Upelluri or Ubelluri was a primordial giant in

Hurrian mythology The Hurrian religion was the polytheistic religion of the Hurrians, a Bronze Age people of the Near East who chiefly inhabited the north of the Fertile Crescent. While the oldest evidence goes back to the third millennium BCE, it is best attest ...

. He is only known from the ''Song of Ullikummi'', which is one of the few Hurrian texts offering a view of this culture's cosmology. It was believed that Upelluri was already alive during the

separation of heaven and earth The separation of heaven and earth is a major event in the creation of the cosmos found in many creation myths across the world, from Egypt to New Zealand. This event functions as a necessary precondition for the rest of the creation event, as befor ...

, which were placed on his back, and that he lived in the "Dark Earth," the Hurrian

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

. His name ends with the Hurrian suffix -''luri'', known also from the names of the mountain goddess Lelluri and Impaluri,

sukkal Sukkal (conventionally translated from Sumerian as "vizier") was a term which could denote both a type of official and a class of deities in ancient Mesopotamia. The historical sukkals were responsible for overseeing the execution of various com ...

(attendant deity) of the sea god Kiaše, as well as a number of Hurrian mountain and stone names. In the ''Song of Ullikummi'', known from poorly preserved fragments of a Hurrian original and a more complete Hittite translation, the eponymous monster is placed on his right shoulder by Irširra (perhaps to be identified as goddesses of nursing and midwifery), the servants of

Kumarbi Kumarbi, also known as Kumurwe, Kumarwi and Kumarma, was a Hurrian god. He held a senior position in the Hurrian pantheon, and was described as the "father of gods". He was portrayed as an old, deposed king of the gods, though this most likely ...

, to let him grow away from sight of allies of Kumarbi's enemy

Teshub Teshub was the Hurrians, Hurrian weather god, as well as the head of the Hurrian pantheon. The etymology of his name is uncertain, though it is agreed it can be classified as linguistically Hurrian language, Hurrian. Both Phonetics, phonetic and L ...

, such as the sun god

Šimige Šimige was the Hurrian sun god. Known sources do not associate him with any specific location, but he is attested in documents from various settlements inhabited by the Hurrians, from Kizzuwatnean cities in modern Turkey, through Ugarit, Alala ...

. Later the god Ea seeks him out in order to find out how to defeat Ullikummi, and asks him if he is aware of the identity of the monster growing on his back. As it turns out, Upelluri did not notice the new burden at first, but eventually he starts to feel discomfort, something that according to this text he did not experience even during the separation of heaven and earth. The rest of the tablet is broken, and the next preserved scene does not feature Upelluri anymore. It has been pointed out that the later Greek

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

plays a cosmological role similar to that of Upelluri.

References

Bibliography

* * * Hurrian legendary creatures Sky supporters Giants {{MEast-myth-stub