|
Aruru (goddess)
Aruru was a Mesopotamian goddess. The origin of her name is presently uncertain. While initially considered an independent deity associated with vegetation and portrayed in hymns as violent, she eventually came to be viewed as analogous Ninhursag. Her name could also function as an epithet of goddesses such as Nisaba and Ezina- Kusu. She was often called the older sister of Enlil. Her cult centers most likely were the cities of Kesh, Adab and Irisaĝrig. She appears in a number of literary texts, some of which preserve information about her original character. She is also present in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', which her portrays her as the creator of Enkidu. Name and character The etymology of the theonym Aruru ('' dA-ru-ru'', 𒀭𒀀𒊒𒊒) is considered either uncertain or unknown. A connection with Sumerian ''a-ru'' or ''a-ri'', which can be translated as "the one who lets the seed flow," has been deemed implausible by Manfred Krebernik, as this term is only used in this s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adab (city)
Adab or Udab ( Sumerian: ''Adab''ki, spelled UD.NUNKI) was an ancient Sumerian city between Telloh and Nippur. It was located at the site of modern Bismaya or Bismya in the Wasit Province of Iraq. Archaeology The site consists of a number of mounds distributed over an area about long and wide, consisting of a number of low ridges, nowhere exceeding in height, lying somewhat nearer to the Tigris than the Euphrates, about a day's journey to the south-east of Nippur. Initial examinations of the site of Bismaya were by William Hayes Ward of the Wolfe Expedition in 1885 and by John Punnett Peters of the University of Pennsylvania in 1890, each spending a day there and finding one cuneiform table and a few fragments. Walter Andrae visited Bismaya in 1902, found a table fragment and produced a sketch map of the site. Excavations were conducted there for a total of six months, between Christmas of 1903 and June 1905, for the University of Chicago, primarily by Dr. Edgar James Ban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belili
Belili was a Mesopotamian goddess. This name refers both to a sister of Dumuzi known from some of the texts pertaining to his death, and to a primordial deity paired with Alala and listed in enumerations of ancestors of Anu. There is no consensus among researchers if they should be considered one and the same. Name Belili's name has no plausible etymology in Sumerian or any Semitic language, and based on its structure it has been compared to other divine names whose origin also remains a mystery, such as Alala, Aruru, Bunene and Zababa. Belili is also attested as an ordinary given name, one of the so-called banana names known from both Mesopotamia and Elam. Names with this structure are particularly common in the earliest Akkadian documents from Gasur (later known as Nuzi). It has been proposed that such names, both divine and ordinary, originate in a substrate language (so-called " proto-Euphratic"), but this conclusion is not universally accepted, and Gonzalo Rubio points out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An = Anum
''An = Anum'', also known as the Great God List, is the longest preserved Mesopotamian god list, a type of lexical list cataloging the deities worshiped in the Ancient Near East, chiefly in modern Iraq. While god lists are already known from the Early Dynastic period, ''An = Anum'' has most likely only been composed in the Kassite period. While often mistakenly described as a list of Sumerian deities and their Akkadian equivalents, ''An = Anum'' is focused on presenting the familial relationships between deities, as well as their courts and spheres of influence. The first four tablets list the major gods and goddesses ( Anu, Enlil, Ninhursag, Enki, Sin, Shamash, Adad and Ishtar) and their courts, arranged according to theological principles, but tablets V and VI do not appear to follow a clear system, and tablet VII is a late appendix listing the names of Marduk and one of his courtiers. Many other works of ancient scholarship were influenced by ''An = Anum'', including a simila ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Azimua
Azimua, also known as Ninazimua, was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of Ningishzida. Name Ninazimua is the original spelling of the name of this goddess, attested in sources from the Ur III period. Later the NIN sign was usually omitted. The form Ninazimua is attested in at least one theophoric name, Geme-Ninazimua. Wilfred G. Lambert proposed that the element ''a-zi'' in her name can be interpreted as "water of life." Position in the pantheon Azimua was regarded as the wife of Ningishzida. However, multiple traditions regarding this god's marital status existed. The god list ''An = Anum'' identifies not only Azimua, but also Ekurritum (not attested in such a role anywhere else) as his wives, while other sources favor Geshtinanna, identified with Belet-Seri. In some cases, Azimua and Geshtinanna/Belet-Seri were conflated, for example in inscriptions of king Gudea of Lagash. A god list from Susa treats them as two names of the same deity, identified both as the wife ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NIN (cuneiform)
The Sumerian word NIN (from the Akkadian pronunciation of the sign EREŠ)( 𒎏) was used to denote a queen or a priestess, and is often translated as "lady". Other translations include "queen", "mistress", "proprietress", and "lord".J A Halloran LexiconRetrieved 2012-06-07 & Many goddesses are called NIN, such as D NIN.GAL ("great lady"), D É.NIN.GAL ("lady of the great temple"), D EREŠ.KI.GAL, and D NIN.TI. The compound form NIN.DINGIR ("divine lady" or "lady of god"), from the Akkadian ''entu'', denotes a priestess. In writing NIN originated as a ligature of the cuneiform glyphs of MUNUS () and TÚG (); the NIN sign was written as MUNUS.TÚG () in archaic cuneiform, notably in the Codex Hammurabi. The syllable ''nin'', on the other hand, was written as MUNUS.KA () in Assyrian cuneiform. MUNUS.KU = NIN9 () means "sister". File:MUNUS-SAL-sinnishtu Cuneiform.svg, Basic cuneiform MUNUS sign ("woman") File:TUG-subatu-ku Cuneiform.svg, Basic cuneiform TÚG sign (sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zarpanit
