The God Zu

Zu was a “mythological bird” who could fly.

Ninurta, too, could fly, as skillfully as Zu.

But he himself was not a bird of any kind, as his many depictions, by himself or with his consort BA.U (also called GU.LA), make abundantly clear. Rather, he did his flying with the aid of a remarkable “bird,” which was kept at his sacred precinct (the GIR.SU) in the city of Lagash.

Nor was Zu a “bird”; apparently he had at his disposal a “bird” in which he could flyaway into hiding.

It was from within such “birds” that the sky battle took place between the two gods. And there can be no doubt regarding the nature of the weapon that finally smote Zu’s “bird.” Called TIL in Sumerian and til-lum in Assyrian, it was written pictorially thus: , and it must have meant then what til means nowadays in Hebrew: “missile.”

Zu, then, was a god—one of the gods who had reason to scheme at usurpation of the Enlilship; a god whom Ninurta, as the legitimate successor, had every reason to fight.

Was he perhaps MAR.DUK (“son of the pure mound”), Enki’s firstborn by his wife DAM.KI.NA, impatient to seize by a ruse what was not legally his?

There is reason to believe that, having failed to achieve a son by his sister and thus produce a legal contender for the Enlilship, Enki relied on his son Marduk.

When the ancient Near East was seized with great social and military upheavals at the beginning of the second millennium B.C., Marduk was elevated in Babylon to the status of national god of Sumer and Akkad.

Marduk was proclaimed King of the Gods, replacing Enlil, and the other gods were required to pledge allegiance to him and to come to reside in Babylon, where their activities could easily be supervised. (Fig. 50)

This usurpation of the Enlilship (long after the incident with Zu) was accompanied by an extensive Babylonian effort to forge the ancient texts. The most important texts were rewritten and altered so as to make Marduk appear as the Lord of Heavens, the Creator, the Benefactor, the Hero, instead of Anu or Enlil or even Ninurta.

Among the texts altered was the “Tale of Zu”; and according to the Babylonian version it was Marduk (not Ninurta) who fought Zu. In this version, Marduk boasted: “Mahasti moh il Zu” (“I have crushed the skull of the god Zu”). Clearly, then, Zu could not have been Marduk.

Nor would it stand to reason that Enki, “God of Sciences,” would have coached Ninurta regarding the choice and use of the successful weapons against his own son Marduk. Enki, to judge by his behavior as well as by his urging Ninurta to “cut the throat of Zu,” expected to gain from the fight, no matter who lost.

The only logical conclusion is that Zu, too, was in some way a legal contender to the Enlilship. This suggests only one god: Nanna, the firstborn of Enlil by his official consort Ninlil. For if Ninurta were eliminated, Nanna would be in the unobstructed line of succession.

Nanna (short for NAN.NAR—“bright one”) has come down to us through the ages better known by his Akkadian (or “Semitic”) name Sin.

As firstborn of Enlil, he was granted sovereignty over Sumer’s best known citystate, UR (“The City”). His temple there was called E.GISH.NU.GAL (“house of the seed of the throne”). From that abode, Nanna and his consort NIN.GAL (“great lady”) conducted the affairs of the city and its people with great benevolence.

The people of Ur reciprocated with great affection for their divine rulers, lovingly calling their god “Father Nanna” and other affectionate nicknames.

The prosperity of Ur was attributed by its people directly to Nanna. Shulgi, a ruler of Ur (by the god’s grace) at the end of the third millennium B.C., described the “house” of Nanna as “a great stall filled with abundance,” a “bountiful place of bread offerings,” where sheep multiplied and oxen were slaughtered, a place of sweet music where the drum and timbrel sounded.

Under the administration of its god-protector Nanna, Ur became the granary of Sumer, the supplier of grains as well as of sheep and cattle to other temples elsewhere.

A “Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur” informs us, in a negative way, of what Ur was like before its demise:

In the granaries of Nanna there was no grain. The evening meals of the gods were suppressed; in their great dining halls, wine and honey ended… In his temple’s lofty oven, oxen and sheep are not prepared; The hum has ceased at Nanna’s great Place of Shackles: that house where commands for the ox were shouted— its silence is overwhelming… Its grinding mortar and pestle lie inert… The offering boats carried no offerings… Did not bring offering bread to Enlil in Nippur. Ur’s river is empty, no barge moves on it… No foot trods its banks; long grasses grow there. Another lamentation, bewailing the “sheepfolds that have been delivered to the wind,” the abandoned stables, the shepherds and herdsmen that were gone, is most unusual: It was not written by the people of Ur, but by the god Nanna and his spouse Ningal themselves. These and other lamentations over the fall of Ur disclose the trauma of some unusual event. The Sumerian texts inform us that Nanna and Ningal left the city before its demise became complete. It was a hasty departure, touchingly described. Nanna, who loved his city, departed from the city. Sin, who loved Ur, no longer stayed in his House. Ningal… fleeing her city through enemy territory, hastily put on a garment, departed from her House.

