Lama (mythology)
Lama appears in Sumerian mythology as an intercessory goddess .
presentation
The interceding goddess is depicted with a helmet-like multiple horned crown, a long fallow robe and long hair.
She always stands behind the prayer who makes his request before the deity or the deified ruler. She takes on a supporting and mediating role. She always keeps her hands pleadingly folded.
This can be observed more and more on the cylinder seals of the New Sumerian and Old Babylonian times . The Intercession Goddess experienced her high phase of the representations in the Old Babylonian period, afterwards the representations go back a lot until she can hardly be seen and then no longer at all.
A famous representation of the interceding goddess is a bronze statue from Ur, on which she can be seen as a whole. This statue can certainly be identified as an intercessory goddess by its name inscription on the back.
What is meant is the Mesopotamian goddess Lama ( Sumerian Lamma , Akkadian Lamassu or Lamassatu or Old Babylonian Aladlammu ).
Historical
Lama first appears in literature in the Fara period of Sumer and finds its origin in the demonic.
Lama is listed with Alad, MUS, Aladsaga, Lammasaga and Udusaga (Udug), spiritual beings who mediate between gods and humans, the so-called daimon of Ekur . Ekur, German roughly "house of the mountain" is comparable to the Greek Olympus .
Lams is an ambassador of the Ištar ( Inanna ). The term "intercessory goddess" is therefore traced back to her function as a mediator between humans and the gods.
function
Lama was asked for health, protection and happiness. Misfortune was attributed to the absence of Lama, but piety could be a condition of their blissful presence.
Lama was also called as an escort on trips. She could be called by private individuals regardless of her social status. However, they could leave them at any time or be "taken away" from them. This also gave it a function as an omen , so if a Lama was taken away from a person, he would then fall into poverty.
Kings also invoked the intercessory goddess. This is proven by statues of the lama with the names of the kings who had them erected. You requested protection of the country or the city. If cities got into trouble, this was seen as the loss of this protection. So Hammurapi I (Babylon) restored the good for Aššur (city ) in Uruk with the erection of a statue of the "Lady Truth" of Babylon .
literature
- Winfried Orthmann (arrangement): The old Orient . (= Propylaea art history. Volume 14). Propylaeen-Verlag, Berlin 1975, DNB 750520833 .
- Erich Ebeling, (greeting); Dietz Otto Edzard, Ernst F. Weidner, Michael P. Streck (eds.): Reallexicon of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology. Volume 6: Lamentation to Lebanon under Lamma / Lammasu. de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 1980-1983, ISBN 3-11-010051-7 .
- Ruth Opificius: The old Babylonian terracotta relief. de Gruyter, 1961, DNB 453649076 , p. 141ff.