# The Babylonian Conception of Heaven and Hell/The World of the Dead

The World of the Dead
The specific name for the world of the dead was Aralu; poetically it was known as Kurnugia, i.e., irsitum la tarat, "land without return," "land of the dead," "the far-off land." The popular fancy conceived this place of the dead after the likeness of the tomb. Names such as Kigal, "vast (underground) dwelling," Unugi, "dark dwelling," designate both tomb and Underworld alike. Thus the earliest answer to the question "Where dwell the souls of the dead?" would be, "underground," and this explains the hyperbolic statements of the royal inscriptions that the foundations of their buildings rested on the bosom of the Underworld. To this also may be traced the description of the scorpion sphinxes, of which it is said that their heads reached to the vault of heaven and their breasts to beneath Aralu. Hence, also, in "Istar's Journey in Hades" lament is made that "Istar has gone down into the earth (Underworld) and has not returned." The entrance to this subterranean land lay in the west. We shall refer later to an exorcism in which the ghost is expressly relegated ​to the west that the warder of the Underworld may there retain him. Not only was the west the region of sunset and therefore of darkness; to the Babylonian it denoted the desert also, and for him the desert, as the sea, was alike a place of horror. The desert being, indeed, the battlefield and playground of demons, it is consistent with this view that the goddess Belit-Seri, "the lady of the desert," is brought into connection with the Underworld. The expression "far place," which occurs twice on one of the so-called Hades reliefs and is also used in exorcisms ("Let the sickness of the head fly away like a bird to the far place and the sick man be committed to the gracious hands of his god "), may be understood as a euphemism for the desert in the west as well as for hell.
The account of the journey of Gilgamesh to the "Island of the Blessed" speaks of the threatening "floods of death" in the south-east, in the Erythraean Sea. Again, in a formula for exorcism, the heart of the magician is to be over- come by "waters of death." These waters of death must have some connection with the "river of death " repeatedly mentioned in descriptions of the Underworld, and which is occasionally designated by the name Khubur. When a priestly magician says that he "has held back the boat and cut off the quay and thus prevented the ​enchantment of the whole world," the allusion is undoubtedly to events in the land of ghosts. The passage recalls the threat of Istar to shatter the Underworld and lead forth the dead into the world above to flock with the living. We are also reminded of the representation of the goddess of Hades on two of the Hades reliefs where the monster sails along the river of death kneeling in a boat. Considering the inconsistency of all such popular fancies it is hardly remarkable that, according to the Gilgamesh epic, the "waters of death" are in the south-east, though generally the entrance to the Underworld was supposed to lie in the west. Perhaps it was supposed that there were two approaches, one by land in the desert, another by the waters of the river of death.
Seven walls, pierced by seven (or according to one legend fourteen) gates, surrounded the place of the dead, sometimes represented as open country, sometimes as a city, sometimes as a huge palace, but always described as full of countless terrors. The opening part of the "Journey of Istar in Hades" is well known:
Still worse were the prospects held out to any specially unwelcome visitants. The queen of the shades says to the messenger from the gods who has forced his way into the Underworld: "With a great curse I will curse thee; the food in the gutters of the city shall be thy meat, the water in the sewers of the city shall be thy drink; the shadows of the wall thy dwelling, a threshold of stone thy seat; . . . shall break down thy strength." In another epic fragment this identical curse is directed against a captivating hierodulos who by her cunning brought bane upon one of the heroes.
The picture of the Underworld at the beginning of "Istar's Journey in Hades" is found almost word for word in an epic narrative belonging to the cycle of Gilgamesh legends; here, however, the continuation is remarkable. "In the house of dust, that I have trodden. . . . [there dwell] wearers of crowns who ruled the land from of ​old, there set forth . . . of Anu and Ea roasted meat, set baked meats with cold, with water from leather bottles; in the house of dust that I tread [dwell] Enu-priests and Lagoru- priests, there [dwell] exorcists and magicians, there [dwell] the anointed priests of the great gods, there dwell [the heroes] Etana and Ner, there dwells Erishkigal, queen of the Underworld, [there dwells] Belit-Seri, the scribe (female) of the Underworld bends before her." Then follows the account, unfortunately fragmentary, of what happened when the goddess Erishkigal raised her head and became aware of the intruder. The story certainly connects itself with the Gilgamesh epic, on the last tablet of which the hero entreats the ghost of his friend as it rises: "Tell me, oh! my friend, tell me, oh! my friend, what the Underworld is like; tell me." The spirit of his friend answers: "I cannot (?) tell it thee my friend, I cannot tell it thee; if I should tell thee what it is like . . . sit down and weep . . ." In the following lines, which alas! are fragmentary, he after all seems disposed to give his friend the information: "That wherein the heart (on earth) has rejoiced, that below is turned to dust."
