Ninkurra

Ninkurra or Ninkur was a name of multiple Mesopotamian deities, including a divine artisan, presumably a sculptress. There is no agreement among researchers if this Ninkurra corresponds to the identically named goddess appearing in the myth ''Enki and Ninhursag''. A different deity named Ninkur appears in enumerations of ancestors of Enlil in god lists. This theonym was also employed as a logogram to represent the name of a goddess worshiped in Mari and in Emar on the Euphrates, possibly to be identified as the wife of Dagan, Shalash.

Ninkurra in southern Mesopotamia

The theonym Ninkurra ('' ^d nin-kur-ra'') or Ninkur (''^dnin-kur'') is sparsely attested in sources from southern Mesopotamia. It is assumed that more than one deity bearing this name existed. According to Dina Katz all of them were female, though in a more recent publication Josephine Fechner and Michel Tanret point out a reference to a male Ninkurra in the god list ''An = Anum''.

Craftsman deity

Ninkurra (alternatively: Ninkur) appears Weidner god list, ''An = Anum'' and ritual texts as a craftsman deity, associated with other similar figures, such as Kulla, Ninmug or Ninagala. Sometimes the collective term ''ilī mārē ummâni'' (Akkadian: "gods of the craftsmen") was used to describe a group of such deities. An incantation states that various artisan deities, including Ninkurra, were created by Ea from clay. Ninkurra was regarded as a sculptress, but the material she was believed to work with varies between sources: a ''Mîs-pî'' incantation connects her with precious and semi-precious stones, while an inscription of Sennacherib instead mentions limestone.

Daughter of Enki

In the myth ''Enki and Ninhursag'' a goddess named Ninkurra is a daughter of the eponymous god born from an incestuous encounter between him and Ninnisig. Subsequently she also becomes his victim, and depending on the version, she is either the mother of Ninimma and thus grandmother of Uttu, or the mother of the latter goddess, with Ninimma skipped. According to Dina Katz it remains uncertain why any of the goddesses who appear in this section of the myth were selected by its compilers for their respective roles. Lluís Feliu interprets this version of Ninkurra as a goddess of the mountains based on the literal meaning of her name, and argues she was the same as the craftsman deity, whose role as a divine sculptor according to this theory would point at the origin of the material divine statues were made of. However, Antoine Cavigneaux and Manfred Krebernik consider them to be two separate deities.

Husband of Uttu

In a late tradition documented in the god list ''An = Anum'' Ninkurra, in this case male, appears as the husband of Uttu. According to Cavigneaux and Krebernik this version corresponds to the divine craftsman. Josephine Fechner and Michel Tanret suggests that this Ninkurra might be the same as the deity Nin-NAM.RI, possibly to be read as Ninbirre, explained in ''An = Anum'' as a divine seal cutter (^dBUR.GUL).

Primordial deity

Anoher goddess with the same name, Ninkur, occurs alongside a male deity named Enkur in lists of the so-called " Enki-Ninki deities," the ancestors of Enlil. The pair Enkur-Ninkur is attested in the Old Babylonian ''An = Anum'' forerunner, in ''An = Anum'' itself, and in a god list known from a copy from Mari, but their exact position among the generations of primordial deities varies.

^dNIN.KUR in Mari and Emar

A further deity represented by the logogram ^dNIN.KUR is also attested in Mari, for the first time appearing in a list of bread offerings from the Early Dynastic or Sargonic period. This entry directly precedes "Lugal Terqa," an epithet of Dagan. A further attestation comes from a list of cloth offerings from the reign of Zimri-Lim.

The name ^dNIN.KUR or ^dNIN.KUR.RA is additionally well attested in texts from Emar. They attest the existence of a temple ('' É''), a treasury, and additionally a gate and a street named in honor of this deity. This theonym appears in a number of offering lists too. A month named after ^dNIN.KUR is attested in the local calendar. A ''kissu'' festival dedicated to Dagan, which apparently took place in the nearby settlement Šatappi, involved ^dNIN.KUR as well. The nature of this celebration is difficult to ascertain, though since the rites dedicated to ^dNIN.KUR involved a ''nugagtu'', sometimes translated as "mourning woman," as well as laying down her statue and making offerings to underworld deities such as Shuwala, it has been proposed that it commemorated the descent and subsequent return of a deity from the land of the dead. However, since much of the evidence is ambiguous, more cautious proposals are also present in scholarship, for example that the ''kissu'' commemorated the marriage or symbolic enthronement of the deities involved. Another Emariote ritual dedicated to ^dNIN.KUR involved specialists named ''nagīrtu'' (the feminine form of Akkadian ''nagīru'', "herald"), though neither the details of its performance nor the role of these women in it is known.

Antoine Cavigneaux and Manfred Krebernik suggest that in both Mariote and Emariote texts the theonym ^dNIN.KUR(.RA) should be read as Bēlet-mātim, and that it refers to Shalash, a goddess presumed to be Dagan's usual spouse. Lluís Feliu simply renders it as Ninkur or Ninkurra, but he also notes that a goddess named Ba’alta-mātim appears in texts from Mari in association with Emar, and might be one and the same as ^dNIN.KUR. He also concludes that she was a spouse of Dagan, and that she can be identified as Shalash based on presumed continuity of traditions pertaining to the latter. He points out that the use of ^dNIN.KUR to represent her might be related to the logogram ^dKUR being used to write the name of Dagan in the areas located around the middle of the Euphrates. Additionally, he considers it possible that ^dNIN.KUR was understood as a synonym of ^dNIN.HUR.SAG, also uses as a logographic writing of the name of Dagan's spouse.

References

Bibliography

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*{{cite journal, last=Simons, first=Frank, title=The Goddess Kusu, url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-assyriologie-2018-1-page-123.htm, journal=Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale, publisher=CAIRN, volume=112, issue=1, date=2018, issn=0373-6032, doi=10.3917/assy.112.0123, pages=123–148

External links

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Enki and Ninhursag
' in the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

Mesopotamian goddesses
Crafts goddesses
Mountain goddesses