Ningal- Mesopotamian GodDeity"Great Lady"
Description
In the Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, the moon god's consort pleads before the divine assembly to spare her city, but the decree of fate cannot be changed. She watches the dead lie unburied in the streets, her temples defiled, her people scattered and enslaved.
Mythology & Lore
The Moon's Consort at Ur
Ningal, the "Great Lady," was consort of the moon god Nanna. Together they presided over Ur. Nanna's ziggurat, whose ruins still stand in modern Iraq, housed the temple complex; Ningal's own sanctuary within it was the Ekishnugal. She was mother of Utu the sun god and Inanna.
Her symbols were reeds and the crescent moon. Ningal was a goddess of the reed beds and waterways of southern Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and Euphrates dissolved into lagoons before reaching the sea. Reeds from those marshes built boats and houses and lined temple floors.
The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur
When Elamite and Amorite invaders destroyed Ur around 2004 BCE, ending its Third Dynasty, the Sumerians gave voice to the catastrophe through their goddess.
In the lamentation, Ningal describes how she went before Enlil and the divine assembly and begged them to spare her city. She prostrated herself and wept. But the decree of fate had been spoken and could not be undone. The dead lay unburied in the streets. The temples were defiled, the people scattered and enslaved. The city that had housed the moon god's temple was broken open like a pot.
"My city which no longer exists," Ningal cries. "My Ur which no longer exists."
Nikkal in the West
Under the name Nikkal, Ningal's worship spread beyond Sumer. At Ugarit on the Syrian coast, a hymn celebrates the marriage of Nikkal and Yarikh the moon god, the same divine couple known in Sumer as Ningal and Nanna.