Hammurabi code and the Laws of Eshnunna(A.Zaak) (By the time she travelled into the underworld carrying her Lapis Lazuli rods measuring time and the length of a person's life, the journey of faith continued in the desert by the early grass).
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While I preferred to follow the Euphrates route up to its source or headwaters, our leader, the righteous idol-breaker, said God guides him; we follow the Tigris River northeast towards Eshnunna.
When we arrived, there was a rumour that Anni, the city vassal ensi (Ruler), was preparing for a pact with Rim-Sin, the King of the southern city-state Larsa, to rebel against Babel. Our righteous leader said if that were going to happen, it would mean the end of Anni and the city's destruction by the mighty Babylonians.
Eshnunna was a Sumerian city-state in central Mesopotamia, located on the Gyndes (Diyala) River, a tributary to the Tigris. It was inhabited as far back as the late prehistory in Mesopotamia (late 4th millennium BC).
Like other Sumerian city-states, Eshnunna was enclosed by sun-dried brick walls with gates and surrounded by Barley and wheat fields, the most important crops in southern Mesopotamia.
As every city had its temples over a Ziggurat, the highland where the deity resides, closer to the sky, far from flooding of rivers, Eshnunna Ziggurat was large but wasn't as large as the Ziggurat at UR. It was built of many layers of mud bricks in the shape of a tiered pyramid. The deity's room for food and goods offerings is always the most decorated one in the square Temple.
With the Akkadians' rise, the city wavered between periods of independence and domination by other empires. It became one of the provinces of UR's Third Dynasty and then gained a sovereign dynasty of its own.
The former kings of Eshnunna dropped King's title to use the lesser one of "ensi," saying the Kingship of the state belongs to the city's deity. Maybe they didn't want to provoke the Kings of Babylonia, but they eventually did. Following its conquest by King Hammurabi in 1762 BC, the city suffered a great flood just four years after its capture.
*****
Taken by the flood and the destruction stories, I sat by the Gyndes River. I visioned the Persian King Cyrus, after many centuries, trying to disperse the waterway by digging hundreds of channels as punishment after his sacred white horse perished, but he failed. The river returned to its former proportions after the canals disappeared under the sand. That made me feel blessed.
I was thrilled to see The Laws of Eshnunna inscribed on two cuneiform tablets in the city. I found them distinct from the Hammurabi code, with fewer capital punishments. The collection was not systemized and written in Akkadian. The people we asked didn't know who put them; some said it was the former King Bilalama; others said it was King Dadusha.
The laws were roughly ordered about theft, the seizure of property, damages caused by farm animals, and bodily injuries such as:
"If a man bit and severed a man's nose, one mina silver he shall weigh out."
The majority were penalized with silver, but some severe offences like burglary and killing were punished with death.
The old idol Abu was the fertility and vegetation deity. He was replaced by Tishpak, worshipped as the custodial deity of the city in the Square Temple of Eshnunna. The Temple is the halfway point between the royal palace in the north and the suburbs in the south.
However, the life span of Tishpak was over after 500 years of respect, and the city was about to abandon him. Idols die too. Similar to Abu, this one was also dying.
We saw centuries-old votive figurines of different sizes for worshippers with arms crossed across the chest in the Temple. They were made from limestone, whereas the small ones were from alabaster, all with enlarged inlaid shell eyes. They were (men and women) the ones who offered prayers for Abu. The tallest figure had big ferocious eyes made from Lapis lazuli, representing Abu itself because of the size and the base carved with wings.
Between the Tishpak temple and the ensi palace, merchants, landowners, scribes, priests, and other administrators energetically walked, managing their businesses or lands outside the city. Workers made craft products and jewellery in their houses or shops for the palace and the Temple. They shared walls and lived close to each other, forming small neighbourhoods different from rural Mesopotamia.
Whereas textile or weaving was mainly household business, hundreds of workers' names were carved at the royal palace gate. They were craft manufacturers within the city. There were also names of farmers and animal breeders working in the Temple and royal lands.
The regal palace, the administration, and the Temple were connected in most Sumerian cities.
Eshnunna became a center where Sumerian and Akkadian cultures interacted and a region where trade routes intersected, importing and exporting with the northern Levant, Anatolia, and Persia. There were shops for silver, copper, precious stones, timber from the Zagros Mountains, and shell from the Southern Gulf.
