Adad

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Adad

Adad in Akkadian

Akkadian language

Akkadian or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian language, an unrelated language isolate....
and Ishkur in Sumerian

Sumerian language

Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC. It was gradually replaced by Akkadian language as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia...
are the names of the storm-god in the Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, sometimes considered an empire, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad....
ian-Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
n pantheon, both usually written by the logogram

Logogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonogram , which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantics....
^dIM. The Akkadian god Adad is cognate in name and functions with northwest Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages....
god Hadad
Hadad

Haddad ??? ??? was a very important northwest Semitic language storm and rain God , cognate in name and origin with the Akkadian language god Adad....
.

In Akkadian Adad is also known as Ramman ("Thunderer") cognate with Aramaic Rimmon which was a byname of the Aramaic Hadad.

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Encyclopedia

Adad in Akkadian

Akkadian language

Sumerian language

Babylon

Assyria

Logogram

Semitic

Amorite

Amorite refers to a Semitic language people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. The term Amurru refers to them, as well as to their principal deity....
god Hadad.)

The Sumerian Ishkur appears in the list of gods found at Fara but was of far less importance than the Akkadian Adad later became, probably partly because storms and rain are scarce in southern Babylonia and agriculture there depends on irrigation instead. Also, the gods Enlil

Enlil

Enlil , was the name of a chief deity listed and written about in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Canaanite and other Mesopotamian clay and stone tablets....
and Ninurta

Ninurta

Ninurta in Sumerian mythology and Akkadian mythology was the god of Nippur, identified with Ningirsu with whom he may always have been identical....
also had storm god features which decreased Ishkur's distinctiveness. He sometimes appears as the assistant or companion of one or the other of the two.

When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Ishkur inspector of the cosmos. In one litany Ishkur is proclaimed again and again as "great radiant bull, your name is heaven" and also called son of An, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki
Enki

Enki was a deity in Mesopotamian mythology, later known as Ea in Babylonian mythology. He was originally chief god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and also to Hittite and Hurrian areas....
, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.

In other texts Adad/Ishkur is sometimes son of the moon god Nanna
Nanna

Nanna may refer to:* Sin , god of the moon in Sumerian mythology* Nanna , god of the moon in Tamil Nadu mythology* Nanna , the wife of Baldr in Norse mythology...
/Sin
Sin (mythology)

Sin is a Sumerian lunar deity in Mesopotamian mythology. He is the son of Enlil and Ninlil. His sacred city was Ur....
by Ningal
Ningal

Ningal , in Sumerian mythology was a goddess of reeds, daughter of Enki and Ningikurga and the consort of the moon god Sin by whom she bore Utu the son god, Inanna, and in some texts, Ishkur....
and brother of Utu
Utu

Utu is the Sumerian language for "Sun". The Sumerian cuneiform character is encoded in Unicode at U+12313 .In Sumerian mythology, Utu is the son of the moon god Nanna and the goddess Ningal....
/Shamash
Shamash

Shamash was the common Akkadian language name of the Solar deity and god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Mesopotamian mythology Utu....
and Inana/Ishtar
Ishtar

Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Mesopotamian mythology Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte....
. He is also occasionally son of Enlil
Enlil

Enlil , was the name of a chief deity listed and written about in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite, Canaanite and other Mesopotamian clay and stone tablets....
.

Adad/Ishkur's consort (both in early Sumerian and later Assyrian texts) was Shala
Shala

Shala is a Babylonian and Akkadian war goddess, the consort of the storm-god Adad. She carries a double-headed mace-scimitar embellished with lion heads....
, a goddess of grain, who is also sometimes associated with the god Dagan
Dagon

Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain and agriculture. He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla and Ugarit ....
. She was also called Gubarra in the earliest texts. The fire god Gibil
Gibil

Gibil in Mesopotamian mythology is the god of fire, variously of the son of Anu and Ki , An and Shala or of Adad and Shala. He later developed into the Akkadian god Gerra ....
(named Gerra
Gerra

Gerra may refer to:*Gerra , Ticino, Switzerland*Gerra , Babylonian and Akkadian god of fire* Gerra , a moth genus*Gerra , Ticino, Switzerland...
in Akkadian) is sometimes the son of Ishkur and Shala.

Adad/Ishkur's special animal is the bull. He is naturally identified with the Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia or Asia Minor is a region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. It is a geographic region bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus to the northeast, the Aegean Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Iranian plateau to the east and southeast....
n storm-god Teshub
Teshub

Teshub was the Hurrians god of sky and storm. He was derived from the Hattians Taru. His Hittites and Luwian name was Tarhun .He is depicted holding a triple thunderbolt and a weapon, usually an axe or Mace ....
. Occasionally Adad/Ishkur is identified with the god Amurru
Amurru

Amurru are names given in Akkadian language and Sumerian language texts to the god of the Amorite/Amurru people, often forming part of personal names....
, the god of the Amorites.

The Babylonian center of Adad/Ishkur's cult was Karkara in the south, his chief temple being E. Karkara and Shala his spouse being worshipped in a temple named E. Durku. But among the Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
ns his cult was especially developed along with his warrior aspect. From the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I

Tiglath-Pileser I

Tiglath-Pileser I was a Kings of Assyria of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period . According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was, "one of the two or three great Assyrian monarchs since the days of Shamshi-Adad I"....
(1115–1077 BCE), Adad had a double sanctuary in Assur

Assur

Assur , was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. The remains of the city are situated on the western bank of river Tigris, north of the confluence with the tributary Little Zab river, in modern day Iraq....
which he shared with Anu. Anu is often associated with Adad in invocations. The name Adad and various alternate forms and bynames (Dadu, Bir, Dadda) are often found in the names of the Assyrian kings.

Adad/Ishkur presents two aspects in the hymns, incantations, and votive inscriptions. On the one hand he is the god who, through bringing on the rain in due season, causes the land to become fertile, and, on the other hand, the storms that he sends out bring havoc and destruction. He is pictured on monuments and cylinder seals (sometimes with a horned helmet) with the lightning and the thunderbolt (sometimes in the form of a spear), and in the hymns the sombre aspects of the god on the whole predominate. His association with the sun-god, Shamash, due to the natural combination of the two deities who alternate in the control of nature, leads to imbuing him with some of the traits belonging to a solar deity.

Shamash and Adad became in combination the gods of oracles and of divination in general. Whether the will of the gods is determined through the inspection of the liver of the sacrificial animal, through observing the action of oil bubbles in a basin of water or through the observation of the movements of the heavenly bodies, it is Shamash and Adad who, in the ritual connected with divination, are invariably invoked. Similarly in the annals and votive inscriptions of the kings, when oracle

Oracle

An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophecy opinion; an infallible authority, usually Spirituality in nature....
s are referred to, Shamash and Adad are always named as the gods addressed, and their ordinary designation in such instances is bele biri 'lords of divination'.

External links

(More about Hadad than about Adad.)
(Illustration).

Adad

See also

External links