Английская Википедия:Antu (goddess)

Материал из Онлайн справочника
Перейти к навигацииПерейти к поиску

Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Other uses Шаблон:Infobox deity Antu (Шаблон:Cuneiform) or AntumШаблон:Sfn was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the feminine counterpart and spouse of the sky god, Anu. She was sometimes identified with the earth rather than the sky, though such references are not common. While already attested in the third millennium BCE, she was only a minor goddess, and only came to be worshiped commonly in Uruk in the Achaemenid and Seleucid periods due to religious reforms which elevated her and Anu to the position of tutelary deities of the city. At some point Antu was also incorporated into Hurrian religion, in which she was understood as a primeval deity. In the so-called "Standard Babylonian" edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh Antu is addressed as the mother of Ishtar, but this tradition was not commonly adhered to.

Name and character

Antu's name is etymologically an Akkadian feminine derivative of the theonym Anu.Шаблон:Sfn The cuneiform sign representing the latter name, AN, in addition to designating the sky god could also function as an ordinary noun, read as either /an/, "heaven", or /dingir/, "deity".Шаблон:Sfn Antu accordingly functioned as the feminine counterpart of Anu.Шаблон:Sfn She was also regarded as his spouse.Шаблон:Sfn Cases of Anu and Antu being equated with each other are attested too.Шаблон:Sfn Paul-Alain Beaulieu interprets this as an indication the cuneiform sign AN could be used as a logogram (sumerogram) to represent the name of Antu.Шаблон:Sfn However, as noted by Шаблон:Ill it is also possible that the sky was at some point envisioned as an androgynous being in Mesopotamian tradition.Шаблон:Sfn

A small number of sources, including the god list An = Anum, treat Antu as deified earth (ki/erṣetum).Шаблон:Sfn An Old Babylonian lexical list, Diri, equates her with Urash,Шаблон:Sfn an earth goddess also associated with Anu.Шаблон:Sfn It has also been suggested that the phrase AN URAŠ occurring on seals from the Kassite period, agreed to represent a compound of two theonyms, might also have been understood as "Anu-Antu".Шаблон:Sfn Antu might have also played the role of earth in formulaic references to Anu, representing the sky, inseminating the ground with his rains.Шаблон:Sfn Thorkild Jacobsen in the 1970s asserted that as an extension of this belief rain was believed to come out of Antu’s breasts, which according to his assumption were envisioned as clouds.Шаблон:Sfn This conclusion is also supported by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat.Шаблон:Sfn

In the Seleucid period, Antu’s name and her epithets became a subject of both theological and philological speculation.Шаблон:Sfn A text focused on this topic is preserved on the tablet MLC 1890 (presently in the Morgan Library Collection, part of the Yale Babylonian Collection), dated to the reign of Seleucus III Ceraunus (most likely 225 BCE) and according to its colophon copied by a scribe named Illut-Anu.Шаблон:Sfn As already attested in earlier god lists, she could be equated with various primordial deities, same as Anu.Шаблон:Sfn For example, an equation between Antu and Anu and, respectively, Kishar and Anshar is preserved in An = Anum.Шаблон:Sfn The link between her and Kishar recurs in a later composition from Uruk.Шаблон:Sfn An Assyrian expository text (KAR 307), presumably dependent on Babylonian Enūma Eliš, in a paragraph discussing Tiamat states that she can be understood as "Antum who makes offerings for the dead to Anu" alongside other esoteric speculations about her identity.Шаблон:Sfn Wilfred G. Lambert suggested that this identification might be derived from the frequent references to Anu being a father of various demons, which would by extension make Antu their mother and thus a suitable figure to identify with Tiamat.Шаблон:Sfn Examples of demons directly identified as children of Anu include Asakku (in Lugal-e), Utukku (in Udug-Hul) and Sebitti (in the Epic of Erra).Шаблон:Sfn Additionally, Lamashtu was explicitly identified as a daughter of both Antu and Anu.Шаблон:Sfn

Antu's association with the underworld attested in KAR 307 is also mentioned in a number of texts compiled by Seleucid kalû clergy, but it remains unknown if this belief was shared by other social groups.Шаблон:Sfn In a single case, "great Antu" is attested as a title of Ereshkigal in a funerary ritual prescribing the offering of beer and wine to her, Gilgamesh and a group of figures described as sailors, presumably the crew of a ferry carrying the dead.Шаблон:Sfn

Sources from the Seleucid period indicate that in Mesopotamian astronomy Antu and Anu were identified with a pair of circumpolar stars referred to as "Great Anu and Antu of Heaven".Шаблон:Sfn However, attestations of the latter astral body are limited to texts from Uruk, and no sources from earlier periods or other cities ever linked any stars to Antu.Шаблон:Sfn According to Erica Reiner, it can be assumed that the "Great Antu" was one of the stars of the constellation Ursa Major.Шаблон:Sfn

Worship

Файл:Anubanini Rock Relief 1.jpg
The Anubanini rock relief. Inscription mentioning Antu is visible in the bottom right corner.

