SYRIAN AND ASSYRIAN FOLK-LORE. NUMEROUS references are made in the Bible to the gods of the Canaanites, Philistines, and Phoenicians, with which peoples the Israelites of Old Testament history waged frequent war. MOLOCH was the most notable of the Syrian gods. Upon his altars were offered countless victims, children being deemed the most acceptable sacrifices. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears. -Milton's "Paradise Lost." BAAL was the name under which the same divinity was worshiped by the Phoenicians and others. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal. -Byron's "Destruction of Sennacherib." ASTARTE, Astoreth, Ashtaroth, or Ishtar was the famous goddess of the Phoenician coast. Representing the moon, she was depicted as crowned with a crescent. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd -Milton's "Paradise Lost." DAGON was the principal deity of the Philistines. He was represented as half man, half fish. Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark Dagon his name; sea monster; upward man, And downward fish. -Milton's "Paradise Lost." And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold.-Bible, I Samuel v, 4. THAMMUZ was a Syrian god, who became incorporated into the mythology of the Greeks and Romans under the name of Adonis. His death by a ferocious boar, which he was hunting, was observed with ceremonies of a solemn character by the young. Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd In amorous ditties all a summer's day. Of Thammuz yearly wounded. -Milton's "Paradise Lost." May you learn the first use of a lock on your door, And ne'er, like Adonis, be killed by a bore. -Saxe's "Post-Prandial Verses." CHEMOSH was the national god of the Moabites, also of the Ammonites, though Moloch, it appears, was also their god. Perhaps they were different names for the same divinity. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.—Bible, I Kings xi, 7. RIMMON was a Syrian idol. When my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing.—Bible, II Kings v, 18, The Assyrians (including the Babylonians) were gross idolators, worshiping various symbols of the heavenly bodies, and enormous images of such monstrosities as winged, human-headed bulls and lions, etc. IL, or Asshur, seems to have represented their highest ideal of divinity, but was too far removed from the people to be very generally worshiped. SHAMAS, or San, represented the sun, and SIN the moon. NIN (the man-bull) and NERGAL (the man-lion), BEL, and NEBO were the most popular deities, though there were many others which shared with them the divine honors. And the men of Cuth made Nergal. -Bible, II Kings xvii, 30. Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth. -Bible, Isaiah xlvi, 1. ISHTAR and BELTIS were the principal goddesses. TAMZI was the hero of the deluge,' in the Assyrian accounts of that event. IZDUBAR is the person addressed by Tamzi, in his narrative of the flood, and is himself a mythical hero. The two are often confounded. "I have wandered lone and far Hear me now! I stretch my hands Unto thee, or any star That was guide to Izdubar!" -Bayard Taylor's “Assyrian Night-Song." 1 Legends of a great deluge are found in the folk-lore of almost all nations and tribes of men, and offer a strong proof of the unity of the race. The folk-lore of the East abounds in wild and incredible tales of ancient Assyrian monarchs. Some of the latter have been identified with historical characters. Thus the NINUS of story is supposed to have been Tiglathinin, and the mythical SEMIRAMIS is thought to have been a Babylonian princess, the wife of Vullush III. SENNACHERIB has a place in Bible history, through the mysterious destruction in a single night of the vast army which he sent against the King of Judah. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.—Bible, II Kings xix, 35, 36. Under the name SARDANAPALUS, the Greek writers seem to have confounded three Assyrian monarchs, including the last of the royal line (who was overthrown by the Babylonians, 625 B. C.). According to an ancient prophecy, it is related that the city of Nineveh was to endure until the Tigris should prove its foe; and the rising of the river is said to have led to its destruction. NOTES OF LITERATURE RELATING TO ASSYRIAN FOLK-LORE. The great library of Assurbanipal V (sometimes designated as Sardanapalus II) contained as many as ten thousand tablets of brick and stone, covered with finely carved letters. Many of the compositions were copied from older records taken from Babylon. Perhaps no one of the many remarkable achievements of philologists in recent years has been hailed with greater interest than the translation (by George Smith, 1871) of the tablets containing the story of Tamzi (the son of Ubaratutu), copied (660 B. c.) from records originally gathered and committed to writing very much earlier-perhaps 1000 B. C., possibly even 2000 B. C. From this translation is taken the following extract: "Six days and nights passed; the wind, deluge, and storm, overwhelmed. On the seventh day, in its course, was calmed the storm; and all the deluge, which had destroyed like an earthquake, quieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended. "I perceived the sea making a tossing; and the whole of mankind turned to corruption; like reeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light broke over my face; it passed. I sat down and wept; over my face flowed my tears. I perceived the shore at the boundary of the sea; for twelve measures the land rose. The first day, The third day, The fifth and "To the country of Nizir went the ship. The mountain of Nizir stopped the ship; and to pass over it it was not able. and the second day, the mountain of Nizir the same. and the fourth day, the mountain of Nizir the same. sixth, the mountain of Nizir the same. On the seventh day, in the course of it, I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and a resting-place it did not find, and it returned. "I sent forth a swallow, and it left. The swallow went and turned and a resting place it did not find, and it returned. "I sent forth a raven, and it left. The raven went, and the decrease of the water it saw, and it did eat, it swam, and wandered away, and did not return. "I sent the animals forth to the four winds." In the library of Assurbanipal V were books of history, law, science, grammar, and poetry. The works of science reveal a surprising knowledge of the principles of botany, zoölogy, and astronomy. Many of the tablets were copied from older Babylonian records. This vast collection of literary treasures fell into ruin with the great city of which it was the pride. The recovery of important Assyrian records is an event of the present century, due chiefly to the untiring energy of Austen Henry Layard, the English archæologist; and the deciphering of the tablets thus secured has engaged the efforts of various distinguished scholars. Until the recovery of the ancient records by Layard, our knowledge of Assyrian history and legend was acquired through the Bible and the works of ancient Greek and Roman authors. Diodorus Siculus, a Roman writer of the first century B. C., wrote a romantic legendary account of Sardanapalus, which forms the basis of a tragedy by Lord Byron (1821). The loss of the army of Sennacherib is the subject of an admired short poem by Byron. Bayard Taylor's poem, Tyre, recalls the prophecy of Scripture relating to that city, which belonged for a time to the Assyrian Empire. George Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies and Religions of the Ancient World, Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, and George Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis are valuable modern works relating to Assyrian history and mythology. |