How old the worship of Tašmêtum, his consort, is, is doubtful, but her name first occurs in a date of the reign of Hammurabi. Details concerning her attributes are rare, and Jastrow regards this goddess as the result of Babylonian religious speculations. It is noteworthy that her worship appears more especially in later times, but it may be doubted whether it is a product of those late times, especially when we bear in mind the remarkable seal-impression on an early tablet of 3500-4500 B.C., belonging to Lord Amherst of Hackney, in which we see a male figure with wide-open mouth seizing a stag by his horns, and a female figure with no mouth at all, but with very prominent ears, holding a bull in a similar manner. Here we have the "teacher" and the "hearer" personified in a very remarkable manner, and it may well be that this primitive picture shows the idea then prevailing with regard to these two deities. It is to be noted that the name of Tašmêtum has a Sumerian equivalent, namely, /Kurnun/, and that the ideograph by which it is represented is one whose general meaning seems to be "to bind," perhaps with the additional signification of "to accomplish," in which case "she who hears" would also be "she who obeys." Šamaš and his consort. At all times the worship of the sun in Babylonia and Assyria was exceedingly popular, as, indeed, was to be expected from his importance as the greatest of the heavenly bodies and the brightest, without whose help men could not live, and it is an exceedingly noteworthy fact that this deity did not become, like Ra in Egypt, the head of the pantheon. This place was reserved for Merodach, also a sun-god, but possessing attributes of a far wider scope. Šamaš is mentioned as early as the reign of Ê-anna-tum, whose date is set at about 4200 B.C., and at this period his Semitic name does not, naturally, occur, the character used being /Utu/, or, in its longer form, /Utuki/.