Sarpanit (alternately Sarpanitu, Ṣarpanitu, Zarpanit, Zirpanet, Zerpanitum, Zerbanitu, or Zirbanit) was the consort of Marduk, the main god of Babylon, and a goddess of birth. She was already attested as the wife of Marduk before his ascension to the top of the Mesopotamian pantheon, appearing in inscriptions of the Babylonian kings Sumulael and Samsu-iluna. Some researchers regard her simply as one of the "prototypical divine wives." Name According to the ''Chicago Assyrian Dictionary'' from 1961, her name means '' oddessof Ṣarpān'', possibly a village outside of Babylon. However, this is only a modern theoretical explanation of the name. Its precise origin isn't known. A fragmentary text describes Sarpan as a town assigned to her by Enlil, here (but not anywhere else) identified as her father; W. G. Lambert considered it to be convincing evidence of her origin being tied to such a settlement. A folk etymology of her name explained it as "Zēr-bānītu," "creatress of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu Salabikh
The low tells at Abu Salabikh, around northwest of the site of ancient Nippur in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq mark the site of a small Sumerian city state of the mid third millennium BCE, with cultural connections to the cities of Kish, Mari and Ebla. Its contemporary name is uncertain: perhaps this was Eresh. Kesh was suggested by Thorkild Jacobsen before excavations began. The Euphrates was the city's highway and lifeline; when it shifted its old bed (which was identified to the west of the Main Mound by coring techniques), in the middle third millennium BCE, the city dwindled away. Only eroded traces remain on the site's surface of habitation after the Early Dynastic Period. The site consists of several mounds, the 12 hectare wall enclosed Main (Early Dynastic), the 10 hectare Uruk, the West, and the 8 hectare South. Archaeology Abu Salabikh was excavated by an American expedition from the Oriental Institute of Chicago led by Donald P. Hansen in 1963 and 1965 for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ur III Period
The Third Dynasty of Ur, also called the Neo-Sumerian Empire, refers to a 22nd to 21st century BC (middle chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state which some historians consider to have been a nascent empire. The Third Dynasty of Ur is commonly abbreviated as Ur III by historians studying the period. It is numbered in reference to previous dynasties, such as the First Dynasty of Ur (26-25th century BC), but it seems the once supposed Second Dynasty of Ur was never recorded. The Third Dynasty of Ur was the last Sumerian dynasty which came to preeminent power in Mesopotamia. It began after several centuries of control by Akkadian and Gutian kings. It controlled the cities of Isin, Larsa, and Eshnunna and extended as far north as Upper Mesopotamia. History The Third Dynasty of Ur arose some time after the fall of the Akkad Dynasty. The period between the last powerful king of the Akkad Dynasty, Shar-Kali-Sharri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeremy Black (assyriologist)
Jeremy Allen Black (1 September 1951 – Oxford 28 April 2004) was a British Assyriologist and Sumerologist, founder of the online Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Black was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, and was brought up in Buckinghamshire, England. He was the only son of tea-taster Dudley A. Black and his wife Joan M. née Denton (1913-1957). At age two, he was isolated for a whole year in hospital with polio, then, at age five, he suffered the death of his mother. After his attendance at Slough Grammar School for Boys, in 1969 Black went to Worcester College, Oxford, as Exhibitioner in Classics. At Oxford, he became interested in the ancient languages and cultures of Mesopotamia, and, after qualifying, changed his studies to Sumerian and Akkadian under Professor Oliver Gurney. His (still unpublished) BA dissertation was entitled "A History of Nippur, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Kassite Period”: this work was utilised in the very be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assyriology
Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , '' -logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern and southwestern Iran) and of the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers Sumer, the early Sumero-Akkadian city-states, the Akkadian Empire, Ebla, the Akkadian and Imperial Aramaic speaking states of Assyria, Babylonia and the Sealand Dynasty, the migrant foreign dynasties of southern Mesopotamia, including the Gutians, Amorites, Kassites, Arameans, Suteans and Chaldeans. The large number of cuneiform clay tablets preserved by these Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian cultures provide an extremely large resource for the study of the period. The region's (and indeed the world's) first cities and city-states like Ur are archaeologically invaluable for studying the growth of urbaniza ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Euphratean Language
Proto-Euphratean is a hypothetical unclassified language or languages which was considered by some Assyriologists (for example, Samuel Noah Kramer) to be the substratum language of the people who introduced farming into Southern Iraq in the Early Ubaid period (5300–4700 BC). Dyakonov and Ardzinba identified these hypothetical languages with the Samarran culture. Benno Landsberger and other Assyriologists argued that by examining the structure of Sumerian names of occupations, as well as toponyms and hydronyms, one can suggest that there was once an earlier group of people in the region who spoke an entirely different language, often referred to as Proto-Euphratean. Terms for "farmer", "smith", "carpenter", and "date" (the fruit) do not appear to have a Sumerian or Semitic origin. Igor Dyakonov and Vladislav Ardzinba proposed a different term, "banana languages", based on a characteristic feature of multiple personal names attested in Sumerian texts, namely reduplication of s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stratum (linguistics)
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or superstrate is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum languages influence each other, but in different ways. An adstratum or adstrate is a language that is in contact with another language in a neighbor population without having identifiably higher or lower prestige. The notion of "strata" was first developed by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (1829–1907), and became known in the English-speaking world through the work of two different authors in 1932. Thus, both concepts apply to a situation where an intrusive language establishes itself in the territory of another, typically as the result of migration. Whether the superstratum case (the local language persists and the intrusive languag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Ur III Period")
