Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/24

 violent as with all Orientals. The mourner wept, rent his garments, tore or shaved off his hair, cast himself down upon the ground (see Job i. 20) scarred his face, beat his loins. In the annals of Sargon it is said of a mourning Babylonian: "He fell down upon the ground, rent his garment, took the razor, broke forth into wailing."

Babylonians and Assyrians buried their dead; with them as with the Hebrews the burning of the corpse, except in case of necessity, was reckoned indignity and disgrace. The "vulture stela" found in the ruins of Ur of the Chaldees represents in one of its reliefs the burial of those slain in battle. Kings and great nobles were buried in temples and palaces, while the graves of the common people lay without the city. The ancient Babylonian king Gudea states incidentally that he has built the temple according to the Number Fifty, and erected within it a mausoleum of cedar wood. It would seem, therefore, that Babylonian temples like the Egyptian pyramids conceal beneath them royal tombs. Another majestic place of burial was the palace of Sargon ISargon II [sic]., a king famous in legend; certain of the Kassite kings were buried "in the palace of Sargon." In the annals of Asurbanipal mention is made of cemeteries at Babylon, Sippar, and Kutha, and Sanherib tells how a flood in the