Nanna (god)

Nanna , also Nannar , ( Akkadian Su'en , Assyrian / Babylonian Sin , Elamish Nannara ) is the Sumerian name of the Sumerian moon god Sin as the city god of Ur , son of Enlil and Ninlil . His wife is Ningal , his children include the sun god Utu , Inanna and the weather god Adad .

etymology

The original meaning is unclear. The Sumerian spelling ^DINGIR ŠEŠ.KI with the reading na-an-na comes from the logographic form ^DINGIR U ₄ .SAKAR and syllabic ni-in-ni from ^{ID DINGIR} Nanna-gu-gal and ^ID A.ŠA.- ^DINGIR Nanna.

The occasional minor form Nannar comes from the spelling ^DINGIR Nanna-ar ^DINGIR Su'en-e and has the Akkadian term na-an-na-ru with the meaning of light as a background. ^DINGIR NANNA later served as a logogram for Nannaru . In the oldest surviving texts from Ur and Uruk , the form ^DINGIR LAK ₃₂ .NA appears.

Manifestation

His residence is from the 3rd millennium BC. The well-preserved ziggurat of Ur, the temple Ekišnugal . High priestess of Nanna was usually the daughter of the Sumerian ruler of Ur. The manifestations were varied and changed over time. In Mesopotamia , the crescent moon appears horizontally in the firmament . As a crescent moon, interpretations as the horns of a bull or as a bow have been suggested. However, the actual mythological background remains unclear.

In the early III period, the moon god was symbolized by the wooden cartwheel, a trough, half a crown and the kidney . The usual original derivation as a double crescent moon for the growing fruit, the eye or the round boat (Akkadian quppu ) is considered likely. Even today the crescent moon is compared to the round boat in Iraq .

A late Akkadian myth tries to explain an eclipse of the moon with the help of the character Suen: the gods Sin, Ishtar and Šamaš try to gain a share in the power of the god Anu . The latter then sends his children, the god of seven, against Sin, who surround and block him. He is only freed through Enki's intervention .

Nanna as equation in other cultures

The deity corresponding to Nanna / Sin with the Hurrites was Kušuḫ , with the Ugarites Jarich . Among the Hittites and Luwians the moon god was called Arma . In cuneiform it is reproduced with the symbol for 30 due to the 30-day lunar month .

literature

Helmut Freydank u. a .: Lexicon of the Old Orient. Egypt * India * China * Western Asia , VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997 ISBN 3-928127-40-3
Brigitte Groneberg : The gods of the Mesopotamia. Cults, myths, epics. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7608-2306-8 .
Dietz-Otto Edzard and a .: Real Lexicon of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archeology , Vol. 8 , de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-11-014809-9 , p. 360

Web links

http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr41313.htm Hymn to Nanna (Sumerian and English)