Ningishzidda

[madness]

Ok, after doing some searching:

Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections, I: The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library (1948). By Edith Porada, in collaboration with Briggs Buchanan. 2 volumes.


Hopefully Porada's work will shed some light on the above seal, as she is usually pretty thorough in her examinations of seals. It seems that the library at Sydney has this volume, I'll leave a note here for myself so I don't forget next time.

opac.library.usyd.edu.au/search~S4?/tCorpus+of+Ancient+Near+Eastern+Seals/tcorpus+of+ancient+near+eastern+seals/1%2C1%2C2%2CB/frameset&FF=tcorpus+of+ancient+near+eastern+seals+in+north+american+collections&1%2C%2C2

[madness]

I just got back from the library. These are Porada's notes on the cylinder in question, from The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library.

No. 386 (plate LV)
Old Babylonian Period : the God with Lion-Scimitar

(description, p. 48)
Hematite Cylinder. 21 x 9
Bull-eared god wrapped in rope coils (?) and holding lion scimitar in either hand; nude female; priest with pail and sprinkler before god with scimitar. In field: fly above fish; lightning fork; vessel above ball staff; porcupine. [Ward, Morgan 118]

(further remarks on previous page)
Seal 386 shows a bull-eared god who is apparently wrapped in rope coils - perhaps to signify inclosure in a sarcophagus - and holds a lion scimitar in each hand. Indication that such inclosure represents a sarcophagus appears even more clearly in a number of clay plaques from Larsa and Telloh. For this reason Parrot identifies the god thus associated with death as Nergal.

[madness]

And finally, Wiggermann's notes in RLA s.v. mischwesen A

§ 7 no. 34. Bull-eared god Bahar(?) (§ 3.1), messenger of Lugal-irra* and Meslamta-ea. a. Porada, CRRA 26 Pl. XIIb; b. Porada, CANES no. 386.

§ 3.1 reiterates that he is in a "sarcophagus" wrapped in rope, that he is an underworld god with elements associated with Nergal, and that he is the messenger of Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea, named (Ba)har.

[madness]

Right, well regarding Porada's identification of the diagonal lines as "rope coils," us4-he2-gal2 has generously forwarded to me an article by Briggs Buchanan, "A Snake Goddess and Her Companions" (1971).

Porada collaborated with Buchanan for her seal collection as I noted above. In Buchanan's study on the snake goddess, he happens to disagree with Porada:

Another possible connection with our snake goddess is offered by a few representatives on seals and many on terracottas, showing a bull-eared full-face god who seems to be enclosed in a sarcophagus. The 'sarcophagus' is normally decorated with weapons or vessels set in rows separated by horizontal borders and often has as its base a bracket mounted on sharp points like talons or claws. When the internal separators are arranged diagonally they have, perhaps intentionally, the appearance of twisted serpents.

I would have to side with Buchanan on the matter, as the chthonic context of the seal would lend itself better to twining serpents than to rope.


The winged snake goddess that he inspects is on an Old Babylonian grain contract seal from Larsa:

img693.imageshack.us/i/17276741.jpg/

Though it is from Larsa, the iconography here is of Syrian origin. Buchanan compares it to Syrian seals such as these (Ward, Seal Cylinders, 954, 955):

img686.imageshack.us/i/82805123.jpg/
img685.imageshack.us/i/12706197.jpg/

And also to a Babylonian kudurru which depicts a similar goddess (King, Boundary-Stones, pl. XXX):

img25.imageshack.us/i/10471114.jpg/

[afterviewer]

Any thoughts as to the divining rod that is positioned to the right of the Deity in the pictograph? have been reading about the bio-electric/electromagnetic configurations that have been seemingly depicted in a number of the Sumerian Deity figures, especially Inanna. AV.

[madness]

It's a forked lightning bolt.

[afterviewer]

Thanks madness, I wonder if it would possess "magical" properties similar to a tuning fork of the same configuration?

[madness]

Lightning is a property of the storm god.

In fact, so is the bull, as Green (The Storm-God, p. 23) concludes that "at least in southern Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian Period (ca. 1850-1500 B.C.E.), the Storm-god Adad was the important deity closely associated with the bull." The bull becomes the mount of Adad as in OB (and subsequent periods) iconography such as this (after Vanel, L'Iconographie, p. 34, fig. 11):



Interesting dragons here that flank a tree, now where have we seen this before

A nude rain-goddess is also associated with the bull (and together with the storm-god), which goes back to the Early Dynastic II period. And so on the basis of these associations, Green reasons that the bull represents the process of fertility.


