Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/40

 This is shown in the worship of Tammuz and in the invocations to the field-god Enmeshara. One of these invocations says: "Lord of the Underworld, sublime in Aralu (a name for Hades), lord of the place and of the land without return, mountain of the Anunaki, great lord; without Ningirsu (god of agriculture) there is no success in field or watercourse and no germ is fertile!" The giant Eabani also, who, in the Gilgamesh epic, descends to the Underworld, is a god of the tilled fields (in this respect recalling Pan), and the hero Ner, who figures in one of the representations of the Underworld among the dwellers in Hades, is certainly identical with the field-god bearing the same name.



Among the magic arts of the Babylonian priests necromancy undoubtedly held a prominent place. A series of mythological texts shows that scenes such as that between Saul and the witch of Endor were familiar to Babylonian fancy also. Among the lists of the various orders of priests we find the offices of "Exorcist of the spirits of the dead," the priest "who raises the spirit of the dead," and the Sha'ilu, the "enquirer of the dead."

The literature so far known to us has no example of the "enquiring of the dead." On the