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Updated: June 20, 2025
The principal god at Memphis is Ptah, the primal divinity, the former of heaven and earth; yet, perhaps, a god of light, since he is styled by the Greeks, Hephaestus. At Thebes, Ammon was revered as the king of the gods: he shared in the properties of the sun. Thoth is the chief moon-god, who presides over the reckoning of time. He is the god of letters and of the arts, the author of sacred books.
Rimmon was a god of wind, Matu of storms. There is a dragon Tiamat, with whom the great gods have to contend. The sun and the moon were worshipped everywhere; each city had its own sun-god and its own moon-god.
Then follows a further Triad, consisting of Sin or Hurki, the Moon-god; San or Sansi, the Sun; and Vul the god of the atmosphere. Such are the gods at the head of the Pantheon. These together constitute what we have called the principal gods; after them are to be placed the numerous divinities of the second and third order.
True, the moon-god has already been given the place, immediately following upon the triad, that he will hold in the developed form of Babylonian theology; but while, as we have seen, Sin properly takes precedence of the sun-god, the latter should follow in the wake of his associate.
Along with Babylonian culture had come the adoption of several Babylonian divinities; Sin, the Moon-god, for instance, or Atthar, the Ashtoreth of Canaan. How far westward the worship of Sin was carried may be judged from the fact that Sinai, the sacred mountain whereon the law of Israel was promulgated, took its name from that of the old Babylonian god.
Since Ur, as we shall see, was sacred to the moon-god, it is hardly likely that the Shamash cult was introduced at Larsa by the rulers of Ur. The kings of Ur would not have forfeited the protection of Sin, by any manifestation of preference for Shamash.
His reign fell probably in the latter part of the 18th, century B. C. Several monarchs of the Sin series i.e. monarchs into whose names the word Sin, the name of the Moon-god, enters as an element now present themselves. The most important of them has been called Zur-Sin.
A more perfect idealization of the mythological notions connected with the moon-god can hardly be imagined. The old metaphors are retained, but interpreted in a manner that reflects higher spiritual tendencies. The moon is still figured as a bull, but it is the idea of strength that is extracted from the picture and dwelt upon.
What further motives led to the choice of the moon-god as the patron of Ur, lies beyond the scope of our knowledge. Due allowance must be made for that natural selection, which takes place in the realm of thought as much as in the domain of nature. Attention has already been called to the predominance given by the Babylonians to the moon over the sun.
From bricks that have been recovered from Mukayyer, the site of the city of Ur, we learn that Kudur-mabug rebuilt the temple in that city dedicated to the Moon-god, which is an indication of the firm hold he had obtained upon the city.
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