lt by
Urukh, while that at Mugheir was either built or repaired by Ismi-dagon.

According to one record, Beltis was a daughter of Ana. It was especially
as "Queen of Nipur" that she was the wife of her son Nin. Perhaps this
idea grew up out of the fact that at Nipur the two were associated
together in a common worship. It appears to have given rise to some of
the Greek traditions with respect to Semiramis, who was made to contract
an incestuous marriage with her own son Ninyas, although no explanation
can at present be given of the application to Beltis of that name.

HEA, or HOA.

The third god of the first Triad was Hea, or Hoa, probably the Aus of
Damascus. His appellation is perhaps best rendered into Greek by the
[--] of Helladius--the name given to the mystic animal, half man, half
fish, which came up from the Persian Gulf to teach astronomy and letters
to the first settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris. It is perhaps
contained also in the word by which Berosus designates this same
creature--Oannes--which may be explained as _Hoa-ana,_ or "the god Hoa."
There are no means of strictly determining the precise meaning of the
word in Babylonian; but it is perhaps allowable to connect it,
provisionally, with the Arabic Hiya, which is at once life and "a
serpent," since, according to the best authority, there are very strong
grounds for connecting Hea or Hoa with the serpent of Scripture and the
Paradisaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.

Hoa occupies, in the first Triad, the position which in the classical
mythology is filled by Poseidon or Neptune, and in some respects he
corresponds to him. He is "the lord of the earth," just as Neptune is
[Greek]; he is "the king of rivers;" and he comes from the sea to teach
the Babylonians; but he is never called "the lord of the sea." That
title belongs to Nin or Ninip. Hoa is "the lord of the abyss," or of
"the great deep," which does not seem to be the sea, but something
distinct from it. His most important titles are those which invest him
with the character, so prominently brought out in Oe and Oannes, of the
god of science and knowledge. He is "the intelligent guide," or,
according to another interpretation, "the intelligent fish," "the teacher
of mankind," "the lord of understanding." One of his emblems is the
"wedge" or "arrowhead," the essential element of cuneiform writing, which
seems to be assigned to him as the inventor, or a