Azimua, also known as Ninazimua, was a

Mesopotamian goddess Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic. They were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. The deities typically wore ''melam'', a ...

regarded as the wife of

Ningishzida Ningishzida ( Sumerian: DNIN.G̃IŠ.ZID.DA, possible meaning "Lord f theGood Tree") was a Mesopotamian deity of vegetation, the underworld and sometimes war. He was commonly associated with snakes. Like Dumuzi, he was believed to spend a part ...

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 omitted. The form Ninazimua is attested in at least one theophoric name, Geme-Ninazimua. Wilfred G. Lambert proposed that the element ''a-zi'' in her name can be interpreted as "water of life."

Position in the pantheon

Azimua was regarded as the wife of Ningishzida. However, multiple traditions regarding this god's marital status existed. The god list ''

An = Anum ''An = Anum'', also known as the Great God List, is the longest preserved Mesopotamian god list, a type of lexical list cataloging the deities worshiped in the Ancient Near East, chiefly in modern Iraq. While god lists are already known from the ...

'' identifies not only Azimua, but also Ekurritum (not attested in such a role anywhere else) as his wives, while other sources favor

Geshtinanna Geshtinanna was a Mesopotamian goddess best known due to her role in myths about the death of Dumuzi, her brother. It is not certain what functions she fulfilled in the Mesopotamian pantheon, though her association with the scribal arts and dre ...

, identified with Belet-Seri. In some cases, Azimua and Geshtinanna/Belet-Seri were conflated, for example in inscriptions of king

Gudea Gudea ( Sumerian: , ''Gu3-de2-a''; died 2124 BC) was a Sumerian ruler ('' ensi'') of the state of Lagash in Southern Mesopotamia, who ruled –2060 BC ( short chronology) or 2144–2124 BC ( middle chronology). He probably did not come from the ...

Lagash Lagash (; cuneiform: LAGAŠKI; Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Lagaš'') was an ancient city-state located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about east of the modern town of Al-Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash ( ...

. A god list from

Susa Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh River, Karkheh and Dez River, Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital o ...

treats them as two names of the same deity, identified both as the wife of Ningishzida and sister of Dumuzi. According to Wilfred G. Lambert, Azimua's name could simply function as a title of Geshtinanna in contexts where the latter was identified as Ningishzida's wife. Belet-Seri could also function as an epithet of Ashratum, the wife of Amurru, or of her Sumerian counterpart Gubarra, in at least one case leading to conflation of Amurru and Ningishzida and to an association between the former and Azimua. Azimua could serve as the scribe of 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. ...

, a role also assigned to Geshtinanna.

Worship

It is likely that Azimua appears for the first time in a text from Early Dynastic Tell Fara, though the full name of the deity in mention is not preserved. A further early uncertain attestation comes from a ''

Zame Hymn Zame is a village in the Zoaga Department of Boulgou Province in south-eastern Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana ...

'' from

Abu Salabikh The archaeological site of Abu Salabikh (Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh), around northwest of the site of ancient Nippur and about 150 kilometers southeast of the modern city of Baghdad in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq marks the site of a small Sume ...

, though Dina Katz notes that in absence of Ningishzida from this text corpus the restoration the presence of Azimua would be unusual. She was worshiped in Ur, where a temple dedicated to her existed, and in

Umma Umma () in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been sugges ...

Mythology

Ninazimua appears in the myth ''Ningishzida and Ninazumua'', which describes an exchange of messages between her and her temporarily deceased husband. It is regarded as similar to other myths dealing with temporary death of deities: ''

Damu The Department of Dramatic Theatre (, abbreviated DAMU) is one of three departments at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (alongside the Film and TV school and the Department of Music). The academy was opened in 1945 immediately after th ...

and his sister'', '' Dumuzi and his sisters'', ''Dumuzi and Geshtinanna'', ''Dumuzi's dream'' and ''

Inanna Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...

's descent''. However, due to small number of known copies, possible scribal mistakes and other issues it is presently impossible to fully reconstruct its plot.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * *{{citation, first=Frans A. M., last=Wiggermann, entry=Nin-ĝišzida, encyclopedia=Reallexikon der Assyriologie, entry-url=http://publikationen.badw.de/en/rla/index#8687, year=1998, access-date=2022-04-02 Mesopotamian goddesses