The Epic of Gilgamesh - Anonymous [52]
NEDU: See Neti.
NERGAL: Underworld god, sometimes the husband of Breshkigal, he is the subject of an Akkadian poem which describes his translation from heaven to the underworld; plague-god.
NETI: The Sumerian form of Nedu, the chief gate-keeper in the underworld.
NINDUKUGGA: With Endukugga, parental gods living in the underworld.
NINGAL: Wife of the Moon God and mother of the Sun.
NINGIRSU: An earlier form of Ninurta; god of irrigation and fertility, he had a field near Lagash where all sorts of plants flourished; he was the child of a she-goat.
NINGIZZIDA: ZIDA: Also Gizzida; a fertility god, addressed as ‘Lord of the Tree of Life’; sometimes he is a serpent with human head, but later he was a god of healing and magic; the companion of Tammuz, with whom he stood at the gate of heaven.
NINHURSAG: Sumerian mother-goddess; one of the four principal Sumerian gods with An, Enlil, and Enki; sometimes the wife of Enki, she created all vegetation. The name means ‘the Mother’; she is also called ‘Nintu’, lady of birth, and Ki, the earth.
NINKI: The ‘mother’ of Enlil, probably a form of Ninhursag.
NINLIL: Goddess of heaven, earth, and air and in one aspect of the underworld; wife of Enlil and mother of the Moon; worshipped with Enlil in Nippur.
NINSUN: The mother of Gilgamesh, a minor goddess whose house was in Uruk; she was noted for wisdom, and was the wife of Lugulbanda.
NINURTA: The later form of Ningirsu; a warrior and god of war, a herald, the south wind, and god of wells and irrigation. According to one poem he once dammed up the bitter waters of the underworld and conquered various monsters.
NISABA: Goddess of grain.
NISIR: Probably means ‘Mountain of Salvation’; sometimes identified with the Pir Oman Gudrun range south of the lower Zab, or with the biblical Ararat north of Lake Van.
PUZUR-AMURRI: The steersman of Utnapishtim during the flood.
SAMUQAN: God of cattle.
SEVEN SAGES: Wise men who brought civilization to the seven oldest cities of Mesopotamia.
SHAMASH: Sumerian Utu; the sun; for the Sumerians he was principally the judge and law-giver with some fertility attributes. For the Semites he was also a victorious warrior, the god of wisdom, the son of Sin, and ‘greater than his father’. He was the husband and brother of Ishtar. He is represented with the saw with which he cuts decisions. In the poems ‘Shamash’ may mean the god, or simply the sun. See p. 24.
SHULLAT: A divine herald of storm and of bad weather.
SHULPAE: A god who presided over feasts and feasting.
SHURRUPAK: Modem Fara, eighteen miles north-west of Uruk; one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia, and one of the five named by the Sumerians as having existed before the flood. The home of the hero of the flood story.
SIDURI: The divine wine-maker and brewer; she lives on the shore of the sea (perhaps the Mediterranean), in the garden of the sun. Her name in the Hurrian language means ‘young woman’ and she may be a form of Ishtar. See p. 38.
SILILI: The mother of the stallion; a divine mare?
SIN: Sumerian Nanna, the moon. The chief Sumerian astral deity, the father of Utu-Shamash, the sun, and of Ishtar. His parents were Enlil and Ninlil. His chief temple was in Ur.
TAMMUZ: Sumerian Dumuzi; the dying god of vegetation, bewailed by Ishtar, the subject of laments and litanies. In an Akkadian poem Ishtar descends to the underworld in search of her young husband Tammuz; but in the Sumerian poem on which this is based it is Inanna herself who is responsible for sending Dumuzi to the underworld because of his pride and as a hostage for her own safe return.
UBARA-TUTU: A king of Shurrupak and father of Utnapishtim. The only king of Kish named in the prediluvian King-List, apart from Utnapishtim.
URSHANABI: Old Babylonian Sursunabu; the boatman of Utnapishtim who ferries daily across the waters of death which divide the garden of the sun from the paradise where Utnapishtim lives for ever (the Sumerian Dilmun). By accepting Gilgamesh as a passenger he forfeits this right, and accompanies Gilgamesh back to Uruk instead.
URUK: