Chapter 3

Merodach-nadin-akhi, with a feathered top it distinguishes Adad (god of storm, &c.) at Babylonia. Narrower at the top and surmounted by a spike it distinguishes the Assyrian kings.

Costume of the Gods.

When the deities were regarded as anthropomorphic they naturally wore clothing which, on the whole, was less subject to change of fashion and was apt to be symbolical of their attributes. The old Babylonian hero Gilgamesh and the Egyptian Bes (perhaps of foreign extraction) are nude, and so in general are the figurines of the Ishtar-Astarte type. Numerous bronze images of a kneeling god at Telloh give him only a loin-cloth, and often the deity, like the monarch, has only a skirt. In course of time various plaids or mantles are assumed, and in Babylonia the goddesses were the first to have both shoulders covered. Distinctive features are found in the head-dress, e.g. crowns (cf. the Ammonite god, 2 Sam. xii. 30) or horns (a single pair or an arrangement of four pairs), and in Babylonia symbolical emblems are attached to the shoulders (e.g. the rays of the sun-god, stalks, running water). Long garments ornamented with symbolical designs (stars, &c.) are worn by Marduk and Adad. The custom of clothing images is well known in the ancient world, and at the restoration of an Egyptian temple care was taken to anoint the divine limbs and to prepare the royal linen for the god. The ceremonial clothing of the god on the occasion of festal processions, undertaken in Egypt by the "master of secret things," may be compared with the well-known Babylonian representations of such promenades. The Babylonian temples received garments as payment in kind, and the Egyptian lists in the Papyrus Harris (Rameses III.) enumerate an enormous number of skirts, tunics and mantles, dyed and undyed, for the various deities. A priest, "master of the wardrobe," is named as early as the VIth Dynasty, and later texts refer to the weavers and laundry servants of the temple. It is probable that 2 Kings xxiii. 7 originally referred to the women who wove garments for the goddess in the temple at Jerusalem.

Royal costume.

In Egypt the king was regarded as the incarnation of the deity, his son and earthly likeness. The underlying conception shows itself under differing though not unrelated forms over western Asia, and in their light the question of religious and ceremonial dress is of great interest. Throughout Egyptian history the official costume was conventionalized, and the latest kings and even the Roman emperors are arrayed like their predecessors of the IVth Dynasty. The crook which figures among royal and divine insignia may go back to the boomerang-like object which was a prominent weapon in antiquity (Müller, 123 sq.). It appears in old Babylonia as a curved stick, and, like the club, is a distinctive symbol of god and king. It resembles the sceptre curved at the end, which was carried by old Hittite gods. The Pharaoh's characteristic crown (or crowns) symbolized his royal domains, the sacred uraeus marked his divine ancestry, and he sometimes appeared in the costume of the gods with their fillets adorned with double feathers and horns. In Babylonia Naram-Sin in the guise of a god wears the pointed helmet and two great horns distinctive of the deities.[10] This relationship between the gods and their human representatives is variously expressed. Khammurabi and the sun-god Shamash, on the former's famous code of laws, have the same features and almost the same frizzled beard, and, according to Meyer, the king in claiming supremacy over Sumer and Akkad wears the costume of the lands.[11] Ordinary folk could not claim these honours, and in Egypt, where shaving was practically universal, artificial beards were worn upon solemn occasions as a peculiar duty. But the appendage of the official was shorter than that of the king, and the gods had a distinctive shape for themselves; if it appears upon the dead it is because they in their death had become identified with the god Osiris (Erman, 59, 225 sq.). Young Egyptian princes and youthful kings had a long plaited lock (or later a lappet) on the side of their head in imitation of the youthful Horus, and the peculiar tonsure adopted by the later Arabs of Sinai was inspired by the desire to copy their god Orotal-Dionysus.[12] Thus we perceive that ancient costume and toilet involves the relations between the gods and men, and also, what is extremely important, the political conditions among the latter. When the king symbolizes both the god and the extent of his kingdom, ceremonies which could appear commonplace often acquire a new significance, any discussion of which belongs to the intricacies of the history of religion and pre-monarchical society. It must suffice, therefore, to record the Pharaoh's simple girdle (with or without a tunic) from which hangs the lion's tail, or the tail-like band suspended from the extremity of his head-dress (above), or the panther or leopard skin worn over the shoulders by the high priest at Memphis, subsequently a ceremonial dress of men of rank. That the Pharaoh's skirt, sometimes decorated with a pleated golden material, should become an honorific garment, the right of wearing which was proudly recorded among the bearer's titles, is quite intelligible, but many difficulties arise when one attempts to identify the individuals represented, or to trace the evolution of ideas.[13]

Ceremonial costume.

