y male deities into a
combination of male and female, strange as it may seem to us, is in
keeping with the lack of sharp distinction between male and female in
the oldest forms of Semitic religions. In the old cuneiform writing the
same sign is used to indicate "lord" or "lady" when attached to deities.
Ishtar appears among Semites both as a male[60] and as a female deity.
Sex was primarily a question of strength. The stronger god was viewed as
masculine; the weaker as feminine.

Nannar and Sin.

Nannar, a reduplicated form like Babbar, with the assimilation of the
first r to n (nar-nar = nannar), has very much the same meaning as
Babbar. The latter, as we have seen, is the "lustrous one," the former,
the "one that furnishes light." The similarity in meaning is in keeping
with the similarity of function of the two deities, thus named: Babbar
being the sun and Nannar, the moon. It was under the name of Nannar that
the moon-god was worshipped at Ur, the most famous and probably the
oldest of the cities over which the moon-god presided. The association
of Nannar with Ur is parallel to that of Shamash with Sippar,--not that
the moon-god's jurisdiction or worship was confined to that place, but
that the worship of the deity of that place eclipsed others, and the
fame and importance at Ur led to the overshadowing of the moon-worship
there, over the obeisance to him paid elsewhere.

What further motives led to the choice of the moon-god as the patron of
Ur, lies beyond the scope of our knowledge. Due allowance must be made
for that natural selection, which takes place in the realm of thought as
much as in the domain of nature. Attention has already been called to
the predominance given by the Babylonians to the moon over the sun. The
latter is expressly called the "offspring of the lord of brilliant
beginning," that is, the moon-god (Delitzsch, _Assyr. Hdw._, p. 234
_a_). It is needless, therefore, to do more, at this place, than to
emphasize the fact anew. The moon serving much more as a guide to man,
through the regular character of its constant changes, than the sun, was
connected in the religious system with both the heavenly and the
terrestrial forces. In view of Nannar's position in the heavens, he was
called the "heifer of Anu." Anu, it will be recalled, was the god of
heaven (and heaven itself), while the "heifer"[61] is here used
metaphorically for offspring, the picture being suggested probably by
the "horn" tha