Nanaja
Nanaja ( Sumerian d Na-na-a ,; late Babylonian na-na-ia , also Nanaia, Nanaya, Nanaa, Nana) was a Sumerian local goddess who merged with the goddess Inanna in late Sumerian times . Her name means: goddess of female eros and divine mistress . She was considered the first-born daughter of Anu . Kanisura and Gazbaba are known by name as her daughters .
myth
As the daughter of Anu, she was initially endowed with the characteristics of a moon deity , without being worshiped as a pure moon deity in mythology . In addition, Nanaja had the status of a goddess of war. In a contract of the Aššur-bani-apli with Babylon, however, she is called "Lady of Love and Peace" (BM 82-5-22, 130, Obvers lines 22-23, Harper ABL 1105, Waterman, Royal Correspondence 1105). In Old Babylonian times , Nanaja was the goddess of sexual desire, she was the wife of Nabu , with whom she also performed theogamy . Her star was MUL Balreša . Occasionally the Babylonian Nanaia was equated with Nisaba . The iconographic symbols of bow and arrow Nanaja only received in nachbabylonischer time.
cult
Their main cult places were Ur and Uruk , in ancient Babylonian times Babylon and Borsippa . She owned a shrine in Esagila Temple . In Assyria , Nanaja was worshiped as Tašmetu .
Even in Elamite times, Nanaja was highly regarded in Susa . The statue that was kept there, which was stolen from Uruk, was brought back by Nabopolassar . Later Nana was equated with Anahita in Persia and with Artemis in the Seleucid Empire . In the Persian Susa, Nanaja had her own temple as Artemis, which also owned temple slaves, as documented by release documents from the Hellenistic period. The height of their veneration was the time of the 2nd century BC. BC to the 2nd century AD, when worship spread from Egypt via Armenia to Bactria and Transoxania . In the eastern Iranian cultural area, nanaja worship was widespread until the early Middle Ages. Wall paintings in the palace of Bundschikat (near today's Shahiston in northern Tajikistan) showing Nanaja date from the 7th / 8th centuries. Century.
literature
- Claus Ambos: Nanaia. In: Nanaia - an iconographic study to depict an ancient oriental goddess in the Hellenistic-Parthian period . Berlin, de Gruyter 2003, ISSN 0084-5299 , pp. 231-272.
- G. Azarpay: Nanâ, the Sumero-Akkadian Goddess of Transoxiana. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 96, No. 4, October-December 1976, pp. 536-542
- Theodor A. Busink: The Temple of Jerusalem from Solomon to Herod: Part 2 - An archaeological-historical study taking into account the Western Semitic temple construction. 1980, ISBN 90-04-06047-2 , p. 826.
- Dietz-Otto Edzard and a .: Real Lexicon of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology (RLA), Vol. 9 , de Gruyter, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-11-017296-8 , pp. 51 and 150
Individual evidence
- ^ A. Kirk Grayson, Akkadian Treaties of the Seventh Century BC Journal of Cuneiform Studies 39/2, 1987, 139
- ↑ Martti Nissinen, prophets in Mari, Assyria and Israel. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003, 147
- ^ GC Sarkisian, On Temple Slavery in Hellenistic Babylonia. Iraq 45/1 (Papers of the 29 Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, London, 5-9 July 1982), 1983, 134