Nanna, the Moon God, in a Planetary Pantheon

Watched over by the Sun, the Moon and the planet Venus, the king presents his daughter before the Moon god, Nanna. From a boundary stone about 1200 BC . Venus is the star always portrayed in those days as a luminary equal to the Sun and Moon. Nanna was the patron god of the very ancient city of Ur, and his shrine topped the great ziggurat at Ur, used for astrological observations.

The tradition of astrology and planetary gods has always been strong in this region from the earliest times and it was from Ur that Abraham was supposed to have originated. There is an Islamic tradition which remembers Abraham as a princely astrologer of the city. Later it was from Persia, a little further north, that the Magi were supposed to have come, sacred astrologers to confirm the Messianic destiny of Jesus.