But rather than the naturally depicted bull of the storm-god, we are concerned with the bull-man.

The bull-man (or bison-man) [=gud-alim/kusarikku] is the attendant of the sun-god Šamaš. We see the bull-man on OB terracotta plaques supporting a date-palm topped with the sun-disk (e.g. Woods, JCS 56, figs. 25-27):

img222.imageshack.us/i/84803685.png/


So, the bull-god Bahar (^dGUD) placed in a sarcophagus entwined with snakes, standing next to a lightning bolt and a nude female, associated with Netherworld gods (~Nergal), what is its meaning?

Perhaps it is the divine power (or libido) of the storm or the sun that has been regulated to the Netherworld.

[afterviewer]

Thanks for posting the diagram and information, madness. Not likely to have stumbled across this stuff on mu own.

[sheshki]

I searched CDLI for {d}nin-gisz-zi-da' . And the result was "Found {'d}nin-gisz-zi-da' in 147 texts."

cdli.ucla.edu/search/result.pt?word=d}nin-gisz-zi-da&highlight_text=yes&index_name=graphemes&-sort=id_text&start=0&result_format=list&search_mode=simple&size=100

[madness]

Examining the Elamite seals which I posted a link to in the resources thread (#60).

Some examples of caduceus style images which I don't think we have seen before:

110, 111, 116, 118, 376, 463


2979 appears to be the most elaborate caduceus rendering (apart from the Gudea vase) that I have seen. Sitting on top of the entwined snakes is Inšušinak, the pole comes out of a mountain which might represent the kur-netherworld.

924 is an interesting looking snake.

The coiled snake of 2560-2570 looks like Nirah but without the anthropomorphic body, perhaps identifiable as a truly natural snake variant of Nirah.

3118 reminds me of the kabbalistic tree.

[sheshki]

Thanks Madness, a very nice link. Just found some more snakes. 2178, 2179, 2180.

[enkur]

Here is my modest contribution to this long thread. First of all, Naomi, pleased to meet you - seems we share something in common. This is my collage dedicated to the Lord of the True Tree. However, the components I've used are of another geographical latitude than that of Mesopotamia - this tree is a certain beech which is many hundred of years old, and which was and still is a cult object even nowadays. The local people respect it as possessing magical powers. Instead of the Cerastes cerastes there are the unicorn vipers - Vipera ammodytes, the most awe-inspiring snakes in my latitude. I've written the name of Ningishzidda with ngesh sign as given in the ePSD instead with its older variant as written in the cuneiform texts I've seen.

[enkur]

Here it is.

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[enkur]

Till now I've traced two parallels of Ningishzidda in some other than Mesopotamia lands and suppose Ningishzidda underlies them as the most ancient archetype. The one is the serpent god/s Naga in India (the direct Sumerian influence on the earliest Indian civilization of Harappa is more than obvious. I tend to regard the later Hindu religious concepts as a profanation to the older magical concepts. Generally, for me, the religions have always profaned the numinous in order to make it intelligible for the masses.

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[enkur]

The other parallel is the Phrygian Sabazius and the Thracian Zagreus (Thracians and Phrygians being of the same ethnic origin) later known as Dionysos by the Hellenes. Dionysos/Zagreus/Sabazius was a dying and resurecting deity amongst whose attrtibutes were the winding vine, the snakes and the leopards, so it's Dionysos rather than Hermes which is to be compared with Ningishzidda. Moreover, the Thracians had no writing, so anything said about them (mostly by the Hellenic sources in the antiquity) is a speculation. The Hellenes have always been "political incorrect" chauvinists who distorted the foreign cultures to fit their "classical" notions of the things It's quite possibly that the Thracian/Phrygian Zagreus/Sabazius shared the features of both the late Hellenic Dionysos as a dying and resurrecting deity and Hermes in his psychopompos aspect in the underworld. The Thracian and Phrygian peoples were indirectly influenced by the Mesopotamian culture via the Hittites who were also of a similar ethnic origin like them but developed a Mesopotamian-like culture and civilization.

