The Deities of Ancient Mesopotamia, an overview

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Galla—Sumerian underworld demons
The Galla appear in Inanna’s Descent and the accounts of Dumuzi’s
Death, where they are described as ruthless beings, who have none of
the attachments and habits of living people and who make sure that
nobody destined for the underworld can escape.


Geštinanna—Sumerian goddess
Her name means ‘Lady of the Grape-vine’. She is part of the city pantheon
of Lagash, where she is first mentioned by Eannatum, then also by Urbau
and Gudea, who calls her the ‘wife of Ningišzida’. She does not
feature in any known personal names. Since the First Dynasty of Isin,
the goddess was also known as ga.ša.an dub.sar, ‘the scribe of the
underworld’, possibly by assimilation to the Akkadian B-elet-
Se ri. There
is some evidence that during the Old Babylonian period she was one of
the chief deities of Karana (Tell al Rimah).
In mythological texts, Geštinanna appears as the sister of Dumuzi in
Dumuzi’s Dream, Inanna’s Descent and related compositions. She is
said to dwell in the steppe where she has a sheep-stall. When her brother
is pursued by the underworld demons, she shelters and protects him
there. At the very last, when he is finally captured, she offers herself to
be taken instead of him. This act of unselfish love converts Dumuzi’s
death-sentence into a half-year sojourn in the underworld, with
Geštinanna serving the other half. Her involvement with Dumuzi makes
Geštinanna a very important figure in the Sumerian as well as Babylonian
cult-literature, where she plays a prominent part among the mourners.
She was called Belili and her most common epithet in this context is ‘she
who weeps continually’.
Carroué 1981, 121–36; Alster 1985, 219–28

Gibil—Sumerian god of fire, in Akkadian Girra/u
A very ancient deity, he appears already in the god-lists of Fara. Later
he is mainly invoked in incantations and magic rituals as the purifying
power of fire. He was called the son of Enki, himself a great god of
exorcism. An Old Babylonian myth GIRRA AND ELAMATUM describes
the fire-god as an exalted champion of the gods. He fights on their
behalf against the ‘woman of Elam’ (a common designation for a witch),
who is held responsible for a famine and the infertility of the herds.
Girra overcomes her and Enlil decrees that Elamatum’s body is to become
a celestial feature. There is a festival to commemorate the event.
Edzard 1965, 68–9; Amiet 1980; Walker 1983, 145–52

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Gilgameš
A Sumerian king of Early Dynastic Uruk; he was later deified and became
the hero of Mesopotamia’s eponymous epic. His name (written as
^dgiš.bíl.gín.meš, ^dgiš.bíl.ga.meš, ^dgiš.bíl) has been interpreted as ‘the old
man is (still) a young man’, but that may be a late etymology referring
to the Plant of Youth (see below). The Sumerian king-list calls him the
son of the goddess Ninsun and mentions that his father was lillu (an
‘unknown mortal’?) who later became a ‘high priest of Kullab’. In the
epic, Lugalbanda is his father.
Gilgameš appears as the recipient of ritual offerings in Old Sumerian
texts from Lagaš. During the Ur III period he became known as a ‘king
of the underworld’, ‘who pronounces judgement and gives final decisions’
on behalf of the sun-god Šamaš. The close relationship between Gilgameš
and the sun-god might have led to an eventual solar interpretation of
the hero himself. He was worshipped as a god at Nippur, Umma and
Drehem.
There are five extant Sumerian compositions concerning Gilgameš.
They were probably written down during the reign of the Isin kings, who
had dynastic connections with Uruk and were interested in the heroic
past of that city. The different versions of the various stories betray their
origin in oral traditions, although there are some indications that literary
versions existed as early as the Fara period
(Biggs 1977), 1–4.

Gugalanna—Sumerian god
His name means ‘wild bull of Anu’. He is quoted in some god-lists as
the husband of Ereškigal. In the same capacity he is mentioned in Inanna’s
Descent, where Inanna says that she has come to the underworld in
order to mourn for Gugalanna, her brother-in-law. He was identified
with Nergal by the time of the Old Babylonian period.

Gula—Babylonian goddess of healing. See Ninisina

Hendursanga—Sumerian god
Also written logographically as ^dPA.sag.(ga); the etymology is still unclear.
The god first appears in the Fara god-lists, then in various sacrificial
and ritual texts from the Old and Neo-Sumerian periods. Gudea calls
him the nimgir kalam.ma, ‘herald of the Land (Sumer)’, and in the
Hendursanga hymn (Edzard and Wilcke) he acts as an adviser to Utu.
In the incantation series ‘Evil demons’, he is called nagir suqi šaqummi,
‘the herald of the quiet street’. It seems that he was primarily a benevolent
and supportive, if minor, god.
The genealogy of Hendursanga is rather obscure; in one text he is
said to be the (illegitimate?) son of Utu and Ninlil. His wife is the littleknown
ancient Sumerian goddess Ninmuga. By the Old Babylonian
period Hendursanga became identified with the Semitic Išum.
Edzard, in RLA IV (1975), 324; Edzard and Wilcke 1976, 142–76

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Igigi—Akkadian collective of gods
The term (^di-gi4-gi4-ne) has not yet been satisfactorily explained. In some
bilingual Sumero-Akkadian texts the gods are also referred to as dnungal-
e-ne, ‘the great lords’. They do not appear before the Old Babylonian
period and are only mentioned in literary texts. There is no indication
of an actual cult, although the Igigi occasionally occur in personal names.
The origin and even the function of the Igigi in mythological texts is
still unclear and so is their relationship with the Anunnaki. While the
two terms were often used synonymously, the Igigi could also be
contrasted with the Anunnaki—as, for instance, in Atra-hasis (see Floodmyths),
where the Igigi are said to have been burdened with labour for
the gods by the Anunnaki. After forty days they rebelled by burning
their tools, which led to the creation of man to take over their work. A
general distinction between chthonic Igigi and celestial Anunnaki may
be discernible in some texts but was certainly not consistent.
Kienast 1965, 142–58; Soden 1966, 140–5; Kienast, RLA V 1976, 40–4

Inanna/Innin/Ninni(n)—Sumerian goddess
The etymology of her name is doubtful; by the end of the third
millennium BC it was taken to derive from ^dnin.an.na, ‘Lady of Heaven’
(in the Emesal-dialect, gašan.an.na). The cuneiform sign mùš, with which
her name is usually written, goes back to an archaic pictograph
representing a rolled-up reed-stalk . It is found among the earliest written
records from Uruk. The god-list of Fara mentions Inanna behind An
and Enlil and before Enki. Otherwise the sources of the pre-Sargonic
period do not indicate a very widespread veneration of the goddess. She
is invoked in only few personal names and does not appear to be a
recipient of frequent offerings. There are no indications of Inanna’s role
either as a specific goddess of love or of war. Towards the middle of the
third millennium BC, kings of the Kish-dynasties (Enannatum I,
Lugalatarsi), as well as Lugalzaggesi of Uruk, mention Inanna in their
royal inscriptions. The earliest literary texts dedicated to Inanna are
usually taken to date from the period of Agade, when the daughter of
king Sargon, Enheduanna, composed some lengthy hymns in praise of
the goddess. (Since all the compositions ascribed to Enheduanna are
only preserved on later Neo-Sumerian copies, the dating of the texts
remains hypothetical.) It is likely that the tutelary deity of the dynasty
was actually the Semitic goddess Eštar/Ištar, the bisexual deity of the
Venus-star, who was made acceptable to the Sumerian population by a
syncretism with the local Inanna. The hymns elaborate the goddess’s
complex personality and her bid for divine power may well reflect the
political rise of the Sargonic rulers (Hallo, van Dijk). Her epithets in
these texts are nin.me.šar.ra, ‘Queen of all the me’, a title which makes
her the most influential of deities in the world of gods and humans. She
is also nu-(u8).gig.an.na, ‘the hierodule of heaven’ (and/or of Anu), a
projection of her erotic functions to the cosmic scale. She is munus.zi,
‘the woman’, ù.sún.zi.an.na, ‘exalted Cow of Heaven’, who provides
life and sustenance. Inanna represented the force of sexual reproduction,
‘who multiplies the people of all countries like sheep’. She is called the
beloved wife of Ušumgalanna (Dumuzi) and in her martial aspect she is
an ur.sag, a ‘heroic champion’, ‘the destroyer of foreign lands, foremost
in battle’.
During the Neo-Sumerian period, her cult was well established and
several rulers, such as Eannatum and Ur-Ninurta, refer to themselves as
‘beloved husbands of Ninnin’. Her main cult-centre was the É-anna at
Uruk. Other important temples were at Nippur, Lagash, Shuruppak,
Zabalam and Ur. Regular monthly festivals were celebrated in her honour.
During the Isin-Larsa period her cult seems to have reached its climax;
she was identified with Ninisina, the city-goddess of Isin, as well as
many other female deities. Apart from several important mythical
compositions (see below), a large number of hymns and liturgical songs
dedicated to the goddess were compiled in this period. The astral
character of Inanna as the planet Venus is an important subject of many
of these texts. In a self-laudatory hymn (Römer), Inanna claims to have
received special prerogatives from Enlil, ‘who put the sky as a cap on
my head, the earth as sandals on my feet’—poetic metaphor for her
cosmic dominance. A special category are the songs written for the socalled
Sacred Marriage rituals, in which the ‘Queen of Heaven’
symbolically united herself with the king, in order to renew life and
fertility in the land.

The complexity of notions surrounding Inanna in Mesopotamian
sources is well illustrated by her contradictory genealogy and her
astralaspects. Her role vis-à-vis An is typically ambiguous. In Uruk, an old
cult-centre of An as well as Inanna, she was known as the daughter of
An. It is not clear whether the title nu.gig.an.na, ‘hierodule of AN’,
refers to An, the god, and thereby implies an erotic relationship, or
more generally to AN as the sky (see above). Enlil too, possibly in his
role as leader of the pantheon, is called the father of Inanna/Ištar. (In a
later tradition, Inanna/Ištar is also made the consort of either An or
Enlil.) The Isin tradition, which emphasized her astral character, called
Inanna the daughter of the moon-god Nanna and the twin-sister of sungod
Utu. In some literary compositions (see below), Inanna’s mother is
specified as Ningal.

The astronomical aspect of Inanna is somewhat ambiguous. According
to the evidence of seasonal festivals during the Ur III period, Inanna
was primarily associated with the moon (as the daughter of Nanna) and
the phases of the moon were celebrated in her honour, while the heliacal
settings of the planet Venus were marked by the festivals of Nanaya and
Anunnitum (Sauren). The majority of the literary texts on the other
hand (Inanna’s Descent, Inanna and Ebih, hymns etc.) seem to emphasize
the astral rather than the lunar interpretation of the goddess.
In the myths Inanna is described as restless and ambitious. She tries
to extend the areas of her influence and power, to mediate between
heaven and the underworld. She visits the kur to gain knowledge (see
Inanna and Utu, and Inanna and Šukalletuda), which she transmits to
‘her people’. Although immensely powerful, her access to authority is
fundamentally circumscribed because of her femininity; and her attempts
at transcending her position constituted an abuse, a hybris for which
she is punished (Inanna’s Descent). On the other hand, there may also
be etiological motifs behind the narratives concerning her disappearances,
considering her association with Venus, a planet subject to periodical
invisibility.

