduk and Enlil) was in place. The names of the city walls were switched, with Imgur-Enlil and Nimit-Enlil in Babylon while Imgur-Marduk and Nimit-Marduk were in Nippur.Template:Sfn A first millennium bilingual hymn to Nippur links Babylon and Nippur together:

Nippur is the city of Enlil, Babylon is his favorite. Nippur and Babylon, their meaning is the same.Template:Sfn

The ideology of the supremacy of Marduk is generally viewed to have been promoted by Nebuchadnezzar I and his successors. Nebuchadnezzar's second campaign into Elam and the return of the statue of Marduk that was carried off to Elam by either Shutruk-Nahhunte Template:Sfn or his son Kutir-Nahhunte Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn in 1155 BC is thought to be the trigger.Template:Sfn However, there are chronological problems regarding the abduction of the statue by the Elamites, as the statue of Marduk abducted by Tukulti-Ninurta I wasn't returned yet by the Assyrians before the Elamites sacked Babylon in 1155 BC. Johnson suggests that Tukulti-Ninurta could have taken a different statue of Marduk while the main cult statue was taken by Kuter-Nahhunte,Template:Sfn while Bányai believes that immediately following the return of the statue of Marduk by Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur a second invasion by Kuter-Nahhunte carried off the same statue.Template:Sfn

Nonetheless, beginning from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, acknowledgement of Marduk's supremacy over other gods was now the norm. A kudurru dating to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar claims that Marduk, now the "king of the gods" directly dispatched Nebuchadnezzar and gave him weapons,Template:Sfn and in the Epic of Nebuchadnezzar, it is Marduk who commanded the gods to abandon Babylonia.Template:Sfn A kudurru from the reign of Enlil-nadin-apli calls Marduk the "king of the gods, the lord of the lands," a title that Enlil traditionally held.Template:Sfn Likewise, when Simbar-shipak, the first king of the Second Dynasty of Sealand, made Enlil a replacement throne for the one made by Nebuchadnezzar, in his mind this was actually dedicated to Marduk.Template:Sfn Other texts, such as Akkadian prayers and incantations also call Marduk the king of the gods.Template:Sfn

1st millennium BCEdit

The earliest copy of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, was found in the city of Assur and dated to the 9th century,Template:Sfn although the text could go back to the Isin II period.Template:Sfn Dalley believes that the Enuma Elish may have been composed during the Old Babylonian Period,Template:Sfn although other scholars consider it unlikely.Template:Sfn The Enuma Elish describes Marduk's ascendance to kingship by defeating Tiamat. In the end, Marduk is proclaimed the ruler, declares Babylon as the city of kingship, received his fifty names (fifty being the number of Enlil), while Enlil is ignored.Template:Sfn

In Assyrian sources, most of the mentions of Marduk's power and authority came from the reigns of the Sargonids.Template:Sfn Generally, the Neo-Assyrian kings cared for Babylon and the cult of Marduk. Shalmaneser III visited multiple Babylonian sanctuaries, including that of Marduk.Template:Sfn Tiglath-pileser III, after conquering Babylonia, participated in the Akitu festival in Babylon,Template:Sfn and Sargon II made Babylon his temporary residence while Dur-Sharrukin was under construction and took part in the Akitu.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Marduk frequently appears in Assyrian royal inscriptions, before the Assyrian kings even gained control over Babylonia.Template:Sfn In continuation from the Middle Assyrian times, an actual cult of Marduk seemed to have also existed in the Neo-Assyrian period. The Assyrian Divine Directory mentioned that a shrine to Marduk existed in the temple of Gula in Ashur in the Neo-Assyrian period.Template:Sfn Marduk and his son Nabu also shared a sanctuary in Nineveh, although it seemed that Nabu was the main deity in contrast to Marduk.Template:Sfn

