The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

292 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

and the 1st chapter of Genesis, with its“evening and morning,”
perpetuates the ancient system of Babylonian astronomy.
The sun-god was known under many names, and, like the
moon-god, was worshipped in many of the Babylonian cities.
But just as in historical times there were two chief seats of the
worship of the moon-god,—at Ur in the south, and at Harran in
the north,—so too there were two chief seats of the worship of the
sun-god, one in Southern and the other in Northern Babylonia.
The southern seat was Larsa, the northern Zimbir or Sippara
on the borders of Mesopotamia. And as the moon-god of Ur
was older than the moon-god of Harran, so there are reasons for
thinking that the sun-god of Larsa was older than his rival at
Sippara. Babylonian culture moved from south to north.
Both at Larsa and at Sippara the temple of the sun-god was
called Ê-Babbara,—Bit-Uri in Semitic,—“the house of light.”At
Sippara it had been founded or restored by Naram-Sin, the son
of Sargon of Akkad, in the early days of Semitic supremacy.
The Sumerian Utu had already become the Semitic Samas, and
clothed himself in the attributes of a Semitic Bel. And therewith
he had necessarily taken to himself a wife. This was Â, who,
in becoming the consort of a Semitic Baal, was compelled to
change her sex. For the Sumerian  was a male god, a local sun-
[319] god, in fact, whom Professor Jastrow suggests may originally
have been the sun-god of one of the separate villages out of the
amalgamation of which the city of Sippara arose.^247 Sumerian
grammar, however, did not recognise gender; so far as outward
form was concerned, the same word, as in English, might be
indifferently masculine or feminine, and there was therefore
nothing in the name of  itself which would forbid the foreigner
from dealing with it as he would. Samas of Sippara needed a
wife, and Â, despite her male origin, was accordingly given to
him. But the gift was fatal to  herself. She lost her individuality,

(^247) Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 74.