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Kotharat
Kotharat ( uga, ðŽ‹ðŽ˜ðŽ—ðŽš, ''kṯrt'') were a group of seven goddesses associated with conception, pregnancy, birth and marriage, worshiped chiefly in northern part of modern Syria in the Bronze Age. They are attested in texts from Mari, Ugarit and Emar. There is no agreement among translators over whether they had individual names in Ugaritic tradition. They were considered analogous to the Mesopotamian Å assÅ«rÄtu, a collective term referring to assistants of the goddess Ninmah, and to Hurrian Hutena and Hutellura. It has been suggested that the latter were at least in part patterned after the Kotharat. Name The name Kotharat (KôṯarÄtu) is a conventional vocalization of Ugaritic ''kṯrt''. Spellings such as Kathiratu and Katiratu is also used in modern literature. Other forms of the name of the Kotharat are attested in texts from Mari: the older KawaÅ¡urÄtum ('' dkà -ma-Å¡u-ra-tum'') and more recent KûšarÄtum (''dku-Å¡a-ra-tum''). In Emar, they were known as "I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yarikh
Yarikh (Ugaritic: , , "moon") was a moon god worshiped in the Ancient Near East. He is best attested in sources from the Amorite city of Ugarit in the north of modern Syria, where he was one of the principal deities. His primary cult center was most likely Larugadu, located further east in the proximity of Ebla. He is also attested in other areas inhabited by Amorites, for example in Mari, but also in Mesopotamia as far east as Eshnunna. In the Ugaritic texts, Yarikh appears both in strictly religious context, in rituals and offering lists, and in narrative compositions. He is the main character in ''The Marriage of Nikkal and Yarikh'', a myth possibly based on an earlier Hurrian composition. The eponymous goddess was regarded as his wife in Ugarit, but she is not attested in documents from most other Syrian cities, and most likely only entered the Ugaritic pantheon due to the influence of Hurrian religion. Ugarit ceased to exist during the Bronze Age collapse, and while Yarikh co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Å assÅ«rÄtu
Å assÅ«rÄtu were a group of Mesopotamian goddesses regarded as the assistants of Ninmah. Their name can be translated as "midwives" and they were considered to be tutelary goddesses of pregnant women. They appear in the myth ''Enki and Ninmah,'' where they receive individual names, as well as in a late version of ''Atrahasis''. Name and character The name of the Å assÅ«rÄtu is an Akkadian derivative of the Sumerian word ''Å¡assÅ«ru'', which can be translated as "womb" or "midwife." It is grammatically plural. As a theonym, it referred to a group of seven goddesses who functioned as the tutelary deities of pregnant women and birth. As such, they were regarded as helpers of the goddess Ninmah. Most likely they were believed to assist her during the birth of every human child. Manfred Krebernik characterizes them as "mother goddesses," a term commonly employed to refer to deities who took part in creation of mankind and of other gods. However, as noted by Julia M. Asher-Greve, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hutena And Hutellura
Hutena and Hutellura (also spelled Hudena and Hudellura; ''ḫdn ḫdlr'' in alphabetic Ugaritic texts) were goddesses of fate and divine midwives in Hurrian mythology. Number An unresolved problem in scholarship is the number of goddesses referred to with the names "Hutena and Hutellura." Piotr Taracha notes that only two figures depicted on the Yazılıkaya reliefs are labeled as such, but at the same the names appear to be plural. However, he also notes that based on equations in god lists the name Hutellura seemed to refer to a singular goddess, corresponding to Mesopotamian Ninmah, Nintu or Aruru. He concludes that it can be assumed they were a pair worshiped together, like Ninatta and Kulitta or Ishara and Allani. Alfonso Archi assumes that the development of Hutena and Hutellura in Hurrian religion was influenced by the Syrian midwife goddesses, known as KotharÄt in Ugarit or KûšarÄtum in Mari (both derived from the Semitic root ''kÅ¡r'', "to be skilled"), who wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hurrian Deities
The Hurrian pantheon consisted of gods of varied backgrounds, some of them natively Hurrian religion, Hurrian, while others adopted from other pantheons, for example Religion in Ebla, Eblaite and List of Mesopotamian deities, Mesopotamian. Like the other inhabitants of the Ancient Near East, Hurrians regarded their gods as anthropomorphic. They were usually represented in the form of statues holding the symbols associated with a specific deity. The Yazılıkaya sanctuary, which was Hittites, Hittite in origin but served as a center of the practice of Hurrian religion, is considered a valuable source of information about their iconography. Hurrians organized their gods into lists known as ''kaluti'' or into similar lexical lists as the Mesopotamians. The formal structure of the pantheon was most likely based on either Mesopotamian or Syrian theology. The status of individual deities and composition of the pantheon could vary between individual locations, but some can nonetheless be i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mari, Syria
Mari (Cuneiform: , ''ma-riki'', modern Tell Hariri; ar, تل Øريري) was an ancient Semitic city-state in modern-day Syria. Its remains form a tell 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates River western bank, some 120 kilometers southeast of Deir ez-Zor. It flourished as a trade center and hegemonic state between 2900 BC and 1759 BC. The city was purposely built in the middle of the Euphrates trade routes between Sumer in the south and the Eblaite kingdom and the Levant in the west. Mari was first abandoned in the middle of the 26th century BC but was rebuilt and became the capital of a hegemonic East Semitic state before 2500 BC. This second Mari engaged in a long war with its rival Ebla and is known for its strong affinity with Sumerian culture. It was destroyed in the 23rd century BC by the Akkadians, who allowed the city to be rebuilt and appointed a military governor (''Shakkanakku''). The governors became independent with the disint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ugaritic Texts
