Uṣur-amāssu (also spelled Uṣur-awāssu or Uṣur-amāssa) was a
Mesopotamian deity
Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic. They were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. The deities typically wore ''melam'', a ...
. While originally viewed as male, she later came to be regarded as a goddess. Regardless of gender, Uṣur-amāssu was considered as a child of
Adad
Hadad (), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions.
He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From ...
and
Shala
Shala (Šala) was a Mesopotamian goddess of weather and grain and the wife of the weather god Adad. It is assumed that she originated in northern Mesopotamia and that her name might have Hurrian origin. She was worshiped especially in Karka ...
and like other members of their entourage was considered a deity of justice. The earliest attestations of veneration of Uṣur-amāssu are
theophoric name
A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or a god's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that d ...
s from cities such as
Kish
Kish may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* KISH, a radio station in Guam
* Kish Air, an Iranian airline
* Korean International School in Hanoi, Vietnam
People
* Kish (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Kish, a former ...
, but the female version of this deity is best attested in sources from
Uruk
Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...
from the
Neo-Babylonian period. She belonged to the pentad of goddesses who stood on top of the local pantheon, which also included
Ishtar
Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...
,
Nanaya
Nanaya ( Sumerian , DNA.NA.A; also transcribed as "Nanāy", "Nanaja", "Nanāja", '"Nanāya", or "Nanai"; antiquated transcription: "Nanâ"; in Greek: ''Ναναια'' or ''Νανα''; , ) was a Mesopotamian goddess of love closely associated ...
,
Bēltu-ša-Rēš and
Urkayītu. She is still attested in texts from the Seleucid period, and continued to be celebrated during an ''
akitu
Akitu or Akitum
()
()
is a spring festival and New Year's celebration, held on the first day of the Assyrian and Babylonian Nisan in ancient Mesopotamia and in Assyrian communities around the world, to celebrate the sowing of barley. Akit ...
'' festival.
Name and gender
Uṣur-amāssu's name was derived from an ordinary masculine given name known from
Old Babylonian
Old Babylonian may refer to:
*the period of the First Babylonian dynasty (20th to 16th centuries BC)
*the historical stage of the Akkadian language
Akkadian ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Enc ...
and
Old Assyrian sources, Uṣur-awāssu, whose historically notable bearers include a king of
Eshnunna
Eshnunna (also Esnunak) (modern Tell Asmar in Diyala Governorate, Iraq) was an ancient Sumerian (and later Akkadian) city and city-state in central Mesopotamia 12.6 miles northwest of Tell Agrab and 15 miles northwest of Tell Ishchali. Althou ...
and an official from
Mari. It can be translated as "heed his word." It was already understood as the name of a minor god in the so-called Genouillac god list, also dated to the Old Babylonian period. According to
Paul-Alain Beaulieu
Paul-Alain Beaulieu is a Canadian Assyriologist, a Professor of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto.
Beaulieu earned a master's degree from the Université de Montréal in 1980 under the supervision of Marcel Leibovi ...
it can be assumed that Uṣur-amāssu was already a member of a court of another deity at the time, though the god list ''
An = Anum
''An = Anum'', also known as the Great God List, is the longest preserved Mesopotamian god list, a type of lexical list cataloging the deities worshiped in the Ancient Near East, chiefly in modern Iraq. While god lists are already known from the ...
'' is presently the oldest source to explicitly identify him as a son and courtier of another deity, namely
Adad
Hadad (), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions.
He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From ...
.
At some point, Uṣur-amāssu started to be viewed as a goddess instead. The female version of this deity is first attested in an inscription of Kaššu-bēl-zēri, a governor of the Sealand, known only from a
Neo-Babylonian
The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC ...
copy, but originally written in the tenth or eleventh century BCE. According to Rocío Da Riva and Gianluca Galetti, the change most likely occurred when the deity was introduced to the pantheon of
Uruk
Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...
and came to be regarded as a member of the circle of
Ishtar
Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...
