In this way, new deities were apparently created even at an advanced stage of the Babylonian religion, but deities that differed totally from those that are characteristic of the earlier periods.

The differentiation of the arts, and the assignment of a patron to each branch, reflect the thoughts and the aspirations of a later age.
These views must have arisen under an impulse to artistic creation that was called forth by unusual circumstances, and I venture to think that this impulse is to be traced to the influence of the Assyrian rulers, whose greatest ambition, next to military glory, was to leave behind them artistic monuments of themselves that might unfold to later ages a tale of greatness and of power.

Sculpture and works in metal were two arts that flourished in a special degree in the days when Assyria was approaching the zenith of her glory.

Nabubaliddin's reign falls within this period; and we must, therefore, look from this time on for traces of Assyrian influence in the culture, the art, and also to some extent in the religious beliefs of the southern district of Mesopotamia.
FOOTNOTES: [196] The text is defective at the point where the god's name is mentioned.

See _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, p.133.King reads, Lugal-diri-tu-gab.
[197] _Kosmologie_, pp.