Ninigizibara

Ninigizibarra's name most likely means "well regarded lady" in Sumerian.[2] In Umma, the name was written without the NIN sign, and the goddess was called Igizibara, "well regarded."[2] In documents from Mari the usual spelling is Ningizippara.[2]

Ninigizibarra was both the name of a goddess and of individual instruments placed in a number of temples of Inanna.[2] The instrument represented by her was the balaĝ.[3] The precise meaning of this Sumerian term is a matter of scholarly debate, though it is generally accepted that it referred first and foremost to a type of string instrument.[4] Some translators, for example Wolfgang Heimpel, favor interpreting balaĝ as a harp,[2] but Uri Gabbay argues the available evidence makes it more likely that it was a lyre.[5] This conclusion is also supported by Dahlia Shehata, who points out that possible references to two people playing a balaĝ at once makes it more plausible to interpret it as a large standing lyre than as a harp.[6] The argument on the contrary depends on the reading of a harp-like archaic cuneiform sign as analogous to the later sign BALAG referring to the instrument, which remains unproven.[5] The lyres from the Royal Cemetery at Ur have been identified as a possible example of the balaĝ.[7] The use of this instrument during funerals is well attested.[7] Balaĝ was also a type of prayers accompanied by music, which later led to the use of the term to refer to another instrument associated with them, a type of kettledrum called lilissu.[8] However, Ninigizibara herself was never regarded as a drum.[6]

The name of the position held by Ninigizibara in the court of Inanna was written in cuneiform as GU₄.BALAG, which can be literally translated from Sumerian as "balaĝ-bull,"[9] most likely a reference to the bull-shaped decorations on the sound box of the instrument.[10] However, the signs also served as a logographic writing of the Akkadian word mundalku, "counselor" or "advisor."[9] An analogous term was ad-gi₄-gi₄, which also could designate both a type of deity and the balaĝ instrument.[11] Uri Gabbay characterizes the role of deities designated as mundalku as that of "minor gods who participate in the deliberations of the great gods, representing humanity,"[9] and notes that they were most likely believed to "soothe the angry heart of the deity," similar to the music associated with them.[3]

Ninigizibarra was chiefly worshiped in Uruk and in Umma.[23] In the latter city, she took part in a procession of Inanna (locally referred to with the epithet Ninibgal) to nearby Zabalam.[23] A reference to Ninigizibara (under the name Igizibara) receiving offerings in a temple of Shara, the local tutelary deity, is also known from this city.[1] She is also attested in the theophoric name Ur-Igizibara.[23]

An offering list from Uruk mentions Ningiizibara alongside Nanaya and gates of a sanctuary of Inanna.[23] During the Akitu festival held in Uruk in the Seleucid period,she was among the deities who took part in a procession led by Ishtar.[24] Among its other participants were Ninsun, Ninsianna and Nanaya.[24] According to Julia Krul, it is impossible to tell if worship of Ninigizibara was a continuous element of the religion of Uruk.[25] She considers it more likely that the priests active in the late first millennium BCE introduced or reintroduced various minor goddesses from god lists such as An = Anum to the pantheon of the city as part of an effort to restructure Ishtar's retinue to make it as theologically complete as possible.[25] Uri Gabbay points out there is also no indication that she was still understood as a deified instrument in this period.[3] Ninigizibara is absent from records from the Neo-Babylonian period, such as the Eanna archive.[25] She is also absent from legal texts and from theophoric names from Seleucid Uruk.[26]

Some attestations of Ninigizibara are also known from other cities of ancient Mesopotamia. A year formula from the twenty first year[2] of the reign of Ibbi-Sin of Ur states that he "fashioned the balaĝ, (the divine) Ninigizibara" for Inanna.[27] An offering to Ninigizibara and the goddess Ninme ("lady of battle"), possibly an epithet of Inanna, is also mentioned in a document from the reign of Sumu-El presumed to originate in Larsa.[23] A list of barley provisions from Sippar-Amnanum indicates that Ninigizibara was also worshiped in this city.[23] She is listed after Annunitum, Ulmašītum and Inanna.[23] She is also attested to the west of Babylonia, in Mari and Tuttul in modern Syria.[2] In the latter city, the instrument referred to as "Ningizippara" was covered with four pounds of silver and five shekels of gold.[2] In Mari, in addition to religious texts, she is also attested in a school exercise listing various deities whose names start with the sign NIN.[23] She is paired in it with Nindagalzu, another similar musician goddess, associated with Ningal rather than Inanna.[23]

Ninigizibarra appears in the balaĝ song Uru-Ama'irabi,[28] which was performed on the instrument sharing her name in Mari during a ritual dedicated to Ishtar.[23] Its lyrics describe how Inanna learned about a sacrilege committed in her bed in her absence.[23] It has been suggested that even though known from a site in the west, it most likely reflects the cultic journey of Inanna and Ninigizibara attested in texts from Umma.[23] In the song Ninigizibara appears alongside Ninmeurur.[28] Both of them are described as Inanna's advisors (ad-gi₄-gi₄).[29] Ninmeurur (Sumerian: "lady who collects all the me") also appears next to Ninigizibara and yet another minor goddess from Inanna's entourage, Ninḫinuna, in the Isin god list.[30]

• Bull Headed Lyre of Ur
• Music of Mesopotamia