Inanna’s femininity is proverbial but also contradictory. While she
no doubt incorporated various different local female numina, remnants
of the old Mother-goddess, she does not behave like a mother. She
remained primarily a goddess of sexual rather than conjugal love (see
her epithet nu.gig). She represents the force of fertility rather than the
process of birth itself. Only during the post-Sumerian period did Inanna
become a deity capable of empathy with human misery, having herself
been subjected to humiliation and suffering. There are a number of
balag and eršemma liturgical texts, in which she laments the death of
her lover (Dumuzi), the destruction of her cities and the cruel fate
of her people. She intercedes humbly with the great gods (notably Enlil) to
reverse it on behalf of herself, her city and mankind.
Hallo, van Dijk 1968; Hruška 1969; Römer 1969, 97–114; Sjöberg 1976, 161–253;
Wilcke, RLA IV 1976, 74–87; Sauren 1979, 21–7; Cohen 1981; Wolkstein 1984;
Kramer 1987, 171–89; Sjöberg 1988; Bruschweiler 1989; Balz-Cochois 1992

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge



Išhara/Ešhara
Mesopotamian goddess of unknown origin. No etymology for her name
has been found.
Išhara first appears in the pre-Sargonic texts from Ebla and then as
a goddess of love in Old Akkadian potency-incantations (Biggs). During
the Ur III period she had a temple in Drehem and from the Old
Babylonian time onwards, there were sanctuaries in Sippar, Larsa and
Harbidum. In Mari she seems to have been very popular and many
women were called after her, but she is well attested in personal names
in Babylonia generally up to the late Kassite period. Her main epithet
was belet rame, ‘Lady of Love’, which was also applied to Ištar. In the
Epic of Gilgameš (Tablet II, col. V, 28) it says: ‘For Išhara the bed is
made’ and in Atra-hasis (see Flood-myths) (I 301–304) she is called
upon to bless the couple on the honeymoon.
Her astronomical embodiment is the constellation Scorpio and she is
also called the mother of the Sibittu (the Seven Stars) (Seux, 343). Išhara
was well known in Syria from the third millennium BC (Ebla!). She
became a great goddess of the Hurrian population. She was worshipped
with Tešub and Simegi at Alalakh, and also at Ugarit, Emar and Chagar
Bazar. While she was considered to belong to the entourage of Ištar, she
was also invoked to heal the sick (Lebrun).
Išhara was probably incorporated into the Hittite pantheon via the
Hurrians and her main cult centre was Kizzuwatna. She is known as an
oath-deity since the reign of king Arnuwanda. According to the existing
texts, her healing properties were less often evoked than her power to
harm and cause diseases. The family of king Muršiliš II was said to have
been bewitched by calling upon Išhara, and in curses she was asked to
punish the perjurers.
Biggs 1967; Frantz and Szabo, RLA V 1976, 177–8; Seux 1974; Ichiro 1979, 284f;
Lebrun 1984, 41

Iškur
Sumerian Weather-god; usually written with the logogram ^dIM. He is
already mentioned in the Fara god-list. During the Sargonic period he
was identified with the Semitic Adad, but continued to be worshipped
as Iškur in southern Babylon. His cult-centre was Karkar and his temple,
the É.karkara, is described in the Sumerian Temple Hymns (Sjöberg,
Bergmann, No.27).
Iškur is either called the son of Enlil or An; he is the twin brother of
Enki. He appears in several literary and mythological texts. One eršemma
(Römer 1972) states that Iškur ‘rides on a storm’, is a ‘roaring wind’, the
‘lord of plenty’ (bel hegallim). Another (Cohen, 51), calls him ‘the great
ox who is radiant, the lord who mounts the storm, who mounts a great
lion, producing grain’. In Enki and the World Order (308–316), Enki
puts Iškur, ‘the canal-inspector of heaven and earth’, in charge of ‘rain
and clouds, storms and lightning’. The title ‘canal-inspector’ (Sum. gu.gal)
is an interesting example of the assimilation of a weather-god—usually at
home in areas with a higher rainfall than southern Mesopotamia—to the
irrigation-based economy of Sumer. As the canal-inspector of
‘heaven and earth’ he acts on a cosmic plane,
manipulating the celestial sluices to produce rain on earth.
Vanel 1965; Cohen 1981, 51f; Römer 1982, 298–317

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge



Ištar/Eštar—Babylonian goddess
Her name is probably connected with the West-Semitic Attar/Attart
which is attested in text from Ugarit, the Old Testament, South Arabia
and pre-Sargonic Mari. The term seems to have originally designated
the planet Venus under its two aspects of morning star (male) and evening
star (female) (see Astar and Astart). In the east, the two manifestations
were combined in one deity, who nevertheless retained the characteristics
of both genders; Ištar is a goddess of war as well as of sex and
procreation.
The goddess first appears in personal names during the Sargonic
period (Mari, Ebla etc.) and significantly, in both female and male names.
The kings of Agade seem to have had a special affinity to Ištar, according
to the second-millennium ‘historic legends’ which describe their deeds.
It has been proposed, that in order to make their goddess more acceptable
to the Sumerian population, the Sargonic kings should promote a
syncretism with the Inanna (Hallo and van Dijk). Henceforth, the name
of Ištar was almost always written as ^dINANNA. But since so little is
known about the original character of Inanna, it is impossible to discern
a meaningful difference between the ‘Semitic’ Ištar and the ‘Sumerian’
Inanna. She is customarily referred to as Ištar in an Akkadian and Inanna
in a Sumerian context.
From the Old Babylonian period onwards, many hymns written in
Akkadian sing the praises of the goddess. One such composition, from
the time of Ammiditana (c. 1683–1647 BC), dwells on the beauty and
charm of Ištar, her ‘honeysweet lips’ and ‘shining eyes’. She loves to
help men and women, spreads happiness and joy. All the gods bend
their knee to their lady; together with Anu, her husband, she reigns
from her temple in Uruk (Falkenstein and Soden 1953, 235). (For the
genealogy of Ištar, see Inanna.) Other texts also concern her position in
the Babylonian pantheon. In the EXALTATION OF IŠTAR (Hruška), a
text from the Kassite period, Anu also accepts her as his wife under the
name of Antum, and declares that as ‘Ištar the Star’ she will have the
same rank as the Sun (Šamaš) and the Moon (Sîn). Enlil permits her to
act as she pleases and assigns her a temple in Nippur. The probably
contemporary GREAT HYMN TO THE QUEEN OF NIPPUR (Lambert)
is a long theological exposé (some 300 lines). It first attempts to straighten
out Ištar’s genealogy by making her descend from Anu, Enlil and Sîn. It
then goes on to praise her for her skills to ‘speak holy judgement’, to
‘grant kingship’ and to ‘become angry and then to relent’, ‘to punish
then show compassion’. She is the fierce warrior, the ‘queen of heaven’.
All these are epithets that were customarily applied to Inanna, but she
is also called the ‘creatress of the human race’ (identified with Aruru,
the Mother-goddess) and the one ‘who turns men into women and
women into men’. An important part of the text is taken up with the
names and titles of the goddess, which show off the erudition of the
writer. Ištar emerges as a great deity, able to inspire reverence and love
as well as fear. After all, she is not only a goddess of love, procreation,
justice, mercy and compassion, but of war and battle, of conflict and
lamentation. She persecutes her enemies and those ‘who sin against her’
with relentless fury, inflicting them with every evil and misfortune. A
great number of prayers were therefore addressed to Ištar (Seux 1973,
passim) in an effort to appease her angry heart, to influence the omens
and to grant peace and protection to her subjects.
Apart from these expressions of individual piety and religious fervour,
there are some mythological compositions of the post-Old Babylonian
period which approach the goddess in a less unequivocal manner. The
so-called AGUŠAYA-HYMN (Foster, Groneweg) probably records the
institution of a particular festival. The ironic tone of the poem is
remarkable. It opens with a praise of the warlike Ištar, who runs down
her enemies like an ‘on-rushing vehicle’. Greedy for battle, she appears
‘bellowing like a wild bull’. Her clamour exasperates Ea who decides to
put an end to her aggressive behaviour. With ‘the dirt of his nails’ (as in
Inanna’s Descent!) he creates
Saltu, ‘powerful in form, monstrous in her
proportion’, in fact an exaggerated version of Ištar. He provokes
Saltu
to a violent temper and tells her to rudely challenge Ištar to a fight. The
goddess, confronted with this virago, is appalled and demands Ea to
remove the appalling monster. Ea is happy to do so, as long as Ištar
agrees to modify her own behaviour. According to Ea’s plan the
confrontation has the desired effect: she resolves to give up her incessant
and undignified clamour for battle. Ea instigates a festival in which
people could dance madly about the streets, commemorating the warlike
aspect of Ištar-Agušaya.
Groneberg 1985; Colbow 1991; Groneberg 1997

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Ištar of Arbela
was often invoked by Neo-Assyrian monarchs to give advice through
oracles before important political or military decisions. Her astronomical
correlation may be Sirius, taken to be Venus during the latter’s invisibility.
Lewy 1965, 274

Ištar Aššuritum, wife of Aššur, the national god of Assyria.

Ištar of Nineveh (Ištar kakkabu), ‘Lady of the (Venus) Star’
The foundation of her temple goes back to the third millennium BC and
was traditionally ascribed to Maništusu. She was also very popular
among the Hurrian population (called Ištar-Šaušga) and is frequently
mentioned in the Nuzi-texts. According to the Amarna correspondence,
the Mitannian king once sent the statue of this Ištar to Egypt, in an
attempt to cure the ailing pharaoh Amenophis III. The northern Ištar
was introduced to Anatolia by the Assyrian merchants early in the second
millennium BC and occupied an important place in the later Hittite
pantheon, probably merged with other female deities, but identified by
the logogram IŠTAR.
Vieyra 1957, 83–102; Danmanville 1962

Išum—Babylonian god
The origin of his name is doubtful. He was identified with the Sumerian
god Hendursanga, probably already in the third millennium BC. Išum
was a very popular god, judging from the large number of theophoric
names from the Ur III period onwards, but he never became a ‘great’
god with a national cult. In the mythological texts Išum has a somewhat
more ambiguous nature than Hendursanga, who is mainly a benevolent,
merciful deity. He is the sukallu (‘lieutenant’) of An and sometimes
called ‘the devourer of people and country’. In the Erra-Epic he forms
a foil to the impulsive plague-god and advocates moderation, but shows
remarkable prowess when his force is directed against the enemies of
the country. Unlike his master, he is able to discriminate between a ‘just’
and an unjustified war. In a late Neo-Assyrian text called The Underworld
Vision of an Assyrian Crown-prince’ he pleads with Nergal on behalf of
the victim, and thereby brings about his release. Like Ea, Išum is credited
with superior intelligence and successfully employs psychological
manipulation to achieve his goals.
Römer 1966; Edzard and Wilcke 1976, 142f

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge



Itur-Mer—Babylonian god
His name is formed with that of another deity, a Babylonian hypostasis
of the Weather-God Mer, and means ‘Mer has returned’ (Sumer. mer/
wer means ‘rain, rainstorm’). The god is known mainly from Mari,
where he was the eponymous patron deity.
Ichiro 1979

Ki—Sumerian goddess
The name means ‘earth, land’. There is as yet no evidence that this was
a ‘real’ deity, who had a cult under this name. It may well be more of
a theological concept, a counterpart to An, as it only occurs in lists of
divine names in a cosmogonic context. As there were several different
traditions concerning the origin of the created world, Ki has different
connotations. It is impossible to decide at which point and where these
concepts changed. One tradition, preserved in an early version of the
list An=Anum (text TRS 10), states that the goddess Nammu was the
mother of Heaven and Earth (dama-ù.tu.an.ki), who in turn gave birth
to the first generation of gods, such as Enlil. A late survivor of the same
idea is contained in the Enuma eliš where the primeval pair Apsu and
Tiamat engendered Lahmu and Lahamu, who in turn produced Anšar
and Kišar. The later version of TRS 10 traces the genealogy of Enlil
back through fifteen male-female pairs, including the couple En.ki and
Nin.ki, to be interpreted in this context as Lord and Lady Earth. While
Enki is one of the great Sumerian gods, Nin.ki seems to be an artificially
constructed counterpart for the purpose of the list. The introduction to
Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld, states that ‘Enlil carried off the
earth’. Kramer (1976) concluded ‘that theologians unhappy with a female
deity as the ruler of so important a cosmic entity as earth, had taken her
power away from her and transferred it to a male deity’.
Kramer 1976, 14

Labbu
A monstrous creature with leonine and serpent features. The actual
reading of its name (written as KAL.bu) is still uncertain. The slaying of
this creature is described in a myth which is only partially known from
Neo-Assyrian tablets. People as well as the gods are afraid of the monster,
which had apparently been created by Enlil to decimate the noisy human
race (excessive noise, Akk. rigmu, is also the reason for sending other
plagues and the deluge. See Flood-myths). Labbu is ‘fifty double-hours
long’ and has a voracious appetite, snatching the birds out of the sky
and eating people and animals on land (see also the myth of Hedammu).
The gods implore Tišpak to fight Labbu on their behalf and at first he
raises objections. The text is broken but when it becomes legible again
the battle is in full swing. The victorious god, probably Tišpak, although
the name is not preserved, kills Labbu after holding ‘the seal of his life’
before its eyes.
Heidel 1942, 141–3; Lambert, in Hecker, Sommerfeld 1986, 55f

