Belet-Seri was a
Mesopotamian goddess
Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic. They were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. The deities typically wore ''melam'', an ambiguous substan ...
who served as a scribe in the court of the underworld goddess
Ereshkigal. She could be regarded as the
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
counterpart of
Sumerian Geshtinanna, but the name could also function as a title of
Ašratum
Ašratum ( '' dAš-ra-tum'', in Larsa ''dA-ši-ra-tum'') was a Mesopotamian goddess of Amorite origin. She was regarded as the wife of the god Amurru. Her name is a cognate of Ugaritic Athirat, but despite likely sharing the same origin these two ...
, the wife of
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
, or as a fully independent deity.
Character
The name Belet-Seri means "mistress of the steppe." The Akkadian word ''ṣēru'', in addition to its literal meaning, could also refer to the
underworld.
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 (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Camb ...
incantations, such as
Udug-hul, attest that Belet-Seri was envisioned as a scribe of the underworld (''ṭupšarrat arallê''). It has been proposed that she was meant to server as a mirror of the royal scribe (''ṭupšar ekalli'') in the underworld court of
Ereshkigal. She was most likely believed to hold a list containing the names of the dead, on the basis of which they were admitted to the underworld. Her role is described in the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh'' when
Enkidu has a vision of the underworld in a dream. In the incantation series
Maqlû
The Maqlû, “burning,” series is an Akkadian incantation text which concerns the performance of a rather lengthy anti-witchcraft, or ''kišpū'', ritual. In its mature form, probably composed in the early first millennium BC, it comprises eigh ...
,
Šurpu The ancient Mesopotamian incantation series Šurpu begins ''enūma nēpešē ša šur-pu t'' 'eppušu'', “when you perform the rituals for (the series) ‘Burning,’” and was probably compiled in the middle Babylonian period, ca. 1350–105 ...
, and
Bīt Mēseri she is asked to bind demons and witches and prevent them from leaving the underworld.
At an undetermined point in the second millennium BCE, Belet-Seri developed an association with the goddess
Gula and by extension with medicine.
Julia Krul proposes that in
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...
Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...
Belet-Seri came to be seen as the vizier (
sukkal) of Ereshkigal and perhaps
Anu
, image=Detail, upper part, Kudurru of Ritti-Marduk, from Sippar, Iraq, 1125-1104 BCE. British Museum.jpg
, caption=Symbols of various deities, including Anu (bottom right corner) on a kudurru of Ritti-Marduk, from Sippar, Iraq, 1125–1104 BCE
, ...
, as she received offerings alongside
Papsukkal
Papsukkal () was a Mesopotamian god regarded as the sukkal (attendant deity) of Anu and his wife Antu in Seleucid Uruk. In earlier periods he was instead associated with Zababa. He acquired his new role through syncretism with Ninshubur.
Charact ...
, well attested in such a role. She also proposes that she could be associated with Ningishzida, whose cult was still present in this city in late sources.
Identification with other goddesses
Belet-Seri commonly functioned as an Akkadian name of
Geshtinanna, though it could also be applied to
Ašratum
Ašratum ( '' dAš-ra-tum'', in Larsa ''dA-ši-ra-tum'') was a Mesopotamian goddess of Amorite origin. She was regarded as the wife of the god Amurru. Her name is a cognate of Ugaritic Athirat, but despite likely sharing the same origin these two ...
, the wife of
Amurru Amurru may refer to:
* Amurru kingdom, roughly current day western Syria and northern Lebanon
* Amorite, ancient Syrian people
* Amurru (god)
Amurru, also known under the Sumerian name Martu, was a Mesopotamian god who served as the divine perso ...
, and to her Sumerian counterpart Gubarra. It has however been proposed that in the later case the term can be understood as a reference to an ordinary steppe, rather than a euphemism for the land of the dead. Belet-Seri could also function as an independent deity, for example in the
neo-Assyrian pantheon. Furthermore,
Ningishzida's wife
Azimua Azimua, also known as Ninazimua, was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of Ningishzida.
Name
Ninazimua is the original spelling of the name of this goddess, attested in sources from the Ur III period. Later the NIN sign was usually omitte ...
,
syncretised
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, th ...
with Geshtinanna, could be described as a scribe of the underworld too.
Worship
Belet-seri was worshiped in
Nippur
Nippur ( Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian: ''Nibbur'') was an ancient Sumerian city. It wa ...
and in
Assur
Aššur (; Sumerian: AN.ŠAR2KI, Assyrian cuneiform: ''Aš-šurKI'', "City of God Aššur"; syr, ܐܫܘܪ ''Āšūr''; Old Persian ''Aθur'', fa, آشور: ''Āšūr''; he, אַשּׁוּר, ', ar, اشور), also known as Ashur and Qal ...
in temples of Gula. She was also associated with Dunnu-sa'idi, a town located between
Babylon and
Sippar. In Assur, she was worshiped in the temple of Gula.
In oath formulas accompanying some neo-Assyrian contracts, Belet-Seri appears with a deity named Adad-milki, who seemingly served as her consort.
She was among the most celebrated deities in late sources from Uruk. After the year 484 BCE, the pantheon of this city was restructured due to collapse of the
Eanna temple in the aftermath of the failed Babylonian rebellion against the rule of Persian king
Xerxes. Her cult was only introduced there in this period.
Joan Goodnick Westenholz proposed that she and
Šarrāḫītu Šarrāḫītu (Akkadian: "The glorified one") was a Mesopotamian goddess worshiped chiefly in Uruk from the Achaemenid period onward.
Oldest attestations of Šarrāḫītu come from Babylon, where she was identified with Ašratum, the wife of Amu ...
, also not attested in earlier sources from Uruk, replaced
Urkayītu and
Uṣur-amāssu in the local pantheon. Belet-Seri had her own temple, which was apparently surrounded by an orchard. According to documents from the
Seleucid
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
period, it bore the name ''é.gal edin'', "palace of the steppe."
A text dealing with the types of meat various gods should receive states that fowl was viewed as unsuitable offering for Belet-Seri.
Theophoric name
A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or God's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that deit ...
s invoking Belet-Seri are known from documents from Hellenistic Uruk. Most individuals bearing them were people of low social standing, including slaves, former slaves and free menial workers.
References
Bibliography
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*{{cite book, last=Wiggins, first=Steve, title=A reassessment of Asherah: with further considerations of the goddess, url=https://www.academia.edu/1307031, publisher=Gorgias Press, publication-place=Piscataway, NJ, year=2007, isbn=978-1-59333-717-9, oclc=171049273
Mesopotamian goddesses
Mesopotamian underworld
Underworld goddesses