Ninḫursaĝ (; ), sometimes transcribed Ninursag,Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Ninhursag". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 May 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ninhursag. Accessed 28 April 2022. Ninḫarsag, or Ninḫursaĝa, also known as Damgalnuna or Ninmah, was the ancient Sumerian mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is known earliest as a nurturing or fertility goddess. She is the tutelary deity to several Sumerian leaders.
Her best-known myths are Enki and Ninhursag describing her dealings with Enki resulting from his sexual exploits, and Enki and Ninmah a creation myth wherein the two deities compete to create humans. She is referenced or makes brief appearances in others as well, most notably as the mother of Ninurta in the Anzû Epic.
Name Ninhursag means "lady of the sacred mountain" from Sumerian NIN "lady" and ḪAR.SAG̃ "sacred mountain, foothill", possibly a reference to the site of her temple, the E-Kur (House of mountain deeps) at Eridu. She had many names including Ninmah ("Great Queen"); Nintu ("Lady of Birth"); Mamma or Mami (mother); Aruru () and Belet-Ili (mistress of the gods, Akkadian).
According to the 'Ninurta's Exploits' myth, her name was changed from Ninmah to Ninhursag by her son Ninurta. As Ninmena, according to a Babylonian investiture ritual, she placed the golden crown on the king in the Eanna temple.
Possibly included among the original mother goddesses was Damgalnuna/Diĝirmaḫ (great wife of the prince) or Damkina (, “true wife”), the consort of the god Enki.
Nintur was another name assigned to Ninhursag as a birth goddess, though sometimes she was a separate goddess entirely.
The mother goddess had many epithets including shassuru or 'womb goddess', tabsut ili 'midwife of the gods', 'mother of all children' and 'mother of the gods'. In this role she is identified with Ki in the Enuma Elish. She had shrines in both Eridu and Kish. However, it has also been proposed that the name Ninhursag in documents from Mari should be understood as a logographic writing of the name Shalash, the wife of Dagan, who was the goddess of Bitin near Alalakh rather than Nagar (modern Tell Brak) in the Khabur Triangle. Belet Nagar has alternatively been identified with Hurrian deities: Shaushka (though this proposal was met with criticism) or Nabarbi.
Diĝirmaḫ
Dingirmah ("great goddess") was a very common epithet of Ninhursag. In older literature, the name was transcribed as dMah, but the correct reading was confirmed through the existence of a syllabically written Emesal form, Dimmermah.
Although she was originally an epithet of Ninhursag, Dingirmah eventually developed into a separate goddess at the end of the Early Dynastic period. In the Nippur god list, Dingirmah was one of the nine goddesses of birth enumerated after Šulpae, and the Isin god list similarly included her as one of six birth goddesses. Dingirmah was also present in the An = Anum god list, which listed her alongside Ninhursag, Ninmah, Aruru and Nintur. It is uncertain whether these were all regarded as variant names for the same goddess or different goddesses with similar functions.
A temple dedicated to Dingirmah, the E-maḫ, was built in Adab by a local ruler. Another temple was built at Malgium by King Ipiq-Ištar.
Ninmaḫ
Ninmah ("great lady") was one of the most common epithets of Ninhursag alongside Dingirmah. The name was already attested in Fara and pre-Sargonian Lagash, and primarily occurred in liturgical and literary texts. An Akkadian form, Ereshmah (written syllabically as e-re-eš-ma-aḫ), was attested at Ugarit, and was either a variant or the correctly written form of the name.
Like Dingirmah, Ninmah was initially an epithet of Ninhursag who later developed into a separate goddess at the end of the Early Dynastic period. In Lagash, King Entemena built a temple that was at first dedicated to Ninhursag, and then rededicated to Ninmah.
In a text known as Archive of Mystic Heptads, Ninmah was labeled separately from Ninhursag as the "Bēlet-ilī of the Emaḫ temple" in an enumeration of seven goddesses of birth.
Nintur
Nintur was a goddess of birth who was initially regarded as a fully distinct goddess from Ninhursag, as indicated in the Temple Hymns. Her name is translated as "mistress birth-hut". Thorkild Jacobsen suggested that the element TU had been derived from the Sumerian word šà-tùr (meaning "womb, uterus"), which is generally regarded as accurate. Scholars such as Gebhard J. Selz proposed a different interpretation that TU was instead derived from the Sumerian verb utud, meaning "to give birth", thus rendering the theonym as Nintud. However, this interpretation has been contested on phonological grounds.
She is first attested in the god lists from Early Dynastic Fara and Abu Salabikh, in which her name was written as dTur, without the NIN sign. Nintur was also mentioned in the Zame Hymns from the same period, in which the nineteenth hymn referred to her as the tutelary goddess of Kesh, a role that was eventually transferred to Ninhursag. However, the goddesses were not immediately syncretized in Kesh, as one of the Temple Hymns treated Nintur as a distinct figure and credited her with beautifying Ninhursag's temple in the city. In the Kesh temple hymn, the goddesses were considered synonymous, with Ninhursag and Nintur being interchangeably used as the names of the mother of Ashgi.
In Adab, like in Kesh, Nintur was initially still regarded as a distinct goddess, and was referenced in a hymn dedicated to Ninhursag of Adab, in which she, as "Mother Nintur", was said to have determined the destiny of the E-maḫ, Ninhursag's temple in Adab, alongside Enlil and Enki.
