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Updated: June 9, 2025
An indication of this distinction, somewhat parallel to the addition of Dagan to Bel, to indicate that the old Bel was meant, appears in the sobriquet 'of Babylonia, which Ashurbanabal gives to the goddess in one place where the old Belit is meant.
Ashurbanabal, however, goes still further, and, influenced by the title of 'Belit' as applied to Ishtar, makes the latter the consort of Ashur.
The future additions to the list, it is safe to assert, will increase the second class and only slightly modify, if at all, the first class. Bearing in mind this distinction we may put down as active forces in Assyria the following: Anu, Ashur, Bel, Belit, Gula, Dagan, Ea, Khani, Ishtar, Marduk, Nabu, Nergal, Ninib, Nusku, Ramman, Sin, Shala, Shamash, Tashmitum.
This at least is the case in an inscription from the temple of Belit at Nineveh, known as E-mash-mash, and in which Ashurbanabal alternately addresses the goddess as Belit and as Ishtar, while elsewhere this same Belit, whose seat is in E-mash-mash, is termed the consort of Ashur. How Ashurbanabal or his scribes came to this confusing identification we need not stop to inquire.
This 'mistress' cannot be, as might at first blush appear, Ishtar or the old Belit, for elsewhere Ishtar, Belit, and Belit ilâni occur side by side. Sargon declares that he owes his wisdom to Ea and Belit ilâni. In naming the gates of his palace, he again associates Ea with 'the mistress of the gods, from which it is clear that the epithet is used of Ea's consort. Nin-gal.
Shalmaneser II.'s pantheon embraces Ashur, Anu, Bel, Ea, Sin, Shamash, Nin-ib, Nergal, Nusku, Belit, and Ishtar eleven in all. Sargon's practice varies. The best list is furnished by his account of the eight gates of his palace and of two walls, which he names after the gods in the following order: For the inner wall. Nin-ib, who lays the foundations of the city. For the outer wall.
The description continues: I have kept back the ferry, have shut off the wall, Have thus checked the enchantment from all quarters. Anu and Anatum have commissioned me. Whom shall I send to Belit of the field? Into the mouth of the sorcerer and sorceress cast the lock. Recite the incantation of the chief of gods, Marduk.
When he calls himself 'the beloved shepherd of Belit, it is the wife of the old Bel that is meant, and so when Agumkakrimi mentions Bel and Belit together, as the gods that decree his fate on earth, there is no doubt as to what Belit is meant.
Damkina. Of the consort of Ea, it is sufficient to note that she is occasionally referred to in the historical texts of the Assyrian period. In the inscriptions of Sargon she appears under the rather strange title of 'Belit ilâni, i.e., the mistress of the gods.
The temple in the city of Ashur, which Tiglathpileser I. enriches with presents consisting of the images of the deities vanquished by the king, may in reality have been sacred to the Belit of Babylonia, but Tiglathpileser, for whom Bel becomes merely a designation of Marduk, does not feel called upon to pay his devotions to the Babylonian Sarpanitum, and so converts the old Belit into 'the lofty wife, beloved of Ashur. Sargon, on the other hand, who calls one of the gates of his palace Belit ilâni 'mistress of the gods, seems to mean by this, the consort of Ea.
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