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Iraq / Mesopotamia: A cylinder seal depicting a king making an offering to the Sun God Shamash. Haematite, Old Babylonian, c. 1800 BCE

Iraq / Mesopotamia: A cylinder seal depicting a king making an offering to the Sun God Shamash. Haematite, Old Babylonian, c. 1800 BCE

Shamash (Akkadian: Samas, 'Sun') was a native Mesopotamian deity and the Sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hebrew pantheons.

Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu. Akkadian samas is cognate to Syriac semsa, Hebrew semes and Arabic sams, 'sun'.

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