Samnuha or Samanuha was the tutelary deity of Shadikanni (Šadikanni; modern Tell 'Ağağa) in the lower
Habur area. It is generally accepted that he had
Hurrian
The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...
origin. It is assumed that Šamanminuḫi, a god known from a treaty of
Shattiwaza Shattiwaza or Šattiwaza, alternatively referred to as Kurtiwaza or ''Mattiwaza'', was a king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, who reigned c. 1330-1305 BC.
Biography
Shattiwaza was the son of king Tushratta. His Hurrian name was ''Kili-Tešup' ...
, is the same deity. In this document, he occurs before "
Teshub
Teshub (also written Teshup, Teššup, or Tešup; cuneiform ; hieroglyphic Luwian , read as ''Tarhunzas'';Annick Payne (2014), ''Hieroglyphic Luwian: An Introduction with Original Texts'', 3rd revised edition, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, p. ...
, lord of
Washukanni
Washukanni (also spelled Waššukanni) was the capital of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, from around 1500 BC to the 13th century BC.
Location
The precise location of Waššukanni is unknown. A proposal by Dietrich Opitz located it under the lar ...
," and after KASKAL.KUR.(RA).
Bel-Eresh, a ruler of Shadikanni who was a contemporary of
Ashur-resh-ishi I, renovated the temple of Samanuha and a deity identified by
Stephanie Dalley as
Kubaba
Kubaba (in the ''Weidner'' or '' Esagila Chronicle''), sux, , , is the only queen on the ''Sumerian King List'', which states she reigned for 100 years – roughly in the Early Dynastic III period (ca. 2500–2330 BC) of Sumerian history. A co ...
, the Hurrian goddess of
Carchemish
Carchemish ( Turkish: ''Karkamış''; or ), also spelled Karkemish ( hit, ; Hieroglyphic Luwian: , /; Akkadian: ; Egyptian: ; Hebrew: ) was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during it ...
, but whose name was actually spelled
d''Gu-ba-ba''. Whether Gubaba, known also from the Assyrian ''Takultu'' ritual, and Kubaba were the same deity is uncertain, and there are also proposals that this name refers to a masculine deity similar to either
Nergal or
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
.
Many attestations of Samanuha come from
neo-Assyrian
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...
sources. He appears in an inscription of
Ashurnasirpal II, where he is acknowledged as the personal god of the provincial governor Mushezib-Ninurta, the son of a ruler of Shadikanni who bore the
theophoric name
A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or God's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that dei ...
Samanuha-shar-ilani. He continued to be worshiped in Shadikanni at least until the ninth century BCE. He is also attested as one of the Hurrian deities from
Taite (originally a major
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or ''Naharin'' in ...
city) in ''Takultu'', alongside
Kumarbi and
Nabarbi
Nabarbi was a Hurrian goddess worshiped in the proximity of the river Khabur, especially in the city Taite. It has been proposed that she was associated with the Syrian goddess Belet Nagar.
Name
Attested spellings of the name include '' dNa-b ...
.
Personal names attest that Samanuha continued to be worshiped at least until the
Achaemenid
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...
period.
References
Bibliography
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*{{citation, last=Wilhelm, first=Gernot, entry=Šamanminuḫi, encyclopedia=Reallexikon der Assyriologie, year=2011, entry-url=http://publikationen.badw.de/en/rla/index#10293, language=de, access-date=2022-03-06
Hurrian deities