Nanna / Sîn, the Moon-God

The moon-god Nanna — Sin in Akkadian — was the great deity of the city of Ur and a god of the first rank. As the moon, he measured out the months and regulated the calendar, and he was honored as the wise elder who fathered the sun-god and the goddess Inana/Ishtar. His crescent was his emblem. Centuries later the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, controversially elevated Sin's cult above Marduk's, a move that estranged Babylon's priesthood. The moon-god's long prominence shows how a city's patron could shape the religion of an empire.