Nabu

   The Babylonian god of literacy and wisdom and the patron of scribes and the scribal arts. His main symbol was a stylus, the pointed tool used to inscribe clay tablets. Nabu, who rose to prominence in Babylonian religion in the early second millennium b.c., was at first called the scribe and minister of the chief Babylonian god, Marduk. But over time he came to be seen as Marduk's son. Nabu's main cult center was the Ezida temple in Bor-sippa, south of Babylon. There, people appeased him with offerings of elaborately inscribed tablets. His worship remained popular all through the first millennium B.C. and did not wane until the second century a.d. The Greeks who ruled Mesopotamia during the Seleucid period associated Nabu with their own god Apollo.

   See also: Borsippa; Marduk; scribe