Nocodeyv, Enkur, Andrea and others:
Well this is certainly an interesting topic. First to respond to Enkur's question - yes, the link to the text you are referencing can now be found at:
CDLI P3154470. Periodically, CDLI update their file system and links must be updated, unfortunately. I see your point in so far as Ki does seem to have character and personhood of a sort in this composition, however, the counterpoint comes from scholars who assess the cultic texts or economic texts and find that such a goddess did not receive offerings in the same way deities known to have real cult did. So this type of point is difficult to discount also.
Let's focus on Uraš first. Who and what was this deity? It's important to distinguish that two quite separate deities seemed to share this name and the second of the two is a male deity associated with the late period city of Dilbat, this god is quite irrelevant here. For a sense of the earlier goddess, the one which is like Ki and is relevant here, one can search the ETCSL (search "ura" in English results and then ctrl+f search "uras"). You will get some 32 hits or so most of which say little about the goddess beyond that she was the spouse of An and mother of so and so.
In a forthcoming dictionary on Gods and Goddesses Frayne and Stuckey will describe this goddess as: "A Sumerian earth and birth/mother goddess. Sometimes understood as the consort of An/Anu, she was mother of Nin-Isin(a) and Nissaba. According to ancient tradition, Uraš meant “earth,” and An’s wife was Ki, “Earth.” As An’s wife she was thus identified with Ki."
To be sure, there is relatively little published about this fairly obscure earth goddess, Uraš. There are only so many focused studies which attempt to detail a god or goddess in a comprehensive book length study - so monographs to date include studies of Nergal (von Weiher 1971), Nabu (Pomponio 1978), Ea (Galter 1981, but more recently see the works of Petr Espak), Marduk (Sommerfeld 1982), Nanna/Sin (Hall 1986, Sjoberg 1960), Enlil (Wang 2011), and importantly here, An/Anu (Wohlstein 1976).
A book length study on An is important here because nothing of this sort has ever been undertaken for Ki, Uraš or Nammu; however, since An is given as the spouse of all of these goddesses in various source, Wohlstein discusses these goddesses at some length. So perhaps a good question to consider at this point would be: who was the original spouse of An?
Nammu as the Original Spouse of An?:Inscribed Foundation Figurine of Lugalkisalsi, King of Uruk, EDIIIb period
In fact, on the
The God An and Early Occurrences thread, Wohlstein's work has already been commented on and some of his more important observations have been noted. Some are certainly surprising. Most pertinent here, Wohlstein holds that the earliest sources provide evidence that Nammu (not Ki or Uraš) was held to be the spouse of An in the 3rd millenium, the ED period. Remember, as classic as S.N. Kramer's formulations of Sumerian cosmology are, they are generally based on Sumerian literature that is preserved on Old Babylonian period tablets. However, what can be pieced together of even earlier stages of Sumerian religion, the brief and enigmatic Early Dynastic textual tradition, is sometimes at odds with OB theology.
As a case in point, Wohlstein draws our attention to the above foundation figurine of Lugalkisalsi, an Urakian king who ruled in the EDIIIb period. The figurine has an intact inscription on its front which (as quoted on the above mentioned thread) reads as follows:
For Namma,
the wife of An,
Lugalkisalsi,
king of Uruk,
and king of Ur,
the temple of Namma,
he built.
While this evidence was persuasive to Wohlstein, it hasn't convinced everybody. F.A.M Wiggermann has another view. In the following excerpt from his 1998 entry on Nammu in the RlA (vol. 9 pg. 138), Wiggermann points out that, actually, the *only* extent text alluding to Nammu as the spouse of An is the one just mentioned above. In fact the author seems to prefer Ki/Uraš as the basic spouse of An:
Wiggermann: "Nammu is the mother of Enki in Enki and Ninmah (18, 24, 30 etc.), in An - Anum I 27, and in late bilingual magical texts (CT 16, 13: 36 f.,ArOr. 21, 384: 1; cf. also M. E. Cohen, The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia [1988] 76: a + 40). Enki's father is An (WO 68,80, Isme-Dagan D b 9, E 13, Ur-Ninurta B 6, ArOr. 21, 357: 25 f., Ee. I 16), but the two [An and Nammu] are explicitly husband and wife only in an inscription of Lugalgiparesi* [=Lugalkisalsi] (H. Neumann AoF 8 [1981] 78 H. Steible, FAOS 5/II 309 f.). In the OB incantation CT 42 PI. 41 b 4 Nammu is called e-le-et? An-ni-im "pure one of An", but the passage is epigraphically uncertain (cf. W. von Soden: BiOr 18 [1961] 71f.). Usually Uraš, the Tilth, is An's wife, and in one source they together are the parents of Enki (ISme-Dagan E 11, 13). Nammu (water) and Uraš (earth) are certainly distinct entities, but presumably one may take the place of the other in alternative local cosmogonies."
Uraš as the goddess of Arable lands: It seems that your personal theory, Nocodeyv, isn't too far off from what some scholars have themselves theorized about the distinction between Ki and Uraš. I will reference F.A.M. Wiggermann again, because he really is an authority on early Cosmology, he writes many of the entries in the Reallexikon der Assyriologie for example (the fields official encyclopoedia series). Not everyone agrees with all of his points of course. I would like to thank Madness for pointing out Wiggermann's take on this earlier (again, on the An/Anu thread linked above).
According to Wiggermann, in his article
Mythological Foundations of Nature (1989), Ki and Uraš were indeed distinct and distinguishable as he remarks on pg. 20: "This Earth, Ki, is to be distinguished from Uraš, the later wife of the sky god An and representing the arable surface of the earth." So Wiggermann's take is that Uraš is a goddess corresponding in particularly with arable land, or land that lends itself to agriculture, the could perhaps be further interpreted as the Sumerian heartland versus the wild periphery (sometimes put in terms of "kalam" versus "kur.") The author may draw part of his justification from Jacobsen, who in
The Treasures of Darkness (New Haven 1976) 95 and 249 n. 86, derives the name Uraš from the Semitic root "to plough," and translates "The Tilth." (Wiggermann 1989, n.20).
Key to Wiggermann's understanding of the situation is that the author also sees Sumerian 3rd millennium cosmology (ED period possible also Ur III) as maintaining two distinct notions of the god An: On the one hand, there was a "cosmic entity" An, who represents heaven as the natural opposite (and the pair) to earth, Ki. On the other hand, he sees An the husband of Uraš as a distinct deity, who inhabited "the finished cosmos" being that which postdated the separation An and Ki (pg. 284). I would consider this delineation between the 'two An deities' as largely theoretical, that's not to say incorrect.
So all in all Nocodeyv, I think your ideas have been quite (correctly) intuitive seeing as you are so far just going on a few brief and piffy summarizing comments made in encyclopedias etc. At least, Wiggermann's study of the cosmology has resulted in a conclusion that one pair, An and Ki, were generally abstract cosmic entities, while another pair, An and Uraš, were more solidly linked with the world in its current formation and Uraš had a particular connotation which set her apart from the earth in general: she represented arable land. I will send you the Wiggermann article in due time, however, first you may benefit from our Du-ku thread, where you can study the ancestors of Enlil a bit. They are an enigma and a further layer of Mesopotamian cosmology that is often omitted in general overviews. See
Du-ku and the Ancestors of Enlil.