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Ninmena

Ninmena was a Mesopotamian goddess who represented the deified crown. She was closely associated with the deified scepter, Ninĝidru, and with various goddesses of birth, such as Ninhursag.

Name and character

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The name Ninmena means "mistress of the crown," and is an example of a typical Sumerian theonym formed as a combination of the cuneiform sign nin and the name of a location or object.[1] It is not certain if the goddess Men ("crown") known from the Early Dynastic Zame Hymns, apparently worshiped in Uruk and Sippar, should be considered analogous to Ninmena.[2] However, the deity dMen or dMen-na known from late copies of the Weidner god list is agreed to be a form of Ninmena.[3]

Ninmena appears among the nine goddesses of birth enumerated after Šulpae in the Nippur god list and in a similar enumeration of six deities in the Isin god list, but she is absent from the analogous section of An = Anum, which only lists Ninhursag, Ninmah, Dingirmaḫ, Aruru and Nintur.[4] It is a matter of scholarly debate if by the Old Babylonian period these names were understood as belonging to different goddesses who came to be conflated with each other, or local variants of a single deity.[4] Joan Goodnick Westenholz argued that in the case of Ninmena, syncretism would be limited to literary texts.[5] The so-called Archive of Mystic Heptads labels Ninmena as the "Bēlet-ilī of the city of Utab" alongside other goddesses of birth and their cult centers.[6]

In textual sources

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Multiple sources attest the existence of a connection between Ninmena and the deified scepter, Ninĝidru.[7][8] Both are mentioned in a coronation ritual text connected to the Eanna temple which according to Jeremiah Peterson cannot be dated with certainty.[8]

A hymn attributed to the Sealand Dynasty mentions Ninmena in association with Nippur as a caretaker of the "Lady-of-Nippur" (Nin-Nibru[9]) though a connection between her and this city is not present in any other known sources.[10]

A lexical text from Emar presents Ninmena as analogous to the Hurrian mountain goddess Lelluri.[11]

References

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  1. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 6.
  2. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, pp. 51–52.
  3. ^ Krebernik 1997, p. 505.
  4. ^ a b Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 87.
  5. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 90.
  6. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 129.
  7. ^ Cavigneaux & Krebernik 1998, p. 480.
  8. ^ a b Peterson 2020, p. 125.
  9. ^ Gabbay & Boivin 2018, p. 29.
  10. ^ Gabbay & Boivin 2018, p. 32.
  11. ^ Haas 2015, p. 409.

Bibliography

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  • 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). ISBN 978-3-7278-1738-0.
  • Cavigneaux, Antoine; Krebernik, Manfred (1998), "dNIN-PA", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-08-18
  • Gabbay, Uri; Boivin, Odette (2018). "A Hymn of Ayadaragalama, King of the First Sealand Dynasty, to the Gods of Nippur: The Fate of Nippur and Its Cult during the First Sealand Dynasty". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. 108 (1). Walter de Gruyter GmbH: 22–42. doi:10.1515/za-2018-0003. ISSN 0084-5299. S2CID 165744935.
  • Haas, Volkert (2015) [1994]. Geschichte der hethitischen Religion. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1: The Near and Middle East (in German). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-29394-6. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
  • Krebernik, Manfred (1997), "Muttergöttin A. I. In Mesopotamien", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-08-18
  • Peterson, Jeremiah (2020). "Christopher Metcalf: Sumerian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Volume 1: Literary Sources on Old Babylonian Religion. (Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 38) (review)". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. 111 (1). Walter de Gruyter GmbH. doi:10.1515/za-2020-0025. ISSN 1613-1150.
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