[The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria by Morris Jastrow]@TWC D-Link bookThe Religion of Babylonia and Assyria CHAPTER IV 54/108
In the fully developed cosmology, Nana is the planet Venus, whose various aspects, as morning and evening star, suggested an analogy with the phases of the moon. Venus, like the moon, served as a guide to man, while her inferiority in size and importance to the former, would naturally come to be expressed under the picture of father and daughter.
In a certain sense, all the planets appearing at the same time and in the same region with the moon were the children of the latter.
Sin, therefore, is appropriately called the father of gods, just as Anu, the personification of the heaven itself, is the supreme father of Sin and Shamash, and of all the heavenly bodies.
The metaphorical application of 'father' as 'source,' throughout Oriental parlance, must be kept in mind in interpreting the relationship between the gods.
Still another name of the goddess is Anunit, which appears to have been peculiar to the North Babylonian city Agade, and emphasizes her descent from "Anu," the god of heaven.
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