Anu:
The god of the sky, from whence the sun shines and the rain falls. Lord of all, fountainhead of order in both the natural and supernatural worlds. The stars are his warriors, the Milky Way his personal highway. Anu dwells exclusively
Apsu:
The Abyss. The waters upon which the earth floats. When the gods were first created, their noise disturbed Apsu, who complained to his mother, the great dragon Tiamat. Tiamat made war on the gods and was slain by Marduk.
Anshar:
Father of Anu and all the other gods. His consort is his sister, Kishu. Anshar is the male principle and Kishu is the female principle. Anshar is the sky and Kishu is the earth. Anshar led the gods in the war against Tiamat.
Ea / Enki:
God of water, supreme god of magic and wisdom, patron of the arts. An oracle. Ea is the god of fresh water. Ea is portrayed as a goat with a fish's tail or a human with water flowing from his shoulders. He mated with Ninhursag ("Lady Mountain") and created the plants and gave men agriculture.
Enlil:
The god of earth and wind. The master of men's fates. The god who dries up the flood waters after the Tigris and Euphrates have overflowed their banks; who brings rain; who fills the sails of ships and boats, who fertilizes the palm blossoms. The god who struggles against the suffering of the world. Enlil's power moves all; he is the active principle which drives the earth.
Ereshkigal:
Goddess of the underworld, consort of Nergal. Some consider her a dark side or aspect of Ishtar. When Ishtar descended into he underworld to save Tammuz, Ereshkigal tricked her into leaving some part of her clothing at each of the underworld's seven gates as she passed thru them. Standing naked at the seventh gate, Ishtar threw herself on Ereshkigal; but like Samson shorn of his hair, she was powerless. Ereshkigal confined Ishtar until the wily Ea contrived her release with a trick.
Gilgamesh:
A hero-god, two parts divine and one part human. The story of his adventures survives in an epic poem on 12 tablets dating back to Akkadia in the middle of the second millennium B.C. Gilgamesh fought and tamed the wild man Enkiddu. Despite the warnings of the priests and ill omens from the sun god, Gilgamesh and Enkiddu set out upon a quest. Enkiddu's death incited Gilgamesh to seek immortality, and after many adventures he found Utnapishtim who survived the Great Flood and with his wife was granted eternal life by the gods. Utnapishtim convinced Gilgamesh of the futility of immortality.
Ishtar:
(Sumerian-Inanna) - The greatest of all the mother goddesses of the Mesopotamians. Goddess of fertility, sex, the moon and war. Lad of heaven , sorrow and battles. The great lover and mother. The hero-god Gilgamesh spurned her, ensuring his death. Venus is her star and the lion is her animal. Ishtar's love is all consuming and even deadly. The Christians turned her into a demon and she is mentioned as such in Milton's Paradise Lost.
Kingu:
Tiamat's general in the war against the gods. Keeper of the tablets of destiny, which hold the divine plan for all the cosmos. Ninhursag used Kingu's blood to make the first man, and from this comes the demonic, rebellious aspect of human nature.
Marduk:
The great god of Babylon, King of Kings, Guardian of he Law, the Great Sorcerer, the Great Healer, Slayer of Tiamat. Marduk is Order fighting against Chaos, the conflict from which all Creation emerges. Defeating Tiamat, Marduk brought order and life to the world. When the tablets of destiny were seized from Kingu, Marduk fastened them to his own breast, and so brought control of the earth under the divine authority of the gods. The stele of Hammurabi shows Marduk on his throne with a horned headdress, giving Hammurabi his scepter and ring. The Amorites saw Marduk as a god of spring, sunlight, herbs and tress.
Nebo / Nabu:
God of writing and speech, speaker for the gods. Nebo maintains records of men's deeds and produces them for judgment after their death. His symbol is the stylus.
Nergal:
God of the underworld, mass destruction and plague. Consort of Ereshkigal. Thrown out of heaven, he stormed the underworld with forty demons until Ereshkigal consented to marry him.
Ninhursag:
Also Maat "Lady Mountain". An earth mother. She molded the first man out of clay and brought him to life with the blood of Kingu.
Shamash:
The sun. Son of the moon god Sin, brother and husband to Ishtar. the great god of justice. In Sumer, a god of divination. The enemy of darkness and all the evil darkness brings. Every morning, scorpion-men throw open the gates of his great palace, and Shamash mounts his chariot. He then crosses the sky from one horizon the other, casting his rays upon the earth like a net, seeing all the evils and wrongs of the world. Entering the earth on the eastern horizon, Shamash travels through the underworld back to his palace. Shamash requires justice of earthly kings and champions their subjects, especially the poor.
Sin:
The moon god. Wise and secretive, the enemy of all evil spirits. An old man with a long beard who flies through the sky in his sailboat every night.
Tammuz / Dumuzi:
God of the harvest. The god who dies and rises again. The love of Istar killed him, and Ishtar fought Ereshkigal in the underworld to bring him back.
Tiamat:
Leviathan to the Agnostics. Goddess of the primeval depths, the chaos from which Marduk formed the world. She took the form of a dragon and swam in the primal waters. Tiamat warred on the gods, spawning a brood of dragons, sphinxes, scorpion - men and other demons and monsters for her army. Splitting her in two, Marduk cast one half of her into the sky to form the heavens and the other he cast down to form the earth.
