* Dér—in southern Babylonia, Rawl. v. 55, col. i. 14.
t+ An=‘heaven’ + the phonetic complement na. This is the usual form ; but various others occur, e.g. dn with the deter- minative for ‘god,’ and the phonetic writings An-nu-wm with and without the determinative for ‘god.’ See Radau, Creation Story of Genesis, 17, note 2.
{ Inscription B, col. viii, 45-48.
§ Signifying ‘lady of the mountain,’
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
of Eridu respectively, whereas Antum is an arti- ficial figure introduced into the pantheon under the influence of the doctrine which assigned to every male god a female companion. One must therefore pass down to a comparatively late period, before, in the invocation of the triad, all traces of the old association of Bel and Ea with local cults disappear, and in a certain sense the process was never entirely and consistently completed.
The assigning of the local deity of Nippur to a osition in the triad served to maintain his cult ong after Nippur had lost its political supremacy.
His temple at Nippur, known as #-kur, ‘the mountain house,’ became a place of pilgrimage to which worshippers came from all sides. In a measure this was the case with the sanctuaries in all or in most of the places that once formed political centres, but there were certain features connected with the Bel cult of Nippur that lent to it an air of uniqueness. Invoked in one of the earliest inscriptions known to us, that of En-shag- kush-annu* (c. 3500 B.c.), En-lil, at this time already designated as ‘king of the lands,’ main- tains his position as the head of the pantheon even in the case of a ruler like Lugalzaggisi, king of Erech (c. 3500 B.C.), whose capital is not at Nippur.t We do not encounter the triad at this early period, and it is all the more significant therefore to find the god of Nippur occupying a position which is not affected by the political status of the centre in which he was worshipped. Such a condition is an important step on the road towards the differentia- tion between the local storm-god and his symboli- zation as one of the three elements of the universe. + Eyen in those inscriptions of the first period of Babylonian history in which En-lil does not occupy the first place, as for example in the list found in an inscription of E-anna-tum,{ and in one of Gudea,§ his supremacy is still implied, for the preference given in these inscriptions to a god Nin- girsu, who is mentioned before En-lil, is simply due to the fact that the inscriptions in question are dedicated to Nin-girsu as the chief deity of the centre to which the rulers in question belong. Similarly, the rulers of other centres, like Agade, Ur, and Kish, present offerings and pay devotion to the Bel of Nippur; and it is not until the union of the Euphrates States under a dynasty which established its capital in the city of Babylon (c. 2300 B.C.) that we encounter an attempt to de- throne En-lil from his pre-eminent position, in favour of the chief deity of the city of Babylon, Marduk. The political union naturally brought in its wake the assignment of Marduk to a position at the head of the pantheon, and this was empha- sized by transferring to Marduk the title Bel or ‘lord,’ and the old legends and traditions were like- wise transformed under the influence of the priests of Babylon with a view of securing for the ‘Bel’ of Babylon the functions and deeds that properly belong to the ‘ Bel’ of Nippur. The attempt, how- ever, was not altogether successful, and, when in the 18th cent. B.C. the control of Babylonia passed into the hands of a people coming from Elam to the east, and known as the Kassites, the cult of Bel of Nippur enjoyed a renaissance. ||
There are good reasons for believing that the Kassites made a deliberate effort to reinstate En-lil as the head of the pantheon. For five centuries the
* Hilprecht, Old Babyl. Inser. i. 2, Nos. 90, 91.
+ Hilprecht, ib. No. 87, col. i. 1. ¢ Gudea, galet A, col. i. 6.
§ Inscription D, col. i. 3. s ; é | See the votive inscriptions of Kassite kings published by
Hilprecht (Old Babylonian Inscriptions, i., Nos. 28-82), which with few exceptions are dedicated to En-lil or his consort Nin-lil or Belit. In the ‘boundary’ inscriptions dating from this period (see Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, iv. pp. 56-63), it is also sig- nificant that Marduk is mentioned after Shamash, and even the god Adad in one instance is given the preference over him,
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA 539
Kassites held sway ; and, though at the end of this period the reaction begins, in the list of gods found in inscriptions of this period Marduk receives his place immediately behind the triad,* though not invariably so.+
The rise of a serious rival to Babylonia in the north, where shortly after the end of Kassite rule in the south the Assyrians acquired sufficient strength to threaten the independence of Baby- lonia, again leads to a shifting in the ranks of the gods. In the presence of a common foe, the union between the States in the south becomes closer, and this condition finds expression in a more loyal attachment to the patron deity of Babylon — Marduk, —who in virtue of this fact henceforward holds undisturbed sway as the head of the pantheon. No more attempts are made to shake his position by playing off other gods against him. His supremacy becomes so secure that it is not endangered by the devotion shown by the rulers of Babylonia to the cults of other gods, either in Babylon itself or in any one of the religious centres of the south. The temple of Bel of Nippur continued to be a goal of pilgrimage down to the latest days of the Babylonian empire, and the series of sacred edifices there were an