In pre-Sargonian Lagash, Nintur occurred in offering lists as a minor goddess, and had two additional local manifestations: Nin-tur5-ama-uru-da-mu2-a ("Nintur, mother who grew with the city") and Nin-tur5-za3-ga ("Nintur of the Sanctuary"), which were names of statues dedicated to her. However, it is doubtful that she was considered a separate goddess, and had been syncretized with Ninhursag by the time of Gudea, the ruler of Lagash during the Gutian Dynasty. An inscription on one of Gudea's statues that he had placed in a temple of Ninhursag contained an inscription addressing Ninhursag as Nintur, although this inscription is the only known instance of the goddesses being syncretized in Lagash.
Function As evidenced by the large number of names, epithets, and areas of worship associated with her cult, Ninhursag's function in religion had many different aspects and shifted notably over time. Ninhursag was not the tutelary goddess of any major city, her cult presence being attested first in smaller towns and villages. It is possible that she was viewed originally more as a nurturing than a birth goddess. Another theory posits that, along with the goddess Nintur, she was the birth goddess of wild and domesticated animals. Her connection to the biological process of childbirth in worship is suspected to have developed later, as she began to by syncretized with other 'birth-goddesses', and took on her Bēlet-ilī name. In this birth aspect, she is called by the kings of Lagash as "the midwife who suckled them". From the third Early Dynastic Period and onward, the most common Ninhursag epithets emphasize her as the supreme "mother of the world". This term of mother, Julia Asher-Greve and Joan Westenholz argue, was analogous to the generic 'father' used for gods such as Anu and Enki, and therefore transcends the biological concept of motherhood. Later in the Neo-Sumerian Period she became more associated with the physical process of birth. (i.e. her offerings including umbilical cord cutters). In the Old Babylonian Period some posit a decline in her worship, as she loses her high status as part of the four supreme deities of the pantheon. However Westenholz posits that her cult continued to be relevant but shifted function, as she became Bēlet-ilī.
She had a documented role in Sumerian kingship ideology. The first known royal votive gift, recovered from Kiš, was donated by a king referring to himself as ‘beloved son of Ninḫursaĝa'. Votive objects dedicated to her Diĝirmaḫ name were recovered in Adab, dating to the Early Dynastic Period.
She could also be understood not simply as affiliated with mountains, but as a personification of mountain (or earth) as well. One text in Sumerian, the Disputation between Summer and Winter, describes the creation of the seasons as a result of the copulation of Ninhursag (the earth) and Enlil. Another temple hymn from Gudea praising Ningirsu (epithet of Ninurta) describes him as having been born by a mountain range. She had a connection to the wild animals, particularly deer, who dwell on or around the mountains. Stags appear in façade on the walls of her temples, as well as in works containing the lion headed eagle, a symbol of Ninurta. One composition, a dedication of Ninhursag's Kes temple, mentions deer, bison, and wild goats in connection to the building.
She and her other names could also appear in ritual incantations for a variety of functions, some of which include Damgalnunna to protect from evil demons, and Ninhursaga and Nintur in birth related incantation. As Ninmah she has appeared occasionally in medical texts, such as one from Sultantepe which describes a ritual and offerings to be performed for the goddess in order to cure bedwetting. It is suggested that her role in performing healing connects to that of her healing Enki in Enki and Ninhursag.
Association with other deities
Family
Ninhursag's parentage and ancestry is not described in any known texts. In the Hymn of Adad, the eponymous storm god is referred to as Bēlet-ilī's brother.
Consorts and children
Ninhursag's most well attested consort was Šulpae, who could be described as her "beloved spouse". They were attested as consorts in sources from Kesh, such as the Kesh Temple Hymn, and Nippur.
Deities who were regarded as the children of Ninhursag and Šulpae include Ashgi, Paniĝinĝarra, Lisin, Egime, and Lillu, who was possibly identical with Ashgi. Marcos Such-Gutiérrez suggests that Ashgi was initially Ninhursag's husband in Adab due to Šulpae being sparsely attested in sources from this city from the third millennium BCE, and was only viewed as her son in later periods. Paniĝinĝarra could appear alongside his mother in sources such as greeting formulas in letters. Although Ninhursag was generally identified as Lisin's mother, at least one text equated them with each other instead. According to the god list An = Anum, Lisin (who here had swapped genders) was a son of Belet-Ili. Egime resided at her mother's Emaḫ temple in Adab, and appeared alongside Ninhursag in the lament Lulil and his sister, in which the two mourned the death of Ashgi (referred to in the text as Lulil, meaning "man-spirit").
In the An = Anum god list, Ninhursag was assigned sixteen additional children besides Paniĝinĝarra, Lillu, Ashgi, and Lisin, named Atugula, Atutur, NIN.LA2, NIG-gumaḫa, Burukaš, Zarzaru, Zurmuzarmu, Nin-BUR.SAL, Šazumaḫ, Ušumšasu, Naĝaršaga, Anmea, Amaea, UR-guru, Urra, and Amaniranna. NIN.LA2 is generally accepted to be the same goddess as Egime, because NIN was glossed as e-gi, while the sign LA2 (𒇲) is believed to have been derived from ME (𒈨).
In Lagash, she was associated with Enlil as his wife, and the mother of Ningirsu (Assimilated with Ninurta.) She is Ninurta's mother as Bēlet-ilī/Mami in Anzû and other myths as well. Some Sumerian sources identify her as both Enlil's wife and sister, likely to rectify earlier traditions where she was Enlil's spouse, before later traditions had the goddess Ninlil as his wife instead. After this change Ninhursag was reassigned as Enlil's elder sister.