Nergal

[enkur]

This I found in Deviant Art:

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[enkur]

This seems to be more on theme of Nergal's descent ;D

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[madness]

I don't know how you are concluding that Nergal is an Akkadian import, since Nergal is attested in Old Sumerian god lists

Fara: ^dKIŠ-urugal₂
Abu Salabikh: ^dne₃-urugal₂


But this issue will not be resolved until someone looks at these Zeitschrift für Assyriologie articles (which I do not have access to):

P. Steinkeller, The Name of Nergal, Vol. 77
W. G. Lambert, The Name of Nergal Again, Vol. 80
P. Steinkeller, More on the Name of Nergal and Related Matters, Vol. 80
P. Steinkeller, Studies in Third Millennium Paleography, 4: Sign KIŠ, Vol. 94

I assume these will explain the etymology of Nergal.

[enkur]

Being involved into a Sumerologist linguist discussion is the last thing I would like to find myself in. I have no access to the factology, you guys are armed with, so I have only a subjective feeling which says to me: "He (Nergal) was a stranger from the North". The North was also the direction he appeared to me in my ritual. Unlike the scholars, the sorcerers never give up the first feeling they have about a given matter even if all the objectivity of the world allies against it. History usually justifies them.

I don't know even how is dKIŠ-urugal2 read as Nergal etc. What about PIRIG.UNUG.GAL ? What about all that obscure polemics between Lambert and Steinkeller as regards KIŠ sign? If I have had any insights of the matter it wasn't by scholar way - I really have no time for it. Hey, us4-he2-gal2, please, say something on the matter - wasn't it also your idea that Nergal was a Semitic deity?

Sorry but I'm a bit stupid intellectually and not always understand what the educated people talk with each other. Yet I've dared to invoke Nergal, and promise the next time to ask him about his genuine origin. I'm serious. Maybe it's because of my personal jealousy of Ereshkigal that I'm not recognizing Nergal as a Sumerian deity. Yet I feel connected with them more than those who study them.

[enkur]

Wasn't it his name? If not, the problem isn't mine but of those who do not observe their own conventions.

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[madness]

Nergal's city is Kutha, which is in a fairly northern position in the Sumerian world. Kutha is much further north than Nippur, and is even a bit north of Babylon.


For the reading of the name, a single Sumerian sign can have many different values (i.e. pronunciations). The sign PIRIG alone has at least five values:
ne₃
nisku
pil₇
piriĝ
ug₂

And the sign UNUG has about 16 values. As you can see, trying to decide which value a sign should represent would be a most difficult task, given so many options. Fortunately the Assyriologists have done most of the work for us.

So the value ne₃ is written with the sign PIRIG, and urugal₂/eri₁₁ is written with the sign UNUG. Thus the signs are transliterated as:
^dPIRIG.UNUG = ^dne₃-urugal₂
^dPIRIG.UNUG.GAL = ^dne₃-eri₁₁-gal


As for KIŠ, apparently Lambert is arguing that the value ne₃ originally came from the sign KIŠ.

[muska]

Madness, thanks for the elaborated explanations in support of my point of view.
Enkur, it is interesting, that the first image of Nergal posted by you is used in the on-line shrine
nshrine.com/shrine/Nergal
They also have Ereshkigal shrine
nshrine.com/shrine/Shrine_to_Ereshkigal

[enkur]

I admit my above inscription of the name with piriĝ3 (PIRIG×UD) was not correct. So below should be the correct inscription.

What follows are my own inscriptions of all Nergal's names I came to know. I can't satisfy with the translations and transliterations without I seeing their cuneiform signs, and feel the energy charge therein, so I take all the pains until I identify which cuneiform sign corresponds to certain transliterated Sumerian syllable, or word I'm interested in. It takes me hours until I restore in cuneiforms a simple phrase from a given texts.

Sometimes the Sumerologist conventions are not observed. When I've asked why, no explanation has followed - for example, in the thread "Me, Myself and I" and otherwhere. I'm afraid the Assyriologists have made anything possible to make the amateur study despairing, so it's not strange that there are so many conspiracy theories about the Anunna deities, and those who hide the truth about them.

I'm aware of the particularities you point out but sometimes I fail to notice some of the many values a given cuneiform sign may have. I didn't find UNUG anywhere but I found unu-gal (tomb) which is the same sign in the name as the supposed UNUG.GAL.

