Shamash- Mesopotamian GodDeity"Divine Judge"

The Road of the Sun

Each morning, twin gatekeepers opened the doors of heaven and Shamash emerged from the great mountain in the east. He crossed the sky in his chariot, his driver Bunene at the reins, and descended through the western gate into the underworld. During the hours of darkness he passed among the dead, his light brief and borrowed in that place, before rising again at dawn.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero followed this road. He entered the mountains that Shamash traveled each night, walking twelve leagues in absolute darkness, unable to see what lay ahead or behind. When he emerged, he found a garden where the trees bore jewels instead of fruit: carnelian for berries, lapis lazuli for leaves. Gilgamesh had reached the edge of the world by walking the sun's own path.

The Rod and the Ring

At the top of a basalt stele now in the Louvre, Hammurabi stands before Shamash. The god sits enthroned, rays rising from his shoulders, and extends the rod and ring of authority to the king. The code inscribed below puts the commission in words: Shamash charged Hammurabi "to make justice appear in the land, to destroy the evil and the wicked, that the strong might not oppress the weak."

Among his symbols was the serrated saw, the instrument with which he cut through the eastern mountains each dawn. It stood for what he did to falsehood. Courts met in his temple precincts at Sippar and Larsa, the twin cities of the sun. Oaths were sworn before his image, and his gaze made perjury a fool's errand.

The Eagle and the Serpent

An eagle and a serpent had sworn friendship before Shamash. They nested in the same tree, the eagle in the crown, the serpent at the roots. They hunted together and shared their prey. Their young grew up side by side.

Then the eagle's heart turned. While the serpent was hunting, the eagle devoured its young.

The serpent cried out to Shamash. The sun god told it what to do: hide inside the carcass of a wild bull, and when the eagle descends to feed, seize it. The serpent obeyed. It caught the eagle, broke its wings, and threw it into a pit to starve.

Later, the mortal king Etana came to that pit. He needed the plant of birth to give him an heir, and Shamash had sent him there. Etana freed the eagle, and in return it carried him on its back toward heaven.

Champion of Gilgamesh

When Gilgamesh announced his plan to enter the Cedar Forest and kill its guardian Humbaba, Shamash backed him. Ninsun, Gilgamesh's mother, prayed to the sun god directly, asking him to watch over her son on the road.

He did more than watch. When Humbaba's roar overwhelmed the heroes, Shamash sent thirteen winds against the monster, whirlwind and tempest among them. They pinned Humbaba from every side, and Gilgamesh struck.

Later, when Enkidu lay dying, he cursed Shamhat, the woman who had led him out of the wild. He blamed her for the civilization that had brought him to this death. Shamash called down from the sky. He reminded Enkidu of what Shamhat had given him: bread fit for a king, and Gilgamesh himself as a companion. Enkidu heard. He turned his curse into a blessing.

The Hymn

The Great Shamash Hymn follows the sun god past merchants and their weights, past judges who take bribes. "You give the distraught wanderer a fair wind," it says. "You give the sailor who is tossed in a storm a fair wind." To the traveler crossing mountain passes and open desert, Shamash offers his light as protection, for his gaze deters bandits and reveals the safe path.

Before every act of divination, priests addressed Shamash and asked him to write his verdict on the entrails of the sacrificial sheep. Solar omens formed their own branch of the art: the sun's color at dawn, an unusual halo at noon. The great omen series Enūma Anu Enlil devotes an entire section to what the sun god wrote across his own face.