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We may for the present, therefore, retain Ramman, while bearing in mind that we have only proof of its being an epithet applied to the god, not necessarily his real name and in all probabilities not the oldest name. We meet with the god for the first time in the hymn to which reference has already been made, and where the god is mentioned together with Shamash.
It is possible, then, to distinguish no less than four classes in the old Babylonian pantheon: the great triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea; a second group, as yet incomplete, but which will eventually include Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, representing the great powers of nature moon, sun, and storm; the great gods, the patron deities of the more important political centers of the country; and the minor ones, representing the local cults of less important places.
Even in his old temple at Ashur, which Tiglathpileser I. on the occasion of his rebuilding it, tells us was founded 641 years before this restoration, he is no longer accorded sole homage. Ramman, the god of thunder and of storms, because correlated to Anu, is placed by the side of the latter and permitted to share the honors with Anu.
The supposition finds some support in the closing words of the inscription, where, in hurling the usual curses upon those who should attempt to destroy his monuments, he invokes Ramman alone, whom he asks to punish the offender by his darts, by hunger, by distress of every kind, and by death.
Indeed, when Nebuchadnezzar speaks of three temples to Gula being erected in Borsippa, it is certain that they could not have been within the precinct of E-Zida, and so the temples to Shamash and Ramman, Sin and Ishtar, as well as to Nabu in Babylon, had an independent position; but we are at least warranted in concluding that they were not far removed from E-Sagila, and so, likewise, the numerous temples enumerated by Nebuchadnezzar as erected or improved by him in Borsippa were not far distant from Nabu's sanctuary, the famous E-Zida.
Shamash is the judge, Sin is the wise one, Ramman the thunderer, and so on throughout the list. It was not a period favorable to the production of new religious thought, but only to the more or less artificial revival of old cults. With the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus in 539 B.C., we reach the close of the period to be embraced in a history of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion.
The great antiquity of the Ramman cult in Assyria argues against a foreign origin. It seems more plausible to regard the Ramman cult as indigenous to Assyria; but reverting to a time when the population of the north was still in the nomadic state of civilization, the cult may have been carried to the west by some of the wandering tribes who afterwards established themselves around Damascus.
The successor of Hammurabi, Samsu-iluna, dedicates a fort, known as Dur-padda, to Ramman whom he addresses as his 'helper', along with several other gods. Despite this fact, his worship does not appear to have been very firmly established in Babylonia, for Agumkakrimi, who follows upon Samsu-iluna, does not make mention of Ramman.
Apart from this, Anu only appears when a part or the whole of the Assyrian pantheon is enumerated. Thus we come across Anu, Ramman, and Ishtar as the chief gods of the city of Ashur, and again Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.
In the religious hymns, too, the consort of Ramman finds mention, and by a play upon her name is described as the 'merciful one. The attribute given to her there is the 'lady of the field, which puts her in contrast to Ramman, rather than in partnership with him.
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