Anu (Akkadian: 𒀭𒀀𒉡 ANU, from 𒀭 an "Sky", "Heaven") or Anum, originally An (Sumerian: 𒀭 An),[10] was the divine personification of the sky, king of the gods, and ancestor of many of the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. He was regarded as a source of both divine and human kingship, and opens the enumerations of deities in many Mesopotamian texts. At the same time, his role was largely passive, and he was not commonly worshipped. It is sometimes proposed that the Eanna temple located in Uruk originally belonged to him, rather than Inanna. While he is well attested as one of its divine inhabitants, there is no evidence that the main deity of the temple ever changed; Inanna was already associated with it in the earliest sources. After it declined, a new theological system developed in the same city under Seleucid rule, resulting in Anu being redefined as an active deity. As a result he was actively worshipped by inhabitants of the city in the final centuries of the history of ancient Mesopotamia. Multiple traditions regarding the identity of Anu's spouse existed, though three of them—Ki, Urash, and Antu—were at various points in time equated with each other, and all three represented earth, similar to how he represented heaven. In a fourth tradition, more sparsely attested, his wife was the goddess Nammu instead. In addition to listing his spouses and children, god lists also often enumerated his various ancestors, such as Anshar or Alala. A variant of one such family tree formed the basis of the Enūma Eliš. Anu briefly appears in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, in which his daughter Ishtar (the Akkadian counterpart of Inanna) persuades him to give her the Bull of Heaven so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh. The incident results in the death of the Bull of Heaven and a leg being thrown at Ishtar's head. In another myth, Anu summons the mortal hero Adapa before him for breaking the wing of the south wind. Anu orders for Adapa to be given the food and water of immortality, which Adapa refuses, having been warned beforehand by Enki that Anu will offer him the food and water of death. In the Hurrian myths about Kumarbi, known chiefly from their Hittite translations, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by Kumarbi, who bit off his genitals and gave birth to the weather god Teshub. It is possible that this narrative was later the inspiration for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod's Theogony. It has also been proposed that in the Hellenistic period Anu might have been identified with Zeus, though this remains uncertain. Anu was a divine representation of the sky,[11] as indicated by his name, which simply means "sky" in Sumerian.[12] In Akkadian, it was spelled as Anu, and was written either logographically (dAN) or syllabically (da-nu(m)).[10] In Sumerian texts, unlike the names of other deities, his was never prefaced by the dingir sign, referred to as the "divine determinative" in modern literature, since it would result in unnecessary repetition, as the same sign was also read as an.[13] In addition to referring to sky and heaven and to Anu, the same sign could also be read as dingir or ilu, the generic term "god" in, respectively, Sumerian and Akkadian.[10] As the number 60 was associated with him,[14] the corresponding numeral could represent his name,[10] and in esoteric texts by extension also the other readings of the sign DINGIR.[15] Anu was regarded as the supreme god,[10][16] and the major god lists, such as An = Anum, place him on top of the pantheon.[9] He could be described as the king of the gods,[17] and was believed to be the source of all legitimate power, who bestowed the right to rule upon gods and kings alike.[16][10] The highest god in the pantheon was said to possess the anûtu or anuti (da-nu-ti), which means "heavenly power"[10] or more literally Anuship.[18] In the Babylonian Enûma Eliš, the gods praise Marduk, shouting "Your word is Anu!"[10] Although Anu was a very important deity, his nature was often ambiguous and ill-defined.[16] The number of myths focusing on him is small[19] and he was only rarely actively worshiped.[20] His position has therefore been described as that of a "figurehead" and "otiose deity" by Assyriologist Paul-Alain Beaulieu.[21] Wilfred G. Lambert characterized his position as head of the pantheon as "always somewhat nominal" and noted that "Enlil in practice wielded greater power" according to the Mesopotamians.[22] Beaulieu similarly states that functionally the active head god was Enlil and later Marduk in Babylonia and Ashur in Assyria, not Anu.[23] Evidence from Lagash indicates that at least in the Early Dynastic period, during the reign of Eannatum and Entemena, it was Enlil, rather than Anu, who was the head of the pantheon of this city, though later offering lists provide evidence on the contrary, possibly indicating a change occurred during the reign of either the Sargonic dynasty or Gudea.[24] Xianhua Wang points out that in the Early Dynastic period, the rulers who mention Anu in the inscriptions and refer to him as lugal kur-kur, "king of the lands," seem to be connected with either Ur or Uruk, while elsewhere the same epithet designates Enlil instead.[25] A text known from copies from Shuruppak and Ebla only refers to Anu as the divine "king of Uruk."[26] In later inscriptions from the period of the Old Babylonian Empire, Enlil could be mentioned both alongside Anu or on his own as the head of the pantheon.[27] A trinity consisting of both of them and Ea is also attested.[28] Only in Uruk in the final centuries of the first millennium BCE a change occurred, and Anu was reinvented by theologians as an active god.[23] Astral role edit In Mesopotamian astronomy, the sky was divided into three zones, with the stars closest to the pole belonging to Enlil and those close to the equator to Ea.[28] The stars located between these two zones were the domain of Anu.[28] All three were referred to as the "Ways" of the respective deities.[29] Astronomer John G. Rogers assumes that the boundaries of each Way were at 17°N and 17°S.[30] The division is best attested in the astronomical treatise MUL.APIN.[28] The date of its composition is unknown, though it is known that it is more recent than the Old Babylonian period, and the oldest reference to the tripartite division of the sky comes from a document from the thirteenth century BCE, a version of the so-called Prayer to the Gods of the Night, whose oldest copies do not mention this concept yet.[28] In Seleucid Uruk, Anu's astral role was extended further, and in a text composed in year 71 of the Seleucid era (216/215 BCE) he is described as responsible for the entire firmament.[31] Furthermore, two circumpolar stars started to be called the "Great Anu and Antu of Heaven," and received offerings as if they were deities.[31] They typically appear alongside the other seven major celestial bodies which were known to Mesopotamian astronomers in the late first millennium BCE: the sun, the moon, and the planets Nebēru (Jupiter), Dilbat (Venus), Šiḫṭu (Mercury), Kayamānu (Saturn), and Ṣalbatānu (Mars).[32] Iconography edit Anu almost never appears in Mesopotamian artwork and has no known recognizable anthropomorphic iconography.[16] References to him holding typical symbols of divine kingship, such as a scepter and a ring-shaped object, are known from textual sources.[33] A text from the Kassite period explains that Anu's symbol was a horned crown on a pedestal.[34] It is attested on some kudurru (boundary stones),[34] where it is typically present in the upper half of the decoration, below the symbols of Ishtar, Shamash and Sin, who were depicted on the very top of such monuments due to representing celestial bodies.[35] Anu was also depicted in the form of a horned crown in Neo-Assyrian reliefs.[36] According to Andrew R. George, references to the "seat" of a deity known from various topographical texts from both Babylonia and Assyria likely also refer to a representation in the form of an emblem placed on a pedestal.[37] It has been pointed out that Anu's symbolic depictions were identical to Enlil's.[38] A similar symbol could also represent Assur in the Neo-Assyrian period.[36] All three of these gods could be depicted in this form in the same reliefs.[36]

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