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[enkur]

As for Enki, I've never been able to find any genuine Sumerian imagery of him - he is represented only in an antropomorphic form in the Akkadian cylinder seals, but as a deity of the subterranian waters he should have shared at least some amphibian or fish-like features if not reptilian ones. He was a heavenly deity who descended in Kur after Ereshkigal and what happened next remained a mystery for us. A mystery to quest...

On a subjective plane, He responds to my magic call as a goatfish (Suhurmash) like in this late Babylonian kudurru stone. But it's not an easy matter to invoke Enki - deep in Abzu, in the depths of Engur, in His hidden chamber Halankug, He sleeps and dream all of us, so in order to be invoked He is to be awakened in the sorcerer's dream. For expressing similar thoughts I was banned from some Enki/Ea society.

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[enkur]

Well I'm a sorcerer who seeks to be genuine here and now, not 6000 years ago. That's why I can be neither a religious reconstructionalist nor a neo-pagan. I do not pretend to be authentic on the basis of the Sumerology as well, though I feel there is much to be discovered yet by that science. On the other hand, Mr. Crowley was once told: " ...the rituals shall be half known and half concealed...", so this could be applied to any ancient magical text. Neither is knowing the factology, nor is believing in something enough to feel the presence of the numinous and have its mystery revealed.

In my own subjective psychocosmos Abzu is under the lowest level of Kur, directly under E-Gal-Kur-Zagin where there is a sacred temple-well watched over by the omnipresent Queen of the Underworld. It's ONLY via this sacred well of Abzu that one may return from the Land of No Return. Abzu is connected to the Upperworld via a vast network (Sashushgal) of subterranian currents which spring out on the surface of earth as sources - from sources wherefrom rivers spring out to sources wherefrom the sperm springs out...Ereshkigal being the guardian of all Memory, one is stripped down of all one's memories before Her and what remains is thrown down stark naked ( as a pure energy) into the well of Abzu to find its way back to the Upperworld in an irrecognizable new configuration of MEs. Yet there are some options - one may stay with one's beloved Queen of All Peoples forever, one may serve Her as an Underworld deity, one may also preserve one's memory by persistence and get oneself lost in the vast ocean of Memory stored there in quest of some mystery - probably that of eventually realizing oneself only as an aggregate of thousands of dead's memories..., or one may find one's way back to the Upperworld as a Gidim who could restore even one's flesh via predatory practices, or one may discover the formula how to preserve one's identity through Abzu, who knows? The sorcerers always search for more options. The gods are to be invoked often. I've "heard" that it was a great grace to have Ninggishzidda as a guide and introducer to the Queen of the Great Below. Maybe as a son-in-law of Enki, He could be of some help in accessing Abzu as well, who knows?

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[enkur]

The above is one of the greatest mysteries of my life - it's the most ancient underground temple discovered on the territory of the ancient Thrace - about 1300 b.c.e., a time when the local Thracian people were very far from building such a temple-well dedicated to some subterranean water deity, so the local archaeologists have qualified it as an Abzu temple dedicated to the Mesopotamian deity Enki/Ea whose cult penetrated the Balkans via the neighbor Hittite empire...While the scholars ponder over that mystery the weather and the treasure hunters gradually ruin it...but this is probably appropriate for another thread.

[madness]

Interesting observations, I've investigated the secret nature of the Engur in reply #5 in this thread, which might help confirm your thoughts.

[enkur]

Yes, it does confirm my thoughts Great! I was just pondering about the name of Namma! Thanks. However, I will respond there on this topic, here being a space for Ningishzidda

[us4-he2-gal2]

Enkur:


This image is excellent, the tree depicting the deity - many nice touches! I like the 6 horned crown for example.

Certainly no worries about intolerance as experienced at that enki/ea forum you mentioned. I've found that the forum has only progressed as long as the posters are generally eccentric and intelligent above any other criteria.


*The following is to expand the idea that the Abzu is source of all fresh waters.

