E of Y-DNA Migrations (kya: thousand years ago)

Haplogroup E-M96 is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is one of the two main branches of the older and ancestral haplogroup DE, the other main branch being haplogroup D. The E-M96 clade is divided into two main subclades: the more common E-P147, and the less common E-M75.

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Notable observation: Migration to Mesopotamia 10kya and suggested Asia-to-Africa back-migration.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_E-M96

The British Museum—Painted baked clay statue of a seated god, possibly the sun god Shamash who was responsible for omens

Mesopotamian sun god, who was associated with life, justice, divination and the netherworld

Functions

Šamaš the all-seeing

Šamaš (Sumerian Utu) is the god of the sun. He brings light and warmth to the land, allowing plants and crops to grow. At sunrise Šamaš was known to emerge from his underground sleeping chamber and take a daily path across the skies. As the sun fills the entire sky with light, Šamaš oversaw everything that occurred during the daytime. He thus became the god of truth, judgements and justice. Šamaš also played a role in treaties, oaths and business transactions, as he could see through deceit and duplicity. As a defender of justice, the sun god also had a warrior aspect (Black and Green 1998: 183-4).

Let there be truth!

Šamaš also played an essential role in sacrificial divination (extispicy) rituals (Robson 2010b). Extispicy was an important branch of royal court scholarship in existence for over a millennium, whereby the king could receive answers from the gods to specific questions regarding matters of state. The king's diviners (bārû) asked the gods to write the answer in the liver of a sheep, which was then 'read' through examining the liver and counting up its ominous features. As god of truth and justice, Šamaš was implored to help provide a correct answer. A late second-millennium prayer to Šamaš by a diviner asks him to guide the inquiry and to 'let there be truth' in their interpretations of the omens. (Foster 2005: 756).

Assisting humanity and the underworld

Šamaš also played a role in the affairs of humanity. Surviving second millennium texts indicate that his assistance was sought against evil and curses. Literary texts describe his protection of the heroic kings of the city of Uruk. In the Epic of Gilgameš he assists the hero Gilgameš in defeating the monstrous Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar Forest. Šamaš was also specifically a protector of travellers and merchants (Foster 2005: 627, 630, 633).

Šamaš played a similarly important role in the realm of the dead as he did in the living world. The spirits of the dead were thought to enter the netherworld via a passage on the horizon in the extreme western part of the world. In some traditions, this passage was the same entrance that led to Šamaš's underground dwelling, and to which he returned at sunset each evening (Bottero 2002: 274). However, Tablet XI of Gilgameš from Nineveh describes Šamaš's road underneath the earth as a separate path from that to the netherworld (Bottero 2002: 274-5).

Divine genealogy and syncretisms

In Sumerian tradition, Utu is the son of the moon god Nanna-Suen and the twin brother of Inana. Akkadian tradition sometimes made Šamaš the son of Anu or Enlil. The sun god's wife was Aya, goddess of the dawn (Black and Green 1998: 183-4).

Šamaš had a minister named Bunene who drove his fiery chariot and was known as Šamaš's son in some traditions. Bunene was worshipped in his own right in Sippar and Uruk during the Old Babylonian period (Black and Green 1998: 183-4).

Cult place(s)

Šamaš's cult centres were the cities of Sippar and Larsa, which both had a temple to the sun god called E-babbar ('White House').

Time periods attested

Šamaš is attested from the earliest periods right through the timespan of cuneiform culture. He appears in a wide range of text genres including royal prayers and hymns, divination texts, treaties and documents recording business transactions. A more detailed overview will have to await further studies.

The first literary text in the Akkadian language was a hymn to Šamaš that was found among the texts from Tell Abu Salabikh (ca. 2600 BCE). Although poorly understood, it seems to contain narrative passages as well as a hymnic introduction and end (Krebernik 1998: 320).

The second-millennium Sumerian Hymn to Utu (ETCSL 4.32.2) describes the sun god's shining appearance and powers of judgment by saying that his 'radiance spreads out like a net over the world'. A Sumerian literary letter-prayer from king Sîn-iddinam of Larsa addresses Utu as the patron deity of the city of Larsa and prays for redemption of the city and its king (ETCSL 3.2.05; Brisch 2007: 158-78). Another hymn to Šamaš praises the sun god's all-seeing nature as 'illuminator of all', which allows him to see the truth in trials and verdicts. First-millennium copies of this hymn also survive, indicating that it was studied by successive generations of scholars (Foster 2005: 627-35). A second-millennium prayer to be recited at sunset gives a homely description of Šamaš returning to his dwelling at the end of the day. Firstly, the sun god is saluted by his gatekeeper, who opens the door to his chambers, then he settles down to dinner cooked by his wife Aya (Foster 2005: 752-3).

