[6] Michael P. Streck suggests that the forms with du8 should be understood as a learned spelling based on the meaning of this cuneiform sign, "to loosen," and on the Sumerian word for a gatekeeper, ì-du8.
"[7] Based on this etymology Dina Katz argues that the concept of a gate of the underworld, and the descriptions of this location in which it resembles a fortified city, were Akkadian in origin.
[8] In the so-called First Elegy of the Pushkin Museum Bitu's name is written without a dingir sign denoting divinity, though he is classified as a deity in Death of Gilgamesh and elsewhere.
[10] According to Khaled Nashef [de], it is possible that a connection existed between the name of Bitu and that of Ipte-Bitam,[6] the sukkal (attendant deity) of the agricultural god Urash.
[15] The late text Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince describes Bitu as a hybrid creature with the head of a lion, feet of a bird and hands of a human.