Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

184 ASSYRIAN MYTHOLOGY.
god of the atmosphere (again accompanied by female powers or
. . . Next in order to them we find a group of fi mm
deities, the representatives of the five planets, Nin or Ninip
Merodach (Jupiter), Nergal (Mars), Ishtar (Venus), and Nebo
(Mercury). [The bracket indications are Rawlinson's.j . . . These
dncipal deities do not appear to have been connected like the
Egyptian and classical divinities into a single genealogical scheme "
(i. 141).
ft
In a note at p. 142 it is said, " These schemes themselves
were probably not genealogical at first . . . but
after a while given to separate and independent deities,
recognised in different places by distinct communities,
or even by distinct races " (vide Bunsen's " Egypt," iv.
66; English Tran.)
Now to this opinion I venture unreservedly to adhere,
and I connect it with the statement (id. i. 72), that
" Chaldsea in the earliest times to which we can go back,
seems to have been inhabited by four principal tribes.
The early kings are continually represented in the monuments
as sovereigns over the Kiprat-arbat, or ' Four
Races' (vide supra, p. 30). These ' Four Races' are
sometimes called the Arba Lisun or * Four Tongues,'
whence we may conclude that they were distinguished
from one another, among other differences, by a variety
in their forms of speech ... an examination of the
written remains has furnished reasons for believing that
the differences were great and marked; the languages,
in fact, belonging to the four great varieties of human
speech, the Hamitic, Semitic, Aryan, and Turanian."
Compare pp. 39, 40.
If it is allowed that there may have been mythological
systems corresponding to these divers nationalities, we
may fairly conclude that the deities above enumerated
may not necessarily have been different deities, but the
same deities viewed in different lights, or included in
duplicate in the way of incorporation, or in recognition