. Paul-Alain Beaulieu suggests that while originally Uṣur-amāssu's name implicitly referred to the words of Adad, after the change Ishtar took this role. On occasion, the variant spelling Uṣur-amāssa could be used to indicate that the deity is female, for example in
Neo-Assyrian
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...
inscriptions, but archives of the
Eanna
E-anna ( , ''house of heavens''), also referred to as the Temple of Inanna, was an ancient Sumerian temple in Uruk. Considered the "residence" of Inanna, it is mentioned throughout the ''Epic of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is ...
temple in Uruk consistently used the primary name, Uṣur-amāssu, to refer to the female deity, sometimes adding the feminine
determinative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ...
INNIN to designate gender, resulting in the writing ''
d.inninÚ-ṣur-a-mat-su''. However, there is no evidence that the hypothetical grammatically feminine equivalent, Uṣrī-amāssu or Uṣrī-amāssa, was ever in use.
Associations with other deities
Regardless of gender, Uṣur-amāssu was regarded as a child of
Adad
Hadad (), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions.
He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From ...
, with the female version being explicitly called ''bu-uk-rat''
dIŠKUR, "daughter of Adad." The other children of Adad and his wife
Shala
Shala (Šala) was a Mesopotamian goddess of weather and grain and the wife of the weather god Adad. It is assumed that she originated in northern Mesopotamia and that her name might have Hurrian origin. She was worshiped especially in Karka ...
and thus siblings of Uṣur-amāssu were the goddesses Šubanuna ("princely ''šuba'' stone"), Namašmaš and Minunesi and the god
Mīšaru
Mīšaru (Misharu), possibly also known as Ili-mīšar, was a Mesopotamian god regarded as the personification of justice, sometimes portrayed as a divine judge. He was regarded as a son of the weather god Adad and his wife Shala. He was often ass ...
("justice"). In various religious texts, Uṣur-amāssu frequently occurs in the company of Adad, Shala and various deities from their circle: Mīšaru, his spouse
Išartu ("righteousness"), as well as the twin gods
Shullat and Hanish.
In Uruk, Uṣur-amāssu belonged to the circle of Ishtar. Paul-Alain Beaulieu considers her one of the members of a pentad of major goddesses of that city in the Neo-Babylonian period, the other four being Inanna/Ishtar,
Nanaya
Nanaya ( Sumerian , DNA.NA.A; also transcribed as "Nanāy", "Nanaja", "Nanāja", '"Nanāya", or "Nanai"; antiquated transcription: "Nanâ"; in Greek: ''Ναναια'' or ''Νανα''; , ) was a Mesopotamian goddess of love closely associated ...
,
Bēltu-ša-Rēš and
Urkayītu. She was commonly paired with the last of these deities, who always appears with her in offering lists. They are also mentioned together in a prescription for the cleaning of a blanket (''taḫapšu'') which belonged to both of them. A ''bīt ḫilṣi'', "house of pressing," a structure assumed to be a pharmacy accompanied by a garden where the ingredients for various medicines were grown, which was located in the Eanna complex, was described as their joint possession.
Andrew R. George
Andrew R. George (born 1955) is a British Assyriologist and academic best known for his edition and translation of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''. Andrew George is Professor of Babylonian, Department of the Languages and Cultures of Near and Middle E ...
notes that seemingly a close relationship also existed between Uṣur-amāssu and yet another deity from Uruk,
Kanisurra
Kanisurra (also Gansurra, Ganisurra) was a Mesopotamian goddess who belonged to the entourage of Nanaya. Much about her character remains poorly understood, though it is known she was associated with love. Her name might be derived from the word ' ...
, and relates it to both of these goddesses being associated with Nanaya and Ishtar. The view that she functioned as a name of Kanisurra in the first millennium BCE or that she was understood as her Akkadian counterpart can also be found in scholarship.
Character and iconography

Uṣur-amāssu was associated with justice. Theological information about her character is provided in an inscription from the reign of
Nabonassar
Nabû-nāṣir was the king of Babylon from 747 to 734 BC. He deposed a foreign Chaldean usurper named Nabu-shuma-ishkun, bringing native rule back to Babylon after twenty-three years of Chaldean rule. His reign saw the beginning of a new era ...
