[Illustration: 169.jpg THE GOD SUN RECEIVES THE HOMAGE OF TWO WORSHIPPERS.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a heliogravure by Menant.
His mitre is so closely associated with him that it takes his place on the astrological tablets; the name he bears--"agu"--often indicates the moon regarded simply as a celestial body and without connotation of deity. Babbar-Shamash, "the light of the gods, his fathers," "the illustrious scion of Sin," passed the night in the depths of the north, behind the polished metal walls which shut in the part of the firmament visible to human eyes.
[Illustration: 170.jpg SHAMASH SETS OUT, IN THE MORNING, FROM THE INTERIOR OF THE HEAVEN BY THE EASTERN GATE.]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldæan intaglio of green jasper in the Louvre. The original measures about 1 3/10 inch in height.
As soon as the dawn had opened the gates for him, he rose in the east all aflame, his club in his hand, and he set forth on his headlong course over the chain of mountains which surrounds the world;* six hours later he had attained the limit of his journey towards the south, he then continued his journey to the west, gradually lessening his heat, and at length re-entered his accustomed resting-place by the western gate, there to remain until the succeeding morning. He accomplished his journey round the earth in a chariot conducted by two charioteers, and drawn by two vigorous onagers, "whose legs never grew weary;" the flaming disk which was seen from earth was one of the wheels of his chariot.
*** His course along the embankment which runs round the celestial vault was the origin of the title, _Line of Union between Heaven and Earth_; he moved, in fact, where the heavens and the earth come into contact, and appeared to weld them into one by the circle of fire which he described. Another expression of this idea occurs in the preamble of Nergal and Ninib, who were called "the separators"; the course of the sun might, in fact, be regarded as separating, as well as uniting, the two parts of the universe.
** The disk has sometimes four, sometimes eight rays inscribed on it, indicating wheels with four or eight spokes respectively. Rawlinson supposed "that these two figures indicate a distinction between the male and female power of the deity, the disk with four rays symbolizing Shamash, the orb with eight rays being the emblem of Ai, Gula, or Anunit."