The fall of Ur and the exile of its gods have been depicted in the lamentations as the results of a deliberate decision by Anu and Enlil. It was to the two of them that Nanna appealed to call off the punishment.

May Anu, the king of the gods, utter: “It is enough”; May Enlil, the king of the lands, decree a favorable fate! Appealing directly to Enlil, “Sin brought his suffering heart to his father; curtsied before Enlil, the father who begot him,” and begged him: O my father who begot me, Until when will you look inimically upon my atonement? Until when?… On the oppressed heart that you have made flicker like a flame— please cast a friendly eye.

Nowhere do the lamentations disclose the cause of Anu’s and Enlil’s wrath. But if Nanna were Zu, the punishment would have justified his crime of usurpation.

Was he Zu?

He certainly could have been Zu because Zu was in possession of some kind of flying machine—the “bird” in which he escaped and from which he fought Ninurta.

Sumerian psalms spoke in adoration of his “Boat of Heaven.”

Father Nannar, Lord of Ur… Whose glory in the sacred Boat of Heaven is… Lord, firstborn son of Enlil. When in the Boat of Heaven thou ascendeth, Thou art glorious. Enlil hath adorned thy hand With a scepter everlasting When over Ur in the Sacred Boat thou mountest.

There is additional evidence. Nanna’s other name, Sin, derived from SU.EN, which was another way of pronouncing ZU.EN. The same complex meaning of a two-syllable word could be obtained by placing the syllables in any order: ZU.EN and EN.ZU were “mirror” words of each other. Nanna/Sin as ZU.EN was none other than EN.ZU (“lord Zu’). It was he, we must conclude, who tried to seize the Enlilship.

We can now understand why, in spite of Ea’s suggestion, the lord Zu (Sin) was punished, not by execution, but by exile. Both Sumerian texts, as well as archaeological evidence, indicate that Sin and his spouse fled to Haran, the Hurrian city protected by several rivers and mountainous terrain.

When Abraham’s clan, led by his father Terah, left Ur, they also set their course to Haran, where they stayed for many years en route to the Promised Land.

Though Ur remained for all time a city dedicated to Nanna/Sin, Haran must have been his residence for a very long time, for it was made to resemble Ur—its temples, buildings, and streets—almost exactly. Andre Parrot (Abraham et son temps) sums up the similarities by saying that “there is every evidence that the ult of Harran was nothing but an exact replica of that of Ur.”

When the temple of Sin at Haran—built and rebuilt over the millennia—was uncovered during excavations that lasted more than fifty years, the finds included two stelae (memorial stone pillars) on which a unique record was inscribed.

It was a record dictated by Adadguppi, a high priestess of Sin, of how she prayed and planned for the return of Sin, for, at some unknown prior time, Sin, the king of all the gods, became angry with his city and his temple, and went up to Heaven.

That Sin, disgusted or despairing, just “packed up” and “went up to Heaven” is corroborated by other inscriptions.

These tell us that the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal retrieved from certain enemies a sacred “cylinder seal of the costliest jasper” and “had it improved by drawing upon it a picture of Sin.” He further inscribed upon the sacred stone “a eulogy of Sin, and hung it around the neck of the image of Sin.” That stone seal of Sin must have been a relic of olden times, for it is further stated that “it is the one whose face had been damaged in those days, during the destruction wrought by the enemy.”

The high priestess, who was born during the reign of Ashurbanipal, is assumed to have been of royal blood herself. In her appeals to Sin, she proposed a practical “deal”: the restoration of his powers over his adversaries in return for helping her son Nabunaid become ruler of Sumer and Akkad. Historical records confirm that in the year 555 B.C. Nabunaid, then commander of the Babylonian armies, was named by his fellow officers to the throne. In this he was stated to have been directly helped by Sin.

