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Dingir (also transcribed digir) is the 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...
 for "deity
Deity

A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divinity, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by human beings....
". It is written as an ideogram
Ideogram

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. They can be a straighforward pictogram, or a more abstract symbol that is comprehensible only on the basis of prior convention....
 in the cuneiform script
Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of writing system. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictography....
 (Borger 2003 nr. 10 ). The sign at the same time expressed the syllable an, because it was in particular the ideogram for An, the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon. In Akkadian cuneiform, the sign could be both an ideogram for "deity" and a syllabogram for il, derived acrophonically from the Semitic for "god", ?il-
Ilah

, is the Arabic language for "deity" or "god". The feminine is "goddess"; with the article, it appears as . It appears in the name of the monotheistic god of the Abrahamic religions as , literally "the God", which is paralleled in a feminine form by the pagan goddess "the Goddess"....
.






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Dingir (also transcribed digir) is the 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...
 for "deity
Deity

A deity is a postulated preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divinity, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by human beings....
". It is written as an ideogram
Ideogram

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. They can be a straighforward pictogram, or a more abstract symbol that is comprehensible only on the basis of prior convention....
 in the cuneiform script
Cuneiform script

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of writing system. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium , cuneiform writing began as a system of pictography....
 (Borger 2003 nr. 10 ). The sign at the same time expressed the syllable an, because it was in particular the ideogram for An, the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon. In Akkadian cuneiform, the sign could be both an ideogram for "deity" and a syllabogram for il, derived acrophonically from the Semitic for "god", ?il-
Ilah

, is the Arabic language for "deity" or "god". The feminine is "goddess"; with the article, it appears as . It appears in the name of the monotheistic god of the Abrahamic religions as , literally "the God", which is paralleled in a feminine form by the pagan goddess "the Goddess"....
. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again an.

Cuneiform sign


Sumerian


The Sumer
Sumer

Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
ian sign dingir originated as a star-shaped ideogram indicating a god in general, or the Sumerian god An, the supreme father of the gods. Dingir also meant sky in contrast with Ki
Ninhursag

In Sumerian mythology, Ninhursag was the earth and mother-goddess, one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess....
 which meant earth. The cuneiform version of the Sumerian sign is shown at the left.

The plural of dingir was dingir dingir.

Akkadian

The 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....
 sign dingir could mean:

  • the Akkadian stem "il-
    Ilah

    , is the Arabic language for "deity" or "god". The feminine is "goddess"; with the article, it appears as . It appears in the name of the monotheistic god of the Abrahamic religions as , literally "the God", which is paralleled in a feminine form by the pagan goddess "the Goddess"....
    " meaning "god" or "goddess"
  • the god Anum
  • the Akkadian word šamu meaning "sky"
  • the syllables an and il
  • a preposition meaning "at" or "to"
  • a determinative indicating that the following word was the name of a god


Dingir could also refer to a priest or priestess although there are other Akkadian words enu and entu that are also translated priest and priestess. For example, nin-dingir (lady divine) meant a priestess who received foodstuffs at the temple of Enki in the city of Eridu.

Some Akkadian myths, which read like the participants were gods, are less confusing if the dingir sign is translated "divine" rather than "deity" or "god". For example in Gilgamesh XI, lines 189,192:

"Then dingir-kabtu went aboard the boat... Standing between us, he touched our foreheads to bless us." This is clearly an act of a priest, not a god.

Digital encoding

The cuneiform sign is encoded in Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
 (as of version 5.0) at U+1202D .

Pantheon

  • An
    An (mythology)

    In Sumerian mythology and later for Assyrians and Babylonians, Anu was a sky-god, the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, spiritual being and demons, and dwelt in the highest heavenly regions....
    , The god of Heaven (Pan-Mesopotamian) at the E'anna temple - Uruk
    Uruk

    Uruk , from the Akkadian rendering of the Sumerian toponym 'unug', is modern Warka , Iraq. Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient Nil canal, some 30 km east of As-Samawah, Al Muthanna Governorate, Iraq....
  • 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....
    , The god of the air (from Lil = Air) and storms (Pan-Mesopotamian) at the E'kur temple - Nippur
    Nippur

    Nippur , from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' , is modern Nuffar in Afak Al Qadisyah Governorate, Iraq. Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities....
    . He was usually portrayed in human form but also appears as a snake to the humans eyes.
  • 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....
    , The god of water and the fertile earth (Pan-Mesopotamian) at the E'abzu temple - Eridu
    Eridu

    Eridu , from the Sumerian for 'mighty place', is modern Tell Abu Shahrain, Iraq. Eridu was the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia, founded c 5400 BCE....
     also Babylonian Ea, which is also the god of magic, wisdom and intelligence.
  • Ki
    Ki (goddess)

