In many, indeed in the majority of cases, the precise character of these functions still escapes us.

The material at our disposal is as yet inadequate for any satisfactory treatment of this phase of Babylonian belief, and we must content ourselves for the present with some generalizations, or at the most with some broad classifications.

Besides the texts themselves, we have proper names containing a spirit as an element, and also lists of those spirits prepared by the schoolmen on the basis of the texts.

When, as sometimes happens, these lists contain explanatory comments on the spirits enumerated, we are able to take some steps forward in our knowledge of the subject.
In the first place, then, it is important to bear in mind that the numerous spirits, when introduced into the religious and other texts, are almost invariably preceded by a sign--technically known as a determinative--which stamps them as divine.

This sign being the same as the one placed before the names of the gods, it is not always possible to distinguish between deities and spirits.