This, Jensen, by his wonderful analysis (would that I could completely follow it in its marvellous philological twistings, pages 73-81) puts beyond question; and he clinches the argument by showing that our "tropic of Capricorn" of to-day—the goat still represented on our globes of to-day with a fish's tail!—was called by the Babylonians "the path followed by Ía" or in relation to Ía.
This Ía was such a great god that to him was assigned the functions of Maker of Men; he was also a great potter and art workman (p. 293), a point I shall return to presently. He eventually formed a triad with Anu and Bīl, that is, the poles of the heavens and the equator.[154]
The God of Eridu.
Let us assume that the earliest sun-god traced at Eridu was the sun-god of those early argonauts who founded the colony.
We are told that this god was the son of Ía, and that his name was Tammuz; he was in some way associated with Asari (? Osiris) (Sayce, p. 144), who, according to Jensen, represented the Earth (p. 195); of the Moon we apparently hear nothing.
This Tammuz (Dumuzi), we find, ultimately became "the Nergal of Southern Chaldæa, the sun-god of winter and night, who rules, like Rhadamanthos, in the lower world" (Sayce, p. 245), and as lord of Hades he was made son of Mul-lil (Sayce, p. 197).
This was at first. But what do we find afterwards?
Nergal is changed into the Midsummer Sun! (Jensen, p. 484). And finally he is changed into the Spring Sun Marduk at Babylon (Sayce, p. 144)[155] where he is recognised as the son of Ía and Duazag, that is the Eastern Mountain (Jensen, p. 237).
Now, however difficult it may be to follow these changes from the religious point of view, from the astronomical side they are not only easily explained, but might have been predicted, provided one hypothesis be permitted, namely, that the colony who founded Eridu were originally inhabitants of some country where the chief agricultural operations were carried on about the time of the Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere.[156]
This country might lie south of the equator, and indeed we find one which answers the requirements in the region of the great lakes and on the coast opposite Zanzibar.