Identifier: babylonianreligi04king (find matches)
Title: Babylonian religion and mythology
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: King, L. W. (Leonard William), 1869-1919
Subjects: Mythology, Assyro-Babylonian Assyro-Babylonian religion
Publisher: London : K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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uliarity of early Babylonian religion. Ata later period, when the system of mythology was morefully developed, the Sun-god attained a position ofgreater prominence. He was then regarded as the judgeof heaven and earth, and in the legends it was hisdecision to which appeal was made in cases of wrongand injustice. The god Bamman. while particularlyassociated with fonnrW and lightning, was in general flip cmd of fop fltmngphpyp anrl controlled the clouds, the mist and the rain. He was held in especialreverence by the Assyrian kings who loved to comparethe advance of their forces in battle to the onslaughtof the Storm-god. The ffiflSt pmajaaat deitv in the company of theBabylonian gods was Marduk. who, as the local godof Babylon, na.tiira.11y plairnerl fthn highest respect fromthe men of his own nifty. The extension of his influencewas a result of the rise of Babylon to the position ofthe capital nifty in a. united empire, and it is to thisfact we may trace his identification with the old
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MARDUK AND NABU. 21 Babylonian deity Bel, whose worship had flourishedfor so many cejrairies at Nippur, and the prominentpart whichyfie plays in Babylonian legend andmytholog^r From the days of Khammurabi onwardMarduk never lost this position of supremacy amongthe other gods. Traces of his original subordinatecharacter at the time when Babylon was still unknownmay be seen in the fact that he was never regardedas the oldest of the gods, nor as endowed from thebeginning with his later attributes ; he was conceivedas having won his power and supremacy by his ownvalour and by the services he rendered both to gods andto mankind. In intimate association with Mardukmay be mentioned Nabu, the god of Borsippa, a citywhich is marked to-day by the mound of Birs Nimrud,1and which, built a little to the south-west of Babylonon the opposite bank of the Euphrates, was in its laterperiod little more than a suburb of the capital. Tothis fact we may trace the close connection of Nabuwith Marduk, whose

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