Ḫubur

Ḫubur ( Chubur ; Sumerian ilurugu ) was mainly the Akkadian name of the underworld river in Mesopotamia , which separated the realm of the dead ( land of no return ) from the land of the living and represented the god Nergal as the personification of "King Ḫubur" . In rare cases, Ḫubur was also used as a synonym for the entire realm of the dead. The underworld river was crossed by means of a funeral boat; controlled by the ferryman on the other side. Gilgamesh is attested in this context as a helmsman and god of the dead.

The exact location of the underworld river is unknown, as a literary location was not made. So it remains unclear whether the underworld river had the character of an ordal river . Crossing was usually only possible from this side to the next . Underworld demons, on the other hand, could not cross ubur to get into this world.

See also

• Epic of Gilgamesh
• Sumerian religion

literature

• Dietz-Otto Edzard and a .: Real Lexicon of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology , Vol. 4 . de Gruyter, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-11-006772-2 , p. 478.