Zagmuk

The Sumerian New Year, Zagmuk (“beginning of the year”), is also known by the Assyrians and Babylonians as the Akitu Festival (“on earth, life”), which refers to when the sun enters the constellation of Aries in the spring. It begins at the first visibility of the new moon nearest the spring equinox, and was celebrated for twelve days. This year, the first visibility of the new moon will be on March 11, 2024, and the spring equinox will be on March 20. 

It is a festival of great antiquity, and although the earliest tablets are from the first millennium BC, there is little doubt that it is much older (Myths of Mesopotamia). Its contents were sacred and it may not have been written down for centuries, and was likely memorized and recited by priests during Zagmuk since time immemorial.

On each day starting at dawn, different rituals would be performed including reading portions of the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian Epic of Creation. Prayers would be offered by the priests to honor the god Marduk (Sumerian: AMAR.UD; Hebrew: Merodach) who defeated Tiamat, chaos, and brought order to the universe and then created mankind. The king would participate in religious processions (like a parade) in order to put on display the authority granted to him by Marduk who was the supreme god over the pantheon of gods. The Enuma Elish, therefore, gives us an insight into the meaning of their New Years celebration and why the Sumerians and later Mesopotamian civilizations like the Babylonians, celebrated in the spring.

The Beginning

Humanity has a longing to understand what happened at the beginning, and we need its newness and vibrancy. We yearn for that which is alive, growing, and which represents the arrival of order and structure. We see life blooming after the silent void of chaos and non-existence. We see the raging sea of disorder becoming organized, and creation begins when harmony conquers disharmony. Our beginning is when life arises out of the tumult of chaos, and spring represents that better than any other season.

And to commemorate that beginning, the Sumerians told a story about the superior organizing principles (their gods) vanquishing discord and setting up a heavenly bureaucracy for the administration of power. This new framework gave the Sumerians the model they needed to structure society.

The Enuma Elish

The Enuma Elish, which was read during the Sumerian New Year festival of Zagmuk, told the story of Babylon’s chief god, Marduk, who was the son of the gods Ea and Damkina. Marduk was “powerful from the start” and was so perfectly made, “that his godhead was doubled.” He was “Elevated far above them [all the other gods], and he was superior in every way” (Myths from Mesopotamia, 235). 

The first two gods, Apsu (male) and Tiamat (female), were the first to come into existence and through their union all the other first gods came into being. However, these were like noisy, boisterous, and out of control children. They behaved like obnoxious, undisciplined pre-schoolers and as a result Apsu, their father, became so annoyed with them that he wanted to kick them all out of his presence. Their mother Tiamat, however, didn’t want to do anything about their behavior even though she knew her children were ill-behaved. Indeed, she intentionally indulged their obnoxious and riotous behavior, choosing not to discipline them at all.  Apsu, however, couldn’t take it any longer and he told her,

“Their ways have become very grievous to me. By day I cannot rest, by night I cannot sleep. I shall abolish their ways and disperse them! Let peace prevail, so that we can sleep.”

Sounds like a lot of households today! And yet, instead of changing her parenting strategies, Tiamat became enraged at his words. Even so, she decided to control her wrath and tried to talk him out of disciplining them so harshly. Apsu relented at first (at least in the presence of his wife), until his vizier Mummu took him aside and convinced him to go through with his plans to punish them. Apsu was overjoyed and Mummu hopped onto his lap and they made out. 

However, one of the gods, Ea, found out about Apsu’s plot and assassinated him, then made a slave of Mummu. Peace was restored and it seemed like the war was over. It was at this time that Ea and his wife Damkina produced Marduk, but the war was far from over.

Vengeance

Anu, the father of Ea, was appalled that his son had slain Apsu the first god, and so he called on all the remaining gods, including Tiamat, to arise and avenge the death of Apsu. Anu chastised Tiamat for not retaliating against the wickedness of Ea and for not seeking vengeance.

Tiamat took his words to heart and in her wrath rallied her spoiled, undisciplined children to fight with her against Ea. She used words of power to work them up into a riotous frenzy until they were “growling and raging.”

To get ready for the coming battle, she gave birth to an army of giant snakes which were filled with venom, and ferocious dragons that “Whoever looks upon them shall collapse in utter terror!” She made other fearsome weapons in preparation for her war of vengeance, and she promoted a god named Qingu to be her general, and to whom she gave the Tablets of Destiny. 

