Ninurta
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Good article Template:CS1 config Template:Infobox deity
Ninurta (Template:Langx: Template:Transliteration, possible meaning "Lord [of] Barley"),Template:Sfn also known as Ninĝirsu (Template:Langx: Template:Transliteration, meaning "Lord [of] Girsu"),Template:Sfn is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who cures humans of sicknesses and releases them from the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes. He was regarded as the son of the chief god Enlil and his main cult center in Sumer was the Eshumesha temple in Nippur. Ninĝirsu was honored by King Gudea of Lagash (ruled 2144–2124 BC), who rebuilt Ninĝirsu's temple in Lagash. Later, Ninurta became beloved by the Assyrians as a formidable warrior. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) built a massive temple for him at Kalhu, which became his most important cult center from then on.
In the epic poem Lugal-e, Ninurta slays the demon Asag using his talking mace Sharur and uses stones to build the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to make them useful for irrigation. In a poem sometimes referred to as the "Sumerian Georgica", Ninurta provides agricultural advice to farmers. In an Akkadian myth, he was the champion of the gods against the Anzû bird after it stole the Tablet of Destinies from his father Enlil and, in a myth that is alluded to in many works but never fully preserved, he killed a group of warriors known as the "Slain Heroes". His major symbols were a perched bird and a plow.
It has been suggested that Ninurta was the inspiration for the figure of Nimrod, a "mighty hunter" who is mentioned in association with Kalhu in the Book of Genesis, although the view has been disputed.Template:Sfn He may also be mentioned in the Second Book of Kings under the name Shendu.Template:Efn In the nineteenth century, Assyrian stone reliefs of winged, eagle-headed figures from the temple of Ninurta at Kalhu were commonly, but erroneously, identified as "Nisrochs" and they appear in works of fantasy literature from the time period.
WorshipEdit
Ninurta was worshipped in Mesopotamia as early as the middle of the third millennium BC by the ancient Sumerians,Template:Sfn and is one of the earliest attested deities in the region.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn His main cult center was the Eshumesha temple in the Sumerian city-state of Nippur,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn where he was worshipped as the god of agriculture and the son of the chief-god Enlil.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Though they may have originally been separate deities,Template:Sfn in historical times, the god Ninĝirsu, who was worshipped in the Sumerian city-state of Girsu, was always identified as a local form of Ninurta.Template:Sfn According to the Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, the two gods' personalities are "closely intertwined".Template:Sfn As the city-state of Girsu declined in importance, Ninĝirsu became increasingly known as "Ninurta".Template:Sfn He became primarily characterized by the aggressive, warlike aspect of his nature.Template:Sfn
In later times, Ninurta's reputation as a fierce warrior made him immensely popular among the Assyrians.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the late second millennium BC, Assyrian kings frequently held names which included the name of Ninurta,Template:Sfn such as Tukulti-Ninurta ("the trusted one of Ninurta"), Ninurta-apal-Ekur ("Ninurta is the heir of [Ellil's temple] Ekur"), and Ninurta-tukulti-Ashur ("Ninurta is the god Aššur's trusted one").Template:Sfn Tukulti-Ninurta I (ruled 1243–1207 BC) declares in one inscription that he hunts "at the command of the god Ninurta, who loves me."Template:Sfn Similarly, Adad-nirari II (ruled 911–891 BC) claimed Ninurta and Aššur as supporters of his reign,Template:Sfn declaring his destruction of their enemies as moral justification for his right to rule.Template:Sfn In the ninth century BC, when Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) moved the capital of the Assyrian Empire to Kalhu,Template:Sfn the first temple he built there was one dedicated to Ninurta.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn
The walls of the temple were decorated with stone relief carvings, including one of Ninurta slaying the Anzû bird. Ashurnasirpal II's son Shalmaneser III (ruled 859–824 BC) completed Ninurta's ziggurat at Kalhu and dedicated a stone relief of himself to the god.Template:Sfn On the carving, Shalmaneser III's boasts of his military exploitsTemplate:Sfn and credits all his victories to Ninurta, declaring that, without Ninurta's aid, none of them would have been possible.Template:Sfn When Adad-nirari III (ruled 811–783 BC) dedicated a new endowment to the temple of Aššur in Assur, they were sealed with both the seal of Aššur and the seal of Ninurta.Template:Sfn
After the capital of Assyria was moved away from Kalhu, Ninurta's importance in the pantheon began to decline.Template:Sfn Sargon II favored Nabu, the god of scribes, over Ninurta.Template:Sfn Nonetheless, Ninurta still remained an important deity.Template:Sfn Even after the kings of Assyria left Kalhu, the inhabitants of the former capital continued to venerate Ninurta,Template:Sfn who they called "Ninurta residing in Kalhu".Template:Sfn Legal documents from the city record that those who violated their oaths were required to "place two minas of silver and one mina of gold in the lap of Ninurta residing in Kalhu."Template:Sfn The last attested example of this clause dates to 669 BC, the last year of the reign of King Esarhaddon (ruled 681 – 669 BC).Template:Sfn The temple of Ninurta at Kalhu flourished until the end of the Assyrian Empire,Template:Sfn hiring the poor and destitute as employees.Template:Sfn The main cultic personnel were a šangû-priest and a chief singer, who were supported by a cook, a steward, and a porter.Template:Sfn In the late seventh century BC, the temple staff witnessed legal documents, along with the staff of the temple of Nabu at Ezida.Template:Sfn The two temples shared a qēpu-official.Template:Sfn
IconographyEdit
On kudurrus from the Kassite Period (Template:Circa 1600 – Template:Circa 1155 BC), a plough is captioned as a symbol of Ninĝirsu.Template:Sfn The plough also appears in Neo-Assyrian art, possibly as a symbol of Ninurta.Template:Sfn A perched bird is also used as a symbol of Ninurta during the Neo-Assyrian Period.Template:Sfn One speculative hypothesis holds that the winged disc originally symbolized Ninurta during the ninth century BC,Template:Sfn but was later transferred to Aššur and the sun-god Shamash.Template:Sfn This idea is based on some early representations in which the god on the winged disc appears to have the tail of a bird.Template:Sfn Most scholars have rejected this suggestion as unfounded.Template:Sfn Astronomers of the eighth and seventh centuries BC identified Ninurta (or Pabilsaĝ) with the constellation Sagittarius.Template:Sfn Alternatively, others identified him with the star Sirius,Template:Sfn which was known in Akkadian as šukūdu, meaning "arrow".Template:Sfn The constellation of Canis Major, of which Sirius is the most visible star, was known as qaštu, meaning "bow", after the bow and arrow Ninurta was believed to carry.Template:Sfn In the MUL.APIN Ninurta is consistently identified with Mercury,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn as it is read: "Mercury whose name is Ninurta travels the (same) path the Moon travels." However, in Babylonian times, Ninurta was associated with the planet Saturn,Template:Sfn while Mercury became associated with Nabu.
