[The God Listings of Kalhu and Arba'il]

After some research I found that K252 (assuming this is the correct designation) is mentioned in a volume of Brigitte Menzel's "Assyrische Tempel".

Of course it literally seems to be the only place where the text K252 is even elaborated on so that's always helpful. I swear there are times when I want some authors to be a bit less frugal with space. >: P

Oh no, it's incredibly useful ! Thanks : D

I'm going to try and convert these to a different transcription. If anyone finds any errors here, please let me know.

First Part

1. DIFIR^IMIN.BI DIFIR^na[-ru-du] -                                                     (Dingir) Imin.Bi Dingir-narudu
2. DIFIR^U.GUR ja2 IRI^tar-bi-ci                                                            (Dingir) U.Gur ša IRI-tarbi-ši
3. AN|-u2| KI.TIM                                                                                   AN-u2| KI.TIM
4. it-ti-ki lim-hu-ru                                                                                 It-ti-ki lim-huru
5. it-ti-ki lij-me-u2                                                                                  It-ti-ki liš-me-u2
6. lik-ru-bu ana KUR aj+jur                                                                      Lik-rub-ru ana KUR aš+šur
7. lik-ru-bu ana LUGAL EN-ni                                                                    Lik-ru-bu ana LUGAL EN-ni
8. DIFIR^MEJ-ni ja2 URU^NINA                                                               Dingirmeš-ni ša2 URU-NINA
(ruling)
9. aj+jur aj+jur aj+jur DIFIR^RE                                                             Aš-šur aš+šur aš+šur DINGIR-RE
10. DIFIR^MAJ DIFIR^|PA|.TUG2                                                              DINGIR-MAŠ DINGIR|PA|TUG.2
11. DIFIR^URI3[.GAL]                                                                              DINGIR-URI3[.GAL)
12. DIFIR^FIJ^TUKUL[ aj+jur]                                                                  DINGIR-(F?)IŠ-TUKUL[aš+šur]
13. DIFIR^DI.KU5^MEJ                                                                            DINGIR-DI.KU-MEŠ
14. DIFIR^BE aj+jur DIFIR^IM                                                                 DINGIR-BE aš+šur DINGIR-IM
15. DIFIR^MAJ ALAM^MEJ                                                                        DINGIR-MAŠ ALAM-MEŠ
16. DIFIR^SIG4.ZI.AN.JA2(?).KI                                                               DINGIR-SIG4.ZI.AN.ŠA(?).KI
17. DIFIR^ID2^MEJ DIFIR^ID2[^x x]                                                       DINGIR-ID2-MEŠ DINGIR-ID2[x x]
18. DIFIR^GI.MA2.GAN DIFIR^ZI.BUR                                                      DINGIR-GI.MA2.GAN DINGIR.ZI.BUR
19. DIFIR^ku-ri-bi                                                                                    DINGIR ku-ri-bi
20. DIFIR^ALAD DIFIR^LAMMA                                                                 DINGIR-ALAD DINGIR-LAMMA
21. DIFIR[^x x].LU2 DIFIR^A.RU.RU                                                          DINGIR[x x].LU2 DINGIR A.RU.RU
22. DIFIR^E2-a-MAN                                                                                DINGIR E2-a-MAN
23. DIFIR^NIN-KI.TIM                                                                              DINGIR NIN-KI.TIM
24. DIFIR^ba-u2 DIFIR[^x x]                                                                   DINGIR ba-u3 DINGIR [x x]
25. DIFIR^IM DIFIR^ja-la                                                                        DINGIR IM DINGIR ša-la
26. DIFIR^30 DIFIR^NIN.GAL                                                                  DINGIR 30 DINGIR  NIN.GAL
27. DIFIR^ALAM-MAN DIFIR|^JAKKAN|                                                     DINGIR ALAM-MAN DINGIR ŠAKKAN
28. DIFIR^GAJAN AN-e                                                                             DINGIR GAŠAN AN-e
29. DIFIR^DUMU-ZI DIFIR^ALAM                                                              DINGIR DUMU-ZI DINGIR ALAM
30. DIFIR^ININ ja2 ji-bir-ri                                                                       DINGIR ININ ša ši-bir-ri
31. DIFIR^UR.MAH^MEJ                                                                            DINGIR UR.MAH-MEŠ
32. DIFIR^IM^MEJ                                                                                    DINGIR IM-MEŠ
33. DIFIR^ALAD DIFIR^LAMMA                                                                  DINGIR ALAD DINGIR LAMMA

I don't know first thing about cuneiform so if someone who has more information then me could help with this it'd be really great.

