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Sin (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....
: Sīn, Suen; 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...
: Nanna, "illuminator") is a 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 god of the moon
Lunar deity

In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon: see moon . These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related to or an enemy of the solar deity....
 in 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....
. He is the 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....
 and Ninlil
Ninlil

In Sumerian mythology, Ninlil , first called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described....
. His sacred city was 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....
.

a's chief sanctuary at Ur was named E-gish-shir-gal ("house of the great light"). Sin (later to be equated with Nanna) had a sanctuary at 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....
 named E-khul-khul ("house of joys"). On cylinder seal
Cylinder seal

A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay....
s, he is represented as an old man with a flowing beard
Beard

A beard is the hair that grows on a person's chin, cheeks, neck, and the area above the upper lip. Typically, only males going through puberty, or post-pubescent males are able to grow beards....
 and the crescent as his symbol.






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Sin (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....
: Sīn, Suen; 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...
: Nanna, "illuminator") is a 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 god of the moon
Lunar deity

In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon: see moon . These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related to or an enemy of the solar deity....
 in 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....
. He is the 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....
 and Ninlil
Ninlil

In Sumerian mythology, Ninlil , first called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described....
. His sacred city was 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....
.

Background

Nanna's chief sanctuary at Ur was named E-gish-shir-gal ("house of the great light"). Sin (later to be equated with Nanna) had a sanctuary at 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....
 named E-khul-khul ("house of joys"). On cylinder seal
Cylinder seal

A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay....
s, he is represented as an old man with a flowing beard
Beard

A beard is the hair that grows on a person's chin, cheeks, neck, and the area above the upper lip. Typically, only males going through puberty, or post-pubescent males are able to grow beards....
 and the crescent as his symbol. In the astral-theological system he is represented by the number 30 and the moon, symbolic of the moon's crescent that often appears next to him in Mesopotamian cylinder seals. This number probably refers to the average number of days (correctly around 29.53) in a lunar month
Lunation

Lunation is the mean time for one lunar phase cycle .  It is on average 29.530589 days, or 29 d 12 h 44 min 3 s.  The length of this cycle is linked to many phenomena in nature....
, as measured between successive new moon
New moon

In astronomical terminology, the new moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the Moon, in its monthly orbital motion around Earth, lies between Earth and the Sun, and is therefore in Conjunction with the Sun as seen from Earth....
s.

The "wisdom" personified by the moon-god is likewise an expression of the science of astrology
Astrology

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of astronomical object and related details can provide useful information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters....
, in which the observation of the moon's phases is so important a factor. The tendency to centralize the powers of the universe leads to the establishment of the doctrine of a triad consisting of Sin, 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 Ishtar
Ishtar

Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Mesopotamian mythology Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte....
, respectively personifying the moon
Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
, the sun
Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
, and the planet 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....
.

He was named Sin in Babylonia
Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
 and 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....
, and was also worshipped in 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....
. Sin had a beard made of lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli

Lapis lazuli is a semi-precious stone prized since antiquity for its intense blue color.Lapis lazuli has been mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan for 6,500 years, and trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites, and lapis beads at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the C...
 and rode on a winged bull
Cattle

Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domestication ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. They are raised as livestock for meat , dairy products , leather and as draft animals ....
. His wife was 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....
 ("Great Lady"), who bore him 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....
 ("Sun") and 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...
 (Inanna is recognized as being the Sumerian
Sumerian

Sumerian may refer to:*Sumerian language*Cuneiform script*Sumer, including**History of Sumer**Sumerian architecture**Mesopotamian mythology...
 name for Ishtar). His symbols are the crescent moon, the bull (through his father, 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....
, "Bull of Heaven"), and the tripod (which may be a lamp-stand).

An important Sumerian text ("Enlil and Ninlil") tells of the descent of Enlil and Ninlil (pregnant with Nanna/Suen) into the underworld
Underworld

In the study of mythology and religion, the underworld is a generic term approximately equivalent to the lay term afterlife, referring to any place to which newly the dead souls go....
. There, three "substitutions" are given to allow the ascent of Nanna/Suen. The story shows some similarities to the text known as "The Descent 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...
.

Seats of Sin's worship

The two chief seats of Sin's worship were 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....
 in the south, 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....
 to the north. The cult
Cult

This article does not discuss "cult" in the original sense of "veneration" or "religious practice"; for that usage see Cult . See Cult for more meanings of the term "cult"....
 of Sin spread to other centers, and temples of the moon-god are found in all the large cities of Babylonia
Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
 and 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....
.

He is commonly designated as En-zu, or "lord of wisdom." During the period (c.2600-2400 BC) that Ur exercised a large measure of supremacy over the Euphrates
Euphrates

The Euphrates is the western of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia which flows from Anatolia....
 valley, Sin was naturally regarded as the head of the pantheon
Pantheon (gods)

A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a pantheon of gods and the development of monotheism....
. It is to this period that we must trace such designations of Sin as "father of the gods", "chief of the gods", "creator of all things", and the like.

See also

  • Religion of the Ancient Near East
  • Ancient Semitic religion
  • Great Ziggurat of Ur
    Great Ziggurat of Ur

    The Ziggurat was dedicated to the moon god Nanna in the Sumerian city of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq, near Nasiriyah south of Baghdad....
  • Biblical Mount Sinai
    Biblical Mount Sinai

    The Biblical Mount Sinai is an ambiguously located mountain at which the Hebrew Bible states that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by Tetragrammaton....
    , possibly named after the god


Footnotes


External links

  • Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran. E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1992, 232 pages. ISBN 9004095136