FamilyEdit
Ninurta was believed to be the son of Enlil.Template:Sfn In Lugal-e, his mother is identified as the goddess Ninmah, whom he renames Ninhursag,Template:Sfn but, in Angim dimma, his mother is instead the goddess Ninlil.Template:Sfn Under the name Ninurta, his wife is usually the goddess Gula,Template:Sfn but, as Ninĝirsu, his wife is the goddess Bau.Template:Sfn Gula was the goddess of healing and medicineTemplate:Sfn and she was sometimes alternately said to be the wife of the god Pabilsaĝ or the minor vegetation god Abu.Template:Sfn Bau was worshipped "almost exclusively in Lagash"Template:Sfn and was sometimes alternately identified as the wife of the god Zababa.Template:Sfn She and Ninĝirsu were believed to have two sons: the gods Ig-alima and Šul-šagana.Template:Sfn Bau also had seven daughters, but Ninĝirsu was not claimed to be their father.Template:Sfn As the son of Enlil, Ninurta's siblings include: Nanna, Nergal, Ninazu,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Enbilulu,Template:Sfn and sometimes Inanna.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
MythologyEdit
Lugal-eEdit
Second only to the goddess Inanna, Ninurta probably appears in more myths than any other Mesopotamian deity.Template:Sfn In the Sumerian poem Lugal-e, also known as Ninurta's Exploits, a demon known as Asag has been causing sickness and poisoning the rivers.Template:Sfn Ninurta confronts Asag, who is protected by an army of stone warriors.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Ninurta slays Asag and his armies.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Then Ninurta organizes the world,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn using the stones from the warriors he has defeated to build the mountains, which he designs so that the streams, lakes and rivers all flow into the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, making them useful for irrigation and agriculture.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Ninurta's mother Ninmah descends from Heaven to congratulate her son on his victory.Template:Sfn Ninurta dedicates the mountain of stone to her and renames her Ninhursag, meaning "Lady of the Mountain".Template:Sfn Finally, Ninurta returns home to Nippur, where he is celebrated as a hero.Template:Sfn This myth combines Ninurta's role as a warrior deity with his role as an agricultural deity.Template:Sfn The title Lugal-e means "O king!" and comes from the poem opening phrase in the original Sumerian.Template:Sfn Ninurta's Exploits is a modern title assigned to it by scholars.Template:Sfn The poem was eventually translated into Akkadian after Sumerian became regarded as too difficult to understand.Template:Sfn
A companion work to the Lugal-e is Angim dimma, or Ninurta's Return to Nippur,Template:Sfn which describes Ninurta's return to Nippur after slaying Asag.Template:Sfn It contains little narrative and is mostly a praise piece, describing Ninurta in larger-than-life terms and comparing him to the god An.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Angim dimma is believed to have originally been written in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur (Template:Circa 2112 – Template:Circa 2004 BC) or the early Old Babylonian Period (Template:Circa 1830 – Template:Circa 1531 BC),Template:Sfn but the oldest surviving texts of it date to Old Babylonian Period.Template:Sfn Numerous later versions of the text have also survived.Template:Sfn It was translated into Akkadian during the Middle Babylonian Period (Template:Circa 1600 — Template:Circa 1155 BC).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Anzû mythEdit
In the Old, Middle, and Late Babylonian myth of Anzû and the Tablet of Destinies, the Anzû is a giant, monstrous bird.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Enlil gives Anzû a position as the guardian of his sanctuary,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but Anzû betrays Enlil and steals the Tablet of Destinies,Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn a sacred clay tablet belonging to Enlil that grants him his authority,Template:Sfn while Enlil is preparing for his bath.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The rivers dry up and the gods are stripped of their powers.Template:Sfn The gods send Adad, Girra, and Shara to defeat the Anzû,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but all of them fail.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Finally, the god Ea proposes that the gods should send Ninurta, Enlil's son.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Ninurta confronts the Anzû and shoots it with his arrows,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but the Tablet of Destinies has the power to reverse timeTemplate:Sfn and the Anzû uses this power to make Ninurta's arrows fall apart in midair and revert to their original components.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Ninurta calls upon the south wind for aid, which rips the Anzû's wings off.Template:Sfn The god Dagan announces Ninurta's victory in the assembly of the godsTemplate:Sfn and, as a reward, Ninurta is granted a prominent seat on the council.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Enlil sends the messenger god Birdu to request Ninurta to return the Tablet of Destinies.Template:Sfn Ninurta's reply to Birdu is fragmentary, but it is possible he may initially refuse to return the Tablet.Template:Sfn In the end, however, Ninurta does return the Tablet of Destinies to his father.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn This story was particularly popular among scholars of the Assyrian royal court.Template:Sfn
