Akitu

   The Akkadian name for Mesopotamia's largest agricultural holiday and religious festival. (The original Sumerian name was Akiti.) Many communities celebrated Akitu directly after the spring barley harvest, barley being the region's principal grain. Because the spring equinox was viewed as the start of a new year, Akitu was often also a New Year's celebration. The holiday lasted for twelve days, beginning on March 20 or 21, in the month of Nisan. Based on surviving evidence from Babylon, the first six days or so featured private ceremonies conducted by a local high priest. The last six days involved lavish public rites dedicated to Marduk, chief god of the Babylonian pantheon. Also honored was Marduk's son, Nabu. The king accompanied the sacred image of Marduk as priests or worshippers carried it from that god's temple. The procession marched into Nabu's temple to a spot called the Shrine of Destinies, where supposedly the god revealed whether the king would enjoy success in the year to come. That destiny was announced with great pomp in public. And there were several elaborate feasts. When the sacred procession returned the image of Marduk to the main temple, the king may have made love to a specially chosen young woman in a reenactment of a mythical coupling of the goddess Inanna and the divine shepherd Dumuzi. However, this aspect of the festival is still uncertain and is debated by scholars. Versions of the festival held in other parts of Mesopotamia probably singled out different gods and had other local variations.

   See also: farming; Inanna; Marduk; religion