*****
The alabaster trader was also selling precious stones. He offered me to buy Carnelian fine stone, saying it "restores vitality, dispels apathy, protects against envy and rage. It even boosts fertility".
When I declined, the trader showed me an ultra-blue Lapis Lazuli, one of the most sought-after stones in use since man's history began. Its spiritual colour contrasted with the arid desert. There was a piece of gold beside it on the table. I imagined both would be like stars in the night-time sky, perfect symbols of a starry night.
In the Gilgamesh epic of the Babylonians, legends tell trees that grow precious stones, and Lapis Lazuli boosts its crown.
The voice of the jeweller alerted me as he said, "This is a symbol of royalty, honour, spirit, vision, and wisdom."
Many people gathered to watch and listen to the trader's presentation. He turned his focus on them and said:
" This stone honours Inanna, the Sumerian idol. She travelled into the underworld carrying her Lapis Lazuli rods and measures time and the length of a person's life".
One of the Priests joined in. He was clean-shaven and had long hair rendered in two symmetrical halves that framed his cheeks and forehead's smooth surface. He said:
" That is right, crystals are the flesh of the idols, and the idols were crystal beings" I will buy one," he added, as more people were attracted.
Some people wore Sumerian early style of clothes, bare chests partially covered by a black, stylized beard, and skirts with a patterned edging concealing the midsection and thighs.
"Do you know why the high Priests have it on their breastplate? Do you know why the garments of priests and royalty are dyed with powdered Lapis? It is to indicate their status as holiness themselves.", the dealer explained.
That grabbed our leader's attention, the righteous man, while the crowd of watchers was growing. The jewellery trader went on advertising the precious stones, saying:
" It is not only decorative pendants. The supernatural forces of the Lapis Lazuli would transform lives by protecting them from the evil eye and countering the spirits of darkness. It heals and prolongs your life if you wear it in the Temple before our holy deities. This Lapis is the stone of truth and honesty".
Sumerians believed that the souls of their dead went to a "land of no return." Their view of the afterlife was not optimistic. They saw the land of the dead as a gloomy, dark place, existing somewhere between the earth's crust and sea.
However, this was not what I experienced in my previous death and reincarnation.
When the trader said this is the stone of truth, our moral leader said: "Keep your stone of truth and let me give you the stony truth. Tishpak, and other idols you worship and devoted to them, do they hear you when you pray?"
"Yes, through the priests," he replied
"Do they benefit or harm you?" The righteous man asked
"No, but we found our forefathers worship them." He answered.
"You and your ancestors were wrong. Why don't you worship the lord of the world? The righteous man addressed the question to him and the shoppers.
"Who is he to you?" somebody asked.
"He is the sole God who created and guided me. He who feeds me, and when I get ill, He heals me. He who makes me die and then revives me. He who, I hope, will forgive my sins on the Day of the Reckoning." He explained. "Grant yourself a pearl of wisdom to be included with the righteous. Worship God now, for he will ask in the judgment day, "Where are those you used to worship?" will they help you, or help themselves?" he added.
He went on to explain, "He gave truth, and I pray to him not to disgrace me on the day we will be resurrected, the day when neither wealth nor children will help except who comes to God with a sound heart."
"But we know we will be resurrected after death in the underworld," somebody commented
"Yes, but not the way you resurrect your idols. When we die, we are destined for paradise, which will be brought near if we are righteous and worship the sole God. Otherwise, the blaze will be displayed to the deviators. You will be toppled into the truth, and you would say it looked like we were in error, misled by the sinners, equating idols with the lord of the world". The righteous man responded to the comment.
"Surely, this man is a sign; he speaks the hard truth. With my soul in my head and the spirit in my eyes, I will take no more worship of Abu, Tishpak, or Anana. I am converting to worship your sole God", one man roared.
"Welcome to monotheism," I said.
We left the scene with such a strong impact, whereas others were left in tremors, including the jeweller.
As the truth won more followers, the righteous idol-breaker prepared to continue the journey of faith, for he had promises to keep


**(Image from: britannica.com/place/Eshnunna)

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