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Lahmu/Lahamu/(Sum. Lahama)
Mesopotamian gods; the etymology of their name is unexplained. It is
a collective title for groups of divine beings (see Anunnaki and Igigi) in
some Sumerian and Babylonian mythological texts. The Sumerian texts
relate them to the god Enki; they seem to belong to the sea or the Apsu
and count fifty (so for example in Enki and the World Order, where the
fifty Lahama ‘of the sea’ do homage to Enki). In Inanna and Enki the
god sends them to pursue Inanna. Another text describes them as
composite, half-fish, half-anthropomorphic creatures. In the Babylonian
Enuma eliš they appear as a pair, Lahmu and Lahamu, and their watery
nature is implied by the fact that they are the offspring of Apsu and
Tiamat.
The same term also seems to stand for the protective spirits of the
gate-posts, which guarded the entrances to buildings, during the Ur III
and Old Babylonian period.
Edzard, WdM 1965; 93–4; Lambert 1985, 189–202

Lama, Lamma, Lamassu
Sumerian protective minor deity or demon, with a predominantly
intercessary role. She is well known from the Lagash pantheon since the
Early Dynastic period. Her cult was most popular during the Old
Babylonian period; inscriptions tell us that one or more Lamas resided
in the major temples. She may also be represented on cylinder seals,
introducing the worshipper to the presence of a great god (Spycket).
After this time Lamassu became a term for protective spirits generally.
In Assyria, the giant winged bulls or lions with human heads, which
flanked the gateways of temples and palaces, were known as Šedu and
Lamassu.
The concept of this deity also spread to Syria. The Hurrians probably
introduced her to Anatolia. In the Hittite texts dKAL=dLAMA=annaris
formed a group of many different gods and goddesses and it is difficult
to assign them all a primarily protective function.
Spycket 1960, 73–84; Foxvog, Heimpel et al, RLA VI 1980–83, 446–89

Lamaštu
A Babylonian female demon; a daughter of Anu. She is mentioned in
many rituals and incantations. One such text offers a vivid description
of her appearance and activity; she is a terrible goddess, ‘like a leopard,
her feet are like those of Anzu, her hands are dirty, her face that of a
lion; she comes out of the marshes, her hair in disorder, her breasts
uncovered, she follows the cattle and the sheep, her hands in flesh and
blood. Like a serpent she glides in through the windows, leaves the
house, “Bring me your children to suckle, I shall be their nurse” (is her
call)’ (Thureau-Dangin). She represented the danger of infant and
children’s mortality; many charms and masks have been excavated in
the ancient towns which used to hang by doorways in the hope of
keeping her at bay.
Thureau-Dangin 1921, 13ff; Farber, in RLA VI 1980–83; 439; Fauth 1981

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge



Lugalbanda—Deified Sumerian king and hero
He is mentioned in the King-list as the third king of the First Dynasty
of Uruk, the son of Enmerkar. He also appears in the Fara god-lists as
the husband of Ninsun. As a god he was worshipped during the Old
Babylonian period in Nippur and Uruk. In Gilgameš and Huwawa he is
called the husband of the goddess Ninsun and the father of Gilgameš.
He is the hero of two Sumerian compositions which are known from
tablets found at Nippur, Kish, Uruk and Nineveh, going back to Ur III
and Old Babylonian editions. For the proposal that the texts formed
one coherent whole, see Falkowitz.
Jacobsen 1989

Mamitu—Akkadian goddess
The name derives from Akk.mamitum, ‘oath’, and she seems to have
originally been a personification of the oath, who pursues and punishes
the perjurer. Later she acquired chthonic aspects and was considered to
be the wife of Nergal or Erra. In the Gilgameš Epic (Tablet 10,6) she is
called ‘creatress of destiny’, who with the Anunnaki ‘allots life and
death’.
The short version of the name is Mami or Mame, which is easily
confused with Mamma.
Edzard, WdM 1965, 95

Mamma/Mama/Mami—Akkadian goddess
The name is the baby-word for ‘mother’. Her most common epithets
are ummi, ‘mother’, or asû, ‘midwife’. Mamma occurs frequently in
Mesopotamian female personal names since the Pre-Sargonic period,
but never in Sumerian names.
Roberts 1972, 43f; Krebernik, RLA VII 1989, 330

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Marduk—Babylonian god
His name was usually written logographically as ^damar.UD, more rarely
as ^dMES, ^dŠÀ.ZU or ^dŠÙ. Syllabic versions from various periods allow the
phonetic reading of Marduk. While the most common logogram,
^damar.UD, may be read either as a genitive construction, ‘the Young Bull
of the Sun’, or an apposition, meaning something like ‘the son, the sun’,
it is not certain that Marduk was a Sumerian name. Like the etymology
of his city Babylon, it may belong to a proto-Sumerian, non-Semitic
linguistic stratum which is as yet unknown. The very obscurity of the
divine name provoked numerous attempts at etymological speculation
among the scholars of ancient Mesopotamia, which is reflected in godlists
and the Enuma eliš (Bottéro). Isolated examples of the mention of
Marduk exist since the Old Sumerian period, as for instance in a god-list
from Abu Salabikh. His rise to national importance, however, was directly
linked with the political success of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and
specifically its most famous king, Hammurabi. His elevation to one of the
great gods of Hammurabi’s empire found expression in the prologue to
his ‘law-code’ (I, 1–15): ‘When the exalted Anu, king of the Anunnaki
and Ellil (Enlil), lord of heaven and earth, …allotted the divine lordship
(ellilutu) of the multitude of the people unto Marduk, the first-born son
of Ea, he magnified him amongst the Igigi…’ There is little evidence
outside the royal inscriptions of the Old Babylonian Dynasty that the cult
of Marduk reached much beyond the sanctuary of Babylon. There are
also very few religious texts from this period which concern the god. His
growing popularity among the people, however, seems to be proved by
the fact, that even at the beginning of his ‘career’ he appears in a significant
list of personal names (Lambert 1984). The popular success of Marduk
is one of the most interesting religious developments of the second
millennium BC, as it cannot be reduced to political or theological
promotion alone. At an age when personal piety was an important element
of worship, Marduk was seen as an approachable deity, who cares for
human beings and their sufferings. Together with the sun-god Šamaš and
the other ‘friendly’ god, Ea, he was one of the triad of the most important
gods of incantations, who avert evil influences. Although there was no
genealogical relationship between Šamaš and Marduk, there was much
the two deities had in common, especially the aspects of justice, impartiality
and compassion. Ea was considered the father of Marduk (see above, in
the prologue).
During the Kassite period, the cult of Marduk gradually spread beyond
central Mesopotamia. The great god-list An=anum, which probably dates
from this period, attributes the sacred number fifty to Marduk, which
had hitherto been accorded to Enlil. By the time of the Babylonian
‘restoration’, the second Dynasty of Isin, Marduk was officially
acknowledged as the ‘lord of the gods’. The most comprehensive text
arguing for this pre-eminence, the Enuma eliš, was probably composed
at this period. Marduk was also introduced to Assyria, where he was
honoured as one of the great gods in official inscriptions, without quite
reaching the popularity of his son Nabû. In the Neo-Babylonian period
Marduk, the national god, the chief of the pantheon and the ‘father of
mankind’, had no rival. His main sanctuary, the temple É-sagil and the
ziggurat, É-temenanki, formed the pivot of the universe; their wealth
and splendour was still proverbial when Herodotus visited the city several
hundred years after its destruction.
The nature of Marduk became increasingly complex as he gradually
absorbed the functions and characteristics of many other gods. This is
well documented by the great number of hymns and prayers (Seux
1973, passim), of theological works dedicated to Marduk, as well as
numerous references in private and official documents, personal names
etc. (For the range of official epithets, see Tallqvist 1938, 362–72). As
the son of Ea, Marduk was a god of wisdom, healing, the magic arts,
and to some extent, irrigation and fertility. The connection with magic
was further strengthened by his identification with the Sumerian
incantation-god Asarluhi. The Enuma eliš celebrates the glory of Marduk
by enumerating his fifty names and functions. It provided a mythological
justification for his superior position in the pantheon, as the deliverer
from the forces of primeval chaos and the organizer of the known
universe. In these multiple capacities he virtually replaced Anu, Ellil and
some of the energetic young warrior gods who traditionally battled
against demonic powers (e.g. Ninurta). For his relationship with Šamaš,
see above. In the Erra-Epic he is the guarantee of peace and prosperity;
war and rebellion are the direct consequence of his absence; not a new
theological explanation for the existence of evil, but dramatically
expressed to suit the historical events of the Neo-Babylonian period.
Marduk’s wife was Sarpanitum, his son Nabû, and Ištar became his
sister. Numerous other minor gods were employed in his ‘court’.
The emblematic animal of Marduk is the Mušhuššu, a composite
snake and dragon, his symbol the marrn a hoe-shaped implement.
Lambert 1964; van Dijk 1966, 61f; Edzard, WdM 1965, 96–7; Borger 1971; Lambert
1975, 193–4; Bottéro 1977, 5–18; Sommerfeld 1982; RLA VII 1989, 360–70;
Lambert 1984, 1–9

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge



Meslamta’ea—Sumerian god
His name derives from his temple called Meslam at Kutha and means
something like ‘The One who emerges from Meslam’. He is already
mentioned in the Fara texts as an underworld deity. By the Ur III period
he became identified with Nergal.

Nabû—Babylonian god
His name could be written syllabically ^dna-bi-um or logographically
^dAK or ^dPA. The etymology is disputed; it could derive from nb’, ‘to
call, announce’, meaning something like ‘He who has Called’, or it
could be from ne/abu, ‘shining, brilliant’ (Dhorme), or from a quite
different, unknown old-Syrian root (Pomponio).
The god was originally a West Semitic deity; he is mentioned among
the Ebla gods. By the beginning of the second millennium BC the
Amorites had introduced him to Mesopotamia, probably at the same
time as Marduk. The two gods continued to have close connections
throughout their history (well into the Persian period and beyond).
While Marduk became the city-god of Babylon, Nabû resided in nearby
Borsippa in his temple É-zida. He was first called the ‘scribe and minister
of Marduk’, and when the latter was assimilated into the official
pantheon as the son of Ea, Nabû in turn became known as the son of
Marduk from his wife
Sarpanitum. He was also accorded the office of
patron of the scribes, taking over from the Sumerian goddess Nisaba. A
fair number of beautifully written tablets were deposited in this sanctuary
as ex-voto offerings, but so far no literary text extolling the deeds and
functions of the god have been found. Nabû was also worshipped in
Assyria; Shalmaneser I built the first Nabû sanctuary in Assur (13th C
BC), and others followed in Nineveh, Kalah and Khorsabad. Following
the expansion of the Assyrian empire from Sargon II onwards, he became
one of the great gods of the realm and was frequently invoked in royal
inscriptions. His popularity among the Assyrian people is also well
documented by numerous private names, letters and prayers (for the
latter see Seux 1976, passim). In this respect he may have substituted
his father Marduk, who as the national god of the Babylonians, was not
as acceptable to the Assyrians as his son. Being the patron of the scribal
arts, he also represented the cultural traditions of the South, which were
greatly admired. After the downfall of Assyria, Nabû rose to a high
rank in the Neo-Babylonian pantheon, first in his capacity as Marduk’s
son and then in his own right. His cult in fact endured well into the
Parthian period.
With his elevation to the ranks of the great gods, Nabû became a
cosmic deity, entrusted with the Tablets of Destiny, ‘pronouncing the
Fate’ of mankind. The texts equate him with Ninurta. He was also
sometimes mentioned as a god of water and the fertility of fields, maybe
through his descent from Ea; he also shares the epitheton of ‘god of
wisdom’.
Pomponio 1978

Nammu—Sumerian goddess
Her name is usually written with the sign engur which was also used to
write Apsu. In ancient times she personified the Apsu as the source of
water and hence fertility in lower Mesopotamia. She may well have
been worshipped in Eridu before Enki, who took over most of her
prerogatives and functions. Significantly he was called the son of Nammu.
In spite of her decline following the superiority of Enki, during the Neo-
Sumerian period, at least at Ur, she was still considered important enough
to have statues commissioned in her honour and she also features in the
name of the famous king Urnammu.
In mythology, Nammu appears as the primeval Mother-goddess in
Enki and Ninmah who ‘has given birth to the great gods’. She has the
idea of creating mankind as a help for the gods and it is she who goes
to wake her son Enki, asleep in the Apsu, that he may set the process
going.

