must at one time have risen to sufficient importance to harbor
in its midst a number of deities. It is presumably[73] the place whence
Nebuchadnezzar I. sets out in the twelfth century to drive the Cassites
off the throne of Babylonia. May it be that, during the days of the
foreign rule, priests attached to the service of various of the old gods
and goddesses transferred the worship of these deities to places more
secure from interference?

Be this as it may, if our Nina has any connection with the goddess of
Nineveh, it is certain that Ishtar has retained none of Nina's traits.
The fusion in this case has been so complete that naught but the
faintest tradition of an original and independent Nina has survived in
the North.

Anu.

This god, who, from a theoretical point of view (as will be shown in a
subsequent chapter), was regarded as standing at the head of the
organized Babylonian pantheon, figures only incidentally in the
inscriptions prior to the days of Hammurabi. Ur-Gur of the second
dynasty of Ur, in invoking Nannar, calls the latter 'the powerful bull
of Anu.' The reference is interesting, for it shows that already in
these early days the position of Anu, as the god of the heavenly
expanse, was fixed. The moon appearing in the heavens, and the
resemblance of its crescent to a bull's horn,[74] are the two factors
that account for the expressive epithet used by Ur-Bau. That the worship
of the god of heaven _par excellence_ should not have enjoyed great
popularity in the early days of the Babylonian religion might seem
strange at first sight. A little reflection, however, will make this
clear. A god of the heavens is an abstract conception, and while it is
possible that even in an early age, such a conception may have arisen in
some minds, it is not of a character calculated to take a popular hold.
As we proceed in our attempt to trace the development of the Babylonian
religion, we will find the line of demarcation separating the
theological system, as evolved by the schoolmen, from the popular phases
of the religion, becoming more marked. In the inscriptions of the old
Babylonian rulers, comparatively little of the influence of the
Babylonian theologians is to be detected. Even the description of the
moon as the bull of heaven falls within the domain of popular fancy. It
is different in the days after Hammurabi, when political concentration
leads to the focussing of intellectual life in the Euphrates Valley