Urash (god)

Urash (Uraš) was a Mesopotamian god who was the tutelary deity of Dilbat. He was an agricultural god, and in that capacity he was frequently associated with Ninurta. His wife was the goddess Ninegal, while his children were the underworld deity Lagamal, who like him was associated with Dilbat, and the love goddess Nanaya.

Urash occasionally appears in myths, though they only survive in small, late fragments.

Urash was the tutelary god of Dilbat, modern Tell al-Deylam in Iraq's Babil Governorate. His character was regarded as Ninurta-like, with an emphasis on the role of a farming deity, as evidenced by explanatory texts referring to him as "Ninurta of the hoe," "of the calendar" or "of the tenant farmer." In a late commentary (KAR 142), he is a member of a group labeled as "seven Ninurtas." Another late text describes him as "Marduk of planting."

The god Urash worshiped in Dilbat was not the same as Urash, the spouse of Anu. Evidence for the worship of the latter is uncommon, and unlike the god of Dilbat she was chiefly a cosmogonic deity. A connection nonetheless existed between Anu and the male Urash, as exemplified by the reference to the former in the name of the latter's main temple, E-ibbi-Anum, and Wilfred G. Lambert assumes they were likely viewed as father and son.

Urash's wife was Ninegal, in Dilbat associated with Nungal. However, in the god list An = Anum (though not in any other sources) his spouse is instead Nin-uru, "lady of the city," perhaps to be identified with Belet-ali, whose name has the same meaning in Akkadian, though the latter name has also been interpreted as an epithet of the rainbow goddess Manzat, who was connected to the well-being of cities.

Deities regarded as his children include Nanaya, sometimes called his firstborn daughter, and Lagamal. A temple dedicated to Lagamal was located in Dilbat, and displays of personal devotion, such as using the formula "servant of Lagamal," are common in documents from this location. In a neo-Babylonian god list from the temple of Nabu in Babylon he appears right after Urash and Ninegal.

Urash's sukkal was Ipte-bit(am), whose name means "he opened the house." A deity bearing the name Ipte-bita also occurs as one of the two "Daughters of E-ibbi-Anum" in a late text, alongside Belet-Eanni. Based on the fact that analogous pairs of "Daughters of Esagil" and "Daughters of Ezida" are identified as members of courts of Sarpanit and of Nanaya respectively, specifically as their hairdressers, it has been proposed by Andrew R. George that these pairs of goddesses were imagined as maidservants in the household of the major deity or deities of a given temple.

In the Weidner and Nippur god lists Urash occurs in the proximity of deities such as Ninurta, Zababa, Ninegal and Lagamal.