It will thus be seen that Enu-restu was a rival to the older
Bel, whose temple was the great tower in stages called E-kura, in
which, in all probability, E-su-me-du, the shrine of Enu-restu, was
likewise situated. The inscriptions call him "god of war," though,
unlike Nergal, he was not at the same time god of disease and
pestilence. To all appearance he was the god of the various kinds of
stones, of which another legend states that he "determined their
fate." He was "the hero, whose net overthrows the enemy, who summons
his army to plunder the hostile land, the royal son who caused his
father to bow down to him from afar." "The son who sat not with the
nurse, and eschewed(?) the strength of milk," "the offspring who did
not know his father." "He rode over the mountains and scattered
seed--unanimously the plants proclaimed his name to their dominion,
among them like a great wild bull he raises his horns."

[1] /Enu-restu/ is the reading which I have adopted as the Semitic
Babylonian equivalent of the name of this divinity, in consequence
of the Aramaic transcription given by certain contract-tablets
discovered by the American expedition to Niffer, and published by
Prof. Clay of Philadelphia.

[2] The result of this request is not known, in consequence of the
defective state of the tablets.

Many other interesting descriptions of the deity Nirig (generally read
Nin-ip) occur, and show, with those quoted here, that his story was
one of more than ordinary interest.

Nusku.

This deity was especially invoked by the Assyrian kings, but was in no
wise exclusively Assyrian, as is shown by the fact that his name
occurs in many Babylonian inscriptions. He was the great messenger of
the gods, and is variously given as "the offspring of the abyss, the
creation of Ea," and "the likeness of his father, the first-born of
Bel." As Gibil, the fire-god, has likewise the same diverse parentage,
it is regarded as likely that these two gods were identical. Nusku was
the god whose command is supreme, the counsellor of the great gods,
the protector of the Igigi (the gods of the heavens), the great and
powerful one, the glorious day, the burning one, the founder of
cities, the renewer of sanctuaries, the provider of feasts for all the
Igigi, without whom no feast took place in E-kura. Like Nebo, he bore
the glorious spectre, and it was said of him that he attacked mightily
in battle