Damgalnuna

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Damgalnuna
A procession of goddesses, including Damkina (Damgalnuna), in the Yazılıkaya sanctuary.
Other namesDamkina, Tapkina
Major cult centerEridu, Malgium
Personal information
SpouseEnki
ChildrenNanshe, Asalluhi, Marduk, Enbilulu

Damgalnuna, also known as Damkina, was a

Hurrian pantheon. She appears in a number of myths, including the Enūma Eliš
, though only a single composition, Damkina's Bond, is focused on her.

Name, character and iconography

The theonym Damgalnuna can be translated as "the great wife of the prince," the "prince" implicitly being Enki.[1] Joan Goodnick Westenholz pointed out that the writing of her name with the cuneiform sign NUN reflects her connection with the city of Eridu, as it was used as a logographic representation of its name.[1] Shortened writings include ddam-gal and possibly ddam.[2] It is agreed that the second form of her name, Damkina, developed later.[2][3] In late sources it could be spelled as Damkianna.[4] This form is attested in Neo-Babylonian letters found in Uruk, according to Paul-Alain Beaulieu originally sent from Eridu.[5] Further variant spellings such as Damnun, Damnuna[6] and Damgalana are also attested.[7] The Hurrian form of the name was Tapkina.[8]

Damgalnuna's individual character was poorly defined beyond her spousal relation with Enki.

Adad's wife Shala, Shamash's wife Aya, Ishum's wife Ninmug or Inanna's attendant Ninshubur.[10] Like Enki, Damgalnuna could be associated with exorcisms and ritual purification.[9] In incantations, she could be invoked against demons.[11]

It has been proposed that cylinder seal depictions of a goddess accompanied by Enki's symbolic hybrids, the fish man and the fish goat, on cylinder seals who can be identified as Damgalnuna.[12] Julia M. Asher-Greve points out that sometimes she appears in the same scenes on them as Enki.[13] It has also been suggested that lions might have been her symbolic animals.[14]

In

Mesopotamian astronomy, Damgalnuna was identified with the constellation Wagon of Heaven, corresponding to Ursa Minor.[14]

Associations with other deities

Damgalnuna was the wife of Enki (Ea).[15] In the myth Enki and Ninhursag, she and the eponymous goddess are treated as the same deity.[16] However, Dina Katz points out that they were usually separate, and Ninhursag's husband was Šulpae.[17] Deities considered to be children of Enki and Damgalnuna include Nanshe, Asalluhi, Marduk and Enbilulu.[18]

In a variant of the

Enki and Ninki.[20] Despite their similar names, the two Enkis were not identical.[21] Multiple alternate names are assigned to Damgalnuna in the god list An = Anum (tablet II, lines 173-184),[3] including Ningikuga and Ninti.[22] It has been argued that the latter name is also used to refer to her in the Hymn to Ninkasi, where this goddess is the mother of the eponymous beer deity.[23] According to Antoine Cavigneaux and Manfred Krebernik, Ningikuga as a name of a spouse of Enki is to be distinguished with the use of this name to refer to the mother of Ningal or to Ningal herself.[24]

The deities Ḫasīsu and Uznu, "wisdom" and "ear," were considered Damgalnuna's divine attendants (sukkals).[25]

Worship

The worship of Damgalnuna is attested in all periods of

history of ancient Mesopotamia,[9] though the scope of her cult gradually declined.[26] She already appears in the Early Dynastic zame hymns.[27] According to this source, her cult center was Eridu.[28] A first millennium BCE hymn to Nanaya which lists various city goddesses also preserves information about her association with this city, though it also addresses her as the "Queen of Kullaba."[29]

Another city considered to be Damgalnuna's cult center was Malgium,[30] located to the south of Eshnunna.[31] Both of her names, Damgalnuna and Damkina, appear in texts from this city.[32] She is listed as one of its deities in the Code of Hammurabi.[33] Two of its rulers, Takil-ilišu and Ipiq-Ishtar, referred to themselves as appointed to their position by her and Ea.[34] The temple of the pair located in this city might have been the Enamtila, "house of life," mentioned in an inscription of Takil-ilišu.[35]

A temple dedicated to Damgalnuna also existed in

metrological text from the Middle Babylonian period also attests the existence of a house of worship which she shared with her husband, treated as separate from the former by Andrew R. George.[36]

On

Adad and Shala.[6] One of such objects, which belonged to a certain Enkimansum, has been inscribed with the formula "servant of Enki and Damgalnuna."[37] They had a sanctuary in Sippar-Amnanum inside of the temple complex of Annunitum.[37] It is known from a document stating that a number of officials, including the sanga priest of Annunitum, were responsible for inspecting its property after a theft occurred.[38]

An inscription with

Kalhu.[36]

Hurrian reception

Damgalnuna was incorporated into

Hurrian deities in the Hittite capital, Hattusa,[43] and in Nerik.[44]

Mythology

Only a single myth in which Damgalnuna plays a central role is known.

