The ruler of the district that claimed a supremacy over one that formerly occupied an independent position, would hasten to emphasize this control by proudly claiming the patron deity as part of his pantheon.

The popularity of Sin at Ur suffered no diminution because the supremacy of Ur yielded to that of Uruk.

On the contrary, the god gained new friends who strove to rival the old ones in manifestations of reverence; and when, as happened in several instances, the patron deities were personifications of natural phenomena, whose worship through various circumstances became associated with particular localities, there was an additional reason for the survival, and, indeed, growing importance of such local cults, quite independent of the political fortunes that befell the cities in which the gods were supposed to dwell.
As a consequence, there are a considerable number of deities who are met with both at the beginning and at the end of the first period of Babylonian history--a period, be it remembered, that, so far as known, already covers a distance of 2,000 years.

These are of two classes, (_a_) deities of purely local origin, surviving through the historical significance of the places where they were worshipped, and (_b_) deities, at once local in so far as they are associated with a fixed spot, but at the same time having a far more general character by virtue of being personifications of the powers of nature.

The jurisdiction of both classes of deities might, through political vicissitudes, be extended over a larger district than the one to which they were originally confined, and in so far their local character would tend to be obscured.