Šauška

Šauška (also Shaushka, Šauša, Šawuška) was a Hurrian goddess who was also adopted into the Hittite pantheon. Her name has a Hurrian origin and means the great or magnificent one.

Character and iconography

Shaushka was a goddess of war and love, including sexual love. She was closely associated with incantations in Hittite documents. As such she was also associated with healing. As a goddess of love and sexuality, she was believed to be able to guarantee conjugal love, deal with matters pertaining to impotence, but also turn women into men and vice versa.

Shaushka was also the goddess of Nineveh, and in Hurrian myths she's often called the "queen" of that city.

Unlike the Mesopotamian Ishtar, as well as the other "Ishtars" known to Hurrians and Hittites (ex. Ishtar of Samuha, possibly the same deity as the enigmatic " Goddess of the Night," DINGIR.GE₆), she didn't have a pronounced astral character.

Androgynous or genderfluid characteristics

Shaushka had both a feminine and masculine aspect and in reliefs from the Yazilikaya sanctuary appears twice, both among gods and goddesses. A Hurrian ritual text separately mentions offerings to "male attributes" and "female attributes" of Shaushka.

Hittitologist Gary Beckman states that "ambiguous gender identification" was a characteristic of a category he refers to as "Ishtar type" goddesses, encompassing also the likes of Ninsianna and the Hurrian version of Pinikir.

Assyriologist Frans Wiggermann considers a text describing Ishtar of Nineveh whose "upper parts are Bel, and (...) lower parts are Ninlil" evidence of the deity's androgynous character.

In art

Shaushka was commonly depicted in the company of ''awiti'', a mythical winged lion, and her two attendants Ninatta and Kulitta. Various statues of Shaushka are known from excavations and descriptions in Hittite texts, depicting her as: a winged goddess holding a golden cup; as a masculine deity, also winged, holding an axe; wearing an apron ("Schutzrock" in German), robe leaving one of her legs uncovered, pointed shoes and horned tiara of divinity ( Yazilikaya); holding an axe and a hammer; warrior holding a club; partially naked goddess (Nuzi); goddess accompanied by various animals and mythical beasts (Nuzi); winged naked goddess; Frans Wiggermann additionally considers it possible that some depictions of the weather god accompanied by a naked goddess represent Teshub and his companion (eg. Shaushka), rather than Adad and Shala.

The naked goddess depicted on the bowl of Hasanlu might be Shaushka; the scenes depicted on it are sometimes interpreted as a representation of myths from the Kumarbi cycle, which would indicate survival of Hurrian beliefs in the east until the early 1st millennium BCE.

Relation to other deities

Shaushka was regarded as the Hurrian equivalent of Ishtar, and Mesopotamian lexical lists referred to her as "Ishtar of Subartu. In Ugarit she was equated with the local goddess Ashtart.

Shaushka's exact position in the pantheon varied to a degree between various Hurrian centers. In the official Mitanni pantheon known from the correspondence of king Tushratta she appears to be the most important goddess. However, in the Hurrian religion of Kizzuwatna, and as a result in the Hittite pantheon, her standing wasn't equally high, and the Syrian goddess Hebat was the most prominent female deity of the western Hurrians. Western Hurrians regarded her as Teshub's sister, but their relation in the eastern Hurrian pantheon is uncertain.

As the sister of Teshub, she was presumably the daughter of Anu and Kumarbi; however, a tradition in which her father was the moon god Kušuḫ is also known; Teshub was sporadically regarded as his son too. In addition to Teshub, his vizier (''sukkal'') Tašmišu was her brother too.

The Hittite text CTH 716 mentions her in a cthtonic context, alongside Sun goddess of the Earth.

Ninatta and Kulitta, a duo of musician goddesses always listed together, were her handmaidens, though in the Bronze Age they are only attested in texts from Hattusa and Ugarit. Her other servants known from Hattusa were minor deities such as Šintal-wuri ("seven-eyed"), Šintal-irti ("seven-breasted"), and Šinan-tatukarni ("twofold at Iove"). In one text a little known deity, Undurumma, is explicitly referred to as her ''sukkal''.

Mary R. Bachvarova and Gernot Wilhelm consider it possible that Anzili was regarded as her Hittite counterpart, though this view isn't accepted by Volkert Haas, who points out that Anzili was paired with Zukki, but Ishtar/Shaushka was not.

Attestations

The city of Nineveh and its goddess Shaushka appear for the first time in a text from Drehem dated to the 46th year of Shulgi's reign. However, references to her cult in Nineveh are scarcer in the south, with the exception of a possible vague reference in Hammurabi's inscriptions, an offering list from Isin, and in a forerunner to the god list An-Anum from Uruk. She's also present in texts from Mari, Syria, Mari from the period of Zimri-Lim's reign. A temple of Shaushka also existed in Babylon in the end of the 2nd millennium BCE.

Early Hurrian king of Urkesh and Nawar, Atal-Shen, used the sumerogram INANNA to write Shaushka's name.

