Ninsikila

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This article is about the Mesopotamian deity associated with Lisin. For the Dilmunite goddess, see Meskilak.
Ninsikila
GenderInitially male, later female
Personal information
SpouseLisin
ChildrenKU-anna, KU-kita, KU-ta-abzu, KU-kita-abzu, Irḫangul, Kituš-Keš, Lalanna, Urnuntae[1]

Ninsikila (or Ninsikil, 𒀭𒎏𒂖) was a Mesopotamian deity regarded as the spouse of Lisin. Early sources refer to him as male, but later on the name came to refer to a goddess instead. The change in gender might have been influenced by an association with the Dilmunite goddess Meskilak, also called Ninsikila in Mesopotamia, or by Lisin's placement before her spouse in god lists. Texts attesting the worship of Ninsikila include an inscription from Larsa and a magical formula from Meturan.

Associations with other deities[edit]

Ninsikila was the spouse of Lisin.[2] Eight children are assigned to them in the god list An = Anum: KU-anna, KU-kita, KU-ta-abzu, KU-kita-abzu (reading of the first sign in all four names is uncertain), Irḫangul, Kituš-Keš, Lalanna (or Lulalanna) and Urnuntae.[1] It has been pointed out that while some copies of this document refer to this group of deities as the "children of Lisin," one instead calls them the "children of Ninsikila."[3]

Gender[edit]

Initially Ninsikila was considered a god and Lisin a goddess.[2] However, in texts postdating the Old Babylonian period, and less commonly also in older ones,[4] their genders could be switched,[5] and for example in the god list An = Anum the former is female and the latter male.[2] According to Joan Goodnick Westenholz, it is possible that the fact that in Old Babylonian god lists Ninsikila follows Lisin might have influenced the reinterpretation of their identities.[2] An example of such a text is the Weidner god list, in which Lisin precedes Ninsikila.[6] According to Piotr Michalowski the same order is attested in all the other known sources which list both of them in sequence.[7] A second factor might have been the existence of a homophonous, though not identical, goddess Ninsikila,[2] who was originally known as Meskilak and originated in Dilmun.[8] While the name Ninsikila can be found in the myth Enki and Ninhursag, it refers to the Dilmunite goddess in this context.[9]

The change in Ninsikila's gender has been compared to the case of Uṣur-amāssu,[2] who appears as a male deity in An = Anum, but later came to be viewed as female.[10]

Worship[edit]

Thorkild Jacobsen assumed that Ninsikila was worshiped alongside Lisin in Adab.[11] However, he is not listed among the deities attested in texts from this city from the third millennium BCE in a more recent survey of the local pantheon compiled by Marcos Such-Gutiérrez.[12]

A diorite bowl from Larsa has been dedicated by a certain Ṣālilum for the life of king Rim-Sîn I jointly to Ninsikila and Lisin, according to Douglas Frayne with the former to be interpreted as a goddess and the latter as a god.[13] However, according to Gabriella Spada it is also possible that the opposite interpretation is true.[14]

Ninsikila appears in a magical text from Meturan which also mentions Lisin,[15] but the passage is considered difficult to explain and might contain references to unknown mythical situations.[16]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Michalowski 1987, p. 33.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 103.
  3. ^ Litke 1998, p. 76.
  4. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 57.
  5. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 18.
  6. ^ Peterson 2009, p. 81.
  7. ^ Michalowski 1987, p. 32.
  8. ^ Krebernik 1997, pp. 93–94.
  9. ^ Krebernik 1997, p. 94.
  10. ^ Beaulieu 2014, p. 511.
  11. ^ Jacobsen 1987, p. 183.
  12. ^ Such-Gutiérrez 2005, pp. 3–36.
  13. ^ Frayne 1990, p. 305.
  14. ^ Spada 2016, p. 45.
  15. ^ Cavigneaux & Al-Rawi 1995, p. 199.
  16. ^ Cavigneaux & Al-Rawi 1995, p. 202.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Asher-Greve, Julia M.; Westenholz, Joan G. (2013). Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources (PDF). Academic Press Fribourg. ISBN 978-3-7278-1738-0.
  • Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2014), "Uṣur-awāssu (Akkadischer Gott) · Uṣur-awāssu (Akkadian god)", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-09-26
  • Cavigneaux, Antoine; Al-Rawi, Farouk N. H. (1995). "Textes Magiques de Tell Haddad (Textes de Teil Haddad II). Troisième partie". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie (in French). 85 (2). De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/zava.1995.85.2.169. ISSN 0084-5299. S2CID 201092061.
  • Frayne, Douglas (1990). Old Babylonian Period (2003-1595 B.C.). University of Toronto Press. doi:10.3138/9781442678033. ISBN 978-1-4426-7803-3.
  • Jacobsen, Thorkild (1987). The Harps that once...: Sumerian poetry in translation. New Haven. ISBN 978-0-300-16187-8. OCLC 861792476.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Krebernik, Manfred (1997), "Meskilak, Mesikila, Ninsikila", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-09-24
  • Litke, Richard L. (1998). A reconstruction of the Assyro-Babylonian god lists, AN:dA-nu-um and AN:Anu šá Ameli (PDF). New Haven: Yale Babylonian Collection. ISBN 978-0-9667495-0-2. OCLC 470337605.
  • Michalowski, Piotr (1987), "Lisin", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-09-25
  • Peterson, Jeremiah (2009). God lists from Old Babylonian Nippur in the University Museum, Philadelphia. Münster: Ugarit Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86835-019-7. OCLC 460044951.
  • Spada, Gabriella (2016). "Two New Loan Contracts from the Reign of Rīm-Sîn of Larsa". Rivista degli studi orientali. 89 (1/4). Fabrizio Serra Editore, Sapienza - Universita di Roma: 37–47. ISSN 0392-4866. JSTOR 45111745. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  • Such-Gutiérrez, Marcos (2005). "Untersuchungen zum Pantheon von Adab im 3. Jt". Archiv für Orientforschung (in German). 51. Archiv für Orientforschung (AfO)/Institut für Orientalistik: 1–44. ISSN 0066-6440. JSTOR 41670228. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
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