One exception was Sennacherib, who after a series of revolts and the extradition of the crown prince Assur-nadin-shumi to the Elamites (who then probably killed him), decided to destroy Babylon.Template:Sfn The Destruction of Babylon in 689 BCE was, judging from Sennacherib's own accounts, bad by Neo-Assyrian standards.Template:Sfn Outside of claiming to have destroyed the temples and the cult statues, there was no explicit mention of the fate of Marduk's statue, although Esarhaddon would later claim that the cult statue was taken from Babylon.Template:Sfn Sennacherib followed with what has been called a religious reform, the infrastructure of Assur being refashioned in the model of Babylon's, and the Assyrian edition of the Enuma Elish replaced Marduk with the god Ashur (spelled as Anshar) and Babylon with Assur (spelled as Baltil).Template:Sfn Other texts referencing Marduk were also adapted and changed to fit Ashur instead, and a bed and throne dedicated to Marduk were rededicated to Ashur after the furniture was brought from Babylon to Assur.Template:Sfn The Marduk Ordeal contained cultic commentaries on the Akitu festival reinterpreted to refer to instead Marduk’s punishment.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn However, the more radical reforms were reversed under the reign of his successor Esarhaddon, who also oversaw the reconstruction of Babylon and the eventual return of the statue of Marduk under Šamaš-šuma-ukin. Esarhaddon also crafted a narrative justifying both Sennacherib's destruction and his rebuilding by citing Marduk's divine anger as the cause for Babylon's destruction, who originally decreed for the city to be abandoned for seventy years, but Marduk relented and allowed Esarhaddon to rebuild it.Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Nabonassar claimed that Marduk proclaimed him lordship and had ordered him to "plunder his enemy's land" (referring to Assyria), who only ruled Babylonia due to divine anger. He claimed that he killed the Assyrian and laid waste to his lands by the command of Marduk and Nabu and with the weapons of Erra,Template:Sfn which was the main trio of the First Millennium Babylonian ideology.Template:Sfn In literary texts from the Achaemenid and Seleucid eras, Marduk is said to have commissioned Nabonassar to take revenge on the land of Akkad (Babylonia).Template:Sfn

In royal inscriptions of the Neo-Babylonian kings, Marduk is exalted as the king of the gods and as the source of their authority, while Enlil is hardly ever mentioned except when in relation to the city of Nippur.Template:Sfn In a Late Babylonian god list, all the gods on the list were identified with Marduk. For example, Ninurta was Marduk of the pickaxe, Nabu was Marduk of accounting, Shamash was Marduk of justice and Tishpak was Marduk of the troops.Template:Sfn This "syncretistic tendency" is observed in other late texts, where the other gods appear as aspects of Marduk.Template:Sfn

Cyrus, justifying his conquest of Babylonia, claimed that Marduk had abandoned Nabonidus who offended Marduk by turning his back on the Esagila in the Cyrus Cylinder.Template:Sfn Another anti-Nabonidus text, the Verse Account, explains that Nabonidus favoured Sin over Marduk.Template:Sfn Nabonidus’ reverence for the moon god may have been because of familial roots to the city of Harran, and later he even revived the religious institutions of Ur, the main sanctuary of Sin.Template:Sfn

CharacteristicsEdit

File:Sirrush.jpg

Mušḫuššu, a dragon-like creature, was associated with Marduk.

SymbolEdit

His symbol is the spade and he is associated with the Mušḫuššu, a dragon-like creature from Mesopotamian mythology.Template:Sfn

