Antropomorphic gods. The supernatural universe is populated with divine beings: gods and demons. They are portrayed in an antropomorphic way as superior humans, imaging the ruling class of society. They are, however, more powerful, freed from human miseries and mishaps and they live endless lifes. The Sumerian word for `god' is dingir, Akkadian ilu. The sign to represent this, is the same as AN `heaven', and also used as a determinative (classifier) attached to the name of the deity to indicate his/her divine nature. In transcription the sign is represented with a d from dingir in superscript, like dEnlil. It is not pronounced. Deities live in a temple, Sum. É, Akkadian bïtum, which is also the word for `house'. In the temple they are represented by a sculpture. Some deities have in addition a representation on the celestial sphere by a constellation or a star. Gods have human appearance, they have a body, they need food, want to be washed and dressed, want to travel, carry weapons etc. Each god has a well defined character, representing the scala of human characters. They may be ill-tempered, aggressive, cheerful, clever, just, ambitious, skillful, merciful and graceful, etc. Some are better disposed to mankind than others.

Male and female gods. A god is either male or female. The Sumerian language does not have gender as noun class, so sometimes the gender is unknown of some older deities, or may change according to tradition. Gods can have all kinds of attitudes associated with gender. Their behaviour reflects the patriarchal society. They have spouses (Akkadian aatum, `wife') and created offspring which in one tradition may be different from another, depending on which epic one reads. Often the family relationship are purposely altered to reflect a change in status of the god. A goddess may be a sister of a god in one tradition and be his spouse in another (later) tradition, it doesn't necessarily means that the god married his sister. Gods can have concubines, they can rape (even the supreme god Enlil raped the goddess who eventually became his wife Ninlil), they may seduce and sometimes dispose of their lovers in the most awful ways.

Epithets (< Gr. epithetos `supplemented'). In the texts divine names (and royal names) are often accompanied by an expression giving a quality, attribute or a significant appelation, called epithet. Compare e.g. from other era `Charles, the Bald', `Louis, the Sun King', `Achilles, the swift-footed', `Jezus Christ' (< Gr. christos `anointed'). A person may be referred to, using his epithet: `Sun King' in stead of Louis XVI or `Christ' in stead of Jezus. An epithet may thus become indistinguishable from an actual or original name. Names of many deities are used as epithet to other deities, thus adding the quality of the first to the latter. In the course of time they merge into one personality. It is often unknown whether a name used in an epithet originally referred to a separate deity. Another, kind of inverse process, in which a quality becomes personalized as a deity, is called hypothasis (< Gr. hupostasis, hupo `under'; litt.: `what stands under'). This is in religious studies the term used for personalization (substantization). Qualities, properties and concepts are personalized, represented as persons who speak and take actions. Some deities are seen as the hypothasis of one of the qualities of another god. Some personalizations are ad hoc, not generally accepted and only seen in a particular epic for a particular purpose.

Epithets form a fixed connection with the personal name. When the god Enlil is mentioned for the first time in a text, one writes e.g. `Enlil, Lord of heaven and earth' as his standard epithet, identifying him as the chief god. Deities have many epithets. The choice in a particular texts refers to the quality of the deity in relation to the subject of the text. E.g. ama is the Sun god, but in most texts his dominant quality is ama bël dïnim `lord of justice' (construct state of bëlum `lord'; genitive of dïnum `verdict', `judgment'). He is also (together with Adad) god of the divination (as Sun god he is all-seeing, and also sees the future). In that quality he has the epithet ama bël bïrim `Lord of divination' (construct state of bëlum `lord'; genitive of bïrum `divination').

Syncretism in general is the synthesis of cultural elements. In the religious sphere it results in the equation, identification or unification of deities in the different cultures. This happens in all cultures with polytheism. One is with respect to religion very tolerant and recognize one's own deitie in the pantheon of other nations. To mention a simple example: Jupiter (Lat. Iuppiter), the Roman supreme god (probably himself taken from the Etruskians) is by syncretism identified with the Greek supreme god Zeus (in fact, the Romans took almost the entire Greek pantheon and mythology, but used Roman names). The Greeks themselves interpreted whenever possible an Eastern deity with an existing Greek deity. This particular form of syncretism is called with a Latin term interpretatio graeca. E.g. the Greeks identified the Akkadian supreme god Anu with the Greek supreme god Zeus. In a similar way there is an interpretatio hurritica of the Hittite pantheon etc.

