u
and Mashtu, a brother and sister, like the lunar girl and boy of
Teutonic mythology immortalized in nursery rhymes as Jack and Jill.

Sun worship was of great antiquity in Babylonia, but appears to have
been seasonal in its earliest phases. No doubt the sky god Anu had his
solar as well as his lunar attributes, which he shared with Ea. The
spring sun was personified as Tammuz, the youthful shepherd, who was
loved by the earth goddess Ishtar and her rival Eresh-ki-gal, goddess
of death, the Babylonian Persephone. During the winter Tammuz dwelt in
Hades, and at the beginning of spring Ishtar descended to search for
him among the shades.[67] But the burning summer sun was symbolized as
a destroyer, a slayer of men, and therefore a war god. As Ninip or
Nirig, the son of Enlil, who was made in the likeness of Anu, he waged
war against the earth spirits, and was furiously hostile towards the
deities of alien peoples, as befitted a god of battle. Even his father
feared him, and when he was advancing towards Nippur, sent out Nusku,
messenger of the gods, to soothe the raging deity with soft words.
Ninip was symbolized as a wild bull, was connected with stone worship,
like the Indian destroying god Shiva, and was similarly a deity of
Fate. He had much in common with Nin-Girsu, a god of Lagash, who was
in turn regarded as a form of Tammuz.

Nergal, another solar deity, brought disease and pestilence, and,
according to Jensen, all misfortunes due to excessive heat. He was the
king of death, husband of Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades. As a war god
he thirsted for human blood, and was depicted as a mighty lion. He was
the chief deity of the city of Cuthah, which, Jastrow suggests, was
situated beside a burial place of great repute, like the Egyptian
Abydos.

The two great cities of the sun in ancient Babylonia were the Akkadian
Sippar and the Sumerian Larsa. In these the sun god, Shamash or
Babbar, was the patron deity. He was a god of Destiny, the lord of the
living and the dead, and was exalted as the great Judge, the lawgiver,
who upheld justice; he was the enemy of wrong, he loved righteousness
and hated sin, he inspired his worshippers with rectitude and punished
evildoers. The sun god also illumined the world, and his rays
penetrated every quarter: he saw all things, and read the thoughts of
men; nothing could be concealed from Shamash. One of his names was
Mitra, like the god who was linked with Varuna in the Indian
_Rigve