CHAPTER II—THE TEMPLES AND THE GODS OF CHALDÆA
 

THE CONSTRUCTION AND REVENUES OF THE TEMPLES—THE POPULAR GODS AND THE THEOLOGICAL TRIADS——THE DEAD AND HADES.

Chaldæan cities: the resemblance of their ruins to natural mounds caused by their exclusive use of brick as a building material—Their city walls: the temples and local gods; reconstruction of their history by means of the stamped bricks of which they were built—The two types of ziggurât: the arrangement of the temple of Nannar at Uru.

The tribes of the Chaldæan gods—Genii hostile to men, their monstrous shapes; the south-west wind; friendly genii—The Seven, and their attacks on the moon-god; Gibil, the fire-god, overcomes them and their snares—The Sumerian gods; Ningirsu: the difficulty of defining them and of understanding the nature of them; they become merged in the Semitic deities.

Characteristics and dispositions of the Chaldæan gods—the goddesses, like women of the harem, are practically nonentities; Mylitta and her meretricious rites—The divine aristocracy and its principal representatives: their relations to the earth, oracles, speaking statues, household gods—The gods of each city do not exclude those of neighbouring cities: their alliances and their borrowings from one another—The sky-gods and the earth-gods, the sidereal gods: the moon and the sun.

The feudal gods: several among them unite to govern the world; the two triads of Eridu—The supreme triad: Anu the heaven; Bel the earth and his fusion with the Babylonian Merodach; Ea, the god of the waters—The second triad: Sin the moon and Shamash the sun; substitution of Bamman for Ishtar in this triad; the winds and the legend of Adapa, the attributes of Ramman—The addition of goddesses to these two triads; the insignificant position which they occupy.

The assembly of the gods governs the world: the bird Zu steals the tablets of destiny—Destinies are written in the heavens and determined by the movements of the stars; comets and their presiding deities, Nebo and Ishtai—The numerical value of the gods—The arrangement of the temples, the local priesthood, festivals, revenues of the gods and gifts made to them—Sacrifices, the expiation of crimes—Death and t