As for your post largest post, with the picture of the well at Thrace, the content in some ways is similar to the lecture and class discussion last week from Prof. Frayne's class. Frayne is a Sumerologist dabbling with comparative religion for this class here in Ontario, Canada. So his discussion was in part on the how the Tigris and Euphrates and were thought to run under the Persian gulf into Dilmun, in this way Enki's fresh water bubbled up there in the Pure land as well. These notions were originally noted by W. F. Albright in an article from the 1920s. Originally Albright, referring to an incantation dealing with the Kishkanu tree, translated that the Abzu was *in* the Netherworld - newer translations specify that it is just on top of the netherworld. So I made a small discussion of this on the class discussion board, a post I will paste below:



"In the last lecture we heard discussion on the term "mouth of rivers" = "source of rivers" in Mesopotamian thinking. I was intrigued that Albright utilized incantation material to come to this (as I love this sort of text), and looked up his article - I give a portion of M. Geller's updated translation of the same below (from , Evil Demons: Canonical Utukkū Lemnūtu Incantations. State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts 5., 2007 - originally posted by a friend of mine on another board)

"95 A black kiškanu-tree grew in Eridu, created in a pure place,
96 the appearance of which is pure lapis which extends into* the Apsû.
97 Ea's activities in Eridu are full of abundance,
98 his dwelling is right on the Netherworld,
99 and his sanctuary is Nammu's couch.
100 In a pure temple, which is like a forest with its extended shadows, (where) no one shall enter its midst,
101 Šamaš and Tammuz are inside.
102 Between the two mouths of the rivers, Kahegal, Igihegal and Lahmu-abzu of Eridu
103 took that kiškanu-tree, cast the spell of the Apsû, and placed it on the distraught patient's head."
While the new translation overturns a small part of Albright's discussion in that it locates Enki's dwelling "right on the Netherworld" as oppose to 'in the Netherworld' the main line of interpretation seems intact. To offer some explanation of the text in my own words, this is an exorcistic text with the overall aim of driving off sickness demons which afflict a paying patient - the first part of the text, above, is designed to reinforce the cultic purity of the main ritual item to be used: the kiškanu-tree (an object which mediated between heaven and earth by virtue of its roots and branches (with Cunningham 1997).


Therefore the relevant part of text is explaining or better establishing the purity of the item to be used by orally/magically placing its origin in the pure domain of the god of magic. While we are there, we notice other objects 'down in the abzu' as it were - Enki's mother on her couch (Nammu), Shamash and Tammuz (I'm not sure why on this one), and on line 102 the Doormen of the house or Eridu (Kahegal, Igihegal) take the Kishkanu from between the mouth/source of the rivers (also in the Abzu) personally placing it on the head of the patient - the point is, the mouth /source of rivers is down in Enki's realm among his minions, henceforth this text demonstrates that the source of rivers (or any fresh waters), in Mesopotamian thought, was in Enki's domain."

*For more on the Kishkanu stuff, the enenuru user can refer to this thread:

enenuru.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=recite&action=display&thread=134




As for the Abzu and fresh waters as transfer points from the below to the above, this is interesting - I am not sure that there explicit correspondence in the texts, although we can note that Enki usually assists in the situations where a return is featured - for example, when Enkidu's shade is brought back, Enki tell's Utu to bring him up through a hole. The reasons why Utu comes into play are complex and may depend on whether you see Enkidu as returning ina dream vision or no - another is the analogy of the netherworld as a sort of prison, real Mesopotamian prisons were little more than a whole in the ground where one could only sit and pray to see the light of day again - the sun being as deliverance.


In a hymn to Nungal (Nungal A): t.4.28.1, which concerns the goddess in charge of prisons and treating prisoners, reads:


"Its inmates, like small birds escaped from the claws of an owl, look to its opening as to the rising of the sun"

50. lu2-be2-e-ne buru5mušen dnin-ninna2mušen-ta šu-ta šub-ba-gin7
51. ĝal2 da13-da13-bi-še3 dutu e3-a-gin7 igi-bi im-ši-ĝal2

[enkur]

Thanks us4-he2-gal2. Quite interesting indeed.

Seems we are on the way to connect here the thread of Ningishzidda with the thread of Abzu. In the "Balbale to Ningishzidda A" Ningishzidda is addressed as "who grew up in the abzu" (abzu-a buluj3-ja2). Also, Enki is alluded and mentioned several times in this balbale which even ends with praising Enki. Yes, Ningishzidda is a son-in-law of Enki by Ninazimua and his grand son as a child of Ningirida (his father Ninazu being also Enki' son-in-law by Ningirida), but it feels as if there was something more meant in this text.

