The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

Among the various deities to whom Gudea gives praise for the position and glory which he attains is Gal-alim.[79] From him he has received great rule and a lofty sceptre. The phrase is of a very general nature and reveals nothing as to the special character of the god in question. An earlier king, Uru-kagina, refers to the temple of the god at Lagash. Gal-alim may have been again a merely local deity belonging to one of the towns that fell under Gudea's rule, and whose attributes again were so little marked that this god too disappeared under the overshadowing importance of Nin-girsu. He and another god, Dun-shagga, are viewed as the sons of Nin-girsu.

Coming to some of the deities that we may designate as minor, it is to be noted that in the case of certain ones, at least, it will be found that they may be identified with others more prominent, and that what seem to be distinct names are in reality descriptive epithets of gods already met with. This remark applies more particularly to such names as begin with the element Nin, signifying either 'lord' or 'lady,' and which, when followed by the name of a place, always points to its being a title, and, when followed by an ideographic compound, only diminishes that probability to a slight degree. We have already come across several instances; thus Nin-girsu, the lord of Girsu, has been shown to be a form of Ninib, itself an ideogram, the reading of which, it will be recalled, is still uncertain; and again, Nin-khar-sag has been referred to, as one of the titles of the great goddess Belit. Similarly, Nin-gish-zida, whose name signifies 'the lord of the right-hand (or propitious) sceptre,' becomes a title and not a name, and when Gudea speaks of this god as the one who leads him to battle, and calls him 'king,' he is simply describing the same god who is elsewhere spoken of as Nin-girsu. By the side of Nin-girsu and Nin-gish-zida appears Nin-shakh, who, as Oppert[80] has shown, is like Nin-girsu the prototype of the well-known god of war, Ninib.

However, Nin-shakh occupies, in contradistinction to Nin-gish-zida and others, a position in the old Babylonian pantheon of an independent character, so that it is hardly justifiable, in such a case, to identify him completely with Ninib, and place the name on a par with the epithets just referred to. The dividing line between the mere title and an independent god thus becomes at times very faint, and yet it is well to maintain it whenever called for. In the following enumeration of the minor gods of the old Babylonian pantheon, the attempt will be made to bring out this distinction in each instance.