Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/30

 ancient cities were divided into three sections: the temple quarter, the city of the living and the city of the dead.

 

The specific name for the world of the dead was Aralu; poetically it was known as Kurnugia, i.e., irsitum la tarat, "land without return," "land of the dead," "the far-off land." The popular fancy conceived this place of the dead after the likeness of the tomb. Names such as Kigal, "vast (underground) dwelling," Unugi, "dark dwelling," designate both tomb and Underworld alike. Thus the earliest answer to the question "Where dwell the souls of the dead?" would be, "underground," and this explains the hyperbolic statements of the royal inscriptions that the foundations of their buildings rested on the bosom of the Underworld. To this also may be traced the description of the scorpion sphinxes, of which it is said that their heads reached to the vault of heaven and their breasts to beneath Aralu. Hence, also, in "Istar's Journey in Hades" lament is made that "Istar has gone down into the earth (Underworld) and has not returned." The entrance to this subterranean land lay in the west. We shall refer later to an exorcism in which the ghost is expressly relegated