Laguda (''^dla-gu-da'', rarely ''^dla-gù-dé'') was a

Mesopotamian god 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 ...

most likely associated with the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...

Character

It is assumed that Laguda was a god of the sea, specifically the

. According to Wilfred G. Lambert, the possibility that Laguda was a god of the sea is supported by his frequent association with other deities of such character.

Sirsir Sirsir, also known as Ninsirsir, was a Mesopotamian god. He was associated with sailors. It has been proposed that he corresponds to the so-called "boat god" motif known from cylinder seals, but this theory is not universally accepted. Character ...

, a god mentioned alongside him in ''

Marduk Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time o ...

's Address to the Demons'', was associated with sailors, and it has been proposed that he can be identified as the so-called "boat god" on

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

s. Laguda is also referenced in the incantation series

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. 1350–1050 ...

, where he is listed alongside the river god Lugalidda and the sea god Lugala'abba. The currently unpublished god list ''Anšar = Anum'' refers to Laguda as a name of Marduk, and associates him with

Dilmun Dilmun, or Telmun, (Sumerian: , later 𒉌𒌇(𒆠), ni.tukki = DILMUNki; ar, دلمون) was an ancient East Semitic-speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on contextual evidence, it was ...

. It is possible that he also appears in an enumeration of Marduk's names in another list. However, the text ''Marduk's Address to the Demons'' attests that they were separate deities:

Worship

Laguda's cult center was most likely the city Nēmed-Laguda, known from sources from the first millennium BCE. Its precise location is not known, but based on mentions in ancient texts it can be assumed that it was close to cities such as Eridu, Larsa, Uruk and Ur. It was also associated with Ea according to a

neo-Babylonian The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and bein ...

royal letter. At one point, gods of Nēmed-Laguda were returned by

Sargon II Sargon II (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is genera ...

. Laguda is also attested in two

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 from Nippur from the earlier

Kassite period The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylo ...

, Tukulti-Laguda and Burra-Laguda. The element ''burra''- in the latter name is

Kassite The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology). They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylo ...

, making Laguda one of the deities who appear in Kassite theophoric names despite belonging to the Mesopotamian, rather than Kassite, pantheon. His name was in this case written with a divine determinative (

dingir ''Dingir'' (, usually transliterated DIĜIR, ) is a Sumerian word for "god" or "goddess". Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conv ...

), a cuneiform sign designating divine names, unlike the names of any

Kassite deities Kassite deities were the pantheon of the Kassites (Akkadian: ''Kaššû'', from Kassite ''Galzu''), a group inhabiting parts of modern Iraq (mostly historical Babylonia and the Nuzi area), as well as Iran and Syria, in the second and first millen ...

other than Shuqamuna and Shumaliya.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * *{{citation, last=Streck, first=Michael P., entry= Nēmed-Laguda, encyclopedia=Reallexikon der Assyriologie, year=1998, entry-url=http://publikationen.badw.de/en/rla/index#8342, language=de, access-date=2022-04-10 Mesopotamian gods Sea and river gods