page_title: Anu
section_title: Worship
hierarchical_section_title: Anu / Worship
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Teil der Fassade des Inanna-Tempels des Kara-Indasch aus Uruk. Fassade des Kara-Indaschtempels in Uruk. English: Part the front of the Inanna temple of the Kara Indasch from Uruk. Français&#160;: Reliefs en briques cuites du temple de Kara-indash, milieu du XVe siècle, Pergamon Museum.
context_page_description: Anu or An is the divine personification of the sky, supreme god, and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. Anu was believed to be the supreme source of all authority, for the other gods and for all mortal rulers, and he is described in one text as the one "who contains the entire universe". He is identified with the north ecliptic pole centered in the constellation Draco and, along with his sons Enlil and Enki, constitutes the highest divine triad personifying the three bands of constellations of the vault of the sky. By the time of the earliest written records, Anu was rarely worshipped, and veneration was instead devoted to his son Enlil, but, throughout Mesopotamian history, the highest deity in the pantheon was always said to possess the anûtu, meaning "Heavenly power". Anu's primary role in myths is as the ancestor of the Anunnaki, the major deities of Sumerian religion. His primary cult center was the Eanna temple in the city of Uruk, but, by the Akkadian Period, his authority in Uruk had largely been ceded to the goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven.
context_section_description: In Mesopotamian religion, Anu was the personification of the sky, the utmost power, the supreme god, the one "who contains the entire universe". He was identified with the north ecliptic pole centered in Draco. His name meant the "One on High", and together with his sons Enlil and Enki (Ellil and Ea in Akkadian), he formed a triune conception of the divine, in which Anu represented a "transcendental" obscurity, Enlil the "transcendent" and Enki the "immanent" aspect of the divine. The three great gods and the three divisions of the heavens were Anu (the ancient god of the heavens), Enlil (son of Anu, god of the air and the forces of nature, and lord of the gods), and Ea (the beneficent god of earth and life, who dwelt in the abyssal waters). The Babylonians divided the sky into three parts named after them: The equator and most of the zodiac occupied the Way of Anu, the northern sky was the Way of Enlil, and the southern sky was the Way of Ea. The boundaries of each Way were at 17°N and 17°S. 
  Though Anu was the supreme god, he was rarely worshipped, and, by the time that written records began, the most important cult was devoted to his son Enlil. Anu's primary role in the Sumerian pantheon was as an ancestor figure; the most powerful and important deities in the Sumerian pantheon were believed to be the offspring of Anu and his consort Ki. These deities were known as the Anunnaki, which means "offspring of Anu". Although it is sometimes unclear which deities were considered members of the Anunnaki, the group probably included the "seven gods who decree": Anu, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.
  Anu's main cult center was the Eanna temple, whose name means "House of Heaven" (Sumerian: e₂-anna; Cuneiform: 𒂍𒀭 E₂.AN), in Uruk. Although the temple was originally dedicated to Anu, it was later transformed into the primary cult center of Inanna. After its dedication to Inanna, the temple seems to have housed priestesses of the goddess.
  Anu was believed to be source of all legitimate power; he was the one who bestowed the right to rule upon gods and kings alike. According to scholar Stephen Bertman, Anu "... was the supreme source of authority among the gods, and among men, upon whom he conferred kingship. As heaven's grand patriarch, he dispensed justice and controlled the laws known as the meh that governed the universe." In inscriptions commemorating his conquest of Sumer, Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire, proclaims Anu and Inanna as the sources of his authority. A hymn from the early second millennium BCE professes that "his utterance ruleth over the obedient company of the gods".
  Anu's original name in Sumerian is An, of which Anu is a Semiticized form. Anu was also identified with the Semitic god Ilu or El from early on. The functions of Anu and Enlil frequently overlapped, especially during later periods as the cult of Anu continued to wane and the cult of Enlil rose to greater prominence. In later times, Anu was fully superseded by Enlil. Eventually, Enlil was, in turn, superseded by Marduk, the national god of ancient Babylon. Nonetheless, references to Anu's power were preserved through archaic phrases used in reference to the ruler of the gods. The highest god in the pantheon was always said to possess the anûtu, which literally means "Heavenly power". In the Babylonian Enûma Eliš, the gods praise Marduk, shouting "Your word is Anu!"
  Although Anu was a very important deity, his nature was often ambiguous and ill-defined; he almost never appears in Mesopotamian artwork and has no known anthropomorphic iconography. During the Kassite Period (c. 1600—1155 BCE) and Neo-Assyrian Period (911—609 BCE), Anu was represented by a horned cap. The Amorite god Amurru was sometimes equated with Anu. Later, during the Seleucid Empire (213—63 BCE), Anu was identified with Enmešara and Dumuzid.
caption: Part of the front of a Babylonian temple to Ishtar in Uruk, built c. 1415 BCE, during the Kassite Period (c. 1600—1155 BCE).[5] The original Eanna temple in Uruk was first dedicated to Anu, but later dedicated to Inanna.[6]
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