Uttu

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Uttu was a Mesopotamian goddess of Sumerian origin. She was associated with weaving. She appears in multiple myths, such as Enki and Ninhursag and Enki and the World Order.

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Name and character

It has been argued that Uttu was envisioned as a spider spinning a web, but the evidence in favor of this view is limited. A classic circular form spider's web.jpg
It has been argued that Uttu was envisioned as a spider spinning a web, but the evidence in favor of this view is limited.

Uttu's name was written TAG×TÙG, with the sign TAG (usually pronounced as tuku) referring to the action of weaving cloth. [1] The word uttu could also denote a part of a loom. [1] It is also possible that the name dTAG.NUN should be read as Uttu, [1] though Joan Goodnick Westenholz rejected this interpretation and instead assumed that dTAG.NUN was one of the multiple writings of the name of Bizilla or a closely related goddess who like her came to be associated with Nanaya in later sources. [2]

Uttu was regarded as the goddess of weaving. [3] According to an esoteric explanatory text which links various materials with gods, she could be associated with colored wool. [4]

Uttu and spiders

Thorkild Jacobsen argued that Uttu was envisioned as a spider spinning a web. [5] However, the connection between Uttu and spiders, or more precisely between her name and the Akkadian word ettūtu ("spider"), is limited to a single text, and it might represent a "learned etymology" (scribal speculation), [3] a folk etymology [1] or simply rely on the terms being nearly homophonous. [6] Two copies of the text contain slightly different versions of the same passage, "the handiwork of a spider (ettūtu) will be steady in his house," or "the handiwork of Uttu will be steady in his house." [7] Ettūtu was only one of the words for spiders present in Akkadian texts, the other two being anzūzu (written ŠÈ.GUR4) and possibly lummû. [3] In Sumerian, spiders were known and aš, aš5, lùm or si14. [3] In Mesopotamian literature spiders are mostly attested in proverbs, with a particularly well attested one descrbing a spider (ŠÈ.GUR4) putting a ḫamitu insect in fetters and then cutting it into pieces after it acted as a witness in a lawsuit against a kuzāzu insect. [3] Most likely the meaning of it was that an evildoer should not act as a witness. [3] Another proverb mentions a spider (ettūtu) which prepared a net to catch a fly but ended up threatened itself by a lizard, possibly meaning that one responsible for evil deeds will be eventually defeated by a greater force. [3] Spiders also occur as an art motif on Early Dynastic seals associated with female weavers. [3]

Worship

Uttu was worshiped in the E-ešgar, "house of work assignment," which was a part of the Esagil temple complex in Babylon. [8]

dTAG.NUN, who might be the same deity as Uttu, had a temple in Umma in the Early Dynastic period, [1] built by king Il. [9] dTAG.NUN is also attested in a theophoric name, Ur-dTAG.NUN. [1]

Two bilingual Sumero-Akkadian incantations known from the neo-Assyrian period mention Uttu. [10] In both cases, she is described cooperating with Inanna on spinning yarn. [10]

Mythology

According to the myth Enki and Ninhursag, Uttu's parents were Enki and Ninkurra. [11] In a late tradition, Ninkurra was instead a male deity and Uttu's husband. [1] A variant of Enki and Ninhursag makes Ninkurra Uttu's grandmother and Ninimma her mother. [11] Enki is also addressed as Uttu's father in a neo-Assyrian incantation. [1] However, another late text documents a tradition in which her father was Anu. [12]

In Enki and Ninhursag, Uttu is the final goddess Enki (aided by his sukkal Isimud [13] ) tries to seduce while engaging in a series of incestuous encounters with his descendants (Ninšar, Ninkurra, in a variant of the text Ninimma, and finally Uttu). [11] Unlike the other goddesses, Uttu receives advice from Ninhursag, [11] and probably attempts to trick Enki with a false promise of marriage under the condition that he will supply her with fresh produce. [14] While she is initially successful, Enki manages to obtain the requested cucumbers, apples and grapes from a farmer. [14] He approaches her for a second time disguised as a gardener and this time Uttu becomes pregnant. [15] Ninhursag intervenes and manages to remove Enki's seed from Uttu's body, which breaks the cycle of incestuous relationships. [10] The scene is more detailed that the previous encounters between Enki and his daughters in the same myth. [10] Curiously, the narrative makes no reference to Uttu's association with weaving. [10]

