Ninsianna
Ninsianna | |
---|---|
Personification of Venus | |
Major cult center | Nippur,[2] possibly Ur[3] |
Planet | Venus |
Symbol | a star[4] |
Gender | variable[4] |
Personal information | |
Spouse | possibly Kabta[5] |
Equivalents | |
Hurrian equivalent | Pinikir[6] |
Ninsianna (
The oldest evidence for the worship of Ninsianna comes from the
Character
Ninsianna, the "Red Queen of Heaven," was a divine representation of the planet Venus.
Many of Ninsianna's epithets highlight a connection to light and radiance.[3] A text from Sippar-Amnanum uses the phrase ilum elum, "radiant god."[8] A late source from Uruk calls Ninsianna the "mistress who illuminates heaven."[9] It has been proposed that in art, for example on cylinder seals, Ninsianna was depicted in the form of a goddess with a star on her horned crown, or a goddess accompanied by a star.[4][10]
Ninsianna was occasionally associated with
An inscription of Rim-Sîn I presents Ninsianna both as a deity of justice, "judge, supreme advisor, who distinguishes between truth and falsehood," and as a divine warrior.[3]
Gender
Ninsianna's gender varies between known sources.
Gender of Ninsianna seems to vary based on location as well.[12] It is generally accepted that in Sippar, he was worshiped as a male deity.[13] Similar evidence is known from Ur and Girsu.[14] Rim-Sîn I of Larsa on at least one occasion referred to Ninsianna as male, calling him as a “king” (lugal) who helped him in battles against his enemies.[1] Douglas Frayne nonetheless translates the inscription as if a feminine deity was meant, "for the goddess Ninsianna, my lord,"[15] though Manfred Krebernik in a review notes this is incorrect.[16] Frayne himself acknowledges that lugal is otherwise exclusively a title of gods, not goddesses.[17] According to Daniel Schwemer, direct references to masculine Ninsianna are overall relatively common.[18] However, some evidence in favor of interpreting specific references to Ninsianna as designating this deity as a god rather than a goddess, for example an inscription of Iddin-Sin of Simurrum, is uncertain, as it is possible that the Akkadian word ilu in such cases might be employed as a gender neutral term, similar to Sumerian dingir.[8] Prayers from Kassite archives appear to present Ninsianna as a goddess, rather than a god, as evidenced by the connection to the šuba stone mentioned in them.[19] Ninsianna was also considered female in the context of the worship of this deity in Nippur,[2] Isin[20] and Uruk.[3]
Associations with other deities
The god list
A deity named Kabta ("star") or Maḫdianna ("lofty one of heaven") was frequently associated with Ninsianna.[5] They appear together in multiple god lists.[21] A certain Sîn-išmeanni described himself as "servant of Ninsianna and Kabta" on a cylinder seal.[24] However, the exact nature of the relationship between these two deities, and even Kabta's gender, remain uncertain due to scarcity and state of preservation of available sources.[5] Wilfred G. Lambert considered it possible that the deity was male and functioned as the spouse of Ninsianna,[5] but there is also evidence in favor of viewing Kabta as a goddess, including a seal depicting two goddesses who might be Ninsianna and Kabta.[3] According to Jeremiah Peterson, in the god list An = Anum and in the lexical text Proto-Diri, Ninsianna, Kabta and Maḫdianna are all explained as Ištar kakkabi, and thus as goddesses.[22]
The goddess Timua frequently appears in god lists and other lexical lists alongside Ninsianna and Kabta, and is also explained with the same phrase as both of them in An = Anum.[25] She is also attested in prayers from the Kassite period.[26] A variant spelling of her name, Simua, might indicate that it was derived from si-mu2, "horn growing,"[27] though Manfred Krebernik remarks this even if this assumption is correct, it might only be the reflection of a folk etymology.[28] An = Anum also lists dALAM as a byname of Timua, though according to Wilfred G. Lambert this is most likely a reference of the concept of deified statues, and does not indicate any relation to other deities whose names could be written with the same logogram, such as Alala and Belili.[29]
A god list from Emar indicates that the Hurrians viewed Pinikir as analogous to Ninsianna.[6] Pinikir's gender varies in Hurrian religious texts.[6]
A late hymn which uses "rare and unusual lexical equations" to identify Antu with other deities equates her with Ninsianna.[9] According to Julia Krul, the goal was to establish Antu as "Ištar’s superior in the domain of the heavens" as a part of a broader phenomenon of extending the scope of her cult in Uruk in the Hellenistic period.[30]
Worship
Ninsianna was worshiped in various locations in
The
Ninsianna, according to Julia M. Asher-Greve treated as a goddess in this context, is one of the female deities most commonly mentioned in personal letters from the Old Babylonian period, in which she appears less often than
The use of Ninsianna's name to refer to Venus declined after the Old Babylonian period.
References
- ^ a b c d e Heimpel 1998, p. 488.
- ^ a b c d Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 101.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Stephens 2016.
- ^ a b c d e Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 254.
- ^ a b c d Lambert 1980, p. 284.
- ^ a b c Beckman 1999, p. 27.
- ^ a b c Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 86.
- ^ a b c d Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 93.
- ^ a b Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 127.
- ^ a b van Dijk-Coombes 2021, p. 37.
