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Kubaba (in the Esagila
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....
 "Chronicle"; Sumerian: Kug-Bau) is the only queen on the Sumerian king list
Sumerian king list

The Sumerian King List is an ancient text in the Sumerian language that lists monarch of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties. It records the location of "official" kingship, along with the rulers and the lengths of their rule....
. She was monarch in the 3rd Dynasty of 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....
, reigned in the "Early Dynastic III" period (ca. 2500-2330 BC) of Sumerian history
History of Sumer

The history of Sumer, taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid period and Uruk period periods, spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BC, ending with the downfall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BC, followed by a transition period of Amorite states before the rise of Babylonia in the 18th century BC....
 and is listed to have reigned for 100 years. Before overthrowing the rule of En-Shakansha-Ana of the 2nd Uruk Dynasty and becoming monarch, the king list says she was a tavern-keeper.

"The house of Kubaba" is mentioned "in the reign of Puzur-Nirah, king of Akshak
Akshak

Akshak was a city of ancient Sumer, situated on the northern boundary of Akkad, sometimes identified with Babylonian Upi . Its exact location is uncertain, it probably was near Eshnunna, on the banks of the Diyala River....
" (line 38) in the Weidner "Chronicle", a propagandistic letter attempting to predate the shrine of 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...
 to an early period: "Kubaba gave bread to the fisherman and gave water, she made him offer the fish to Esagila
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....
" (line 43).






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Kubaba (in the Esagila
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....
 "Chronicle"; Sumerian: Kug-Bau) is the only queen on the Sumerian king list
Sumerian king list

The Sumerian King List is an ancient text in the Sumerian language that lists monarch of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties. It records the location of "official" kingship, along with the rulers and the lengths of their rule....
. She was monarch in the 3rd Dynasty of 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....
, reigned in the "Early Dynastic III" period (ca. 2500-2330 BC) of Sumerian history
History of Sumer

The history of Sumer, taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid period and Uruk period periods, spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BC, ending with the downfall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BC, followed by a transition period of Amorite states before the rise of Babylonia in the 18th century BC....
 and is listed to have reigned for 100 years. Before overthrowing the rule of En-Shakansha-Ana of the 2nd Uruk Dynasty and becoming monarch, the king list says she was a tavern-keeper.

"The house of Kubaba" is mentioned "in the reign of Puzur-Nirah, king of Akshak
Akshak

Akshak was a city of ancient Sumer, situated on the northern boundary of Akkad, sometimes identified with Babylonian Upi . Its exact location is uncertain, it probably was near Eshnunna, on the banks of the Diyala River....
" (line 38) in the Weidner "Chronicle", a propagandistic letter attempting to predate the shrine of 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...
 to an early period: "Kubaba gave bread to the fisherman and gave water, she made him offer the fish to Esagila
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....
" (line 43). Her reign was one of peace and prosperity.

Shrines in her honour spread throughout Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khuzestan Province of southwestern Iran....
. In the Hurrian
Hurrians

The Hurrians were a people of the Ancient Near East, who lived in northern Mesopotamia and areas to the immediate east and west, beginning approximately 2500 BC....
 area she may be identified with Kebat, or Hepat
Hebat

Hebat also transcribed a Kheba or Khepat, was the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as "the mother of all living". She was the consort of Teshub and the mother of Sarruma....
, one title of the Hurrian Mother Goddess Hannahannah
Hannahannah

Hurrian Mother Goddess Hannahannah . Hannahannah may have been related to or influenced by the pre-Sumerian Goddess Inanna, although the similarity in name to the Bible Hannah , mother of Samuel ; the Canaan Anath, and the Christian St Anne are coincidental, the name Hannah in Hebrew having a different etymology deriving from a native root....
 (from Hurrian hannah, "mother"). Abdi-Kheba (= the servant of Kheba), was the palace mayor, ruling Jerusalem at the time of the Amarna letters
Amarna letters

The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Ancient Egypt administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom....
 (1350 BC).

Kubaba became the tutelary goddess who protected the ancient Syria
Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
n city of Carchemish
Carchemish

Carchemish was an important ancient city of the Mitanni and Hittites empires, now on the frontier between Turkey and Syria. It was the location of an Battle of Carchemish between the Babylonians and Egyptians, mentioned in the Bible....
 on the upper Euphrates
Euphrates

The Euphrates is the western of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia which flows from Anatolia....
, in the late Hurrian – Early Hittite
Hittites

The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a Hittite language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages family, and established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia ca....
 period. Relief carvings, now at the Museum of Anatolian Antiquities, Ankara
Ankara

Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and the country's List of largest cities and second largest cities by country List of cities in Turkey after Istanbul....
, show her seated, wearing a cylindrical headdress like the polos and holding a circular mirror in one hand and the poppy capsule
Opium

Opium is a narcotic formed from the latex released by lacerating the immature seed pods of Opium poppy . It contains up to 12% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade....
 or pomegranate
Pomegranate

The pomegranate is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing to between five and eight metres tall. The pomegranate is native to the region from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and has been cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean Basin region and the Caucasus since ancient times....
 in the other. She plays a role in Luwian
Luwian language

Luwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian languages of the Indo-European languages language family. Luwian is closely related to Hittite language, and was among the languages spoken by population groups in Arzawa, to the west or southwest of the core Hittites area....
 texts, and a minor role in Hittite texts, mainly in Hurrian religious rituals. According to Mark Munn (Munn 2004), her cult later spread and her name was adapted for the main goddess of the Hittite successor-kingdoms in 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....
, which later developed into the Phrygia
Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the Southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont....
n matar (mother) or matar kubileya
Cybele

Cybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia , or her Minoan civilization equivalent Rhea , Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals ....
 whose image with inscriptions appear in rock-cut sculptures. The Phrygian goddess otherwise bears little resemblance to Kubaba, who was a sovereign deity at Sardis
Sardis

Sardis, also Sardes , modern Sart in the Manisa province of Turkey, was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, one of the important cities of the Persian Empire, the seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire, and the metropolis of the province Lydia in later Roman and Byzantine Empire times....
, known to Greeks as Kybebe.