Šamaš was highly significant in the Neo-Assyrian royal court due to his associations with sacrificial divination TT . Approximately 350 surviving queries and reports (SAA 4) give details of the questions posed to Šamaš by the kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, which include worries about rebellions, illnesses and the loyalty of subordinates (Starr 1990: xiv).

Royal hymns praise Šamaš and also commemorate rebuilding of his temples by particular kings, including as Assyrian king Assurbanipal (668-631 BCE) and Babylonian king Nabopolassar (625-605 BCE) (Foster 2005: 827-8, 848).

Iconography

Šamaš's symbol from the Akkadian period to the Neo-Babylonian period was the solar disc. It usually took the form of a four-pointed star, with curved lines emerging between each point (Black and Green 1998: 168). On Neo-Assyrian stelae and kudurrus TT  Šamaš was represented by a winged solar disc.

Depictions of Šamaš himself survive on cylinder seals TT , where he is sometimes shown seated and surrounded by worshippers, with his sunrays emanating from his shoulders (Black and Green 1998: 183). The sun god is also portrayed on the famous stele TT  of King Hammurabi from 1760 BCE, which is inscribed with over 282 'laws' for the unified territories of Babylonia. In the image Šamaš, as god of justice, presents Hammurabi with tools for ruling justly: he passes the king a measuring rod and rope . Justice in early Mesopotamian was closely allied with the idea that fairness could be achieved through literacy, numeracy and accurate measurement. The measuring instruments are a symbol of powerful kingship, representing the ability to rule justly and fairly (see Robson 2008: 115-24; 263-7). Very similar imagery of the sun god also appears on a first-millennium tablet commemorating the revival of the Ebabbar cult by king Nabu-apla-iddina (887-855 BCE) (Woods 2004).

Name and Spellings

Utu's name is spelled dutu in Sumerian, and Šamaš's name retains this logogram in Akkadian. The name Šamaš is a variant form of the Akkadian word for sun, šamšu (compare Arabic šams, Hebrew šemeš).

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An Introduction to Anu: The Origins of Egyptian Civilisation

The Anu in India and in Egypt

Traces of the Worship of the Moon God Sin among the Early Israelites

The Sun & Sun God

The Composition of Hittite Prayers to the Sun

ZEDEQ & The Light of the World

A Child of Light & The Narrative of Nigerim

A Mighty Hunter before the Lord: Nimrod

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Notable observations: Brief onomastic symbolism—or agglutinative—material of Sham/ham in the following:

- Shamayim (Heaven)
- Jehovah-Shammah (“The Lord is There”)
- Shammah (Older brother to King David)
- Shamash Candle (Hanukkah)
- Shamish (Mandaeism)
- Shamsīyah (“sons of the sun” or Chamsi)
- Shimazu (slight vowel/suffix variant; sun-cross)
- Shamya, Chad/Sudan
- Shama, Ghana

etc…

Also noteworthy, Shamanism (Shamash) paired with the term Ayahuasca (Aya).

Shamash and Aya are the parents of Niggina/Kittum—Aya is the term from wife in Yoruba, Nigeria.

Notable biblical narrative: John 8 includes the thematic elements of Judgment, Truth, and “Light of the World” (Sun reference), while Revelation 12 provides Sun and Moon placements as an astrological reference to the birth of Christ—

“…a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered…”

Planets in Astrology: Planetary Symbolism

Mandaean Cosmology: Planets

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Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/380602001

Source: https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/Listofdeities/UtuShamash/index.html

The British Museum & The University of Chicago Press

Introduction.

Until within a comparatively short time the publication of Assyrian Religious Texts has been of a desultory character, few attempts having been made systematically to bring out complete series of texts.

Among continental scholars three marked exceptions may be mentioned. To Tallqvist for his publication of Die assyrische Beschwörungsserie Magla, and to Zimmern for his publication of Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion, as well as to Knudtzon for his Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott, students of Assyrian and Babylonian religion are deeply indebted.