Original roleEdit

Since sources pertaining to Marduk in the early periods are sparse, Marduk's original role is unknown. However, since Marduk appeared in the Abu Salabikh list behind three minor deities whose names point to a possible connection with the underworld, Johandi suggests that Marduk may have been a minor god connected to the underworld.Template:Sfn Similarly, Oshima recently proposed that Marduk may have originally had a role similar to Nergal, which may even explain why the logogram ^dAMAR.UTU is used in Hittite texts to write the name of the god Šanta,Template:Sfn who was similar in nature to Nergal.Template:Sfn In the earlier forerunners to the Udug Hul where both Marduk and Asalluhi appear together in a passage Marduk, in contrast to Asalluhi, does not help the victim but instead captures him, either because of his powerlessness or because he simply refused to help.Template:Sfn Oshima interpreted the passage as supporting the idea that Marduk's original role was illness and death.Template:Sfn Similarly, in Sin-iddinam's prayer to Ninisina, Asalluhi (here identified with Marduk) imposing an evil spell on Sin-iddinam (the king of Larsa) causing him to become sickTemplate:Sfn may reflect that Marduk's power to cause illness extended beyond the dominion of Babylon.Template:Sfn However Sommerfield, who previously believed that there was little evidence for Marduk being related to magic,Template:Sfn more recently suggested that Marduk was originally a god of incantations before his syncretism with Asalluhi.Template:Sfn Jacobsen suggests that Marduk was originally a storm god due to the storm imageries in the Enuma Elish, wielding the four winds and storms as weapons, and assigning to himself the rain and clouds that came from Tiamat's corpse.Template:Sfn Abusch, citing Jacobsen, also believes that Marduk was a storm god, and may have been associated with water and vegetation before joining the pantheon of Eridu as it is improbable to suppose that all of Marduk's traits with water as being taken from the circle of Enki.Template:Sfn However, there is no other evidence suggesting that Marduk was originally a local storm god, and the usage of wind and storm as weapons are not limited to storm gods. Schwemer points to Ninurta (who is not a storm god) as the original model for Marduk using storms, winds and floods as weapons.Template:Sfn Schwemer also summarizes that although Marduk has characteristics that overlap with the storm god profile, it does not mean that Marduk or other gods in similar position (such as Ninurta, Martu, Telepinu and Tishpak) are necessarily storm gods.Template:Sfn Marduk's symbol, the spade, may point to him originally being a god of agriculture, or more likely as a god of canals and by extension fertility.Template:Sfn Unlike Abusch, Oshima believes that Marduk's association with water came from his association with canals. He is depicted as the supplier of water in Prayer to Marduk no.2, dating to the Kassite period, and was praised as the bringer of water from rivers, seasonal floods and rains to the fields.Template:Sfn Various prayers to Marduk refer to his connection with springs and rivers, and Ashurbanipal applies the epithet "the canal inspector of the heavens and the earth" to MardukTemplate:Sfn Template:Refn.

Marduk's anger and mercyEdit

Sin-iddinam's prayer to Ninisina shares similar motifs with the Prayer to Marduk no.1 and Ludlul bel nemeqi, where Marduk's anger is blamed for some certain ailment affecting the sufferer, and can only be remedied by Marduk having mercy and forgiving them. In the Prayer to Marduk no.1, Marduk is asked to not kill his client,Template:Sfn and in Ludlul Marduk is praised for his mercy after forgiving his client.Template:Sfn As such, some scholars claim that Marduk was being praised for his wrath,Template:Sfn and others claim that Marduk comes off as having "unpredictable mood swings.Template:Sfn" Lambert also points to one of Marduk's names in the Enuma Elish, Meršakušu ("savage, yet relenting"), suggests that the Babylonians may have stressed Marduk's mercy so he could be less savage,Template:Sfn although Oshima proposes that the Babylonians had to stress both his wrath and mercy to appease him.Template:Sfn Others believe that the purpose of the poem was to stress that Marduk's true inner quality was mercy and benevolence.Template:Sfn The Prayer to Marduk no.2, on the other hand, praises Marduk's power to heal, which may have been as a result of syncretism with Asalluhi.Template:Sfn

Connections to the River OrdealEdit

Due to being the son of Ea, Marduk had connections with the River Ordeal.Template:Sfn Sin-iddinam's prayer to Ninisina also identified Idlurugu (the river ordeal) as the father of Marduk/Asalluhi, in contrast to the standard genealogy.Template:Sfn

IncantationsEdit

Marduk features in incantations of the Marduk-Ea type formula, in which the god Ea/Enki engages in dialogue with his son Marduk/Asalluhi. The structure of the formula starts with Marduk/Asalluhi noticing a problem and reporting to his father. Ea reassures his son about his knowledge and then proceeds to instruct his son on the procedures.Template:Sfn In later incantations from the First Millenium BC, the priests usually claim to be direct representations of Marduk/Asalluhi, replacing the divine dialogue between father and son,Template:Sfn for example in Marduk's Address to the Demons the priest starts by declaring themselves to be Marduk.Template:Sfn In Neo-Assyrian Assyria, Marduk was one of the major gods that incantation-prayers were directed at, with only Shamash being invoked more than Marduk.Template:Sfn It is difficult to tell if Marduk originally had a role in incantations prior to being identified with Asalluhi.Template:Sfn Marduk sometimes appears in the Sumerian-Akkadian bilinguals as the Akkadian name for Asalluhi,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn although Marduk and Asalluhi were also attested to appear separately in two different texts, one being the incantation against the evil Udug where Marduk captured the victim instead of helping in contrast to Asalluhi who sought out Enki,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn the other being an incantation against Lamashtu that listed Marduk and Asalluhi separately as deterrence to the demon.Template:Sfn

