Ancient Babylonia - The Babylonian Pantheon of Gods

The Babylonians had many gods. Some of these were Sumerian, some Akkadian and other later groups and some imported from the mountainous regions to the north and east of Mesopotamia. These gods reflected the various needs and fears of the different peoples. The Sumerians would have had city gods and gods of the harvest. The desert nomads who invaded Mesopotamia at various times would have had water gods and sand gods. The people of the high mountains may have had gods of thunder and lighting. Obviously some gods would have had importance to the city-dwellers of Babylon as well as desert nomads and the inhabitants. These would have been amalgamated into the existing pantheon either as a completely new god or, much more often, be joined into an existing god. Often when this happened the combined god continued under the name of the new people arriving in Mesopotamia. Because of this the Babylonians had a great many gods. Of these not many would be important and only a few would be city gods.

See also Religion of the Ancient Near East

List of some of the more important Babylonian gods Anu: the god of the highest heaven
Marduk: national god of the Babylonians
Tiamat: dragon goddess
Kingu: husband of Tiamat
Enlil: god of weather and storms
Nabu: god of the scribal arts
Ishtar: goddess of love
Ea: god of wisdom
Enurta: god of war
Anshar: father of heaven
Shamash: god of the sun and of justice
Ashur: national god of the Assyrians
Kishar: father of earth