Anshar
In the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish, which means "whole heaven", is a primordial god. His consort is Kishar which means "Whole Earth", they were the children of Lahamu and Lahmu and the grandchildren of Tiamat and Apsû. They, in turn, are the parents of Anu, the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods and demons. During the Neo-Assyrian period, Anshar was equated with Ashur, the patron deity and namesake of the Assyrian Empire. Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses: Anšar and Kišar
Ninshubur
Ninshubur was the sukkal or second-in-command of the goddess Inanna in Sumerian mythology. Her name means "Queen of the East" in ancient Sumerian. Much like Iris or Hermes in Greek mythology, Ninshubur served as a messenger to the other gods. Ninshubur accompanied Inanna as a friend throughout Inanna's many exploits, she helped Inanna fight Enki's demons after Inanna's theft of the sacred me. When Inanna became trapped in the Underworld, it was Ninshubur who pleaded with Enki for her mistress's release. In Akkadian mythology, Ninshubur was syncretized with the male messenger deity Papsukkal. In older sources, Ninshubur herself is referred to as a male god as well; the gender of a sukkal always matches the gender of the deity. Thus, Enki's sukkal Isimud is male. In her primary aspect as the sukkal to Inanna, Ninshubur was female, when she served as the sukkal to An, he was male. Ninshubur was associated with the constellation Orion. In Sumerian mythology, Ninshubur is portrayed as "unshakably loyal" in her devotion to her mistress.
In addition to being a source of great wisdom and knowledge, Ninshubur was a warrior goddess. She was the messenger of the god An, she is said to have walked in front of An wherever he went, a position traditionally reserved for a bodyguard. Ninshubur was an important figure in ancient Sumerian mythology and she played an integral role in several myths involving her mistress, the goddess, Inanna. In the Sumerian myth of "Inanna and Enki," Ninshubur is described as the one who rescues Inanna from the monsters that Enki has sent after her. In this myth, Ninshubur plays a similar role to Isimud. In the Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent into the Netherworld, Ninshubur is described as the one who pleads with all the gods in an effort to persuade them to rescue Inanna from the Netherworld. Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses: Papsukkal http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/inanna/ts94.htm Various descriptions of Inanna and Ninshubur
Anzû
Anzû known as dZû and Imdugud, is a lesser divinity or monster in several Mesopotamian religions. He was conceived as son of Siris. Anzû was depicted as a massive bird who can breathe fire and water, although Anzû is alternately depicted as a lion-headed eagle. Stephanie Dalley, in Myths from Mesopotamia, writes that "the Epic of Anzu is principally known in two versions: an Old Babylonian version of the early second millennium, giving the hero as Ningursu. However, the Anzu character does not appear as in some other writings, as noted below; the name of the mythological being called Anzû was written in the oldest Sumerian cuneiform texts as. In texts of the Old Babylonian period, the name is more found as AN. IM. DUGUDMUŠEN. In 1961, Landsberger argued that this name should be read as "Anzu", most researchers have followed suit. In 1989, Thokild Jacobsen noted that the original reading of the cuneiform signs as written is valid, was the original pronunciation of the name, with Anzu derived from an early phonetic variant.
Similar phonetic changes happened to parallel terms, such as imdugud becoming ansuk. Changes like these occurred by evolution of the im to an and the blending of the new n with the following d, aspirated as dh, a sound, borrowed into Akkadian as z or s, it has been argued based on contextual evidence and transliterations on cuneiform learning tablets, that the earliest, Sumerian form of the name was at least sometimes pronounced Zu, that Anzu is the Akkadian form of the name. However, there is evidence for both readings of the name in both languages, the issue is confused further by the fact that the prefix was used to distinguish deities or simply high places. AN. ZU could therefore mean "heavenly eagle". Thokild Jacobsen proposed that Anzu was an early form of the god Abu, syncretized by the ancients with Ninurta/Ningursu, a god associated with thunderstorms. Abu was referred to as "Father Pasture", illustrating the connection between rainstorms and the fields growing in Spring. According to Jacobsen, this god was envisioned as a huge black thundercloud in the shape of an eagle, was depicted with a lion's head to connect it to the roar of thunder.
