Deities based on culture?

[nocodeyv]

Recently I've been swept up by a fascination with the obscure corners of Mesopotamia's extensive pantheon, and have been spending a lot of time at the ETCSL pouring over their translations in search of divine names and their functions. However, as I'm still learning about Mesopotamia, I was having a bit of trouble separating the deities I'm reading about according to their cultural origins.

I know that the "seven great gods," usually listed as An, Enki, Enlil, Inanna, Nanna, Ninḫursag̃a, and Utu, all have their origins in Sumerian myth and religion. I'm also aware that deities like Abzû, Marduk, Nábû, Ṣarpānītu, Tašmētu, and Tiāmat are of Babylonian origin, with possible antecedents in Sumerian and Akkadian myth and religion. Aššūr, meanwhile, I've been led to believe, originates in Assyria. What I'm having more difficulty with is determining the difference between Sumerian and Akkadian deities, if there even is one.

For example, the god Birtum, (identified as "Birdu" in some of my print-sources). According to the ETCSL Birtum is the wife of the goddess Nungal, and one of the Nippur pantheon: "Birtum the very strong, my spouse, resides there with me [in the é.sa.pàr, "House of the Net" temple?]. Taking a seat on its great and lofty dais, he gives mighty orders."¹ According to the glossary of Stephanie Dalley's translations in "Myths from Mesopotamia" released by the Oxford World's Classics (pg. 319), Birdu's: "name possibly means 'pimple'. An underworld god, consort of the little-known deity Manungal [Nungal?]. Assimilated with Meslanta'ea, a name of Nergal."

So far that is the only textual evidence I have been able to find for Birtum. Neither of which helps me understand whether Birtum is a Sumerian god, or if he arose during the Akkadian or Babylonian periods. Beyond Birtum though, has anyone (scholarly or otherwise) ever explored this topic before? Are there print (or online) sources that can help in my attempt to understand which deities are from which cultural period?

I've also been using Enenuru's search function to find texts that mention the gods, many of which are texts I haven't read before: a nice treat! Once I've got a text I'll try to find the approximate composition-date (sometimes mentioned on the boards, so thank you for doing that!), so that I can identify at least one period during which the god existed in the Mesopotamian consciousness. I realize, of course, that since we're dealing with deities worshiped thousands of years ago exact answers are often out of the question. A ball-park estimate would also be nice though. Really, anything to help me better make sense of who belongs where would be great.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Nocodeyv:




Your statements about pantheon sound quite correct to me. Glad to hear you are getting use from the enenuru archives! It is a difficult task to detail the Mesopotamian pantheon and certainly one reason is because, from a very early period, we are dealing with two distinct groups here: The Sumerians and the Semites. There is evidence for Semitic speaking peoples in the Pre-Sargonic / Pre-Akkadian period in the south, in Sumer proper, those speaking (basically) what would become Akkadian as we know it circa 2400. The point is: The potential for the Semitic pantheon (let's call it) and the Sumerian pantheon to influence each other existed from an early period and, as it happens, syncretism and confusion did result.



The best known example of this is the fusing of Sumerian Inanna with the incoming (and similar) Semitic deity Ištar. See the Inanna/Ištar thread Jul 29 2008.

There exists a single work (and just one to my knowledge) about the early Semitic pantheon. It was a PhD dissertation written for T. Jacobsen by J.J.M Robarts. The book is considered somewhat tentative and cursory, but no larger study that would improve on Robart's initial work has ever been undertaken. In the thread I am about to link, I have summarized Robart's findings and there are some very relevant notes about syncretism there. See: The Earliest Semitic Pantheon.


I also think it may be worth reading Petr Espak's paper on the Early Sumerian pantheon:
www.academia.edu/1466135/Some_Early_Developments_in_Sumerian_God-Lists_and_Pantheon


Further see Gonzalo Rubio:
www.academia.edu/879443/Gods_and_Scholars_Mapping_the_Pantheon_in_Early_Mesopotamia_in_Reconsidering_the_Concept_of_Revolutionary_Monotheism_2011_


Also I suppose I have mentioned this link before, but very useful research on the divine is available at:
oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/index.html


Additionally, learning about the god-lists and how to use them is important. They are classified in the "lexical lists" genre, and there are 2 god lists from the ED period and various similar texts are attested from the later periods. They represent a 'snapshot' of the Mesopotamian pantheon according to one scribal tradition localised to a certain region of Mesopotamian from a certain period..while these lists therefore have limitations of course, they are one of the primary tools used by scholars of Mesopotamian religion. See the God lists thread.


As for Birtum, I have checked a few sources just now but unfortunately nothing more substantial than what you have already detailed seems to be out there. Birtum is an obscure god who does not to seem to have his own hymns and mythology, or at least it hasn't been found. He name does sound Semitic to me, -um is the way that Akkadian nouns end (and some other Semitic god names have such an ending as seen on the Robart's thread). There is an Akkadian noun birtum meaning "fort/castle" as it is listed in Black's Concise Dictionary of Akakadian. So I don't know where Dalley gets this meaning "pimple."



If you e-mail me I can try to find a few materials to send you that may help with researching gods

[sheshki]

Here is the entry from Reallexikon der Assyriologie 2 for Birdu which roughly translates into:

Birdu, divinity, spouse of ^dMa-nun-gal. In CT XXV... Birdu is called ^dMes-lam-ta-e-a, that is Nergal in Mar^ki.
The relation to the underworld is underlined  in the name ^dKal-edin= man of the steppe (CT XXV...).
Birdu forms a pair with the divinity Šarrapu. The name ought to be akkadian and mean the cold, in opposition to Šarrapu=the heat...

[nocodeyv]

Thanks for the replies ushegal and sheshki.



I went ahead and downloaded Espak and Rubio's papers and will be reading them over this week. I had also seen the thread on Roberts before during my search of enenuru for information on Utu and Šamaš, and am very familiar with ORACC, having discovered that site just days before enenuru. Today I also happened upon a copy of Jacobsen's The Treasures of Darkness at a second-hand book store here in town. I've seen the book referenced at least a dozen times on enenuru, and so am looking forward to reading that as well. I'll send an e-mail your way once I've made my way through the resources you linked.

Also, thanks for the excerpt sheshki. Lacking proficiency in German and French (having studied Spanish in high school) I am sure there's a wealth of information that's hiding right under my nose in those languages. The mention of "Šarrapu" did ring some bells though. Am I right that "Šarrapu" is a title of Nergal, or perhaps an obscure deity later assimilated with Nergal?

[sheshki]

I don´t know, and i´d like to look it up in Reallexikon, but i do not have access to number 12...11 ends with "SAMUG" so it must be in 12.