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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] |
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] |
Ḫiriḫibi
Ḫiriḫibi is the conventional vocalization of ''ḫrḫb'', a name of a deity known only from a single Ugaritic text, the myth ''Marriage of Nikkal and Yarikh''. It is presumed that he was a Hurrian god in origin, and that his name is derived from that of a mountain located somewhere to the north or northeast of historical Assyria. In the narrative he appears in, he seemingly functions as a marriage broker mediating between Yarikh and the family of Nikkal. It has also been proposed that he was her father, though this assumption continues to be disputed due to relying on a speculative restoration of a damaged passage. Name The nature of the deity whose name is written as ''ḫrḫb'' in the Ugaritic alphabetic script is uncertain, though most authors agree that he was a Hurrian god in origin. This theory was already considered plausible in early scholarship in the late 1930s and 1940s. The name is commonly vocalized as Ḫiriḫibi or Ḫiriḫbi. Sometimes transcriptions such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kušuḫ
Kušuḫ, also known under the name Umbu, was the List of Hurrian deities, Hurrian god of the moon. He is attested in cuneiform texts from many sites, from Hattusa in modern Turkey, through Ugarit, Alalakh, Mari, Syria, Mari and other locations in Syria, to Nuzi, located near modern Kirkuk in Iraq, but known sources do not indicate that he was associated with a single city. His name might be derived from the toponym Kuzina, possibly the Hurrian name of Harran, a city in Upper Mesopotamia, but both this etymology and identification of this sparsely attested place name remain uncertain. He was a popular, commonly worshiped god, and many theophoric names invoking him are known. In addition to serving as a divine representation of the moon, he was also associated with oaths, oracles and pregnancy. Some aspects of his character were likely influenced by his Mesopotamian deities, Mesopotamian counterpart Sin (mythology), Sin, while he in turn was an influence on the Ugaritic god Yarikh an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ningal
Ningal ( Sumerian: "Great Queen"), also known as Nikkal in Akkadian, was a Mesopotamian goddess of Sumerian origin regarded as the wife of the moon god, Nanna/Sin. She was particularly closely associated with his main cult centers, Ur and Harran, but they were also worshiped together in other cities of Mesopotamia. She was particularly venerated by the Third Dynasty of Ur and later by kings of Larsa. Character and iconography While Ningal was a major deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon and worship of her is attested from all periods of Mesopotamian history, her character was largely “passive and supportive†according to researchers. She was the tutelary goddess of Ur alongside her husband, and was referred to as its "lady" or "mother" on occasion. Based on some of Ningal's epithets it has been proposed that she was in part an astral deity, much like her husband. A type of bird, ''u''5-''bi''2, was possibly associated with Ningal, though the evidence is inconclusive. Propose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hurrian Religion
The Hurrian religion was the polytheistic religion of the Hurrians, a Bronze Age people of the Near East who chiefly inhabited the north of the Fertile Crescent. While the oldest evidence goes back to the third millennium BCE, is best attested in cuneiform sources from the second millennium BCE written not only in the Hurrian language, but also Akkadian, Hittite and Ugaritic. It was shaped by the contacts between Hurrians and various cultures they coexisted with. As a result, the Hurrian pantheon included both natively Hurrian deities and those of foreign origin, adopted from Mesopotamian, Syrian (chiefly Eblaite and Ugaritic), Anatolian and Elamite beliefs. The culture of the Hurrians were not entirely homogeneous, and different local religious traditions are documented in sources from Hurrian kingdoms such as Arrapha, Kizzuwatna and Mitanni, as well as from cities with sizeable Hurrian populations, such as Ugarit and Alalakh. Hurrian religion was one of the best attested influ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hurrian Songs
The Hurrian songs are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated from the ancient AmoriteDennis Pardee, "Ugaritic", in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia'', edited by Roger D. Woodard, 5–6. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). , .Marguerite Yon, The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra' (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006): 24. (179 pages)-Canaanite city of Ugarit, a headland in northern Syria, which date to approximately 1400 BCE. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal (also known as the Hurrian cult hymn or A Zaluzi to the Gods, or simply h.6), making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.6 is an anonymous work. History The complete song is one of about 36 such hymns in cuneiform writing, found on fragments of clay tablets excavated in the 1950s f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sin (mythology)
