The Historical Background of the Anu Cult

chapter 1 The Historical Background of the Anu Cult For an understanding of the Anu cult as it existed at Uruk during the late Achaemenid and Seleucid period, it is necessary to take into account the mil- lennia of divine worship at Uruk that preceded it—a history of which the Hel- lenistic priests of Anu were well aware and which influenced their religious convictions in different ways. During most of that period, the city’s main deity was the goddess Inanna/Ištar. Since that was no longer the case in Seleucid times and she is not the main subject of this book, a brief summary of the history of her cult will suffice here. The primary focus will be on the development of Anu’s role in the local pantheon and his significance for the city of Uruk throughout the centuries. 1.1 A Brief Religious History of Uruk Uruk is one of the oldest Mesopotamian cities.1 It was founded in the late Ubaid period (ca. 4500–4000BC) and gave its name to the Uruk period (ca. 4000– 3100BC), during which it was the main force of urbanisation in southern Mes- opotamia. The city possessed two separate sacred districts, which may origi- nally have been independent settlements: the western Kullaba, the precinct of the elevated sanctuary called by archaeologists the “White Temple”, and the eastern precinct of the Eanna, the main temple of Inanna (Akk.: Ištar), goddess of war, sexual love, and the concomitant human passions. The con- nection between Uruk and Inanna goes back to very early times. Texts from the late fourth millennium point to four different manifestations of the goddess worshipped at Uruk, including “Inanna of the morning” and “Inanna of the evening”, which indicates that a fundamental part of her identity from the very beginning was the association between her and the planet Venus.2 The White Temple dates to the Uruk IV period (3500–3100BC), but the terrace had possessed monumental architecture since the late Ubaid period. In 1 See for the most recent, comprehensive and accessible overview of the early history of Uruk— and some aspects of the later periods, including a richly illustrated chapter by Arno Kose on the Hellenistic period—Crüsemann et al. 2013, and for a more in-depth study Liverani 2006 [1998]. 2 Beaulieu 2003, 104. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004364943_003 10 chapter 1 its last building phase, it consisted of 21 different construction layers and was 15 metres high. Directly beside the White Temple terrace lay what the exca- vators call the “Old Terrace”, an area of 173,6×200,5 meters, which dates to Uruk III (3100–2900BC) or IV. No building remains from either of those periods have been found on it.3 The White Temple may have been dedicated to Inanna’s (great-grand)father, the sky god and divine allfather An (Akk.: Anu), who appears in later sources as a member of the Uruk pantheon. However, although the White Temple terrace is conventionally referred to as the “Anu ziqqurrat” in archaeological publications, no material finds from that site can be connected to him. Neither can his presence in the archaic texts be deter- mined with complete certainty, because of the ambiguity of the cuneiform sign AN, which can also be read as ‘heaven’ and ‘god’ (dingir).4 If An was already worshipped at Uruk during the Uruk period, he may also have shared the Eanna, the ‘House of Heaven’, with Inanna. From the Early Dynastic period (ca. 2900–2330BC) onward, both An and Inanna are attested as divine residents of Uruk. By that time, Inanna had become the city’s most important deity and the Eanna the primary temple complex of Uruk, in which An seems to have received offerings as well. His consort during that period appears to have been the creation goddess Namma, mother of Enki.5 The cohabitation of Inanna and An within the Eanna contin- ued until the early second millennium. Literary and administrative texts from the Ur III period (2112–2004BC) present a close relationship between the active, “dynamic” goddess Inanna and the king, her en-priest, but continue to men- tion An as a passive, yet still present patron deity of the city and of the Eanna. Royal inscriptions from the early Old Babylonian period (2004–1792BC) also acknowledge both An and Inanna and hail the Eanna as the dwelling place of both deities.6 The Old Babylonian version of the ‘Epic of Gilgameš’ even describes the Eanna as exclusively the “dwelling-place of Anu”,7 which in the Standard Babylonian version has been replaced by “dwelling-place of Anu and Ištar”.8 Different Sumerian-language literary texts from the third and early second millennium, including several of the hymns composed by Enḫeduanna, daugh- ter of Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334–2279BC), allude to a mythological tradition 3 Heinrich 1982, 35–45, 61–67; Eichmann 2007, 409ff. 4 Beaulieu 2003, 105. 5 Neumann 1981, 78–80; Frayne 1997, 423. 6 Beaulieu 2003, 106–108; Richter 2004, 281–283, 297–299. 7 Pennsylvania Tablet II 60 (George 2003, 174). 8 SB ‘Gilgameš’ I 217 (George 2003, 550–551 with note 40)..

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