* The name of this god was read “Nisrok” by Oppert, “Nouah” by Hincks and Lenormant.  The true reading is Ia, Ea, usually translated “house,” “water-house”; this is a popular interpretation which appears to have occurred to the Chaldaeans from the values of the signs entering into the name of the god.  From the outset H. Rawlinson recognized in Ea, which he read Hea, Hoa, the divinity presiding over the abyss of waters; he compared him with the serpent of Holy Scripture, in its relation to the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, and deduced therefrom his character of lord of wisdom.  His position as lord of the primordial waters, from which all things proceeded, clearly denned by Lenormant, is now fully recognized.  His name was transcribed Aos by Damascius, a form which is not easily explained; the most probable hypothesis is that of Hommel who considers Aos as a shortened form of Iaos = Ia, Ea.

Subordinate to these limitless and vague beings, the theologians placed their second triad, made up of gods of restricted power and invariable form.  They recognized in the unswerving regularity with which the moon waxed and waned, or with which the sun rose and set every day, a proof of their subjection to the control of a superior will, and they signalized this dependence by making them sons of one or other of the three great gods.  Sin was the offspring of Bel, Shamash of Sin, Kamman of Anu.  Sin was indebted for this primacy among the subordinate divinities to the preponderating influence which Uru exercised over Southern Chaldaea.  Mar, where Ramman was the chief deity, never emerged from its obscurity, and Larsam acquired supremacy only many centuries after its neighbour, and did not succeed in maintaining it for any length of time.  The god of the suzerain city necessarily took precedence of those of the vassal towns, and when once his superiority was admitted by the people, he was able to maintain his place in spite of all political revolutions.  Sin was called in Uru, “Uruki,” or “Nannar the glorious,” and his priests sometimes succeeded in identifying him with Anu.  “Lord, prince of the gods, who alone in heaven and earth is exalted,—­father Nannar, lord of the hosts of heaven, prince of the gods,—­father Nannar, lord, great Anu, prince of the gods,—­father Nannar, lord, moon-god, prince of the gods,—­father Nannar, lord of Uni, prince of the gods....—­Lord, thy deity fills the far-off heavens, like the vast sea, with reverential fear!  Master of the earth, thou who fixest there the boundaries [of the towns] and assignest to them their names,—­father, begetter of gods and men, who establishest for them dwellings and institutest for them that which is good, who proclaimest royalty and bestowest the exalted sceptre on those whose destiny was determined from distant times,—­chief, mighty, whose heart is great, god whom no one can name, whose limbs are steadfast, whose knees never bend, who preparest the paths of thy brothers the gods....—­In heaven,