Mesopotamian mythology

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1. #1Enlil

   Keys: Enlil

   Enlil, Mesopotamian god of the atmosphere and a member of the triad of gods completed by Anu (Sumerian: An) and Ea (Enki). Enlil meant Lord Wind: both the hurricane and the gentle winds of spring were thought of as the breath issuing from his mouth and eventually as his word or command. He was sometimes called Lord of the Air. Enil is considered a member of the special class of Mesopotamian gods called the Anunnaki.

   Although An was the highest god in the Sumerian pantheon, Enlil had a more important role as the embodiment of energy and force and authority. Enlil’s cult centre was Nippur. Enlil was also the god of agriculture. The Myth of the Creation of the Hoe describes how he separated heaven and earth to make room for seeds to grow. He then invented the hoe and broke the hard crust of earth; men sprang forth from the opening. Another myth relates Enlil’s rape of his consort Ninlil (Akkadian: Belit), a grain goddess, and his subsequent banishment to the underworld. This myth reflects the agricultural cycle of fertilization, ripening, and winter inactivity.

   Enlil was eventually replaced by Marduk as the executive of the Babylonian pantheon. He continued to be extolled, however, as high god of Nippur until the end of the 2nd millennium bc. He remained an important deity there well into the next millennium

2. #2Ninurta

   Keys: Ninurta

   Ninurta, in Mesopotamian religion, city god of Girsu (Ṭalʿah, or Telloh) in the Lagash region. Ninurta was originally the Sumerian god of springtime thunder and rainstorms and of the plow and plowing and was later a deity of war. His earliest name was Imdugud, which means “rain cloud,” and his earliest form was that of the thundercloud envisaged as an enormous black bird floating on outstretched wings roaring its thunder cry from a lion’s head. With the growing tendency toward anthropomorphism, the old form and name were gradually disassociated from the god as merely his emblems; enmity toward the older unacceptable shape eventually made it evil, an ancient enemy of the god.

   Ninurta was the son of Enlil and Ninlil (Belit) and was married to Bau, in Nippur called Ninnibru, queen of Nippur. A major festival of his, the Gudsisu Festival, marked in Nippur the beginning of the plowing season

3. #3Nammu

   Keys: Nammu

   Nammu is the primordial goddess who, in some Sumerian traditions, was said to have given birth to both An and Ki. She eventually came to be regarded as the mother of Enki and was revered as an important mother goddess. Because the cuneiform sign used to write her name is the same as the sign for engur, a synonym for abzu, it is highly probable that she was originally conceived as the personification of the subterranean primeval waters.

4. #4Ishtar

   Keys: Ishtar

   Ishtar, in Mesopotamian religion, goddess of war and sexual love. Ishtar is considered a member of the special class of Mesopotamian gods called the Anunnaki.

   Ishtar is the Akkadian counterpart of the West Semitic goddess Astarte. Inanna, an important goddess in the Sumerian pantheon, came to be identified with Ishtar, but it is uncertain whether Inanna is also of Semitic origin or whether, as is more likely, her similarity to Ishtar caused the two to be identified. In the figure of Inanna several traditions seem to have been combined: she is sometimes the daughter of the sky god An, sometimes his wife; in other myths she is the daughter of Nanna, god of the moon, or of the wind god, Enlil. In her earliest manifestations she was associated with the storehouse and thus personified as the goddess of dates, wool, meat, and grain; the storehouse gates were her emblem. She was also the goddess of rain and thunderstorms—leading to her association with An, the sky god—and was often pictured with the lion, whose roar resembled thunder. The power attributed to her in war may have arisen from her connection with storms. Inanna was also a fertility figure, and, as goddess of the storehouse and the bride of the god Dumuzi-Amaushumgalana, who represented the growth and fecundity of the date palm, she was characterized as young, beautiful, and impulsive—never as helpmate or mother. She is sometimes referred to as the Lady of the Date Clusters. Ishtar’s primary legacy from the Sumerian tradition is the role of fertility figure; she evolved, however, into a more complex character, surrounded in myth by death and disaster, a goddess of contradictory connotations and forces—fire and fire-quenching, rejoicing and tears, fair play and enmity. The Akkadian Ishtar is also, to a greater extent, an astral deity, associated with the planet Venus. With Shamash, the sun god, and Sin, the moon god, she forms a secondary astral triad. In this manifestation her symbol is a star with 6, 8, or 16 rays within a circle. As goddess of Venus, delighting in bodily love, Ishtar was the protectress of prostitutes and the patroness of the alehouse. Part of her cult worship probably included temple prostitution. Her popularity was universal in the ancient Middle East, and in many centres of worship she probably subsumed numerous local goddesses. In later myth she was known as Queen of the Universe, taking on the powers of An, Enlil, and Enki.

