In the court of the temple was a “sea” or “deep,” like that which was made by Solomon.  An early hymn which describes the construction of one of them, states that it was of bronze, and that it rested on the figures of twelve bronze oxen.  It was intended for the ablutions of the priests and the vessels of the sanctuary, and was a representation of that primaeval deep out of which it was believed that the world originated.

One peculiarity the Babylonian temples possessed which was not shared by those of the west.  Each had its ziggurat or “tower,” which served for the observation of the stars, and in the topmost storey of which was the altar of the god.  It corresponded with the “high-place” of Canaan, where man imagined himself nearest to the gods of heaven.  But in the flat plain of Babylonia it was needful that the high-place should be of artificial construction, and here accordingly they built the towers whose summits “reached to” the sky.

The temples and their ministers were supported partly by endowments, partly by voluntary gifts, sometimes called kurbanni, the Hebrew korban, partly by obligatory contributions, the most important of which was the esra or “tithe.”  Besides the fixed festivals, which were enumerated in the calendar, special days of thanksgiving or humiliation were appointed from time to time.  There was also a weekly Sabattu or “Sabbath,” on the 1st, 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days of the month, as well as on the 19th, the last day of the seventh week from the beginning of the previous month.  The Sabbath is described as “a day of rest for the heart,” and all work upon it was forbidden.  The king was not allowed to change his dress, to ride in his chariot, or even to take medicine, while the prophet himself was forbidden to utter his prophecies.

The mass of the people looked forward to a dreary existence beyond the grave.  The shades of the dead flitted like bats in the darkness of the under-world, hungry and cold, while the ghosts of the heroes of the past sat beside them on their shadowy thrones, and Allat, the mistress of Hades, presided over the warders of its seven gates.  The Sumerians had called it “the land whence none return,” though in the theology of Eridu and Babylon Asari or Merodach was already a god who, through the wisdom of his father Ea, “restored the dead to life.”  But as the centuries passed, new and less gloomy ideas grew up in regard to the future life.  In a prayer for the Assyrian king the writer asks that he may enjoy an endless existence hereafter in “the land of the silver sky,” and the realms of the gods of light had been peopled with the heroes of Babylonian literature at an early date.