Epics and literatureEdit

Enuma ElishEdit

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The Enuma Elish, generally believed to have been composed in the Isin II period, details Marduk's rise to power as the king of the gods. There are similarities between the Epic of Creation and the Anzu myth as well as other traditions related to Ninurta.Template:Sfn The Tablet of Destinies is a key object in both myths, and Marduk uses largely the same weapons as Ninurta.Template:Sfn A ritual tablet mentions how the Epic of Creation would be recited and possibly reenacted during the Akitu festival, on the fourth day of the month of Nisannu.Template:Sfn The epic starts off by mentioning Apsu and Tiamat, here the oldest gods, and created a younger generation of the gods. However, Apsu was disturbed by their noisiness and decided to kill them. Ea, however, found out about the plot and kills Apsu and takes his splendour. Later Marduk was born to Ea and Damkina, and already at birth he was special. Tiamat then decides to wage war against the younger generation of the gods, giving Kingu the Tablet of Destinies and appointing him as the commander. Marduk volunteers to do battle against Tiamat and defeats her. The world was fashioned from Tiamat's corpse with Babylon as the center, and Marduk assumes kingship and receives his fifty names. The fifty names taken was based on the An = Anum god list, the columnar arrangement removed and slotted in.Template:Sfn One of his titles, bēl mātāti (king of the lands) originally belonged to Enlil, who was conspicuously missing from the epic except when he gave this title to MardukTemplate:Sfn

Ludlul bel nemeqiEdit

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Also known as the "Babylonian Job,Template:Sfn" the poem describes the narrator's suffering caused by Marduk's anger, causing him to lose his job and to experience hostility from his friends and family. Diviners were incapable of helping him and his personal protective spirits and gods also did not come to help. He claims that nobody understood the actions of the gods, and despite the narrator's protests of innocence and that he had always been pious to the gods and never abandoned him, he quickly became ill and was on death's bed. Then, in a series of dreams, he met a young man, an incantation priest that purified him, a young woman with a godlike appearance who came to say that his suffering had ended, and an incantation priest from Babylon. Afterwards, the narrator praises Marduk's mercyTemplate:Sfn which was the main point of the text despite the expressions of Marduk's anger.Template:Sfn

Epic of ErraEdit

In the Erra epic, Erra convinced Marduk to leave Esagil and to go to the netherworld, leaving Erra to become king. Afterwards, Erra wreaks havoc on all the cities and causes instability. Marduk came back and lamented the state of Babylon. Unlike the Enuma Elish which championed Marduk as the bringer of peace and stability, Marduk is here the one who brought instability by leaving his seat, thus bringing darkness upon the world.Template:Sfn He also indirectly brought war by yielding to Erra.Template:Sfn

Marduk OrdealEdit

Written in the Assyrian dialect,Template:Sfn versions of the so-called Marduk Ordeal Text are known from Assur, Nimrud and Nineveh.Template:Sfn Using sceneries and language familiar to the procession of the Akitu Festival, here Marduk is instead being held responsible for crimes committed against Ashur and was subject to a river ordeal and imprisonment.Template:Sfn The text opens with Nabu arriving in Babylon looking for Marduk, his father. Tashmetum prayed to Sin and Shamash.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, Marduk was being held captive, the color red on his clothes was reinterpreted to be his blood, and the case was brought forward to the god Ashur. The city of Babylon also seemingly rebelled against Marduk, and Nabu learned that Marduk was taken to the river ordeal. Marduk claims that everything was done for the good of the god Ashur and prays to the gods to let him liveTemplate:Refn. After various alternate cultic commentaries, the Assyrian version of the Enuma Elish was recited, proclaiming Ashur's superiority.Template:Sfn However, despite the content, the Marduk Ordeal was not simply an anti-Marduk piece of literature. At no point was Marduk actually accused of a crime, and the end of the text seems to suggest that the gods fought to get Marduk out by drilling holes through the door which he is locked behind.Template:Sfn Marduk also appeared in the curse section, so it is possible that the majority of the blame was put on the Babylonians for leading Marduk astray, while Marduk retains a position within the pantheon.Template:Sfn While most attribute this text to Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon, Frymer-Kensky suggests that the background could be the return of Marduk's statue to Babylon in 669 BCE.Template:Sfn

