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Lammašaga
Major cult centerGirsu, Lagash

Lammašaga was a Mesopotamian goddess who functioned as the sukkal (divine attendant) of Bau. She belonged to a class of protective deities known as Lamma. She was originally worshiped in Lagash and Girsu, though attestations are also available from other cities. A hymn focused on her was copied in scribal schools in the Old Babylonian period.

Name and character

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Figure of a Lamma deity from the Isin-Larsa period. Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago.

The name Lammašaga can be translated as "the good protective spirit"[1] or "the good Lamma," with the element Lamma referring to a type of female protective deity.[2] The name Lamma itself sometimes could be used to refer to the specific goddess too.[3] Irene Sibbing-Plantholt notes that the addition of the element šaga to a theonym also finds a parallel in Memešaga, a variant form of the name of the goddess Meme.[4]

Lammašaga functioned as the divine attendant (sukkal) of Bau.[5][6][7] She was believed to intercede between her and worshipers.[8] Her role might be reflected by the personal name Lamma-sukkal.[5] The association between her and Bau is well attested, and dates to the early periods of recorded Mesopotamian history.[9] Other deities could also be believed to possess Lamma of their own, for example a hymn to Nanshe mentions that hers was named dDUMU.TUR-šugi.[10] The name Lammašaga was also applied to the personal Lamma of the deified king Lugalbanda, who according to Åke W. Sjöberg should be considered distinct from the goddess under discussion.[3] Bau's Lamma could also be referred to as the "Lamma of the Tarsirsir," a temple of the former deity located in Girsu, as attested for example in an inscription of a bowl from the reign of king Ur-Bau.[9] A reference to the "Lamma of the Tarsirsir" also occurs in an inscription of Nammahani.[11] Attempts were made to prove that the theonym Lammašaga might have referred to a manifestation of Bau rather than an independent deity, though Christopher Metcalf in a recent publication notes that while the evidence "may sometimes seem ambiguous, and practices may have varied in different periods," there is nonetheless sufficient proof in the belief in Lammašaga as a distinct deity.[9]

An astronomical text states that mulLam-mu,[12] the star Lamma,[13] corresponded to the sukkal of Bau, to be identified with Lammašaga.[5] The same astral body was associated with Urmašum, the sukkal of Gula, as well.[12] The star is most likely to be identified as Vega.[13]

Worship

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The oldest attestations of Lammašaga come from Early Dynastic texts from Lagash (Al-Hiba) and Girsu (Tello).[14] Uru'inimgina built a temple dedicated to her which also housed shrines for the deities Zazaru, Nipae and Urnuntaea.[15][16] She is also mentioned in an early riddle, which states that she was the city goddess of a place whose name is not preserved, in which a canal named Lamma-igi-bar was located.[14] This text, dated to the twenty fourth century BCE, is the oldest known reference to the concept of Lamma in the entire known corpus of cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia, and it might indicate that it originated in the territory of Lagash, and only spread from there to other regions.[2]

Ur-Ningirsu I's wife dedicated a human-headed bull figure to the "Lamma-goddess of Bau" in the Ebabbar temple in Larsa.[9] Ur-Ningirsu I himself built a temple dedicated to Lammašaga in Girsu, though his inscriptions state that the deity meant was Ninsun.[15] However, there is no indication that Lammašaga, treated as an independent deity, was the same goddess as Ninsun.[3] According to Claus Wilcke, when designating Ninsun, Lammašaga functioned only as an epithet.[17]

An inscription of Samsu-iluna mentions that he returned Lammašaga to the temple Ebabbar in Sippar, dedicated to Shamash and Aya.[18] A reference to Lammašaga as a goddess belonging to the pantheon of Nippur is known too, and in one document she occurs between the local deities Erragal and Ninimma.[3]

Literature

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The hymn Bau A, despite its title used in modern literature, is focused on Lammašaga,[8] and might have originated in Girsu.[19] Despite the decline of Lagash as a state, it was a part of the scribal school curriculum in the Old Babylonian period,[20] and it seemingly had a wide circulation.[19] It is considered difficult to translate[21] due to the presence of many terms otherwise entirely absent from similar compositions written in Sumerian, though common in lexical lists.[8] According to Christopher Metcalf, the hymn is a description of a statue,[8] and that it might have been meant for a ceremony during which such a work of art was induced into a temple.[22] This conclusion has also been tentatively accepted by Jeremiah Peterson, though he notes that a degree of caution is necessary, as there is an overlap between terms used to describe living beings and statues in Mesopotamian literature.[21] The text refers to Lammašaga as the "sun goddess of the land," though this epithet does not indicate that her character was solar, but rather that she was understood as benign and that she held a special status in the eyes of her worshipers.[23] It also states that she was responsible for bringing the "tablet of life" from heaven to earth.[8] This artifact, distinct from the tablet of destiny though according to Janice Barrabee directly related to it, is elsewhere associated with other deities, including Ninimma, Nungal, Ḫaya and Nisaba, and it was believed that gods used it to write down the righteous deeds of humans.[24] After detailing Lammašaga's role in the court of Bau, the composition moves on to describing her appearance in three separate sections, focused respectively on her head, nape, forehead, lips, ears, and jaws; skin, neck, sides, limbs, and fingers; navel, hips, and pudenda.[8] Peterson notes that at least some passages can be classified as erotic poetry.[21] While a king is mentioned as well, and presumably he is a supplicant on whose behalf Lammašaga intercedes with Bau, he is not identified by name in the surviving fragments,[25] which makes it impossible to precisely date its composition.[19]

