UTU. Utu was the Sumerian god of the sun (he is identified with the Akkadian Shamash) and the city god of both Sippar and Larsa, where he had temples bearing the same name "shining house." Utu was the son of the moon god, Nanna, and therefore brother of Inanna and Ishkur. Hence he belongs to the fourth generation of gods after the supreme god An, and he represents the third cycle, coming after that of the annus sideralis—related to the sky vault of An—and that of the lunation of the moon god Nanna—who is the first divinity of light, a bridge between the "invisible" (New Moon) superior divinities, namely Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursaga, and the "illuminator" divinities, namely the sun, Venus, and lighting. The cycle attributed to Utu is the diurnal one, not the annual one, and it is this aspect that determines his functions...