Hey Naomi:
Ninhursag is a relatively important deity in myth and one who is perhaps less esoteric than deities like Ningishzida or Sisig, which we discuss often here. I will make some comments on her below then.
About the relief from the Ninhursag temple (with the Anzu): We should be careful in assigning this particularly item too much importance when attempting to understand Ninhursag's relation to the Anzu, if any. Roaf (who is quite concise) tells us that the item was found in Tell Al-Ubaid , near Ur, and was originally a copper on wood relief on the temple of Ninhursag that was built by A-anepada in the early dynastic period, approx 2500 BC (some put this date considerably earlier). He believes it originally would have hung above a door. Here is the important part however, he says: "Why the temple was decorated with a lion-headed eagle and two stags is not known."
What this "not known" implies, and I think this is correct, is that there is no real surviving mythical tradition that has been examined and that associates Ninhursag and Anzu, and hence when the Anzu is found on her early dynastic temple this is puzzling - but not enough for us to say they fit together in any explainable way. The Anzu is a chaotic element in surviving literature, a figure naturally associated with a warrior god figure like Ninurta/Ningirsu (as in these mythical themes, it is inevitable that order must respond to chaos and subdue it). Ninhursag is not a warrior goddess. However, I would grant that in the early dynastic text found on the Barton Cylinder, it does mention "Ninhursag and her stags" - see reply reply #8 on
this thread.
There is a bit more on this relief below.
For more on Anzu/Imdugud see
hereAs for Ninhursag herself, she is, as noted, also called Ninmah, Nintur or Aruru. In texts where 4 high gods are mentioned in decision processes such as those before the flood, those gods mentioned or invoked are often An, Enlil, Enki and Ninhursag,
and this indicates her importance. One of your best options when beginning to chart out a deity in Sumerian literature is to go to ETCSL and just search the deities name, and then the name of their temples and so on. It sounds really simply but it will put you ahead quite a bit.
-One should certainly note her role in creation/birth processes in the following myths. While Enki's male creative aspect, the initiative and wisdom/resourcefulness to conceive of man's design, begins the process, Ninhursag seems to represent a more literal female creative aspect - that which generates the actual physical product:
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.1.1#etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.1.2#The myth sometimes called Lugal-e contains near the very end the Sumerian's explanation of the name Ninhursag:
[urhttp://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.1.6.2&display=Crit&charenc=gcirc&lineid=c162.390]http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.1.6.2[/url
Ninhursag's home cities, Kesh/
One of the cities we know that recognized Ninhursag as it's patron deity was Kesh. Unfortunately ancient Kesh has never been found and so we are at a loss there..However one may note the following entry from the temple hymns:
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.80.1"O mighty Keš, form of heaven and earth, arousing terror like a great horned viper, house of Ninhursagĝa, built in a terrifying place! Respected Keš, your interior is a deep interior while your exterior is tall. Great lion …… on the high plain and roving about on the plain, great hill established by incantations, twilit interior in which moonlight does not shine, Nintur has made you beautiful -- O house Keš, your brickwork and your moulding of it! Your terrace! Your exterior, a lustrous suḫ crown, and your building of it!"
So Ninhursag is identified with the omega symbol, perhaps representing womb, according to Black and Green - with respect to the above line, which calls Kesh a "great hill established by incantations" I have found Steinkellers explanation of the Kesh City Seal very interesting - he believes that the sign may be a combination of EN2 (incantation, as in en2-e2-nu-ru) and the Omega sign of Ninhursag. For an explanation of this, see reply 11 of
the following thread.Again in the Kesh temple hymn, which has survived on some copy somewhere, there are many lines which are suggestive that Kesh was built on some sort of hill or mountain or perhaps Tell. Ninhursag is depicted as helping with births from within her temple - again we see a line stating that stags ran all about Kesh. Returning to Ninhursag's plaque at Tell al'Ubaid a moment, Madness reported one of Wiggermann's idea's about Anzu as follows: " F.A.M. Wiggermann [ Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, pp. 160-161 ] argues that Anzu is not a symbol of Ninurta. Rather, Anzu "represents another, more general power, under whose supervision they all operate. This higher power can only be Enlil, which is exactly what the Lugalbanda Epic and the Anzu myth tell us. Thus the posture of the lion-headed eagle, wings stretched out above the symbolic animals of other gods, becomes understandable: it is neither that of attack, nor that of defense, but that of the master of the animals." This seems like a strange idea at first - perhaps Wiggermann was also thinking of the Anzu myth, in which the Anzu is first a servant of Enlil before turning treacherous. Perhaps the creature as personification of divine control of the wild is at the base of it an extension of Enlil power but as it plays out uncontrollable itself? I don't know. If Anzu is a symbol (however complicated by mythical twists) of Enlil's power in general, than the Anzu over the stags at the temple of Ninhursag at tell al'Ubaid may gain some coherence. This explanation as well is of course problematic.
Ninhursag at Adab/
The temple hymns also give us an idea of Ninhursag's cult at Adab - evidently she at some point ascended as patron deity of this city as well:
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.80.1"(2 lines missing) (1 line fragmentary)An has …… your platform. E-maḫ (Exalted house), house of the universe, suited for its lady, your front inspires great awesomeness, your interior is filled with radiance. Mother Nintur, Enlil and Enki have determined your destiny. E-suga (Joyous (?) house) which ……, life of the black-headed, An has given you the magnificent divine powers from the interior of heaven. As in Keš, Ninhursaĝa has blessed your priests maintaining the shrine in the holy uzga precinct. House with great divine powers, a pure platform and cleansing lustration, Ašgi, the god of Adab, has erected a house in your precinct, O Adab, O house situated at a canal, O house Adab, and taken his seat upon your dais."
For more on Adab and some mentions of Ninhursag there, see Sheshki's Adab thread at the following thread:
enenuru.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=selfdiscombobulationetc&action=display&thread=243_____________________________________
To Enkur: some nice reliefs and I like your thinking process. I am not entirely sure about the first one your posted, don't thnk I've seen it! One thing I should say though is we will have to be careful here as even when the reasoning is sound it doesn't always work with objects like these. For examples, sometimes there are inscriptions on the items we can't easily access which make suggestions more or less obsolete as soon as the inscriptions are factored in hm.