Note 102.4 — Chapter VI · The Deities as Nature-Powers.

The question we have just been considering, the physical character of the Babylonian deities in relation to their whole personality, suggests two last reflections. Their gods have a certain relation to the planets, which is preserved even in our modern astronomy. That the early Sumerians worshipped stars is probable,102.4 as the Sumerian sign for divinity is a star; but that the Sumerian-Babylonian high gods were personal forms of the planets, is denied by leading modern Assyriologists,103.1 except in the case of the sun and the moon, Shamash and Sin. It was only the Chaldaean astronomic theory that came to regard the various planets in their varying positions as special manifestations of the powers of the different personal gods; and the same planet might be a manifestation, according to its different positions, of different gods: the “star Jupiter at one point is Marduk, at another point Nebo”; this dogma is found on a seventh-century tablet, which declares at the same time that “Mercury” is Nebo.103.2 This planetary association of the deities is well illustrated by the memorial relief of Asarhaddon found at Sinjerli, and the relief of Maltaija, showing stars crowning their heads;103.3 but both these are later than the period with which we are here immediately concerned.