Imzuanna, also known as Ninzuanna, 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 ...

worshiped in

Marad Marad (Sumerian: Marda, modern Tell Wannat es-Sadum or Tell as-Sadoum (also Wana-Sedoum), Iraq) was an ancient Near Eastern city. Marad was situated on the west bank of the then western branch of the Upper Euphrates River west of Nippur in moder ...

as the wife of the city's tutelary god, Lugal-Marada. She is attested in various god lists, in the literary composition ''

Lament for Sumer and Ur The lament for Sumer and Urim or the lament for Sumer and Ur is a poem and one of five known Mesopotamian "city laments"—dirges for ruined cities in the voice of the city's tutelary goddess. The other city laments are: *The Lament for Ur ...

'', and in at least one

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 ...

. Known sources mentioning her come from between the

Ur III The Third Dynasty of Ur or Ur III was a Sumerian dynasty based in the city of Ur in the 22nd and 21st centuries BC (middle chronology). For a short period they were the preeminent power in Mesopotamia and their realm is sometimes referred to by ...

and

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 ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC ...

periods. In a trilingual edition of the

Weidner god list Weidner god list is the conventional name of one of the known ancient Mesopotamian lists of deities, originally compiled by ancient scribes in the late third millennium BCE, with the oldest known copy dated to the Ur III or the Isin-Larsa period. ...

known from

Ugarit Ugarit (; , ''ủgrt'' /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 19 ...

, Imzuanna is treated as an equivalent of the

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

weather god A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of ...

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 ...

and his Ugaritic counterpart

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

, but due to the dissimilarity between their roles in the respective pantheons this is assumed to be a result of ancient scribes misinterpreting the first sign of the common writing of her name as the

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 ...

^dIM, which could designate weather deities.

Name

The name of the goddess Imzuanna could be written as either ''^d nin-zu-an-na'' or ''^dim-zu-an-na''. The former is known for example from an

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 ( ; )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Cambridge Enc ...

god list and from ''

'', while the latter from ''

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 ...

'' and in a

, Imzuanna-emqet. According to Richard L. Litke, it should be assumed that the cuneiform sign IM was read as ''ni'' in the name of this goddess, and the form Imzuanna is incorrect, but Antoine Cavigneaux and Manfred Krebernik disagree with this conclusion, as one of the ancient commentaries on the

affirms that the name could be pronounced as Imzuanna. They suggest that this might reflect a form in which the initial

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

in the form "Ninzuanna" was not pronounced. This proposal is accepted by Daisuke Shibata. As of 2022, the spelling Imzuanna remains accepted in

Assyriological Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia''), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies, is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cuneiform writing. The fie ...

literature.

Associations with other deities

Imzuanna was regarded as the wife of Lugal-Marada (also spelled Lugalmarda), the

tutelary god A tutelary (; also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...

. They are frequently attested alongside each other in known sources. According to an Old Babylonian god list, they were two of the three main deities of Marad, the third being Lulu, initially distinct but later conflated with Lugal-Marada. According to Richard L. Litke and Wilfred G. Lambert, the god list ''An = Anum'' indicates that Imzuanna had her own

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 ...

(divine vizier), Ili-mīšar. Marten Stol, relying on the same source, instead argues this deity was one of the two sukkals of Lugal-Marada, the other being Lugal-mea. Litke proposes identifying Ili-mīšar with Mīšaru, a minor god regarded as a son of

Adad Hadad (), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm- and rain-god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From ...

. An association between Imzuanna and the medicine goddess Gula is also attested in a

Neo-Assyrian The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

version of the Weidner god list. According to Daisuke Shibata, the commentary provided outright equates the two goddesses, as well as their respective spouses Lugal-Marada and

Ninurta Ninurta (: , possible meaning "Lord fBarley"), also known as Ninĝirsu (: , meaning "Lord fGirsu"), is an List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was f ...

Textual sources

An offering list from the Ur III period mentions Imzuanna alongside Lugal-Marada. 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. 1350–105 ...

'' (tablet VIII, lines 31–33) Imzuanna appears after Lugal-Marada in a sequence of deities implored to release a patient from a curse. They are followed by

Ninimma Ninimma was a Mesopotamian goddess best known as a courtier of Enlil. She is well attested as a deity associated with scribal arts, and is variously described as a divine scholar, scribe or librarian by modern Assyriologists. She could also serv ...