As for the KIŠ sign, I preferred to invest my trust in Lambert rather than in Steinkeller when I read an article on Nergal's name (though I understood little of their scholar jargon), thus I ignored the name written dKIŠ-urugal2 in the Fara list.

At last, as regards the Sumerian north, I still keep on my feeling that anything hostile to what has fascinated me of Sumer came from the north.

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[enkur]

This should be d me$3-lam-ta-e3-a - correct?

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[enkur]

d lugal-er9-ra

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[enkur]

And d er9-ra.

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[enkur]

there is really a resemblance between KIŠ and PIRIG

[enkur]

and GIR3 (er9)



(given here with the significator for tree ĝeš)

[enkur]

Muska,

I find this image a bit Gothic in style I'm an old fan of the Gothic aesthetics but I think the artist should find the Mesopotamian equivalent of that style. For example the design of Enenuru website has achieved it as an atmosphere.

[enkur]

Once more I did re-read the two versions of Nergal's marriage myth. The earlier version of Tel el Amarna is brutally vulgar indeed. Yes, there are warriors so indulging in their fierceness that it costs them some time until they realize how much they are dead

[enkur]

The name I neglected in the Fara list.

Anyway, the time of the Sacred Marriage, known in the European pagan traditions as May's Eve is near at hand, and being so involved I'll see what happens on the border of the worlds. If no post by Enkur anymore say no word of guilt about him

As far as I know in the Nordic pagan tradition the warriors who died heroic death had special privileges in the cults of Odhin and Freya while all the rest were under the care of Hel. Is it possible that Nergal as a god of the netherworld cared about the dead warriors in particular while Ereshkigal cared about dead in general?

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[us4-he2-gal2]

Hey all -



Some very nice contributions and efforts all around - I admire the determination! I will say that this is not an easy field and no one should feel inadequate if dealing with the cuneiform or the Assyriological conventions proves at times a frustrating process. It's not going to be any other way. I should add that while I am able usually able to retrieve answers concerning cuneiform with enough effort, I am still basically untrained in this area and usually don't see it as my task at this time.


The name of Nergal has been a difficult subject for the experts to deal with and the articles Madness has insightfully pointed out above are an exchange between two of the greats in the field P. Steinkeller and W.G. Lambert - the exchange between one and the other turned into a rather unprofessional and public bickering, because they could not agree on what to say about the name of Nergal. In other words it's complicated and it will probably stay that way.



All that I know about Nergal's name and origin I derived from a summary given by D. Katz in her 2003 books "The Image of the Netherworld in Sumerian Sources." I have scanned the 16 relevant pages and you can read them here:

www.enenuru.net/storage/Nergalfull/

It is a difficult discussion and I would read it over two or three times. Katz likely has summed Lambert's and Steinkeller's findings and presents about all that can be said about this subject - however if there more to be said after the Katz article is considered, I'll see what I can do..

[madness]

The Nergal A entry in RLA, written by Wiggermann, explains why the identification of the early ^dKIŠ.UNU as Nergal is proven:

- In Ebla, ^dKIŠ.UNU is equated with Rašap*
- A more explicit form, ^dKIŠ.UNU.GAL, appears towards the end of the third millennium

Wiggermann states that "by lack of counter candidates KIŠ.UNU spells undoubtedly Kutha, Nergal's main cult centre. The bull's head denotes the god of Kutha, just as the MÙŠ-gate post denotes Inanna."

He also states that getting the value ne₃ from KIŠ is both wrong and unnecessary.

*Rašap (literally meaning "flame") is the Canaanite god who is usually equated with Nergal.


> I preferred to invest my trust in Lambert rather than in Steinkeller when I read an article on Nergal's name <

I corrected myself above because I accidentally misrepresented who was arguing what. It is actually Lambert who argued that ne₃ was a value of KIŠ, and Steinkeller was trying to prove him wrong. [HOWEVER both of them accept that ^dKIŠ.UNU is Nergal, they are just arguing about what the KIŠ is supposed to represent]

[madness]

I also notice from the abrahadabra link in the first post in this thread that us4-he2-gal2 has already explained ^dKIŠ.UNU before.

We've come full circle again.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Dear members:



There have been no personal attacks here. This is fortunate, as even a well intentioned action like this would ultimately prove counter productive.


Best Regards.

[enkur]

To Madness:

Let's go beyond that circle.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Quoting Madness above:

"also notice from the abrahadabra link in the first post in this thread that us4-he2-gal2 has already explained dKIŠ.UNU before.

We've come full circle again."


Yes at the adrahadabra link given at the start of the thread I made some comment on Nergal. There were derived more or less completely from the work of D. Katz which I have now scanned and posted the link to above.

In that way yes the conversation has come full circle. Some of your comments such as your presenting the views of Wiggermann in reply 51, and other comments here, have complicated this information.


If the process was to move forward at all, if that is even possible, I think we would need to read the Katz carefully, and see what is left unsaid - what would be remaining research questions left unanswered by the current state of the field on Nergal?

[Meslamtaea]

Well, unfortunately as this thread has demonstrated the evidence for Nergal and his cult in the earlier periods of Mesopotamian history is indeed rather slim, aside from contested etymology. Given my research in the area I don't imagine that much progress in that area will be made until archaeologists get around to excavating Cuthah.

However, what is quite interesting, and of course what Nergal is best known for is his prominence in the first millennium as becoming perhaps the first real Satan archetype in mythology. Although this seems to be a deviation from his original qualities it would at least be an interesting avenue with which we could try to read back into the past. In the Netherworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince there's a very detailed description of Nergal's court, and the various demons and gods who inhabit it. The imagery is very vivid, and there's likely connections with earlier mythological beings or entities.

Nergal's cult also has a Classical presence at Hatra, and I know there are some articles floating around about his synchronization either with Hercules or Hades.

There's also a book called Der Babylonische Gott Nergal by Egbert Von Weiher which was published in the 1971. I can't comment on its contents, as I have not been able to get ahold of a copy, but if it is an investigation of Nergal in the Old or Middle Babylonian period than it could be used to fill in the gap between his changing attributions.

Part of my summer project now that I have a working knowledge of Biblical Hebrew is to analyze the argument of parallels being made in The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra By Daniel Bodi, and add that to my overall investigation of the Erra Epic.

There just doesn't seem to be a lot of resources for Nergal in a Sumerian context. Until more excavation is done, or perhaps until a significant serendipitous find is discovered it will remain somewhat mysterious. For now Katz is about the best we have.

[enkur]

Wоuld somebody tell me where can I find the Assyrian version of the text about Nergal and Ereshkigal from Sultantepe and the neo-Babylonian fragment from Uruk? I mean some translations.

[madness]

The Standard Babylonian Myth of Nergal and Ereškigal
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts VIII
Simonetta Ponchia and Mikko Luukko 2013


Which contains transliterations and translations of
- Tell el-Amarna manuscript
- Sultantepe and Uruk manuscripts in a single composite text

The authors provide extensive line by line commentary of the latter. Their reason for combining the two from Sultantepe and Uruk is that it "offers the fullest reconstruction of the tale." They do acknowledge that there are differences, and they discuss these differences in their commentary.

(The texts alone are worth the price of this book; the 100 page introduction that deals with the myth and ritual (etc.) of the two gods makes it priceless)

[enkur]

Great thanks for the info. Probably my next purchase.

[seeker666utu]

I was doing research on Erra and Girra of late and going through the signlist on ECTSL I noticed Er9=Gir3 thus Er9+ra (Erra) can be read as Gir3+ra (Girra). Which makes sense since Lugal-irra/erra has also been said to be read as lugalgirra. Luga-Er9-ra can be read Lugal-gi3-ra...that says to me that Gir3-Ra and Er9-ra are alternate ways to write Gish-bar for Girra/Girru, while Ne-gi is Gibil.

What do you more learned members think about this theory? It makes sense to me but I may be letting my bias blind me. I just can't understand how Girra was derived from Gis-bar it doesn't make sense to me unless gis-bar was an older Sumerian writing for Girra that was replaced by er9-ra/gir3-ra at least in his Chthonic aspect.

[seeker666utu]

Here is a nugget from the Elementary Sumerian Glossary that may help prove my assertion that Girra & Erra are the same deity. ĝìr(-ra) → ir9(-ra) & ir9(-ra) powerful, mighty (gašru).  So Lugal-erra/irra is the Powerful or Mighty King possibly as a title for Gibil in his Chthonic aspect, thus Girra/ĝìrra/Irra/Erra is a shortened name for the same god.

link to Elementary Sumerian Glossary

As the cuneiform sign for ĝìr3 is also the sign for gir3 & ir9/er9 that should prove that Erra/Irra & Girra is the same deity.

ĝišbar/gišbar =ka-aš(-bar) - bar, ga-eš8 - bar, giš - bar: to decide,
render a (divine) verdict.

