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An = Anum AI simulator
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An = Anum
An = Anum, also known as the Great God List, is the longest preserved Mesopotamian god list, a type of lexical list cataloging the deities worshiped in the Ancient Near East, chiefly in modern Iraq. While god lists are already known from the Early Dynastic period, An = Anum most likely was composed in the later Kassite period.
While often mistakenly described as a list of Sumerian deities and their Akkadian equivalents, An = Anum is focused on presenting the familial relationships between deities, as well as their courts and spheres of influence. The first four tablets list the major gods and goddesses (Anu, Enlil, Ninhursag, Enki, Sin, Shamash, Adad and Ishtar) and their courts, arranged according to theological principles, but tablets V and VI do not appear to follow a clear system, and tablet VII is a late appendix listing the names of Marduk and one of his courtiers.
Many other works of ancient scholarship were influenced by An = Anum, including a similar list of temples and various theological commentaries. It has also been proposed that it was the basis for the remodeling of the pantheon of Uruk in the Seleucid period.
God lists were a type of cuneiform lexical lists, the oldest genre of texts next to administrative documents. However, the first god lists emerged only around 600 years after the emergence of writing, in the Early Dynastic period. Like other lexical lists, they were presumably copied by scribes as exercises. Due to their original purpose as a learning aid, they were also important for the gradual modern decipherment of cuneiform. The oldest known god list is usually called the Fara god list, though it is also known from copies from Abu Salabikh and Uruk. 466 theonyms can be read from the surviving fragments, though it is estimated that it originally contained 560. While it begins with the head of the pantheon, Enlil (or, in some of the copies, Anu and Enlil), the gods are otherwise arranged based on lexical, rather than theological criteria, for example deities whose names start with the sign NIN are grouped together. Due to many of the names from it being otherwise unknown, little can be said about its contents otherwise. It has been argued that despite cases of theological and lexical subgroups being possible to discern, no principle guided the list as a whole, and it was meant to compile theonyms without necessarily providing additional information and the nature of the individual deities or relationships between them.
No god lists are known from between the end of the Early Dynastic period and the late third or early second millennium BCE, when the so-called "Weidner list" was compiled, though it is assumed that they were still being created through the second half of the third millennium BCE and examples simply have yet to be discovered. The arrangement of deities in the Weidner list does not appear to follow any specific principles, and it has been proposed that it was the result of compiling various shorter lists together. Copies are known from many locations in historical Babylonia and Assyria, as well as from Emar, Ugarit and Amarna. The list was still in circulation in the late first millennium BCE.
While the earliest god lists only had a single column, over the course of the second millennium BCE a two column format became the norm, possibly due to decrease in familiarity with Sumerian, which after the Ur III period survived only as a liturgical and scholarly language, necessitating the addition of explanations in Akkadian. For example, later copies of the Weidner god lat times contain additional columns with explanations of the names. A copy from Ugarit adds columns listing Ugaritic and Hurrian deities.
In the Old Babylonian period, god lists were often the product of strictly local scribal traditions, and distinct ones are known from Nippur, Isin, Uruk, Susa, Mari and possibly Ur. These local lists show a growing tendency to organize deities based on theological, rather than lexical, considerations. Each of them most likely documented the hierarchy of deities recognized in the respective localities. Fragments of many further god lists are known, chiefly from Assyrian copies, but their origin and scope are not fully understood. Some of them focus on geographical distribution on deities, and mention many foreign gods as a result.
While it was common to arrange the names of gods in lists, no analogous scholarly practice is attested for demons, and the incantation series Utukku Lemnutu outright states they were not counted in the "census of Heaven and Earth", indicating the reasons behind this might have been theological.
An = Anum
An = Anum, also known as the Great God List, is the longest preserved Mesopotamian god list, a type of lexical list cataloging the deities worshiped in the Ancient Near East, chiefly in modern Iraq. While god lists are already known from the Early Dynastic period, An = Anum most likely was composed in the later Kassite period.
While often mistakenly described as a list of Sumerian deities and their Akkadian equivalents, An = Anum is focused on presenting the familial relationships between deities, as well as their courts and spheres of influence. The first four tablets list the major gods and goddesses (Anu, Enlil, Ninhursag, Enki, Sin, Shamash, Adad and Ishtar) and their courts, arranged according to theological principles, but tablets V and VI do not appear to follow a clear system, and tablet VII is a late appendix listing the names of Marduk and one of his courtiers.
Many other works of ancient scholarship were influenced by An = Anum, including a similar list of temples and various theological commentaries. It has also been proposed that it was the basis for the remodeling of the pantheon of Uruk in the Seleucid period.
God lists were a type of cuneiform lexical lists, the oldest genre of texts next to administrative documents. However, the first god lists emerged only around 600 years after the emergence of writing, in the Early Dynastic period. Like other lexical lists, they were presumably copied by scribes as exercises. Due to their original purpose as a learning aid, they were also important for the gradual modern decipherment of cuneiform. The oldest known god list is usually called the Fara god list, though it is also known from copies from Abu Salabikh and Uruk. 466 theonyms can be read from the surviving fragments, though it is estimated that it originally contained 560. While it begins with the head of the pantheon, Enlil (or, in some of the copies, Anu and Enlil), the gods are otherwise arranged based on lexical, rather than theological criteria, for example deities whose names start with the sign NIN are grouped together. Due to many of the names from it being otherwise unknown, little can be said about its contents otherwise. It has been argued that despite cases of theological and lexical subgroups being possible to discern, no principle guided the list as a whole, and it was meant to compile theonyms without necessarily providing additional information and the nature of the individual deities or relationships between them.
No god lists are known from between the end of the Early Dynastic period and the late third or early second millennium BCE, when the so-called "Weidner list" was compiled, though it is assumed that they were still being created through the second half of the third millennium BCE and examples simply have yet to be discovered. The arrangement of deities in the Weidner list does not appear to follow any specific principles, and it has been proposed that it was the result of compiling various shorter lists together. Copies are known from many locations in historical Babylonia and Assyria, as well as from Emar, Ugarit and Amarna. The list was still in circulation in the late first millennium BCE.
While the earliest god lists only had a single column, over the course of the second millennium BCE a two column format became the norm, possibly due to decrease in familiarity with Sumerian, which after the Ur III period survived only as a liturgical and scholarly language, necessitating the addition of explanations in Akkadian. For example, later copies of the Weidner god lat times contain additional columns with explanations of the names. A copy from Ugarit adds columns listing Ugaritic and Hurrian deities.
In the Old Babylonian period, god lists were often the product of strictly local scribal traditions, and distinct ones are known from Nippur, Isin, Uruk, Susa, Mari and possibly Ur. These local lists show a growing tendency to organize deities based on theological, rather than lexical, considerations. Each of them most likely documented the hierarchy of deities recognized in the respective localities. Fragments of many further god lists are known, chiefly from Assyrian copies, but their origin and scope are not fully understood. Some of them focus on geographical distribution on deities, and mention many foreign gods as a result.
While it was common to arrange the names of gods in lists, no analogous scholarly practice is attested for demons, and the incantation series Utukku Lemnutu outright states they were not counted in the "census of Heaven and Earth", indicating the reasons behind this might have been theological.