Bogazköy Archive contains many references to Shaushka in Hittite contexts; it should however be noted that there are no notable references to any "Ishtar-type" goddesses in texts from the Old Hittite period, and she only starts to gain importance in the Middle Hittite period under Hurrian influence. The logographic spelling ^{Dingir, d}ISHTAR is used to write her name there. She became the patron goddess of the Hittite king Hattusili III (1420–1400 BC) following his marriage to Puduhepa, the daughter of the goddess' high priest. An important city in Hittite territory where she was worshiped was Lawazantiya in Kizzuwatna, as well as Hattarina. She was also introduced to many northern Hittite towns during the reign of Puduhepa's son Tudḫaliya IV, alongside other foreign deities such as Ishtar of Babylon, Syrian Milku or storm god ( Adad) of Assur, Ashur.

In Syria she was present in Ugarit (attestation in a list of offerings to Ashtart), Emar and possibly Alalakh, though the ISHTAR logogram might also denote another goddess in that city, for example Ishara. A figure known as "Ishtar Hurri" - "the Hurrian Ishtar" - was also present in the pantheon of Ugarit.
It's possible, though uncertain, that Phoenician language, Phoenician references to "Astarte Hurri" constitute a relic of Shaushka's cult. The "Hurrian Astarte" is known from 8th century BCE Sidon.

In personal names she appears in Ur III period Ur, Lagash and Drehem; in Nuzi; Alalakh; Kanesh; and in the texts from Bogazköy.

Amarna letters

In the 1350 BC, 1350-1335 BC Amarna letters Text corpus, correspondence (written mostly to the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh), one letter, EA 23 (EA (el Amarna), EA for 'el Amarna'), focuses on the loan of a Shaushka statue. Tushratta, king of Mitanni and father-in-law of Amenophis III wrote:

The statue's journey was presumably meant to help with the recovery of the ailing pharaoh.

Ishtar of Nineveh in later Assyrian sources

Iron Age attestations of the goddess of Niniveh come exclusively from Assyria. She remained the main goddess of the city under Assyrian domination, and was referred to as "Ishtar of Nineveh," though there is also some evidence of conflation with Ninlil. Her role as a healing goddess remained prominent, and references to it were made by Ashurnasirpal I, who prayed to her to be relieved from physical and mental pains. Sargon II used the name "Shawuska" to refer to her in at least one text.

Outside Nineveh, Ninatta and Kulitta were incorporated into the circle of deities present in Ishtar's temple in Assur, Ashur.

Myths

Shaushka plays a major role in the Kumarbi cycle.
* In the song of LAMMA, she is attacked by the eponymous deity while traveling with Teshub in his chariot.
* In the Song of Silver, she is referred to as (half-)sister of Kumarbi's half human son, Silver.
* In the Song of Ḫedammu, she seduces the eponymous antagonist, and with the help of her servants Ninatta and Kulitta tricks him into drinking a sedating potion, which seemingly leads to his defeat. Researchers note there's a number of similarities between this myth and other Hurrian compositions dealing with combat with the sea or sea monsters, the Ugaritic Baal cycle, and the Egyptian Astarte#Association with Set, Astarte papyrus, and between the role played by Shaushka, Ashtart and Astarte in them.
* In the Song of Ullikummi, she unsuccessfully attempts to seduce the "diorite man" Ullikummi, until a sea wave informs her her efforts are in vain as the monster is incapable of feeling anything.

Another myth (KUB 33.108) deals with the conflict between Shaushka and the mountain god Pišašaphi, described in it as a rapist.

''Song of Hašarri'', a poorly preserved text, seemingly recounts a story in which Shaushka raises the eponymous entity, a sentient olive tree. In known fragments she seeks the help of Ea (god Enki), Ea, as suggested to her by Kumarbi, assembles various gods for uncertain reasons, protects Hašarri from a lion, and eventually rejoices watching the olive tree's growth.

Saushka appears to play Ishtar's role in the Hurrian translation of Epic of Gilgamesh, but not in the Hittite version, where the name of the goddess (written as ^dIŠ₈-TÁR-iš) cannot be determined with certainty.G. Beckman,
Gilgamesh in Hatti
' [in:] G. Beckman, R. Beal, G. McMahon (eds.), ''Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner, Jr. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday'', 2003, p. 52

See also

* Hittite mythology
* Hurrian mythology
* Amarna letter EA 19

References

*William L. Moran, Moran, William L. ''The Amarna Letters.'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, 1992. (softcover, )

External links

EA 23-(Reverse)
with '' ''Black'' Hieratic''
Article
(British Museum)
*For a collection of Amarna letters photographs, see: Pirissi and Tulubri links, (Tushratta letters, and others).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauska
Hurrian deities
Hittite deities
War goddesses
Love and lust goddesses
Health goddesses
Androgyny
LGBT themes in mythology
Androgynous and hermaphroditic deities
Intersex in religion and mythology