So far I've been able to identify Ninki at # 23 and Šarat-šame (GAŠAN AN-e, according to oracc) at # 28. I assume # 21 is Ninhursag as Aruru and I assume # 27 is Šumugan (as Šakkan). But as far as the rest goes, I'm a bit clueless.

Thanks. If I remember right, Salam šarri is the deified royal image right ?

That book looks good.

Many of the gods are very obscure, but that seems to be the point. A comprehensive list. I'm certain not every god here had a temple, but maybe a shrine in a larger temple or the name being considered an alias of another god. As such, deified kings and objects are good, and Hittite deities are fine. The MIN (translated "as above") of Iri-aku appears to refer to the city Arbila, not Larsa, but I no longer have the book to check my initial note.

I have no idea about most of the divine names, but can research a couple of specific examples if you like. Have you checked the Oracc text I linked? Anything in that will be easy, anything not will be more of a challenge.

Superscript DIGIR precedes a divine name. The /sza/ is "of". Superscript MESZ is plural. Superscript IRI means a name of a city follows. Therefore DIGIR^MESZ sza2 IRI^tu-a means "gods of Tu-a". Superscript KI means the preceding word is a place name, so DIGIR^INNIN sza2 pi-na-szi^KI is "Isztar of (the place) Pinaszi". This is quite common. Especially for Isztar. It appears as though "Isztar" became a catch-all word for goddess, or at least that different Isztar temples may or may not be dedicated to different Isztars. I know of incantations that say "my Isztars" and royal annals saying "Isztar of Nineveh and Isztar of Arbila went beside me" etc. Other deities are treated this way less often.

I would translate Bel-labre as "lord of the old people/ancients", but have never seen it before. /bur-an-da/ stumps me, mostly because there's no determinative (superscript), divine, geographic, or otherwise.

ALAM is Sumerian for statue. MAN is one Sumerian sign used for king. In Akkadian, the use of these signs indicates "statue of the king", pronounced /tsalam szarri/. The whole thing is made divine by the preceding DIGIR (this sign probably was not pronounced, but if it were we would have /ilu tsalam szarri/, "the god, statue of the king"). This divinity is sza2 MIN, "of ditto", which sends us back to the last non-ditto line, which happens to be in the uncited section. I traced this back to /sza2 IRI^arba-il2/ when I transcribed the book.

Column 8, line 39` (corrected numbering), through column 9 reads:

May they be receptive to you,
May they listen to you,
May they hail (the city) Assur,
May they hail the land of Assur,
Inhabitants of heaven,
The great Annunaki,
Founders of the shrines,
lands, rivers of the city of the aegis,
the mud brick(?) of the palace,
and the niche
of the house of Urinaku(?),
the spindle house(?) they set up,
May they be receptive for the life,
May they hear the prayers,
Be well to (the city) Assur,
Likewise to the land of Assur,
Likewise to the king, our lord,
the gods of (the city) Tua(?)

(The god) Szakkan,
(The god) Bel-labre,
who dwell in (the city) Ganina,
guard the stable...

