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But in the days of Nabubaliddin the arts had been differentiated into various branches, and this differentiation was expressed by assigning to each branch some patron god who presided over that section. In this way, the old belief that art comes to men from the gods survived, while at the same time it entered upon new phases.
The occurrence of some of these gods in the religious literature is a presumption in favor of regarding them as ancient creations, rather than due to later influences. Certainly this appears to be the case with Malik and Bunene, who, with Shamash, form a triad that constitutes the chief object of worship in the great temple E-babbara at Sippar, to whose restored cult Nabubaliddin devotes himself.
Innovations were limited to increasing the amounts of these regular sacrifices. So, for example, Nabubaliddin restores and increases the ginê of the great temple E-babbara at Sippar. But regular sacrifices do not necessarily involve daily offerings.
The god sits on a low throne. In front of him is an altar table on which rests a wheel with radiant spokes, a symbol of the sun-god. Into this sanctuary the worshipper, who is none other than the king Nabubaliddin, is led by a priest.
Several attempts are made to reorganize the cult, but it was left for Nabubaliddin in the tenth century to restore E-Babbara to its former prestige. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal, who pay homage to the old Bel at Nippur, also devote themselves to Shamash at Sippar. They restore such portions of it as had suffered from the lapse of time and from other causes.
Both names, moreover, occur as parts of proper names in the age of Hammurabi. Malik i.e., ruler is one of the names frequently assigned to Shamash, just as the god's consort was known as Malkatu, but for all that Malik is not the same as Shamash. Accompanying the inscription of Nabubaliddin is a design representing the sun-god seated in his shrine.
Accordingly, Nabubaliddin assigns several deities who act the part of assistants to Ea. The names of these deities point to their functions.
Nabubaliddin, in restoring the cult of Shamash at Sippar, makes provisions for an elaborate outfit of garments, specifying different garments for various periods of the year.
So Ashurbanabal upon his conquest of Babylonian cities tells us that he pacified the gods of the south with penitential psalms and purified the temples by magic rites; and Nabubaliddin, incidental to his restoration of the Shamash cult at Sippar, refers to an interesting ceremony of purification, which consisted in his taking water and washing his mouth according to the purification ritual of Ea and Marduk, preliminary to bringing sacrifices to Shamash in his shrine.
It is through Nabonnedos and Nabubaliddin, chiefly, that we learn many of the details of the history of E-Babbara during this long period. Of the other important temples that date from the early period of Babylonian history, we must content ourselves with brief indications. The temple to Shamash at Larsa, while not quite as old as that of Sippar, was quite as famous.
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