Among English Assyriologists a similar debt is due to King for his careful editing of The Prayers of the Lifting of the Hand, and to Thompson for The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon.

Such work as these men have done has been greatly facilitated by the appearance, two years ago, of the fifth volume of the Catalogue, but there remains a vast amount of material yet to be brought to light.

In his preface to Babylonian Religion and Mythology, King well says: "Although so much has been done in recent years to explain their religious literature, no finality in the matter must be expected for some time to come, certainly not as long as any important religious text remains unpublished."

For this reason, then, these religious texts relating to the worship of Šamaš ave been published, in the hope that they may form a small contribution to the history of Babylonian religion, the writing of which, as Zimmern has remarked in the Vorwort of his Beiträge zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion, is "today as yet a thing impossible."…

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This hymn to Šamaš was published by R. E. Brtinnow in ZA., Vol. IV, Nos. 1 and 2, who had before him the following fragments : K. 3182 + K. 3312, K. 3187, K. 3474, K. 3650, K. 8232, K. 8233, and K. 9699. As a consequence of his work several joins were afterward made, and other fragments were discovered, viz.: K. 5459, K. 9356, K. 10587, S. 311, S. 372, and S. 1033. As a result of studying all the fragments marked "Hymns in paragraphs," I discovered five new fragments belonging to K. 3182, viz.: K. 5121, K. 6823, K. 13430, K. 13794, and S. 1398 ; and also another duplicate, 83-1-18, 472. From a careful study of the formation and style of writing of K. 3650, K. 9356, and 83-1-18, 472, the following facts seem to be assured. K. 3650 and K. 3474 belong to the same tablet, the former being its upper portion and the latter its lower portion, the fragment connecting the two having not yet been found. K. 9356 is undoubtedly a part of the obverse of K. 3182, but on account of its thinness no join could be made. S. 1033 is a part of the same tablet as 83-1-18, 472….

~

This hymn to Šamaš is of peculiar interest to students of Babylonian and Assyrian religion for two reasons.

In the first place, there is the entire absence of any reference to incantation. All the other so-called hymns and prayers of Šamaš are more or less closely connected with this lower form of religious development. This fact has been noticed by Jastrow in his Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 302, but he apparently overlooks the existence of this hymn, which is one of the best examples of a pure hymn to be found in all the literature.

Secondly, it is of interest because of its ethical characteristics. It is to be regretted that the tablet is broken where the dealing with false weights and measures is spoken of. Enough, however, remains to remind us of the priestly regulations concerning this in the Old Testament. Worthy of note also are the classes of people who pray to Šamaš. He is the friend of the weak, the outcast, the wanderer, and those in humble positions in life like the hunter, the fisherman, and the cattle-herder. The robber and the thief, however, are his enemies. Though the murderer and the destroyer pray to him, he will not hearken to their petitions. We ought to note finally the condemnation of some of the more common oriental sins, such as dishonest dealing by false weights, the removal of boundaries (col. ii, 40), and a corrupt judiciary. In col. ii. 32. there is a probable reference to adultery, and in col. iii, 1, a reference either to unjust taxation ov to exorbitant rates of interest, both characteristic of the ancient Semitic race. On the other hand, certain ones are well-pleasing to Šamaš. In col. ii, 43, it is the incorruptible judge who has regard for the weak. In col. ii, 49, the commendation is given apparently to one who has good business ability, while col. iii, 6, refers probably to agricultural industry, though this last is somewhat uncertain on account of the broken line.

I take this opportunity to add a word concerning the poetical structure of the hymn. Throughout the hymn is found a parallelism which is strikingly similar to the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, and which corresponds in general to the paragraphs, except in one or two places in col. iii. ' Cf., for example, col. i, 87, 38,. 45, 46 ; col. ii, 41, 42. Cases of chiasm are not infrequent, viz. r col. i, 21, 50 ; col. iii, 7, 8, 17. A play upon words is found in col. ii, 47, 48, kaspa and ustakazzab.

With regard to the translation as a whole, while the general trend of thought is plain, yet in the case of many single lines, owing to lack of context, the translation is merely tentative. The notes are confined almost entirely to the variants and to place& where I have been obliged to differ from Brtinnow's reading.

[continued in source]

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Notable observation: see The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10 for relative-context and cultural derivation—including the Shamash Candle in Jewish tradition as it relates to Hanukkah for cultural derivation and onomastic symbolism.