, in which she is called "the august lady, who provides judgment for the land and renders decision for heaven and the
netherworld, (...) the one whose command cannot be changed." Most likely, her apparent character as a judiciary deity described in this text was related to her connection to
Mīšaru
Mīšaru (Misharu), possibly also known as Ili-mīšar, was a Mesopotamian god regarded as the personification of justice, sometimes portrayed as a divine judge. He was regarded as a son of the weather god Adad and his wife Shala. He was often ass ...
and
Išartu.
A text from the reign of
Shamash-shum-ukin indicates that Uṣur-amāssu was depicted in a type of tiara analogous to these worn by Nanaya and Ishtar. Its appearance is presumed to resemble that which the former of these two goddesses wears on the ''
kudurru
A kudurru was a type of stone document used as a boundary stone and as a record of land grants to vassals by the Kassites and later dynasties in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 7th centuries BC. The original kudurru would typically be stor ...
'' (decorated boundary stone) of
Meli-Shipak. It was made out of 47 minas and 16,5 shekels of
red gold
Colored Gold is the name given to any gold that has been treated using techniques to change its natural color. Pure gold is slightly reddish yellow in color, but colored gold can come in a variety of different colors by alloying it with different ...
. While the text also describes all of its individual elements, the terms used are uncommon or entirely unknown otherwise, which makes interpretation difficult. A statue of Uṣur-amāssu clad in a type of robe known as ''lamaḫuššû'' is mentioned in a letter from the scholar Mār-Ištar to
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...
describing the repairs taking place in Uruk. Various Neo-Babylonian texts from Uruk also mention a variety of cultic paraphernalia of Uṣur-amāssu, including a standard, a ceremonial wagon (''attaru''), an unidentified golden weapon (''dēpu'') and a blanket (''taḫapšu''; shared with
Urkayītu). There are also attestations of figures of scorpion men (
girtablilu
Scorpion-men ( feature in several Akkadian language Mythology, myths from ancient Mesopotamia, including the epic ''Enûma Elish'' and the Standard Babylonian version of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh''.
In the visual arts, the form of scorpion-men va ...
) belonging to her, which might have been
apotropaic
Apotropaic magic (From ) or protective magic is a type of magic intended to turn away harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. Apotropaic observances may also be practiced out of superstition or out of tr ...
, though it is also possible that they were simply decorations sewn to her garments.
Known epithets of Uṣur-amāssu include "denizen of Uruk" (''ašibāt Uruk''), attested in the inscription of Kaššu-bēl-zēri, and "provider of counsel" (''mālikat milki'') and "intercessor" (''ṣābitat abbūti'') from a text attributed to Esarhaddon.
Worship
The oldest attestations of the worship of Uṣur-amāssu come from the
Old Babylonian period
The Old Babylonian Empire, or First Babylonian Empire, is dated to , and comes after the end of Sumerian power with the destruction of the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the subsequent Isin-Larsa period. The chronology of the first dynasty of Babyloni ...
, and include
theophoric name
A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or a god's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that d ...
s such as Uṣur-awāssu-gāmil and Uṣur-awāssu-nīšu. According to Andrew R. George, the former occurs in a text from
Kish
Kish may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* KISH, a radio station in Guam
* Kish Air, an Iranian airline
* Korean International School in Hanoi, Vietnam
People
* Kish (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Kish, a former ...
, and indicates the deity was worshiped in that city.
The oldest reference to the cult of Uṣur-amāssu in Uruk other than the inscription of Kaššu-bēl-zēri is a building inscription from the reign of
Nabonassar
Nabû-nāṣir was the king of Babylon from 747 to 734 BC. He deposed a foreign Chaldean usurper named Nabu-shuma-ishkun, bringing native rule back to Babylon after twenty-three years of Chaldean rule. His reign saw the beginning of a new era ...
. She was seemingly venerated in the Eanna complex, where she had her own sanctuary, ''bīt Uṣur-amāssu''. In an inscription from the
Neo-Assyrian period
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...