5. #5Gulaconstant

   Keys: Gula

   Gula has a prominent place in the Mesopotamian pantheon was occupied by healing goddesses, regarded as divine patronesses of doctors and medicine-workers. Multiple such deities existed: Nintinugga, "mistress who revives the dead," worshiped in Ninlil's temple in Nippur Ninisina, who in addition to her primary role was also the goddess of Isin Ninkarrak, most likely of Akkadian, rather than Sumerian, origin, worshiped in Sippar Gula ("the great"), from Umma; possibly initially a title rather than a distinct goddess Eventually Gula became the preeminent healing goddess, and other healing goddesses were sometimes syncretised with her, though in the god list An = Anum Gula, Ninkarrak and Nintinugga all figure as separate deities with own courts. Dogs were associated with many healing goddesses and Gula in particular is often shown in art with a dog sitting beside her.

6. #6Anu

   Keys: Anu

   An (in Sumerian), later known as Anu (in Akkadian), was the supreme God and "prime mover in creation", embodied by the sky. He is the first and most distant ancestor, theologically conceived as the God of Heaven in its "transcendental obscurity". In some theological systems all of the deities were believed to be the offspring of An and his consort Ki. However Anu was himself described as the descendant of various primordial beings in various texts (god lists, incantations, etc.), and Enlil was often equipped with his own elaborate family tree separate from Anu's. While An was described as the utmost god, at least by the time of the earliest written records the main god in terms of actual cult was Enlil.[60][61] Anu's supremacy was therefore "always somewhat nominal" according to Wilfred G. Lambert.Luludanitu, a multicolored stone (red, white and black) was associated with him.

7. #7Gilgameshconstant

   Keys: Gilgamesh

   Gilgamesh, also known as Bilgames in early Sumerian texts, was the fifth king of Uruk. This places his reign around 2500 BC and, according to a Sumerian list of kings, reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of Nippur. In Mesopotamian mythology, he is demigod (two-thirds god and one-third man) with superhuman strength. He used this strength to build walls of Uruk and traveled to meet Utnapishtim, survivor of the Great Deluge. Gilgamesh is a defeater of monsters to gain fame, and later seeks the sage Utnapishtim for the answers to eternal life. He embarks on this journey after his beloved companion, Enkidu, dies. When Gilgamesh confronts Utnapishtim after a long journey, he observes that Utnapishtim is nothing but an ordinary man and questions the reasoning behind his immortality. Utnapishtim tells how he had survived the Deluge, the worldwide flood sent from the gods because of their disapproval of Man. The god Ea had told him to construct a boat for his family, his craftsmen, the "animals of the field", and for himself. Ishtar and the rest of the gods wept and regretted the decision to flood the earth. Utnapishtim made a sacrifice to the gods and the smell attracted the gods to the boat. The god of the wind Enlil arrived, enraged that there were survivors, she condemns him for instigating the flood. Ea also castigates him for sending a disproportionate punishment. Enlil blesses Utnapishtim and his wife, and rewards them with eternal life. the main point seems to be that when Enlil granted eternal life it was a unique gift. He demonstrated this point by challenging Gilgamesh to stay awake for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh could not overcome this challenge and returned back to Uruk with Urshanabi, Utnapishtim's ferryman. As they are leaving, Utnapishtim's wife asks him to offer a parting gift. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that at the bottom of the sea there lives a boxthorn- like plant that will make him young again. Gilgamesh, by binding stones to his feet so he can walk on the bottom, manages to obtain the plant. He intends to it on an old man when he returns to Uruk. Unfortunately, when Gilgamesh stops to bathe, it is stolen by a serpent, who sheds its skin as it departs. Gilgamesh weeps at the futility of his efforts, because he has now lost all chance of immortality. He returns to Uruk, where the sight of its massive walls prompts him to praise this enduring work to Urshanabi.

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