The myth of Ninurta and the Turtle, recorded in UET 6/1 2, is a fragment of what was originally a much longer literary composition.Template:Sfn In it, after defeating the Anzû, Ninurta is honored by Enki in Eridu.Template:Sfn Enki senses his thoughts and creates a giant turtle, which he releases behind Ninurta and which bites the hero's ankle.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn As they struggle, the turtle digs a pit with its claws, which both of them fall into.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Enki gloats over Ninurta's defeat.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The end of the story is missing;Template:Sfn the last legible portion of the account is a lamentation from Ninurta's mother Ninmah, who seems to be considering finding a substitute for her son.Template:Sfn According to Charles Penglase, in this account, Enki is clearly intended as the hero and his successful foiling of Ninurta's plot to seize power for himself is intended as a demonstration of Enki's supreme wisdom and cunning.Template:Sfn
Other mythsEdit
In Ninurta's Journey to Eridu, Ninurta leaves the Ekur temple in Nippur and travels to the Abzu in Eridu, led by an unnamed guide.Template:Sfn In Eridu, Ninurta sits in assembly with the gods An and EnkiTemplate:Sfn and Enki gives him the me for life.Template:Sfn The poem ends with Ninurta returning to Nippur.Template:Sfn The account probably deals with a journey in which Ninurta's cult statue was transported from one city to another and the "guide" is the person carrying the cult statue.Template:Sfn The story closely resembles the other Sumerian myth of Inanna and Enki, in which the goddess Inanna journeys to Eridu and receives the mes from Enki.Template:Sfn In a poem known as the "Sumerian Georgica", written sometime between 1700 and 1500 BC, Ninurta delivers detailed advice on agricultural matters,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn including how to plant, tend, and harvest crops, how to prepare fields for planting, and even how to drive birds away from the crops.Template:Sfn The poem covers nearly every aspect of farm life throughout the course of the year.Template:Sfn
The myth of the Slain Heroes is alluded to in many texts, but is never preserved in full.Template:Sfn In this myth, Ninurta must fight a variety of opponents.Template:Sfn Black and Green describe these opponents as "bizarre minor deities";Template:Sfn they include the six-headed Wild Ram, the Palm Tree King, the seven-headed serpent and the Kulianna the Mermaid (or "fish-woman").Template:Sfn Some of these foes are inanimate objects, such as the Magillum Boat, which carries the souls of the dead to the Underworld, and the strong copper, which represents a metal that was conceived as precious.Template:Sfn This story of successive trials and victories may have been the source for the Greek legend of the Twelve Labors of Heracles.Template:Sfn
Later influenceEdit
In antiquityEdit
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In the late seventh century BC, Kalhu was captured by foreign invaders.Template:Sfn Despite this, Ninurta was never completely forgotten.Template:Sfn Many scholars agree that Ninurta was probably the inspiration for the biblical figure Nimrod, mentioned in Template:Bibleverse as a "mighty hunter".Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Though it is still not entirely clear how the name Ninurta became Nimrod in Hebrew,Template:Sfn the two figures bear mostly the same functions and attributesTemplate:Sfn and Ninurta is currently regarded as the most plausible etymology for Nimrod's name.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eventually, the ruins of the city of Kalhu itself became known in Arabic as Namrūd because of its association with Ninurta.Template:Sfn
Later in the Old Testament, in both Template:Bibleverse and Template:Bibleverse, King Sennacherib of Assyria is reported to have been murdered by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer in the temple of "Nisroch",Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn which is most likely a scribal error for "Nimrod".Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn This hypothetical error would result from the Hebrew letter מ (mem) being replacing with ס (samekh) and the letter ד (dalet) being replaced with ך (kaf).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Due to the obvious visual similarities of the letters involved and the fact that no Assyrian deity by the name of "Nisroch" has ever been attested, most scholars consider this error to be the most likely explanation for the name.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn If "Nisroch" is Ninurta, this would make Ninurta's temple at Kalhu the most likely location of Sennacherib's murder.Template:Sfn Other scholars have attempted to identify Nisroch as Nusku, the Assyrian god of fire.Template:Sfn Hans Wildberger rejects all suggested identifications as linguistically implausible.Template:Sfn
