Mesopotamian goddess
This article is about the wife of the god Nergal. For the divine midwife, see
Mami (goddess)
.
Mamitu
(
Mammitum
,
Mammitu
,
Mammi
) was a
Mesopotamian goddess
associated with the
underworld
. She was regarded as the wife of
Nergal
, or sometimes of other gods regarded as analogous to him, such as
Erra
. Her importance in Mesopotamian religion was minor, and she was most likely chiefly worshiped in Kutha, though attestations are available from other cities too. It is possible that she was the forerunner of
Mandean
Amamit
.
Name and character
[
edit
]
Multiple variants of the
theonym
Mamitu are attested in
cuneiform
texts, including
(
d
)
ma-ma
,
d
ma-mi
and
d
ma-mi-tum
.
As the short form of her name is
homophonous
with
Mami
, a goddess of birth or "divine
midwife
",
[a]
some researchers treat them as one deity.
However, while in
theophoric names
with elements such as
ma-ma
the identification of the deity invoked is not always possible, they are kept apart in ancient Mesopotamian
god lists
, such as the
Weidner god list
, the
Nippur
god list and both
An = Anum
and its
Old Babylonian
forerunner.
Longer forms of the name, such as Mamm?tu, with the exception of a single passage from the
Epic of Gilgamesh
were never used to refer to Mami or any analogous deity.
The goddess Mamm?tu who is responsible for the declaration of destiny alongside "
Anunnaku
, the great gods" in this composition (tablet X, lines 319?322) is commonly identified as Mami rather than Mammitum by modern translators.
The opposite approach was common in early editions, but Rim Nurullin points out that the parallel passage in
Atrahasis
confirms that this interpretation is incorrect.
It has been suggested that like in the case of Mami, Mamitu's name goes back to a
lallwort
for mother, though it is also possible that might instead derive from the terms "oath" or "frost" (
Akkadian
mammu
; also "ice").
If the last of these possibilities is correct, its meaning might be "wintry".
Mamitu was associated with the
underworld
.
Associations with other deities
[
edit
]
As already attested in
Old Babylonian
sources, Mammitum's spouse was
Nergal
.
Wilfred G. Lambert
noted that pairing them with each other was standard in this period, but from the
Kassite period
onward Mamitu came to be replaced by
La?
.
The god list
An = Anum
mentions both of them and equates them with each other.
However, in
Nippur
god list La? occurs separately from Nergal,
while Mamitum is listed alongside him.
It is possible that they coexisted in
Kutha
in the second millennium BCE.
While a further goddess,
Ereshkigal
, could also be regarded as the wife of Nergal,
there is no evidence that she was ever equated with Mamitu.
Mamitu could also be regarded as the wife of
Erra
,
who came to be identified with Nergal from the Old Babylonian period onward.
In the
Epic of Erra
, she appears as the wife of the eponymous god,
though in this text he is referred both as Erra and Nergal at various points.
An = Anum
also refers to her as the wife of
Meslamtaea
, though in this context he is directly identified with Nergal.
Douglas Frayne has proposed that in
Tell al-Wilayah
in the
Ur III period
Mamitu was regarded as the spouse of the local god A?ki, who he interprets as an early form of ?u?kia (later attested as a byname of Nergal;
An = Anum
, tablet VI line 5), as opposed to an alternate writing of
Ashgi
as sometimes suggested.
Cinzia Pappi argues that the name of the goddess Ta?ki(m)-Mamma is a theophoric name, possibly one originally belonging to a ruler, and that based on apparent connection to the underworld and groundwater she displays it can be presumed that it invokes Mamitu, rather than Mami.
This deity is known from texts from
Mari
, where she was already worshiped in the
?akkanakku
period.
She also received offerings during the reign of
Zimri-Lim
, and textual sources indicate a
temple
dedicated to her existed in the city.
Worship
[
edit
]
The earliest possible attestations of Mamitu occur in
theophoric names
from the
Early Dynastic
and
Old Akkadian
periods with elements such as
ma-ma
, which also occur in both
Akkadian
and
Amorite
onomasticon in later periods, though the identification of the deity invoked in them with certainty is impossible.
According to Marcos Such-Gutierrez, it can be presumed that Mamitu appears in two names from
Adab
from between the Old Akkadian and
Ur III
periods, as the theophoric element is spelled as ma-mi-tum in this case.
According to Douglas Frayne, names invoking her occur commonly in texts from
Tell al-Wilayah
from the Ur III period.
Cinzia Pappi argues that she appears in theophoric names from
Old Babylonian
Mari
as well.
However, according to Ichiro Nakata
d
ma-ma
and
d
ma-am-ma
most likely represent the divine midwife
Mami
in this text corpus.
Examples of Akkadian theophoric names invoking Mammitum are also known from
Susa
from the same period.
However, Christa Muller-Kessler and Karlheinz Kessler state that ultimately she was entirely unknown outside of Mesopotamia.
Mamitu's importance in
Mesopotamian religion
was minor.
In the Old Babylonian period she received offerings in the
Ekur
temple complex in
Nippur
alongside
Nergal
.
However, most likely her significance was limited to
Kutha
and its immediate surroundings.
Frans Wiggermann argues that she was initially introduced to the local pantheon alongside
Erra
.
