who is supreme?  As for thee, it is thou alone who art supreme!  As for thee, thy decree is made known in heaven, and the Igigi bow their faces!—­As for thee, thy decree is made known upon earth, and the spirits of the abyss kiss the dust!—­As for thee, thy decree blows above like the wind, and stall and pasture become fertile!—­As for thee, thy decree is accomplished upon earth below, and the grass and green things grow!—­As for thee, thy degree is seen in the cattle-folds and in the lairs of the wild beasts, and it multiplies living things!—­As for thee, thy decree has called into being equity and justice, and the peoples have promulgated thy law!—­As for thee, thy decree, neither in the far-off heaven, nor in the hidden depths of the earth, can any one recognize it!—­As for thee, thy decree, who can learn it, who can try conclusions with it?—­O Lord, mighty in heaven, sovereign upon earth, among the gods thy brothers, thou hast no rival.”  Outside Uru and Harran, Sin did not obtain this rank of creator and ruler of things; he was simply the moon-god, and was represented in human form, usually accompanied by a thin crescent, upon which he sometimes stands upright, sometimes appears with the bust only rising out of it, in royal costume and pose.

[Illustration:  169.jpg THE GOD SUN RECEIVES THE HOMAGE OF TWO WORSHIPPERS.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a heliogravure by Menant.

His mitre is so closely associated with him that it takes his place on the astrological tablets; the name he bears—­“agu”—­often indicates the moon regarded simply as a celestial body and without connotation of deity.  Babbar-Shamash, “the light of the gods, his fathers,” “the illustrious scion of Sin,” passed the night in the depths of the north, behind the polished metal walls which shut in the part of the firmament visible to human eyes.

[Illustration:  170.jpg SHAMASH SETS OUT, IN THE MORNING, FROM THE INTERIOR OF THE HEAVEN BY THE EASTERN GATE.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean intaglio of green
     jasper in the Louvre.  The original measures about 1 3/10
     inch in height.

As soon as the dawn had opened the gates for him, he rose in the east all aflame, his club in his hand, and he set forth on his headlong course over the chain of mountains which surrounds the world;* six hours later he had attained the limit of his journey towards the south, he then continued his journey to the west, gradually lessening his heat, and at length re-entered his accustomed resting-place by the western gate, there to remain until the succeeding morning.  He accomplished his journey round the earth in a chariot conducted by two charioteers, and drawn by two vigorous onagers, “whose legs never grew weary;” the flaming disk which was seen from earth was one of the wheels of his chariot.**