* The presence of the evil spirits everywhere is shown, among other magical formulas, by the incantation in Rawlinson, Cun, Ins.  W. As., vol. ii. pi. 18, where we find enumerated at length the places from which they are to be kept out.  The magician closes the house to them, the hedge which surrounds the house, the yoke laid upon the oxen, the tomb, the prison, the well, the furnace, the shade, the vase for libation, the ravines, the valleys, the mountains, the door.

     ** Assurnazirpal, King of Assyria, speaks in one of his
     inscriptions of these sixty-five thousand great gods of
     heaven and earth.

We are often much puzzled to say what these various divinities, whose names we decipher on the monuments, could possibly have represented.  The sovereigns of Lagash addressed their prayers to Ningirsu, the valiant champion of Inlil; to Ninursag, the lady of the terrestrial mountain:  to Ninsia, the lord of fate; to the King Ninagal; to Inzu, of whose real name no one has an idea; to Inanna, the queen of battles; to Pasag, to Galalim, to Dunshagana, to Ninmar, to Ningishzida.  Gudea raised temples to them in all the cities over which his authority extended, and he devoted to these pious foundations a yearly income out of his domain land or from the spoils of his wars.  “Gudea, the ‘vicegerent’ of Lagash, after having built the temple Ininnu for Ningirsu, constructed a treasury; a house decorated with sculptures, such as no ‘vicegerent’ had ever before constructed for Ningirsu; he constructed it for him, he wrote his name in it, he made in it all that was needful, and he executed faithfully all the words from the mouth of Ningirsu.”  The dedication of these edifices was accompanied with solemn festivals, in which the whole population took an active part.  “During seven years no grain was ground, and the maidservant was the equal of her mistress, the slave walked beside his master, and in my town the weak rested by the side of the strong.”  Henceforward Gudea watched scrupulously lest anything impure should enter and mar the sanctity of the place.

[Illustration:  145.jpg THE GOD NINGIBSU, PATRON OF LAGASH.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec.  The attribution
     of this figure to Ningirsu is very probable, but not wholly
     certain.

Those we have enumerated were the ancient Sumerian divinities, but the characteristics of most of them would have been lost to us, had we not learned, by means of other documents, to what gods the Semites assimilated them, gods who are better known and who are represented under a less barbarous aspect.  Ningirsu, the lord of the division of Lagash which was called Girsu, was identified with Ninib; Inlil is Bel, Ninursag is Beltis, Inzu is Sin, Inanna is Ishtar, and so on with the rest.  The cultus of each, too, was not a local cultus, confined to some obscure corner of the country; they all were rulers