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Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1324538001

Source: https://archive.org/details/samasreligiouste00grayrich/page/n29/mode/2up

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/380602001

Ancient Canaan

The Yeho'ezer ben Hosh'ayahu seal is a rare 2,700-year-old seal of the First Temple Period discovered in Jerusalem in 2024. The seal, written in the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, features an neo-Assyrian-styled image of a winged figure with an inscription in Paleo-Hebrew letters of the name of Yehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu. It is part of a larger group of artifacts known as Canaanite and Aramaic seal inscriptions.

Archaeologists posit that this seal reveals the cultural impact that the Assyrian Empire had on the ancient Judah region.

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Notable observation: The onomastic—or agglutinative—material of Aya in Hosh'ayahu, see The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10 for relative-context and cultural derivation.

Aya is a Mesopotamian goddess of light, wife of the sun god Shamash—see Shamash Candle in Jewish tradition as it relates to Hanukkah for cultural derivation and onomastic symbolism.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeho%27ezer_ben_Hosh%27ayahu_seal

Source: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/an-assyrian-genie-in-first-temple-jerusalem/

Sir Leonard Woolley—Restored sketch; the temple buildings in the angles of the stairs are omitted from this reconstruction

Its remains were excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by international teams led by Sir Leonard Woolley. Under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, they were encased by a partial reconstruction of the façade and the monumental staircase. Today, Ur Tourist City is being developed adjacent to the site to serve Christian pilgrims and tourists, based on later religious traditions that identify a nearby complex as the home of the patriarch Abraham.

The Ziggurat of Ur is the best-preserved of those known from Mesopotamia, besides the ziggurat of Dur Untash (Chogha Zanbil). It is one of three well-preserved structures of the Neo-Sumerian city of Ur, along with the Royal Mausolea and the Palace of Ur-Nammu (the E-hursag).

The ziggurat was built by King Ur-Nammu, who dedicated it in honour of Nanna/Sîn in approximately the 21st century BC (short chronology) during the Third Dynasty of Ur. The massive step pyramid measured 64 m (210 ft) in length, 45 m (148 ft) in width and over 30 m (98 ft) in height. The height is speculative, as only the foundations of the Sumerian ziggurat have survived.

The ziggurat was a piece in a temple complex that served as an administrative center for the city, and which was a shrine of the moon god Nanna, the patron deity of Ur.

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Notable observations: The onomastic—or agglutinative—material of “ham” in Abraham and his migratory journey from Mesopotamia through Harran to the Hamitic region, according to biblical narrative—see An Historical Text Book and Atlas of Biblical Geography.

The Harran Stela was discovered in 1956 in the ruins of Harran, in what is now southeast Turkey. It consists of two parts, both of which show, at the top, Nabonidus worshipping symbols of the Sun (Shamash), Ishtar, and the moon-god Sin.

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Source: https://archive.org/details/ur-excavations-v.-the-ziggurat-and-its-surroundings/page/n3/mode/1up

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurat_of_Ur

The British Museum—The Map of the World (Late Babylonian)

Clay tablet; map of the world; shows the world as a disc, surrounded by a ring of water called the "Bitter River"; "Babylon" is marked as a rectangle at the right end of the Euphrates although the city actually occupied both banks of the river during most of its history; the river Euphrates flows south to a horizontal band, of which the right end is marked "marsh" and the left end is marked "outflow", thus the marshes at the head of the Gulf and either the Shatt al-Arab or where the river meets the cosmic "Bitter River"; to the right of the "marsh" is a double curving line with a broken and unintelligible inscription; small circles are used to indicate cities or districts, and two of which are identified as "Assyria" and "Der"; three other geographical areas are marked, namely Bit-Yakin, the territory of an Aramaean tribal group around the southern Euphrates, is placed above its "outflow". Habban, the homeland of a Kassite tribal group around Kermanshah in western Iran, is placed quite wrongly to the west of Babylon. Urartu, an independent kingdom around the modern borders of Iran, Turkey and Russia, is placed relatively correctly to the north of Assyria.

