Related Research Articles
Enki is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), crafts (gašam), and creation Reptilian, and Bull today, (nudimmud), and one of the Anunnaki. He was later known as Ea or Ae in Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) religion, and is identified by some scholars with Ia in Canaanite religion. The name was rendered Aos in Greek sources.
Gilgamesh was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, who was posthumously deified. His rule probably would have taken place sometime in the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia), c. 2900 – 2350 BC, though he became a major figure in Sumerian legend during the Third Dynasty of Ur.
Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Sumer under the name "Inanna", and later by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name "Ishtar". She was known as the "Queen of Heaven" and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur.
The history of Sumer spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BCE in southern Mesopotamia, and is taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumer was the region's earliest known civilization and ended with the downfall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE. It was followed by a transitional period of Amorite states before the rise of Babylonia in the 18th century BCE.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh, king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates back to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī. Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later Standard Babylonian version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru. Approximately two-thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
Anzû, also known as dZû and Imdugud, is a lesser divinity or monster in several Mesopotamian religions. He was conceived by the pure waters of the Apsu and the wide Earth, or as son of Siris. Anzû was depicted as a massive bird who can breathe fire and water, although Anzû is alternately depicted as a lion-headed eagle.
Lugalbanda was a deified Sumerian king of Uruk who, according to various sources of Mesopotamian literature, was the father of Gilgamesh. Early sources mention his consort Ninsun and his heroic deeds in an expedition to Aratta by King Enmerkar.
Ninsun was a Mesopotamian goddess. She is best known as the mother of the hero Gilgamesh and wife of deified legendary king Lugalbanda, and appears in this role in most versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh. She was associated with Uruk, where she lives in this composition, but she was also worshiped in other cities of ancient Mesopotamia, such as Nippur and Ur, and her main cult center was the settlement KI.KALki.
Aratta is a land that appears in Sumerian myths surrounding Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, two early and possibly mythical kings of Uruk also mentioned on the Sumerian king list.
Enmerkar was an ancient Sumerian ruler to whom the construction of Uruk and a 420-year reign was attributed. According to literary sources, he led various campaigns against the land of Aratta.
Lullubi,Lulubi, more commonly known as Lullu, were a group of tribes during the 3rd millennium BC, from a region known as Lulubum, now the Sharazor plain of the Zagros Mountains of modern Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Kermanshah Province of Iran. Lullubi was neighbour and sometimes ally with the Simurrum kingdom. Frayne (1990) identified their city Lulubuna or Luluban with the region's modern Iraqi town of Halabja.
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is a legendary Sumerian account, preserved in early post-Sumerian copies, composed in the Neo-Sumerian period . It is one of a series of accounts describing the conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug-Kulaba, and the unnamed king of Aratta.
Hamazi or Khamazi was an ancient kingdom or city-state of some importance that reached its peak c. 2500–2400 BC. Its exact location is unknown, but is thought to have been located in the western Zagros Mountains roughly between Elam and Assyria, possibly near Nuzi or modern Hamadan.
Sumerian literature constitutes the earliest known corpus of recorded literature, including the religious writings and other traditional stories maintained by the Sumerian civilization and largely preserved by the later Akkadian and Babylonian empires. These records were written in the Sumerian language in the 18th and 17th Centuries BC during the Middle Bronze Age.
Meshkiangasher was a mythological king only mentioned in the Sumerian King List as the priest of the Eanna temple in Uruk, whose journey led him to the enter the sea and ascend the mountains.
Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana is a text in Sumerian literature appearing as a sequel to Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, and is second in a series of four accounts describing the contests of Aratta against Enmerkar, lord of Unug and Kulaba, and his successor Lugalbanda, father of Gilgamesh.
Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave is a Sumerian mythological account. It is one of the four known stories that belong to the same cycle describing conflicts between Enmerkar, king of Unug (Uruk), and an unnamed king of Aratta. The story is also referred to as “Lugalbanda in the Wilderness” or “Lugalbanda I” and followed by the story known as Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird, together forming the two parts of one story. The stories, from the composer’s point of view, take place in the distant past. The accounts are believed to be composed during the Ur III Period, although almost all extant copies come from Isin-Larsa period. Tablets containing these stories were found in various locations of southern Iraq, primarily in the city of Nippur, and were part of the curriculum of Sumerian scribal schools during the Old Babylonian period.
Kusarikku ("Bull-Man"), sometimes inscribed GUD.DUMU.dUTU, GUD.DUMU.AN.NA and sometimes phonetically ku-sa-rik-ku(m), synonymous with the Sumerian GU4/gud-alim and perhaps also alim, was an ancient Mesopotamian mythological demon shown in artistic representation from the earliest times with the arms, torso and head of a human and the ears, horns and hindquarters of a bull. He is portrayed as walking upright and characterized as a door keeper to protect the inhabitants from malevolent intruders. He is one of the demons which represented mountains. He is pictured in late iconography holding a banduddû, "bucket". On a stela of Meli-Šipak, the land grant to Ḫasardu kudurru, he is pictured carrying a spade.
Gilgamesh and Aga, sometimes referred to as incipit The envoys of Aga is an Old Babylonian poem written in Sumerian. The only one of the five poems of Gilgamesh that has no mythological aspects, it has been the subject of discussion since its publication in 1935 and later translation in 1949.
Mes-sanga-Unug was a Mesopotamian god closely associated with the city of Uruk, and especially with one of its districts, Kullaba. He was regarded as a warrior deity. In early sources he was described as the "great ensi of Inanna," but later on he was seemingly associated with Anu instead. He belonged to the earliest pantheon of Uruk, though he ceased to be worshiped there in the Ur III period, and the attestations in documents from the reign of the Seleucids are assumed to be a result of a late reintroduction. He was also venerated in Babylon, where he had two temples. Further attestations from outside Uruk come from various god lists.
