Sirsir, also known as Ninsirsir, 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 ...

. He was associated with sailors. It has been proposed that he corresponds to the so-called "boat god" motif known from

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, but this theory is not universally accepted.

Character

Sirsir was the god of sailors. He could be identified as the boatman of Enki. Proposed translations of his name include "slithering one" and " rower." In the text ''

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'' he appears alongside Laguda, also argued to be a god associated with the sea. A late god list explains his role as that of "Ea of the boatman." In ''Muššu'e'', he is placed in the proximity of Marduk, and identified with Tutu. A single late hymn identifies him as a son of Qingu. Frans Wiggermann argues that in addition to being the god of sailors, he was also associated with vegetation.

Worship

Sirsir is already present in the Early Dynastic god list from

Abu Salabikh The low tells at Abu Salabikh, around northwest of the site of ancient Nippur in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq mark the site of a small Sumerian city state of the mid third millennium BCE, with cultural connections to the cities of Kish ...

. A ''zami'' hymn dedicated to him has been found, which indicates he was likely a deity of relatively high rank at this time. He belonged to the pantheon of

Eridu Eridu (Sumerian: , NUN.KI/eridugki; Akkadian: ''irîtu''; modern Arabic: Tell Abu Shahrain) is an archaeological site in southern Mesopotamia (modern Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq). Eridu was long considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotam ...

. It has also been proposed that he had his own cult city somewhere on the coast of 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 ...

Mythology

Sirsir appears in the myth ''Enki and the World Order'', in which he is designated as the captain ('' ensi'') of the eponymous god's boat. In the Enuma Elish, Sirsir is listed as the twenty eighth of the fifty names of Marduk: According to Wilfred G. Lambert, it is possible that this passage was an echo of an originally independent tradition, in which it was Sirsir, rather than Marduk, who battled a personification of the sea. Sirsir is also mentioned in the text ''Marduk's Address to the Demons'' as a deity separate from Marduk:

Sirsir and the "boat god" art motif

It has been proposed that Sirsir can be identified with the so-called "boat god," a motif known from

s. However, this identification has yet to be conclusively proven. The boat god is usually depicted transporting the sun god Utu/Shamash. Typical portrayals have a snake tail, though sometimes he can also have two or four legs. A snake or dragon head might be placed on the end of the tail. Most attestations of this motif are known from the Diyala area and the

Hamrin Mountains The Hamrin Mountains ( ar, جبل حمرين, Jabāl Hamrīn, ku, چیای حەمرین, Çiyayê Hemrîn or Çiyayên Hemrîn) are a small mountain ridge in northeast Iraq. The westernmost ripple of the greater Zagros mountains, the Hamrin mounta ...

, fewer come from

Kish Kish may refer to: Geography * Gishi, Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, a village also called Kish * Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality also spelled Kish * Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf * Kish, Iran ...

and Mari, and only three or four are known from southern Mesopotamia. Based on the distrubution of these works of art and on the serpentine form of the "boat god" Frans Wiggermann proposed an association between him and the gods of the "trans- Tigridian" region, such as Ishtaran from

Der Der or DER may refer to: Places * Darkənd, Azerbaijan * Dearborn (Amtrak station) (station code), in Michigan, US * Der (Sumer), an ancient city located in modern-day Iraq * d'Entrecasteaux Ridge, an oceanic ridge in the south-west Pacific Ocean ...

and

Inshushinak Inshushinak (Linear Elamite: ''Inšušnak'', Cuneiform: , ''dinšušinakki''; possibly from Sumerian '' en-šušin-a ', "lord of Susa") was one of the major gods of the Elamites and the protector deity of Susa. He was called ''rišar napappai ...

from

Susa Susa ( ; Middle elx, 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗, translit=Šušen; Middle and Neo- elx, 𒋢𒋢𒌦, translit=Šušun; Neo-Elamite and Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼𒀭, translit=Šušán; Achaemenid elx, 𒀸𒋗𒐼, translit=Šušá; fa, شوش ...

. According to Helene J. Kantor, an argument against the identification of the boat god with Sirsir is the apparent relatively high status of the latter in the Early Dynastic sources.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * *{{cite journal, last=Woods, first=Christopher E., title=The Sun-God Tablet of Nabû-apla-iddina Revisited, journal=Journal of Cuneiform Studies, publisher=American Schools of Oriental Research, volume=56, year=2004, issn=00220256, jstor=3515920, pages=23–103, url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/3515920, access-date=2022-04-10 Mesopotamian gods Sea and river gods