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Updated: June 18, 2025
Besides Gudea's wife, a ruler, Ur-Shul-pa-uddu, belonging apparently to a somewhat earlier period, embodies this deity in his name. The worship of the deity, therefore, belongs to a very early epoch, and appears at one time to have enjoyed considerable popularity within a certain district of Babylonia. To what region of Babylonia he belongs has not yet been ascertained.
But there are two incidents in the narrative which are on a rather different plane and are more startling in their novelty. One is the story of Gudea's dream, and the other the sign which he sought from his god. The former is distinctly apocalyptic in character, and both may be parallelled in what is regarded as purely Semitic literature.
At the close of one of his inscriptions, Gudea furnishes a list of no less than eighteen deities. These deities may be taken as indicative of the territorial extent of Gudea's jurisdiction. They are called upon to punish him who attempts to alter the decrees of the ruler, or to efface the memory of his deeds.
A more reasonable and natural explanation of the relationship existing between many not all of the gods of Gudea's pantheon has already been suggested.
This description has been taken to imply a square box-like structure, which, in order to be seaworthy, must be placed on a conjectured hull. Cf., e.g., Jastrow, Hebr. and Bab. Trad., p. 329. Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 28-30. L. 58 f. The gar contained twelve cubits, so that the vessel would have measured 120 cubits each way; taking the Babylonian cubit, on the basis of Gudea's scale, at 495 mm.
Marduk appears under a variety of names which will be taken up at their proper place. See Schrader's Assyrisch-Babyl. Hommel's view that Gish-galla, in Gudea's inscriptions, is Babylon lacks convincing evidence, but the city may be as old as Gudea's days for all that. Near Sippar. Bêl matâti. Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. 98 seq.; Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, p. 88.
The attempt has been made by Amiaud to arrange the pantheon of this oldest period in a genealogical order. In Gudea's long list of deities, he detects three generations, the three chief gods and one goddess, as the progenitors of Sin, Shamash, Nin-girsu, Bau, and others. The gods of this second division give rise to a third class, viewed again as the offspring of the second.
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