Thus Girra/Erra was seen as the god who would render a divine verdict.

On a related note if Girra is the Akkadian version of Gibil I'll touch on a potential mistranslation on the ETCSL Hymn to Kusu (Ku3-Su13) seems to be an hymn to Gibil using a epithet of Kusu/Ku-sud4/su13 as '(he who) gives purity' as purifier. If you read the Hymn Here you'll note that the hymn seems to be singular in focus dealing with Gibil and Kusu seems to be not the focus of the hymn but only mentioned as a epithet for Gibil as purifier.

Ku3-su3/sud seems to be a epithet for Ezina as grain goddess and the reason why the Hymn of Kusu or Gibil was mistranslated as Ku-su written with out numeral valuations look alike. Thus Ezina may be referred to as 'lasting purity or (who) sprinkles or furnishes purity or holiness/sacredness'.

[seeker666utu]

I was reading through the ETCSL Signlist and the ESG and noticed piriĝ=lion so piriĝ unu.gal/irigal is 'Lion of the netherworld/underworld',fascinating.

[us4-he2-gal2]

seeker: Well you actually have quite a few proposals in the above posts. I will try and respond to each of what I see as different proposals.



1. As for there being some common ground in the writing the names of Erra and Girra, I think this is an interesting point and I wouldn’t disagree with it – it has also been pointed out by different commentators as can been seen at the ORRAC treatments of Erra and Girra:

oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/

It seems that Erra’s name was typically written with the sign er3, which cannot be read as ĝir at all – and only occasionally was it spelled with the ĝir3 sign which can also be read er9. However, J.J. M. Roberts in his work on the early Semitic pantheon, has argued for the understanding that ĝir3-ra is a Sumerian rendering of the Semitic god name er3-ra, meaning, that initially Girra and Erra were the same yes. The Sumerian spelling ĝir-ra reflected a time in the 3rd millennium when the Semitic consonant ḥ was still pronounced (the ĝ being an Sumerian approximation of ḥ). Roberts 1972 pg. 29. So at an early time these deities were perhaps the same, but I think in time they certainly grew apart and became distinct.


2. as for ĜIŠ-BAR as the spelling of the name Girra, this is noted on ORRAC as well. I am really not sure why Foxvog gives the equation of this spelling as ka-aš-bar as he does, but I think it is more likely that we should take this as the Sumerian word for “fire” spelled ĝeš-bar at the ePSD. Just type in the word fire in the search engine at the ePSD.


3. As for the “Hymn to Kusu” as it is called on ETCSL, I would agree that Gibil/Girra is given center stage, but the persons working on the text have given due reference to the closing line of the text itself which states “praise to lady Kusu, the princess of the holy abzu” - so whatever the relationship between Gibil and Kusu is (they are both relevant to purification), they aren’t the same.


4. Okay, another potential issue that should be clarified is the notion that the name Erra necessarily should mean “powerful” in any way. You may be thinking: you have to be crazy then, because the name is written with with ir3 or ir9 and these can spell the Sumerian word ir which means “mighty.” Well, first, remember that Erra is a Semitic name, not a Sumerian one. If I call myself “muscle-man”, that doesn’t mean anything in German, but we share the same letter system. So scholars believe that the Semitic name Erra actually comes from an old Semitic word ḥarārum (the ḥ drops off in the literate period and you end up with Erra, and an –a was added to the end as was common on early Semitic proper names – Roberts 1971). The word entails scorching or charring. So the Akkadians are using Sumerian signs to spell out the sound of the name of their god, using the sign ir3/er3 for its sound, not for the Sumerian idea (power) which the sign also represents.


5. Lugal-erra is probably a real Sumerian name and may mean something like ‘powerful king’ yes. But I’m not sure that the deity should be equated with Erra despite that they both are in similar divine circles.




In any case, I think it is great that you struggle with these obscure and difficult topics, and there is no other way to progress but to struggle. In terms of strategy, I note that you still prefer to "reinvent the wheel" at almost every step, and on the one hand, this is an enterprising spirit - but on the other hand, you have to learn to walk before you can run. This board intends, in part, to assist the layman in gaining access to the tricks and tools of the academic field and yes new ideas are welcome of course, but the emphasis is on learning to use academic tools, over and above presenting an alternative view of the material. I can supply you with just about every philological tool you need, and you're going to need more than Foxvog.




Best Regards,


Bill