Although the Book of Genesis itself portrays Nimrod positively as the first king after the Flood of Noah and a builder of cities,Template:Sfn the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible refers to him as a giantTemplate:Sfn and mistranslates the Hebrew words meaning "before Yahweh" as "in opposition against God."Template:Sfn Because of this, Nimrod became envisioned as the archetypal idolator.Template:Sfn Early works of Jewish midrash, described by the first-century AD philosopher Philo in his Quaestiones, portrayed Nimrod as the instigator of the building of the Tower of Babel, who persecuted the Jewish patriarch Abraham for refusing to participate in the project.Template:Sfn Saint Augustine of Hippo refers to Nimrod in his book The City of God as "a deceiver, oppressor and destroyer of earth-born creatures."Template:Sfn
In modernityEdit
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In the sixteenth century, Nisroch became seen as a demon. The Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer listed Nisroch in his Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) as the "chief cook" of Hell.Template:Sfn Nisroch appears in Book VI of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (first published in 1667) as one of Satan's demons.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Nisroch, who is described as frowning and wearing beaten armor,Template:Sfn calls into question Satan's argument that the fight between the angels and demons is equal, objecting that they, as demons, can feel pain, which will break their morale.Template:Sfn According to Milton scholar Roy Flannagan, Milton may have chosen to portray Nisroch as timid because he had consulted the Hebrew dictionary of C. Stephanus, which defined the name "Nisroch" as "Flight" or "Delicate Temptation".Template:Sfn
In the 1840s, the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard uncovered numerous stone carvings of winged, eagle-headed genii at Kalhu.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Remembering the Biblical story of Sennacherib's murder, Layard mistakenly identified these figures as "Nisrochs".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Such carvings continued to be known as "Nisrochs" in popular literature throughout the remaining portion of the nineteenth century.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In Edith Nesbit's classic 1906 children's novel The Story of the Amulet, the child protagonists summon an eagle-headed "Nisroch" to guide them.Template:Sfn Nisroch opens a portal and advises them, "Walk forward without fear" and asks, "Is there aught else that the Servant of the great Name can do for those who speak that name?"Template:Sfn Some modern works on art history still repeat the old misidentification,Template:Sfn but Near Eastern scholars now generally refer to the "Nisroch" figure as a "griffin-demon".Template:Sfn
In 2016, during its brief conquest of the region, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) demolished Ashurnasirpal II's ziggurat of Ninurta at Kalhu.Template:Sfn This act was in line with ISIL's longstanding policy of destroying any ancient ruins which it deemed incompatible with its militant interpretation of Islam.Template:Sfn According to a statement from the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR)'s Cultural Heritage Initiatives, ISIL may have destroyed the temple to use its destruction for future propagandaTemplate:Sfn and to demoralize the local population.Template:Sfn
In March 2020, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 5,000-year-old cultic area filled with more than 300 broken ceremonial ceramic cups, bowls, jars, animal bones and ritual processions dedicated to Ningirsu at the site of Girsu. One of the remains was a duck-shaped bronze figurine with eyes made from bark which is thought to be dedicated to Nanshe.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In February 2023, the E-ninnu temple (Temple of the White Thunderbird), the primary sanctuary of Ningirsu was identified during the excavations led by British Museum and Getty Museum archaeologists at the site of Girsu.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
NotesEdit
CitationsEdit
BibliographyEdit
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- Fadhil, Anmar Abdulillah, and Enrique Jiménez, "Literary Texts from the Sippar Library IV: A “Macranthropic” Hymn to Ninurta", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 113.2, pp. 193–215, 2023
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