The well-known conservatism of religious practice manifests itself in ceremonial festivals (where there is a tendency for the original religious meaning to be obscured) and among the priests, and it is interesting to observe that despite the great changes in Egyptian costume in the New Kingdom the priests still kept to the simple linen skirt of earlier days (Erman, 206). Religious dress (whether of priests or worshippers) was regulated by certain fundamental ideas concerning access to the deity and its consequences. That it was proper to wear special garments (or at least to rearrange one's weekday clothes) on the Jewish sabbath was recognized in the Talmud, and Mahommedans, after discussing at length the most suitable raiment for prayer, favoured the use of a single simple garment (Bukh[=a]ri, viii.). It was a deep-seated belief that those who took part in religious functions were liable to communicate this "holiness" to others (compare the complex ideas associated with the Polynesian taboo). Hence priests would remove their ceremonial dress before leaving the sanctuary "that they sanctify not the people with their garments" (Ezek. xliv. 19; cf. xlii. 14), and every precaution was taken on religious occasions to ensure purity by special ablutions and by cleansing the clothes.[14] In the old ritual at Mecca, the man who wore his own garments must leave them in the sanctuary, as they had become "taboo"; hence the sacred circumambulation of the Ka'ba was performed naked (prohibited by Mahomet), or in clothes provided for the occasion. The old archaic waist-cloth was used, and at the present day both male and female pilgrims enter bare-footed and clad in the scanty _ihr[=a]m_ (C. M. Doughty, _Arabia Deserta_, ii. 479, 481, 537). In several old Babylonian representations the priests or worshippers appear before the deity in a state of nature.[15] It is known that laymen were required to wear special garments, and the priests (who wore dark-red or purple) were sometimes called upon to change their garments in the course of a ceremony. Thus the temples required clothing not merely for the gods but also for the attendants (so at Samaria, 2 Kings x. 22).

In the late usage at Harran the worshipper, after purifying his garments and his heart, was advised to put on the clothing of the particular god he addressed (de Goeje, _Oriental Congress_, Leiden, 1883, pp. 341 sqq.). The reason is obvious, and the principle could be variously expressed. But we are not told whether the prophetess who wore bands on her arm and drew a mantle over her head (so read in Ezek. xiii. 17-23) actually used the clothing peculiar to some deity, nor is it quite clear what is meant when a Babylonian ritual text refers to the magical use of the linen garment of Eridu (seat of the cult of Ea). The Bishop Gregentius denounced as heathenish the rites in which the Arabs wore masks (W. R. Smith, 438), and one is tempted to compare the use of masks elsewhere in animal worship. Next, one may observe upon old Babylonian seals, eagle-headed deities with short feathered skirts attended by human beings similarly arrayed (Ball, 151) or figures draped in a fish skin (Menant, _Rev. de l'hist. des relig._ xi. 295-301) or a worshipper arrayed somewhat like a cock (Meyer, 63; cf. Lucian's _De Dea Syria_, § 48; for "bees," &c., as titles of sacred attendants, see J. G. Frazer, _Pausanias_, iv. 223, v. 621). Although there is much that is obscure in this line of research, it is a natural assumption that, in those ritual functions where the gods were supposed to participate, the rôle was taken by men, and the general idea of assimilating oneself to the god (and the reverse process) manifests itself in too many ways to be ignored (cf. W. R. Smith, 293, 437 sq., 474; C. J. Ball, _Ency. Bib._, art. "Cuttings"). But the deities were not originally anthropomorphic, and it is with the earlier stages in their development that some of the more remarkable costumes are apparently concerned.

Of all priestly costumes[16] the most interesting is undoubtedly that of the Jewish Levitical high-priest. In addition to a tunic (kutt[=o]neth) and a seamless mantle or robe (_m[)e]'[=i]l_), he wore the breastplate (_h[=o]shen_), the ephod, and a rich outer girdle. Breeches were assumed on the Day of Atonement. His head-dress was as distinctive as that of the high priest at Hierapolis, who wore a golden tiara and a purple dress, while the ordinary priests had a _pilos_ (conical cap, also worn in Israel, Ex. xxviii. 40) and white garments. But the various descriptions cannot be easily reconciled.[17] The robe had pomegranates and golden bells that the sound might give warning as he went in and out of the sanctuary, and "that he died not" (Ex. xxviii. 35). According to Josephus they symbolized the lightning and thunder respectively. The "ephod of prophecy" (so _Test. of Levi_, viii. 2) was essentially once an object of divination (see EPHOD). The "breastplate of judgment" was set with twelve jewels engraved with the names of the tribes; the foreordained covering of the semi-divine being in the garden of the gods bore the same number of stones (Ezek. xxviii. 13, Septuagint). This breast ornament finds analogies in the royal and high priestly dress of Egypt, and in the six jewels of the Babylonian king.[18] The sacred lots which gave "judgment" in accordance with the divine oracle (Num. xxvii. 21) have been plausibly compared with the Babylonian tablets of destiny worn by the gods and the mystic lots upon the bosom of Noah.[19] The two jewels also engraved with the names of the tribes in a suitable setting, worn upon the _shoulder_ (see p. 102, c.), served, like the twelve mentioned, for a memorial before the Deity, effectively bringing them to remembrance, without any action on the part of the bearer, and thus tacitly involving supernatural intervention as amulets are regularly expected to do. The golden plate inscribed "holy to Yahweh" placed over the head (the details are discrepant) had a mystic atoning force (Ex.