ancestors, out of whose dust or clay they were formed, and who still
nourishes and preserves him.
Jastrow proceeds to state that "Anu was originally the personification
of some definite power of nature, and everything points to this power
having been the sun in the heavens. Starting from this point of view
we quite understand how the great illuminer of heaven should have been
identified with the heavens in an artificially devised theological
system, just as En-lil became in this system the designation of the
earth and of the region above the earth viewed as a whole."[7] The very
fact that in the earliest times Anu was identified with the expanse of
the sky itself, and that the symbol used to denote him meant 'heaven,'
is against this supposition. Again, the theory suffers from lack of
analogy. In what other mythology is there to be found a sky-god who
at one time possessed a solar significance? The converse might be the
case. Some sky-gods have attained the solar connexion because of their
rule over the entire expanse of the heavens, just as they have attained
the power of wielding lightning and the wind. But we are at a loss to
recall any deity originally of distinctive solar attributes who later
took the position of a sky-god.
Anu was regarded as head of the triad and the father of En-lil. We are
told that the goddess Aruru first shaped man in the image of Anu, who
must thus have attained an anthropomorphic condition. He appears also
to have been regarded as the conqueror of primeval chaos. His consort
was Anatu, probably a later feminine form of himself.
Ishtar
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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