The god who was worshipped as the personification of the sun _par excellence_ and the sun as a whole, was Shamash.
Written with an ideograph that describes him as the 'god of the day,' there is no deity whose worship enjoys an equally continued popularity in Babylonia and Assyria.

Beginning at the earliest period of Babylonian history, and reaching to the latest, his worship suffers no interruption.

Shamash, moreover, maintains his original character with scarcely any modification throughout this long period.

For all that, he bears a name which signifies 'attendant' or 'servitor,' and which sufficiently shows the subsidiary position that he occupied in the Babylonian pantheon.

One of the rulers belonging to the dynasty of Isin calls the sun-god, the offspring of Nannar,--one of the names of the moon-god,--and the last king of Babylonia, Nabonnedos, does the same.