A possible reference to Lammašaga can also be found in the Lament for Ur,[26] which states that the "Lamma of the Etarsirsir" has abandoned it.[27] Other references to Lamma deities abandoning their posts are known, for example according to the Lament for Uruk, "[the city’s] lama ran away; its lama (said) ‘hide in the steppe!’; [it] took unfamiliar paths."[28]

References

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  1. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 53.
  2. ^ a b Konstantopoulos 2017, p. 27.
  3. ^ a b c d Sjöberg 1974, p. 159.
  4. ^ Sibbing-Plantholt 2022, p. 154.
  5. ^ a b c Foxvog, Heimpel & Kilmer 1983, p. 450.
  6. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, pp. 53–54.
  7. ^ Peterson 2020, p. 128.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Metcalf 2019, p. 18.
  9. ^ a b c d Metcalf 2019, p. 19.
  10. ^ Foxvog, Heimpel & Kilmer 1983, pp. 450–451.
  11. ^ Sjöberg 1974, p. 160.
  12. ^ a b Krebernik 2014, p. 421.
  13. ^ a b Foxvog, Heimpel & Kilmer 1983, p. 453.
  14. ^ a b Sjöberg 1974, p. 158.
  15. ^ a b George 1993, p. 166.
  16. ^ Selz 1995, p. 159.
  17. ^ Wilcke 1998, p. 502.
  18. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 256.
  19. ^ a b c Metcalf 2019, p. 21.
  20. ^ Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013, p. 77.
  21. ^ a b c Peterson 2020, p. 126.
  22. ^ Metcalf 2019, pp. 20–21.
  23. ^ Metcalf 2019, p. 24.
  24. ^ Barrabee 2013, p. 401.
  25. ^ Metcalf 2019, p. 20.
  26. ^ Samet 2014, p. 81.
  27. ^ Samet 2014, p. 55.
  28. ^ Konstantopoulos 2017, p. 28.

Bibliography

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  • Asher-Greve, Julia M.; Westenholz, Joan G. (2013). Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources (PDF). ISBN 978-3-7278-1738-0.
  • Barrabee, Janice (2013), "Tafel des Lebens A. In Mesopotamien · Tablet of life A. In Mesopotamia", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-09-18
  • Foxvog, Daniel A.; Heimpel, Wolfgang; Kilmer, Anne D. (1983), "Lamma/Lamassu A. I. Mesopotamien. Philologisch · Lamma/Lamassu A. I. Mesopotamia. Philological", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-09-18
  • George, Andrew R. (1993). House most high: the temples of ancient Mesopotamia. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 0-931464-80-3. OCLC 27813103.
  • Konstantopoulos, Gina (2017). "Shifting Alignments: The Dichotomy of Benevolent and Malevolent Demons in Mesopotamia". Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004338548_003.
  • Krebernik, Manfred (2014), "Urmaš(um)", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-09-18
  • Metcalf, Christopher (2019). Sumerian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection. Penn State University Press. doi:10.1515/9781646020119. ISBN 978-1-64602-011-9.
  • Peterson, Jeremiah (2020). "Christopher Metcalf: Sumerian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Volume 1: Literary Sources on Old Babylonian Religion. (Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology 38) (review)". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. 111 (1). Walter de Gruyter GmbH. doi:10.1515/za-2020-0025. ISSN 1613-1150.
  • Samet, Nili (2014). The lamentation over the destruction of Ur. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-292-1. OCLC 884593981.
  • Selz, Gebhard (1995). Untersuchungen zur Götterwelt des altsumerischen Stadtstaates von Lagaš (in German). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum. ISBN 978-0-924171-00-0. OCLC 33334960.
  • Sibbing-Plantholt, Irene (2022). The Image of Mesopotamian Divine Healers. Healing Goddesses and the Legitimization of Professional Asûs in the Mesopotamian Medical Marketplace. Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-51241-2. OCLC 1312171937.
  • Sjöberg, Åke W. (1974). "A Hymn to dLAMA-SA6-GA". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 26 (3). American Schools of Oriental Research: 158–177. ISSN 0022-0256. JSTOR 1359271. Retrieved 2022-09-18.
  • Wilcke, Claus (1998), "Ninsun", Reallexikon der Assyriologie (in German), retrieved 2022-09-18
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