It was, the inscriptions by Nabunaid inform us, “on the first day of his appearance” that Sin, using “the weapon of Anu”—was able to “touch with a beam of light” the skies and crush the enemies down on Earth below.

Nabunaid kept his mother’s promise to the god. He rebuilt Sin’s temple E.HUL.HUL (“house of great joy”) and declared Sin to be Supreme God.

It was then that Sin was able to grasp in his hands “the power of the Anu-office, wield all the power of the Enlil-office, take over the power of the Ea-office—holding thus in his own hand all the Heavenly Powers.” Thus defeating the usurper Marduk, even capturing the powers of Marduk’s father Ea, Sin assumed the title of “Divine Crescent” and established his reputation as the so-called Moon God.

How could Sin, reported to have gone back to Heaven in disgust, have been able to perform such feats back on Earth?

Nabunaid, confirming that Sin had indeed “forgotten his angry command … and decided to return to the temple Ehulhul,” claimed a miracle. A miracle “that has not happened to the Land since the days of old” had taken place: A deity “has come down from Heaven.”

This is the great miracle of Sin, That has not happened to the Land Since the days of old; That the people of the Land Have not seen, nor had written On clay tablets, to preserve forever: That Sin, Lord of all the gods and goddesses, Residing in Heaven, Has come down from Heaven.

Regrettably, no details are provided of the place and manner in which Sin landed back on Earth. But we do know that it was in the fields outside of Haran that Jacob, on his way from Canaan to find himself a bride in the “old country,” saw “a ladder set up on the earth and its top reaching heavenward, and there were angels of the Lord ascending and descending by it.”

At the same time that Nabunaid restored the powers and temples of Nanna/Sin, he also restored the temples and worship of Sin’s twin children, IN.ANNA (“Anu’s lady”) and UTU (“the shining one”).

The two were born to Sin by his official spouse Ningal, and were thus by birth members of the Divine Dynasty. Inanna was technically the firstborn, but her twin brother Utu was the firstborn son, and thus the legal dynastic heir.

Unlike the rivalry that existed in the similar instance of Esau and Jacob, the two divine children grew up very close to each other. They shared experiences and adventures, came to each other’s aid, and when Inanna had to choose a husband from one of two gods, she turned to her brother for advice. Inanna and Utu were born in time immemorial, when only the gods inhabited Earth.

Utu’s city-domain Sippar was listed among the very first cities to have been established by the gods in Sumer. Nabunaid stated in an inscription that when he undertook to rebuild Utu’s temple E.BABBARA (“shining house”) in Sippar:

I sought out its ancient foundation-platform, and I went down eighteen cubits into the soil. Utu, the Great Lord of Ebabbara… Showed me personally the foundation-platform of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which for 3,200 years no king preceding me had seen. When civilization blossomed in Sumer, and Man joined the gods in the Land Between the Rivers, Utu became associated primarily with law and justice. Several early law codes, apart from invoking Anu and Enlil, were also presented as requiring acceptance and adherence because they were promulgated “in accordance with the true word of Utu.” The Babylonian king Hammurabi inscribed his law code on a stela, at the top of which the king is depicted receiving the laws from the god. (Fig. 51)

Tablets uncovered at Sippar attest to its reputation in ancient times as a place of just and fair laws. Some texts depict Utu himself as sitting in judgment on gods and men alike; Sippar was, in fact, the seat of Sumer’s “supreme court.”

The justice advocated by Utu is reminiscent of the Sermon on the Mount recorded in the New Testament. A “wisdom tablet” suggested the following behavior to please Utu:

Unto your opponent do no evil; Your evildoer recompense with good. Unto your enemy, let justice be done… Let not your heart be induced to do evil… To the one begging for alms— give food to eat, give wine to drink… Be helpful; do good.

Because he assured justice and prevented oppression-and perhaps for other reasons, too, as we shall see later on—Utu was considered the protector of travelers. Yet the most common and lasting epithets applied to Utu concerned his brilliance. From earliest times, he was called Babbar (“shining one”). He was “Utu, who sheds a wide light,” the one who “lights up Heaven and Earth.”

Hammurabi, in his inscription, called the god by his Akkadian name, Shamash, which in Semitic languages means “Sun.” It has therefore been assumed by the scholars that Utu/Shamash was the Mesopotamian Sun God.

While this god was assigned the Sun as his celestial counterpart, there was another aspect to the statements that he “shed a bright light” when he performed the special tasks assigned to him by his grandfather Enlil.