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Updated: May 2, 2025
The place is synonymous with inactivity and decay; and, though the goddess returns, the conclusion drawn is that the exception proves the inexorable rule. A goddess may escape, but mortals are doomed to everlasting sojourn, or rather imprisonment, in the realm presided over by Allatu and her consort Nergal. To the road from which there is no return, when once it has been trodden.
The metaphor of the war-god taking on the form of a lion confirms the identification of Dibbarra with Nergal, who is generally pictured as a lion. In the following lines the enemy who makes this attack on Babylon is introduced. He is designated as a 'governor, and Dibbarra is represented as giving him certain instructions to carry out.
He is a solar deity identified in the theological system of the Babylonians with Nergal, but originally distinct and in all probability one of the numerous local solar deities of Babylonia like Nin-girsu and Nin-gishzida, Ishum and others, whose rôles are absorbed by one or the other of the four great solar deities, Shamash, Marduk, Ninib, and Nergal.
Jensen, from other evidences, inclines to the opinion that the writing Ner-unu-gal is the result of a species of etymology, brought about by the prominence given to Nergal as the god of the region of the dead.
He was worshipped also at Tarbisa, near Nineveh, but in Tiggaba he was said to "live," and his shrine there was one of great celebrity. Hence "the men of Cuth," when transported to Samaria by the Assyrians, naturally enough "made Nergal their god," carrying his worship with them into their new country.
The lions which he had destroyed in his various journeys he estimates at 920. All these successes he ascribes to the powerful protection of Nin and Nergal. The royal historiographer proceeds, after this, to give an account of his domestic administration, of the buildings which he had erected, and the various improvements which he had introduced. Among the former he mentions temples to Ishtar.
As for Shukamuna, the fact that Agumkakrimi, who places his title, 'king of Cassite land, before that of Akkad and Babylon, opens his inscription with the declaration that he is the glorious offspring of Shukamuna, fixes the character of this god beyond all doubt; and Delitzsch has shown that this god was regarded by the Babylonian schoolmen as the equivalent of their own Nergal.
The hymns to Nergal may be taken as samples of the Babylonian dirges. The praise of Nergal and Allatu was combined with the lament for the sad fate of the dead. Gilgamesh weeping for his friend Eabani furnishes an illustration. Gilgamesh is described as stretched out on the ground.
Another god held in peculiar honor by the Babylonians was Nergal. Worshipped at Cutha as the tutelary divinity of the town, he was also held in repute by the people generally. No name is more common on the cylinder seals. Altogether, there was a strong local element in the religion of the Babylonians.
This goddess is none other than Allatu. She is described as Eresh-Kigal, i.e., queen of Kigal or of the nether world. The scene reminds us of the contest between the gods and Tiâmat, as embodied in the creation epic. The gods choose Nergal as their leader.
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