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Antu () or Antum was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the feminine counterpart and spouse of the sky god, Anu. She was sometimes identified with the earth rather than the sky, though such references are not common. While already attested in the third millennium BCE, she was only a minor goddess, and only came to be worshiped commonly in
Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...
in the Achaemenid and Seleucid periods due to religious reforms which elevated her and Anu to the position of tutelary deities of the city. At some point Antu was also incorporated into
Hurrian religion 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 Common Era, BCE, it is ...
, in which she was understood as a primeval deity. In the so-called "Standard
Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...
n" edition of the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...
'' Antu is addressed as the mother of Ishtar, but this tradition was not commonly adhered to.


Name and character

Antu's name is etymologically an Akkadian
feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...
derivative of the theonym Anu. The
cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
sign representing the latter name, AN, in addition to designating the sky god could also function as an ordinary
noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
, read as either /an/, "heaven", or /dingir/, "deity". Antu accordingly functioned as the feminine counterpart of Anu. She was also regarded as his spouse. Cases of Anu and Antu being equated with each other are attested too. Paul-Alain Beaulieu interprets this as an indication the cuneiform sign AN could be used as a
logogram In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chine ...
( sumerogram) to represent the name of Antu. However, as noted by it is also possible that the sky was at some point envisioned as an
androgynous Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often r ...
being in Mesopotamian tradition. A small number of sources, including the god list '' An = Anum'', treat Antu as deified earth ('' ki''/''erṣetum''). An Old Babylonian lexical list, ''Diri'', equates her with Urash, an earth goddess also associated with Anu. It has also been suggested that the phrase AN URAŠ occurring on seals from the Kassite period, agreed to represent a compound of two theonyms, might also have been understood as "Anu-Antu". Antu might have also played the role of earth in formulaic references to Anu, representing the sky, inseminating the ground with his rains. Thorkild Jacobsen in the 1970s asserted that as an extension of this belief rain was believed to come out of Antu’s breasts, which according to his assumption were envisioned as clouds. This conclusion is also supported by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat. In the Seleucid period, Antu’s name and her
epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...
s became a subject of both theological and
philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...
speculation. A text focused on this topic is preserved on the tablet MLC 1890 (presently in the Morgan Library Collection, part of the Yale Babylonian Collection), dated to the reign of Seleucus III Ceraunus (most likely 225 BCE) and according to its colophon copied by a
scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...
named Illut-Anu. As already attested in earlier god lists, she could be equated with various primordial deities, same as Anu. For example, an equation between Antu and Anu and, respectively,
Kishar In the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, Kishar () is the daughter of Abzu and Lahmu, the first children of Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the ...
and Anshar is preserved in ''An = Anum''. The link between her and Kishar recurs in a later composition from Uruk. An
Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...
n expository text (KAR 307), presumably dependent on Babylonian ''
Enūma Eliš ' ( Akkadian Cuneiform: , also spelled "Enuma Elish"), meaning "When on High", is a Babylonian creation myth ( named after its opening words) from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of ancient near eastern cosmol ...
'', in a paragraph discussing
Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic '' Enûma Elish'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, an ...
states that she can be understood as "Antum who makes offerings for the dead to Anu" alongside other esoteric speculations about her identity. Wilfred G. Lambert suggested that this identification might be derived from the frequent references to Anu being a father of various demons, which would by extension make Antu their mother and thus a suitable figure to identify with Tiamat. Examples of demons directly identified as children of Anu include Asakku (in '' Lugal-e''), Utukku (in ''Udug-Hul'') and Sebitti (in the '' Epic of Erra''). Additionally, Lamashtu was explicitly identified as a daughter of both Antu and Anu. Antu's association with the
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. ...
attested in KAR 307 is also mentioned in a number of texts compiled by Seleucid '' kalû'' clergy, but it remains unknown if this belief was shared by other social groups. In a single case, "great Antu" is attested as a title of
Ereshkigal In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal (Sumerian language, Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲 REŠ.KI.GAL, lit. "Queen of the Great Earth") was the goddess of Kur, the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian religion, Sumerian mythology. In la ...
in a funerary ritual prescribing the offering of beer and wine to her,
Gilgamesh Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) 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 Sumer ...
and a group of figures described as sailors, presumably the crew of a ferry carrying the dead. Sources from the Seleucid period indicate that in Mesopotamian astronomy Antu and Anu were identified with a pair of circumpolar stars referred to as "Great Anu and Antu of Heaven". However, attestations of the latter astral body are limited to texts from
Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...
, and no sources from earlier periods or other cities ever linked any stars to Antu. According to Erica Reiner, it can be assumed that the "Great Antu" was one of the stars of the
constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...
Ursa Major Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear", referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa M ...
.