    Ki in Sumerian mythology was the goddess and personification of the earth and underworld, chief consort of Anu the sky god. In some legends Ki and An were brother and sister, being the offspring of Anshar and Kishar , earlier personifications of heaven and earth....
    , or Ninhursag
    Ninhursag

    In Sumerian mythology, Ninhursag was the earth and mother-goddess, one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess....
     The mother-goddess representing the earth (Sumer
    Sumer

    Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
    ian) at the Ésaggila
    Esagila

    The ?sagila, a Sumerian name signifying "? whose top is lofty", was a temple dedicated to Marduk, the protector god of Babylon. It lay south of the ziggurat Etemenanki, a memory of which has been perpetuated in Judeo-Christian culture as the Tower of Babel....
     temple - Eridu
    Eridu

    Eridu , from the Sumerian for 'mighty place', is modern Tell Abu Shahrain, Iraq. Eridu was the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia, founded c 5400 BCE....
    , and also at Kish
    Kish (Sumer)

    Kish is modern Tell al-Uhaymir, Babil Governorate, Iraq), and was an ancient city of Sumer. Kish is located some 12 km east of Babylon, and 80 km south of Baghdad....
    .
  • Ashur, Main god of Assyria (sky god) (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) - at 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....
  • Ninlil
    Ninlil

    In Sumerian mythology, Ninlil , first called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described....
    ,or Nillina :goddess of air (possibly the south wind) and wife of Enlil (Sumer
    Sumer

    Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
    ian) - at the E'kur Temple - Nippur
  • Inanna
    Inanna

    Inanna ; ) is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare.Alternative Sumerian names include Innin, Ennin, Ninnin, Ninni, Ninanna, Ninnar, Innina, Ennina, Irnina, Innini, Nana and Nin, commonly derived from an earlier Nin-ana "lady of the sky", although Gelb presented th...
    , The goddess of love and war (Sumer
    Sumer

    Sumer was a civilization and a historical region located in Southern Iraq , known as the Cradle of civilization. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period through the Uruk period and the Dynastic periods until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BC....
    ian) - at the E'anna temple - Uruk
    Uruk

    Uruk , from the Akkadian rendering of the Sumerian toponym 'unug', is modern Warka , Iraq. Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient Nil canal, some 30 km east of As-Samawah, Al Muthanna Governorate, Iraq....
  • Marduk
    Marduk

    Marduk was the Babylonian language name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon permanently became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acqu...
    , originally Ea's son and god of light, Marduk (bibilical Marudach, or Mordacai) was the main god of Babylon and the sender of the Babylonian king (Babylonian) - at the Ésaggila - 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....
  • Nanna - Suen (Sumerian) or Sin
    Sin

    Sin is a term used mainly in a religion context to describe an act that violates a morality rule, or the state of having committed such a violation....
     (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....
    ) God of the moon - at the E'hursag temple of Ur
    Ur

    Ur is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. Once a coastal city near the mouth of the then Euphrates river on the Persian Gulf, Ur is now well inland....
     and Harran
    Harran

    Harran, also known as Carrhae, is a district of Sanliurfa Province in the southeast of Turkey.A very ancient city which was a major Mesopotamian commercial, cultural, and religious center, Harran is a valuable archaeological site....
  • 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....
     (Sumerian), Tutu (Akkadian) or 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....
     (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....
    ) God of the sun - at the E'barbara temple of Sippar
    Sippar

    Sippar , was an ancient Sumerian and later Babylonian city on the east bank of the Euphrates, some 60 km north of Babylon....
    and in Babylonia the god of justice as well
  • 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....
     (Sumerian = Lord Plough) (Pan Mesopotamian) at the E'Girsu (hence also called Ningirsu) temple - Lagash
    Lagash

    Lagash is located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, Lagash was one of the oldest cities of Sumer and later Babylonia....


As social complexity in these cities increased, each god came to resemble a human monarch (Lugal
Lugal

Lugal , Sumerian language for leader from L?.GAL "man, big" was one of several Sumerian titles that a ruler of a city-state could bear , and eventually became the predominant Sumerian term for a king in general....
, Lu = Man, Gal = Big), or high priest (Ensi
Ensi

Ensi can refer to:*a Mesopotamian royal title in various Babylonian city states, see ENSI.*an abbreviation of Ensign*ens?, the Old High German for a pagan deity, see ?ss...
, En
EN (cuneiform)

EN is the Sumerian cuneiform for "lord" or "priest". Originally, it seems to have been used to designate a high priest or priestess of a Sumerian city-state's patron-deity - a position that entailed political power as well....
 = Lord, Si = Country), complete with a family and a court of divine stewards and servants. Wars between cities were seen to reflect wars in heavens between the gods.

