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The astronomical science of the Babylonians thus resolves itself into these natural divisions: the constellations, especially those of the zodiac, the five great planets, the fixed stars, Anu, Bel, and Ea, miscellaneous stars, and the sun and moon. The rivalry between the two great luminaries ends in a superior rank being accorded to the sun.
As Anu and Vul, the Great Gods, have ordained, may he worship honestly with a good heart and full trust! May they curse him with an irrevocable curse! May they cause his sovereignty to perish! May they pluck out the stability of the throne of his empire! Let not his offspring survive him in the kingdom! Let his servants be broken! Let his troops be defeated!
The kings of the Lower Dynasty do not generally hold him in much repute; Sargon, however, is an exception, perhaps because his own name closely resembled that of a god mentioned as one of Anu's sons. Sargon not infrequently glorifies Anu, coupling him with Bel or Bil, the second god of the first Triad. Anu had but few temples in Assyria.
In the second period of Babylonian history the worship of the supreme god of heaven becomes even more closely bound up with Anu's position as the first member of the inseparable triad than was the case in the first period. For Hammurabi, as has been noted, Anu is only a half-real figure who in association with Bel is represented as giving his endorsement to the king's authority.
If we could be sure that the city called in later times Asshur bore that name when Shamas-Vul, the son of Ismi-Dagon, erected a temple there to Anu and Vul, we might assign to the movement a still higher antiquity for Shamas-Vul belongs to the nineteenth century B.C. As, however, we have no direct evidence that either the city or the country was known as Asshur until four centuries later, we must be content to lay it down that the Assyrians had moved to the north certainly as early as B.C. 1440, and that their removal may not improbably have taken place several centuries earlier.
Even Shamash, though himself personifying fire, is forced to acknowledge the power of Gibil-Nusku, who, we are told elsewhere, is invoked, even when sacrifices are made to the sun-god. Besides being the son of Anu, Gibil-Nusku is brought into association with the two other members of the triad, Bel and Ea. He is the messenger of Bel and the son of Ea. The former conception is again mythical.
Apart from this, Anu only appears when a part or the whole of the Assyrian pantheon is enumerated. Thus we come across Anu, Ramman, and Ishtar as the chief gods of the city of Ashur, and again Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.
Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of the World" upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other versions of the poem.
"They know that it will be a son, while I, its father, do not know; and they doubt whether I shall love it, though it is easy to divine that I shall love the child even should it be a daughter. And as to honor for it, let them be at rest; I will occupy myself with that question." The city of Anu lay about seven hours of a foot journey from Atribis, but the prince was three days on this journey.
Anu survives in the Assyrian as in the Babylonian pantheon by virtue of being a member of the theological triad, composed as we have seen of Anu, Bel, and Ea. Tiglathpileser I. still invokes Anu as a deity of practical importance.
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