,
Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal (, meaning " Ashur is the creator of the heir")—or Osnappar ()—was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BC to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria. Ashurbanipal inherited the th ...
asserts that he brought Uṣur-amāssu, Nanaya and Urkayītu back to
Eanna
E-anna ( , ''house of heavens''), also referred to as the Temple of Inanna, was an ancient Sumerian temple in Uruk. Considered the "residence" of Inanna, it is mentioned throughout the ''Epic of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is ...
from
Elam
Elam () was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of modern-day southern Iraq. The modern name ''Elam'' stems fr ...
. It also known that at one point the first two of these goddesses were temporarily removed from Uruk to partake in the enthronement of this ruler. It is also possible that a restoration of their cult occurred during the reign of
Esarhaddon
Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...
, as a text from this period mentions the preparation of new statues of both of them.
In the Neo-Babylonian period, Uṣur-amāssu came to be seen as one of the major deities of Uruk. A ''kinūnu'' festival ("brazier," "fire ceremony") was held in the month ''Kislīmu'' in honor of Uṣur-amāssu,
Urkayītu and Ishtar according to the only known calendar listing religious ceremonies celebrated in this city at the time. A text from the reign of
Nabonidus
Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-naʾid'', meaning "May Nabu be exalted" or "Nabu is praised") was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 53 ...
mentions that in the month ''Dûzu'', a number of necklaces of Uṣur-amāssu were placed on a statue of
Dumuzi, possibly in connection with a clothing ceremony dedicated to the latter deity. Attested members of clergy of Uṣur-amāssu include a ''šangû'' priest (sometimes translated as "
pontiff
In Roman antiquity, a pontiff () was a member of the most illustrious of the colleges of priests of the Roman religion, the College of Pontiffs."Pontifex". "Oxford English Dictionary", March 2007 The term ''pontiff'' was later applied to any h ...
") and
prebendaries
A prebendary is a member of the Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the choir s ...
referred to as ''ērib-bīti''. Offerings made to her included beer, dates, grains (barley, emmer) and bread made from them, sesame, salt and meat of sacrificial animals, for example lambs. A watercourse in the proximity of Uruk, Ḫarru-ša-Uṣur-amāssu, was named after the goddess.
According to
Joan Goodnick Westenholz
Joan Goodnick Westenholz (1 July 1943 – February 2013) was an Assyriologist and the chief curator at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem. She held positions related to academic research at the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago), Ha ...
, in the
Seleucid period Uṣur-amāssu and Urkayītu were replaced by
Belet-seri and
Šarrāḫītu in the local pantheon of Uruk. However, Paul-Alain Beaulieu and Julia Krul in more recent studies conclude that she continued to be worshiped. She appears in an ''
akitu
Akitu or Akitum
()
()
is a spring festival and New Year's celebration, held on the first day of the Assyrian and Babylonian Nisan in ancient Mesopotamia and in Assyrian communities around the world, to celebrate the sowing of barley. Akit ...
'' ritual alongside
Ninimma
Ninimma was a Mesopotamian goddess best known as a courtier of Enlil. She is well attested as a deity associated with scribal arts, and is variously described as a divine scholar, scribe or librarian by modern Assyriologists. She could also serv ...
, Šilamkurra (a daughter of
Ninsun
Ninsun (also called Ninsumun, cuneiform: dNIN.SUMUN2; Sumerian: ''Nin-sumun(ak)'' "lady of the wild cows") was a Mesopotamian goddess. She is best known as the mother of the hero Gilgamesh and wife of deified legendary king Lugalbanda, and appe ...
) and an otherwise entirely unknown goddess, Ninurbu. A late reference to her is also known from a text describing the ritual journey of Nanaya to
Kish
Kish may refer to:
Businesses and organisations
* KISH, a radio station in Guam
* Kish Air, an Iranian airline
* Korean International School in Hanoi, Vietnam
People
* Kish (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Kish, a former ...
, in which she appears alongside
Kanisurra
Kanisurra (also Gansurra, Ganisurra) was a Mesopotamian goddess who belonged to the entourage of Nanaya. Much about her character remains poorly understood, though it is known she was associated with love. Her name might be derived from the word ' ...
.
References
Bibliography
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{{refend
Mesopotamian gods
Mesopotamian goddesses
Justice goddesses