- ^ Anor & Cohen 2021, p. 58.
- ^ a b c d Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 92.
- ^ a b c d Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 255.
- ^ Heimpel 1998, p. 487.
- ^ Frayne 1990, pp. 297–298.
- ^ Krebernik 1997, p. 125.
- ^ a b Frayne 1990, p. 297.
- ^ a b Schwemer 2001, p. 441.
- ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, pp. 95–96.
- ^ a b Westenholz 1997, p. 69.
- ^ a b George 1993, p. 34.
- ^ a b Peterson 2009, p. 58.
- ^ a b Sallaberger 2021, p. 355.
- ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 434.
- ^ Peterson 2009, pp. 58–59.
- ^ a b Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 95.
- ^ Peterson 2009, p. 59.
- ^ Krebernik 2011, p. 508.
- ^ Lambert 2013, p. 425.
- ^ Krul 2019, pp. 225–226.
- ^ George 1993, p. 83.
- ^ Frayne 1990, p. 709.
- ^ Frayne 1990, p. 712-713.
- ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 251.
- ^ Veenhof 2018, p. 87.
- ^ Veenhof 2018, p. 55.
- ^ a b c Harris 1975, p. 152.
- ^ Foster 1996, p. 155.
- ^ George 1993, p. 169.
- ^ Krul 2018, p. 188.
- ^ Krul 2018, p. 73.
- ^ Krul 2018, p. 67.
- ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 126.
- ^ Krul 2018, p. 75.
Bibliography
- Anor, Netanel; Cohen, Yoram (2021). "Bird in the Sky – Babylonian Bird Omen Collections, Astral Observations and the manzāzu". Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 115 (1). CAIRN: 51–80. S2CID 246562402.
- Asher-Greve, Julia M.; Westenholz, Joan G. (2013). Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources (PDF). Academic Press Fribourg. ISBN 978-3-7278-1738-0.
- Beckman, Gary (1999). "The Goddess Pirinkir and Her Ritual from Ḫattuša (CTH 644)". Ktèma: Civilisations de l'Orient, de la Grèce et de Rome antiques. 24 (1). PERSEE Program: 25–39. ISSN 0221-5896.
- Foster, Benjamin (1996). Before the muses: an anthology of Akkadian literature. Potomac, MD: CDL Press. OCLC 34149948.
- Frayne, Douglas (1990). Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595 B.C.). University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-7803-3.
- George, Andrew R. (1993). House most high: the temples of ancient Mesopotamia. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. OCLC 27813103.
- Harris, Rivkah (1975). Ancient Sippar: a Demographic Study of an Old-Babylonian City, 1894-1595 B.C. Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul. Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
- Heimpel, Wolfgang (1998), "Ninsiana", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-01-31
- Krebernik, Manfred (1997). "Buchbesprechungen. Frayne, Douglas: Old Babylonian period (2003-1595 BC) (= The royal inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Early periods, Volume 4). University of Toronto Press, Toronto/Buffalo, London 1990". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie (in German). 87 (1). Walter de Gruyter GmbH: 122–141. ISSN 0084-5299.
- Krebernik, Manfred (2011), "Simu(a), Timua", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-09-14
- Krul, Julia (2018). The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk. Brill. ISBN 9789004364936.
- Krul, Julia (2019). "'Star Anu, Lord of Heaven': The Influence of the Celestial Sciences on Temple Rituals in Hellenistic Uruk and Babylon". Scholars and Scholarship in Late Babylonian Uruk. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 219–234. S2CID 165727684.
- Lambert, Wilfred G. (1980), "Kabta", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-01-28
- Lambert, Wilfred G. (2013). Babylonian creation myths. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. OCLC 861537250.
- Peterson, Jeremiah (2009). God lists from Old Babylonian Nippur in the University Museum, Philadelphia. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. OCLC 460044951.
- Sallaberger, Walther (2021). "Uruk in der Frühen Bronzezeit: Zu dessen Königen und Göttern und zur Lage von Kulaba". In van Ess, Margarete (ed.). Uruk - altorientalische Metropole und Kulturzentrum (in German). Wiesbaden. OCLC 1255365039.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Schwemer, Daniel (2001). Die Wettergottgestalten Mesopotamiens und Nordsyriens im Zeitalter der Keilschriftkulturen: Materialien und Studien nach den schriftlichen Quellen (in German). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. OCLC 48145544.
- Stephens, Kathryn (2016), "Ninsi'anna (god/goddess)", Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus, UK Higher Education Academy
- van Dijk-Coombes, Renate M. (2021). "The Many Faces of Enheduanna's Inana: Literary Images of Inana and the Visual Culture from the Akkadian to the Old Babylonian Period". From Stone Age to Stellenbosch : studies on the Ancient Near East in honour of Izak (Sakkie) Cornelius. Münster. OCLC 1294273921.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Veenhof, Klaas R. (2018). "The Family God in Old Babylonian and Especially in Old Assyrian Sources". Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale (112): 49–90. ISSN 0373-6032. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
- Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (1997). "Nanaya: Lady of Mystery". In Finkel, I. L.; Geller, M. J. (eds.). Sumerian Gods and their Representations. STYX Publications. ISBN 978-90-56-93005-9.