SHAMASH, THE RISING SUN. 95 
Abu-habba, where we see two small figures above, guiding the disk of the sun as it 
rests on the platform before the seated god (fig. 310), and where we also appear to 
see him in his night journey passing through the waters of the ocean that under- 
lies the earth. It may be that the two porters represent Tammuz and Ningish- 
zida, who were represented as guardians of the gate of heaven (Sayce, “ Religion,’’ 
p. 460, Jastrow, “Religion,” p. 546), as told in the Adapa legend. Yet it is not 
clear that the gate of heaven could be identified with the gate of the morning, and 
every gate needs its own porters. After passing through the gates of the morning 
he makes his appearance on the mountains. Sometimes he was conceived as 
resting his hands on the two mountains between which he stands, and pushing 
himself up with his arms; but more frequently as with his foot high lifted and 
stepping stoutly up over the mountains. ‘This gave him opportunity to carry his 
peculiar and mighty weapon, the sword, or scimitar, set thick with flakes of flint, 
and sometimes also the less distinctive war-club. He rose like a mighty man, ready 
for battle against the enemies of the day. All this represents a very primitive and 
poetical product of an imaginative Sumerian race, who, in an animistic stage of 
culture, saw life to be placated or worshiped, in the movements of all inanimate 
things, and found nothing so well worth worship as the sun, or so full of vigor 
and life. 
The relation of Shamash to the Persian Mithra, who later became identical 
with the sun, is suggested by such a passage in the Yasts as we see in “ Sacred 
Books of the East, Zend-Avesta,” 11, p. 122. 
Who first of the heavenly gods reaches over Mount Alborz, before the undying swift-horsed sun ; 
who foremost in a golden array takes hold of the beautiful summits, and from thence looks over the abode 
of the Aryans with a beneficial eye. 
This is the precise picture of Shamash with his two hands on the mountains. The 
serrated weapon of Shamash is suggested again in the description of the weapon 
of Mithra, 7b., pp. 146, 156: 
Swinging in his hand a club with a hundred knots, a hundred edges, that rushes forward and fells 
men down, etc. 