Nanna, Sīn or Suen ( akk, ), and in Aramaic ''syn'', ''syn’'', or even ''shr'' 'moon', or Nannar ( sux, ) was the god of the moon in the Mesopotamian religions of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia and Aram. He was also associated with cattle, perhaps due to the perceived similarity between bull horns and the crescent moon. He was always described as a major deity, though only a few sources, mostly these from the reign of Nabonidus, consider him to be the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon. The two chief seats of his worship were Ur in the south of Mesopotamia and Harran in the north, though he was also worshiped in numerous other cities, especially in the proximity of Ur and in the Diyala area. In Ur, he was connected to royal power, and many Mesopotamian kings visited his temple in this city. According to Mesopotamian mythology, his parents were Enlil and Ninlil, while his wife was Ningal, worshiped with him in his major cult centers. Their children included major ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aya (goddess)
Aya (rarely Nin-Aya) was an Akkadian goddess of dawn, and the wife of Shamash, the sun god. Her Sumerian equivalent was Sherida, wife of Shamash's equivalent Utu. Character Aya's name means dawn in Akkadian. She was associated with morning light and the rising sun. In this role she was called "morning-maker." It has also been suggested that the Sumerian name Sherida () was a loan from Akkadian ''Å¡Ä“rtum'', "morning." Gebhard Selz notes that this would make her one of the first deities whose name has Akkadian origin to be integrated into the pantheons of Sumerian-speaking areas. Other such examples are Suen, a name of the moon god, and Ishtaran, a divine judge. Further attested names of the sun god's wife include Ninkar, SudaÄ and Sudgan. Her another primary function was that of a divine bride, as exemplified by her epithet ''kallatum'' ("bride," "daughter in law"). As Shamash's wife she was regarded as epitome of beauty and charm. Shamash and Aya are the divine couple most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damkina
Damgalnuna, also known as Damkina, was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of the god Enki. Her character is poorly defined in known sources, though it is known that like her husband she was associated with ritual purification and that she was believed to intercede with him on behalf of supplicants. Among the deities regarded as their children were Nanshe and Asalluhi. While the myth ''Enki and Ninhursag'' treats her as interchangeable with the goddess metioned in its title, they were usually separate from each other. The cities of Eridu and Malgium were regarded as Damgalnuna's cult center. She was also worshiped in other settlements, such as Nippur, Sippar and Kalhu, and possibly as early as in the third millennium BCE was incorporated into the Hurrian pantheon. She appears in a number of myths, including the Enūma Eliš, though only a single composition, ''Damkina's Bond'', is focused on her. Name, character and iconography The theonym Damgalnuna can be translated as "t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ugaritic
Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologists in 1929 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycle. It has been used by scholars of the Hebrew Bible to clarify Biblical Hebrew texts and has revealed ways in which the cultures of ancient Israel and Judah found parallels in the neighboring cultures. Ugaritic has been called "the greatest literary discovery from antiquity since the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform". Corpus The Ugaritic language is attested in texts from the 14th through the 12th century BC. The city of Ugarit was destroyed roughly 1190 BC. Literary texts discovered at Ugarit include the ''Legend of Keret'', the legends of Danel, the ''Myth of Baal-Aliyan'', and the ''Death of Baal''. The latter two are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hittite Language
Hittite (natively / "the language of Neša", or ''nešumnili'' / "the language of the people of Neša"), also known as Nesite (''Nešite'' / Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centred on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. The language, now long extinct, is attested in cuneiform, in records dating from the 17th (Anitta text) to the 13th centuries BCE, with isolated Hittite loanwords and numerous personal names appearing in an Old Assyrian context from as early as the 20th century BCE, making it the earliest-attested use of the Indo-European languages. By the Late Bronze Age, Hittite had started losing ground to its close relative Luwian. It appears that in the 13th century BCE, Luwian was the most widely spoken language in the Hittite capital, Hattusa. After the collapse of the Hittite New Kingdom during the more general Late Bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yazılıkaya
:''Yazılıkaya, Eskişehir, also called Midas City, is a village with Phrygian ruins.'' Yazılıkaya ( tr, Inscribed rock) was a sanctuary of Hattusa, the capital city of the Hittite Empire, today in the Çorum Province, Turkey. Rock reliefs are a prominent aspect of Hittite art, and these are generally regarded as the most important group. History This was a holy site for the Hittites, located within walking distance of the gates of the city of Hattusa. It had two main chambers formed inside a group of rock outcrops. Access to the roofless chambers were controlled by gateway and building structures built right in front of them, however only the foundations of those structures survived today. Most impressive today are the rock reliefs of Chambers A and B portraying the gods of the Hittite pantheon. One of the uses of the sanctuary may have involved the New Year's celebrations ceremonies. A 2019 journal article by Rita Gautschy and Eberhard Zangger suggested that the place may hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
