Protecting the Silence: Exploring Noise and Tranquility in Babylonian Religion

John H. Choi

The themes of noise and tranquility in various Babylonian texts and significant in that a societal need is elevated to a metaphor to express impiety, presumably with the purpose of establishing and maintaining civility in the city. The emphasis of this theme reveals further that religious texts are quite aware and in-touch with the life of the average citizen. A consideration of the architectural and spatial dimension of the Mesopotamian city will show that excessive noise from the population would have been a concern mostly in the private, residential areas, rather than in the areas dominated by state or religious administration. The physical reality of the city then led to a strong aversion to excessive noise in society, which led to the inclusion of this theme as a metaphor of dishonor in religious texts.

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