The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

286 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

Erech became the capital of the kingdom, and it was perhaps at
this time that it acquired the name which it bore ever afterwards
of“the city”par excellence. Future ages were never allowed to
forget that it had once been the premier city of Babylonia.
Lugal-zaggi-ai calls himself“the priest of Anu,”the god of
the city which he had made the seat of his power. Anu for awhile
was the god of the supreme State in Babylonia, and therefore
supreme god of the whole country. The king, it is true, had
[312] come from the north, and his authority had been given him by
Bel of Nippur; the old sanctuary of Nippur still claimed the first
place in the religion of Northern Babylonia, and the cult of its
god retained its ancient hold on the veneration of the people.
But from henceforward he had to share his divine honours with
another; Bel of Nippur, indeed, conferred the sovereignty, but
the sovereign was priest and vicegerent of Anu. Bel and Anu
were associated together at the head of the pantheon of Northern
Babylonia, and the position they occupied in it became more and
more unique.
So firmly established was it before the reign of Sargon of
Akkad, that even his victories and the empire he founded failed
to give them a colleague in the god of the new capital city. Bel and
Anu remained supreme; the sun-god of Akkad or Sippar had to
content himself with a subordinate rank. The theological system
which put Bel and Anu at its head was already formed, and the
position assigned to them by the veneration and traditions of
antiquity was too firmly fixed to be shaken. Northern Babylonia
worshipped a dyad in the shape of two supreme gods.
But Babylonia itself was a dual State. It was probably on this
account that Lugal-zaggi-ai had fixed his capital at Erech in the
centre of the country, midway between north and south. And
the gods of Northern Babylonia were not necessarily those of the
south. Here Ea was at the head of the divine host; for the south
his city of Eridu was what Nippur was for the north, and the same
causes which made Bel the dispenser of power to the northern