THE BABYLONIAN EXPEDITION

FROM THE TEMPLE ARCHIVES OF NIIJl'UR. 19
bi;[ti-ka] ic. a-nu pa-ha-t[i-ka] luQ shul-mu, i.e., "to thee, thy house, and to thy pahict
greeting." In many cases there is coupled with this greeting an invocation to the
gods of the writer's city in the form of a prayer for the well-being and protect,ion of
the addressee. These invocations are of the highest importance, both for determining
the exact domicile of the writer and for a correct understanding of the
religion of the Babylonians. To illustrate &his by one example I may be permitted
to quote the "invocation" of No. 89 in extenso, gathering from it the facts that (1)
Pkn-AN.GAL-lu-mur (i.e., "May I see the face of AN.GALH), the writer, was a
resident of Ddr-iluki,' whose gods he invokes, and that (2) the "divine court" of
Dar-iluki was formed after the pattern of the Nippurian court, as such consisting
of Father (AN.GAL), Son (TAR), and Mother (NIN.LIL)-three persons, though
distinct, yet one: a veritable Trinity in a Unity.' It reads (89 : 4f.) :
4 AN.GAL" i " ~ i l ~ " ic. ~ ~ . AN.GAL ~
and ~ NIN.LIL, ~ TAR and GU,
GuG U
' Sec also 89 : 24, 26.
=Cf. l'he Monist, XVII (January, 1907), p. 148, and Old Penn, V, Nu. 21 (February 16, 1907), p. 3, eol. 111.
"lint the divinity AN.GAL cannot he here = ""Ai (11 R. 57, 13a), the wife of i " ~ (= Enlil, ~ Sin, ~ ~ . ~ ~
Rarnmhn, Shamash, Marduk), a female, but must bc a. male, is apparont irom his being cuuplcd with i l u ~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~ .
AN.G.4L tL ilu'NIN.L~L are male and ielnale, husband and wifo. A nlale AN.GAll as gud of DQr-iluki occurs also in
Jensen, I