Uttu also appears in the myth Enki and the World Order, where she is the last of the deities awaiting the assignment of a domain. [10] She is called a "conscientious woman" and "the silent one." [10] It has been pointed out that both in Enki and Ninhursag and in Enki and the World Order, Uttu's appearance marks a shift in the narrative: after her encounter with Enki in the former myth, the cycle of Enki's attempts at seducing and taking advantage of the goddesses ends, while in the latter, after her destiny is declared, Inanna and her complaints about not receiving an appropriate share of the universe take the center stage. [10]

A reference to Uttu is also known from the debate poem The Debate between Grain and Sheep, which describes a distant time before she started to weave, symbolically representing the age before the advent of civilisation and technology. [10]

Related Research Articles

Enki God in Sumerian mythology

Enki is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), crafts (gašam), and creation (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.

Ninhursag Sumerian goddess

Ninḫursaĝ sometimes transcribed Ninursag, Ninḫarsag, or Ninḫursaĝa, also known as Damgalnuna or Ninmah, was the ancient Sumerian mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is known earliest as a nurturing or fertility goddess. Temple hymn sources identify her as the "true and great lady of heaven" and kings of Lagash were "nourished by Ninhursag's milk". She is the tutelary deity to several Sumerian leaders.

Inanna Ancient Mesopotamian goddess

Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess associated with love, beauty, sex, war, 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.

Sin (mythology) God of the moon in Mesopotamian mythology

Nanna, Sīn or Suen, and in Aramaic syn, syn’, or even shr 'moon', or Nannar was the god of the moon in the Mesopotamian religions of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia and Aram. He was likewise associated with cattle, perhaps due to the perceived similarity between bull horns and crescent moon. He was always described as a major deity, though only a few sources, mostly these from the reign of Nabonidus, consider him to be the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon.

Ninšar was a Mesopotamian goddess commonly associated with the preparation of meat. The reading of her name remains uncertain, and its possible etymology appears to be unrelated to her role in the Mesopotamian pantheon.

Nisaba Mesopotamian goddess of writing

Nisaba was the Mesopotamian goddess of writing and grain. She is one of the oldest Sumerian deities attested in writing, and remained prominent through many periods of Mesopotamian history. She was commonly worshiped by scribes, and numerous Sumerian texts end with the doxology "praise to Nisaba" as a result. She declined after the Old Babylonian period due to the rise of the new scribe god, Nabu, though she did not fully vanish from Mesopotamian religion and attestations from as late as the neo-Babylonian period are known.

Nanaya Ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love

Nanaya was a Mesopotamian goddess of love, closely associated with Inanna, but not identical to her.

Ninshubur Mesopotamian messenger deity

Ninshubur was the sukkal (vizier) of the goddess Inanna in Sumerian mythology. Ninshubur also served as the vizier of the sky god An and by extension as the messenger of the assembly of the gods, similar to Greek Hermes or Iris. Her name means "Queen of servants" or "Queen of Subartu" in Sumerian.

Ninkurra

In Sumerian religion, Ninkurra was a minor mother goddess, daughter of Enki and Ninsar. Mother of Uttu by Enki. In an alternative tradition she was the mother of Ninimma, the deification of the female sex organs.

Aya was an Akkadian goddess of dawn, and the wife of Shamash, the sun god. Her Sumerian predecessor was Sherida, wife of Shamash's equivalent Utu.

Gunura was a Mesopotamian goddess of Sumerian origin, known from the pantheon of Isin. She was a daughter of the medicine goddess Ninisina and her husband Pabilsag, and sister of Damu. The earliest attestations of her come from the Ur III period.

Manungal Mesopotamian goddess

Nungal, also known as Manungal, was the Mesopotamian goddess of prisons, sometimes also associated with the underworld. She was worshiped especially in the Ur III period in cities such as Nippur, Lagash and Ur.