The Tablets of Destiny

Fundamentally, this war amongst the gods was a fight over who would have ultimate power: Chaos or Structure. The key to victory were the Tablets of Destiny because whoever had them had the authority to make any decree he or she wanted, and it could never be altered. Their word would become law, and their commands would always prevail. Tiamat–chaos–gave those Tablets to her chief general Qingu because she believed her wild, riotous army of angry embittered gods would prevail and eventually be in charge of the universe. Imagine what a world ruled by such spoiled children would be like!

However, the grandfather of Ea feared for the life of both his son, Anu, and his grandson, Ea. Tiamat had become too powerful and so he gave Anu a fierce weapon that he thought would be able to defeat Tiamat, but Anu failed. Tiamat’s victory and the rise of anarchy seemed inevitable.

Rise of the Hero

But this is when the child of Ea, Marduk, came to the rescue. He volunteered to be his father’s champion and he promised to defeat the evil chaos of Tiamat. The rest of the gods approved of his willingness to step up and crush her, and since the council of gods, the Annunaki, had the power to fix the fates, they accepted Marduk as their champion.

They gave him the sovereignty over the whole universe (Earth and mankind had not been created yet), and they declared that Marduk’s word would be pre-eminent. They gave him the authority to destroy and to recreate, and they proclaimed, “Marduk is King!” (Tablet IV). They gave him an unfaceable weapon, but he also made for himself a bow, an arrow, and he armed himself with a mace and a net. He was given the power to marshal the winds to his will and he was filled with an ever-blazing fire. 

Tiamat, on the other hand, had the power of spells and her words were like poison which could influence and sway the gods to her will. She could spread sickening, sanctimonious, destructive lies in a way that was compelling and convincing to those who heard her. She could spread chaos by making lies seem like the truth.

The Defeat of Chaos

When their armies finally met, she first attempted her wheedling ways on him, but he ignored her eloquent lies and they faced off, mono a mono. He caught her in his net and then caused a fierce wind to blow into her face. She opened her mouth to swallow the winds and disperse them, but instead

“The winds distended her belly, … and he shot an arrow which pierced her belly and split her down the middle and slit her heart, vanquished her and extinguished her life.”

To dispel Chaos, the hero destroyed the source of lies.

Creation of the Universe 

Only after this victory of the organizing principle over the disorganizing chaos, did the creation of the universe occur. Marduk, the victor, then sliced Tiamat in half “like a fish for drying,” and used one side of her body to stretch out the heavens. This became the temple for the great gods–the heavens–and he arrayed them across the sky, assigning them as the sun, moon, stars, and constellations to become the governors of years, months, and days. 

“He [Marduk] made the crescent moon appear, entrusted night to it, and designated it the jewel of night to mark out the days…. The fifteenth day shall always be the mid-point, the half of each month…And on the thirtieth day, the [year] is always equalized, for Shamash [the sun] is (responsible for) the year” (Tablet V).

This is why the New Year festival begins on the morning after the new moon nearest the spring equinox.

The Creation of Mankind

Marduk then used the other half of Tiamat’s body to construct the earth. The springs gushed out of her head “and the Euphrates and the Tigris from her eyes…. [And} he piled up clear-cut mountains from her udder.” 

He then took the Tablets of Destiny away from Qingu, carried with him the staff of peace and obedience, and wore the mantle of radiance (a symbol of godhood). He also made shrines (ziggurats) to be places to worship his glory, and he sent the city of Babylon down from the sky to be the earthly home of the great gods, making it “the center of religion.” 

But the story is not over, for he still had to punish Qingu who had been Tiamat’s chief general. After a trial, Marduk punished Qingu by cutting off his head and creating mankind from his blood, and with this blood he declared the purpose for man’s existence: Humans would do “the toil of the gods, and [Marduk] released the gods from it.”

The New Bureaucracy

After the creation of mankind, he assigned the remaining gods their own duties and 300 were put above and 300 were put below. A structure of power and bureaucracy was created (Tablets VI-VII), and then Marduk with his fifty names was the unrivaled supreme over-lord who ruled them all.

This is also why Babylon was glorified as the center of world power, and why the king of Babylon was established as the “acting executive of the divine will” (Babylonian Star-Lore, 102).

The Sumerian New Year festival, therefore, tells the story of why the host of heaven guides mankind’s destiny and why their movements and patterns tell us the will of the gods. This heavenly writing is how the gods express their will to their earthly counterparts, for, to the ancient Sumerians, the gods and kings were the makers of human destiny.

How’s that for a New Years festival?

500 Year Journey

Please subscribe below for alerts to future posts.