Hubur
Encyclopedia
Hubur is a Sumerian
term meaning "river", "watercourse" or "netherworld", written ideographically with the cuneiform signs . It is usually the "river of the netherworld" or "river of paradise".
has been suggested with parallels to her description as "Ummu-Hubur". Hubur is also referred to in the Enuma Elish
as "mother sea Hubur, who fashions all things". The river
Euphrates
has been identified with Hubur as the source of fertility in Sumer
. This Babylonian "river of creation" has been linked to the later Hebrew "river of paradise
". Gumkel and Zimmern suggested resemblance in expressions and a possible connection between the Sumerian river of paradise
and that found in later literary tradition in the Book of Ezekiel
likely influencing imagery of the "River of Water
of Life
" in the Apocalypse
. They also noted a connection between the "Water of Life" in the legend
of Adapa
and a myth translated by A.H. Sayce called "An address to the river of creation". Delitzch has suggested the similar Sumerian word Habur probably meant "mighty water source", "source of fertility" or the like. This has suggested the meaning of Hubur to be "river of fertility in the underworld". Linda Foubister has suggested the river of creation was linked with the importance of rivers and rain in the fertile crescent
and suggested it was related to the underworld as rivers resemble snake
s. Samuel Eugene Balentine suggested that the "pit" (sahar) and "river" or "channel" (salah) in the Book of Job
were referencing the Hubur. The god Marduk
was praised for restoration or saving individuals from death when he drew them out of the waters of the Hubur, a later reference to this theme is made in Psalm 18
.
and heroes and deities such as Gilgamesh
, Enlil
, Enki
and Ninlil
. The Hubur was suggested to be between the twin peaks of Mount Mashu
to the east in front of the gates of the netherworld. The Sumerian myth of Enlil and Ninlil
tells the tale of the leader of the gods, Enlil
being banished to the netherworld followed by his wife Ninlil
. It mentions the river and its ferryman, SI.LU.IGI, who crosses the river in a boat. Themes of this story are repeated later in the Epic of Gilgamesh
where the ferryman is called Urshanabi
. In later Assyrian
times, the ferryman became a monster called Hamar-tabal and may have influenced the later Charon
of Greek Mythology
. In another story a four-handed, bird demon
carries souls across to the city of the dead. Several Akkadian demons are also restrained by the river Hubur. The river is mentioned in the Inscription of Ilum-Ishar, written on bricks at Mari. Nergal
, god of the netherworld is referred to as "king Hubur" in a list of Sumerian gods. The word is also used into the Assyrian empire where it was used as the name of the tenth month in a calendar dated to around 1100 BC. There was also a goddess called Haburitim mentioned in texts from the Third dynasty of Ur
.
or steppe
, cross the Hubur river, to the mountainland of Kur
. Here the souls had to pass through seven different walled and gated locations to reach the netherworld and the mountain home of the gods, the Ekur
, similar to the Greek Mount Olympus
. The Annanuki (or Anuna gods) administrated Kur
as if it were a civilized settlement both architecturaly and politically. It was considered to be both the "waters of death" and the "waters of life" and the netherworld as a "realm of life" where the Annanuki judged from a mountain of justice. Frans Wiggermann also connected Hubur to the Habar, a tributary of the Euphrates far away from the Sumerian heartland, there was also a town called Haburatum east of the Tigris
. He suggested that as the concept of the netherworld (as opposed to an underworld) in Sumerian cosmogeny lacked the modern concept of a accompanying divine ruler
of a location underneath the earth
, the geographical terminology suggested that it was located at the edges of the world and that its features derived in part from real geography
before shifting to become a demon
ic fantasy
world.
Sumerian language
Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer, which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism...
term meaning "river", "watercourse" or "netherworld", written ideographically with the cuneiform signs . It is usually the "river of the netherworld" or "river of paradise".
Usage and meaning
A connection to TiamatTiamat
In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is a chaos monster, a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû to produce younger gods. It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is 'creatrix', through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and fresh water,...
has been suggested with parallels to her description as "Ummu-Hubur". Hubur is also referred to in the Enuma Elish
Enûma Elish
The is the Babylonian creation myth . It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh , and published by George Smith in 1876.The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding...
as "mother sea Hubur, who fashions all things". The river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
Euphrates
Euphrates
The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...
has been identified with Hubur as the source of fertility in Sumer
Sumer
Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
. This Babylonian "river of creation" has been linked to the later Hebrew "river of paradise
Paradise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
". Gumkel and Zimmern suggested resemblance in expressions and a possible connection between the Sumerian river of paradise
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
and that found in later literary tradition in the Book of Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
likely influencing imagery of the "River of Water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
of Life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
" in the Apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
. They also noted a connection between the "Water of Life" in the legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
of Adapa
Adapa
Adapa was a Babylonian mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality. The story is first attested in the Kassite period .-Roles:...
and a myth translated by A.H. Sayce called "An address to the river of creation". Delitzch has suggested the similar Sumerian word Habur probably meant "mighty water source", "source of fertility" or the like. This has suggested the meaning of Hubur to be "river of fertility in the underworld". Linda Foubister has suggested the river of creation was linked with the importance of rivers and rain in the fertile crescent
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, nicknamed "The Cradle of Civilization" for the fact the first civilizations started there, is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia. The term was first used by University of Chicago...
and suggested it was related to the underworld as rivers resemble snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
s. Samuel Eugene Balentine suggested that the "pit" (sahar) and "river" or "channel" (salah) in the Book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
were referencing the Hubur. The god Marduk
Marduk
Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...
was praised for restoration or saving individuals from death when he drew them out of the waters of the Hubur, a later reference to this theme is made in Psalm 18
Psalm 18
-Judaism:*Is recited on the seventh day of Passover in some traditions.*Verse 32 is recited before Ein Keloheinu.*Verse 51 is part of the weekday version of Birkat Hamazon....