Irnina was the Mesopotamian goddess of victory. Her name additionally functioned as a title of other deities.

Barton Cylinder

The Barton Cylinder is a Sumerian creation myth, written on a clay cylinder in the mid to late 3rd millennium BCE, which is now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Joan Goodnick Westenholz suggests it dates to around 2400 BC.

Ashgi (Ašgi) was a Mesopotamian god associated with Adab and Kesh. While he was originally the tutelary deity of the former of these two cities, he was eventually replaced in this role by his mother Ninhursag, locally known under the name Digirmah. He is mostly attested in sources from before the Old Babylonian period.

Shuzianna was a Mesopotamian goddess. She was chiefly worshiped in Nippur, where she was regarded as a secondary spouse of Enlil. She is also known from the enumerations of children of Enmesharra, while in the myth Enki and Ninmah she is one of the seven minor goddesses helping with the creation of mankind.

Gula (goddess) Mesopotamian goddess

Gula was a Mesopotamian goddess of medicine. While initially only associated with Umma, she gradually eclipsed the other healing goddesses, becoming the preeminent deity of medicine.

Bizilla was a Mesopotamian goddess closely associated with Nanaya and like her sometimes listed alongside courtiers of Inanna. However, she is also attested in connection with Ninlil, and it is assumed that she was viewed as the sukkal of this goddess in Ḫursaĝkalama near Kish.

Ninmug or Ninmuga was a Mesopotamian goddess. She was associated with artisanship, especially with metalworking, as evidenced by her epithet tibira kalamma, "metalworker of the land." She could also be regarded as a goddess of birth and assistant of Ninmah, most likely because the fashioning of statues of deities and the birth of children could be described with the same terms in Sumerian texts. Her main cult centers were Kisiga, whose location remains uncertain, and Adab.

Ninmada was a name applied to two separate Mesopotamian deities, a god and a goddess. The female Ninmada was a divine snake charmer, and in the myth Enki and Ninmah she appears as an assistant of the eponymous goddess. The male Ninmada was called the "worshiper of An" and was regarded as a brother of the snake god Ninazu. It is assumed that these deities could be partially conflated with each other or shared a similar origin, though proposals that there was only one Ninmada are also present in modern scholarship.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Fechner & Tanret 2014, p. 518.
  2. ↑ Westenholz 1997, p. 59.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Streck 2011, p. 646.
  4. ↑ Livingstone 1986, p. 182.
  5. ↑ Jacobsen 1987, p. 184.
  6. ↑ Livingstone 1986, p. 183.
  7. ↑ Livingstone 1986, pp. 182–183.
  8. ↑ George 1993, p. 83.
  9. ↑ George 1993, p. 170.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Fechner & Tanret 2014, p. 519.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Katz 2008, p. 320.
  12. ↑ Livingstone 1986, p. 179.
  13. ↑ Katz 2008, p. 326.
  14. 1 2 Katz 2008, p. 327.
  15. ↑ Katz 2008, pp. 320–321.

Bibliography

  • Fechner, Josephine; Tanret, Michel (2014), "Uttu", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-04-29
  • George, Andrew R. (1993). House most high: the temples of ancient Mesopotamia. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. ISBN   0-931464-80-3. OCLC   27813103.
  • Jacobsen, Thorkild (1987), The Harps that Once--: Sumerian Poetry in Translation, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, ISBN   0-300-07278-3
  • Katz, Dina (2008). "Enki and Ninhursaga, Part Two". Bibliotheca Orientalis. Peeters Publishers. 65 (3): 320–342. doi:10.2143/bior.65.3.2033365. ISSN   0006-1913.
  • Livingstone, Alasdair (1986). Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Streck, Michael P. (2011), "Spinne", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-04-29
  • Westenholz, Joan Goodnick (1997). "Nanaya: Lady of Mystery". In Finkel, I. L.; Geller, M. J. (eds.). Sumerian Gods and their Representations. ISBN   978-90-56-93005-9.
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