More on those nonanthropomorphic "gods"

For modern readers, it is tempting to see the temple in such instances as simply a pars pro toto reference to the chief god who dwelt in it, but since other material objects such as thrones and crowns belonging to gods or closely associated with them sometimes received food offerings independently from those presented to their divine owners, we cannot dismiss the possibility that the temples named here were similarly considered to be divinely charged from their close association with a god and had thus come to be seen as active, independent deities in their own right. W. G. Lambert takes this position, arguing that “the divinity of the deity was seen to have spread to temple, city and accoutrements . . . in such a way that these things also became gods and received offerings as a mark of the fact” (p. 129) in “Ancient Mesopotamian Gods: Superstition, Philosophy, Theology,” Revue de l’histoire des Religions 207/2 (1990), pp. 115–30.—Barbara N. Porter in What Is a God?, 163 n. 32