.
Mythology
The river plays a certain role in Mesopotamian mythology and Assyro-Babylonian religion, associated with the Sumerian paradiseGarden of the gods (Sumerian paradise)
The Garden of the gods or Sumerian paradise is the divine paradise of the Annanuki, the gods of Sumer. Samuel Noah Kramer suggested the concept of a human paradise and the Garden of Eden originated from the Sumerians who were describing a land outside of Sumer...
and heroes and deities such as Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...
, Enlil
Enlil
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...
, Enki
Enki
Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians...
and Ninlil
Ninlil
In Sumerian religion, Ninlil , also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia and Nunbarsegunu...
. The Hubur was suggested to be between the twin peaks of Mount Mashu
Mashu
Mashu, as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh of Mesopotamian mythology, is a great cedar mountain through which the hero-king Gilgamesh passes via a tunnel on his journey to Dilmun after leaving the Cedar Forest, a forest of ten thousand leagues span. The corresponding location in reality has been...
to the east in front of the gates of the netherworld. The Sumerian myth of Enlil and Ninlil
Enlil and Ninlil
Enlil and Ninlil or the Myth of Enlil and Ninlil or Enlil and Ninlil: The begetting of Nanna is a Sumerian creation myth, written on clay tablets in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.-Compilation:...
tells the tale of the leader of the gods, Enlil
Enlil
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...
being banished to the netherworld followed by his wife Ninlil
Ninlil
In Sumerian religion, Ninlil , also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia and Nunbarsegunu...
. It mentions the river and its ferryman, SI.LU.IGI, who crosses the river in a boat. Themes of this story are repeated later in the Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
where the ferryman is called Urshanabi
Urshanabi
Urshanabi was the ferryman of the Hubur, river of the dead in Mesopotamian mythology. His equivalent in Greek Mythology was Charon.He is first mentioned in the myth of Enlil and Ninlil, where he is called SI.LU.IGI and described as a man. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Urshanabi is a companion of...
. In later Assyrian
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
times, the ferryman became a monster called Hamar-tabal and may have influenced the later Charon
Charon (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...
of Greek Mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
. In another story a four-handed, bird demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
carries souls across to the city of the dead. Several Akkadian demons are also restrained by the river Hubur. The river is mentioned in the Inscription of Ilum-Ishar, written on bricks at Mari. Nergal
Nergal
The name Nergal, Nirgal, or Nirgali refers to a deity in Babylon with the main seat of his cult at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal is mentioned in the Hebrew bible as the deity of the city of Cuth : "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal"...
, god of the netherworld is referred to as "king Hubur" in a list of Sumerian gods. The word is also used into the Assyrian empire where it was used as the name of the tenth month in a calendar dated to around 1100 BC. There was also a goddess called Haburitim mentioned in texts from the Third dynasty of Ur
Third Dynasty of Ur
The Third Dynasty of Ur, also known as the Neo-Sumerian Empire or the Ur III Empire refers simultaneously to a 21st to 20th century BC Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state that some historians regard as a nascent empire...
.
Cosmology and geography
In Sumerian cosmology, the souls of the dead had to travel across the desertDesert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
or steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
, cross the Hubur river, to the mountainland of Kur
Kur
In Babylonian mythology, Irkalla is the hell-like underworld from which there is no return. It is also called Arali, Kigal, Gizal, and the lower world...
. Here the souls had to pass through seven different walled and gated locations to reach the netherworld and the mountain home of the gods, the Ekur
Ekur
Ekur is a Sumerian term meaning "mountain house". It is the assembly of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to Mount Olympus and was the most revered and sacred building of ancient Sumer.-Origin and meaning:...
, similar to the Greek Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
. The Annanuki (or Anuna gods) administrated Kur
Kur
In Babylonian mythology, Irkalla is the hell-like underworld from which there is no return. It is also called Arali, Kigal, Gizal, and the lower world...
as if it were a civilized settlement both architecturaly and politically. It was considered to be both the "waters of death" and the "waters of life" and the netherworld as a "realm of life" where the Annanuki judged from a mountain of justice. Frans Wiggermann also connected Hubur to the Habar, a tributary of the Euphrates far away from the Sumerian heartland, there was also a town called Haburatum east of the Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
. He suggested that as the concept of the netherworld (as opposed to an underworld) in Sumerian cosmogeny lacked the modern concept of a accompanying divine ruler
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
of a location underneath the earth
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, the geographical terminology suggested that it was located at the edges of the world and that its features derived in part from real geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
before shifting to become a demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
ic fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
world.