Continuing my transcription/research process on the text

* Nabu Pabilsag
* Ningirsu
* Ebih (Interesting that a mountain God would be mentioned between Ningirsu and Adad)
* Adad
* Šala
* Ta-ra-mu-u-a/Taramua. This seems to be a rather obscure deity. I've only found mentioned of this deity in a ritual where the other recipients are Adad, Šala, Kubu and Anu. The presence of Kubu here is baffling to me, as far as I know Kubu is the representation of a stillborn, and I've not actually found refference to the name used for another deity. Also Kubu here is represented twice, once in the Adad Temple and once in the Anu Temple. (See KAR 154 (Menzel 1981, vol. 2 T 2ff.). I'll post the full ritual below.
* Nisaba
* Adad-Birqu apparently a different name for Adad though, Birqu meaning "lightning" apparently, although Lambert claims in

books.google.cz/books?id=Aay9CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq=Adad-Birqu&source=bl&ots=b5BnmBEJ17&sig=ar0yHpTLqA1EVuarB-oi2jFXa3k&hl=cs&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjc7PLO1JjMAhWKPZoKHdY0C-UQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=Adad-Birqu&f=false

Birqu was a Vizier of Adad and I also found another claim how Birqu, as deified lighting, was the weapon of Adad though the source of the latter claim seems slightly less reputable.

* Ni-ip-hu-salmu, I assume this may be an image of a "rising star" ? Not sure if this reffers to a deified celestial body, or to a secondary name of a deity reffering to a celestial body.
* Gibil-birqu/Gibil-bir-qu. Gibil is the fire god, but I'm not sure what this means if Bir-qu means "lightning"
* Nu-ru-salmu. Looking at the top, "nūru" meaning "light" according to oracc, this leads me to assume this might actually be an "image of light", though I assume this may be a secondary name of another deity.
* Ningirsu
* Ir-meš Hur-iš. I have no idea what this could mean, though I assume it might have a celestial connection given the other names brought up here, unless I've made some huge mistake in attributing any of these meanings via entires in dictionaries and oracc.
* ziq-qur-ra-a-ti. I'm assuming this is related to the images relating to light and stars mentioned above and used in the meaning of "pinnacle"

ilani ša una bu-bat-ti
Ša Kur-ba-il
šum-šunu tazakaru

As for these variants of Ištar, I don't actually known what each word here is, except I assume two of these reffer to statues of Ištar.


* Aššur-Ištar ša Arba-il
* Birua, "Ištar of the Suteans"
* Ištar-salmu
* Ištar-salmani
* Ištar-ni-ru
* Ištar-ni-ip-hu (I believe this is "Ištar of the Rising Star")
* Ištar-nim-ru
* Ištar-neše
* Ištar Ze-e



The Full ritual mentioning Taramua

"KAR 154 (Menzel 1981, vol. 2 T 2ff.)
1 On the day when they … Adad, they let come out the qadištu-women,
2 they prepare x‒1/2 Qa bread, 7 bowls, 1 Qa aromatic plants, 2 Sutu beer in the
bīt šalīme,
3 from there three silas of bread (and) three bowls (with beer) before the temple of
Adad, and 1 sila of bread and one bowl (with beer) (corrupt)
4 The qadištu-women recite the inḫu-somg before (the statue of) Adad, they finish
the inḫu-song.
v5 The šangû-priest performs the purification. The qadištu-women praise the god.
6 The šangû-priest and the qadištu-women leave the temple of Adad.
7 They go to the gate of the storehouse (bīt abusāte) of Ninurta at the Aššur
temple, the šangû-priest takes a seat and the qadištu-women
8 recite the inḫu-song. The qadištu-women finish the inḫu-song, the šangû-priest
performs the purification,
9 the qadištu-women praise the god. He leaves through the Aššur gate and goes to
the Sammuḫ-gate. The qadištu-women recite the inḫu-song,
10 they finish the inḫu-song, the šangû-priest performs the purification. The qadištuwomen
praise the god. He offers 1 Qa bread,
11 1 bowl, 1 Qa beer by spilling six times from the bowl,
12 and he pours from the libation bowl. He evokes the name of Ea-šarru (and) of
Digla, ditto Šamaš.
13 The qadištu-women go to the bīt ḫamri, the šangû-priest takes a seat. The qadištuwomen
14 recite the inḫu-song. The šangû-priest performs the purification. 1 Qa bread 1 Qa
beer …
15 … bīt ḫamri …
rest of obverse is broken
beginning of reverse is broken.
1′ the šangû-priest …
2′ …
3′ … 1 1/2 Qa bread 5 Qa beer, 1 thigh for the šangû-priest, he provides [the
temple]
4′ of Aššur, ditto of Adad. The length of the thigh …
5′ they destroy. The rest of the bread and the beer at the quay gate the šangû-priest
and the qadištu-women …"

