6-2 AKKAD BABYLON

Babylonian Science and the Gods...

As early as 2500 BCE in Mesopotamia, Babylonians were systemizing their ideas about the material world. This is described by Sir William Dampier in his book, A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion.Dampier writes of rulers in Babylon realizing the importance of fixed units of physical measurement and of their maintaining standards of measurement in length, weight and capacity.

In Babylon, mathematics and engineering were developed, including a decimal system that made working with fractions easier – the decimal system based on our number of fingers. It was applied to construction, surveying, town planning and map making, including a map of what they perceived to be the world.

Today we know of Babylonian mathematics from some 400 clay tablets with Cuneiform script, unearthed since the 1850s. The majority of these tablets dated 1800 to 1600 BCE, around the time of Hammurabi, and the tablets covered topics such as fractions, algebra, quadratic and cubic equations.

The Babylonians also measured time, drawing perhaps from the fact that there were 12 lunar months in a year. Seeing lunar months as a creation of the gods, units of 12 were important to them. They divided the year into 12 months and 360 days. They divided day and night into 24 hours (two 12-hour periods), and sticking with their attachment to units of 12 they divided the hour into 60 minutes (5 times 12) and minutes into 60 seconds. (Maybe because we have five fingers on a hand.) Tying measurement to the gods produced an overly simple result that was not accurate regarding the length of year, and to compensate for the inaccuracy they occasionally added days as gifts from the gods.

Babylonian civilization worked with measurement holding to the view that what they were measuring was controlled by the gods. They looked to the movement of stars to discern the intentions of their gods. Their calculations produced an astronomy that was also astrological. Seeing gods permeating everything, they made no distinction between astronomy and astrology.

Babylonian civilization had its ritual specialists, up from the voluntary shamanism that had preceded Sumerian civilization. Babylonians were devoted to expertise. Among their healers were experts in magic, building from the belief in magic and the ever-presence of gods that had also preceded Sumerian civilization. In associating events with gods, a successful prediction was seen as prophecy, and the gods were seen as selective in choosing whom they leaked their secrets to, and seen as stingy in that leaking. Mesopotamian civilization was creating oracles who often communicated in riddles – a vagueness that allowed a more creative interpretation

The Gilgamesh epic poem originated with stories that Sumerians had written as separate tales. During the centuries around the year 2000 these tales were put together as one poem. The tale survived among the peoples of Mesopotamia, and, after Hammurabi, new versions were written, most notably by the Assyrians.

Centuries after the fall of the Sumerians, a Mesopotamian scribe listed Gilgamesh as the fifth king of Uruk, as a king who ruled after a great flood had inundated the region around Uruk. It was common among ancients to view kings who had died as gods, and Gilgamesh was described as part god, but mostly man.

The story of Gilgamesh addresses the mystery of why men must die while gods live forever, and it's a story about human audacity and willfulness against the wills of the gods. The story begins with a barbarian named Enkidu coming out of the wilderness. Enkidu was Gilgamesh's opposite: Enkidu had been living in the untamed wilds and was happy living with the animals he had befriended; Gilgamesh lived among people in the sophisticated city and because of his willfulness was estranged from the people he ruled

From Uruk, Gilgamesh sends a temple prostitute to seduce Enkidu, and Enkidu loses his innocence – vaguely similar to Eve giving Adam the apple of knowledge. The prostitute gives Enkidu bread fit for a god and wine fit for royalty, and she introduces him to Gilgamesh. Enkidu and Gilgamesh become friends and attempt great feats together, including the killing of a god in the form of a bull, a god who was the bringer of droughts to their valley. The great mother goddess, Ishtar – a goddess seen in the heavens as the planet Venus – thinks that in killing the bull, Gilgamesh and his friend have exercised too much willfulness and that as punishment either the barbarian or Gilgamesh must die. As the story goes, it is Enkidu who dies, and following his death Gilgamesh is heartbroken and loses himself by wandering from town to town.

Gilgamesh wonders why people must die, and he decides to seek the answer from the keepers of such mysteries: the gods. He crosses the waters of death to the end of the world in search of a man who had been made into a god: Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim tells him there is no permanence. He tells Gilgamesh about the god Enlil, a god of air, storms and floods, a god who wished to destroy all of humankind in a great flood. He tells Gilgamesh of other, kinder gods who told him to tear down his house and to build a ship, to abandon his possessions, to save his life and to take into his ship his family and the seed of all living things.

Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh of a terrible rain that came, so terrible that the gods fled. He tells about his floating in his ship upon the waters and seeing in the distance a mountain called Nizir. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that when the waters subsided he found silence and mud, that people outside his ship had turned to clay, and he said that his ship became stuck against Mount Nizir. He tells Gilgamesh that he sent forth a dove, and, having found no place to rest, the dove returned. He tells Gilgamesh that he then sent forth a swallow and then a raven. And he said that when the raven saw that the waters had abated, it ate and cawed and flew away.

Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that he was thankful for his deliverance, that on his ship he poured tea as a libation and that the gods gathered around. He said that among these gods was Enlil. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that Enlil was enraged at finding that humankind had survived his flood. He tells Gilgamesh that the other gods scolded Enlil for attempting to destroy humankind without the help of the great god Ea, the god of earth and water, who alone understood all things. The god Enlil, according to Utnapishtim, then became repentant and went aboard Utnapishtim's ship. Enlil took Utnapishtim and his wife by their hands and made gods of them, and he brought them to dwell where Gilgamesh now found them.

Utnapishtim then tells Gilgamesh the secret of eternal life: the story about a plant that when eaten in old age gives one youth. Utnapishtim gives Gilgamesh such a plant, and Gilgamesh begins his return to Uruk. During his journey, Gilgamesh stops to bathe in a pool of cool water, and he puts his plant aside. While he is bathing, a serpent catches the scent of the plant, grabs it and races away, shedding its skin in rejuvenation as it goes. Gilgamesh feels shattered by the loss of the plant. He returns to Uruk and there, like other people, he must face old age and eventual death.