and the references contained in the historical and other documents. A
trilingual list of gods enables us also to recognise, in some cases,
the dialectic forms of their names.


The importance of the subject.

Of equal antiquity with the religion of Egypt, that of Babylonia and
Assyria possesses some marked differences as to its development.
Beginning among the non-Semitic Sumero-Akkadian population, it
maintained for a long time its uninterrupted development, affected
mainly by influences from within, namely, the homogeneous local cults
which acted and reacted upon each other. The religious systems of
other nations did not greatly affect the development of the early
non-Semitic religious system of Babylonia. A time at last came,
however, when the influence of the Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia
and Assyria was not to be gainsaid, and from that moment, the
development of their religion took another turn. In all probably this
augmentation of Semitic religious influence was due to the increased
numbers of the Semitic population, and at the same period the Sumero-
Akkadian language began to give way to the Semitic idiom which they
spoke. When at last the Semitic Babylonian language came to be used
for official documents, we find that, although the non-Semitic divine
names are in the main preserved, a certain number of them have been
displaced by the Semitic equivalent names, such as Samas for the
sun-god, with Kittu and Mesaru ("justice and righteousness") his
attendants; Nabu ("the teacher" = Nebo) with his consort Tasmetu ("the
hearer"); Addu, Adad, or Dadu, and Rammanu, Ramimu, or Ragimu = Hadad
or Rimmon ("the thunderer"); Bel and Beltu (Beltis = "the lord" and
"the lady" /par excellence/), with some others of inferior rank. In