out, early engaged in speculations regarding the life
after death, and, as a result, there was developed a special pantheon
for the nether world. Gula occupies a rather unique place intermediate,
as it were, between the gods of the living and the gods of the dead.

Of the other deities occurring in the inscription of this same
Nebuchadnezzar I. it is sufficient to note that two, Shir and Shubu, are
enumerated among the gods of Bit-Khabban. They were, therefore, local
deities of some towns that never rose to sufficient importance to insure
their patrons a permanent place in the Babylonian pantheon. 'Belit of
Akkad,' whom Nebuchadnezzar invokes, is none other than the great Belit,
the consort of Bel. 'Akkad' is here used for Babylonia, and the
qualification is added to distinguish her from other 'ladies,' as,
_e.g._, 'Belit-ekalli,' who, we have seen, was Gula.

Malik and Bunene.

Upon reaching so late a period as the days of Nabubaliddin (_c._ 850
B.C.), it becomes doubtful whether we are justified in including the
additional deities occurring in his inscription among the Babylonian
pantheon of the second period. The occurrence of some of these gods in
the religious literature is a presumption in favor of regarding them as
ancient creations, rather than due to later influences. Certainly this
appears to be the case with Malik and Bunene, who, with Shamash, form a
triad that constitutes the chief object of worship in the great temple
E-babbara at Sippar, to whose restored cult Nabubaliddin devotes
himself. Both names, moreover, occur as parts of proper names in the age
of Hammurabi. Malik--_i.e._, ruler--is one of the names frequently
assigned to Shamash, just as the god's consort was known as Malkatu, but
for all that Malik is not the same as Shamash. Accompanying the
inscription of Nabubaliddin is a design[210] representing the sun-god
seated in his shrine. Before him on a table rests a wheel, and attached
to the wheel are cords held by two figures, who are evidently directing
the course of the wheel. These two figures are Malik and Bunene, a
species of attendants, therefore, on the sun-god, who drive the fiery
chariot that symbolized the great orb. Bunene, through association with
Malik, becomes the latter's consort, and it is interesting to observe
the extent to which the tendency of the Babylonian religion to conceive
the gods in pairs goes. Bunene is not the only instance of an originally
male deity becoming thr