Some depictions of Anzu therefore depict the god alongside leafy boughs. The connection between Anzu and Abu is further reinforced by a statue found in the Tell Asmar Hoard depicting a human figure with large eyes, with an Anzu bird carved on the base, it is that this depicts Anzu in his symbolic or earthly form as the Anzu-bird, in his higher, human-like divine form as Abu. Though some scholars have proposed that the statue represents a human worshiper of Anzu, others have pointed out that it does not fit the usual depiction of Sumerian worshipers, but instead matches similar statues of gods in human form with their more abstract form or their symbols carved onto the base. In Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, Anzû is a divine storm-bird and the personification of the southern wind and the thunder clouds; this demon—half man and half bird—stole the "Tablet of Destinies" from Enlil and hid them on a mountaintop. Anu ordered the other gods to retrieve the tablet though they all feared the demon.
According to one text, Marduk killed the bird. Anzu appears in the story of "Inanna and the Huluppu Tree", recorded in the preamble to the Sumerian epic poem Gilgamesh and the Netherworld. Anzu appears in the Anzud Bird; the shorter Old Babylonian version was found at Susa. Full version in Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood and Others by Stephanie Dalley, page 222 and at The Epic of Anzû, Old Babylonian version from Susa, Tablet II, lines 1-83, read by Claus Wilcke; the longer Late Assyrian version from Nineveh is most called The Myth of Anzu.. An edited version is at Myth of Anzu. In Babylonian myth, Anzû is a deity associated with cosmogeny. Anzû is represented as stripping the father of the gods of umsimi. Regarding this, Charles Penglase writes that "Ham is the Chaldean Anzû, both are cursed for the same allegorically described crime," which parallels the mutilation of Uranus by Cronus and of Osiris by Set. Asakku, similar Mesopotamian deity Griffin or griffon, lion-bird hybrid Lamassu, Assyrian deity, bull/lion-eagle-human hybrid Ziz, giant griffin-like bird in Jewish mythology Zuism, Icelander protest against tax for religion Hybrid creatures in mythology List of hybrid creatures in mythology Tiamat Zu on Encyclopædia Britannica Dalley, Stephanie, ed..
"Anzû". Myths from Mesopotamia. Creation, The Flood and Others. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199538362; the Assyro-Babylonian Mythology FAQ: Anzû ETCSL glossary showing Zu as the verb'to know' Myth of Anzu Ninurta's return to Nibru: a šir-gida to Ninurta and The Return of Ninurta to Nippur Ninurta and the Turtle and Ninurta and the Turtle, or Ninurta and Enki Ninurta's exploits and The Exploits of Ninurta, or Lugal-e Lugal
Dumuzid
Dumuzid known by the alternate form Tammuz, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with shepherds, the primary consort of the goddess Inanna. In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid's sister was the goddess of vegetation. In the Sumerian King List, Dumuzid is listed as an antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira and an early king of the city of Uruk. In the Sumerian poem Inanna Prefers the Farmer, Dumuzid competes against the farmer Enkimdu for Inanna's hand in marriage. In Inanna's Descent into the Underworld, Dumuzid fails to mourn Inanna's death and, when she returns from the Underworld, she allows the galla demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement. Inanna regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons. Gilgamesh references Tammuz in Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh as one of Ishtar's past lovers, turned into an allalu bird with a broken wing.
Dumuzid was associated with fertility and vegetation and the hot, dry summers of Mesopotamia were believed to be caused by Dumuzid's yearly death. During the month in midsummer bearing his name, people all across Mesopotamia would engage in public, ritual mourning for him. During the late twentieth century, scholars thought that, during the Sumerian Akitu festival, kings may have established their legitimacy by taking on the role of Dumuzid and engaging in ritualized sexual intercourse with the high priestess of Inanna as part of a sacred marriage ceremony; this notion is now rejected by scholars as a misinterpretation of Sumerian literary texts. The cult of Dumuzid was spread to the Levant and to Greece, where he became known under the West Semitic name Adonis; the cult of Ishtar and Tammuz continued to thrive until the eleventh century AD and survived in parts of Mesopotamia as late as the eighteenth century. Tammuz is mentioned by name in the Book of Ezekiel and alluded to in other passages from the Hebrew Bible.
