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Updated: July 19, 2025
Apart from the formal lists of gods drawn up by Sargon and his successors, Shalmaneser II. and Ashurbanabal are the only kings who make special mention of Nusku. The former calls him the bearer of the brilliant sceptre, just as Nabu is so called; and again, just as Nabu, he is termed the wise god.
In this respect he differs from Sin, Shamash, Nusku, and Ea, whose worship was localized, without affecting the quasi-universal character that these deities possessed.
Nusku. That Nusku is a Babylonian god, meriting a place in the pantheon of Hammurabi, if not of the days prior to the union of the Babylonian states, is shown by the fact that he had a shrine in the great temple of Marduk at Babylon, along with Nebo, Tashmiyum, and Ea; and that he appears in the religious texts.
Marduk, by virtue of his relationship to Ea, and by his independent position as the supreme god of Babylon, occupies a middle ground between Shamash, Ea, and Nusku on the one side, and such gods as Sin and Nebo on the other.
From being the messenger of Bel, he comes to be viewed as the messenger of the gods in general, and accordingly Ashurbanabal addresses him as 'the highly honored messenger of the gods, but, combining with the mythological the more realistic aspect of Nusku, refers to him also as the one who glorifies sovereignty and who, at the command of Ashur and Belit, stands at the king's side to aid in bringing the enemies to fall.
But at the close of one of his building inscriptions he invokes some twenty deities, adding to these eight, Nusku, Khani, Gaga, Sherua, Nin-gal, a god Azag-sir, and Nin-ib under three different forms; but it is evident that most of these are added to give effect and solemnity. They do not form part of the active pantheon. His successor, Esarhaddon, sets up various groups.
Hardly the latter, for Nusku is a solar deity, whereas, as we have tried to show, Nabu is originally a water-deity. But however we may choose to account for it, the prominence of Nusku is obscured by Nabu.
I.e., of the deity. See an article by Francis Brown, "The Religious Poetry of Babylonia," Presbyterian Review, 1888. Compare the relationship existing between Ea and Marduk, noted above, p. 276. Similarly, Nusku was the messenger to Bel. See p. 279. On the wider aspects of this conception of the priest among ancient nations, see Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim. Zimmern, no. 1; IVR. 29, no. 5.
Sub Nusku, chapter xiii. Tiele, Geschichte d. Religion i. Alterthum, i. 171 and 188, is of the opinion that Nabu is a late deity whose worship dates from a period considerably subsequent to Hammurabi. This conclusion from the non-occurrence of the god in early inscriptions is not justified.
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.
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