316 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babyloniabanks of the Euphrates, which is distinguished in the inscriptions
from the Sippara of Samas as the Sippara of Anunit. The feminine
termination of the name of Anunit indicates that here again we
have a goddess who, in the form in which we know her, is
essentially Semitic. But it is only in the form in which we know
her that such is the case. The origin of Anunit goes back to
Sumerian times. She was in the beginning merely an Anunna or
“spirit”of the earth, as sexless as the other spirits of Sumerian
belief, and lacking all the characteristics of a Semitic divinity.^266
It was not till Sippara became the seat of a Semitic empire that
the Anunna or Sumerian“spirit”was transformed into Anunit
[345] the goddess. The transformation here was accompanied by the
same outward change as that which turned the Babylonian Istar
into the Ashtoreth of Canaan. For a time it seemed as though
Anunit rather than Istar would become the supreme goddess of
Semitic cult; but the political predominance of Sippara passed
away with the fall of the empire of Sargon of Akkad, and
historical conservatism alone preserved the name and influence
of its goddess. As time went on, Anunit tended more and
more to sink into the common herd of Babylonian goddesses,
or to be identified with Istar. As long as the Sumerian element
continued to be strong in the Babylonian people and their religion,
Anunit retained the position which the mixture of the Semite and
Sumerian had created for her; with the growing dominance of the
Semitic spirit, her independence and individuality departed, and
she became, like Beltis or Gula, merely the female complement
of the god. Perhaps the process was hastened by the grammatical
(^266) I can suggest no better etymology for the word Anunna than that proposed
in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 182. It is supported by K 2100, col. iv., where
the Sumerian pronunciation of Anunna-ki is given as Enu-kki,“the lord of
the earth.”When the“spirits of the earth”came to be distinguished from“the
angels”or“spirits”of the air, the form Anunna-ki or Anunna-ge,“the spirit of
the earth”or“lower world,”became more usual than the simple Anunna. The
latter is used of the Igigi or“angels”in K 4629,Rev., and of the Anunna-ki in
WAI.iv. 1, 2, col. iv. 3.