Shuzianna Shuzianna (Šuzianna; 𒀭𒋗𒍣𒀭𒈾 '' dŠu-zi-an-na'') was a Mesopotamian goddess. She was chiefly worshiped in Nippur, where she was regarded as a secondary spouse of Enlil. She is also known from the enumerations of children of Enmesha ...

Šulpae Šulpae was a Mesopotamian god. Much about his role in Mesopotamian religion remains uncertain, though it is agreed he was an astral deity associated with the planet Jupiter and that he could be linked to specific diseases, especially ''bennu''. H ...

Sadarnunna Sadarnunna was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of Nuska. Very little is known about her individual character. She was worshiped in Nippur, and appears alongside other deities of this city in texts from the Ur III period already. In la ...

, Belet-ili,

Sud Sud or SUD may refer to: Places * Sud (Chamber of Deputies of Luxembourg constituency), a constituency in Luxembourg * Sud (department), an administrative subdivision of Haiti * Sud Department (Ivory Coast), defunct administrative subdivision of ...

, Sirash and

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 ...

. Imzuanna (under the name Ninzuanna) appears in the composition ''

''. The circumstances described in this work make her and her Lugal-Marada leave their city, prompting her to lament her fate and the destruction of her dwelling. The section dedicated to them is placed between these focused on

Numushda Numushda (, '' dnu-muš-da'') was a Mesopotamian god best known as the tutelary deity of Kazallu. The origin of his name is unknown, and might be neither Sumerian nor Akkadian. He was regarded as a violent deity, and was linked with nature, espe ...

and his wife Namrat from

Kazallu Kazalla or Kazallu (Ka-zal-luki) is the name given in Akkadian sources to a city in central Mesopotamia whose specific location is unknown. Its patron god was Numushda and his consort Namrat. There are indications that the god Lugal-awak also liv ...

and

Ninisina Ninisina ( Sumerian: "Mistress of Isin") was a Mesopotamian goddess who served as the tutelary deity of the city of Isin. She was considered a healing deity. She was believed to be skilled in the medical arts, and could be described as a divine ph ...

from

Isin Isin (, modern Arabic language, Arabic: Ishan al-Bahriyat) is an archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq which was the location of the Ancient Near East city of Isin, occupied from the late 4th millennium Uruk period up until at ...

Outside Mesopotamia

In the

trilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monoling ...

Sumero- Hurro-

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 ...

version of the Weidner god list from

, Imzuanna (''im-zu-an-na'') corresponds to

(''te-eš-ša-ab'') and local

(''ba-a-lu''), who were both weather deities. It has been suggested that the equation with Teshub might have been already present in the earlier bilingual Sumero-Hurrian edition known from a copy from

Emar Emar (, ), is an archaeological site at Tell Meskene in the Aleppo Governorate of northern Syria. It sits in the great bend of the mid-Euphrates, now on the shoreline of the man-made Lake Assad near the town of Maskanah. It has been the sourc ...

. Daniel Schwemer notes that no known Mesopotamian sources associate Imzuanna with the Mesopotamian weather god, Ishkur/Adad, and therefore concludes that

Jean Nougayrol Jean Nougayrol was a French cuneiformist who studied a number of the Amarna letters.W.L.Moran (edited and translated) The Amarna Letters (p.xxiii)published by the ''Johns Hopkins University Press'' - Baltimore, London (and ''Brown University onl ...

's assumption that the equivalence between the three deities was a result of scribal confusion caused by the common usage of ^dIM as a

representing the names of weather deities is most likely correct. This view is also accepted by other researchers. Aaron Tugendhaft agrees that the list is not an accurate representation of the theological position of Baal and Teshub, but argues it is possible that the equation is not a result of confusion, but conscious 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 ...

. It is generally assumed that the character of Imzuanna was not similar to that of Baal and Teshub, though unlike other authors Irene Sibbing-Plantholt in a recent publication describes her as a storm deity.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * {{refend

External links

Translation of KAV 046
a copy of the annotated Neo-Assyrian edition of the Weidner god list, on the Oracc website Mesopotamian goddesses