In the Sumero-Semitic syncretism of the third millennium the process of identification (unification) of deities had already taken place before the majority of records were written. Numerous God Lists exist of the type an = Anum. So we are not well informed about the exact difference between these deities. The largest number of gods, however, have Sumerian names. Often syncretism is the result of political changes. Originally each city has its own pantheon but when dominated by another city analogous gods unify into one. The strongest personality absorbs the weaker ones, at most keeping their names and epithets (see e.g. the goddess Inanna/Ishtar). In this way the number of gods decreased considerably in the course of time.

The chief deities Anum and Enlil. The organization of the divine world parallels the political organization of the society. There is a hierarchy, on top of which are Anum, god of Heaven (Sumerian an) and Enlil (Lord Atmosphere, god of the Sky). Anum and Enlil are both supreme gods, king of heaven and earth. In the divine world Kingship is shared, as appears both in pictures (on kudurru's, boundary stones mid 2nd millennium) and in the texts. In tables of deities Anum and Enlil are listed first in hierarchy, followed by Enki (Akkadian Ea), some name of the mother goddess and three astral gods Sîn (Moon), Shamash (Sun) and the goddess Ishtar (Venus). In pictures Anum and Enlil carry 10 pair of horns, the same emblem for both of them, showing their equal (high) rank. In some texts (like in the prologue of the Codex Hammurabi) there appears a division of tasks, where Anum is `King of the gods' and Enlil is `Lord of heaven and earth'.

Assembly of the gods. The gods take their decisions in an assembly
d Anunnaki is a collective name for the gods of heaven and earth, and in other contexts only for the gods of the Netherworld, the empire of the death (in particular beginning in the second half of the second millennium). It is a loan word (plural only) from Sumerian a.nun.(n)a(k) `semen/descendants of the (-ak) monarch (nun) and refers to the offspring of the King of Heaven An/Anum. The gods together are called Anunnaki and in the text one might specifically add d Anunnaki a amê u erSetim, `the Anunnaki of heaven and earth'.

Sometimes a differentiation is made in the indication of the totality of the gods, the d Igigi and the d Anunnaki. The Igigi in that case are the gods of heaven, while the Anunnaki refer to the gods of the Netherword, the empire of the death.

d Igigi is a term with unknown origin and meaning. It ended up by indicating in some instances the entirety of the gods, and sometimes more commonly those that occupied heaven. The use of the word may be interchanged with `Anunnaki' with literary freedom. In the Creation Epic (Ee IV-20) Marduk has a question to the Anunnaki, while the Igigi answer him (Ee IV-27:) ïpulüuma d Igigi ilü rabûtu `the Igigi, the great gods, answered him'

Igigi and Anunnaki in the Atrahasîs-epic. The epic of Atrahasîs (Poem of the Supersage) is a long epic, probably composed around 1700 BCE, which deserves more attention than given here. In this epic heavenly society is divided into two classes. The labour on the fields was carried out by gods of second rank, the Igigi, on behalf of the more important gods, the leaders, called the Anunnaki. The story starts with a revolt by the Igigi. They bang the door and went on strike, protesting before their chief employer Enlil. No work on the fields eventually means famine, so the gods panic and convene a general assembly, this time presided by the chief Anu himself. The solution proposed by the intelligent Ea is to create mankind who would have as prime duty to work on the fields, to fulfill the role of servants towards the gods. Men feed, cloth and shelter the gods and thus replace the labour done previously by the Igigi, and this is why men has to work so hard...... Their sole purpose is to be devoted to the gods. It is possible that the Igigi represent the younger gods of the Akkadians and the Anunnaki the older Sumerian gods. Between the lines of the Epic one could read a struggle for equal rights, possibly reflecting such a struggle between the Sumerians and the Akkadians. Other theories (e.g. due to von Soden) deny the resulting settlement and agreement between the gods. It is said that in fact the Igigi seized power over the Anunnaki. They, the Igigi, gods of the heaven, become at the top and are the consulting gods in the assembly, eventually dominated by four or seven `Great Gods'. In this theory the Igigi dislodge the Anunnaki to the Netherworld.