Worship

Antu is already attested in the third millennium BCE, with the oldest possible reference tentatively identified in an Early Dynastic god list from Abu Salabikh. However, prior to the fifth century BCE she was not a commonly worshiped deity, and her position in the Mesopotamian pantheon has been described as “unimportant and elusive” by Paul-Alain Beaulieu. She is attested next to Anu among the deities mentioned in the inscription of Anubanini on the so-called Anubanini rock relief. This king's reign has been dated to the early Isin-Larsa period, and his kingdom, Lullubum, was centered in the area in the proximity of modern Sulaymaniyah. References to Antu also occur in letters from the Old Babylonian period, but they are not common. She also appears alongside Anu in the Agum-Kakrime inscription. In incantations, she is attested in formulas against illness and demons, for example Lamashtu. In '' Maqlû'', she is invoked against witches alongside Anu and Belet-Seri. In later periods, Antu was worshiped in
Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...
. However, no references to her are present in any texts from this city predating the first millennium BCE, and in the Neo-Babylonian period she is only mentioned in a single letter. It mentions that a garment (''kusītu'') was borrowed for an occasion connected to her from the Eanna temple. Additionally, it describes offerings to her, Bēl-āliya and Mār-bīti. Paul-Alaian Beaulieu points out that the letter was sent from a temple partially subordinate to Eanna, which alongside the fact that its sender bore the name invoking
Larsa Larsa (, read ''Larsamki''), also referred to as Larancha/Laranchon (Gk. Λαραγχων) by Berossus, Berossos and connected with the biblical Arioch, Ellasar, was an important city-state of ancient Sumer, the center of the Cult (religious pra ...
's tutelary god
Shamash Shamash (Akkadian language, Akkadian: ''šamaš''), also known as Utu (Sumerian language, Sumerian: dutu "Sun") was the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian Solar deity, sun god. He was believed to see everything that happened in t ...
, Šamaš-aḫ-iddin, lead him to suggest it might deal with worship of Antu in this city rather than Uruk. A second possibility is that Kullab is meant, as while it is not known if Larsa had its own Bēl-āliya, a “divine mayor”, this title is well attested for Pisangunug in the case of the other settlement. A change in Antu's status in Uruk occurred over the course of the Achaemenid and Seleucid periods, when she was elevated to the position of one of the lead deities of the city alongside Anu. She came to be worshiped alongside him in a newly built
temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...
, Bīt Rēš. Its ceremonial name can be translated as "foremost temple". Antu's cella in it was known as Egašananna, "house of the lady of heaven". One of its chambers was also designated as her bedroom, and was referred to with the ceremonial name Enir, possibly to be understood as Eanir ( Akkadian ''bīt tānēḫi''), "house of weariness". According to Andrew R. George and Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Bīt Rēš might have developed from the É.SAG, a sanctuary of Lugalbanda attested in earlier periods whose name was written with the same signs, but this remains hypothetical. Its establishment marked the first time in the history of Uruk when Eanna was not its main temple. This development was a result of the rise of new priestly families in the aftermath of failed revolts which took place in 484 BCE and Xerxes I's retaliation against the participants. The status of the city's former tutelary deity, Ishtar, declined, and some of her attributes were absorbed by Antu. For example, in the text MLC 1890 Ninsianna, the personification of the planet
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...
, who in earlier periods could be treated as a form of Ishtar, is instead treated as an epithet of Antu. The '' kalû'' clergy of Uruk, responsible for Emesal prayers and formerly associated with Ishtar, came to be linked to the cult of Anu and Antu instead in Seleucid times. In some cases, the change makes it possible to date individual texts with no other direct indication of their age than their authors being a kalû in service of one of these deities. It is not certain if Seleucid kings were involved in the worship of Antu and other deities of Uruk, though it has been argued that the attested building and renovation projects required royal support. In texts from Seleucid Uruk, Antu almost always appears alongside Anu. As argued by Joan Goodnick Westenholz, the local theologians effectively treated the pair as "one single divine manifestation". She argues that the process of their elevation can therefore be seen as part of a broader phenomenon focused on predominance of city gods (rather than city goddesses) in the late period of Mesopotamian antiquity, which was linked to henotheist tendencies. However, according to Julia Krul speculative henotheist theology, while well attested, never enjoyed much popularity outside of small intellectual circles. It is also known that Antu was celebrated with a procession during the new year festival, during which she was accompanied by a number of deities normally not associated with her and seemingly grouped only for the sake of newly established celebrations: Bēlet-ilī, Shala, Mārāt-Ani ("Daughters of Anu"), Aya, Gula, Ninešgal ("Mistress of the Ešgal temple", a manifestation of Ishtar), Amasagnudi, Sadarnunna, Ašratu and Šarrat-šamê (" Queen of the Heavens", possibly another manifestation of Ishtar). The formula "may it be preserved by the command of Anu and Antu" is attested in scholarly compositions, as well as legal and administrative documents, especially marriage agreements. In addition to direct references to Antu in ritual and economic texts, she is also attested in
theophoric name A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or a god's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that d ...
s.