"6′ The šangû-priest and the qadištu-women return to the Adad temple, they remove
the jewelry of the qadištu-women.
7′ 3 Qa bread, 1 sutu beer, 1 sheep, 1 Qa aromatic plants they prepare before Adad.
8′ From this sheep the breast, the shoulder, the neck, the hocks, 1 thigh, nine rips;
9′ 3 rips, 3 vertebras before Šala, 3 rips, 3 vertebras before Taramua,
10′ 3 rips, 3 vertebras before Kubu of the Adad temple, the left shoulder before Anu,
11′ the buqurru-piece before Kubu of the Anu temple; the intestines (are the share of)
the chief musician,
12′ the front legs (are the share of) the alaḫinnu-official, the qadištu-women keep the
rest of the meat.
13′ The šangû-priest of Adad takes the skin, the sinews and the back meat.
14′ After the chief musician, the qadištu-women and the pupils? have finished their
songs, …
15′ …, the bowls, …, the pot, the wood, the water, the ḫaṣbu-pot, …
16′ …"

Nice work. I'll just stuck to what I know already in my comments. Hope it helps.

brq is a good Semitic root for 'lightning'. Never actually seen it in Akkadian, but I am sure that's good. Fits with Adad, not just in meaning, but also if brq is West Semitic. Vizier, weapon, or both - I'd be very surprised if the whole tradition were consistent, the function of vizier and weapon being similar. However, /adad birqu/ suggests to me /birqu/ is an epithet of Adad, but I can't find the example to check.

With Gibil (meaning "sprout/tinder/firewood"), I'd further push the idea of /birqu/ as an epithet (either 'Lightning Gibil' or 'Gibil of/with the lightning'). Both Gibil and Adad are appropriate gods for this.

I'm sorry - where are you getting those names from? I'm confused about what text you mean.

In KAR 154, Taramua is DIGIR^X.RA, where the hand-copyist draws something that could be MASZ for the broken sign. Definitely not /ta-ra-mu-a/.

The text you quoted (again, not sure where from):

Gods of Una-bubatti,
Of Kurbail,
Their name you remembered(?).

Lots of difficult things in there. I'd like to see the transliteration. Apart from the names (I guarantee there's some logograms in there, not sure how much is phonetic. The verb zkr is "to remember/say", but the form is puzzling. If it's not subjunctive in the wider context, I would want to check the signs.

Well, the first thing to look for is the determinatives and logograms that mark different classes of noun. IRI/URU, KI, and KUR are geographic; DISZ, SAL/MI2/MUNUS are personal names; DIGIR is a divine name; etc. If there's no determinative, if the transliteration is in capitals it's a Sumerian logogram. Look up the individual signs on ePSD. If they're not there, a good assumption is that you have an unclassified proper noun. The lack of a classifying determinative is likely convention only (e.g. AN instead of DIGIR^AN for Anu). The proper place to look for these is ancient lexicography like that published under MSL. But this is hard to use, so Google may be better. Lowercase phonetic writings should be easier to work with. If Googling the transliteration turns up nothing, try various transcriptions. The two examples, /nesze/ could be a rendering of the logogram PIRIG, meaning "of lions", whereas /ze/ could be ZI/ZE, Akkadian /napisztu/, meaning "life". But things like capitals or italics in transliteration, or the surrounding signs in the original will help.

/lahmu salmu/ could not be "image of Lahmu", which would be /salam lahmi/. Is the /salmu/ with a tsade?

/banu parak szimate/ does indeed mean "builder of the dais of fates". To me it sounds like a royal title harking back to Sumerian royal inscriptions:

cdli.ucla.edu/p226844
"... he (Ur-Nammu) built a dais in a pure place for him (An)"

Have you got CDA?
ia902601.us.archive.org/28/items/AConsiceDictionaryAkkadian/CDA_w_corr_text.pdf

Due to both lots of work and my still continuing battle against congestion I've had little time to look over the CDA for the various determinatives for the Ištar names of the text.

I did glance above at Column V

* Išmela Iš-me-la-a, absolutely no matches for this. Tried looking for "Ismelaya" as well.
* Išmekarab, an Elamite Netherworld Judicial Deity, who functioned in Sippar as an attendant deity of the Ebabbar
* Nusku
* Ilpada Il-pa-da. I've only found two refferences to this deity, being in the Tākultu de sacrale maaltijd in het Assyrische ritueel which reffers back to "Hurrians and Subarians" by Gelb, who simply reffers to this deity as "God of Pada".

Now this book did come out in 1954 so I'm wondering if their reading of some of the signs may be somewhat out of date.

Shorter post dealing with the less clear cut divine names of Col. V.

Usrupišunu Us-ru-pi-šu-nu. Absolutely nothing.

Šitamekarabu Ši-tam-me-ka-ra-bu. This seems rather similar to "Šitemme-pišunu", seeing as the written form for that on oracc is ši-te-em-me-KA-šu-nu.

There follow two names related to Nabu both with the word "Maštaba" in it. It's related to LugalErra and Meslamtaea, in fact the I found it as a divine name on Oracc with the equation to both these gods at once, "Maštaba = the dual gods (LugalErra and Meslamtaea".

If this name has something to do with duality, as I've heard it meaning "the pair", I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with Nabu.

Nabu maštaba
Maštabagiru Nabu

I've not found anything for any of these either.

Šubirbi Šu-bir-bi.
TAR-pá-le-e
Kulitanati Ku-lit-ta-na-a-ti
Iltanati Il-ta-na-a-ti these two might be goddess names from what I could tell from the Tākultu de sacrale maaltijd etc.
Šipasa LUGAL-MAN Šipa-sa LUGAL-MAN
IŠ-la ilani rabuti
Tukulti-E-maš-maš


It would be a lot easier to digest this if the whole of "Tākultu de sacrale maaltijd in het Assyrische ritueel" was accessible in some way, or at least the divine name section.

Thanks. The Dalley is actually the very reason why I even know about this text. Of course I'm now looking at a much larger section then originally indicated when this thread was made purely because the text is rather interesting and different.

I wonder, the text I'm using doesn't have the actual cuneiform for the text, as far as I can see, I wonder if certain deity names being impossible to find may be due to an incorrect reading, it did come out in the 50's after all.

Hey, I'm sorry I've been absent for a while (my dissertation deadline...), but am glad to see this still progressing. I think I've said all I can about specific gods, but will summarise my advice for going future:

- There will be gods in there no-one knows about, so don't worry about a few that yield no results.
- Older readings will probably be a minor factor, especially as by the 50s things had begun to settle down. One or two cases may be in there, but if you find yourself assuming it for a quarter of the lines then I think that you should go back and recheck.
- Proper nouns and their writings are a pain to research, being absent from the dictionaries. The lexical list I linked to on Oracc, or the other lists and editions mentioned by us4-he-gal2, may be the best sources, but cross-referencing is hard.
- There are many deified cultic objects, I remember instruments for example. I believe the level of consecration/deification differs (i.e. the rituals undergone by each), but perhaps the royal image is on this scale. I recently attended a talk on the ritual involving a kettledrum dedication. The texts discussed were cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P363716 and cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P363719

Hope this helps!

Thanks ! Sorry for my absence too I've been doing other stuff as well.

I am happy about the prospect of finding entries for largely unrecorded deities, though I do hope to avoid categorising something that is a known epithet of another deity as a seperate creation.

I would love to include Bel-labre in my list as a seperate entity for example, but I am ever so slightly afraid this divine name being as specific as it is may be a refference to something I'm not just finding, like an alternate title for one of the senior gods or the divine ancestors of Anu/Enlil.

Sorry about that, but with text I have to quote it so I can remember to respond to everything, at least when there's multiple points to adress. I could have cut out the graphic, I'm used to vBulletin boards which (at least up until recently) had images in quotes rendered as just links.