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back of the time of Josiah. It must be borne in mind that while such place-names as Beth-shemesh, Harheres, Timnath-heres, and Heres (see below, II., 4, § 1) favor the supposition that the worship of the sun had loci there, it does not follow that during Israelitic times this cult was followed. Biblical placenames in Palestine in general date back to preHebraic times, and the worship at those places, if worship there was, was Canaanitic. The probable date of the introduction of such worship as is implied in the horses and chariot of the sun (II Kings xxiii. 11) and the vision of Ezekiel may perhaps be given as the reign of Manasseh. (q.v.), who was a contemporary of the vigorous and aggressive Esarhaddon and Asahurbanipal. It is a priori probable that a king with so decided heathen tendencies as Manasseh would adopt a cult which was so popular as the cult of the sun was in the neighboring lands (see below, II., 3) and in Assyria, especially as his policy was pro-Assyrian and not pro-Egyptian. And there are indications of a wide-spread distrust of the power of Yahweh in the days of the declining kingdom, just before the exile, which would favor this period.

II. In Other Lands. 1. In General: That, if not in temperate, yet in tropical or sub-tropical regions the sun should from primitive times be an object of worship is no occasion for wonder. The feelings of awe which manifested themselves in early ages were only heightened as man's capacity for increased recognition, as time went on and experiences enlarged, of the influence of the sun on the earth and its contributions to the well-being of man. So that in some form, explicit or implicit, either as itself a divinity, or as the seat of deity, or as in some other way related to the gods, in probably every inhabited land the sun has received homage, influenced thought, and contributed to human development. Even in architectural matters it has had much to say, controlling the orientation of structures down into late Christian times, so that cathedrals often stand with their altars so placed that worship is directed to the East, the place of the rising sun. Some nations have found the sun's power and significance too great and his activities too varied to be expressed by homage to a single deity, and numerous sun-gods were imagined, and to each was given his own cult and worship.

A fundamental law in religious psychology is that the human mind works out into similar forms in different countries the same or similar conceptions dealing with similar material. Hence, it is not surprising that the symbols for the sun are so few yet so universal. Thus the disk or circle, with or without wings, sometimes with rays (these rays may be outside the disk or on the face of the disk; for examples of both cf. A. J. Evans, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxi., 1901, pp. 108, 161); again it is surmounted by a human figure, and often occurs with the accompaniments of serpents (see SERPENT IN WoxsHIP, etc., IV., § 1), is the almost universal symbol.* Other common symbols are the eagle or

Several of these symbols are reproduced on a single page in 3. B. Deane, Worship of the Serpent, p. 51, London, 1833; for a Phenician example of. Benzinger, Archdologie, p. 180.

hawk, eagle- or hawk-headed figures of gods, the winged horse, the scarab, possibly the swastika. When the figure takes the human form, it usually appears as vigorous and youthful, with golden hair and often golden horns, while a rayed crown or rays of light issuing from his body serve in other cases to identify him. The benefactions attributed to him, apart from the obvious ones of light and heat, are quite commonly those of life and fertility; and in lands as disassociated as Semitic Syria and Dravidian India he is connected with wells and springs (possibly in a way similar to the popular occidental superstition which speaks of the sun as " drawing water " when its oblique rays are seen shining in the distance through rifts in the clouds; cf. for this relationship with water, W. H. Ward in AJT, ii., 1898, pp. 115118). The same thing occurs in symbolism when, from the symbolic disk, there emanate not only rays of light (indicated by straight divergent lines) but also streams of water (indicated by parallel wavy lines. A representation of Shamash with streams of water issuing from his body is in A. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alters Orients, p. 111, Leipsic, 1906; that the streams represent water and not light is proved by the fish swimming in them). In accordance with this conception, the flowers and incense offered to him are sometimes thrown into a stream. His course in the heavens is conceived as made on foot (as occasionally in India), on horseback, in a chariot, or in a boat, the form of representation depending upon the cosmological notions of the different peoples. As a deity who in his daily journey passes over the earth and looks down upon the deeds of men, it is not strange that he should be now the eye of Ouranos or Varuna (Heaven) who sees all and reports to that exalted deity, or again that he should be the judge of men and gods, or once more (as pure light) the champion of truth and an agent in ethical uprightness. Still further, occasionally the sun appears as a culture deity, conceived as giving laws to men, leading the advances of civilization, and, on the reverse side, punishing those who break the laws of gods and men. And, once more, it ought not to surprise that the sun may have two opposing aspects, that he may be regarded as kindly and as malign, so that in Babylonia (see below) he is both Shamash and Nergal, and that in India the Aryans could, while in the temperate land of the five rivers, sing gloriously in his praise and in central and southern India affirm " yon burning sun is death."

2. Babylonia: In this land, early and late, sungods were numerous, though the number tended ever to decrease. Chief among these was Shamash, who of this class of deities figures most frequently in inscriptions and on seals. He is the successor of or identical with the Sumerian Utu, whose principal shrines were at Larsa and Sippara (see BABYLONIA, IV., §§ 4, 11, VIL, 2, § 4; a very excellent reproduction of the figure and inscription of the Sippam Shamash, with the sun's disk and light rays and water streams, is given in R. W. Rogers, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 84, New York, 1908). At Sippara there were horses and a chariot sacred to him, with which were associated a large number (140 in one list) of sacred objects, and to the chariot