Shamash

Definition

Shamash (Sumerian Utu, written in cuneiform as dutu or d20) is the Mesopotamian sun god, and his name is the one attached to the Sun in Babylonian celestial divination. Within Enūma Anu Enlil — the master series of celestial omens — the Šamaš section (Tablets 23-29 in Koch's reconstruction) deals with solar eclipses, halos, mock suns, colourings of the sun-disk, and other unusual things the Sun does.

In Tradition

In Babylonian astral religion, as reconstructed by Rochberg, Hunger and Pingree, and Koch-Westenholz, the visible Sun was not seen as a body separate from the god — it was the god made visible. Šamaš was also the divine judge of justice, so solar omens carried meaning for kingship, for a king's legitimacy, and for the giving of judgments.

In Practice

Babylonian scribes and ummânū — the scholar-experts trained in Enūma Anu Enlil — recorded what the Sun did each day and reported anything unusual to the Assyrian king through letters and reports (the Sargonid-era SAA 8 and SAA 10 corpora). When something out of the ordinary appeared, the scribe looked up the relevant Šamaš tablet of Enūma Anu Enlil to find the standard outcome attached to that observation, and reported it. A protective ritual called namburbû could be used to turn an unfavourable sign aside, especially around a solar eclipse — and in that case the substitute-king ritual (šar puḫi) was the most extreme protective measure that survives.

Historical Origin

Šamaš omen content runs from the Old Babylonian period into the Neo-Assyrian and Late Babylonian periods. The Šamaš section of Enūma Anu Enlil was published in Virolleaud's ACh (early 20th century, since partly superseded by the Reiner-Pingree BPO) and brought together in Koch-Westenholz, *Mesopotamian Astrology* (1995).

Further Reading

• Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing
• Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology
• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia