Nergal

[madness]

I am convinced that Nergal is the netherworld aspect of the sun-god, on the basis of late mystical texts which I had looked at in the Erra thread.

[xuchilpaba]

So Nergal is a aspect of Utu?

[madness]

> So Nergal is a aspect of Utu? <

One text states

^dšamaš u nergal(U.GUR) istēn(1)^en
Šamaš and Nergal are one

Another text (Sumerian GEN) states that Utu opened a hole in the Netherworld to bring up Enkidu. In the Akkadian translation, the name of Utu is replaced by Nergal (U.GUR).

I don't think it can be any more simple than that.

[xuchilpaba]

I can't believe that! Wow. How cool. He's the last god I'd think be Utu though.

Thanks Madness.

[madness]

Nergal is a Ninurta type deity, as the list of the "seven Ninurtas" are enumerated in texts as

Uraš
Ninurta
Zababa
Nabû
Nergal
Madānu
Pabilsag


There exists a myth (KAR 6) presenting Nergal as fighting the sea-born bašmu, perhaps influenced by the Ninurta dragon slaying motif.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Interesting perespectives Madness - I've always found the Mystical texts interesting though of course it is difficult to assign them a definite value or relevance to the Mesopotamian outlook as a whole. Could we get some context from Livingstone or elsewhere? Such as date of composition, distribution and intent and this sort of thing - I think this is the only way to accept and utilize the insight contained therein.

[madness]

I have failed to uncover any recent discussion that takes the textual evidence into account.


But what I have found is an investigation of the visual evidence. Elizabeth C. Stone examined* model chariots (Old Babylonian period) discovered at a site called Mashkan-shapir, a place that I had never heard of before, located a bit north of Nippur. Stone states that Nergal was the patron deity of Mashkan-shapir, so it is therefore a site of interest for our thread here. On iconography she remarks:

There appears to be a connection between Nergal and Shamash. It has indeed been argued that the Mesopotamians saw them as alter-egos (Porada 1948, 47; von Weiher 1971, 26, 31), Nergal governing the underworld and Shamash the sky. Not only do they share the same posture, but Nergal, or at least his lion-mace or lion-sickle, co-occurs on nearly 20 per cent of seals showing Shamash from southern Mesopotamia, and on as many as 33 per cent of those from Tell Harmal (Werr 1988). In addition, Nergal and Shamash are the two deities who are depicted in association with the nude priest with the sprinkler in 81 per cent of the seals.
The symbols of Nergal are also associated with both Ninurta and Ishtar...


So, these model chariots bear images that belong to Shamash and Nergal.

img687.imageshack.us/i/47719589.jpg/

[19 examples of this image recovered, at least 2 moulds used]
Shamash standing between two solar discs, with saw in one hand and rod+ring in other, and foot on stool.

Stone proposes that the presence of Shamash images at Mashkan-shapir is due to his identification as alter-ego of Nergal. In the comments to her article, J Baines & J Black suggest instead that it may be due to an unknown Shamash cult within the city.


img190.imageshack.us/i/99919239.jpg/

[10 examples of this image recovered, at least 4 moulds used]
The double lion-headed sickles which are the weapon-symbols of Nergal, and here they are with a solar disc in the middle. An interesting combination of Nergal and Shamash icons, I'd say.


*Stone, Elizabeth C., 1993, 'Chariots of the Gods in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (c. 2000-1600 BC)', Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 3, no. 1.

Porada, E., 1948. Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections I: The Collection of the Pierpoint Morgan Library. (The Bollingen Series 14.) Washington (DC): Pantheon Books.

Weiher, E. von, 1971. Der Babylonische Gott Nergal. (Alter Orient und Altes Testament 11.) Neukirchen-Vluyn: Kevelaer, Butzon & Bercker.

Werr, L. al-G., 1988. Studies in the Chronology and Regional Style of Old Babylonian Cylinder Seals. (Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 23.) Malibu (CA): Undena Press.



--

The visual evidence, along with the textual, may help to corroborate the theory that Nergal is the underworld form of the sun. A closer look at Mashkan-shapir, a city of Nergal, may prove fruitful.

[xuchilpaba]

So you think the Babylonian Shamash is the precursor of Ahura-Mazda of Zoroastrianism?

I believe some of the ancient Mesopotamian gods are similar to Egyptian art. They also cross, such as Anath. In one of my books in Florida, I have some stuff on the cross cultural pairing of Assyria and Egypt. Here for example.

[madness]

The Wikipedia entry is most certainly wrong.

On slab 23 of room B the winged disk represents Aššur (hovering above the sacred tree), the national god of the Assyrians, not Šamaš. I don't think the similarity between the disk of Aššur and Ahuramazda can be dismissed as coincidence.

The disk of Šamaš looks more like this:
img222.imageshack.us/i/84803685.png/

[madness]

The mystical number of Nergal is 14.

Could be derived from 2x7 (seven gates of the Netherworld, etc.), or from 15-1 (the perfect number one removed from the number of purity fifteen).

[madness]

There is an unexpected equation between Nergal and Enki.

From the god list An=Anum

In the Enki/Ea section in tablet II, the water god is given the names
139. ^dLugal.id₂.da "king of the river"
140. ^dLugal.abzu "king of the abyss"

In the Maš-tab-ba section in tablet V, the twin god is named
[Here Maš-tab-ba represents Lugalirra and Meslamta-ea, according to Litke, who are the deities identified with Nergal]
311. ^dLugal.a.ab.ba "king of the sea"

And in the Nergal section in tablet VI, the warrior god bears the names
[although the explanation for these lines is broken, Litke states that these are obviously Nergal names]
27. ^dLugal.a.ab.ba "king of the sea"
28. ^dLugal.id₂.da "king of the river"


Also, the 'destroyer' entry in DDD mentions that Nergal has the name
Lugal-gal-abzu "great king of the abyss"


So, the question is why would Nergal be called the king of sea, river, and abzu, which would otherwise be titles of Enki. Possibly there is some overlap or mixture between the lower waters and the netherworld, for instance late ritual texts make this kind of equation of Apsu-Tiamat and Ereškigal (Mystical Works, p. 191):
Ea is present as the Apsû. The Apsû is the sea(Tâmtu). The sea is Ereškigal.

[madness]

On the winged disk of Ahura Mazda as being derived directly from Aššur, that is an idea that seems to have been accepted some time ago. Parpola mentions in his article 'Assyria's Expansion'

The supreme god of the Achaemenid Empire, Ahura Mazda, was likewise syncretized with Aššur, as shown by the adoption by the Achaemenid Dynasty of the winged disk of Aššur as the emblem of Ahura Mazda (Dandamayev and Lukonin 1989: 342).

Dandamayev and Lukonin 1989 = The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[madness]

Dalley mentions in Myths from Mesopotamia p. 283 that Nergal/Erra was the "patron of copper smelting"

This is the first time I have heard of this important point, as it would accord with the idea that Nergal is a god of fire.

With a bit of searching I see that Dalley herself wrote a paper
"Near Eastern patron deities of mining and smelting of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages," Report of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities, 1987.
So she would know about these things, but I don't think I have access to this paper, and haven't found much else of use yet.

[Salmu]

Don't mind my butting in on this thread, but Sheshki is holding a metaphorical gun to my head and he is technically correct. This discussion seems in some way to overlap with my current research. I recently came across an exceedingly clear discussion in a Masters thesis on the conflation of Nergal, Reshef and Adad. The author also makes the connection to mining and has the courtesy to cite the relevant sources.

www.google.de/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CD4QFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgradworks.umi.com%2F1445965.pdf&rct=j&q=the%20ingot%20god&ei=W9EqTae-G42p8QOv1PzhAg&usg=AFQjCNGxupeOeJsGA0Pk_RL9e52-KSSgHQ&sig2=227m56V-H9nBBSEFNEMr1w&cad=rja

The article is on Cypriot Late Bronze Age iconograpy and the discussion of the associated iconography of Nergal and his connection to mining is on pages 18 to 24 of the pdf ... bearing firmly in mind that the identification of attributes and associations of dieties in the ancient Near East were commonly conflated and merged in various cultures, regions and timeframes.

As to the Cypriot Antiquities article, I have access at my university, next time I return I will attempt to look it up.

[madness]

Thanks for the link, Sabatini's paper helps clarify a few things. The attribute of Girra that he notes comes from an appendix text to Šurpu:

p. 53:
(incantation to Girra)
16-17: you are the one who alloys copper and tin
18-19: you are the one who refines gold and silver


As for the actual equation of Erra and Girra, I believe he is sourcing this from the Erra Epic itself, tablet one 110 ff., where Erra is identified with Girra, Adad and Šamaš (and other items) on the basis of their features.

[sheshki]

I post here in the name of our member andrea, who is in OZ at the moment with a bad internetconnection. She sent me the paper "Near Eastern Patron Deities of Mining and Smelting in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages" including some notes by her. I tried to add the footnotes as well but it didnt work properly, so if someone of you want the original .doc file including the footnotes, drop me a private message. Here we go:

‘Near Eastern Patron Deities of Mining and Smelting in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages’ (plate xix), S. Dalley, Report of the Department of Antiquities Cyprus, (RDAC)1987, pp. 61-6.

The Copper Isle has delivered into the hands of archaeologists a statuette of a male god standing on an oxhide ingot from Enkomi (Pl: 1), and a statuette of a nude female who likewise stands on an ingot, albeit broken, from Kouklia-Palaepaphos. The Bomford statuette of a female, now in the Ashmolean, which closely resembles that from Kouklia, has long been considered to come from Cyprus (Pl: 2), and a statuette now in the Cyprus museum, Nicosia, of a very similar nude female but broken away at the knees, perhaps stood originally on an ingot (Pl: 3). All these copper or bronze statuettes are thought to date to the LBA [c. 1550-1200 BC]. A statuette of a man or a god standing on an ingot has been found in central Crete in a shrine of Hermes and Aphrodite which dates to the 8th century BC.
A late and difficult Greek text has been taken by N. Robertson to imply that there existed in Cyprus in Graeco-Roman times a large-scale public statue of a goddess standing on an ingot. This would support the general assumption that deities, not mortals, are the subject of the female statuettes, and raises the possibility that there was a tradition lasting a thousand years or more of representing divine patrons of copper smelting as standing on an ingot, whether as cult statues or as dedicatory statuettes. On cylinder seals of the mid to late 2nd millennium from Cyprus the ingot is itself used as a filling motif, and it presumably represents the patron deities of copper smelting and mining. As a glyptic motif it is restricted to Cypriot seals.
The identity of the ingot god and goddess has been suggested on indirect evidence, which dates some 500 years or more after the period of the Cypriot statuettes, as Canaanite Resheph [Semitic form r’sh’f-Reshef, Egyptian = Reshpu] and as Aphrodite, who is implied by Herodotus to be of Cypriot origin. Since the ingot god of Enkomi stands in the pose of the Smiting God, the possibility of identifying him with the Semitic god Resheph has wider implications. As for the goddess, Hadjioannou has suggested that the navel length thong which she wears on the Bomford, Nicosia and Kouklia statuettes is the kestos himas [κεστος ημας] of Illiad 14.214 which Aphrodite lent Hera to make her irresistibly seductive. However these suggestions, for all the accumulating support, so far lack the backing which would be supplied if one could show that Resheph and Aphrodite were patron deities of copper smelting. Greek sources do not supply this information, and the close association with the shrine beneath the Phoenician temple of Astarte, whom Philo of Byblos equates with Aphrodite, in Kition, is evidence only of an indirect kind.
Akkadian cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia contain some information which is relevant to this Cypriot and Cretan problem. To take the goddess first: there is a goddess who is particularly well documented in the Old Babylonian (MBA) period, known variously as Mamma, Mammi and Mammitum. She is called “the female smelter of the gods” in two separate hymns. In a list of four (or five) smiths from Mari on the Middle Euphrates, two of the names are compounded with Mamma. In the Old Babylonian Epic of Atra-hasis the goddess Mammi plays a central role as creator of mankind, the one who mixes the raw materials clay and blood, the midwife goddess whose names or epithets are given as “mistress of the gods,” “mistress of all the gods” and NIN-TU(R), “lady of the birth-hut(?).” In the Epic of Gilgamesh X. vi.37 she is creator of mankind. Thus she has two clear attributes: as a smelter goddess and as a birth goddess. She is to be recognised by her omega shaped symbol [Ω] which is thought to represent a uterus. Her cult centre is (was) at Kesh.
Although the site of Kesh in central Mesopotamia has not been identified, it is attested as a cult centre in records from the proto-literate period onwards, and was the principal shrine of the great Sumerian fertility goddess Ninhursag and of [p. 62] her hypostasis NIN-TU(R). Ninhursag means “mountain lady,” [no shit] and she is attested in Sumerian as the “copper smelter of the land” and the “copper smelter of the gods.” Thus the tradition of this great goddess as patron of copper work reaches back into the Sumerian world of the 3rd millennium and is transferred directly to the Akkadian speaking world. As Mamma the goddess is found in early personal names as a doctor (Mamma-asu) and as a mountain (Mammu-huršan and Mamma-šadû).
Sumerian Ninhursag’s consort at Kesh was Shulpae, a god who is particularly known from texts of the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia. He is the warrior of the gods, the possessor of the arts and institutions of civilisation, the god of both wild and domestic animals, the planet Jupiter, and the plague-demon. In later godlists Shulpae is grouped with Nergal. The Akkadian goddess as Mammitum is paired with Nergal in seal inscriptions of the early 2nd millenium and in later hymns and litanies she is his consort in Kutha, the city near Babylon whose name is synonymous with the Underworld. In godlists of the 2nd to 1st millennia she is listed as the consort of Nergal.
To take the god second: there is evidence that Nergal was the patron god of smelting in Assyria from at least the 9th century onwards. At the Gate of the Foundry Workers which was one of the main entrances to the city of Assur on the middle Tigris, two maceheads were found of the 9th and 8th centuries, inscribed with a dedication to Nergal. In a ritual instruction text on a 7th century tablet there are instructions for the end of campaigns: “the messenger shall collect up from……the official in charge of metal scrap and shall go into the citadel of Assur. When the consignment goes from the citadel of Assur to Nergal, whether in Ninevah or in Kalhu…(break in text). This information implies that Nergal was the patron god of foundry workers, and the metal was stored either in his temples, or at other places such as city gates that were dedicated to him.
Schaeffer’s deduction from Amarna letter EA 35 cannot be used to draw the same conclusion for the LBA because, first, the logogram which is written there for the god may be read either as Nergal or as Resheph [MAŠ]; and second, although an epidemic is stated (oh that one, king of Cyprus to Pharoah) as the cause for lack of production in the mines, the outbreak could be expressed in identical terms even if Nergal were not the patron of mines.
Various cult centres of Nergal are known in Mesopotamia proper. Kutha (Tell Ibrahim near Babylon) is the best attested; there his consort was Mammitum. In Assyria he was the chief god of Tarbiţu, just north of Ninevah; there Laz was his spouse. He has shrines at Ninevah and Nimrud, although these have not been discovered. At Assur he shared the temple of Assur with his consort Allat (“goddess”). So closely connected were Assur and Nergal there that the priests from a single family served both deities.
There are several indications that Nergal was a major god in lands closer to Cyprus than Mesopotamia proper. When Naram-Suen of Agade marched up the Euphrates c. 2,300 BC it was Nergal who opened up for him the way into Armanum and Ebla, who gave him the Amanus region, the cedar forest and the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean). This text shows that Nergal was a N. Syrian or Cilician god of major importance in the 3rd millennium. A late 3rd millennium inscription describes Nergal as king of Ha-Wa-lum, an unidentified place possibly in Hurrian territory. The early Old Babylonian king of Uruk, Anam, built a temple in Uruk to Nergal of Uzarparan, an unlocated cult centre mentioned also in seal inscription of the same period, dedicated both to Nergal of Uzarparan and to Mammitum. An appreciable number of late 5rd and early 2nd millennium cylinder seals are dedicated to Nergal.
Since Nergal’s equivalent Resheph appears to have been the chief god of Enkomi, Kition and Tamassos, it may be worth summarising the manifold attributes of Nergal as they are known from West Asiatic iconography, epithets and literature, for there is new evidence since Schretter’s detailed study was published.
His aspect as plague god is well known, and in this capacity he is mentioned in an Amarna letter written by a king of Alashiya [Cyprus]. His function as ruler of the Underworld, after he has seduced Ereshkigal [p. 63] the queen of the underworld the queen of the Underworld, is likewise well known from the myth “Nergal and Ereshkigal” and from the Late Assyrian composition known as “A Crown Prince’s vision of the Underworld.” His name is normally given a Sumerian etymology meaning “Lord of the Great City,” the latter being an expression for the Underworld [euphemism].
Less well known is Nergal’s function as leader of the army and as a warrior, together with Adad the storm god. Evidence for this comes from iconography and shows the standards of Nergal and Adad went at the head of the Assyrian army. This function may be connected with the apparent fact that both Adad and Nergal-Resheph are depicted in the smiting pose.
Nergal is a god who makes the sea rough; in Sumerian he bears the epithet “king of the sea.” In this respect he comes close again to the stormgod Adad, who shares the same vocabulary and epithets in the time of Shalmaneser III (858-829 BC).
Hymns to Nergal and the Poem of Erra both make it clear that Nergal was a god of domesticated and wild animals.
Nergal is the son of Ellil, head of the pantheon, or Anu, the sky god. His mother is not named. He was equated with Gilgamesh as the ruler of the Underworld. This is extraordinary, for Nergal is one of the great gods, whereas Gilgamesh was a hero who signally failed to find immortality.
[Themes] Iconographically Nergal can be identified by a few specific themes, and each one can be linked to an epithet of the god. [addorsed quadrupeds] One theme consists of addorsed quadrupeds, as shown on neo-Assyrian standards of Nergal which are clearly depicted on reliefs, and as was suggested with reference to Kassite boundary stones in 1919 by Thureau-Dangin. It is confirmed by an Old Babylonian cylinder seal inscribed with a dedication to Nergal. Addorsed quadrupeds often form the top of the god’s mace or the hilt of a dagger. One of Nergal’s epithets is “standard,” the word in Akkadian forms a pun on the god’s name (urigallu), and another is namţaru, “sword.” In Hittite hieroglyphs Nergal’s name is written SWORD; and at Yazilikaya he is shown with addorsed lions.
[water] Another theme is that of the vase from which streams of water overflow. Traditionally this has been attributed to EA (Enki) but a seal from Susa inscribed with a dedication to Nergal and bearing this motif, along with a newly published seal which shows the [a?] nude hero holding this overflowing vase, and likewise dedicated to Nergal, indicate that it may, in some cases at least, be attributed to Nergal. Although seal inscriptions and iconography do not always go hand in hand, we can be fairly certain in this instance because flowing streams of water also feature on the neo-Assyrian standard of Nergal. The theme should probably be linked with his epithet as “flood-weapon.” An overlap between Nergal and Enki is indicated in particular by the myth “Enki and Ninhursag,” which shows that, in Dilmun at least, Enki rather than Nergal was consort of Ninhursag. One seal bears a joint dedication to Enki and Nergal.
[lion] There is now good evidence to connect Mesopotamian Nergal with the lion as a simple animal, as maintained by Seidl, for a recently published hymn to Nergal of the Old Babylonian period calls him a raging lion. The lion-scimitar is often found on seals dedicated to Nergal, but it is likely that the lion and lion-scimitar are also attributes of Ninurta, the god of the hunt, with whom Nergal is at least partly assimilated. In addition the lion as the embodiment of aggressive strength and regal power may symbolise kings and a variety of deities.
As Schretter and von Weiher have shown, there are variant writings of Nergal’s name from the MBA onwards which indicate a pronunciation Eragal and Erakal.
There is some evidence to suggest that Nergal is the nude hero who fights wild animals with his bare hands, the so-called Gilgamesh or Enkidu figure who is common on 3rd millennium cylinder seals and later iconography. First, this nude figure sometimes holds the overflowing vase, which can now be linked (p. 64) to Nergal in some cases. Second, a seal with an animal contest scene, one of the very few such seals with an inscription, is dedicated to Nergal. Third, addorsed quadrupeds often form a part of such scenes. Obviously more support is needed from inscribed objects, but Nergal’s epithet of “master of wrestling and physical prowess” could be invoked in support of this possibility, together with his attribute, mentioned above, as master of wild and domesticated animals. The equation with Gilgamesh may account for the overlap which has been suggested between the iconography of Nergal and that of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Certain equations or assimilations of Nergal with other deities in the Semitic pantheon are known. From the point of view of Cypriot material the equation of Nergal with Resheph which is clearly stated in an Ugaritic text established this for Syria in the LBA. It is not certain that syncretism is the best term, since Nergal and Resheph could be interpreted as two names or epithets for a single god. S.A. Cook stated that Resheph was associated with smithies; however, the reference comes from a Talmudic lexicon of the 11th century AD; all editions of the Talmud have “roofs” at this point; and the word for smithy in fact can refer to all kinds of workshops. It is probable that Resheph is the Smiting God of Enkomi.
The Poem of Erra shows that in early Iron Age Mesopotamia, if not before, Nergal is the same as Erra, and this equation is confirmed in another context by the inscription on the Nergal gate at Ninevah, where the names and titles of Erra are used in the dedication. Erra is depicted in the poem as a god of war, of plague and of storms at sea, and he is equated with Girra as god of fire. A hymn to Girra tells that Girra is the one who mixes copper and tin [to make bronze].
In Cyprus by the Classical period Herakles was a god of particular popularity. He is regularly found on coins of Kition from the late 6th century onwards; and statues of him were found in the Bamboula temple, a building with continuity stretching back through Phoenician to pre-Phoenician times. At Kakopetria he was worshiped with Athene, and early coins “from Curium,” not closely datable, depict Heracles and Athene. Heracles is also found on coins of Salamis, which had replaced Enkomi as the east-coast harbour. Tamassos produced an early Christian bishop called St Herakleidos. [this last is irrelevant]
The possibility that “Herakles” is the western, non-Semitic pronunciation of Nergal/Erakal was suggested in 1857, and no later scholarship has refuted the phonetic changes involved, nor has any Semitic inscription with the name Herakles come to light, despite the great popularity of the god in W. Asia; all Greek inscriptions on statues of Herakles name Herakles; all Semitic inscriptions on statues of Herakles name Nergal, Melqart or Resheph. One difficulty lies in the fact that the cult of Herakles in Greece is a hero cult, and not that of a great god as it is in Cyprus. Because of this Classical scholars have rejected the testimony of Herodotus and of Lucian, and would prefer to interpret the similarity in the name between Herakles and Nergal, along with the equation of the two at Hatra and Palmyra, as marks of a late and secondary assimilation. Semitists, notably Schretter and Teixidor, are less inclined to that view.
Certain evidence for Herakles from the Greek and Cypriot world tends to support the Semitists and Herodotus, for some early representations of Herakles show him either in the pose of the Smiting god, or in the pose of the Master of Animals, before these poses are largely superceded by the club-and-lionskin pose. Unlike the Homeric heroes who enjoyed hero cults from the late 8th century, Herakles is invariably credited with Zeus as his divine progenitor, and takes his place on Olympus, although mythology has to find etiological excuses to explain the paradox of a hero who attains Olympus. If it is correct to try to reconcile the dual nature of Herakles as a god and as a hero, we might reason that the Greeks took Herakles for a hero, partly because the hero Gilgamesh was already inherent in the character of Nergal, and partly because Homer attributed deeds at Troy to Herakles along with heros of mortal parentage. [that won’t wash, read the Illiad dude]. If hero cults were inspired by the circulation of the Homeric epic, as Coldstream suggests, just so was the Greek perception of Herakles in part guided by his role and description in the Illiad, although there undoubtedly existed a mass of unwritten traditions about Herakles which was not centred on Troy.
The Phoenicians did not follow a Homeric or Trojan tradition. For them Melqart-Herakles was a major god, the patron god of Tyre. The name of their god, Melqart, is virtually a translation of the name Nergal; “ruler of the city” and “lord of the great city” respectively; these etymologies are widely accepted. There are several further pieces of evidence that suggest Melqart and Nergal were the same god.
(p. 65) If Herakles was the non-Semitic pronunciation of Nergal, we can solve the outstanding problem that, whereas we have (at various periods and locations) the equations Melqart = Herakles, Melqart = Resheph, Resheph = Nergal, Nergal = Herakles, nowhere is Melkart = Nergal attested. The explanation is that Herakles is the same word as Nergal, and no assimilation took place. However, divergence obviously did take place: to the Greeks Herakles was a hero [albeit deified]; to the Phoenicians he was chief god of Tyre. In Kition Herakles was part of a continuous tradition from Canaanite Resheph of the LBA, through Phoenician Melqart of the early Iron Age, likewise at Enkomi [LBA]-Salamis [Iron]; whereas at Tamassos Apollo as god of plaques superseded Resheph.
[ankh] There seems to be some evidence that the ankh [“life”] was used as a symbol of Nergal-Herakles-Melqart in the Levant and E. Mediterranean from the LBA down to the 4th century BC, although during the first half of the 2nd millennium it certainly had wider associations, [!] since on Syrian cylinder seals it accompanies the weather god and at least one major goddess. [no mention that ALL gods in Egypt may carry it in iconography]. After that period, however, the motif becomes relatively restricted in use [outside of Egypt?]. The Louvre seal A 919 and a seal from Tell Ta’annek in Palestine (both dated LBA) both depict the ankh and are inscribed with the names of servants of Nergal-Resheph. Melqart is depicted standing more-or-less in the smiting pose on the stele of Bar-Hadad of the 9th century holding the ankh. Herakles occurs on an archaic Greek gem together with an ankh, in the Late Geometric period (late 8th-7th century BC). Early coins of the late 6th century BC from Salamis and Kition, as well as those “from Curium,” often depict both Herakles and the ankh, with smaller coins sometimes showing only the ankh. At Tarsus in Cilicia a coin showing Herakles is inscribed with the name of Nergal in Aramaic and has an ankh. There seem to be no occurrences of the ankh with other gods or with goddesses, which may rule out the possibility that the ankh was used as a general symbol of life, or of power and sovereignty. If so, the ankh on Phoenician stamp seals and scarabs may be given a specific meaning, and such seals are likely to be related closely to Tyre and its colonies. In any case, it is clear that the ankh links the iconography of Nergal, Herakles and Melqart; [in the iron age] and since it is an Egyptian symbol in origin, it may be relevant to the surprising statement by Herodotus, the Herakles-Melqart was originally an Egyptian god. [citation please!]
The stela from Amrit shows a deity who can be identified with Melqart-Herakles for the following reasons. The god adopts the smiting pose; he stands on a lion; and he holds a small lion in much the same way as the Nergal-Gilgamesh figure who is found on Sargon II’s relief sculpture from Khorsabad. The stela dates from the mid-1st millennium [500 BC], by which time Melqart had probably become the chief Phoenician god rather than just patron god of Tyre. The winged disk is present in order to mark the god as king of the gods in that area. The name Shadrafa which is inscribed on the lion must therefore be an epithet of Melqart-Herakles in his capacity as a healing god, if we accept the hybrid and unsatisfactory Semitic etymology of the name as “healing spirit;” it may be a secondary interpretation of another word, but nonetheless valid for its own time. All of these considerations fit the character and attributes of Melqart. As for the Egyptian crown worn by the god, it adds to the impression which Herodotus would have gained from public monuments showing Melqart, that this was a god with strong Egyptian connections. [Egyptian white crown with smiting pose is characteristic of Reshef and Baal]
There seems to be no clear evidence that Herakles was regarded as the patron god of miners and foundry workers in the Greek world. He seems to have been the early or possibly pre-Greek god of Thasos where the Phoenicians developed gold and silver mines; in Crete, Idean Herakles was connected with the Dactyloi, “dwarf craftsmen…who danced attendance on the Great Mother;” [Great Mother..tsk…I bet this is an old source] at Athens Herakles was associated with Athene and with Hephaistos the god of metalworking craft (rather than mining and smelting); in Anatolia Herakles left his name at Eregli (Heraklea) close to the silver mines of Bulghar Maden, where the great, 8th century rock relief at Ivriz still stands, in the ancient state of Hupishna (Kybistra). But all these associations could be explained in other ways.
There is one further indication that Herakles was not considered as a Greek god in the ancient Near East: on Hellenistic coins from Kushan, well outside Phoenician influence, Herakles is found among various Greek deities; when Greek influence and (p. 66) deities vanish, leaving behind only indigenous deities, Herakles remains.
In conclusion, Akkadian cuneiform sources show that the great fertility goddess of Sumer, Ninhursag, known variously in Akkadian as Mamma, Mammi and Mammitum, was the patron goddess of copper smelting. Her West Semitic equivalent remains unknown. By the early 2nd millennium she had acquired as her consort Nergal, a god whose chief centre of power seems to have been in N. Syria or Cilicia, and who was patron god of copper smelting. His West Semitic name was Resheph, Nergal may have been pronounced Herakles by non-Semites. This is the Near Eastern background against which the Cypriot ingot deities of the Late Bronze Age may be viewed.


STEPHANIE DALLEY


ADDENDA; [Andrea] This transcription is not verbatim, but as close to original as I consider acceptable. The author’s continuous inconsistencies, especially with numbers have been altered to one style (i.e.; 1st and first ). All interpolations between square brackets are mine, [ ] employed where she is unclear, inconsistent, or I wish for a note for my research. Her style would get my supervisor covering this document in florid red ink, but this does not devalue the importance of her argument, well, yes it does, but it has salient points. They are however argued badly, dates are way too broad representing a range of circa 4000 years for the entire Near East and Aegean. She equally wastes way too much time on Archaic period and Classical references which may contribute indirectly, yet are not foundation for an argument for the ingot god and goddesses of Cyprus being the gods in question in the BRONZE AGE.
Which brings me to my main issue. This is an examination of the likely contenders for god and goddess of mining and metallurgy in Cyprus as represented by the figurines in copper and bronze. One tends to lose track of this somewhere into page 2. She has argued well for a conflation/assimilation between Reshef/Nergal, Melqart and Herakles over the LBA to early Classical, with good cross referencing, yet has overlooked a lot of the data that would support the earlier/contemporary period discussion. A particularly contentious academic could shoot a cannon through this discussion just by citing the translatability of deities argument. (see M.S. Smith, 2008, ‘God in Translation’)
Also, to nitpick, some of her citations are positively Neolithic (use ‘mother goddess’ in a scholarly work today and expect to lose all street cred). I would have placed more emphasis on seal imagery from the relevant timeframes, and on the philological connection between Reshef, the Levantine god of plague and battle, who she has hardly discussed, and who was so damn popular with royalty in Egypt in the 18th -19th Dynasties, and the god Nergal. The cuneiform sign for both gods was the maš/maš-maš in the LBA (see Labat or Borger). (just call me biased, as Reshef is the subject of my research) I would argue that there needs to be more emphasis on the cult connection to minerals and mining. Particularly with regard to the goddess of copper, mining (and love!) from Egypt, Hathor. As Cyprus was THE copper producer and trader for the region, and there is evidence for Hathor being assimilated into local cult at the end of the LBA and evolving into Aphrodite over time, (see articles by Karageorghis and Caubet). And to conclude; THERE IS NO UNEQUIVICABLE EVIDENCE FOR WHICH DEITIES THESE METAL FIGURES REPRESENT, or if they are deities, (they did not come with convenient labels) but odds on they are gods, as they are from temple and cult loci.

[enkur]

This bas-relief is from Carchemish during the Hittite empire's period. It's supposed to depict Nergal, and for me it is Nergal, and one of the best images of Nergal.

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[enkur]

The Sword-god from Yazilikaya sanctuary is also supposed to represent the Hittite Nergal.

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[enkur]

Its drawing-restoration.

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[enkur]

Nergal is a complex archetype indeed. As a potent, virile, militant, resourceful and skilled god he used to serve different magico-political causes in the Ancient Orient. Though Meslamtaea/Nergal was an ancient deity, for me he was the one who promulgated the Iron Age, and the Babylonian "Erra Epos" appears to me as its official announcement. During the beginning of the first millennium BCE, Mesopotamia ( and the Near East in general) was swept by blood-floods indeed. Nergal drained the blood of both Assur and Marduk though at last he gave the upper hand to Marduk (for short because Assur will soon resurect from the East as Ahura-Mazda). Such is my general mythic vision about the end of the VII century BCE.


I connect Nergal/Erra mainly with Ares/Mars, whom the Hellenes themselves attributed a Thracian origin, and whose Thracian epithet was Kandaon (the dog-strangler). Nergal participates also in the archetype of Hades/Pluto. In the Judaeo-Christian demonologies he is identified with Satan himself, or regarded as the chief of Hell's secret police


The connection with Herakles in the above article is interesting and possible, and it makes me consider also the archetype of the Smith-god, the Hellenic Hephaestos, and the Roman Vulcan. I'm reminded also about the Voodoo deity Ogoun, who is god of both war and metalurgy.

[ninurta2008]

I never understood the similarities between Nergal and the Judaeo-Christian Satan beyond that one story. Where Nergal goes down into the underworld, after acting irreverently towards Namtar, who went to the heavens on hehalf of Ereshkigal. Which is similar in some ways to Yahweh getting angry at Satan for not revering Adam, when he was in the heavens like he was commanded to. Are there are associations?

