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Updated: June 2, 2025
Nun-gal appears, therefore, to be the ideograph proper to a deity that symbolized, like Nergal, Ninib, and Â, some phase of the sun. The disappearance of the god would thus be naturally accounted for, in view of the tendency that we have found characteristic of the religion, whereby powerful gods absorb the functions of weaker ones whose attributes resemble their own.
A dear relative has departed this life, and a survivor, a brother, apparently, is anxious to know whether the dead will ever come back again. The situation reminds one of Gilgamesh seeking out Eabani, with this difference: that, whereas Gilgamesh, aided by Nergal, is accorded a sight of his friend, the ordinary mourner must content himself with the answer given to him.
The manner in which Agumkakrimi introduces Anu is no less characteristic for the age of Hammurabi and his successors. At the beginning of his long inscription, he enumerates the chief gods under whose protection he places himself. As a Cassitic ruler, he assigns the first place to the chief Cassite deity, Shukamuna, a god of war whom the Babylonian scholars identified with their own Nergal.
As we proceed down the centuries, the formal lists at the beginning of inscriptions have a tendency to grow larger. Ashurnasirbal's pantheon consists of Bel and Nin-ib, Anu and Dagan, Sin, Anu, Ramman, and, of course, Ashur, though on special occasions, as when speaking of his achievements in the chase, he contents himself with a mention of Nin-ib and Nergal.
Evidently Dibbarra here is a mere personification of the dreadful demon of want that so often follows in the wake of a military destruction. Still there can be no doubt that at one time he was regarded as a real deity, and not merely a spirit or demon. Dibbarra is identified in the theological system of Babylonia with Nergal. The two former he calls the judges of mankind.
Nin and Nergal the gods of war and hunting, the occupations in which the Assyrian monarchs passed their lives were tutelary divinities of the race, the life, and the homes of the kings, who associate the two equally in their inscriptions and their sculptures.
It is the story of the queen of Hades, who had been asked by the gods to a feast they had made in the heavens. Unable or unwilling to ascend to it, the goddess sent her servant the plague-demon, but with the result that Nergal was commissioned to descend to Hades and destroy its mistress.
They either proceeded to districts where these animals were to be found, or they had large parks laid out near their residences, which were then stocked with material for the chase. Ashurnasirbal does not shun a long journey to distant mountainous regions to seek for sport, and it is Nin-ib whom he invokes, together with Nergal.
We know from the narrative of Istar that they looked upon it as an immense building, situated in the centre of the earth and bounded on every side by the great river whose waters bathe the foundations of the world. The government of the country is in the hands of Nergal, the god of war, and his spouse Allat, the sister of Astarte. The house is surrounded by seven strong walls.
Corresponding to this, the ruler of the lower world has a scribe who writes down on the tablets of wisdom the decrees of the goddess, and, at a later stage, the decrees of Nergal as well.
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