Page:The Babylonian conception of heaven and hell - Jeremias (1902).djvu/51



It is, perhaps, in a similar connection that we must interpret the close of a hymn, which runs:





"At the mouth of the rivers," i.e., where the Tigris and the Euphrates once flowed separately into the sea, Gilgamesh sought and found the entrance to the Island of the Blessed: "at the mouth of the rivers " also, holy water was procured for use in exorcism. Near this spot lay Eridu (the modern Abu-Shahrein, the Rata of the Ptolemies), the city of the cult of Ea, chief