Hoa had a wife Dav-Kina, of whom a few words will be said presently.  Their most celebrated son was Merodach or Bel-Merodach, the Belus of Babylonian times.  As Kimmut, Hoa was also the father of Nebo, whose functions bear a general resemblance to his own.

DAV-KINA.

Dav-Kina, the wife of Hoa, is clearly the Dauke or Davke of Damascius who was the wife of Ails and mother of Belus (Bel-Merodach).  Her name is thought to signify “the chief lady.”  She has no distinctive titles or important position in the Pantheon, but, like Anata, takes her husband’s epithets with a mere distinction of gender.

SIN, or HURKI.

The first god of the second Triad is Sin, or Hurki, the moon-deity.  It is in condescension to Greek notions that Berosus inverts the true Chaldaean order, and places the sun before the moon in his enumeration of the heavenly bodies.  Chaldaean mythology gives a very decided preference to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than the days in hot countries.  With respect to the names of the god, we may observe that Sin, the Assyrian or Semitic term, is a word of quite uncertain etymology, which, however, is found applied to the moon in many Semitic languages; while Hurki, which is the Chaldaean or Hamitic name, is probably from a root cognate to the Hebrew Ur, “vigilare,” whence is derived the term sometimes used to signify “an angel” Ir, “a watcher.”

The titles of Hurki are usually somewhat vague.  He is “the chief,” “the powerful,” “the lord of the spirits,” “he who dwells in the great heavens;” or, hyperbolically, “the chief of the gods of heaven and earth,” “the king of the gods,” and even “the god of the gods.”  Sometimes, however, his titles are more definite and particular:  as, firstly, when they belong to him in respect of his being the celestial luminary—­e.g., “the bright,” “the shining,” “the lord of the month;” and, secondly, when they represent him as presiding over buildings and architecture, which the Chaldaeans appear to have placed under his special superintendence.  In this connection he is called “the supporting architect,” “the strengthener of fortifications,” and, more generally, “the lord of building” (Bel-zuna).  Bricks, the Chaldaean building material, were of course under his protection; and the sign which designates them is also the sign of the month over which he was considered to exert particular care.  His ordinary symbol is the crescent or new moon, which is commonly represented as large, but of extreme thinness:  though not without a certain variety in the forms.

[Illustration:  PAGE 81]

The most curious and the most purely conventional representations are a linear semicircle, and an imitation of this semicircle formed by three straight lines.  The illuminated part of the moon’s disk is always turned directly towards the horizon, a position but rarely seen in nature.