Ningishzidda and Gizzida names?

Thanks for your philological comments Amarsin! RIA would be a good way to go, though a less impressive act of referencing also may have some bearing here - Black and Green p.139 relate:

"Unexpectedly, in the myth of Adapa, the sage who traveled to heaven, we encounter Dumuzi and a god called Gišzida, certainly an abbreviated form of Ningišzida, guarding the gate to the Heaven of Anu (An), the highest heaven."

The myth of Adapa, for which our textual sources are considerably later then in Sumerian cases of "Ningišzida", is also the only case I can recall seeing this abbreviated version. Perhaps the abbreviated version was a later scribal convention or corruption.

Disclaimer: The opinion presented here is not in print, and

not all scholars on the ANE would agree. Note here that this

is the interpretation of me, blatantly influenced by stuff I

heard from my Sumerian professor.
_____________________________

NIN is commonly translated as "lady". I don't have access to

my Labat right now (because a friend is sleeping on it, and I

am a bad and evil person who doesn't remove books from under

people's thighs when they fall asleep), but the cuneiform sign

with which NIN is written is the slightly simplified depiction

of a female vulva on top of a ...thing.
If you look at the sign (a triangle with its point to the

right and a line from the tip of the right-hand point to the

middle of the vertical line that is to be considered the

triangle's base at the left), and turn it around 90°

clockwise, you'll be able to see it clearly. Just like the

sign AD is the representation of the male genitalia (don't

forget the 90° clockwise turning), the sign NIN is the female

representation.

The question why NIN is used for male deities like

Ningirsu/Ninurta (essentially the same deity) or Ningishzidda

is something that scholars don't really know an answer to.

Were they originally conceived as female, or as hemaphrodites?

We don't know.

However, the writing Gishzidda for Ningishzidda is something I

only encountered once in cuneiform writing; I haven't checked

all of the resources, as it's Sunday morning, 9 AM now, and I

haven't been to the library. However, the writing seems to be

a hapax to me. Without looking at the relevant tablets, I

don't really know, but as Ninghishzidda is so well attested,

it is possible that Gishzidda was a shortening of the deity's

name by the scribe.

Another possibility is one that my Sumerian teacher told me.

The cuneiform sign for NIN consists of the above mentioned

sign for female vulva (I'm sorry, my Labat is still under my

friend's thighs, and I don't want to wake her up), and the

sign that later developed into KU etc. (or NÁM... I am drunk

and therefore not sure)
The interpretation of my professor is that the sign other than

the vulva represents a cushion - so the pictographic imagery

of the cuneiform sign for NIN would give us a female vulva

(why am I typing "female" all the time, it's not as if there

was another kind of vulva...) and a cushion - probably a

depiction of someone sitting down on a cushion.

When we started talking about the appearance of NIN in names

of deities, he said that there might be/is (don't quote me on

that) evidence for the term NIN referring to an official that

could be of either gender. An honorific title, if you want.

That is the only thing that comes to mind right now.

(Edit: I started writing this when the question got posted,

and forgot about it in the meantime... so please forgive me

any errors or repetitions and stuff like that. I'm drunk,

remember?)

Or Ningirsu.

Didn't know that Halloran translated TÚG as "lord"... we usually translate it as "garment" (KU being the same as TÚG or DAB5 at that stage in writing).

Edit: Screw people sleeping on my Labat. I want my sign list NOW. *weeps*

*doubts herself*

In general, we should treat Holloran's stuff with caution. Some of his etymologies look plausible (though I doubt theyre actually correct) but others are simply implausible.

But to the topic of the NIN-sign, its an interesting idea to interpret the grapheme as woman [sitting] on a cloth [=cushion of a throne?], though it would be hard to prove this. But still.

As for the Nin-gišzida/Gišzida, it occurs more than once, but not much more!

And finally, I have no idea why it is that so many male deities begin NIN-. I just thumbed through the RlA looking through the hundred or so NIN- entries, but none offered any explanation. Alas.

I had never thought of them as fallopian tubes before.

This more or less reminds me of the sacred tree.

Maybe it was another way to write nun or prince maybe? Just a suggestion, I am confused at the use of nin- in male names too