United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Down to the latest period of Assyro-Babylonian history, Nergal remains identified with Kutu, being known at all times as the god of Kutu. His worship, therefore, was not confined to those who happened to reside at Cuthah; and closely as he is identified with the place, the character of the god is a general and not a special one.
But, in addition, our investigations have shown that we are justified in adding the following as forming part of the Babylonian pantheon during this entire period: Sarpanitum, Belit, Tashmitum, Sin, Ninib, Ishtar, Nergal, Nin-khar-sag, and the two other members of the triad, Anu and Ea, with their consorts, Anatum and Damkina.
I think, now that he has a base, Dunnan is getting a fleet together." "He'll know we're after him by now," Vann Larch said. "And he knows where we are, and that puts him one up on us." So Andray Dunnan was haunting him again. Tiny bits of information came in Dunnan's ship had been on Hoth, on Nergal, selling loot. Now he sold for gold or platinum, and bought little, usually arms and ammunition.
There is more ground for recognizing real departmental gods in Babylonia and Assyria, though even there the evidence is not quite satisfactory. The great gods, Ea, Bel, Sin, Shamash, Marduk, Ishtar, Ashur, preside over all human interests. Nabu stands for agriculture as well as for wisdom, and Ea for wisdom as well as for the great deep. Nergal is not the only god of war.
The day of death is a day of sorrow, 'the day without mercy. The word for corpse conveys the idea that things have 'come to an end. Whenever death is referred to in the literature, it is described as an unmitigated evil. A dirge introduced into an impressive hymn to Nergal laments the fate of him who
He declares that on one occasion he killed 10 elephants and 920 lions in various parts of northwestern Mesopotamia; and he ascribes his success to Nin-ib, who loves him, and who, again, in association with Nergal, and Ashur, has placed in the king's hands the mighty weapons and the glorious bow.
Like the latter he is the perfect king of battle, who marches before the monarch together with Ashur, and he is pictured as carrying the mighty weapons which Ashur has presented to the king. In an inscription of Shalmaneser II. there is an interesting reference to the city sacred to Nergal Cuthah.
A considerable number of instances occur in which a human figure, with the head of a hawk or eagle, threatens a winged human-headed lion the emblem of Nergal with a strap or mace. If we pass from the objects to the mode of worship in Assyria, we must notice at the outset the strongly idolatrous character of the religion.
The winged bulls placed at the entrance of palaces embody the same idea, and in addition to the explanation for these fantastic figures above suggested, it is noteworthy that the two types of animals chosen for this symbolical decoration of edifices, the bull and the lion, again illustrate the same two means at the disposal of the gods for the punishment of man, the bull representing the storms, and the lion being the symbol of Nergal, who is the god of pestilence, as well as of war and of violent destruction in general.
His name points to his being 'the god of healing. A text states that Allatu is his consort. Such a relationship to the chief goddess of the nether world may be regarded as a survival of the period when Nergal had not yet been assigned to this place.
Word Of The Day