Nana—Sumerian goddess
She appears in women’s names since the Old Akkadian period. During
the Ur III period she had temples in Drehem and Umma, and in the Old
Babylonian period also at Uruk. For king Rimsin of Larsa she was the
tutelary deity and in an inscription he praises her as ‘the child,
overflowing with the strength of life, of the great An’. In a date formula
of this time she is mentioned with An and Inanna as part of the Uruk
triad. She seems to have affinities with Inanna and Baba as a goddess of
fertility.
Wohlstein 1976; Ichiro 1979, 371–2

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge



Nanaya—Sumerian goddess, known since the Ur III period
Like Inanna she is called the daughter of An and the sister of Utu, and
she also seems to have been venerated as the planet Venus. She was,
however, a deity in her own right, since in the offering-lists of Uruk she
is mentioned alongside Inanna. In a bilingual Sumero-Akkadian hymn
(Reiner), the goddess describes herself as having ‘heavy breasts in
Dadumu’ and ‘a beard in Babylon’—both references to the two genders
that Ištar could be worshipped in—but she declares: ‘yet I am still
Nanaya’. She does not feature in any mythological texts, but is often
invoked in love-incantations of a later date, where she is called ^dNa-naa
belet kuzbu, ‘Nanaya, lady of sexual attractiveness’ (Biggs). It is not
always possible to differentiate Nanaya from Nana.
Biggs 1967; Edzard, WdM 1965, 108; Reiner 1974, 221–6; Goodnick 1995

Nanna(r)—Sumerian moon-god
His name was usually written ^dŠEŠ.KI probably because of his connection
with the city of Ur (Sum. ŠEŠ.AB.KI); an alternative spelling was ^d30,
the symbolic number of the moon.
Nanna is already mentioned in the Old Sumerian god-list from Fara.
He seems to have been worshipped at Ur since at least the middle of the
second millennium BC. His temple there was the É-kišnugal, praised in
the Sumerian Temple Hymn No. 8 (Sjöberg, Bergmann). The office of
high-priestess at Ur was customarily filled by a royal princess, her
enthronement was an event of national importance and duly recorded
in year-names. References and theophoric names composed with Nanna
are particularly frequent from the Ur III period. At this time many other
sanctuaries and shrines were built or restored for him, notably the famous
ziggurat at Ur by Urnammu.
Nanna is the son of Ninlil and the ‘first-born son’ of Enlil. He confers
with his father in deciding the Fates. His wife is Ningal, and various
poetical compositions describe their courtship and the rapturous
consummation of their love (Jacobsen, 124f). A result of their union is
Utu, the sun-god. In Sumerian thought, night gives birth to day; the
time of darkness has a creative potential which finds expression in
Nanna’s fertility aspects (see below). The Sun in contrast, was not directly
associated with the source of life.
Nanna’s epithets are ašimbabbar, ‘the luminous’, an allusion to the
bright light of the moon; amar, ‘calf’, also amar.ban.da.den.lil.a, ‘young
calf of Enlil’, má.gur8, ‘boat’. Both references are allusions to the crescent
shape of the young moon, either recalling horns or the slender reedboats
of the marshes.
The moon-god in many cultures has associations with fertility;
probably inspired by the menstrual cycle. In Sumer he was closely
linked with the fertility of animals, especially cattle (the shape of the
crescent moon is likened to horns). One hymn (ISET 1, 96–97 Ni 2781)
declares ‘(you) make the breed bull and the good bull mount (the cow)
for you, he makes the good seed flow for you. Top-grade milk and fat
he is increasing.’ Another composition, NANNA’S JOURNEY TO
NIPPUR (Kramer), extends the connection with fertility to include all
aspects of Sumerian agriculture. It begins with a description of Nippur,
which is ready built, rich in animal and plant life but devoid of people.
Nanna decides to visit his father’s city by boat. He loads it with trees,
plants and animals. On the way he stops several times and is greeted by
the local gods. Eventually he reaches Nippur, where he enumerates all
his presents to the gate-keeper. The delighted Enlil prepares a feast and
they sit down together. Finally Nanna comes to the point and asks for
favours in return: ‘In the river give me overflow, in the field give me
much grain, in the swampland give me grass(?) and reeds (…) in the
palm-grove and vineyard give me honey and wine, in the palace give me
long life.’ When Enlil grants all these wishes, he returns to Ur. This
myth is probably connected with a yearly ritual Journey between Ur
and Nippur, which may have entailed a ritual exchange of dairy and
agricultural products.
During the new moon, Nanna spends his ‘days of sleep’ in the
Underworld, where he decides the fates of the dead.
Nanna was also called Su’en (later contracted to Sîn). In some texts,
Su’en referred to the crescent, Nanna to the full moon and Ašimbabbar
to the young waxing moon, but this was not consistently adhered to.
The various phases of the lunar cycle were celebrated in regular festivals.
Purification rituals for the moon were also performed at the New
Year. Special care had to be taken during the invisibility of the planet
especially during eclipses. In a mythological introduction to a ritual
(Jacobsen, 123), this event is said to have been the work of demonic
forces who had attacked Nanna and subdued his children, Inanna and
Iškur. Eventually he is saved and restored by the intervention of
Marduk.
Kramer 1944, 47–9; Sjöberg 1960; Jacobsen 1976, 121–7; Hall 1986, 152–66

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Nanše—Sumerian goddess
Her name is written with a composite sign for ‘house’ and ‘fish’ .
Like Nammu she is associated with water, although specifically with
rivers and canals, quite a few of which were named after her. In Enki
and the World Order (417–420) she is called ‘the fishery inspector of
the “sea”; fishes, good things, sweet things, she presents to her father
Enlil in Nippur’. Nanše was an important goddess in the Old and Neo-
Sumerian period and appeared frequently in personal names (e.g.
Urnanše), offering lists and royal inscriptions. She had several sanctuaries
in Lagaš. Gudea calls her the daughter of Enki, the sister of Ningirsu
and Nisaba, as well as nin.kur.kur.ra, ‘the Lady of the Lands’, who
helps Ningirsu to overcome Gudea’s enemies in battle. At this period
she became also known as the ‘female diviner of the gods’ and Gudea
consulted her oracles on several occasions. In the same capacity she is
invoked in the incantation series ‘Evil Demons’ (utukki lemnuti).
Jean 1931, 49–53; Heimpel 1981

Nergal/Nerigal—Babylonian god
His name, written ^dGÌR.UNU.GAL or ^dU.GAR, does not seem to be
originally Sumerian; Babylonian theologians constructed a derivation
from nè.eri.gal, ‘lord of the underworld’. Lambert (in Alster 1980, 60f)
has suggested that it should not be considered as the name of a distinct
divine personality, but rather as a generic term of an Underworld deity,
of which several were worshipped in Mesopotamia (see Ereškigal,
Ninazu, Girra, Erra and especially Meslamta’ea).
Nergal as a divine name is only known since the Old Akkadian period
and features almost exclusively in Akkadian inscriptions of the time. He
seems to have been promoted by the Sargonic kings together with his
cult-centre Kutha, which is mentioned in the Sumerian Temple Hymns
(Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 36). By the Old Babylonian period he seems to
have assimilated several rival Sumerian chthonic gods (Ninazu,
Meslamta’ea) and in the course of the second millennium BC, he had
temples throughout the country. His name appears frequently in personal
names, greeting formulae and cylinder-seals of the Middle and Neo-
Babylonian period. Numerous prayers and hymns were addressed to
the god, in attempts to avert his dangerous influence (Seux 1976, passim).
In Assyria Nergal was particularly worshipped by Sargon II and his
descendants.
Nergal is the subject of numerous literary compositions. A number of
these refer to Nergal as an astral deity, who finds himself in the
underworld against his inclinations. His elevation to the rulership of the
underworld for instance, is described in the myth NERGAL AND
EREŠKIGAL (see Ereškigal). He is initially sent there by the heavenly
gods as an atonement for having failed to observe the divine laws
concerning the dealings between heaven and the netherworld. When he
trespasses against another taboo of the underworld, that of sexual
intercourse, he is doomed to stay for ever. In an esoteric text from the
Kassite period, Nergal’s sojourn in the underworld is associated with
the dark winter months; as the blazing sun he descends to the netherworld
and remains there for 160 days (Langdon). But he was also called
nurdnergal, ‘Nergal’ (god of) light’ and became associated with the planet
Mars (muιSAL.BAY.a.nu). In this capacity he resides in heaven as well as
in the netherworld and is ‘clothed in frightful splendour’ (labiš namurrat),
reflecting the intermittent and awe-inspiring luminescence of the star.
The hymns speak of Nergal as a warrior, a god of pestilence and
disease, but also of fertility and vegetation.
Langdon 1919, 330ff; Weiher 1971; Lambert 1973, 355–63; Steinkeller 1987, 161–8

Nikkal see Ningal

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Ninazu[/b]—Sumerian god
His name means ‘Lord healer’. Ninazu appears in cuneiform literature
under several, sometimes quite contradictory, aspects. His is a typical
case of different traditions being fused and confused around a single
divine name in the course of time.
Ninazu is known since the Old Sumerian period as the city god of
Eshnunna, residing in the temple É-sikil. In a hymn to this temple
(Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 34), he is described as a warrior, an ur-sag
‘champion’ Ninazu, destroying the cities of the ‘rebellious lands’, and as
the son of Enlil and Ninlil. During Akkadian times he was replaced at
Eshnunna by Tišpak. The same collection of temple hymns also associates
Ninazu with the city Enegi (No. 14). This place is described as the
‘Kutha of Sumer’—Kutha (Gudua in Sumerian) is often used as a
synonym for the Underworld. In this chthonic capacity Ninazu is the
son of Ereškigal and the ‘Great Lord’ (Nergal?). The myth Enlil and
Ninlil, while confirming their parenthood as in hymn 34, seems to furnish
an explanation for Ninazu’s ties with the underworld. Together with
two other gods he was engendered to serve as a substitute for Enlil, who
was apparently decreed to go there himself. In the same text, however,
Ninazu is called lugal.eš.ganá.gíd.da, ‘lord who stretches the measuring
line over the fields’, a long version of his more common epithet
lugal.é.gid.da which has something to do with the re-establishment of
field boundaries after flooding. This makes him an agrarian deity. The
same function is described in another myth, NINAZU AND NINMADU
or THE CREATION OF GRAIN. In the beginning, so the story tells,
people ate grass like sheep, they knew neither grain nor beans. An and
Enlil now let grain appear in the kur, here a primordial countryside, and
then Enlil locks the kur and bars its entrance. Ninazu suggests to his
brother Ninmada that they fetch the grain to Sumer and they appeal to
the sun-god Utu for help. The composition ends there, but the success
of their expedition can be taken for granted in accordance with the
usual pattern of such texts (see Inanna and Utu, Lahar and Ašnan)
(Bruschweiler, 54ff).
In the Ur III period, Ninazu was connected with Nanna(r), the god of
Ur, as well as with Enki, in a Shulgi-hymn (Klein, 156f). In the post-Ur
III period Ninazu seems to have been venerated primarily as a healing
deity; he was invoked in purification rituals and is called the father of
Ningišzida. The ‘Weidner’ god-list, on the other hand, still calls him the
bel erseti, the ‘lord of the underworld’.
Sjöberg-Bergmann 1969, 27–8; 42–3; Edzard 1965, WdM, 110; Lambert, in Alster
1980, 61f; Klein 1981; Bruschweiler 1987, 55

Ningal[/b]—Sumerian goddess; her name means ‘Great Lady’
Ningal as the wife of the moon-god Nanna was worshipped with her
husband at Ur, especially during the Ur III period. The kings of this
dynasty built her a temple, É-karzida, and dedicated statues and stelae
to her. Maybe in an analogy to the Dumuzi-Inanna Sacred Marriage
texts, the poets of Ur wrote songs which describe the courtship of the
young couple. Like Dumuzi, Nanna brings dairy products to the house
of his prospective mother-in-law, Ningikuga, ‘the lady of the pure reed’,
who lives in the marshes with her daughter. Ningal promises to marry
him once he has brought fertility and abundance to the whole country,
and to live with him in his sanctuary at Ur (Jacobsen, 124f). As the lady
of this city it is Ningal’s sad fate to lament its downfall and destruction
in the famous ‘Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur’. In vain she
tries to move the great gods An and Enlil to alter their decision; her city
and her people are irrevocably doomed (Jacobsen, 87–91).
Ningal as the mother of Inanna also features in the Sumerian ‘lovelyrics’.
Inanna tries to deceive her mother by pretending that she will be
going out with a girl-friend, when instead she will be with her lover
(Kramer, in ANET 1969, 639–40).
Ningal was also a goddess of dream interpretation.
In the second millennium BC, if not earlier, she was introduced to
Syria, probably via Harran, the ancient centre of moon-worship (see
Sîn). In Ugarit she was known as Nikkal. She appears in a hymn which
praises her marriage to the moon-god Yarih.
Edzard, Pope, WdM 1965, 111, 302; Jacobsen 1973

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Ningirin—Sumerian goddess
Her name, which was written as dNin.A.HA.KUD.DU, means ‘lady of
Incantations’. She appears already in the Fara texts. In the Sumerian
Temple Hymn collection, she is associated with a sanctuary in Murum
(Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 19). The temple is said to ‘recite conjurations
of heaven and earth’. In later periods too, she is mainly mentioned in
incantation texts.

Ningirsu[/b]—Sumerian god
His name means ‘lord of Girsu’, a city belonging to the district of Lagash.
Ningirsu was an ancient local god; he first appears in the Fara god-list
and was worshipped by all the kings of Lagash. Typically, Eannatum
and Uruinimgina call the boundaries of their territory the ‘limits of
Ningirsu’ and any destruction of their land was a sin against its god.
With Uruinimgina’s political success, the god became more widely known
in Sumer. Ningirsu as a city-god is not only a warrior, who calls the
ruler to defend his boundaries, but is also in charge of the fertility of his
‘beloved fields’. Numerous artefacts, such as mace-heads, statues, vases
etc. have been dedicated to Ningirsu; several canals and waterways
bore his name. There were of course many festivals in his honour and
he is well represented among the gods chosen for personal names. His
temple was the famous É-ninnu, the reconstruction of which during the
Neo-Sumerian period was described by Gudea. The god appeared to
Gudea in a dream, he was terrifyingly large, with wings and a ‘head like
a god’, his lower body ending in a storm and flanked by lions
(Falkenstein, Soden, 137–82).
Numerous goddesses surround Ningirsu in the Lagash pantheon: his
wife Baba, his sisters Nisaba and Nanše and his mother Gatumdug (his
father is Anu. His emblem or alter ego was the lion-headed eagle Anzu/
Imdugud.
The personality of Ningirsu was close to that of Ninurta who replaced
Ningirsu in Akkadian texts of the Old Babylonian period (cf. the myth
of Anzu). They are often mentioned together in god-lists.
Jean 1931, 71–81; Falkenstein, Soden 1953

Ningišzida[/b]—Sumerian god
The meaning of his name ^dnin.giš.zid.da, ‘Lord of the good tree’, is
obscure (although Jacobsen 1973, 7, reads it as: ‘the power of the tree
to draw sustenance through its roots’).
He was an Underworld deity; the Sumerian Temple-Hymn (Sjöberg,
Bergmann, No. 15) describes his ‘house’ in Gišbanda as ‘a dark cellar,
(an) awe-inspiring place’; maybe it had a subterrranean sanctuary.
Ningišzida himself is ‘the prince who stretches out his pure hand to
heaven, with luxuriant and abundant hair (flowing down his) back’. In
the Neo-Sumerian period, Gudea introduced him into the Lagash
pantheon as his personal god, whom he loved ‘above all others’. He
was also worshipped in Shuruppak, Ur, Umma, Larsa, Nippur and Uruk.
Ningišzida’s chthonian aspects are confirmed by the god-list
An=Anum. His emblem was the horned serpent and Gilgameš sees him
officiating in the underworld (Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld).
He was sometimes identified with Damu, the dying god, and was
mourned by his sisters. As a (temporarily) absent god in the company
of Dumuzi, he was found by Adapa at An’s gate in heaven. This close
connection with Dumuzi and fertility is further underlined by the fact
that his wife was Geštinanna, Dumuzi’s sister. His astronomical correlate
was Hydra.
van Buren 1934, 166–71; Roux 1961, 22–4

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Ninhursanga/Ninhursag
Sumerian goddess: ‘The Lady of the hursag’ (the stony desert ground;
Jacobsen 1970, 118). The myth Lugal.e (see Ninurta) explains how she
was given this title by her son Ninurta after he had defeated his enemies
and heaped up the rocks of the hursag.
Ninhursag is one of the many appellatives of the ancient Mothergoddess.
It is first mentioned in the Fara god-list. Her epithets include
‘mother of the gods’ and ‘mother of all children’. She had temples at
Kesh, Lagash and Tell Obeid. The Kesh sanctuary is the subject of an
Old Sumerian hymn (Sjöberg, Bergmann, 157ff). It was the centre of
the goddess’s cult from the Early Dynastic period to the Old Babylonian
Dynasty; after this time it lost its importance in favour of the nearby
Adab. Many Mesopotamian kings (from the Old Sumerian period to
Nebukadzrezzar I) called themselves ‘beloved of Ninhursag’ and claim
to have built temples and chapels for her. Eannatum, Entemena and
Uruinimgina say in their inscriptions that they had been suckled by the
goddess.
In the literary texts, Ninhursag is the female creative counterpart to
Enki in Enki and Ninhursag. She is associated with several male gods
apart from Enki; as the mother of Ninurta she was Enlil’s wife, in
another tradition she was Enlil’s sister and the wife of Šulpa’e, ‘the lord
of the wild beasts’. Several songs describe her particular function as the
lady of the hursag, the uncultivated hills. She mourns the capture of
wild creatures, especially the donkeys, but she is also a mother to the
herd animals.
Jacobsen 1973, 104–6

Ninisina/Nin’insina[/color]—Sumerian goddess
As her name ‘Lady of Isin’ implies, she was the tutelary goddess of this
city. Her temple was the É-galmah, ‘the great temple’, described in a
Temple Hymn (Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 30); the goddess is called the
ama nu.gig, the ‘mother hierodule’, ‘whose word fills the heaven’. When
Isin became the capital of Sumer and Akkad during the reign of Ishbi’erra
and Lipit-Ištar, she was promoted to the rank of a ‘great goddess’ and
assumed some of the functions of Inanna, including her military aspects.
In fact, in Enki and the World Order (402f) Inanna complains that
Ninisina had usurped her position as the ‘hierodule of An’ and had
taken her ‘šuba-stone jewellery’.
Ninisina was the daughter of An and the earth-deity Uraš; her husband
is Pabilsag, although Damu and Gunura, who are known otherwise as
her offspring, are also mentioned as consorts in some Ur III texts.
As a healing goddess, her most common epithet is a.zu.gal.kalam.ma,
‘the great healer/doctor of the land’, and as such she is addressed in
various hymns and ‘letters’; the manner of her treatment was the uttering
of the right incantation. She was also a midwife. Towards the end of the
Old Babylonian period she became identified with the Semitic goddess
Gula. In a well-known eršemma (Cohen, No. 171) she is in great distress,
seemingly wandering in the Arali, her temple in ruins. She cries out to
Enlil who shows her the Tablets of Destiny which have an entry for her
misfortune. Another appeal by her mother is also in vain, since she
exclaims that her child is dead. Another composition (ibid, No. 159)
ends on a more optimistic note, and Ninisina joyfully returns to her
temple.
Römer 1969, 279–305; Cohen 1981

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Ninlil[/color]—Sumerian goddess
Her name, ‘Lady Air’, is an honorific title to complement Enlil. Her
original name was Sud. The myth Enlil and Sud describes how the new
title was conferred upon the young goddess on her wedding-day.
As the wife of Enlil she was known in Nippur since the Old Sumerian
period. Many votive offerings were brought to her, particularly during
the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur.
The above-mentioned myth also explains her background and
function. Sud’s mother was Ninšebargunu, the goddess of Ereš, an ancient
agricultural deity and her father was Haia, god of the stores. Ninlil is
explicitly identified with the grain-goddess Ašnan as well as Nintu, the
birth-goddess. Her sons were Ninurta and Nanna and she appears in
hymns and other texts in praise of these gods. Most texts however,
concentrate on her relationship with Enlil. While in Enlil and Ninlil she
is concerned to legitimize their union, many compositions stress the
high degree of influence and power of the goddess. The two deities act
in unison, administering the Me, which they were said to have brought
forth together; conferring the highest privileges upon the goddess Inanna
(SRT 36), and decreeing the ‘fates’ of gods and men. During the Old
Babylonian period, various hymns and prayers were written in which
the supplicant addresses Ninlil in an attempt to influence her husband.
In Assyria, Ninlil became the wife of the national god Aššur.
Edzard, WdM 1965, 113

Ninmah—Sumerian goddess
Her name ‘Great Lady’ is another example of an appellative designation
for the Mother-goddess. Ninlil as well as Ninhursag were called Ninmah
in certain contexts (see Enlil and Sud and Ninurta, Lugal.e).
Uruinimgina of Lagash mentions Ninmah in his diatribe against his
enemy, the city of Umma. She is also known from Adab where she had
a temple, the É-mah. In the myth Enki and Ninmah, she is the mothergoddess
who challenges Enki to a contest of creativity which the god
wins.

Ninsianna[/color]—Sumerian goddess
A personification of the planet Venus; ‘ša nu-ur-šu ša-me-e u KI ma-luú’,
‘whose light fills heaven and earth’, as an Akkadian text says. She
was identified with Ištar (as in the great bilingual hymn of Iddin-Dagan;
Römer, IV).
Kraus 1971, 30–1; Römer 1965

Ninšubur—Sumerian god/goddess; ‘Lady/Lord of the East’
The sex of this deity varies. In the Old Sumerian time he is known as the
tutelary deity of Uruinimgina of Lagash; several personal names with
Ninšubur are also preserved from the Neo-Sumerian period. According
to the Sumerian temple hymns (Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 18) she had a
temple in Akkil.
In mythological texts, Ninšubur is the sukkal ‘vizier’ of either An or
Inanna. The earliest reference to this function is from an Early Dynastic
votive offering. In the service of the male god he is male; in the service of
the goddess, most prominently in Inanna’s Descent, female. The function
of sukkal is a combination of different offices, herald and messenger,
minister with executive powers in the absence of the master. In the Sacred
Marriage texts of Isin, Ninšubur leads the bridegroom to his beloved. In
this context she is ‘the holy handmaid of E-anna (Jacobsen, 41).
Bergmann, ZA 56; Jacobsen 1973

Ninsun—Sumerian goddess
Her name means ‘Lady of the wild cows’. She had a sanctuary in Kullab,
a district of Uruk and belonged to the herding-circle around Dumuzi;
she is in fact his mother and therefore the mother-in-law of Inanna.
Gilgameš was also said to be a son of Ninsun’s and in the epic she
interprets his dreams. In the Neo-Sumerian period, several kings claimed
to have been the ‘children’ of goddesses, such as Gudea of Lagash, as
well as Urnammu and Shulgi of Ur.

