Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Ninkasi was the goddess of beer, and as such was associated with its production, consumption and effects - both positive and negative. [8] Jeremy Black described her as "one of (...) minor deities without a strongly defined personality who merely symbolise the object or phenomenon that they are associated with."
Three tablets of the myth are held by the British Museum, numbers 80170, 132243 (unpublished) and 139993. [5] [6] Two tablets of the myth are held by the Louvre in Paris, number AO 7087 & AO 8898. [7] One is held in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, number 17378 and three at the Yale Babylonian collection, numbers 5487, 7070 and 11941. [8]
The Zame Hymns are the oldest known collection of Mesopotamian hymns, and have been dated to Early Dynastic IIIa period. [6] More precise dating is not possible. [5]Alongside compositions from Fara discovered in 1902 and 1903, the Zame Hymns have been described by Robert D. Biggs as "testimonies of the first great flowering of Sumerian literature". [7]
In ancient Sumeria, brewing was the only profession that was "watched over by a female deity", namely Ninkasi. [12] A tablet found dating back to 1800 BCE contains the Hymn to Ninkasi which is also basically a recipe for Mesopotamian beer. [13] Sumerian beer was made from bappir, a bread made from twice-baked barley, which was then fermented. [14]
The Kesh temple hymn, Liturgy to Nintud, or Liturgy to Nintud on the creation of man and woman, is a Sumerian tablet, written on clay tablets as early as 2600 BCE. [1] Along with the Instructions of Shuruppak , it is the oldest surviving literature in the world.
The making of beer has been celebrated in verse since the time of Ancient Sumeria, c. 1800 BC, when the "Hymn to Ninkasi" was inscribed on a clay tablet. Ninkasi, tutelary goddess of beer, and daughter of the creator Enki and the "queen of the sacred lake" Ninki, "handles the dough and with a big shovel, mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date ...
A hymn to Ninkasi states that while this goddess was raised by Ninhursag, her parents were Ninti and Enki. [7] Ninti and Ninkasi occur near each other in a document from the Fara period. [8] The relation between Ninti and Enki is also attested in the god list An = Anum, [9] where she is equated with his spouse Damkina. [10]
Ugarit, where the Hurrian songs were found. The complete song is one of about 36 such hymns in cuneiform writing, found on fragments of clay tablets excavated in the 1950s from the Royal Palace at Ugarit (present-day Ras Shamra, Syria), [5] in a stratum dating from the fourteenth century BC, [6] but is the only one surviving in substantially complete form.