In consequence of this inferior role played by the female deities, the tendency becomes more pronounced, as we pass from the first to the second period of Babylonian history, to reduce by assimilation the small number that have independent attributes, until we reach a condition in which we have practically only one goddess, appearing under many forms.

It is only in the religious texts, and in some phases of the popular beliefs, that goddesses retain a certain degree of prominence.

So, a goddess Allat, as we shall see, plays an important part as the chief goddess of the subterranean cave that houses the dead.

Allat appears to have been originally a consort of the famous Bel of Nippur, but through association with Nergal, who becomes the chief god of the lower world, almost all traces of the original character of the goddess disappear.

Again, Gula, the consort of Nin-ib, while occasionally mentioned in the historical texts of the second and third period, and under the form Ma-ma, as an element in a proper name belonging to the oldest period,[109] is more frequently invoked in incantations as the healer of disease.