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Nintu/Nintur—Sumerian goddess
Her name means ‘Lady who gives Birth’; the archaic form of the
cuneiform sign TU depicts a reed-shelter, the sort that may have been
used as lambing sheds. In the god-list An=Anum she is identified with
the Akkadian Šassurum (=šag₄-tùr), ‘Lady Womb’. She is one of the
ancient Mother-goddesses, already present in the Fara-list. Her epithet
is ama dumu dumu.ne, ‘mother of all little ones’. From the Neo-Sumerian
period onwards, she was often identified with Ninhursag, but at least at
Ur she received offerings in her own name. In a mythological context
she is mentioned in the Sumerian Flood-myth and also appears in Enki
and the World Order (395), where she is called ‘the umbilical cordcutter’,
the ‘midwife of the land’.
Jacobsen 1973, 274–98

Ninurta—Sumerian god
His name ‘Lord Earth’ probably derives from the old vegetation-god
Uraš (Jacobsen 1973, 127, suggested ‘Lord Plough’).
He is well known since the Old Sumerian period and closely resembles
the Lagashite god Ningirsu with whom he was eventually identified.
Ninurta instead of Ningirsu features in the Akkadian versions of some
myths (as the one of Anzu from the Old Babylonian period). In Nippur
he was worshipped in the temple E-šumeša. In this city (and in Lagash)
he was called the firstborn son of Enlil, in preference over Nanna, who
was also accorded this title. After the Old Babylonian period, Ninurta’s
popularity waned since Marduk assumed some of his characteristics
(for the precedent of Ninurta’s role in fighting Anzu for the Enuma eliš,
see Lambert, in Hecker, Sommerfeld, 55–60). In Assyria, however, since
late Middle Assyrian times, he was much promoted as a fearsome warrior.
As his name implies, Ninurta was originally an agricultural and rain
deity. The so-called ‘Farmer’s Almanac’, a compilation of the annual
tasks related to the growing of barley, was called the ‘Instructions of
Ninurta’. He was called the ‘farmer of Enlil’ and praised as the ‘lifegiving
semen’, the source of fertility and abundance throughout the
land: ‘you fill the canal, let grow the barley, you fill the pond with carp,
let reed and grass grow in the cranebrake, you fill the forest with game,
let the tamarisk(?) grow in the steppe, you fill the orchard and garden
with honey and wine, cause long life to sprout in the palace’ (Falkenstein,
Soden, 59f). For some reason Ninurta changed from an agrarian god to
the archetypical ‘young god’ or ‘god of wrath’. Several compositions,
mainly from the Neo-Sumerian and Ur III period emphasize this warlike
character of the ‘champion’ (ur.sag) Ninurta: ‘eternal warrior, greatly
respected, with a broad chest, the strength of a lion (…) stepping into
battle (…) the heroic warrior, the right arm of Enlil’ (Sjöberg 1976).
Some of his power derives from the violent floods of springtime; in the
Atra-hasis myth he is the one who opens the dikes (see Flood-myths). A
long and complex bilingual composition is called LUGAL UD
ME.LAM.BI NIR.GÁL, ‘king, storm whose splendour is overwhelming’
(also known as lugal.e). The text manages to reconcile both the fertility
and the martial aspects of the god. The myth describes the time when
irrigation was as yet unknown in Sumer and consequently there was no
agriculture to feed the population. After his victory over the demon,
Ninurta makes a stone wall, a gigantic dike to keep the waters of the
Tigris from flowing eastwards. The result of this labour are fruit-filled
fields and orchards and the kings and gods rejoice. When his mother
Ninlil is impatient to congratulate her son in person and travels to the
hills to find him, he presents her with a vast range he had accumulated
over his enemy’s remains. First, however, he provides the barren stones
with vegetation and wildlife and calls it the hursag; Ninlil herself from
now on becomes Ninhursag. Finally Ninurta decides the fates of the
stones, the former soldiers of Asag. Some are rewarded for having
behaved decently and are given some posts in his administration, others
are punished by curses; an interesting etiological analysis of the properties
of certain minerals (van Dijk 1983). A similar, also bilingual composition
is THE RETURN OF NINURTA TO NIPPUR (or Sum. an-gim dim.ma,
‘created like An’). It begins with a long description of Ninurta’s character
and achievements, especially on the battlefield. He is returning to Nippur
in his chariot which is decorated all over with awe-inspiring trophies,
surrounded by a large and terrifying retinue. The momentum of his
cavalcade threatens the well-being of the country and Nusku, Enlil’s
vizier, tries to persuade the young god to slow down and to dim his
fearsome radiance. He also points out that Enlil will reward him highly
upon his return but that he finds his present style of progress
objectionable. Ninurta does put away his whip and mace, but drives the
rest of the trophies to Nippur. The gods are greatly impressed and even
frightened at the display of booty and his mother, Ninlil, greets him
affectionately. The text ends in a speech of self-glorification by Ninurta,
in which he also refers to his battle with the stones described in lugal.e
(Cooper). Ninurta’s one fault seems to have been arrogance. This is
alluded to in the RETURN TO NIPPUR, and another mythological
fragment tells of an accident in the retrieval of the Tablets of Destiny
(see Anzu-myth). The eaglet (amar-anzu) addresses Ninurta and
complains that because the god had attacked him, he dropped the Tablets
of Destiny into the Apsu. This implies their loss to Ninurta who is
crestfallen. The eaglet accompanies him to the dwelling of Enki in the
Apsu, who receives them in a friendly fashion but does not offer to give
back the Tablets. When Ninurta refuses to leave without them and even
attacks the vizier, Enki fashions a giant turtle out of the Apsu-clay
which attacks the divine hero, biting his toes. Ninurta starts to defend
himself and Enki quickly digs out a pit into which both the god and his
tormentor fall. Only the pleas of Ninurta’s mother Ninmena (Ninlil)
persuade Enki to set him free, by reminding him that he owes her a
favour (Kramer).
Falkenstein, Soden 1953, 59f; van Dijk 1962, 19–32; Sjöberg 1976, 411–26; Cooper
1978; van Dijk 1983; Kramer 1984, 231–7

Nisaba/Nidaba—Sumerian goddess
Her name was written with the cuneiform sign NAGA which was used
as a determinative for different kinds of grain; her iconographic symbol
was an ear of corn. The pronunciation Ni-is-sa-bi is attested from the
earliest written documents, meaning *Ninsaba, ‘The Lady of Sab(a)’
(Lambert, 64). She is first mentioned in the Fara-lists as the Lady of
Eresh (see the Temple Hymn, Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 42). She was also
worshipped at Umma; Lugalzagesi calls her ‘his mother’. Under his
reign and that of the following Akkadian dynasty, her cult proliferated
in other Sumerian towns. According to Gudea she was the sister of
Ningirsu and Nanše and as such part of the Lagash pantheon. Gudea is
also the first reference to Nisaba’s aspect as the patroness of scribes; she
holds the ‘pure stylus’; the laws of the land are known as the ‘laws of
Nisaba’ and ‘she knows the numbers’. She was very popular during the
first half of the second millennium BC, maybe as long as the Babylonian
scribal ‘schools’, the é.dub.bas, flourished. Numerous hymns were
composed in her honour which describe the totality of her functions: ‘O
Lady coloured like the stars of heaven, holding the lapis lazuli tablet,
born in the great sheep-fold by the divine Earth (…) born in wisdom by
the Great Mountain (Enlil), honest woman, chief scribe of Heaven,
record-keeper of Enlil, all knowing sage of the gods’ she makes vegetation
grow, establishes ritual ablutions and appoints the high priest, (Hallo).
Another hymn by the Isin king Ishbi-Erra dwells on her maternal
qualities: ‘(…) you place the good semen in the womb, you enlarge the
foetus in the womb, in order that the mother may love her son…’
(Reisman, 1, 49f). With the growing popularity of Nabû during the
Kassite and Neo-Babylonian period, Nisaba lost her importance and
had to be content with being his wife.
In the Hittite sources, a variety of grain gods were written with the
logogram ^dNisaba, such as Telepinu, Halki and the Hurrian Kumarbi.
van Dijk 1953; Hallo 1969, 123–34; Reisman 1976, 357–65; Lambert, in Hecker,
Sommerfeld 1986, 55–60; Kammenhuber 1991

Nungal—Sumerian goddess
Her name literally means ‘great prince’. Nungal is not documented before
the Neo-Sumerian period, when she appeared in the Nippur pantheon
as the ‘daughter-in-law of Enlil’, the daughter of An and Ereškigal and
the wife of a god called Birtum. During the Old Babylonian period a
number of hymns and prayers were addressed to the goddess, which
depict her as a chthonic deity who ‘pursues the wicked’, but with
overtones of a Mother-goddess. Her epithets include agrig zi.den.lil.la,
‘true stewardess of Enlil’, and ša sibitte ša massarte ša habalata, ‘goddess
of imprisonment, detention, of the ropes’, probably an allusion to her
underworld aspect which was important in magic.
Sjöberg 1973, 19–46

Nusku—Sumerian god
Also known under the same name by the Babylonians. As one of Enlil’s
sons, he was worshipped in Nippur in the temple É-sušihušria. In the
mythological texts he is usually described as a high official in Enlil’s
service (see for instance in Atra-hasis—Flood-myths). In his own right
he was a god of light and fire. As such he was often mentioned in
magical incantations where he is asked to burn the evil witches and
sorcerers (Seux). During the Neo-Assyrian period he was known as the
son of the moon-god Sîn and had his main cult-centre in Syrian Harran
like his father. His symbol is the lamp.
Edzard, WdM 1965, 116; Seux 1976, 318, 340, 373, 377, 388; Wiggermann 1987

[sheshki]

From:
A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology
by Gwendolyn Leick,
first published 1991 by Routledge


Pabilsag—Sumerian god
He is well attested as the god of Larag, but little is known about his
personality. In later texts he merged with Ninurta in his warrior-aspect.
In astronomical texts he stands for the constellation of Sagittarius.
Alster and Geller 1990, 15

Šakan/Šakkan
Sumerian god; in Akkadian texts the Emesal variant Šumuqan is used.
The etymology is doubtful, but the name seems to denote some fourlegged
animal. He is an ancient god, known since the Early Dynastic
period (Ebla, Mari). In Enki and the World Order (348–356) he is
described as ‘the hero who is the crown of the high plain, who is the
lord of the plain, the lion of the high plain, the strong one, the lofty
hand of Enlil’ who has been put in charge of an.edin, the high plain, a
‘good place complete with grass, herbs and abundance’, teeming with
cattle and the ‘wild rams of the pasture’.
In the Death of Gilgameš, Enkidu sees him in the Underworld. Maybe
like Dumuzi, who is.also associated with the edin, he is absent during
the hot months of the summer.
Albright 1926, 181–3; Lambert 1986, 152–8

Šamaš
Babylonian sun-god; šmš is the common Semitic root for ‘sun’. The
name of this god first appears in Akkadian personal names from the
pre-Sargonic period, although in the majority of cases it was written
logographically as dUTU. Some of these names (e.g. Ummi-Šamaš—
‘My mother is Šamaš’) seem to suggest that the Sun was originally a
female deity, as it was for the Canaanites and the Arabs later (Roberts).
It may have been the influence of the Sumerian sun-god Utu which
turned Šamaš into the male deity depicted on seals and stelae. Unlike
the Sumerian god, however, who did not achieve a very prominent
position in the pantheon, the Akkadian Šamaš, as a god of justice, was
a deity of cosmic and national importance, ‘the lord of heaven and
earth’. But in the existing god-lists he was never awarded the supreme
rank. His main cult centre was Sippar, a major town during the second
and first millennia BC. The extent of Šamaš’s popularity can be gauged
from many personal names, cylinder seals and the considerable number
of hymns and prayers in his honour. Some of these hymns, with their
skilful poetic structure imitating the movement of the planet, are the
best exponent of the solar theology devised by the Babylonians. A
bilingual hymn celebrates the all-encompassing vigilance and mercy of
the sun-god. His rising in the morning renews all life; as he ascends
into high heaven, he surveys living beings wherever they may be, from
the highest to the humblest. He crosses all seas and sees all countries;
in his universal knowledge he understands all languages. Throughout
his journey he is the companion of travellers. At the zenith he reveals
himself as the god of justice who destroys the wicked and rewards the
just. He looks after the interests of the socially deprived and no secret
is hidden from him. He is also praised for giving omens and for
regulating the seasons (Lambert, Castellino). Another composition
describes the activities of the sun-god at night. After opening the western
door of heaven he passes through the interior of heaven (the
underworld), where he judges the dead. Then he has his evening meal
and sleeps in his chamber. In the morning he opens the eastern door
of heaven and his journey begins again (Heimpel). A large number of
incantations also address Šamaš personally. He is asked to make the
omen favourable, to banish all evil influences and grant happiness and
long life (Seux).
Šamaš is also a warrior, especially in Neo-Assyrian texts, and he is
called the ‘lord of heaven and earth and all human beings’ (Tallqvist).
In the mythological texts, Šamaš does not often play a very prominent
role. In the myth of Etana he watches over the treaty between the eagle
and the serpent and he is also the personal god of Etana. He is also the
god closest to Gilgameš in the Gilgameš Epic, and not only when the
king takes to roaming the wilderness. Although Gilgameš is the king of
Uruk, the city of Inanna and An, he owes no allegiance to either, relying
entirely on the sun-god to see him through his troubles. His direct
approach through prayer and the god’s answer by dreams was
characteristic of this age of personal piety and the rise of solar theology
(Liagre-Böhl).
Tallqvist 1938, 457f; Lambert 1960, 121–38; Roberts 1972, 51f; Alster 1974;
Castellino 1976, 71–4; Seux 1976, passim; Liagre-Böhl, in Oberhuber 1977, 37–
276; Heimpel 1986, 127–51


Šara—Sumerian god
He is well known as the city-god of Umma, at least during the Neo-
Sumerian period. His temple É-mah is praised in a Sumerian temple
hymn (Sjöberg, Bergmann, No. 25). He received regular offerings and a
number of people are known to have borne his name (Jean). In
mythological texts he appears but rarely, usually in association with
Inanna (Lugalbanda and Hurrum, Inanna’s Descent).
Jean 1931, 94f; Sjöberg, Bergmann 1967, 34 111f

Sarpanitum—Babylonian goddess
Her name means ‘the one from Zarpa’, although Babylonian theologians
preferred to read it as Zêr-banitu, ‘who creates the seed’.
During the late second and the first millennium BC she was
worshipped as the wife of Marduk and shared his main temple in
Babylon. In this capacity she assumed many functions of other
goddesses, such as creation, protection of the country, intercession for
the faithful, giver of progeny etc.
Seux 1976, 329

Sibittu
Babylonian group of demons, called ‘the Seven’ (Sumerian imina.bi.).
There are two groups of Sibittu, good and evil ones. The texts mainly
refer to the second category. According to the Erra epic, they are the
offspring of Anu and the Earth. He declares the fate (and function) of
each; the first is to cause fury, the second fire, the third to brandish arms
etc. Erra is their leader and it is the Seven who instigate his revolt.
Otherwise they are mentioned in various incantations, such as utukki
lemnuti. Their astronomical correlates are the Pleiades.
Edzard, WdM 1965, 124

Siduri—Babylonian goddess
The name means something like ‘She is my wall/protection’. She is first
to be found in Old Akkadian inscriptions. By the Middle Babylonian
period she seems to have been assimilated to Ištar. In the Late Babylonian
version of the Gilgameš Epic (tablet 10) she is called sabitum, ‘ale-wife’,
who lives at the edge of the world. She advises the weary hero to live for
the day and enjoy pleasure while it lasts, since the gods have allotted
death to mankind as their fate. In other versions of the myth it is Ištar
who gives this advice.

Sin; Su’en—Babylonian moon-god
The name is the result of a contraction of Sum. en.zu, ‘lord of wisdom’—
Su’en. The personality of Sîn in the Akkadian sources corresponds
generally with that of Nanna(r). He was seen as a horned bull (qarnu),
a ‘fruit that grows by itself’ (enbu ša ina ramanišu ibbanu) (a reference
to the old belief that the moon generates itself after each waning), the
one ‘who promotes abundance to the crops’ (nadin hegalli ana mašre),
who regulates time, is wise, decides the Fates and is merciful. Sîn was an
important oracle god and also a healer, even a ‘midwife’. A Middle
Assyrian medical text describes a fragment of a myth in which Sîn is
assisting a cow to give birth to her calf; the following text asks the god
to help the human mothers in throes of childbirth as well (Lambert, van
Dijk). Apart from the Old Sumerian cult-centre at Ur, Sîn was worshipped
in Harran, in the temple É-hulhul. In most god-lists, the group Sîn,
Šamaš, Adad and Ištar follow after the three great gods, Anu, Enlil and
Ea, with the Mother-goddess sometimes following after Ea. In spite of
his high rank, the cult of Sîn was not considered to be of national
importance, except during the reign of Nabonidus, whose family was
particularly devoted to the god of Harran. It is well known that this
preference was not shared by the Babylonian establishment. Among the
astral deities, the moon-god was considered to be the most gentle and
reliable, intimately connected with the fertility and fruitfulness of man
and beast. He was therefore always a popular god, as the many
occurrences in personal names, private documents and seal inscriptions
prove. Many prayers were addressed to Sîn (Seux), asking him for
favourable omens, but he hardly plays any role in Babylonian mythology.
Edzard, WdM 1965, 101f; Lambert 1969, 28ff; van Dijk 1975, 52ff; Seux 1976,
passim; Veldhuis 1991


Šulpa’e—Sumerian god
His name means something like ‘radiantly appearing youth’. He is already
well attested in the Fara tablets. According to the Nippur tradition he
was the husband of Ninhursag, the brother-in-law of Enlil. Like
Ninhursag, he was associated with the wild animals of the steppe, but
there are also martial as well as demonic aspects to this complex divine
personality. He is well represented in the onomasticon of the Neo-
Sumerian period. From the Old Babylonian period onwards he was
identified with the planet Jupiter and his wife was the Akkadian
equivalent of the Mother-goddess, Belet-Ilî.
Falkenstein 1963, 33ff; Edzard, WdM 1965, 128

Tammuz see Dumuzi

Tašmetum—Babylonian goddess
Her name, which derives from Akkadian šamû, means something like
‘the granting (of requests)’. She was wife of Nabû and was worshipped
with him in Borsippa. With Nabû she is often invoked in Late Babylonian
and Late Assyrian prayers and ritual texts, as a merciful mediator,
protector from evil and goddess of love and potency. Astronomically
she was identified with Capricorn.
Seux 1976, 351, 334

Utu—Sumerian god
His name means ‘sun’ and its pictographic sign appears in the earliest
written cuneiform records. Several Old Sumerian kings speak of Utu as
their king and Lugalzaggesi declares that he was called by Utu ‘the
supreme minister of Sîn’. His main sanctuary was at Larsa, where his
temple was called the É-babbar, ‘the shining house’. In the Neo-Sumerian
period, Gudea speaks of him as the son of Nanna, the moon-god—
echoing the notion that the day was born of the night. During this
period the cult of Utu spread to other Sumerian cities such as Sippar
and Eridu, where he had well-endowed sanctuaries. Utu, or his epitheton
babbar, ‘shining, brilliant’, often occur in personal names. His character
is described in Enki and the World Order (11, 374–379): ‘The valiant
Utu, the bull who stands secure, who proudly displays his power, the
father of the great city, the place where the sun rises, the great herald of
holy An the judge, the decision-maker of the gods, who wears a lapislazuli
beard, who comes from the holy heaven (…), Utu, the son born of
Ningal, Enki placed in charge of the entire universe.’ In mythological
texts, Utu appears as a helper for those in trouble and grave danger, as
in Inanna’s Descent, when he allows Dumuzi to escape from the
underworld demons, if only temporarily. Likewise in Lugalbanda and
Hurrum, Utu was identified with the Akkadian Šamaš probably as early
as the pre-Sargonic period.
Jean 1931, 59ff

Zababa—Sumerian and Akkadian god (see figure 10)
The etymology of his name is uncertain. He is attested in the Old
Sumerian period and features in pre-Sargonic personal names. He was
the city of god of Kish, a warrior, and later identified with Ningirsu and
Ninurta. Inanna in her martial aspect was said to be his wife, and other
texts mention Baba. In Hittite inscriptions the Sumerogram dZABABA
can stand for local war-gods, such as the Hattian Wurunkatte, the
Hurrian Aštabi, Hešui and Nubadig and the Hittite-Luwian Hašamili,
Iyarri and Zappana.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Holy cow! You've gone ballistic man! Thanks so much for posting this work on deities, Leick's book is really a wonderful little guide in line with Black and Green. I am actually checking citations these days for Frayne's new book to come out: a guide to the ANE gods which uses both Black and Green and Leick here and there. I am also exposed to quite a few books which are useful for researcher gods - hopefully I'll be able to use this stuff for research projects here now And Frayne's book will be around soon.


Hope you'll keep posting the entries for the gods you like and we will have a basic reference for people on this thread!

[sheshki]

from



"Mesopotamia, The Invention of the City" by Gwendolyn Leick
p.19/21

Who were the gods of Eridu? From the texts dating from historical times we know the names of Enki (whom the Babylonians called Ea), the goddesses Nammu and Damgalnunna, and the divine couples Lahmt and Lahamu and Tiamat and Apsu; the names of their antecedents in the fifth and fourth millennia remain obscure. The single most important concept associated with Eridu is Apsu (Sumerian abzu). It was conceived both as a natural phenomenon in abstract terms and as a personified entity. So, on the one hand, the Apsu designates the fertilizing aspect of groundwater and the creative potential of the muddy moisture. On the other, in mythological narratives, Apsu can appear as a character. In the so-called Eridu Cosmogony, the primeval matter was composed of the mingled sweet and salty waters, personified as Apsu and Tiamat respectively. This echoes the natural conditions of the marsh area where brackish and fresh waters come together.
Apsu is conceived as the male, Tiamat as the female element; their offspring is called Mummu, a sort of all female matrix who gives birth to Heaven and Earth, and it is this latter couple which begets the great gods. In later creation accounts, too, Apsu and Tiamat represent the original formless chaos which has to be subjected to a progressive series of differentiation. The original elements are powerful and dangerous, unpredictable.
...
It is worth noting that there is another, older tradition in which the primeval and creative matter was conceived of as female and personified as the Sumerian goddess called Nammu. In divine genealogies and some myths she is the mother of Enki and the mother-goddess who was said to have ´given birth to the great gods`. Nammu and the primeval waters are felf-generative, bringing forth life by themselves, without a male partner. It is often thought that female deities are older than male ones in Mesopotamia and Nammu´s cult; or rather, that the cult of female principle was a watery creative force , with equally strong connections to the underworld, may well predate that of Ea/Enki.
...
During the first half of the third millennium, in the so-called Early Dynastic period, local deities became organized in a hierarchically structured pantheon of seperate divine lineages. The Eridu system focused on Enki (Akkadian Ea), presented as the son of the old Eridu goddess Nammu and the sky-god An, the chief of the Sumerian pantheon. Enki´s wife was Damgalnunna and they both lived in the E-engur, the house of the Apsu, as the temple of Eridu was called. Their son was Asarluhhi, who was later identified with the Babylonian god Marduk. In addition there were many minor deities said to be related to the Eridu genealogy. Relationships between the various Mesopotamian gods and goddesses were a matter of political as well as theological importance.

[sheshki]

from Marduk, the Canal Digger
by T. Oshima, 2006
www.jtsa.edu/Documents/pagedocs/JANES/2006%2030/Oshima30.pdf

Possible Origins of Marduk’s Divine Roles

Are the two divine roles—maintainer of watercourses and supplier of fertility—Marduk’s original attributes? Perhaps, but there are also reasons to believe that he assumed these attributes from other gods, such as Enki/Ea, Asalluhi, or Ninurta. Enki/Ea, the god of sweet water, bears epithets similar to those of Marduk such as: bel nagbi, “the lord of the springs,” bel nagab erseti, “the lord of the spring of the land,” bel nagbi kuppi u tamerti “the lord of the springs, spring-wells, and meadow,”and musesir kuppi, “the one who keeps spring-wells in order.” In addition, according to Atra-hasis, Enki/Ea is the holder of “the Bolt-the Snare of the Sea” and is responsible for milu, the seasonal-flood, issuing forth from nagbu, “spring, deep.” In addition, according to a hymn to Asalluhi found in Ur, UET VI, 69, Asalluhi is uru₅-mah, “the great flood.” Therefore, it is very probable that Marduk received these aspects when he was “adopted” as the son of Enki/Ea, and assumed the divine personality of Asalluhi, in the Old Babylonian period.

Another possibility is that Marduk acquired this aspect in the course of syncretism with Ninurta, which may have begun during the Old Babylonian period. There are several parallels between Marduk and Ninurta/Ningirsu. Both gods are known as “the Deluge” or the holder of “flood weapons.” Gudea, the ruler of Lagash from the late third millennium, invokes Nigirsu, lugal a-ma-ru den-líl-lá, “the king, the flood of Enlil.” Likewise, in Angimdimma, Ninurta depicts himself as follows, 160:48

kal-ga a-má-ru den-líl-le kur-ra gaba nu-gi₄-me-en
dan-nu a-bu-ub den-líl sa i-na KUR-i la-a im-ma-ha-ru a-na-k

I am the strong flood of Enlil whom no one can oppose in the mountain.”

