Note 628 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
When in a compound name the name of a god stands first, the determinative may refer simply to the god; it is evidence for the man only when it stands immediately before the nondivine element of the royal name. The inscriptions are given in Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, III, i; Thureau-Dangin, Sumerisch-Akkadische Königsinschriften. In the Code of Hammurabi (ca. 2000 B.C.) the king in one place (col. 5, ll. 4, 5) calls himself "the Shamash of Babylon," but this is of course a figure of speech; the code is given him by Shamash, the god of justice, and he assumes to be no less just than the god whom he here represents.