Ashnan
Template:Short description Template:Infobox deity Ashnan or Ezina (dTemplate:Smallcaps;Template:Sfn both possible readings are used interchangeablyTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn) was a Mesopotamian goddess considered to be the personification of grain. She could also be called Ezina-Kusu, which led to the proposal that the goddess Kusu was initially her epithet which only developed into a distinct figure later on. She was already worshiped in the Uruk period, and appears in documents from many Mesopotamian cities from the third millennium BCE. She is also known from various works of Mesopotamian literature, such as the debate poem Debate between Sheep and Grain.
Names and characterEdit
The logogram dŠE.TIR can be read as both Ezina and Ashnan.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Jeremy Black, both are used interchangeably to refer to the same deity in modern publications.Template:Sfn Frank Simons argues the latter can be understood as the "Akkadianised version" of Ezina.Template:Sfn The Sumerian word ezina was also a common noun referring to grain.Template:Sfn The Akkadian ašnan could be interpreted the same way.Template:Sfn However, the precise etymology of both is uncertain.Template:Sfn The goddess designated by these names was associated with grain and agriculture.Template:Sfn Early on in her history, she was a major deity,Template:Sfn but in later periods she was simply perceived as the divine hypostasis of grain.Template:Sfn In addition to her primary role, she could be invoked alongside Nintur to stop post-natal bleeding.Template:Sfn
It is possible that in art, Ashnan was depicted as a goddess surrounded by grain-like plants.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In some cases this figure is depicted seated on a throne.Template:Sfn
Ezina-KusuEdit
The compound theonym Ezina-Kusu, which combines the names of Ezina and Kusu, a purification goddess, is well attested.Template:Sfn The Akkadian form Ashnan-Kusu is also used in scholarship.Template:Sfn It already appears in sources from the Early Dynastic period.Template:Sfn In most texts, it seemingly designates a deity analogous to Ezina, for example an inscription on one of the Gudea cylinders states that "Ezina-Kusu, the pure stalk, will raise its head high in the furrows in Gu-edina," while The Debate between Sheep and Grain uses the double name interchangeably with that of the grain goddess.Template:Sfn Frank Simons has suggested that Kusu was not a distinct goddess at first, but rather an epithet, and only developed into a separate figure at a later date.Template:Sfn However, it has also been argued that Kusu treated as an epithet was not related to the purification goddess, and should be understood as a generic appellation, "goddess filled with purity."Template:Sfn Ezina-Kusu is also attested as an epithet referring to Nisaba and Aruru in their respective vegetation-related roles.Template:Sfn
WorshipEdit
The Mesopotamian grain goddess was already worshiped in the Uruk period.Template:Sfn According to the Archaic City List, a settlement named after her existed somewhere in Mesopotamia, though the reading of its full name remains unknown.Template:Sfn She is one of the oldest attested city goddesses, with Nisaba, Nanshe, Inanna of Uruk and Inanna of Zabalam being the only other ones present in texts of comparable age.Template:Sfn In one of the Early Dynastic Zame Hymns, her city is instead AB׊UŠ (U2), but the reading of this name also remains unknown.Template:Sfn She is also present in the Fara and Abu Salabikh god lists.Template:Sfn She was worshiped in Lagash, Adab, Umma, Ur, NippurTemplate:Sfn and Shuruppak.Template:Sfn Joan Goodnick Westenholz suggested that in Nippur she was worshiped in the temple of Kusu,Template:Sfn which according to Andrew R. George likely bore the name Esaĝĝamaḫ, "house of the exalted purifier."Template:Sfn Alfonso Archi notes that she also occurs in a bilingual lexical list from Ebla, which gives the equation dAšnan = A-za-na-an, but she is absent from the administrative texts from this city.Template:Sfn Theophoric names invoking her are known from various sources from the third millennium BCE.Template:Sfn For example, multiple individuals named Amar-Ashnan ("young bull of Ashnan"Template:Sfn) appear in texts from Adab from the Early Dynastic and Sargonic periods.Template:Sfn The same name, as well as other ones, such as Ashnan-amamu ("Ashnan is my mother"), are also attested in texts from Lagash.Template:Sfn
A formula from the reign of Ishme-Dagan refers to Ezina, Enki, Ishkur and Šumugan as the "lords of abundance" (en ḫegallakene).Template:Sfn The name Ashnan appears in a curse formula of Yahdun-Lim of Mari, in which she is invoked alongside Šumugan to punish anyone who would remove this king's foundation deposits by impoverishing his land.Template:Sfn Some attestations of Ashnan are available from the corpus of Old Babylonian personal letters as well, where she appears with comparable frequency to Bau or Nisaba, though less often than the most popular goddesses, such as Ishtar, Annunitum or Aya.Template:Sfn Seals inscribed with the formula "servant of Ashnan" or "servant of Ezina" are known too.Template:Sfn
MythologyEdit
The debate poem Debate between Sheep and Grain involves Ashnan arguing with Laḫar (U8), a sheep deity, over which of them is more important.Template:Sfn The text begins with an account of creation,Template:Sfn which relays that both of them were created because mankind had no food to eat and no clothes to wear.Template:Sfn Both Ashnan and Laḫar raise many arguments in favor of their respective claim to superiority, but eventually Enki convinces Enlil to declare the grain goddess the winner, which according to Jeremy Black might reflect the belief that grain was more crucial for survival of mankind than domestic animals were.Template:Sfn
An Early Dynastic myth, Tale of Ezina and her Seven Children, is known from multiple copies, and apparently relays how the eponymous goddess, after having sex with a partner whose identity remains uncertain, gives birth to seven children, who seemingly were responsible with providing the world with some type of food which was previously unknown, presumably bread.Template:Sfn Julia M. Asher-Greve proposes that a goddess with plants on her robe who in one case accompanies the possible enthroned depiction of Ezina represents one of her seven children from this myth.Template:Sfn
Ezina is mentioned in the myth Enki and the World Order, in which she is called "the good bread of the whole world."Template:Sfn
An incantation recited during the renovation of a temple lists Ashnan among deities created by Ea from clay.Template:Sfn
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
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