Enmesharra's DefeatEdit

Known from only one copy and with a badly damaged top half, Enmesharra's Defeat is likely composed in the Seleucid or Parthian era.Template:Sfn Structurally similar to the Enuma Elish, the text starts with Enmesharra and his seven sons going against Marduk, who subsequently defeated them and threw them into jail with Nergal as the prison warden. The preserved portion starts with Nergal announcing Marduk's judgement to Enmesharra that he and his sons would all be put to death, and Enmesharra laments about Marduk's terrible judgement and pleads with Nergal. Nergal replies, but the text breaks off.Template:Sfn Nergal is then shown to be escorting Enmesharra and his sons to Marduk, who first beheads the sons, and Enmesharra's radiance was then taken and given to Shamash. Nabu was also given the power of Ninurta, Nergal those of Erra, and Marduk took Enlil's power. Marduk, Nabu and Nergal then shared the throne, which likely previously belonged to Anu, together. The gods were then assigned their cities, and a voice from heaven could be heard. A fish-goat praised Marduk as the exalted lord, and the text ends with the gods gathering at Babylon.

SyncretismsEdit

AsalluhiEdit

The earliest evidence of Asalluhi's syncretism with Marduk is Sin-iddinam's prayer to Ninisina,Template:Sfn where Asalluhi was called the "king of Babylon.Template:Sfn" An Old Babylonian text substitutes "son of Eridu" for "lord of Tintir" as a title for AsalluhiTemplate:Sfn (Tintir being another attested name for Babylon.Template:Sfn) In Hammurabi's prayer to Asalluhi, he is clearly viewed as synonymous with Marduk.Template:Sfn However, in a prayer for Samsu-iluna, Marduk and Asalluhi were mentioned as separate gods, suggesting that the syncretism Marduk = Asalluhi was not yet fully established as canonical in the Old Babylonian period.Template:Sfn Johandi also suggests that keeping Marduk and Asalluhi separate was a deliberate act on the part of Samsu-iluna to reclaim authority over the southern cities,Template:Sfn which were centers of rebellion during the early years of his reign.

Sommerfield suggested that the syncretism of may have been due to both having a similar role as a god of incantations,Template:Sfn or because Asalluhi was more well known in Southern Babylonia compared to Marduk, who was still a local god.Template:Sfn Lambert also believes the syncretism to be a means to elevate Marduk to a more respectable position.Template:Sfn Johandi proposes that Marduk and Asalluhi were identified for some other reason other than magic, and Marduk only became a god associated with magic after being syncretized with Asalluhi.Template:Sfn

EnlilEdit

The syncretism of Babylon and Nippur was in place from the Isin II period, and the names of the city walls were switched, with Imgur-Enlil and Nimit-Enlil in Babylon while Imgur-Marduk and Nimit-Marduk were in Nippur.Template:Sfn By extension, Marduk was also identified with Enlil, and in the Isin II period Marduk was attested with Enlil's titles. Marduk was often called the "Enlil of the gods" in the First Millennium.

A statue of Marduk, conveniently named "King of the gods of Heaven and the Underworld" was placed in Enlil's sanctuary in Babylon, and Marduk receives the title bēl mātāti "king of the lands" in the Enuma Elish.Template:Sfn

TutuEdit

The previous patron deity of Borsippa. Although Hammurabi recognized Tutu's dominion as extending over Borsippa and E-zida,Template:Sfn Tutu became another name for Marduk after Hammurabi, but became a byname for Nabu in the First Millennium.Template:Sfn Tutu was also a name for Marduk in the Enuma Elish.Template:Sfn In the bird call text, the bird of Enmesharra calls that he sinned against Tutu, here meaning Marduk.Template:Sfn

NotesEdit

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CitationsEdit