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Underworld deity with connections to agriculture, war and snakes; patron god of the cities of Enegi and Enunna.
Functions
The trident-brandishing deity standing on the back of a lion with a snake's tail on this Early Dynastic seal may be Ninazu. (British Museum ME 1933,0408.1). The British Museum. View the British Museum's catalogue information on this object. Ninazu was city god of Enegi in southern Sumer, and Enunna in the north. In the south he is clearly an underworld deity: he receives the epithet 'steward of the underworld'; in the Sumerian lamentation In the Desert in the Early Grass he is mourned together with other chthonic TT gods (Cohen 1988: II 668-703, as Umun-azu), and his festival in Ur was marked by offerings to deceased kings and priestesses (Cohen 1993: 149-50). At Enunna his warlike aspect is more prominent, which, coupled with the alternate genealogy ascribed to him here (see below) led van Dijk to suggest that there were two different Ninazus (van Dijk 1960: 77-8). However, Wiggermann reconstructs only one, chthonic deity, identifying underworld connections at Enunna also and pointing to the fact that in both genealogies Ninazu has the same consort and brother (Wiggermann 1989: 122; Wiggermann 1998-2001: 330). Like other dying and returning gods, Ninazu is linked to vegetation and agriculture; in How Grain Came to Sumer (ETCSL 1.7.6, 1) he and his brother bring barley and flax to humans, who 'used to eat grass with their mouths like sheep', while in Enlil and Ninlil (ETCSL 1.2.1, l. 116) he is called 'the lord who stretches the measuring line over the fields'. Another characteristic Ninazu shares with other gods with whom he is often grouped is an association with snakes. In Ur III and Old Babylonian incantations he is named 'king of the snakes' (see van Dijk 1969, esp. 542-3) and the logogram dMU ('divine snake') is given as a spelling of his name in the god list An = Anum (Litke 1998: 191, l. 240). Given this, it is likely that
both Tipak and Ningizida inherit their connection with the 'lion-dragon' or 'snake-dragon' (muuu) from Ninazu; the muuu is linked to his centre Enegi, and the dragon (uumgal) associated with him in a first millennium incantation may be the same creature (see further Black and Green 1998: 137; Wiggermann 1995: 457). Despite his name, Ninazu was not a major healing deity; except for third and second-millennium incantations against snake bite he appears rarely in the medical corpus.
Cult Places
Ninazu's temples at Enegi and Enunna were, respectively, -gd-da, 'Storehouse', and sikil.(la), 'Pure house' (George 1993, nos. 392, 987). He was particularly popular at Ur, where during the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods a major festival was held for him in the 6th month. He also received offerings at Laga, Umma, and Nippur.
Iconography
No certain representations of Ninazu are attested, although he has been identified with the god standing on the back of a lion with a snake's tail on a seal from the Early Dynastic period (Boehmer 1965, Tf. XXV fig. 283; see image), and another standing on a dragon from the Old Akkadian period (Boehmer 1965, Tf. XLVIII fig. 570; Collon 1982, no. 144), as well as with a scaled deity represented on a stone from third millennium Enunna (Wiggermann 1993-97: 457).