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Updated: May 19, 2025
Agumkakrimi invokes Shamash as 'warrior of heaven and earth'; and it is likely that the precedent furnished by these two kings, who considered it consistent with devotion to Marduk to single out the places sacred to Shamash for special consideration, had much to do in maintaining the popularity of sun-worship in Babylonia and Assyria.
The name of one of these is altogether lost; the second is called Bar, and is designated as an offspring of Ishtar. Both these deities decline, answering Anu in precisely the same manner as Ramman. What finally happens we are left to conjecture. Harper supposes that Shamash is finally called upon by Anu and accepts the challenge.
Similarly, the conflict between the eagle and the serpent suggests an opposition to the view which makes the eagle the symbol and messenger of Shamash. The eagle recalls the winged disc, the symbol of Ashur, and the eagle occurs also as a standard among the Hittites, with whom, as we know, the Babylonians came into contact.
Beyond the general recognition, however, of this relationship between the two, it does not appear that the worship paid to Shamash, was at all affected by the secondary place, that he continued to hold in the theoretically constructed pantheon.
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.
So Shamash, Sin, Nin-makh, i.e., the great lady, or Ishtar, Nin-khar-shag, Gula, also appearing as Nin-Karrak, have their temples in Babylon, while Ramman has one in Borsippa, and Gula no less than three sanctuaries perhaps only small chapels in Borsippa. Fourthly, there are sanctuaries of minor importance in other quarters of Babylonia.
What the cause of the enmity between eagle and serpent was, may have been recounted in a missing portion of the tablet. The eagle forms a plan of destroying the serpent's brood. He is warned against this act by a young eagle, who is designated as a 'very clever young one. Who transgresses the law of Shamash, from him Shamash will exact revenge.
Immediately after the great triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, there is enumerated a second, Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, and only then there follows Marduk. More than this, Ramman is introduced for a second time in conjunction with Shamash, as in the hymn of Hammurabi. The two are appealed to as 'the divine lords of justice. The conqueror of the Cassites, Nebuchadnezzar I., also holds Ramman in high esteem.
In accordance with this conception, Nabubaliddin declares that it was through the wisdom of Ea that he succeeded in manufacturing the great image of Shamash that was set up by him in the temple at Sippar.
So when a god is called simply Dainu, i.e., Judge, there can be little doubt that Shamash, the sun-god, is meant; a god, 'great mountain, is none other than Bel; and similarly, such names as 'merciful, 'hearer of prayer, 'conqueror of enemy' are manifestly titles belonging to certain well-known deities, and used much as among the Greeks the gods were often referred to by the traits, physical or moral, that distinguished them.
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