Page 264 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

590 Records of Bahrain

TIIE ISLANDS OF BAHREIN. 209

introduced by the primitive “ black-heads ” into Babylonia.
The Persian Gulf was equally famous for the worship of the
sun, and for that of the sun's closest attendant, the planet
Mercury, tho latter being the cult with which the Bahrein
discoveries arc more immediately connected. With regard
to tho sun-worship I may refer, firstly, to tho report of Alex­
ander's officers that the island of Icarus, in the northern part of
thePersian Gulf,was sacred to Apollo and Diana, and,secondly,
to Ptolemy's notice of tho rIcpa fjklov atepaon the Arabian coast,
somewhatfurther to tho south, while in respect to thoCunciform
evidence I may note that, besides many passages which seem
to connect tho sun directly with Niduk-ki or Bahrein,1 there
is tho whole series of tho adventures of Izdubar (or more
properly “Andubar tho Indian"), which, belonging to the
period of the primitive Babylonian colonization, certainly re­
present the solar myth, and may thus be received as au indi­
cation of the original faith. In respect to Mercury, however,
the evidence is far more weighty and direct. The inscription,
indeed, on Captain Durand’s famous black stone discovered
at Bahrein, forms the ground-work of the argument. It is
written in what is usually called Ilicratifc Babylonian, and
may bo transliterated as follows: Ilckal Rimugas, cri-Inzak,
Aqiru, i.c. “Tho Palace of Rimugas, the servant of Mercury,
of the tribe of Ogyr." It is important to note that the name
of Rimugas is of undoubted Accadian etymology, tho ending
in s being a marked peculiarity of the pre-Semitic names,
while Inzalc is given in a bilingual fragment as tho Accadian
name for Nebo or Mercury, as worshipped at J
or Bahrein.2 But there was still another divinity worshipped
in tho Persian Gulf, who was probably of more importance
than any of those already noticed. The Greeks of Alexander's
time called this divinity Yenus, and associated her with

1 Compare especially B.M.I. vol. iv. p. CO, col. 1, lines 23, 24, 2G, and 38;
and it is not impossible but that >-*>“1 who was certainly ono of tho
Gods of Nidukki (B.M.I. vol. iv. p. 25,1. 18), may bo a form of tho Sun-god,
being joined with liiscba) which was another uamo for tho sun, in B.M.I. vol. ii.
p. GO, lines G6, G7.
7 Comparo B.M.I. vol. ii. p. 64, 1. GG, restored from duplicato copy, with
•B.M.I. yoI. ii. p. GO, 1. 30.