In late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholarship of religion, Tammuz was seen as a prime example of the archetypal dying-and-rising god, but the discovery of the full Sumerian text of Inanna's Descent in the mid-twentieth century disproved the previous scholarly assumption that the narrative ended with Dumuzid's resurrection and instead revealed that it ended with Dumuzid's death. The existence of the "dying-and-rising god" archetype has been rejected by modern scholars; the Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green describe the early history of Dumuzid's cult as "complex and bewildering". According to the Sumerian King List, Dumuzid was the fifth antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira. Dumuzid was listed as an early king of Uruk, where he was said to have come from the nearby village of Kuara and to have been the consort of the goddess Inanna; as Dumuzid sipad, Dumuzid was believed to be the provider of milk, a rare, seasonal commodity in ancient Sumer due to the fact that it could not be stored without spoiling.
In addition to being the god of shepherds, Dumuzid was an agricultural deity associated with the growth of plants. Ancient Near Eastern peoples associated Dumuzid with the springtime, when the land was fertile and abundant, during the summer months, when the land was dry and barren, it was thought that Dumuzid had "died". During the month of Dumuzid, which fell in the middle of summer, people all across Sumer would mourn over his death; this seems to have been the primary aspect of his cult. In Lagash, the month of Dumuzid was the sixth month of the year; this month and the holiday associated with it was transmitted from the Sumerians to Babylonians and other East Semitic peoples, with its name transcribed into those languages as Tammuz. A ritual associated with the Ekur temple in Nippur equates Dumuzid with the snake-god Ištaran, who in that ritual, is described as having died. Dumuzid was identified with the god Ama-ušumgal-ana, a local god worshipped in the city of Lagash. In some texts, Ama-ušumgal-ana is described as a heroic warrior.
As Ama-ušumgal-ana, Dumuzid is associated with its fruits. This aspect of Dumuzid's cult was always joyful in character and had no associations with the darker stories involving his death. To ancient Mesopotamian peoples, the date palm represented stability, because it was one of the few crops that could be harvested all year during the dry season. In some Sumerian poems, Dumuzid is referred to as "my Damu", which means "my son"; this name is applied to him in his role as the personification of the power that causes the sap to rise in trees and plants. Damu is the name most associated with Dumuzid's return in autumn after the dry season has ended; this aspect of his cult emphasized the fear and exhaustion of the community after surviving the devastating summer. Dumuzid had no power outside of his distinct realm of responsibilities. Few prayers addressed to him are extant and, of those that are all of them are requests for him to provide more milk, more grain, more cattle, etc; the sole exception to this rule is a single Assyrian inscription in which a man requests Tammuz that, when he descends to the Underworld, he should take with him a troublesome ghost, haunting him.
The cult of Tammuz was associated with women, who were the ones responsible for mourning his death. The custom of planting miniature gardens with fast-growing plants such as lettuce and fennel, which would be placed out in the hot sun to sprout before withering in the heat, was
Sin (mythology)
Sīn or Suen or Nanna was the god of the moon in the Mesopotamian religions of Akkad and Babylonia. Nanna is a Sumerian deity, the son of Enlil and Ninlil, became identified with the Semitic Sīn; the two chief seats of Nanna's/Sīn's worship were Ur in the south of Mesopotamia and Harran in the north. A moon god by the same name was worshipped in South Arabia. Sīn was a protector of shepherds. During the period in which Ur exercised supremacy over the Euphrates valley, Sīn was considered the supreme god, it was that he was designated as "father of the gods", "head of the gods" or "creator of all things". Sīn was called "He whose heart can not be read" and was told that "he could see farther than all the gods", it is said that every new moon, the gods gather together from him to make predictions about the future. The original meaning of the name Nanna is unknown; the earliest spelling found in Ur and Uruk is DLAK-32. NA; the name of Ur, spelled LAK-32. UNUGKI=URIM2KI, is itself derived from the theonym, means "the abode of Nanna".
