ORRAR - MGGS - Sumerian Department

Akitu. Akitu was a New Year’s festival, celebrated from the 1^st to the 11^th of Nisan. This festival centered on a re-enactment of the “Sacred Marriage” between Dumuzi and Ishtar, who were represented by the king and a High Priestess, respectively. This marriage ensured the fertility of the land as well as to impart longevity to the king as the Goddess’s husband. Sometimes called rêš šattim or “beginning of the year,” there were also a series of festivities held in honor of Marduk and his son Nabu, which took place in Marduk’s temple of Esagila and in the “house of the New year” that was in the north of Babylon.

The first four days of celebration primarily consisted of praying done by a High Priest, reciting of the Enuma Elish, and the fashioning of two puppets dressed in red and wielding a snake and scorpion to represent evil forces, “which were decapitated and then tossed into a blazing fire on the sixth day” of the ceremony. On the fifth day of the festival there was a purification ceremony wherein the temple was blessed with holy water and oil. After this, a sheep would be decapitated and its corpse pressed against the temple walls to absorb and cleanse any remaining negativity. The sacrifice was then taken out of the temple and thrown into the river as a “scapegoat,” as a way of further removing unwanted influences.