Jake Jackson - Jake Jackson - Myths Of Babylon

This is a FLAME TREE Book

Publisher & Creative Director: Nick Wells

Contributors, authors, editors and sources for this series include:

Loren Auerbach, Norman Bancroft-Hunt, E.M. Berens, Katharine Berry Judson, Laura Bulbeck, Jeremiah Curtin, O.B. Duane, Dr Ray Dunning, W.W. Gibbings, H. A. Guerber, Jake Jackson, Joseph Jacobs, Judith John, J.W. Mackail, Donald Mackenzie, Chris McNab, Professor James Riordan, Sara Robson, Rachel Storm, K.E. Sullivan, Epiphanius Wilson, E.T.C. Werner.

FLAME TREE PUBLISHING

6 Melbray Mews, Fulham, London SW6 3NS, United Kingdom

First published 2018

Copyright 2018 Flame Tree Publishing Ltd

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PRINT ISBN: 978-1-78664-763-4

EBOOK ISBN:

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Contents

Series Foreword

Introduction to Ancient Babylonian Culture

History, Religion & Myth

The Akkadians

The Semite Conquerors

Sargon, A Babylonian Conqueror

The High-Priest Gudea

Hammurabi the Great

A Court Murder

Tiglath-Pileser

Semiramis the Great

The Second Assyrian Empire

Assur-bani-pal: Sardanapalus the Splendid?

The First Great Library

The Last Kings of Assyria

Nebuchadnezzar

The Last of the Babylonian Kings

The History of Berossus

Berossus Account of the Deluge

The Tower of Babel

Nimrod, the Mighty Hunter

The Babylonica and the Tale of Sinonis and Rhodanes

The Sacred Literature of Babylonia

Babylonian Myths of Creation

The Birth of the Gods

Merodach Battles Tiawath

The Writings of Oannes

Early Babylonian Gods

Spirits and Gods

Totemism in Babylonian Religion

The Great Gods

Bel

Bel and the Dragon

Beltis

Nergal

The Tale of Dibarra the Destroyer

Shamash

Ea

The Story of Adapa and the South Wind

Anu

Ishtar

The Descent of Ishtar into Hades

Nin-Girsu

Bau

Nannar

Nannar in Decay

Of the Underworld: Aralu, or Eres-ki-Gal

Dagon

Nirig, or Enu-Restu

The Gilgamesh Epic

The Birth of Gilgamesh

An Epic in Frgaments

Gilgamesh as Tyrant

The Beguiling of Eabani

Gilgamesh meets Eabani

The Monster Khumbaba

Ishtars Love for Gilgamesh

The Bull of Anu

The Death of Eabani

The Quest of Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh and Ut-Napishtim

The Deluge Myth

The Quest Continues

Later Babylonian Gods

Nebo (Nabu)

Tashmit

Shamash and Innana

Hadad

Ea in Later Times

Zu

Bel

Dawkina

Anu as Individual

The Great God Merodach And His Cult

Assyrian Gods

Asshur

Ishtar

Ninib the Assyrian Nin-Girsu

Dagan

An

Ramman

Shamash

Sin

Nusku of the Brilliant Sceptre

Bel-Merodach

The Assyrian Bel and Belit

Nabu and Merodach

Ea

Dibarra

Lesser Gods

Babylonian Star-Worship

Legend of the Origin of Star-Worship and Idolatry

Planets identified with Gods

Magic, Demonology and Superstition

Priestly Magicians, Wizards and Witches

A Toothache Myth

The Word of Power

Babylonian Vampires

Gods Once Demons

Purification

The Chamber of the Priest-Magician

The Magic Circle

Babylonian Demons

Taboo

Popular Superstitions

Omens and The Practice of Liver-reading

Mythological Monsters and Animals

Winged Bulls

The Dog in Babylonia

Gazelle and Goat Gods

The Invasion of the Monsters

The Eagle

Tales of Kings

Tiglath-pileser II

The Autobiography of Assur-bani-pal

Esar-haddon, A Likeable Monarch

Assur-Dan III and the Fatal Eclipse

Shalmaneser I

A Babylon-Inspired Fairy Tale:

The Princess of Babylon

Chapter 1:

Royal Contest for the Hand of Formosanta

Chapter 2:

The King of Babylon Convenes His Council

Chapter 3:

Royal Festival Given in Honour of The

Kingly Visitors

Chapter 4:

The Beautiful Bird is Killed by The King of Egypt

Chapter 5:

Formosanta Visits China and Scythia in

Search of Amazan

Chapter 6:

The Princess Continues Her Journey

Chapter 7:

Amazan Visits Albion

Chapter 8:

Amazan Leaves Albion to Visit the Land of Saturn

Chapter 9:

Amazan Visits Rome

Chapter 10:

An Unfortunate Adventure in Gaul

Chapter 11:

Amazan and Formosanta Become Reconciled

Series Foreword

Stretching back to the oral traditions of thousands of years ago, tales of heroes and disaster, creation and conquest have been told by many different civilizations in many different ways. Their impact sits deep within our culture even though the detail in the tales themselves are a loose mix of historical record, transformed narrative and the distortions of hundreds of storytellers.

Today the language of mythology lives with us: our mood is jovial, our countenance is saturnine, we are narcissistic and our modern life is hermetically sealed from others. The nuances of myths and legends form part of our daily routines and help us navigate the world around us, with its half truths and biased reported facts.

The nature of a myth is that its story is already known by most of those who hear it, or read it. Every generation brings a new emphasis, but the fundamentals remain the same: a desire to understand and describe the events and relationships of the world. Many of the great stories are archetypes that help us find our own place, equipping us with tools for self-understanding, both individually and as part of a broader culture.

For Western societies it is Greek mythology that speaks to us most clearly. It greatly influenced the mythological heritage of the ancient Roman civilization and is the lens through which we still see the Celts, the Norse and many of the other great peoples and religions. The Greeks themselves learned much from their neighbours, the Egyptians, an older culture that became weak with age and incestuous leadership.

It is important to understand that what we perceive now as mythology had its own origins in perceptions of the divine and the rituals of the sacred. The earliest civilizations, in the crucible of the Middle East, in the Sumer of the third millennium bc , are the source to which many of the mythic archetypes can be traced. As humankind collected together in cities for the first time, developed writing and industrial scale agriculture, started to irrigate the rivers and attempted to control rather than be at the mercy of its environment, humanity began to write down its tentative explanations of natural events, of floods and plagues, of disease.

Early stories tell of Gods (or god-like animals in the case of tribal societies such as African, Native American or Aboriginal cultures) who are crafty and use their wits to survive, and it is reasonable to suggest that these were the first rulers of the gathering peoples of the earth, later elevated to god-like status with the distance of time. Such tales became more political as cities vied with each other for supremacy, creating new Gods, new hierarchies for their pantheons. The older Gods took on primordial roles and became the preserve of creation and destruction, leaving the new gods to deal with more current, everyday affairs. Empires rose and fell, with Babylon assuming the mantle from Sumeria in the 1800s bc , then in turn to be swept away by the Assyrians of the 1200s bc ; then the Assyrians and the Egyptians were subjugated by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans and so on, leading to the spread and assimilation of common themes, ideas and stories throughout the world.