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Updated: May 19, 2025
Besides being applied to the consorts of Ashur and of Shamash, 'Belit, in the general sense of 'mistress, is applied only to another goddess, the great Ishtar of the Assyrian pantheon generally, however, as a title, not as a name of the goddess. The important position she occupied in the Assyrian pantheon seemed to justify this further modification and extension in the use of the term.
At this point the goddess speaks, through the officiating priest, who acts as the mediator: For determining oracles I have been established, in perfection have I been established. For determining oracles of my father Sin, I have been established, in perfection have I been established. For determining oracles of my brother Shamash, I have been established, in perfection have I been established.
In Ur itself, Shamash was also worshipped in early days by the side of the moon-god. The titles given to Shamash by the early rulers are sufficiently definite to show in what relation he stood to his worshippers, and what the conceptions were that were formed of him. He is, alternately, the king and the shepherd.
Still another name of the goddess is Anunit, which appears to have been peculiar to the North Babylonian city Agade, and emphasizes her descent from "Anu," the god of heaven. Her temple at Agade, known as E-ul-mash, is the object of Sargon's devotion, which makes her, with Bel and Shamash, the oldest triad of gods mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions.
Under the influence of this Assyrian extension of the term, Nabopolassar, in the Neo-Babylonian period, applies the title to the consort of Shamash at Sippar, but he is careful to specify 'Belit of Sippar, in order to avoid misunderstanding.
He is a solar deity identified in the theological system of the Babylonians with Nergal, but originally distinct and in all probability one of the numerous local solar deities of Babylonia like Nin-girsu and Nin-gishzida, Ishum and others, whose rôles are absorbed by one or the other of the four great solar deities, Shamash, Marduk, Ninib, and Nergal.
Naturally, this appeal was not in all cases made with the elaborate formality illustrated by Esarhaddon's petitions to Shamash. At times the monarch, as the individual, would content himself with sending to the priest for an answer to a question, and the priest would reply in an equally simple and direct manner.
At one time we may well suppose that the festival of En-lil at Nippur, which brought worshippers from all parts of Babylonia, was recognized as a 'New Year's Day, and we may some day find evidence that at a still earlier period the first day of a month sacred to some other god, Sin or Shamash or Nanâ-Ishtar of Erech, was recognized in some districts as the starting-point for the year; but to an agricultural community, the spring, when the seeds are sown, or the fall, after the harvest has been gathered, are the two most natural periods for reckoning the beginning of the year.
A consort of the sun-deity, appearing frequently at his side in the incantation texts, is Â. It is more particularly with the Shamash of Sippar, that  is associated. She is simply the 'beloved one' of the sun-deity, with no special character of her own.
Of the hymns so far published, those to Shamash are probably the finest. The conception of the sun-god as the judge of mankind lent itself readily to an ethical elaboration. Accordingly, we find in these hymns justice and righteousness as the two prominent themes. A striking passage in one of these hymns reads:
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