goddess of that city. The city-states were not isolated from each other, however, and there were periods when various cities in a region were unified—as happened, for example, under Sargon of Akkad and under Hammurabi of Babylon. The status of gods rose and fell with the fortunes of their city-states. Throughout Mesopotamian history, beginning in the Sumerian period, scribes tried to impose order on the multiplicity of gods by composing god lists. There was, moreover, a corpus of literature that