Though I personally don't like Zecharia Sitchin's writings, I cannot deny the insight they could inspire time to time even to me. For example, his interpretation of the name Ningishzidda as the Lord of "the Tree of Truth". In fact, he refers to the myth of Adapa where the name is written Gishzidda as "the Tree of Truth" guarding the palace of An. (The "Lord" is added by me.)

Well in my subjective Sumerian psychocosmos Kur, or Kur-gal, the underworld just mirrors the sevenfold zikurat of the upperworld with a gate to each lower level, so Kur as the underworld is an inverted mountain and the Well of Abzu is on its inverted summit. There is a Tree-axis which roots are reaching Abzu through Kur-gal, and which branches are reaching for the stars, thus forming a "duranki". First I thought it was the huluppu tree, now I come to know about this 'gish-kin tree, and now I start to "see" the roots of this tree as serpents drinking Abzu's water of life and its branches as serpents whose tongues are the stars... It's great. The archetype of the later "Tree of Life" with the serpent entwined around it? Yet I don't claim anything. There are things which are felt true during a ritual but not so true when one tries to describe them.

Interesting, I've always felt Utu as rising from Abzu in the morning (maybe because I've been so fascinated by the Seal of Adda), so Mr. Sitchin's idea of Abzu being the sun itself seemed to me very interesting on a contemporary magical point of view.

Abzu pulsates with impulses counter-proportional to the downward energy of the gravity, they interract continuously with each other. However, I would like to comment more about that matter in the thread about Abzu and Engur.

On the other hand, this psychocosmic model of mine isn't as 3D as it seems while trying to describe it. It somehow reconciles the contradiction pointed out by Dina Katz (in "Death They Dispensed to Mankind") between the horizontal model of Kur (netherworld) vs Kalama (consensus reality) and the vertical model where Kur is below as the underworld. The mountains on the horizons are the edge of the known world wherefrom one may fall down to the underworld (as it happens to certain Terry Pratchett's characters in his Discworld series ) The sorcerer's awareness should extend always to the horizons because there is where hir subjective known world ends and the netherworld starts. The city I live is in a valley surrounded by mountains, so if I'm to do something magical/sacred and contact the numinous I go there to the edge of my known mundane world, there where one really feels mortal and in the same time more alive than in one's urban reality. There are dangerous places in the mountains - cliffs and abysses, caves where one may get really lost and there are also hidden vertical abyssal caves grown with bushes where one may fall down and really enter the Land of No Return. There and then, when I've slowed my mind down to death by invoking Ereshkigal I'm ready to contact the numinous... sometimes running in panic to save my ass from the Lord Weather's furious imduguds, though Enlil has often been responsive to me in the most benevolent way in this respect as well.

[enkur]

As regards that mysterious temple-well in Thrace, one of my main magical arguments that this pure place still works today is the very fact that nowadays there is there a dam-lake at the mountain foots whereon the temple-well is located, so people still enjoy a reservoir of fresh water there though they do not worship it. On the second picture a very pale sun ray is showing the exact location of the ancient temple-well in the general landscape. I didn't see it while I was taking the picture - I saw it later when uploading my pics. This was Utu's discreet ray towards Abzu.

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[enkur]

The second one.

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[enkur]

As for the intolerance in certain occult forums, it's due mostly to the unstable value system of certain forum owners who feel its foundament is under threat of crumbling and need to defend it very aggressively. I've also often drawn out the scimitar of Satan when I was younger Well as some folks here say Mr. Sitchin' has stirred them to start seriously investigate Sumer, I have to admit that what firstly moved me to seriously investigate Sumer was the infamous Simon's Necronomicon. I've still not seen here any comments thereon. For me this grimoire is an exclusively cleverly made 20 century fabrication in the form of an alleged 8th century grimoire in a post-Chaldean style - a work of genius indeed, based entirely on the Enuma Elish ideology and inspiring the terror of the schizophrenic split in the human psyche caused by the cosmic conflict between "the Ancient Ones" and "the Elder Gods". Even then I did know there was no such a conflict in the genuine Sumerian mythology and this over-exaggerated duality seemed to me somehow artificial and intentional, so I started to suspect there is some mystery hidden which eventually reveals that the Great Kutulu was Enki under cover, and this was what caused my immediate ban from Enki/Ea's fan club when I mentioned about this possibility to them who were obviously firmly on the side of "the Elder Gods" in the coming aeon. Later, when I read some of Mr. Warlock Asylum's esoteric comments on Simon's Necronomicon, they totally confirmed this suspection of mine. He also warns against these psycho-traps in the grimoire designated to lead the initiate to a mystic enlightement via the gnosis of terror.