He was the father of Ishkur. The pre-classical sign LAK-32 collapses with ŠEŠ, the classical Sumerian spelling is DŠEŠ. KI, with the phonetic reading na-an-na; the technical term for the crescent moon could refer to the deity. The name is spelled logographically as DNANNA; the Semitic moon god Su'en/Sin is in origin a separate deity from Sumerian Nanna, but from the Akkadian Empire period the two undergo syncretization and are identified. The occasional Assyrian spelling of DNANNA-ar DSu'en-e is due to association with Akkadian na-an-na-ru "illuminator, lamp", an epitheton of the moon god; the name of the Assyrian moon god Su'en/Sîn is spelled as DEN. ZU, or {h⁴8im)5 with the numeral 30, he is designated as En-zu, which means "lord of wisdom". During the period that Ur exercised a large measure of supremacy over the Euphrates valley, Sin was regarded as the head of the pantheon, it is to this period that we must trace such designations of Sin as "father of the gods", "chief of the gods", "creator of all things", the like.
The "wisdom" personified by the moon-god is an expression of the science of astronomy or the practice of astrology, in which the observation of the moon's phases is an important factor. His wife was Ningal, who bore him Inanna/Ishtar; the tendency to centralize the powers of the universe leads to the establishment of the doctrine of a triad consisting of Sin/Nanna and his children. Sin rode on a winged bull; the bull was one of his symbols, through his father, Enlil, "Bull of Heaven", along with the crescent and the tripod. On cylinder seals, he is represented as an old man with the crescent symbol. In the astral-theological system he is represented by the moon; this number refers to the average number of days in a lunar month, as measured between successive new moons. An important Sumerian text tells of the descent of Enlil and Ninlil, pregnant with Nanna/Sin, into the underworld. There, three "substitutions" are given to allow the ascent of Nanna/Sin; the story shows some similarities to the text known as "The Descent of Inanna".
Nanna's chief sanctuary at Ur was named E-gish-shir-gal, "house of the great light". It was at Ur; this was an powerful role held by a princess, most notably Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, was the primary cult role associated with the cult of Nanna/Sin. Sin had a sanctuary at the city of Harran, named E-hul-hul, "house of joys"; the cult of the moon-god spread to other centers, so that temples to him are found in all the large cities of Babylonia and Assyria. A sanctuary for Sin with Syriac inscriptions invoking his name dating to the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE was found at Sumatar Harabesi in the Tektek Mountains, not far from Harran and Edessa. Sin was the name of the pre-Islamic god of the moon and riches worshipped in Hadhramaut; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Sin". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25. Cambridge University Press. P. 138. Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses: Nanna/Suen/Sin Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran.
E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1992, 232 pages. ISBN 90-04-09513-6 The Ur and Harran Latitudes, Göbekli Tepe
Lahmu
Laḫmu is a deity from Akkadian mythology that represents the zodiac, parent stars, or constellations. Lahmu, meaning parent star or constellation, is the name of a protective and beneficent deity, the first-born son of Abzu and Tiamat, he and his sister Laḫamu are the parents of Anshar and Kishar, the sky father and earth mother, who birthed the gods of the Mesopotamian Pantheon. Laḫmu is depicted as a bearded man with a red sash – with three strands – and four to six curls on his head and they are depicted as monsters, which each encompasses a specific constellation, he is associated with the Kusarikku or "Bull-Man". In Sumerian times Laḫmu may have meant "the muddy one". Lahmu guarded the gates of the Abzu temple of Enki at Eridu, he and his sister Laḫamu are primordial deities in the Babylonian Epic of Creation Enuma Elis and Lahmu may be related to or identical with "Lahamu", one of Tiamat's creatures in that epic. Some scholars, such as William F. Albright, have speculated that the name of Bethlehem referred to a Canaanite fertility deity cognate with Laḫmu and Laḫamu, rather than to the Canaanite word lehem, "bread".
See Bethlehem. Michael Jordan, Encyclopedia of Gods, Kyle Cathie Limited, 2002 Black and Green, Anthony. Gods Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia University of Texas Press, Austin, 2003
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