very reason to believe that this
was the case; the more so, in that it does not at all transcend the
range of religious ideas that we have met with in the case of the other
gods of this period. Nor does this conception in any way betray itself,
as being due to the changed political conditions that set in, with the
union of the states under Hammurabi. Still, the age of the religious
texts not being fixed, it is thus necessary to exercise some caution
before using them without the basis of an allusion in the historical
texts.

Utu.

It but remains, before passing on, to note that the same deity appears
under various names. Among these are Utu[54] and apparently also
Babbar[55] in the old Babylonian inscriptions. For the latter, a Semitic
etymology is forthcoming, and we may therefore regard it as representing
a real pronunciation, and not an ideographic writing. Babbar, a
contracted form from Barbar, is the reduplication of the same stem
_bar_[56] that we have already met with, in the name of the temple
sacred to Shamash. Like E-babbara, therefore, Babbar is the "brilliantly
shining one,"--a most appropriate name for the sun, and one frequently
applied to him in the religious texts. As to Utu, there is some doubt
whether it represents a real pronunciation or not. My own opinion is
that it does, and that the underlying stem is _atu_, which in Babylonian
has almost the same meaning as _bar_ or _baru_, viz., 'to see.' 'Utu'
would thus again designate the sun as 'that which shines forth.'

It will be recalled, that other instances have been noted of the same
god appearing under different names. The most natural explanation for
this phenomenon is, that the variation corresponds to the different
localities where the god was worshipped. The identification would not be
made until the union of the various Babylonian states had been achieved.
Such a union would be a potent factor in systematizing the pantheon.
When once it was recognized that the various names represented, in
reality, one and the same deity, it would not be long before the name,
peculiar to the place where the worship was most prominent, would set
the others aside or reduce them to mere epithets.

It may well be that Shamash was the name given to the god at Sippar,
whereas at Ur he may have been known as Utu. Ur-Bau (of the first Ur
dynasty) calls him Utu also, when speaking of the temple at Larsa, but
it would be natural for the kings of Ur to call the sun-g