imported beliefs and religious customs must have been fused and
absorbed according to their bearing on modes of life in various
localities. It is probable that the complex character of certain
deities was due to the process of adjustment to which they were
subjected in new environments.

The petty kingdoms of Sumeria appear to have been tribal in origin.
Each city was presided over by a deity who was the nominal owner of
the surrounding arable land, farms were rented or purchased from the
priesthood, and pasture was held in common. As in Egypt, where we
find, for instance, the artisan god Ptah supreme at Memphis, the sun
god Ra at Heliopolis, and the cat goddess Bast at Bubastis, the
various local Sumerian and Akkadian deities had distinctive
characteristics, and similarly showed a tendency to absorb the
attributes of their rivals. The chief deity of a state was the central
figure in a pantheon, which had its political aspect and influenced
the growth of local theology. Cities, however, did not, as a rule,
bear the names of deities, which suggests that several were founded
when Sumerian religion was in its early animistic stages, and gods and
goddesses were not sharply defined from the various spirit groups.

A distinctive and characteristic Sumerian god was Ea, who was supreme
at the ancient sea-deserted port of Eridu. He is identified with the
Oannes of Berosus,[31] who referred to the deity as "a creature
endowed with reason, with a body like that of a fish, with feet below
like those of a man, with a fish's tail". This description recalls the
familiar figures of Egyptian gods and priests attired in the skins of
the sacred animals from whom their powers were derived, and the fairy
lore about swan maids and men, and the seals and other animals who
could divest themselves of their "skin coverings" and appear in human