Išḫara

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Išḫara (Ušḫara Ušḫara) was originally a Syrian goddess whose cult spread to Sumer and Anatolia. Išḫara is first mentioned in Ebla (3rd mill. BC) under the name Išḫala. In Anatolia it is first mentioned in Kültepe (18th century BC), where it had a temple. The immigrant in Syria Hurrians adopted the cult, they v in the 14th century.. Brought to the Hittites . In Sumer , temples of the Išḫara have been documented since Šulgi , the worship was mainly carried out by the royal family and queens such as Šulgi-simtī and Abī-simtī .

function

Išḫara, an underworld deity, protected the oath (in the Šuppiluliuma - Šattiwazza treaty, KBo I, nos. 1 and 2, she is expressly referred to as “mistress of the oath” in the curse formula), she was the goddess of omens and the interpretation of signs. Astrological texts assign it the constellation Scorpio . In ancient Babylonian times its attribute was the snake, in the Kassite period it was the scorpion . In Kudurrus it is the symbol of the Išḫara.

cult

A moving-in festival ( erubbatum ) of the Išḫara is known from Drēḥim , during which beef cattle were sacrificed at the time of Amar-Su'ena . In the Ur-III period there was a common temple of Dagān and Išḫara (É d Da-ga-nu ù d Iš-ḫa-ra ), the location of which is unknown.

The spring and autumn festival was celebrated in Kizzuwatna in honor of Išḫara and she is one of the main deities in the ḫišuwa festival . In Emar and Šatappi she was celebrated together with Dagan and Ninurta in the kissu festival. In the latter city, a sacrificial table was dedicated to her, Dagan and Ninurta, while other deities such as Alal and Amaza had to share a table. From Emar, where she was the most important goddess next to Aštart and d NIN.KUR and was nicknamed d Išḫara GAŠAN URU KI (“mistress of the city”) and was one of the “pure deities”, there are some theophore names such as Abd-Išḫara ( "Servant of the Išḫara") proven. Not surprisingly, she was also mentioned in curse formulas here alongside Dagan and Ninurta. There is evidence of a Šu-Išḫara from Mari .

literature

  • Doris Prechel: The goddess Išḫara: A contribution to the ancient oriental religious history. (= Treatises on the literature of Old Syria-Palestine and Mesopotamia. Volume 11). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-927120-36-7 .
  • WG Lambert: Išhara. In: Michael P. Streck (ed.): Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Aräologie. Volume 5, de Gruyter, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-11-007192-4 , pp. 176f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ M. Hilgert: erubbatum in the temple of Dagān: A Ur III temporal document from Drēḥim. In: Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 46, 1994, p. 32.
  2. ↑ Frauke Weiershäuser: The royal women of the III. Dynasty of Ur. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2008, p. 132.
  3. ↑ DD Luckenbill : Hittite Treaties and Letters. In: The American Journal of Semitic Languages ​​and Literatures. 37/3, 1921, p. 169. ( JSTOR 528149 ).
  4. ^ Anna Elise Zernecke: Scorpio. ( Memento from February 17, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (eds.): The scientific biblical lexicon on the Internet . (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff., Date of access: January 27, 2013.
  5. ↑ M. Hilgert: erubbatum in the temple of Dagān: A Ur III temporal document from Drēḥim. In: Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 46, 1994, p. 29.
  6. ↑ M. Hilgert: erubbatum in the temple of Dagān: A Ur III temporal document from Drēḥim. In: Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 46, 1994, p. 38.
  7. ↑ Daniel Fleming: Nabu and Munabbiātu: Two new Syrian religious Personnel. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society. 113/2, 1993, pp. 175-183.
  8. ↑ Piotr Michalowski, Parsa Daneshmand: An Ur III Tablet from Iran. In: Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 57, 2005, p. 34.