An interesting moment for this thread is that in Simon's Necronomicon's version of Inana's Descent, it is not Neti but Ningishzidda who strippes down Inana stark naked. Could it have some known analogue in the Babylonian literature? It sounded to me somehow familiar when I first read Simon's Necronomicon. I remember a book of translated Babylonian poetry in my language but I'm forgetful.

And yes, you are quite right about the intelligence and eccentricity Neither could Enuma Elish, H.P. Lovecraft, Simon's Necronomicon and Zecharia Sitchin be held responsible for the intolerance in the virtual Sumer. Seems it's all a question of navigating one's own madness

Yes, I did read this quotation from that hymn to Nungal about the prison in respect of the owlet aspect of Inana.

[madness]

I looked through the Akkadian version of the descent, and the gatekeeper is not named. Just called a generic "gatekeeper" (LU₂.I₃.DU₈/atû).

Ningišzida does not even appear in the Sumerian or the Akkadian version of the descent. Simon obviously fudged this point.

[enkur]

Thank you for the reference, Madness. Maybe at the time it just made sense for me associating Ningishzidda with my own experiences in the wilderness when meeting the unicorn viper as a guardian of certain sacred localities.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello again Enkur:



Well, your caution is justified in using Sitchen of course, although I also believe sifting almost any material - with due caution - can potentially yield fruit. My problem with Sitchen in the particular example you give, is that he doesn't provide sufficient linguistic justification for suggesting a different translation of the name. I can't remember, but I somewhat doubt he gives any footnote or reason why his translation differs from other scholarship etc. He just states it and expects you to believe it. It seems like a convenient way to compare the tree in question with the Tree of Good and Evil or some such - with is probably what he does next but I forget.

Anyway, I wrote a small note on Jacobsen's classic treatment of the name (Ningishzida = Lord of the Good Tree) on reply #3 of the following thread.

enenuru.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=269&page=1


As for your model of the psychocosmos it is interesting, its not unlike my ongoing effort to construct an intellectual model or simulation that attempts to approximate the ancient world view by connecting the various glimpses of the cosmological layout that the text partially reveal from time to time. This effort reminds me to a small extent of that continually morphing grammatical model / construction that we much artificially create in order to get into the head space of a second language.

About the entwining serpents and their significance is found the problem to complex to add to my intellectual model. The significance of Ningishzida being outside the gates of heaven in the story of Adapa is something no one really agrees on. I used to think it insignificant as the Adapa text has always been from late copies and so I thought it was a later tale less significant to Sumerian religious ideas - and yet, I understand they have found a Old Babylonian version from Tell Hadad, yet unpublished. So a later tale will soon be considered an earlier one.


Utu may have passed through the Abzu on his way back up in the morning - I know scholars (i.e Alster) see the stars of the night sky as rising from below passing through the Abzu on the way up. Will send you something on this.

You've got notions of the vertical an horizantal axis of Sumerian netherworld this is some pretty intricate scholarship associated with Katz - thats not bad at all if you are indeed in a country with few libraries on the subject!



As for the Necronomicon, you've seen its nature through your own intelligent inquisition and noted its short comings when it comes to accurately presenting what we can best use to learn the ancient mindset. Lovecraft originally drew from Assyriology done in the 1890s for his text translations that would be woven into his fiction - so even if he were trying to be accurate hes using material we no longer hold as accurate or instructive..those early early translations are just WAY OFF in many place, given the infancy of the linguistic science. Enenuru has noted the work of J. Gonce , whose book is in a similar critical spirit:

enenuru.net/html/cuneiform_magic/maqluexpl.htm


Best Regards

[us4-he2-gal2]

Actually for the Sun and how it rises must track down the article by Heimpel called "The Sun at Night and the Doors of Heaven in Babylonian Texts" (JCS 28, 1986 - 127-151).