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Akitu

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Muskena:Middle class, Wardu:Lower class, High Priest, and the King

Assyria

The festival was also adopted in Iron Age Assyria, following the destruction of Babylon. King Sennacherib in 683 BC built an "Akitu house" outside the walls of Assur. Another "Akitu house" was built outside Nineveh.

Comparative Mythology

Marduk in the myth enacted in the festival is preserved in the so-called Marduk Ordeal Text (KAR 143). In this myth, Marduk appears as a life-death-rebirth deity, reflecting the festival's agrarian origin based on the cycle of sowing and harvesting. He is imprisoned in the underworld and rises again on the third day. The obvious parallel to the death and resurrection of Christ celebrated at Christian Easter has been noted at an early time, and elaborated in detail by Heinrich Zimmern in his 1918 editio princeps. Tikva Frymer-Kensky noted that Pallis (1926) rejected some of the Christological parallels noted by Zimmern, but continued to stress that the death of Marduk, the lamentation over him, his subsequent restoration and the rejoicing over his resurrection is among the Near Eastern templates for the Christ myth. Yet Frymer-Kensky goes on to say that further analaysis by von Soden shows that this text is not a tale of a dying and resurrecting god, but that it is a manifestly political text relating to the enmity between Assyria and Babylon. The political themes don't involve anyway that the mythical module of the resurrecting god would be meant as inexistent. This theme of a dying young (harvest/vegetable) God (common throughout the Middle east)is also reflected in the legends of Tammuz, and is referenced in the Bible as "women weeping for Tammuz" even in the temple of the Hebrew God.

Legacy

The Akitu festival was continued throughout the Seleucid period and into the Roman Empire period. At the beginning of the 3rd century, it was still celebrated in Emessa, Syria, in honour of the god Elagabal. Roman Emperor Elagabalus (r. 218-222), who was of Syrian origin, even introduced the festival in Italy (Herodian, Roman History, 5.6).

Contemporary Near Eastern spring festivals

Iranians traditionally celebrate 21 March as Noruz ("New Day"). Kha b-Nissan is the name of the spring festival among the Assyrians. The festival is celebrated on April 1, corresponding to the start of the Assyrian calendar. The Akkadian name Akitu has been re-introduced in Assyrianism, falling on 1 Nisan of the "Assyrian calendar" introduced in the 1950s, corresponding to the 1 April of the Gregorian calendar.://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3V98RC_mKU

See also

References

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  1. The Babylonian Akitu Festival by Svend Aage Pallis Review by: S. S.The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland , No. 4 (Oct., 1927) , pp. 895-897
  2. Ali Yaseen Ahmad and A. Kirk Grayson, Sennacherib in the Akitu House, Iraq, Vol. 61, (1999), pp. 187-189; Simo Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties from the Royal Archives of Nineveh, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 161-189
  3. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, The Tribulations of Marduk the So-Called "Marduk Ordeal Text", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 103, No. 1, Studies in Literature from the Ancient Near East, by Members of the American Oriental Society, Dedicated to Samuel Noah Kramer (Jan. - Mar., 1983), pp. 131-141
  4. ibid Tikva Frymer-Kensky, pp. 139
  5. S. M. Sherwin-White, Ritual for a Seleucid King at Babylon? The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 103, (1983), pp. 156-159
  6. William Ricketts Cooper. "An Archaic Dictionary: biographical, historical and mythological: from the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan monuments". Published by S. Bagster and Sons, 1876.

Bibliography

  • Julye Bidmead (2004). The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press. ISBN 1-59333-158-4.
  • Svend A. Pallis (1926). The Babylonian Akitu Festival, Copenhagen.
  • A. Sachs (1969). "Akkadian rituals", in: J. B. Pritchard, ANET, 3rd. ed., Princeton, pp. 331–4.
  • Karel van der Toorn (1990). 'Het Babylonische Nieuwjaarsfeest' in Phoenix. Bulletin van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch genootschap Ex Oriente Lux 36/1, 10-29.
  • Heinrich Zimmern (1906), Zum babylonischen Neujahrhfest, BVSGW, vol. 58, pp. 126–56; vol. 70 (1918), pt. 3, 52 pp.

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