she
descended to Hades, the King of Erech could not return to earth until
he had been sprinkled by the water of life. No doubt, an incident of
this character occurred also in the original Tammuz legend. The life
of the god had to be renewed before he could return. Did he slumber,
like one of the Seven Sleepers, in Ea's house, and not awake again
until he arrived as a child in his crescent moon boat--"the sunken
boat" of the hymns--like Scef, who came over the waves to the land of
the Scyldings?

It seems remarkable that the doctrine of Eternal Bliss, which obtained
in Egypt on the one hand and in India on the other, should never have
been developed among the Babylonians. Of course, our knowledge in this
connection is derived from the orthodox religious texts. Perhaps the
great thinkers, whose influence can be traced in the tendencies
towards monotheism which became marked at various periods, believed in
a Heaven for the just and good. If they did, their teachings must have
been suppressed by the mercenary priests. It was extremely profitable
for these priests to perpetuate the belief that the spirits of the
dead were consigned to a gloomy Hades, where the degree of suffering
which they endured depended on the manner in which their bodies were
disposed of upon earth. An orthodox funeral ceremony was costly at all
times. This is made evident by the inscriptions which record the
social reforms of Urukagina, the ill-fated patesi of Lagash. When he
came to the throne he cut down the burial fees by more than a half.
"In the case of an ordinary burial," writes Mr. King, "when a corpse
was laid in a grave, it had been the custom for the presiding priest
to demand as a fee for himself seven urns of wine or strong drink,
four hundred and twenty loaves of bread, one hundred and twenty
measures of corn, a garment, a kid, a bed, and a seat." The reformer
reduced the perquisites to "three urns of wine, eighty loaves of
bread, a bed, and a kid, while the fee of his (the priest's) assistant
was cut down from sixty to thirty measures of corn".[252]

The conservative element in Babylonian religion is reflected by the
burial customs. These did not change greatly after the Neolithic
period. Prehistoric Sumerian graves resemble closely those of
pre-Dynastic Egypt. The bodies of the dead were laid on their sides in
crouching posture, with a "beaker", or "drinking cup" urn, beside the
right hand. Other vessels were placed near the head. In