who continued to bake cakes to the Queen of Heaven so as to ensure good harvests.  In the second place it is not improbable that even in Assyria the introduction of Nebo and his spouse made widespread appeal.  That country had become largely peopled by an alien population; many of these aliens came from districts where “mother worship” prevailed, and had no traditional respect for Ashur, while they regarded with hostility the military aristocracy who conquered and ruled in the name of that dreaded deity.  Perhaps, too, the influence of the Aramaeans, who in Babylonia wrecked the temples of the sun god, tended to revive the ancient religion of the Mediterranean race.  Jehu’s religious revolt in Israel, which established once again the cult of Ashtoreth, occurred after he came under the sway of Damascus, and may have not been unconnected with the political ascendancy elsewhere of the goddess cult.

Nebo, whom Adad-nirari exalted at Kalkhi, was more than a local god of Borsippa.  “The most satisfactory view”, says Jastrow, “is to regard him as a counterpart of Ea.  Like Ea, he is the embodiment and source of wisdom....  The study of the heavens formed part of the wisdom which is traced back to Nebo, and the temple school at Borsippa became one of the chief centres for the astrological, and, subsequently, for the astronomical lore of Babylonia....  Like Nebo, Ea is also associated with the irrigation of the fields and with their consequent fertility.  A hymn praises him as the one who fills the canals and the dikes, who protects the fields and brings the crops to maturity.”  Nebo links with Merodach (Marduk), who is sometimes referred to as his father.  Jastrow assumes that the close partnership between Nebo and Merodach “had as a consequence a transfer of some of the father Marduk’s attributes as a solar deity to Nebo,[495] his son, just as Ea passed his traits on to his son, Marduk".[496]

As the “recorder” or “scribe” among the gods, Nebo resembles the Egyptian god Thoth, who links with Khonsu, the lunar and spring sun god of love and fertility, and with Osiris.  In Borsippa he had, like Merodach in Babylon, pronounced Tammuz traits.  Nebo, in fact, appears to be the Tammuz of the new age, the son of the ancient goddess, who became “Husband of his Mother”.  If Nebo had no connection with Great Mother worship, it is unlikely that his statue would have borne an inscription referring to King Adad-nirari and Queen Sammu-rammat on equal terms.  The Assyrian spouse of Nebo was called Tashmit.  This “goddess of supplication and love” had a lunar significance.  A prayer addressed to her in association with Nannar (Sin) and Ishtar, proceeds: 

    In the evil of the eclipse of the moon which ... has taken place,
    In the evil of the powers, of the portents, evil and not good,
        which are in my palace and my land,
    (I) have turned towards thee!... 
    Before Nabu (Nebo) thy spouse, thy lord, the prince, the
        first-born of E-sagila, intercede for me! 
    May he hearken to my cry at the word of thy mouth; may he remove
        my sighing, may he learn my supplication!