Minor gods were seen as family members of these major divinities. Thus Ereshkigal
Ereshkigal

In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal was the goddess of Irkalla, the land of the dead or underworld. Sometimes her name is given as Irkalla, similar to way the name Hades was used in Greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler....
 (Eresh = Under, Ki = Earth, Gal = Great) came to be seen as the sister of Inanna
Inanna

Inanna ; ) is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare.Alternative Sumerian names include Innin, Ennin, Ninnin, Ninni, Ninanna, Ninnar, Innina, Ennina, Irnina, Innini, Nana and Nin, commonly derived from an earlier Nin-ana "lady of the sky", although Gelb presented th...
, and she came to acquire a husband too, originally Gugalanna, the Wild Bull of Heaven
Taurus (astrology)

Taurus is the second astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the Taurus . In western astrology, this sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the Precession ....
, (from Gu = Bull, Gal = Great, Anu = Heaven), and subsequently Nergal, the Lord of Death, son (Aplu) of Enlil and Ninlil. Servants too became minor divinities, as Isimud the two faced androgynous Steward of Enki; or Ninshabur (Lady Evening) the chief lady-in-waiting of Inanna.

Divinities then proliferated, with there being specific gods of tooth-ache, or aching limbs, goddesses for "Greenery" and "Pasture". Every aspect of life thus came to be surrounded with its own minor divinity that required gifts or placation, as magic spells multiplied, trying to give people certainty in very uncertain times.

Celestial deities

  • 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....
     (aka Sumerian
    Sumerian

    Sumerian may refer to:*Sumerian language*Cuneiform script*Sumer, including**History of Sumer**Sumerian architecture**Mesopotamian mythology...
     "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...
     - Suen"), The God of the moon
  • 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....
     (aka Sumerian
    Sumerian

    Sumerian may refer to:*Sumerian language*Cuneiform script*Sumer, including**History of Sumer**Sumerian architecture**Mesopotamian mythology...
     "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....
    "), The Sun God


the other visible planets were also associated with divinities Thus
  • 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....
     and later Nabu
    Nabu

    Nabu is the Babylonian god of wisdom and writing, worshipped by Babylonians as the son of Marduk and his consort, Sarpanitum, and as the grandson of Ea ....
     was associated with Mercury
    Mercury (mythology)

    In Roman mythology, Mercury was a messenger, and a god of trade, profit and commerce, the son of Maia Maiestas, also known as Ops, the Roman version of Cronus, and Jupiter ....
  • Ishtar
    Ishtar

    Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Mesopotamian mythology Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte....
     (aka Sumerian
    Sumerian

    Sumerian may refer to:*Sumerian language*Cuneiform script*Sumer, including**History of Sumer**Sumerian architecture**Mesopotamian mythology...
     "Inanna
    Inanna

    Inanna ; ) is the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare.Alternative Sumerian names include Innin, Ennin, Ninnin, Ninni, Ninanna, Ninnar, Innina, Ennina, Irnina, Innini, Nana and Nin, commonly derived from an earlier Nin-ana "lady of the sky", although Gelb presented th...
    "), The Queen of the Heavens and goddess of love and war was associated with Venus
    Venus

    Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus , the Roman mythology goddess of love....
  • Nergal
    Nergal

    The name Nergal refers to a deity in Babylonia with the main seat of his cult at Kutha represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal is mentioned in the Hebrew bible as the deity of the city of Kutha : "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal" ....
     was associated with Mars
    MARS

    In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
  • Marduk
    Marduk

    Marduk was the Babylonian language name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon permanently became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to slowly rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acqu...
     was associated with Jupiter
    Jupiter

    Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the Solar system by size planet within the Solar System. It is two and a half times as massive as all of the other planets in our Solar System combined....
  • 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....
     was associated with Saturn
    Saturn

    Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant....


Complete pantheon

The earliest full pantheon of Sumerian deities is the . This was first published in :- Anton Deimel : Die Inschriften von Fara, II. Osnabrück, 1969.

See also

  • Religions of the Ancient Near East
    Religions of the Ancient Near East

    The Religions of the Ancient Near East were mostly polytheistic, with some early examples of emerging Henotheism . Especially the Luwian pantheon exerted a strong influence on the Ancient Greek religion, while Assyro-Babylonian religion influenced Achaemenid-era Zoroastrianism....
  • Mesopotamian mythology
    Mesopotamian mythology

    Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq....
  • Canaanite gods
  • Semitic gods
  • E (temple)
    É (temple)

    ? is the Sumerian language for "house" or "temple", written ideographically with the cuneiform sign Specific temples:*E-ab-lua temple to Suen in Urum ...
  • Sumerian language
    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...
  • Akkadian language
    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....
  • Netjer