m to gather together in convenient arrangement and
readable form what is at present known about the religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians. The investigations of scholars are scattered
through a large variety of periodicals and monographs. The time has come
for focusing the results reached, for sifting the certain from the
uncertain, and the uncertain from the false. This work of gathering the
_disjecta membra_ of Assyriological science is essential to future
progress. If I have succeeded in my chief aim, I shall feel amply repaid
for the labor involved.

In order that the book may serve as a guide to students, the names of
those to whose researches our present knowledge of the subject is due
have frequently been introduced, and it will be found, I trust, that I
have been fair to all.[2] At the same time, I have naturally not
hesitated to indicate my dissent from views advanced by this or that
scholar, and it will also be found, I trust, that in the course of my
studies I have advanced the interpretation of the general theme or of
specific facts at various points. While, therefore, the book is only in
a secondary degree sent forth as an original contribution, the
discussion of mooted points will enhance its value, I hope, for the
specialist, as well as for the general reader and student for whom, in
the first place, the volumes of this series are intended.

The disposition of the subject requires a word of explanation. After the
two introductory chapters (common to all the volumes of the series) I
have taken up the pantheon as the natural means to a survey of the
field. The pantheon is treated, on the basis of the historical texts, in
four sections: (1) the old Babylonian period, (2) the middle period, or
the pantheon in the days of Hammurabi, (3) the Assyrian pantheon, and
(4) the latest or neo-Babylonian period. The most difficult phase has
naturally been the old Babylonian pantheon. Much is uncertain here. Not
to speak of the chronology which is still to a large extent guesswork,
the identification of many of the gods occurring in the oldest
inscriptions, with their later equivalents, must be postponed till
future discoveries shall have cleared away the many obstacles which
beset the path of the scholar. The discoveries at Telloh and Nippur have
occasioned a recasting of our views, but new problems have arisen as
rapidly as old ones have been solved. I have been especially careful in
this section not to pass beyo