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Step before King Anu. As he approached, Anu saw him and cried out to him: 'Come, Adapa, why hast thou broken the wings of the south wind? Adapa answered Anu: 'My lord! For the house of my lord I was fishing in the midst of the sea. The waters lay still around me, when the south wind began to blow and forced me underneath. Into the dwelling of the fish it drove me.
Then Tiglath-Pileser I., in the beginning of his reign, rebuilt the temple more magnificently than before; and from that time it seems to have remained among the principal shrines in Assyria. It was from a tradition connected with this ancient temple of Shamas-Vul, that Asshur in later times acquired the name of Telane, or "the Mound of Anu," which it bears in Stephen.
The gods inhaled the odor, The gods inhaled the sweet odor, The gods gathered like flies around the sacrificer. A solemn scene ensues. Ishtar, the 'mistress of the gods, swears by the necklace given to her by her father, Anu, that she will never forget these days.
It is in his rôle as a solar deity that Gilgamesh triumphs over the storm sent by Anu, that is, from on high. In the following chapter, we will come across another form of this same myth suggested evidently, as was the fight of Marduk with Tiâmat, by the annual storms raging in Babylonia.
Tomkins is probably right in seeing in the name of Beth-lehem a reminiscence of the Babylonian god Lakhmu, who took part in the creation of the world, and whom a later philosophizing generation identified with Anu. But the theology of early Canaan is still but little known, and its pantheon is still in great measure a sealed book.
In both of them Anu, Enlil, and Enki appear as creators "through their sure counsel". In the Sumerian extract they create the Moon and ordain its monthly course, while in the Semitic text, after establishing heaven and earth, they create in addition to the New Moon the bright Day, so that "men beheld the Sun-god in the Gate of his going forth".
So Anu and Bel for the 1st and the 30th day, Ea and Nergal for the 28th, Sin and Shamash for the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22d, or two goddesses, as Tashmitum and Sarpanitum, or a god alone, as Ea for the 26th, or Sin alone for the 13th, and once the 29th day Sin and Shamash are combined with the miscellaneous group of Igigi and Anunnaki. All the great gods are thus represented in the calendar.
Reference has already been made to the antiquity of the Anu cult in Assyria, and that prior to the time that the city of Ashur assumes the rôle of mistress of the northern district, Anu stood at the head of the pantheon, just as theoretically he continued to occupy this place in the pantheon of the south.
Sargon tells us that it is Anu, Bel, and Ea who fix the names of the months, and this same king when he comes to assign names to the eight gates of his great palace, does not forget to include Anu in the list of deities, describing him as the god who blesses his handiwork. Dagan. Coequal in antiquity with the cult of Anu in Assyria is that of Dagan.
But after all, even in the religious texts, his more prominent rôle is that of a ruler, a magnified king. He protects the weak, releases the imprisoned, and makes great the small. He controls by his powerful hand the mountains and rivers and fountains. He is the counsellor who guides the decrees, even of the great gods, Anu and Bel.
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