United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But eventually a reconciliation takes place; the great bow of Anu is displayed in the heavens; Bel agrees that he will be satisfied with what war, pestilence, famine, and wild beasts can do in the way of destroying men; and that, henceforward, he will not have recourse to extraordinary measures.
Of Girra, it may be well to remember that he is viewed merely as a form of Nergal in the later texts. Belili, it will be recalled, is associated with Tammuz in the story of Ishtar's journey. She is not, however, the consort of the god, but his sister. The antiquity of her cult follows from the occurrence of her name in the list of gods antecedent to Anu, and where Alala is entered as her consort.
Besides this, the old Bel is of course meant, when associated with Anu, as the powers that, together with Belit, grant victory, or as a member of the old triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, whose mention we have seen is as characteristic of the Assyrian inscriptions as of the Babylonian.
In this tablet, no less than ten pairs of deities are enumerated that are expressly noted as 'Father-mother of Anu, that is, as antecedent to Anu.
The theory of the triad succeeds in maintaining its hold upon Babylonian minds from a certain period on, through all political and intellectual vicissitudes. To invoke Anu, Bel, and Ea becomes a standing formula that the rulers of Babylonia as well as of Assyria are fond of employing. These three are the great gods par excellence. They occupy a place of their own.
To the latter he is the god of agriculture, while in Assyria he rises to the rank of second in the pantheon, and becomes the associate of Anu. The latter's dominion being the heavens, Dagan is conceived as the god of earth.
In a fragmentary composition that has come down to us he is described, not only as king of Sippar, but as "beloved of Anu, Enlil, and Enki", the three creating gods of our text; and it is there recounted how the patron deities of divination, Shamash and Adad, themselves taught him to practise their art.
To all intents and purposes we have only legendary knowledge of the Southern kingdom until its close, when Narmer the mighty went forth to strike down the Anu of the North, an exploit which he recorded in votive monuments at Hierakonpolis, and which was commemorated henceforward throughout Egyptian history in the yearly "Feast of the Smiting of the Anu."
Since the verb in the following line is wanting, we do not know what action is there recorded of the four creating deities; but the fact that the gods of heaven and earth invoked the name of Anu and Enlil suggests that it was their will which had been forced upon the other gods. We shall see that throughout the text Anu and Enlil are the ultimate rulers of both gods and men.
Of the various forms under which the goddess appears, that of Anunit a feminine form indicating descent from and appertaining to Anu attaches itself most clearly to the god of heaven, and it may be that it was not until the assimilation of Anunit and Nanâ with Ishtar that the goddess is viewed as at once the daughter of Anu and of Sin.
Word Of The Day