n of heaven".[497]

Tashmit, whose name signifies "Obedience", according to Jastrow, or
"Hearing", according to Sayce, carried the prayers of worshippers to
Nebo, her spouse. As Isis interceded with Osiris, she interceded with
Nebo, on behalf of mankind. But this did not signify that she was the
least influential of the divine pair. A goddess played many parts: she
was at once mother, daughter, and wife of the god; the servant of one
god or the "mighty queen of all the gods". The Great Mother was, as
has been indicated, regarded as the eternal and undecaying one; the
gods passed away, son succeeding father; she alone remained. Thus,
too, did Semiramis survive in the popular memory, as the queen-goddess
of widespread legends, after kings and gods had been forgotten. To her
was ascribed all the mighty works of other days in the lands where the
indigenous peoples first worshipped the Great Mother as Damkina, Nina,
Bau, Ishtar, or Tashmit, because the goddess was anciently believed to
be the First Cause, the creatrix, the mighty one who invested the
ruling god with the powers he possessed--the god who held sway because
he was her husband, as did Nergal as the husband of Eresh-ki-gal,
queen of Hades.

The multiplication of well-defined goddesses was partly due to the
tendency to symbolize the attributes of the Great Mother, and partly
due to the development of the great "Lady" in a particular district
where she reflected local phenomena and where the political influence
achieved by her worshippers emphasized her greatness. Legends
regarding a famous goddess were in time attached to other goddesses,
and in Aphrodite and Derceto we appear to have mother deities who
absorbed the traditions of more than one local "lady" of river and
plain, forest and mountain. Semiramis, on the other hand, survived as
a link between the old world and the new, between the country from
which emanated the stream of ancient culture and the regions which
received it. As the high priestess of the cult, she became identified
with the goddess whose bird name she bore, as Gilgamesh and Etana
became identified with the primitive culture-hero or patriarch of the
ancient Sumerians, and Sargon became identified with Tammuz. No doubt
the fame of Semiramis was specially emphasized because of her close
association, as Queen Sammu-rammat, with the religious innovations
which disturbed the land of the god Ashur during the Middle Empire
period.

Adad-nirari IV