In symbolical imitation of
the assembly of the gods in Ubshu-kenna,[1551] Marduk sits on his throne
and the gods are represented as standing in humble submission before
him, while he decrees the fates of mankind for the coming year. The
Zagmuku festival in its developed form has striking points of
resemblance to the Jewish New Year's Day. On this day, according to the
popular Jewish tradition, God sits in judgment with a book before Him in
which He inscribes the fate of mankind. Nine days of probation are
allowed, and on the tenth day--the Day of Atonement--the fates are
sealed. The Jewish New Year is known as Rosh-hash-shana,[1552] which is
an exact equivalent of the Babylonian _resh shatti_ (or zag-muku). A
difference, however, between the Babylonian and the Jewish festival is
that the latter is celebrated in the seventh month. It is not correct,
therefore, to assume that the Hebrews borrowed their Rosh-hash-shana
from the Babylonians. Even after they adopted the Babylonian
calendar,[1553] they continued to regard the seventh month--the harvest
month--as the beginning of the year. That among the Babylonians the
seventh month also had a sacred character may be concluded from the
meaning of the ideographs with which the name is written.[1554] The
question may, therefore, be raised whether at an earlier period and in
some religious center--Nippur, Sippar, or perhaps Ur--the seventh month
may not have been celebrated as the Zagmuku. At all events, we must for
the present assume that the Hebrews developed their New Year's Day,
which they may have originally received from Babylonia, independently of
Marduk's festival, though, since the Rosh-hash-shana does not come into
prominence among the Jews until the period of the so-called Babylonian
exile, the possibility of a direct Babylonian influence in the _later_
conceptions connected with the day cannot be denied.[1555]

Of the other festivals of the Babylonians and Assyrians but few details
are known. Several references have already been made to the Tammuz
festival.[1556] Originally a solar festival, celebrated in the fourth
month at the approach of the summer solstice, it became through the
association of ideas suggested by the mourning of Ishtar for her lost
consort Tammuz a kind of 'All Souls' Day,' on which the people
remembered their dead. Dirges were sung by the wailing women to the
accompaniment of musical instruments; offerings were made to the dead,
and it is plausib