Speaking of the goddess Ishtar, Innana, Nana, Nina, and Anunit are all designations of that goddess, and that it is best to regard them as being local names. There seems to have been a tendency to look upon her as the one great female divinity, hence the use of the word istarit as synonymous with lltu, ‘goddess.’ She has her own sphere, and carries on her existence without any connection with a masculine deity.
With regard to this it may be noted that the name of Tammuz, her spouse, occurs as early as the time of Lugal-anda and Uru-ka-gina, and notwithstanding that we have no records proving the existence of the well-known legends concerning Istar and Tammuz at that early period, there is every probability that they had already taken form.
It is true that Tammuz seems not to have attained a greater importance in Babylonia than did Adonis, his counterpart, in Greece, but the goddess of reproduction and the god of the recurring seasons represent ideas so closely related that they could not reasonably be separated—they are, in fact, complements of each other.
The god Anu at the earliest period of Babylonian history is especially noteworthy. The goddess Bau was his daughter, and Nin-gis-zida his son, whilst Nannar, the moon, in the inscriptions of Ur-Engur, is called ” the mighty steer of Anu,” proving that the last-named was already, at that early date, the god of the firmament.
In the earliest times the worship of the heaven-god was not in special favour. This would be due to the fact that a god of the heavens is an abstract idea, and could not become a popular belief.
In the time of Hammurabi, Babylonia’s great lawgiver, things had changed somewhat, and political concentration in the Euphrates-valley brought to a focus the intellectual life of the land. The manner in which the name Anu is written in the Babylonian inscriptions of that period indicates that the people had not yet reached the abstract principle which lies in the idea of a god of the heavens, notwithstanding that a certain amount of personification was unavoidable.
The spelling referred to is the use of the word for ‘ heaven’ as a material idea—the vault which we see over our heads. It is doubtful, however, whether much can be based on this evidence, as it may be merely a device of the scribes to avoid writing the determinative prefix of divinity. The goddess Bau is called ” child of Anu,” but this he regards as an indication of the personification of the heavens without deification.
Among the minor deities whose names are discussed may be mentioned Nin-sah, the latter component of whose name means, he points out, ‘ wild swine,’ regarded, he says, as holy by the Babylonians, as also by other nations. The eating of its flesh was forbidden on certain days of the year. For the 30th day of Ab, there are the words ” the flesh of a swine he shall not eat, maskadu (? gout) will seize him.” For the 27th of Tisri, however, in addition to pork, beef is mentioned: ” the flesh of a swine, the flesh of an ox, he shall not eat—the face is dark,” trouble will result. It seems probable, however, that these are rather of the nature of general recommendations than prohibitions, and may, perhaps, be addressed to a class of persons—the tablet whence they are taken seems to have belonged to one of a class of agriculturalists attached to the temple of Nebo— and not to the whole community.
The worship of Nebo, which was most popular in Babylonia, and also much favoured in Assyria, owed its popularity to the fact that, as god of Borsippa, he stood in close connection with Merodach. This is in all probability true, but it must not be forgotten that all the gods of Babylonia were identified with Merodach after he became the national god of the Babylonians, and that Merodach, with the attributes of Nebo, the god of writing, literature, knowledge, wisdom, trade, and commerce, would, from the mere possession of these attributes, acquire considerable favour. Naturally Nebo’s pre-eminence came comparatively late, when the necessity of furthering the worship of Merodach no longer existed. In this connection Hammurabi seems intentionally to have ignored the worship of Nebo, and it is noteworthy that though that king mentions, in the introduction to his laws, Nebo’s city Borsippa and its temple, the name of the god does not appear.
The history of the worship of Nebo and its political signification are well its importance are evidenced by the fact that it was on a distant mountain named after him that Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, died.
About the Anunnaki and the Igigi, the latter are described in the texts as the gods of the heavens, whilst the former were apparently regarded as the gods or spirits of the earth, and it may be noted that as Anunna is found instead of Anunnaki, the ending aki is in all probability simply a termination, of which the syllable ki is generally dropped. The meaning would then be simply ‘ the gods of the great waters,’ as has been already suggested, and, if it be correct, possibly designates the gods of the earth as those who brooded over the deep at the creation, when as yet no land had appeared. Their mention at the coming of the Flood would seem to confirm this.
The Igigi were ‘ the great princes’ of the gods, but there is much uncertainty as to the meaning of the name. Taken separately, its elements mean ‘ five one one,’ pointing to the use of the numeral ‘ five’ as a separate group, from which there was at first a five-day week, replaced later on by one of seven days. Other inscriptions give the Igigi as eight in number, whilst the Anunnaki are said to have numbered nine.
To read the complete and unabridged text: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, April 1904: http://books.google.it/books?pg=PA323&dq=Anunnaki&lr=&cd=1&id=TPgAAAAAYAAJ&as_brr=4#v=onepage&q=Anunnaki&f=false