The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments have been found to date. The texts were written in the 13th and 12th centuries BCE. The most famous of the Ugarit texts are the approximately fifty epic poems; the three major literary texts are the Baal Cycle, the Legend of Keret, and the Tale of Aqhat. The other texts include 150 tablets describing the Ugaritic cult and rituals, 100 letters of correspondence, a very small number of legal texts (Akkadian is considered to have been the contemporary language of law), and hundreds of administrative or economic texts. Unique among the Ugarit texts are the earliest known abecedaries, lists of letters in alphabetic cuneiform, where not only the canonical order of Phoenician script is evidenced, but also the traditional names for letters of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikkal
Nikkal (logographically dNIN.GAL, alphabetically ðŽðŽ‹ðŽ ''nkl'') or Nikkal-wa-Ib (''nkl wib'') was a goddess worshiped in various areas of the ancient Near East west of Mesopotamia. She was derived from the Sumerian Ningal, and like her forerunner was regarded as the spouse of a moon god, whose precise identity varied between locations. While well attested in Ugarit and in Hurrian and Hittite sources, she is otherwise virtually absent from documents from the western part of ancient Syria. Name Nikkal was derived from the Sumerian goddess Ningal ( Sumerian: "great lady"), wife of the moon god Nanna, whose worship, similar to other eastern deities such as Ea, Damkina, Aya and Pinikir, was introduced from Mesopotamia to Hurrian areas possibly as early as in the third millennium BCE. Alfonso Archi assumes that the presence of Ningal in the pantheon of the kingdom of Mari was in part responsible for her adoption by the Hurrians and her later prominence in their religion. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dowry
A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment by the Bridegroom, groom, or his family, to the bride, or her family, dowry is the wealth transferred from the bride, or her family, to the groom, or his family. Similarly, dower is the property settled on the bride herself, by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control. Dowry is an ancient custom that is already mentioned in some of the earliest writings, and its existence may well predate records of it. Dowries continue to be expected and demanded as a condition to accept a marriage proposal in some parts of the world, mainly in parts of Asia, The custom of dowry is most common in cultures that are strongly patrilineal and that expect women to reside with or near their husband's family (patriloca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umbilical Cord
In placental mammals, the umbilical cord (also called the navel string, birth cord or ''funiculus umbilicalis'') is a conduit between the developing embryo or fetus and the placenta. During prenatal development, the umbilical cord is physiologically and genetically part of the fetus and (in humans) normally contains two arteries (the umbilical arteries) and one vein (the umbilical vein), buried within Wharton's jelly. The umbilical vein supplies the fetus with oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood from the placenta. Conversely, the fetal heart pumps low-oxygen, nutrient-depleted blood through the umbilical arteries back to the placenta. Structure and development The umbilical cord develops from and contains remnants of the yolk sac and allantois. It forms by the fifth week of development, replacing the yolk sac as the source of nutrients for the embryo. The cord is not directly connected to the mother's circulatory system, but instead joins the placenta, which transfers materials t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because they share an etymological origin, and calques, which involve translation. Loanwords from languages with different scripts are usually transliterated (between scripts), but they are not translated. Additionally, loanwords may be adapted to phonology, phonotactics, orthography, and morphology of the target language. When a loanword is fully adapted to the rules of the target language, it is distinguished from native words of the target language only by its origin. However, often the adaptation is incomplete, so loanwords may conserve specific features distinguishing them from native words of the target language: loaned phonemes and sound combinations, partial or total conserving of the original spelling, foreign plural or case forms or indecli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hurrian Language
Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in modern-day Syria. It is generally believed that the speakers of this language originally came from the Armenian Highlands and spread over southeast Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Classification Hurrian is closely related to Urartian, the language of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. Together they constitute the Hurro-Urartian language family. The external connections of the Hurro-Urartian languages are disputed. There exist various proposals for a genetic relationship to other language families (e.g. the Northeast Caucasian languages, Indo-European languages, or Kartvelian languages which are spoken in Georgia). It has als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cognates
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the sound and the meaning of a word, cognates may not be obvious, and often it takes rigorous study of historical sources and the application of the comparative method to establish whether lexemes are cognate or not. Cognates are distinguished from loanwords, where a word has been borrowed from another language. The term ''cognate'' derives from the Latin noun '' cognatus blood relative'. Characteristics Cognates need not have the same meaning, which may have changed as the languages developed independently. For example English '' starve'' and Dutch '' sterven'' 'to die' or German '' sterben'' 'to die' all descend from the same Proto-Germanic verb, '' *sterbanÄ…'' 'to die'. Cognates also do not need to look or sound simila ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