Nāru.[49] Lambert argued that to that end, she released an object referred to as a "bond" (il-let-sa[50]) in his translation, the nature of which is left unstated but which according to hi was something possible to display, perhaps a clay tablet.[48] Oshima instead refers to it as a "burden" and concludes that it might have been some sort of plague or natural disaster.[50] The colophon of the Neo-Babylonian copy states that the contents of the tablet were a secret and revealing them to anyone from outside its intended audience of ancient scholars was considered a taboo of Marduk.[51]

Damgalnuna appears in Enūma Eliš as Marduk's mother.[52] However, the text provides her with no genealogy, and no account of her birth is included.[21] The form of her name used in this text is Damkina.[53]

According to Nathan Wasserman, one of the inscriptions of king Ipiq-Ishtar of Malgium might contain a reference to a flood myth involving Ea (Enki) and Damkina (Damgalnuna).[54] It states that when an unspecified disaster was about to befall this city, Ea instructed his wife to save it by "insuring long dynastic kingship," which according to Raphael Kutscher should be understood as a euphemism for placing an usurper on the throne.[55]

A hymn dedicated to Damgalnuna, identified in a subscript as a šir-šag-ḫula ("song of a joyful heart"), is also known.[56] It focuses on her spousal relation to Enki.[57]

References

  1. ^ a b Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 49.
  2. ^ a b Selz 1995, p. 106.
  3. ^ a b c Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 101.
  4. ^ a b c Oshima 2010, p. 146.
  5. ^ Beaulieu 2003, p. 339.
  6. ^ a b Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 257.
  7. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 79.
  8. ^ Archi 2004, p. 331.
  9. ^ a b c Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 50.
  10. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 273.
  11. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 241.
  12. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 262.
  13. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 265.
  14. ^ a b Black & Green 1992, p. 57.
  15. ^ Harris 1975, p. 148.
  16. ^ Krebernik 1997, p. 515.
  17. ^ Katz 2008, p. 322.
  18. ^ Horry 2016.
  19. ^ Lambert 2013, p. 430.
  20. ^ Lambert 2013, p. 241.
  21. ^ a b Lambert 2013, p. 417.
  22. ^ Litke 1998, p. 88.
  23. ^ Black 2006, p. 297.
  24. ^ Cavigneaux & Krebernik 1998, p. 361.
  25. ^ Lambert 1972, p. 134.
  26. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 249.
  27. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, pp. 49–50.
  28. ^ Sallaberger 2021, p. 361.
  29. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 117.
  30. ^ Black & Green 1992, p. 56.
  31. ^ Kutscher 1987, p. 300.
  32. ^ Kutscher 1987, p. 303.
  33. ^ Pongratz-Leisten 2015, p. 403.
  34. ^ a b c d Lambert 2013, p. 323.
  35. ^ George 1993, pp. 130–131.
  36. ^ a b c George 1993, p. 163.
  37. ^ a b Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 267.
  38. ^ Harris 1975, p. 81.
  39. ^ Archi 2013, p. 10.
  40. ^ Taracha 2009, p. 120.
  41. ^ Archi 2013, pp. 8–9.
  42. ^ Taracha 2009, p. 95.
  43. ^ Taracha 2009, p. 96.
  44. ^ Taracha 2009, pp. 104–105.
  45. ^ Oshima 2010, pp. 146–147.
  46. ^ a b Lambert 2013, p. 321.
  47. ^ Lambert 2013, pp. 321–322.
  48. ^ a b Lambert 2013, p. 322.
  49. ^ Oshima 2010, p. 153.
  50. ^ a b Oshima 2010, p. 154.
  51. ^ Oshima 2010, p. 155.
  52. ^ Lambert 2013, p. 55.
  53. ^ Lambert 2013, p. 5.
  54. ^ Wasserman 2020, pp. 152–154.
  55. ^ Kutscher 1987, p. 302.
  56. ^ Black 2006, p. 269.
  57. ^ Black 2006, pp. 269–270.

Bibliography

External links
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