Kulla, inscribed in
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...
as
dSIG4, where
SIG4 was the
Sumerogram
A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian cuneiform character or group of characters as an ideogram or logogram rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as Akkadian or Hittite.
Sumerograms are no ...
for
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
word ''libittu'', “brick,” was the
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
o-
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c. ...
n brick-god who was invoked alongside
Mušdam, the divine architect at the outset when laying a foundation for a building, but consequently banished when construction work was completed in elaborate incantation rituals which formed a part of the exorcist's curriculum. He was formed from a piece of clay that
Ea had pinched off in the
primeval ocean, in a tale recited as part of the ritual for restoring a temple, “when
Anu
Anu ( akk, , from wikt:𒀭#Sumerian, 𒀭 ''an'' “Sky”, “Heaven”) or Anum, originally An ( sux, ), was the sky father, divine personification of the sky, king of the gods, and ancestor of many of the list of Mesopotamian deities, dei ...
created heaven.”
The rituals
The earliest attestations to the god whose specialty was to govern the fashioning of bricks and supervise the building process from start to finish was in the
Sumerian myth 'Enki and the World Order' from the first dynasty of
Isin
Isin (, modern Arabic: Ishan al-Bahriyat) is an archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. Excavations have shown that it was an important city-state in the past.
History of archaeological research
Ishan al-Bahriyat was visited b ...
which recalls that Enki put Kulla in charge of the pickaxe and brick-mold.
He was invoked when the laying of the foundation of buildings, and shooed-away upon their completion, lest his presence cause further construction to be required and other building work elsewhere to be neglected. In a ritual for the repair of a temple, the invocation is described:
In
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his ...
’s account of the laying of the foundations of
Esagil
The Ésagila or Esangil ( sux, , ''"temple whose top is lofty"'') was a temple dedicated to Marduk, the protector god of Babylon. It lay south of the ziggurat Etemenanki.
Description
In this temple was the statue of Marduk, surrounded by ...
, he recalls:
A second ritual was often performed at the end of the work to drive away the god, with him unceremoniously “loaded” onto a boat and banished to the netherworld with incantations. The construction crew, too, were forbidden to approach the building for three days. Alternatively the divinities were thanked for their assistance and bidden to return from whence they came.
References
External links
* Laying the foundations of a house text a
eTACT* Exorcising Kulla (the brick god) from a newly built house text a
eTACT
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kulla (god)
Mesopotamian gods