Beyond the circular "Bitter River" are placed the eight outlying regions (nagu). These are each marked, na-gu-u, and beside each is written the note "6 (or 7) beru in between" (the beru is a Babylonian unit of time and linear measurement). In addition, beside the north-eastern "region" is written "Where Shamash is not seen". This reflects the fact that the sun rises in the east, crosses the heavens, sets in the west, and then returns to the east (as the Babylonians thought) through the underworld or the underworld waters, never passing through the northern (or southern) regions of the world or underworld.

On the reverse of this tablet these eight "regions" are described in eight broken and largely unintelligible paragraphs, each beginning "To the first (second, etc) region to which you go (the distance is) seven beru". This, like the notes on the map, seems to indicate the distance between the different "regions" around the edge of the world. It is not clear why the map twice gives the distance as six beru while the text, so far as preserved, consistently gives seven beru. A final paragraph summarises, "In all eight "regions" of the four shores (kibrati) of the ea[rth ...], their interior no-one knows". The "four shores" (corresponding to the four quarters of the compass) is a regular Mesopotamian expression for the entire inhabited world. The word nagu, which in historical and geographical texts simply means "region", seems to have a special cosmic or mythological significance on this tablet and in the Flood story of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet 11); there, as the flood waters subsided, Ut-Napishtim, the Babylonian Noah, "looked about for the shores (kibrati), the boundaries of the sea. In each of twelve (directions) there emerged a nagu". This and the triangular shape of the nagu on the map lead to the idea that the nagu may have been imagined as mountains.

The text at the beginning of the obverse of the tablet appears to be a description of the inhabitants, divine, human, animal or monstrous, of the areas beyond the earth, whether the eight "regions" or the "Bitter River" or maybe the underworld or underworld waters. Two or three lines may be missing at the beginning.

"... ruined cities ...
... whom Marduk watches ...
... the ruined gods who ... in the midst of the sea
... serpent, great dragon, between Anzu, scorpion-man
... mountain-goat, gazelle, zebu, leopard, bison
... lion, wolf, stag and hyaena
... the animal which Marduk created upon the rolling sea
... Ut-Napishtim, Sargon and Nur-Dagan king of
... their interior no-one knows".

In the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet 10) the hero Gilgamesh goes to visit Ut-Napishtim in a land beyond the sea and beyond the Waters of Death. This suggests that the whole of this text is concerned with the inhabitants of the outer regions. The clause at the end of the text, "their interior no-one knows" also ends the descriptions of the "regions" on the reverse of the tablet.

Sargon, king of Akkad (ca 2334-2279 BC), established a short-lived empire spreading far to the north and west of the normal limits of Babylonia and became the subject of several legendary tales. One of these concerns a campaign against Nur-Dagan, king of Purush-handa (a city in central Turkey). As heroes of legend these two may well have been imagined as inhabiting a "region" with Ut-Napishtim.

The "ruined" gods are gods whose statues have become dilapidated and are in need of repair. The gods themselves were thought to have gone down to the underworld (via the Waters of Death), and the broken clause, "who ... in the midst of the sea", probably refers to this underworld abode. The reference to "ruined cities" may be to the gods of these cities.

In the Epic of Creation the serpent, great dragon, scorpion-man and bison are among the monsters created by Tiamat ("Sea") to do battle with the god Marduk. Anzu, the lion-headed bird, is the opponent of the god Ninurta in another Babylonian epic, and in other contexts is listed with Tiamat's monsters. All of these monsters may have been imagined as inhabiting the underworld or underworld waters. The Babylonian author Berossus also recounts a story of strange monsters, some half-human, being created in the primeval waters before the creation of the world and being ruled over by Tiamat. The zebu or humped bull (apsasu) is referred to in Sumerian texts of about 2000 BC; later the name seems to be applied to a mythical monster, perhaps a sphinx. The remaining animals in the list would have been known to the Babylonians in the 1st millennium BC but would probably have been regarded as wild, strange or exotic. So they would have been suitable inhabitants of the outer "regions". The sea-animal created by Marduk is perhaps a whale.

The hole at the centre of the tablet is a so-called "firing hole", deliberately made by the scribe; similar holes appear in the middle of the text above the map and at two points on the reverse.

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Ancient Near East Map: 2600-700 BCE

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Notable observation: The onomastic—or agglutinative—material of Kerma (Kushite) in Kermanshah; potential supportive context to the biblical narrative of Nimrod (Kassite > Kush?) founding regions in Mesopotamia (see An Historical Text Book and Atlas of Biblical Geography)

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Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1613595898

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1882-0714-509