In the midst of "the land without return" is a palace, whence the gods of Hades exercise their rule. According to the Babylonian Hades legends ​the real power centred in a goddess called Allatu (i.e., the "Mighty One"), or Erishkigal (i.e., the "Mistress of the Great Place"). She is represented in the Hades reliefs as a lion-headed monster (perhaps as being the wife of the lion-god Nergal), kneeling on a horse in a boat, or— without boat—standing upon a horse, snakes in her hands and lions sucking at her breasts. The concluding portion of the Twelve Tablet epic, above referred to, says of her: "She who is dark (?), she who is dark, mother of Ninazu; she who is dark, whose gleaming shoulders (?) are hidden by no garment, whose bosom like to a . . . not . . ." This sombre goddess watches over the primæval laws of the Underworld, receives from the mouth of the porter the names of fresh arrivals, and upon those on whom her wrath falls pronounces the great curse. With the help of the Anunaki she jealously guards the spring (?) of life which is hidden in a certain sanctuary of the Underworld, the water of which can ravish the dead from her power, as was indeed one day about to happen. "Bending before her" stands a divine female scribe of the Underworld, of whose duties unfortunately we know nothing more definite. Among the servants of Erishkigal are prominent the often-named "watchman," or Chief Porter, and Namtar, the god of pestilence. Side by side with Erishkigal reigns, as king of ​Hades, Nergal, god of war and pestilence. He is known as "lord of the tombs," "lord of the great city," "king of the river (of death)"; and ancient Babylonian texts call him "lord of the great land," "lord of the land without return." The special seat of his cult, the Babylonian city Kutha, became so closely identified with conceptions of Hades that in poetry the Underworld is actually called " Kutha." His temple in Kutha was regarded as the likeness of Hades, just as other temples were supposed to be in the likeness of the heavenly abodes of the gods worshipped in them. Among the clay tablets of Tell el Amarna is a Babylonian poem vividly describing the marriage of Erishkigal and Nergal. In some of its features the story recalls the Greek legend of Persephone: "Once when the gods were about to prepare a feast they sent a messenger to their sister Erishkigal to say to her, "We must certainly descend to thee; if thou wilt not ascend to us, send one to receive thy portion of the feast. Then Erishkigal sent Namtar, her servant." From further fragments of the story we learn that Nergal himself set out for the Underworld with twice seven assistants, bearing such names as Lightning, Fever, Fervent Heat, &c. The servants of Nergal were placed at the fourteen gates of the Underworld, and imperiously he ordered the watchman to admit them. Then in ​conclusion we read, "Within the house he seized Erishkigal by the hair, bent her down from the throne to the ground in order to cut off her head. 'Slay me not, my brother, I have somewhat to say to thee.' Hearing this Nergal stayed his hand. She wept and sobbed (?) 'Thou shalt be my husband, I will be thy wife, I will give thee dominion in the vast Underworld; I will give into thine hands the tablet of wisdom, thou shalt be lord, I will be queen.' When Nergal heard this he seized her, kissed her, wiped away her tears and said: 'What thou ever askedst of me long months ago until now. . . .' "
In the train of Nergal, who himself was dreaded as the the god of pestilence (in this character known as Urragal), appear all evil spirits and demons. These demons were regarded as the offspring of Hades and said to be born in the west on the mountain of sunset, that is, they were supposed to exercise their activities by night. When the sun comes forth from the mountains on the east—says a poetical magic formula—and all the gods assemble in presence of the Sun-god, then the rays of the sun drive away the spectres. Elsewhere we are told that they exerted their evil powers from the desert; the desert which lay in the west of Babylonia, being supposed, as already noted, to be in close connection with the Underworld. "They shall ​withdraw afar, they shall retire from the city and descend into the earth (the Underworld)," says the exorcist. These demons of Hades were imagined as blood-devouring, blood-sucking monsters, not sparing even the images of the gods. Like serpents they glided into houses. "They take away the wife from her husband, tear the child from his father's bosom, drive the master away from his household." "From land to land they go, driving the maidens from their chambers, the son they lead away from the house of his parents-in-law, they drive the child from his father's house, they snatch the doves from the dove-cot, the bird out of its nest, they drive the swallows from their nests. They smite the oxen, they smite the lambs; mighty spirits (?), evil demons, hunters are they." "In the pastures they attack the folds, they bring sickness into the stalls of the horses, they fill the mouth of the asses with dust, they bring trouble into the stable of the she-asses." Almost every part of the body was threatened by its own special demon. Ashakku brought fever to the brain, Namtar threatened life with pestilence, Utukku attacked the throat, Alu the chest, Ekimmu the loins, Rabiszu the skin. Labartu was the nightmare, Labaszu epilepsy, while Lilu and Lilit, spirits known also to Jewish superstition, brought infirmities of the night. The words of Rev. ​xviii. 2 are in exact accordance with fact as regards the Babylonian dread of spirits: "Babylon the great is become a habitation of devils, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird." Specially dreaded, as we have seen, were the sepulchral Utukku and Ekimmu, the ghosts of the dead. "They penetrate into the houses, seize upon man and cast him down in the night." There were many means of exorcism of which the most effective was to draw a picture of the demon and solemnly burn it. Of death alone no image could be made for this purpose. In a religious text occurs the passage:
For the student of comparative religion the fact is specially noteworthy that among the Babylonians also the gods of the Underworld were closely allied with those of fertility and agriculture. The growth and decay of vegetation was brought into connection with the Underworld. ​This is shown in the worship of Tammuz and in the invocations to the field-god Enmeshara. One of these invocations says: "Lord of the Underworld, sublime in Aralu (a name for Hades), lord of the place and of the land without return, mountain of the Anunaki, . . . great lord; without Ningirsu (god of agriculture) there is no success in field or watercourse and no germ is fertile!" The giant Eabani also, who, in the Gilgamesh epic, descends to the Underworld, is a god of the tilled fields (in this respect recalling Pan), and the hero Ner, who figures in one of the representations of the Underworld among the dwellers in Hades, is certainly identical with the field-god bearing the same name.