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Updated: May 1, 2025
After Babylon came the old sanctuaries in the ancient religious centers of the south, the temples to Shamash and his consort at Sippar and Larsa, the temples to Sin at Ur and Harran, to the old Ishtar or Anunit at Agade, to Nanâ in Erech.
From Naram-Sin, ruler of Agade, on through the period of Cassite rule, the kings of Nippur proudly include in their titles that of 'builder of the Temple of Bel at Nippur, measuring their attachment to the deity by the additions and repairs made to his sacred edifice. Besides the kings of Agade, the rulers of other places pay their devotions to Bel of Nippur.
In the Tell of the Fruit-house M. de Sarzec had already discovered numbers of monuments dating from the earlier periods of Sumerian history before the conquest and consolidation of Babylonia under Sargon of Agade, and had excavated a primitive terrace built by the early king Ur-Ninâ. Both on and around this large mound Capt.
Still another name of the goddess is Anunit, which appears to have been peculiar to the North Babylonian city Agade, and emphasizes her descent from "Anu," the god of heaven. Her temple at Agade, known as E-ul-mash, is the object of Sargon's devotion, which makes her, with Bel and Shamash, the oldest triad of gods mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions.
That these rulers take up the dominion once held by the kings of Ur is further manifest in the additional title that they give to themselves, as 'kings of Sumer and Akkad, whereas the omission of the title 'king of the four regions' indicates apparently the exclusion of Agade and Nippur; and with these, probably North Babylonia in general, from their supremacy.
In Agade Anunit has a similar rôle; in Lagash Nina was the determiner of fate, and the mother of the goddesses. +762+. These names appear to be titles signifying 'mistress, 'lady, and this is probably the meaning of the name of the great goddess who finally ousted or absorbed her sisters, Ishtar.
In all of this period, however, the division between North and South Babylonia was kept tolerably distinct, even though occasionally, and for a certain period, a North Babylonian city, like that of Agade and Nippur, extended its jurisdiction over a section bordering on the south and vice versa.
Fragments of a library at Agade have been preserved at Nineveh, from which we learn that the star-charts were even then divided into constellations, which were known by the names which they bear to this day, and that the signs of the zodiac were used for determining the courses of the sun, moon, and of the five planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
These kings of Agade extended their jurisdiction as far north, at least, as Nippur on the one side and Sippar on the other. It is not until about the middle of the third millennium before this era, that Babylon comes into prominence. In the south, as already intimated, the rulers of Lagash and the dynasty of Ur are the earliest of which we have any record.
While the Sumerian princes were engaged in mutual war, the Semites were occupying northern Babylonia, and establishing their power in the city of Agadê or Akkad, not far from Sippara. Here, in B.C. 3800, arose the empire of Sargani-sar-ali, better known to posterity as "Sargon" of Akkad. He became the hero of the Semitic race in Babylonia.
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