SHAMASH or CAMAS, the common Semitic word for "sun." In pre-Islamic times Samsu was regarded throughout Arabia as a goddess and often called ita "goddess," wife of the moon god Wadd, and mother of Athtar, the planet Venus. Her symbol in Arabia was a disk. Among the north Semitic races (Canaanitic and Aramaean) the name is semen, simsa, and always masculine. Traces of Canaanitish worship are found in the Old Testament, for which see II Kings 23, i 1, where the horses and the chariots of Canaanitish heathendom were removed by Josiah. The sun god is symbolised by the horse in pre-Islamic Arabia also, and pillars called lzammanim, bearing the sun disk, were set upon the altars of the Canaanitish Beals. In Arabia this deity has the epithet "Mistress of heat," when she is the summer sun, and "Mistress of the distant region (south)," when she is the winter sun. When the Semites first appear in history in Babylonia they identified their sun god (Sams) with the older Sumerian sun god, Utu, Babbar, and it is probable that this caused the change in gender throughout the north Semitic peoples. This contact of the Semite with the Sumerians occurred as early as 3200 B.C. He became here one of the great deities of ancient religion, and lost all earlier Semitic traces to be completely transformed into a Sumerian deity; as such his cult appears throughout Babylonian and Assyrian history and survived at various Syrian centres to a late period. The two chief centres of sun-worship in Babylonia were Sippara (Sippar), represented by the mounds at Abu Habba, and Larsa, represented by the modern Senkerah. At both places
the chief sanctuary bore the name E-barra (or E-babbara) "the shining house"—a direct allusion to the brilliancy of the sun-god. Of. the two temples, that at Sippara was the more famous, but temples to Shamash were erected in all large centres—as Baby lon, Ur, Nippur and Nineveh.
The attribute most commonly associated with Shamash is justice. Khammurabi attributes to Shamash the inspiration that led him to gather the existing laws and legal procedures into a code, and in the design accompanying the code the king represents himself in an attitude of adoration before Shamash as the embodiment of the idea of justice. Several centuries before Khammurabi, Ur-Nammu of the Ur dynasty (c. 2600 B.c.) de clared that he rendered decisions "according to the just laws of Shamash." Together with Sin and Ishtar, Shamash forms a second triad by the side of Anu, Bel and Ea. The three deities, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar (q.v.), the sun, the moon and Venus form an astro nomical triad corresponding to the same early Arabian triad. At times, instead of Ishtar, we find Adad (q.v.), the storm-god, associated with Sin and Shamash. In Sumero-Babylonian religion Shamash was regarded as the son of the moon god, Sin.
The consort of Shamash was known as Aya.