Hurrian reception

Antu was at some point incorporated into
Hurrian religion 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 Common Era, BCE, it is ...
, and in this context came to be regarded as one of the primeval deities alongside other figures originating in Mesopotamia, such as Anu,
Enlil Enlil, later known as Elil and Ellil, is an List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by t ...
, Ninlil or Alalu. Most likely this classification reflected their perception in areas located on the periphery of the Mesopotamian cultural sphere. In Hurrian context Antu formed a triad alongside Anu and Apantu. The latter deity's name according to Alfonso Archi was formed in assonance with her own. In a trilingual edition of the Weidner god list from Ugarit, Antu corresponds to the entries Ašte Anive (in the Hurrian column) and Tahāmatu (in the
Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...
column). The first of these names does not represent an actual deity, and instead is a
neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
invented by the text's compilers, who provided Anu, under a Hurrian variant of his name, with a wife whose Hurrian name would be similarly derived from his own, literally "the wife of Ani". The second can be translated as "the deep waters" and presumably represented the freshwater springs in the proximity of Ugarit. Due to multiple entries considered to be either similar scholarly inventions or scribal
word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, ph ...
s, the list is not considered to be an accurate source of information about either Hurrian or Ugaritic religion.


Mythology

Antu is mentioned in the so-called "Standard Babylonian" edition of the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...
'' when Ishtar demands Anu to give her the permission to use the Bull of Heaven to punish
Gilgamesh Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) 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 Sumer ...
(tablet VI, line 83). While she and Anu are addressed as Ishtar's parents in this passage, as pointed out by Paul-Alain Beaulieu the tradition according to which she was a daughter of Nanna and Ningal was more widespread.
Walter Burkert Walter Burkert (; 2 February 1931 – 11 March 2015) was a German scholar of Greek mythology and cult. A professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, he taught in the UK and the US. He has influenced generations of student ...
has suggested that the passage might have influenced the reference to
Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...
's mother Dione in the ''
Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...
'', with the name Dione being a
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
of Antu, as it is a feminine form of
Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...
. However, as stressed by Andrew R. George in his discussion of the work of Burkert and other authors who assume
Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...
was directly influenced by the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', it cannot be established with certainty that any possible similarities arose from direct contact with the Mesopotamian composition. He notes it might be more plausible to assume similar motifs reflect a shared tradition rather than necessarily direct derivation. According to incantations against Lamashtu, Antu and Anu cast this demon down from heaven and denied her the right to have a sanctuary (''parakku'') on earth. While Antu is not attested in ''
Enūma Eliš ' ( Akkadian Cuneiform: , also spelled "Enuma Elish"), meaning "When on High", is a Babylonian creation myth ( named after its opening words) from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of ancient near eastern cosmol ...
'', and Anu is addressed as the sole parent of Ea in this composition, according to Spencer L. Allen based on supplementary evidence from an esoteric Assyrian commentary it is nonetheless possible that she was implicitly understood as his mother and thus as the grandmother of Marduk in derived tradition. In a Seleucid
astronomical Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include ...
text, Papsukkal is described as the
vizier A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...
of both Anu and Antu.


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{refend Mesopotamian goddesses Characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh Hurrian deities Sky and weather goddesses Earth goddesses