ome--and
these were the oldest--were of popular origin. On the seal cylinders
there is frequently represented a pole or a conventionalized form of a
tree, generally in connection with a design illustrating the worship of
a deity.[1591] This symbol is clearly a survival of some tree
worship[1592] that was once popular. The comparison with the _ashera_ or
pole worship among Phoenicians and Hebrews[1593] is fully justified, and
is a proof of the great antiquity of the symbol, which, without becoming
a formal part of the later cult, retained in some measure a hold upon
the popular mind. Other symbols and customs were introduced under the
influence of the doctrines unfolded in the schools of thought in the
various intellectual centers, and as an expression of the teachings of
the priests. The cult of Babylonia, even more so than the literature, is
a compound of these two factors,--popular beliefs and the theological
elaboration and systematization of these beliefs. In the course of this
elaboration, many new ideas and new rites were introduced. The official
cult passed in some important particulars far beyond popular practices.

FOOTNOTES:

[1311] _Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europaer_, pp. 126-141.

[1312] Gen. xi. 4.

[1313] _E.g._, Tiglathpileser I., col. vii. ll. 102, 103; Meissner,
_Altbabylonisches Privatrecht_, no. 46; Nebopolassar Cylinder
(Hilprecht, _Old Babylonian Inscriptions_, i. 1, pls. 32, 33), col. i.
l. 38. Or 'as high as mountains'; _e.g._, Nebuchadnezzar II., IR. 58,
col. viii. ll. 61-63; and so frequently the Neo-Babylonian kings.

[1314] _Kosmologie_, pp. 185-195.

[1315] Or _Kharsag-gal-kurkura_; see p. 558.

[1316] See p. 458.

[1317] _Ekurrati_; Delitzsch, _Assyr. Handwoerterbuch_, p. 718b.

[1318] IR. 35, no. 3, 22.

[1319] See below.

[1320] Hebrew _Bamoth_. Through the opposition of the Hebrew prophets,
the term acquires distasteful associations that were originally foreign
to it.

[1321] See Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 124 _seq._

[1322] IIR. 50, obverse.

[1323] Perhaps, however, these several names all designate a single
zikkurat.

[1324] Peters' _Nippur_, i. 246; ii. 120.

[1325] For the meaning of this phrase, see Winckler's _Altorientalische
Forschungen_, iii. 208-222, and Jensen's _Kosmologie_, p. 167.

[1326] From Heuzey's note in De Sarzec, _Decourveries en Chaldee_, p.
31, it would appear that at Lagash there was a zikkurat of modest
proportions, but Dr. Peters informs me that