Erragal
Erragal or Errakal was a Mesopotamian god presumed to be related to Erra. However, there is no agreement about the nature of the connection between them in Assyriology. While Erragal might have been associated with storms and the destruction caused by them, he is chiefly attested as a benevolent deity, for example as an astral god with apotropaic functions. He was regarded as the husband of the goddess Ninšar, the divine butcher of Ekur, and they could be represented as a pair of stars in astronomical treatises such as MUL.APIN. References to worship of Erragal are uncommon, though he nonetheless appears in a variety of sources from the Isin-Larsa period to Neo-Babylonian times. He also appears in the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' and in '' Atra-Hasis'' as a deity linked to the great flood. Name and character Erragal s name is etymologically related to that of Erra and it has been suggested that it can be translated as "the great Erra". The shorter theonym in turn goes back to the root ...
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Mesopotamian Pantheon
Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic. They were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. The deities typically wore ''melam'', an ambiguous substance which "covered them in terrifying splendor" and which could also be worn by heroes, kings, giants, and even demons. The effect that seeing a deity's ''melam'' has on a human is described as ''ni'', a word for the " physical creeping of the flesh". Both the Sumerian and Akkadian languages contain many words to express the sensation of ''ni'', including the word ''puluhtu'', meaning "fear". Deities were almost always depicted wearing horned caps, consisting of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox-horns. They were also sometimes depicted wearing clothes with elaborate decorative gold and silver ornaments sewn into them. The ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in Heaven, but that a god's statue was a physical embodime ...
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