Nisaba

Nisaba was the Mesopotamian goddess of writing and grain. She is one of the oldest Sumerian deities attested in writing, and remained prominent through many periods of Mesopotamian history. She was commonly worshiped by scribes, and numerous Sumerian texts end with the doxology "praise to Nisaba" as a result. She declined after the Old Babylonian period due to the rise of the new scribe god, Nabu, though she did not fully vanish from Mesopotamian religion and attestations from as late as the neo-Babylonian period are known. In myths and god lists, she was a part of the circle of Enlil, alongside her husband Haya. In the myth Enlil and Sud she plays an important role due to being the mother of the eponymous deity. Enlil seeks her permission to marry Sud with the help of his sukkal (attedant deity) Nuska. Both this narrative and other sources attest that she and her daughter were regarded as very close. Outside Mesopotamia her name was used to logographically represent these of other gods, not necessarily similar to her in character, including Syrian Dagan, Hurrian Kumarbi and Hittite Ḫalki. Name The origin of Nisaba's name is unknown. The widely accepted reading, Nisaba, has been confirmed by Akkadian lexical texts spelling the name syllabically as ni-sa-ba. The reading Nidaba, originally favored by some Assyriologists, for example Miguel Civil, now regarded as implausible, as the evidence is very scant, and might simply constitute recurring scribal errors. The name Nisaba was originally written using a combination of the cuneiform sign , called NAGA, accompanied by the dingir, , so-called "divine determinative" preceding names of deities. The NAGA sign is assumed to be a pictogram representing a plant, possibly later interpreted as a sheaf of barley. The same sign, though with a different determinative added, was also used to write the name of Nisaba's main cult center, Eresh. While the true etymology of Nisaba's name is generally considered impossible to determine, Wilfred G. Lambert proposed that it was derived from a hypothetical form nin.sab(a).ak, "Lady of Saba," but as no such a place name is attested in Sumerian sources this is regarded as implausible. Another proposal explains it as nin-še-ba-ak, "lady of grain rations."