Besides Babylonia and Assyria, he was also worshipped in other parts of the Semitic east, especially at Harran, to which city Abraham migrated, scholars say, in consequence of the patron-deity being the same as at Ur of the Chaldees, where he had passed the earlier years of his life.The Mountain of Sinai and the Desert of Sin, both bear his name.
According to king Dungi (about 2700 B.C.), the spouse of Sin or Nannara was Nin-Uruwa, "the lady of Ur." Sargon of Assyria (722-705B.C.) calls her Nin-gala.
Addu or Rammanu.
The numerous names which Hadad bears in the inscriptions, both non-Semitic and Semitic, testify to the popularity which this god enjoyed at all times in Babylonia.Among his non-Semitic names may be mentioned Mer, Mermer, Muru, all, it may be imagined, imitative.Addu is explained as being his name in the Amorite language, and a variant form, apparently, which has lost its first syllable, namely, Dadu, also appears--the Assyrians seem always to have used the terminationless form of Addu, namely, Adad.In all probability Addu, Adad, and Dadu are derived from the West Semitic Hadad, but the other name, Rammanu, is native Babylonian, and cognate with Rimmon, which is thus shown by the Babylonian form to mean "the thunderer," or something similar.He was the god of winds, storms, and rain, feared on account of the former, and worshipped, and his favour sought, on account of the last.In his name Birqu, he appears as the god of lightning, and Jastrow is of opinion, that he is sometimes associated on that account with ?ama?, both of them being (although in different degrees) gods of light, and this is confirmed by the fact that, in common with the sun-god, he was called "god of justice." In the Assyrian inscriptions he appears as a god of war, and the kings constantly compare the destruction which their armies had wrought with that of "Adad the inundator." For them he was "the mighty one, inundating the regions of the enemy, lands and houses," and was prayed to strike the land of the person who showed hostility to the Assyrian king, with evil-working lightning, to throw want, famine, drought, and corpses therein, to order that he should not live one day longer, and to destroy his name and his seed in the land.
The original seat of his worship was Muru in South Babylonia, to which the patesi of Girsu in the time of Ibi-Sin sent grain as an offering.
Its site is unknown.Other places (or are they other names of the same?) where he was worshipped were Ennigi and Kakru.The consort of Addu was ?ala, whose worship was likewise very popular, and to whom there were temples, not only in Babylonia and Assyria, but also in Elam, seemingly always in connection with Addu.
A??ur.
In all the deities treated of above, we see the chief gods of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, which were worshipped by both peoples extensively, none of them being specifically Assyrian, though worshipped by the Assyrians.There was one deity, however, whose name will not be found in the Babylonian lists of gods, namely, A??ur, the national god of Assyria, who was worshipped in the city of A??ur, the old capital of the country.
From this circumstance, it may be regarded as certain, that A??ur was the local god of the city whose name he bore, and that he attained to the position of chief god of the Assyrian pantheon in the same way as Merodach became king of the gods in Babylonia--namely, because A??ur was the capital of the country.His acceptance as chief divinity, however, was much more general than that of Merodach, as temples to him were to be found all over the Assyrian kingdom--a circumstance which was probably due to Assyria being more closely united in itself than Babylonia, causing his name to arouse patriotic feelings wherever it might be referred to.This was probably partly due to the fact, that the king in Assyria was more the representative of the god than in Babylonia, and that the god followed him on warlike expeditions, and when engaged in religious ceremonies--indeed, it is not by any means improbable that he was thought to follow him wherever he went.
