ANU, a Babylonian deity, who, as the first figure in the triad Anu, Enlil and Ea, came to be regarded as the father and king of the gods. Anu is prominently associated with the city of Erech in southern Babylonia, but the cult was transferred to this place in prehistoric times from Der east of the Tigris. At Erech he was closely associated with the worship of his daughter, the heaven goddess Innini-Ishtar. The name signifies the "high one" and he was probably a god of the atmospheric region above the earth— perhaps a storm god like Adad (q.v.). In the old Babylonian period; i.e., before Hammurabi, Anu was regarded as the god of the heavens and his name became in fact synonymous with the heavens, so that in some cases it is doubtful whether, under the term, the god or the heavens is meant. To Anu was assigned the control of the heavens, to Enlil the earth, and to Ea the waters. The summing up of divine powers manifested in the universe in a threefold division represents an outcome of speculation in the schools attached to the temples of Babylonia, but the selection of Anu, Enlil and Ea for the three representatives of the three spheres recognized, shows that each of the three must have been regarded in his centre as the most important member in a larger or smaller group, so that their union in a triad marks also the combination of the three pantheons into a harmonious whole.
In the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria, Anu, Enlil and Ea became the three zones of the ecliptic, the northern, middle and southern zone respectively. The purely theoretical character of Anu is thus still further emphasized, and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as in the incantations and hymns, he is rarely introduced as an active force to whom a personal appeal can be made. His name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king or father of the gods has little of the personal element in it. A consort Antum (or as some scholars prefer to read, Anatum) is assigned to him, on the theory that every deity must have a female associate, but Antum is a purely artificial product and is really a title of Ishtar as queen of heaven. Anatum became the special name of Ishtar as "lady of battle." She was identified with the Western Asiatic As/iratuhn. Ann and A-an-turn occur in the Hittite treaties of the 16th-14th centuries, but it is not certain that the Syrian-Canaan ite war goddess `Anat was borrowed from Babylonian Antum or Anatum. In any case the Egyptian war goddess 'Anal is an Asiatic importation.