[muska]

I rather put Nergal and Ereshkigal story into the range of Mesopotamian myths about gender struggle (Enki and Ninhursag, Enki and Ninmah, Inanna and Enki etc.).

[enkur]

Though transparently political, this non-Sumerian myth is not less magical. A good example how the patriarchaly orientated Babylonian priesthood did its political sorcery on the collective memory. Yet I'm afraid they failed to control Nergal who after all pleased Ereshkigal in this myth. Yes, Ereshkigal was really pleased after aeons of black widowhood and monasticism but she has never lost her control of the netherworld whose population increased significantly thanksgiving to Nergal's Iron Age

[muska]

Afanasieva suggested an idea that myth Nergal and Ereshkigal have Sumerian origin. I see in this story not only patriarchal overtones. Ereshkigal lost her role of single ruler of Netherworld, but also Nergal lost his place among celestial deities, and final result is a satisfaction of Ereshkigal s demands.

[enkur]

I don't know how she came to that idea but Nergal himself, such as we know him, is not of Sumerian origin, and we know almost nothing about his Sumerian correspondent Meslamtaea. If this myth had a Sumerian base, it should have sounded a bit differently but anyway, the contemporary sorcerer may consider that new situation in the netherworld, or may consider it not, addressing Ereshkigal as the only, and supreme ruler of the netherworld.

[enkur]

At least no male who has gone to live in his wife's place has ever exercised any real authority there ;D In the case of Nergal, he might have well acquired some competency as regards certain undead manifestations of the netherworld but generally he is there as a house helper, rather than as an enjoying full rights co-ruler, just because he has much to learn yet. A professional murderer, and even a vampire is still not fully competent about death. The skill of killing, and even that of rising from the dead, are still from this world... Yet I'm somehow sure Nergal has been initiated into the mystery of death in the nuptial bed rather than in the battle field

The patriarchal Hellenes have solved their political problem better - it's Persephone who went to live in Hades's place, though I suspect the things were different prior the Mycenaean conquest.

[muska]

For my knowledge, Nergal rather have Sumerian origin. One from suggested explanations of his name is Sumerian term en-uru-gal - Lord of the Great City (Netherworld). He mentioned in some Sumerian texts
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.15*#

[enkur]

Thanks but it says this text is unfound. Anyway, as far as I know Me$lamtaea was his Sumerian correspondence but both me$3-lam-ta-e3-a and en-uru-gal as well as most of the divine names are epithets. I think there were more competent opinions than mine on the matter about the name written with pirig3-unu-gal in this thread or another in enenuru dedicated to Nergal, but for me Nergal in his popular form is not of Sumerian origin as was Marduk as well despite of some applied evidences on the matter. There is a war between the scholars's opinions. Generally I don't trust scholars because they know much and feel little but on the other hand they have the database I haven't. Later on that matter - in the other thread

[muska]

On links: Sumerian hymns to Nergal
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.15.2#
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.4.15.3#
Sumerian inscription on dedicating an axe to Nergal in ETCSL is presented only in Sumerian, but I know this text from Russian translation.
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.5.7.3#
In the Babylonian period images of all Sumerian deities are changed, not Nergal only.
Your thought about limits of the scholarly discourse is very interesting and provocative, but the texts not only database for scholars, the deep academical knowledge may lead to understanding.

[enkur]

Muska,

I do know these texts. They are not earlier than Ur III, if not even later. During that period the Sumerians were already a minority. If Ur III was really a Sumerian renaissance it wouldn't last one century only. Even Ur-Namma's pretence for deriving from the blood-line of Gilgamesh is questionable. Nergal was imported by the Akkadians, who broke the spine of the Sumerians and Nergal absorbed his Sumerian correspondent as well as later Ishtar will absorb Inanna. Woe to the defeated. Here the analogy with the barbaric peoples who destroyed the Roman civilization but adopted the Latin language for their literary and sacral ends, is very close. Moreover, most of these texts are from Nippur the north-Sumerian Vatican which the Akkadians always sought to control. One should bear in mind also that the Nippurian version of the cosmology is not to be by necessity regarded as all-Sumerian.

I'm interested to know more facts but I seek to do my research in accordance with the other work I have to do, and sometimes my interest in Sumer seems to be more than eccentric at the background of my real needs, so I'm not able to search all the time for evidences from some authoritative academic sources. But even if I had all the time they would kindly refuse me an access to their whole database because my education doesn't fit their nomenclature. Please let me speak about the academics in the other thread.

For this thread I would like to say that I'm not prejudiced towards Nergal, sharing something of his romantic aspect, having invoked him, and having been shown visionary how the enemy's seed is to be destroyed by hanging the enemy warriors by their genitals with their women witnessing. Something not mentioned in the ancient texts available to me but probably practised in the furry of war. I have also more brutal visions inspired by Nergal which I would abstain to mention here Here there are some contemporary images I found in the net.

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