A local deity, designated as the lady of Mar, is invoked by Ur-Bau, from
whom we learn that she was the daughter of Nina. _Mar_, with the
determinative for country, _Ki_, appears to have been the name of a
district extending to the Persian Gulf.[95] The capital of the district
is represented by the mound Tel-Id, not far from Warka. Her subsidiary
position is indicated in these words, and we may conclude that Nin-Mar
at an early period fell under the jurisdiction of the district in which
Nina was supreme. For all that, Nin-Mar, or the city in which her cult
was centralized, must have enjoyed considerable favor. Ur-Bau calls her
the 'gracious lady,' and erects a temple, the name of which,
Ish-gu-tur,[96] _i.e._, according to Jensen's plausible interpretation,
'the house that serves as a court for all persons,' points to Mar as a
place of pilgrimage to which people came from all sides. Gudea,
accordingly, does not omit to include 'the lady of Mar' in his list of
the chief deities to whom he pays his devotions; and on the assumption
of the general favor in which the city of Mar stood as a sacred town, we
may account for the fact that a much later ruler, Dungi, of the dynasty
of Ur,[97] erects a temple to her honor.
Pa-sag.
A deity, the phonetic reading of whose name is unknown, or at all events
uncertain,[98] is mentioned once by Gudea in the long list of deities
that has been several times referred to. The ideographs with which his
name is written designate him as a chief of some kind, and in accord
with this, Gudea calls him 'the leader of the land.' Pa-sag is mentioned
immediately after the sun-god Utu, and in view of the fact that another
solar deity, I-shum, whom we shall come across in a future chapter, is
designated by the same title[99] as Pa-sag, it seems safe to conclude
that the latter is likewise a solar deity, and in all probability, the
prototype of I-shum, if not indeed identical with him.
Nisaba (or Nidaba).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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