Antu is already attested in the third millennium BCE, with the oldest possible reference tentatively identified in an Early Dynastic god list from Abu Salabikh.Шаблон:Sfn However, prior to the fifth century BCE she was not a commonly worshiped deity, and her position in the Mesopotamian pantheon has been described as “unimportant and elusive” by Paul-Alain Beaulieu.Шаблон:Sfn She is attested next to Anu among the deities mentioned in the inscription of Anubanini on the so-called Anubanini rock relief.Шаблон:Sfn This king's reign has been dated to the early Isin-Larsa period, and his kingdom, Lullubum, was centered in the area in the proximity of modern Sulaymaniyah.Шаблон:Sfn References to Antu also occur in letters from the Old Babylonian period, but they are not common.Шаблон:Sfn She also appears alongside Anu in the Agum-Kakrime inscription.Шаблон:Sfn In incantations, she is attested in formulas against illness and demons,Шаблон:Sfn for example Lamashtu.Шаблон:Sfn In Maqlû, she is invoked against witches alongside Anu and Belet-Seri.Шаблон:Sfn

In later periods, Antu was worshiped in Uruk.Шаблон:Sfn However, no references to her are present in any texts from this city predating the first millennium BCE, and in the Neo-Babylonian period she is only mentioned in a single letter.Шаблон:Sfn It mentions that a garment (kusītu) was borrowed for an occasion connected to her from the Eanna temple.Шаблон:Sfn Additionally, it describes offerings to her, Bēl-āliya and Mār-bīti.Шаблон:Sfn Paul-Alaian Beaulieu points out that the letter was sent from a temple partially subordinate to Eanna, which alongside the fact that its sender bore the name invoking Larsa's tutelary god Shamash, Šamaš-aḫ-iddin, lead him to suggest it might deal with worship of Antu in this city rather than Uruk.Шаблон:Sfn A second possibility is that Kullab is meant, as while it is not known if Larsa had its own Bēl-āliya, a “divine mayor”, this title is well attested for Pisangunug in the case of the other settlement.Шаблон:Sfn

A change in Antu's status in Uruk occurred over the course of the Achaemenid and Seleucid periods, when she was elevated to the position of one of the lead deities of the city alongside Anu.Шаблон:Sfn She came to be worshiped alongside him in a newly built temple, Bīt Rēš.Шаблон:Sfn Its ceremonial name can be translated as "foremost temple".Шаблон:Sfn Antu's cella in it was known as Egašananna, "house of the lady of heaven".Шаблон:Sfn One of its chambers was also designated as her bedroom, and was referred to with the ceremonial name Enir, possibly to be understood as Eanir (Akkadian bīt tānēḫi), "house of weariness".Шаблон:Sfn According to Andrew R. George and Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Bīt Rēš might have developed from the É.SAG, a sanctuary of Lugalbanda attested in earlier periods whose name was written with the same signs, but this remains hypothetical.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Its establishment marked the first time in the history of Uruk when Eanna was not its main temple.Шаблон:Sfn This development was a result of the rise of new priestly families in the aftermath of failed revolts which took place in 484 BCE and Xerxes I's retaliation against the participants.Шаблон:Sfn The status of the city's former tutelary deity, Ishtar, declined, and some of her attributes were absorbed by Antu.Шаблон:Sfn For example, in the text MLC 1890 Ninsianna, the personification of the planet Venus, who in earlier periods could be treated as a form of Ishtar, is instead treated as an epithet of Antu.Шаблон:Sfn The kalû clergy of Uruk, responsible for Emesal prayersШаблон:Sfn and formerly associated with Ishtar, came to be linked to the cult of Anu and Antu instead in Seleucid times.Шаблон:Sfn In some cases, the change makes it possible to date individual texts with no other direct indication of their age than their authors being a kalû in service of one of these deities.Шаблон:Sfn It is not certain if Seleucid kings were involved in the worship of Antu and other deities of Uruk, though it has been argued that the attested building and renovation projects required royal support.Шаблон:Sfn

