322.

[35] Even in the case of the "Semitic" name of the famous Sargon I.
(_q.v._), whose full name is generally read Sharru-kenu-sha-ali, and
interpreted as "the legitimate king of the city," the question has recently
been raised whether we ought not to read "Sharru-kenu-shar-ri" and
interpret as "the legitimate king rules"--an illustration of the
vacillation still prevailing in this difficult domain of research.

BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION. The development of the religion of
Babylonia, so far as it can be traced with the material at hand, follows
closely along the lines of the periods to be distinguished in the history
of the Euphrates valley. Leaving aside the primitive phases of the religion
as lying beyond the ken of historical investigation, we may note the sharp
distinction to be made between the pre-Khammurabic age and the
post-Khammurabic age. While the political movement represented by
Khammurabi may have been proceeding for some time prior to the appearance
of the great conqueror, the period of _c._ 2250 B.C., when the union of the
Euphratean states was effected by Khammurabi, marks the beginning of a new
epoch in the religion as well as in the political history of the Euphrates
valley. Corresponding to the states into which we find the country divided
before 2250 B.C., we have a various number of religious centres such as
Nippur, Erech, Kutha (Cuthah), Ur, Sippara (Sippar), Shirgulla (Lagash),
Eridu and Agade, in each of which some god was looked upon as the chief
deity around whom there were gathered a number of minor deities and with
whom there was invariably associated a female consort. The jurisdiction of
this chief god was, however, limited to the political extent or control of
the district in which the main seat of the cult of the deity in question
lay. Mild attempts, to be sure, to group the chief deities associated with
the most important religious and political centres into a regular pantheon
were made--notably in Nippur and later in Ur--but such attempts lacked the
enduring quality which attaches to Khammurabi's avowed policy to raise
Marduk--the patron deity of the future capital, Babylon--to the head of the
entire Babylonian pantheon, as [v.03 p.0113] Babylon itself came to be
recognized as the real centre of the entire Euphrates valley.

Associated with Marduk was his consort Sarpanit, and grouped around the
pair as princes around a throne were the chief deities of the older
centres, like