Whether /Ênu-rêštu/ be a translation of /Nirig/ or not, is uncertain, but not improbable, the meaning being "primeval lord," or something similar, and "lord" that of the first element, /ni/, in the Sumerian form. In support of this reading and rendering may be quoted the fact, that one of the descriptions of this divinity is /ašsarid îlani âhê-šu/, "the eldest of the gods his brothers." It is noteworthy that this deity was a special favourite among the Assyrians, many of whose kings, to say nothing of private persons, bore his name as a component part of theirs. In the bilingual poem entitled /Ana-kime gimma/ ("Formed like Anu"), he is described as being the son of Bel (hence his appearance after Bel in the list printed above), and in the likeness of Anu, for which reason, perhaps, his divinity is called "Anuship." Beginning with words praising him, it seems to refer to his attitude towards the gods of hostile lands, against whom, apparently, he rode in a chariot of the sacred lapis-lazuli. Anu having endowed him with terrible glory, the gods of the earth feared to attack him, and his onrush was as that of a storm-flood. By the command of Bel, his course was directed towards Ê-kur, the temple of Bel at Niffur. Here he was met by Nusku, the supreme messenger of Bel, who, with words of respect and of praise, asks him not to disturb the god Bel, his father, in his seat, nor make the gods of the earth tremble in Upšukennaku (the heavenly festival-hall of the gods), and offers him a gift.[2] It will thus be seen that Ênu-rêštu was a rival to the older Bel, whose temple was the great tower in stages called Ê-kura, in which, in all probability, Ê-šu-me-du, the shrine of Ênu-rêštu, was likewise situated. The inscriptions call him "god of war," though, unlike Nergal, he was not at the same time god of disease and pestilence. To all appearance he was the god of the various kinds of stones, of which another legend states that he "determined their fate." He was "the hero, whose net overthrows the enemy, who summons his army to plunder the hostile land, the royal son who caused his father to bow down to him from afar." "The son who sat not with the nurse, and eschewed(?) the strength of milk," "the offspring who did not know his father." "He rode over the mountains and scattered seed--unanimously the plants proclaimed his name to their dominion, among them like a great wild bull he raises his horns." [1] /Ênu-rêštu/ is the reading which I have adopted as the Semitic Babylonian equivalent of the name of this divinity, in consequence of the Aramaic transcription given by certain contract-tablets discovered by the American expedition to Niffer, and published by Prof. Clay of Philadelphia. [2] The result of this request is not known, in consequence of the defective state of the tablets.