In texts from Seleucid Uruk, Antu almost always appears alongside Anu.Шаблон:Sfn As argued by Joan Goodnick Westenholz, the local theologians effectively treated the pair as "one single divine manifestation".Шаблон:Sfn She argues that the process of their elevation can therefore be seen as part of a broader phenomenon focused on predominance of city gods (rather than city goddesses) in the late period of Mesopotamian antiquity, which was linked to henotheist tendencies.Шаблон:Sfn However, according to Julia Krul speculative henotheist theology, while well attested, never enjoyed much popularity outside of small intellectual circles.Шаблон:Sfn It is also known that Antu was celebrated with a procession during the new year festival, during which she was accompanied by a number of deities normally not associated with her and seemingly grouped only for the sake of newly established celebrations: Bēlet-ilī, Shala, Mārāt-Ani ("Daughters of Anu"), Aya, Gula, Ninešgal ("Mistress of the Ešgal temple", a manifestation of Ishtar), Amasagnudi, Sadarnunna, Ašratu and Šarrat-šamê ("Queen of the Heavens", possibly another manifestation of Ishtar).Шаблон:Sfn The formula "may it be preserved by the command of Anu and Antu" is attested in scholarly compositions, as well as legal and administrative documents, especially marriage agreements.Шаблон:Sfn In addition to direct references to Antu in ritual and economic texts, she is also attested in theophoric names.Шаблон:Sfn

Hurrian reception

Antu was at some point incorporated into Hurrian religion, and in this context came to be regarded as one of the primeval deities alongside other figures originating in Mesopotamia, such as Anu, Enlil, Ninlil or Alalu.Шаблон:Sfn Most likely this classification reflected their perception in areas located on the periphery of the Mesopotamian cultural sphere.Шаблон:Sfn In Hurrian context Antu formed a triad alongside Anu and Apantu.Шаблон:Sfn The latter deity's name according to Alfonso Archi was formed in assonance with her own.Шаблон:Sfn

In a trilingual edition of the Weidner god list from Ugarit, Antu corresponds to the entries Ašte Anive (in the Hurrian column) and Tahāmatu (in the Ugaritic column).Шаблон:Sfn The first of these names does not represent an actual deity, and instead is a neologism invented by the text's compilers, who provided Anu, under a Hurrian variant of his name, with a wife whose Hurrian name would be similarly derived from his own,Шаблон:Sfn literally "the wife of Ani".Шаблон:Sfn The second can be translated as "the deep waters" and presumably represented the freshwater springs in the proximity of Ugarit.Шаблон:Sfn Due to multiple entries considered to be either similar scholarly inventions or scribal word plays, the list is not considered to be an accurate source of information about either Hurrian or Ugaritic religion.Шаблон:Sfn

Mythology

Antu is mentioned in the so-called "Standard Babylonian" edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh when Ishtar demands Anu to give her the permission to use the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh (tablet VI, line 83).Шаблон:Sfn While she and Anu are addressed as Ishtar's parents in this passage, as pointed out by Paul-Alain Beaulieu the tradition according to which she was a daughter of Nanna and Ningal was more widespread.Шаблон:Sfn Walter Burkert has suggested that the passage might have influenced the reference to Aphrodite's mother Dione in the Iliad, with the name Dione being a calque of Antu, as it is a feminine form of Zeus.Шаблон:Sfn However, as stressed by Andrew R. George in his discussion of the work of Burkert and other authors who assume Homer was directly influenced by the Epic of Gilgamesh, it cannot be established with certainty that any possible similarities arose from direct contact with the Mesopotamian composition.Шаблон:Sfn He notes it might be more plausible to assume similar motifs reflect a shared tradition rather than necessarily direct derivation.Шаблон:Sfn

According to incantations against Lamashtu, Antu and Anu cast this demon down from heavenШаблон:Sfn and denied her the right to have a sanctuary (parakku) on earth.Шаблон:Sfn

While Antu is not attested in Enūma Eliš, and Anu is addressed as the sole parent of Ea in this composition, according to Spencer L. Allen based on supplementary evidence from an esoteric Assyrian commentary it is nonetheless possible that she was implicitly understood as his mother and thus as the grandmother of Marduk in derived tradition.Шаблон:Sfn

In a Seleucid astronomical text, Papsukkal is described as the vizier of both Anu and Antu.Шаблон:Sfn

References

Шаблон:Reflist

Bibliography

Шаблон:Refbegin

Шаблон:Refend

Партнерские ресурсы
Криптовалюты
Магазины
Хостинг
Разное

Источник — http://wikihandbk.com/ruwiki/index.php?title=Английская_Википедия:Antu_(goddess)&oldid=13205564