Furthermore, Lugale line 3 offers praises to Ninurta as both “the flood” and “the serpent,” just like in the above discussed Prayer to Marduk, no. 1, lines 5 and 7:50

a-ma-ru mir-sa₄ nu-kús-ù ki-bala gá-gá
a-bu-bu sib-bu la ni-hu sá a-na KUR nu-kúr-tum i-sub-bu

The flood, the restless sibbu-serpent, swaying at the hostile lands. Ninurta is also known as the usumgallu-dragon like Marduk. The related work, Angimdimma states that the god of Nippur, Ninurta, also masters different floodweapons, Angimdimma, 141–42:

141. a-ma-ru mè-a sitá sag-ninnu-MU mu-da-an-gál-la-à[m]
a-bu-ub ta-ha-zi GIS.TUKUL SAG.NINNU [MIN=na-sá-ku-ma]
142. mir lú-ra te-a gisban ªa-ma-ruº-MU mu-da-an-gál-la-à[m]
si-ib-ba sá a-na a-me-li i-†e-eh-hu-u qa-as-tú a-bu-bi-ia MIN

141. I bear the Deluge of battle, my fifty-headed mace,
I bear the mir-snake that attacks humans, my Deluge-bow.

In addition, like Marduk, Ninurta is also known as controller of water-flow.
According to Sumerian literature, Ninurta is considered as the builder of canals in mountains and the one who sets off the spring-flood, Lugale, 358–59:

358. mu-un-ur4-ur4 i7-idigina im-ma-an-ús
ih-mu-u[m-ma ana i-d]i-ig-lat it-ta-di
359. a-estubku6 a-gàr-ra mi-ni-in-dé-dé
mi-la [har-pa ú-ga]-ri im-ki-ir

358. He gathered in (the water) and poured into the Tigris,
He flooded the district with the early seasonal flood.

However, we must allow another possibility—that Marduk received the position as the son of Enki/Ea or Ninurta’s attributes because he himself was originally the god of the water sources and watercourses of Babylon. In other words, it is just possible that Marduk was syncretized with Ninurta in Babylonian theology even before Marduk’s rise to kingship, with Marduk associated with the spade and Ninurta with the hoe. Thus, Marduk with his spade and Ninurta with his hoe had very closely related roles in the pantheon, at least in the realm of canal building and similar activities. Hence, Ninurta is listed as marduk sa alli, “Marduk of the hoe,” in the Marduk Theology.

[sheshki]

Enenurians, just a short note about my actual project. I am putting together a list of divine names from Early Dynastic tablets from CDLI. I searched there for "{d}" on EDIII tablets and got 361 results. At the moment i have a bit more then 100 tablets left to look through, when that is done and the excel file i copy/paste the names and CDLI numbers into is sortet out i will compile a list with the resuls here.
Btw...i found tons of names, be prepared

[sheshki]

Here is a short overview from what proveniences the EDIII tablets are, if known. It´s also my first table i created...wee.

Provenience	Number of tablets
Girsu	206
Fara	66
Nippur	25
no provenience...................	16
Mari	14
Lagash	13
Abu Salabikh	12
Umma	4
unclear	2
Adab	1
Ur	1
Uruk	1

[sheshki]

Here are some informations with examples what some special characters mean.

character	meaning	example
#	sign partly broken off but recognizable	ama#
#?	sign partly broken off but not 100% recognizable	ama#?
[x]	sign broken off, author is sure there has to be one	ama-[x]-na
x	sign damaged and not readable	ama-gesztin-x
{sign}	determinative	{d}
sign@	the "@" is a way to note variations on a sign.	BU@g
sign:sign	the use of the colon ( means that the signs are written out of order	AMAR:UD
sign%sign	the % means that you have two signs that are crossed at angles.	BU%BU
signx	x means that it's a sign with a value "sign" that hasn't been assigned an index number	menx
SIGNxSIGN	the second sign is written inside the first sign	GA2xEN
sign!	indicate that there are problems	{d}tu!-dim2
<sign>	The use of pointy brackets indicates that a sign ISN'T there, but it almost certainly SHOULD be there.	{d}<nin>-iri-a-mu-DU
LAK	sign from Liste archaischer Keilschriftzeichen (LAK), list of archaic cuneiformsigns	LAK566
sign1(|sign2.sign3|)	means sign1 is made out of sign2 and sign3	{d}ebih(|EN.TI|)

Link to LAK www.cdli.ucla.edu/tools/SignLists/LAK/index.html

[sheshki]

Here are the divine names i found starting with an A. I only gave a few CDLI numbers to save me some work.
I´d like to thank two people here. First Andrea for her patience with me while i was reading through these tablets! And second Lance aka Amarsin for answering my many questions!

Here we go:

{d}{asz11}asz7-gi4 P221796
{d}{sir2-sir2}AB P010103
{d#}[|ADxESZ2|] P010103, P225964
{d}a2-gal-tuku P222174
{[d]}a2-nu-gal P010566

{d}AB P010600
{d}ab2-IGI-A-DU P010566
{d}AB2-x P010566
{d}a-bara2-nun P010566
{d}AB-SI P010103

{d}ab-u2 P020414, P221485, P221699, P220771
{d}AB-x P010566
{d}abzu-ta-e3 P010566
{d}ad#:kug P225924, P225931
[{d}]ad-asz8-gi4 P010963

{d}AD#?-ku3 P010566
{d}alla#-[pa-e3] P010103
{d}alla-pa-e3(|UD#.DU|)# P225961
{d}am-a2-nun P225961, P010103
{d}ama-a-x P010566

{d}ama-gesztin P220841, P221349
{d}ama-gesztin-an-na P222496
{d}ama-izi-la2 P010566
{d}ama-kal P010566
{[d]}ama-kul-aba4 P010566

{d}ama-nam-HI P010566
{d}ama-nu-mu-dib P220703, P221730, P221362
{d}AMAR:UD P225964
{d}amar-|PA.SZA6|-bar{ki} P010600
{d}ama-ra-he2#-ag2 P010566

{d}amar-MI-ZA P010569, P222174, P010570
{d}AMAR-x P010103
{[d]}ama-UM#? P010566
{d}ama#?-ur2-gi P010566
{d}ama-uszumgal P010570

{d}A-MA#-[(x)] P225958
{d}]AMA-[(x)]-GAN P010569
{d}ambar-sud3 P010566
{d}am-gal-nun P225961
{d}am-sahar-ra P010566

{d}am-Ux(|SZE+NAM2#|)# P010103; P225958
{d#}a-nir P225958
{d}anzu P010501, P010700
{d}anzu2#? P222095
{d}anzu2{muszen} P222153

{d}a-ru P010103; P225961
{d}asar P220703, P221730, P010566, P010600
{d}asz2!-szurx(|KIxU|)! P225958
{d}asz8-gi P271228
{d}asz8-gi4 P010102, P010103, P010566

{d#}asz-im4-babbar P010103
{d}asznan P020413, P220703, P221730, P221476,
{d}asznanx(TIR) P010570

[sheshki]

B

{d}|BU%BU|-NU2 P010566
{d#}ba4-al P225958
{d}ba4-li-ha# P225958
{d}ba-ba P010566
{d}ba-ba6 P315467, P221476, P221480,

{d}BAD-szinig P225958
{d}bahar2-e2 P010566
{d}ban-ku3-la2 P010566
{d}ban-kug:lal P225961
{[d]}bar#{muszen} P010566

{d}BAR-asz-im4-babbar P225961
{d}bar-menx(|GA2xEN|) P010566
{d}ba!-U2 P010103
{d}bi2-zil P225958
{d}bil3-aga3-mes P220704, P220868, P220942

{d}bilx(|GESZ.PAP.BIL|)-ga-mes P010566
{d}BU@g-PA-EL P010600
{d}BU@g-pa-sikil P010085
{d}buranunax(|KIB.NUN|)-ur-sag P010744
{d}buru5{muszen} P010566

[sheshki]

D

{d}|DUGxKASKAL|(LAK566) P225958
{d}da:bar P225958, P225959
{d}[da]-gan P225804
{d}dam-gal P011025
{d}dam-gal#?-[nun?] P010566

{d}dam#-gi#-DU# P010103
{d}dam-ki-na P010102, P225946
{d}da-mu P221637, P020429
{d}DA#-x-URU# P225958
{d}dilmun#?-ku3 P010566

{d}dimgal!(|GAL.DIM|)-abzu P222906
{d}dingir-tab P010570
{d}DU-DU# P225959
{d}duh-lal3 P010566
{d}dumu-zi P020414, P221480

{d}dumu-zi abzu P220697, P220703, P220847, P221730, P222399
{d}dumu-zi gu2-en-na P220703, P221362
{d}DUN#-a2# P010103
{d}dun#-ga# P010103
{d}DUN#-LU# P010103

{d}DUN-nanna P225925, P225931
{d}DUN-nanna-KI-|LAGABxHAL| P225925
{d}DUN-ZI! P225958
{d#}DUN-|SZE.NUN&NUN| P225958

[us4-he2-gal2]

Sheshki -



Wow - thats quite a project! Only a German could commit to such a demanding and tedious list project. Even your natural tolerance of tedious list making may be strained in an effort like this. .. list science is of course also very Mesopotamian as already in Uruk lists were the way the world was systematized and recorded and the lexical lists and god lists and so on continued throughout Mesopotamian history and were the closest to scientific documents in that civilization.

So this undertaking to create the CDLI ED Godlist is quite something ;] To my knowledge there is nothing quite like that in existence at the moment. Scholars have made numerous monographs - studies on individual gods. A handful of studies exist on local pantheon for example the pantheon on ED Lagash (Selz) the pantheon of late Uruk (Beaulieu) of Old Babylonian Nippur (I think? T. Richter) and the pantheon of ED Abu Salabikh (Mander - in Italian). and several others. But there are few systematic studies of Mesopotamian gods in general - there is of course Black and Green, but this is fairly general and omits many lessor known deities especially of the ED period. Frayne is co-authoring a book thatg will be published in the coming years which will feature a larger selection of gods than Black and Green, and especially some details on ED gods.


However to note the names of all ED deities (available on CDLI) and even those not mentioned on temple lists like the za3-mi hymns or in the early god lists, I don't think thats been done before. So this is an interesting effort Someday perhaps we can identify the genders or maybe even some additional information about these gods - this would certainly help to answer Steinkeller's proposal, about the importance of goddesses in early Sumerian religion.



Once a list is made, we can maybe look it over and see which of the ED gods scholarship know anything about - I would estimate some 20% or so we know some details on from sources mentioned above.

[sheshki]

E

{d}e2-gal#-sze3 P010569
{d}e2-LAK384#? P010566
{d#}ebih(|[EN?].TI#|)#? P225931
{d}e-lum P010570
{d}en:LU2{nu}-DU P225959

{d}en:LU2{nu}-gi P225959
{d}en#-[LAK114] P010103
{d}en#-[TIR?]-nun#? P010566
{d}en-|HIxNUN| P010103
{d}en#-|SZE.NUN&NUN|#-nun P010103, P225961

{d}en-|URUxLUM?| P010566
{d}en-|URUxUD| P010566
{d}en#-a2# P010103, P225958
{d}en#-an# P010103, P225958
{d}en-bulug3 P010103, P225958

{d}en-bur?-gur8#? P010566
{[d]}en#-dag-ga P010566, P225958, P010103
{d}endibx(|ME.MU|)-unu P010566
{d}en-e2-si P010566
{d}en#-gukkal P010103, P225958

{d}en-gur7# P010566
{d}en#-KA-SAR P010566
{d}en-ki P020414, P221477, P010103, P010570
{d}en-ki-du P222183
{d}en-ki-szar2 P010566

[{d}en-ki-zi]-da P010705
[{d}]en#?-LA# P225958
{d#}en#-LAK114 P225958
{d#}en#-LAK114-x-nun P225964, P225958
{d}en-lil2 P222183, P221800, P221796, P010570

{d}en-lu2{+nu}-gid2 P010566
{d#}en#-LU2{nu}-gi4 P225958
{d}en-LU2{nu}-gi4-DU P225958
{d}EN-ME? P221638
{d}en#-me-te P010566, P010103, P225961

{d}en#-nu-gi4#! P020586
{d}en-nun?-[...] P010566
{d}en-nun-hul P010566
{d}en-nun-x-[(x)] P010566
{d}en#-pesz#-gal P010103, P225961

{d}en-szar2-nu-gi4 P010566
{d}en-sze3-UD-nu-u3-DU P010566
{d}en-u3-sze3 P010566
{d}en-UB P010566
{d}en-URU#:TI#?-x P010103

{d}en#-utua(LAK777)#-x P225958
{d}en-utuwa(LAK777)-X P010103
{d}en-zi-da P010569, P010570, P222174
{d}eresz-ki-gal P220701
{d}esz2-gal P010566

{d}ESZ2#-KU7# P010103
{d}esz3-eren P010566
{d}esz3-ezem P010566
{d}esz3-ir-nun P220697, P220703, P227555, P221730, P221362
{d}eszda2-amar-banda3{da}-unu P010566

{d}eszda2-kar-ge6 P010566
[{d}]esz-GIR@g P271228
{d}esz-pesz P010566, P222183
{d}esz-SAHAR P010566
{d}ezem-du10 P010566

{d}ezinu P010600
[{d}]ezinu(|SZE#.(SZE.NUN&NUN)|) P010085, P010103