She continued to be worshiped there until the first millennium BCE.
A hymn to
Nanaya
most likely composed no later than 744-734 BCE which enumerates goddesses of various cities lists Mamitu as the deity Kutha.
The last available attestation of her from this city are theophoric names in a
Hellenistic
text dated to the year 226 BCE, though the evaluation of the scope of her cult is difficult as few cuneiform texts from late periods have been recovered from this site.
She was also worshiped in
Babylon
.
In a new year ritual from this city which according to
Wilfred G. Lambert
predates the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar I
and the rise of
Marduk
to the position of the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon which enumerates deities arriving in the
akitu
building, Mamitu is listed as one of the deities from Kutha alongside Nergal and
La?
, next to Marduk,
Zarpanitu
and members of the pantheons of
Kish
(
Zababa
and
Bau
) and
Borsippa
(
Nabu
,
Nanaya
and
Sut?tu
).
She was also worshiped in Babylon in later periods, as evidenced by attestations of theophoric names invoking her in two texts dated to the 23rd year of the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar II
(Mammitu-silim) and the sixth year of the reign of
Cyrus
(Mammitu-silat), respectively.
Later relevance
[
edit
]
It is possible that due to the
cult
of Mamitu retaining a degree of importance in both Babylon and Kutha in late periods, she came to be incorporated into
Mandaean
tradition.
[b]
Christa Muller-Kessler and Karlheinz Kessler propose that Mamitu corresponds to
Amamit
(
?m?myt
, less commonly
m?myt
), who is attested as a
demon
in the
fifth book of the Ginz? Yamina
.
Amamit is described as a daughter of
Qin
and spouse of
Zartai-Zartanai
, and her name can also function as an epithet of
Libat
, the planet
Venus
.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Another being from Mesopotamian beliefs with a homophonous name was
m?m?tu
, a type of underworld demon with a goat's head and human hands and feet, known from the late text
Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Prince
and absent from other sources.
Unlike deities, who were generally fully
anthropomorphic
in Mesopotamian beliefs, demonic beings were often hybrids.
- ^
It has been noted that early
Mandaic
sources show influence from the traditions of the area including these two cities and
Borsippa
in particular, while figures and traditions associated with other ancient Mesopotamian cities, such as
Kish
,
Nippur
or
Uruk
, find no parallels in them.
References
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- 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)
. Academic Press Fribourg.
ISBN
978-3-7278-1738-0
.
- Frayne, Douglas (1997).
Ur III Period (2112-2004 BC)
. RIM. The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. University of Toronto Press.
doi
:
10.3138/9781442657069
.
ISBN
978-1-4426-5706-9
.
- George, Andrew R. (2013).
"The Poem of Erra and Ishum: A Babylonian Poet's View of War"
(PDF)
.
Warfare and Poetry in the Middle East
. I.B.Tauris.
doi
:
10.5040/9780755607969.ch-002
.
ISBN
978-1-78076-362-0
.
- Krebernik, Manfred (1987),
"Mamma, Mammi, Mamm?tum"
,
Reallexikon der Assyriologie
, retrieved
2022-02-06
- Lambert, Wilfred G. (1983),
"La?"
,
Reallexikon der Assyriologie
, retrieved
2022-02-06
*
Lambert, Wilfred G. (2013).
Babylonian creation myths
. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
ISBN
978-1-57506-861-9
.
OCLC
861537250
.
- Muller-Kessler, Christa; Kessler, Karlheinz (1999).
"Spatbabylonische Gottheiten in spatantiken mandaischen Texten"
.
Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archaologie
.
89
(1). Walter de Gruyter GmbH.
doi
:
10.1515/zava.1999.89.1.65
.
ISSN
0084-5299
.
S2CID
161458630
.
- Nakata, Ichiro (1995).
"A Study of Women's Theophoric Personal Names in the Old Babylonian Texts from Mari"
.
Orient
. 30?31. The Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan: 234?253.
doi
:
10.5356/orient1960.30and31.234
.
ISSN
1884-1392
.
- Nurullin, Rim (2020). "On Birth, Death and Gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh: Two Notes on the Standard Babylonian Version".
The Third Millennium
. Brill. pp. 546?568.
doi
:
10.1163/9789004418080_026
.
ISBN
978-90-04-41808-0
.
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214484448
.
- Pappi, Cinzia (2013),
"Ta?ki(m)-Mam(m)a"
,
Reallexikon der Assyriologie
, retrieved
2023-07-06
- Peterson, Jeremiah (2009).
God lists from Old Babylonian Nippur in the University Museum, Philadelphia
. Munster: Ugarit Verlag.
ISBN
978-3-86835-019-7
.
OCLC
460044951
.
- Such-Gutierrez, Marcos (2005).
"Untersuchungen zum Pantheon von Adab im 3. Jt"
.
Archiv fur Orientforschung
(in German).
51
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ISSN
0066-6440
.
JSTOR
41670228
. Retrieved
2023-07-06
.
- Wiggermann, Frans A. M. (1998),
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,
Reallexikon der Assyriologie
, retrieved
2022-02-05
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.
Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni
.
77
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- Zadok, Ran (2018). "The Peoples of Elam".
The Elamite world
. Abingdon, Oxon.
ISBN
978-1-315-65803-2
.
OCLC
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.
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