Manzat (goddess)

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Manzat
Goddess of the rainbow
Abodepresumably the sky
Personal information
ConsortSimut (in Elam), Ishtaran (in Der)
ChildrenLugalgidda

Manzat (also spelled Mazziat, Manziat, Mazzet) was a Mesopotamian and Elamite goddess representing the rainbow.

Name[]

Manzat is a common Akkadian noun and means “rainbow,” though its precise etymology is uncertain. A Sumerian form, Tir-anna (bow of heaven) is also known, but it was most likely an artificial construct as the sign TIR generally stands for the Sumerian word qištu (forest) which only acquired the additional meaning “bow” due to similarity to the Akkadian word qaštu (bow).[1] In the Weidner god list, dTIR.AN.NA is listed as an alternate name of Manzat (line 3').[2]

Character and cult[]

Manzat's titles generally point at an astral character (“Lady of the regulations of heaven,” “Companion of heaven”).[3]

A hymn to Nanaya enumerating various city goddesses identifies Manzat as the goddess of Der.[4] References to cult of Manzat are also known from Nippur, and she appears in a god list from Mari.[5]

In Elam she appears for the first time in Naram-Sin's treaty with an unknown monarch.[3]

She was particularly closely associated with Hubshen (Deh-e Now).[6] Igi-Halki restored her kukunnu (“high temple”) there and left behind an inscription in Akkadian according to which “Manzat-Ishtar” gave him “kingship over Susa and Anshan.”[7] While this might point at otherwise unattested syncretism with Ishtar, it is also possible this form of the name simply means “the goddess Manzat.”[8] The usage of Ishtar's name as a generic word meaning "a goddess" is known from many other sources, for example from tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh.[9] Shutruk-Nahhunte claimed that he repaired a temple in this location built by his predecessors. The same king also built a temple dedicated to her and an enigmatic goddess (NIN.DAR(.A)) in Tappeh Horreeye (or at least bricks from his construction project were recycled in that location), stating in his inscriptions that he hopes the invoked deity (presumably Manzat) will make the land of Hubshen happy. Kutir-Nahhunte likewise renovated the temple in Hubshen.[10]

Inscriptions of Untash-Napirisha state that he built a temple of Manzat, referred to with the epithet siyan kuk ("lady of the sacred pretinct") in Chogha Zanbil.[11]

A siyan husame (temple in a grove) dedicated to her[12] and a number of joint temples dedicated to her and the god Simut are also known from Elamite sources.[5]

Theophoric names invoking Manzat are known from both Elamite and Akkadian sources.[3]

Association with other deities[]

There is some evidence that Manzat was viewed as the wife of Ishtaran, the god of Der.[13] Frans Wiggermann describes the source documenting this tradition as a "late theological text."[14] In the god list An-Anum she doesn't have a husband, though an otherwise unknown son, Lugalgidda, as well as a sukkal (attendant deity), Sililitum, are listed.[5]

In a Maqlu text, she appears as a sister of Shamash.[15]

In Elamite sources she was often listed alongside Simut, known as "herald of the gods" and associated with the planet Mars. Some researchers believe that they were regarded as a divine couple.[16][5]

Belet Ali[]

It is been proposed that the title Belet Ali (or Nin-Ali; “Lady of the city”) in some contexts refers to Manzat rather than to a separate goddess. In the An-Anum god list, one of Manzat's titles is “She who makes the city flourish.” In Elam Belet Ali was associated with Simut, which further strengthens this theory at least in the Elamite context.[5]

As the name of a star[]

It is possible Manzat shared her name with a star, though Wilfred G. Lambert pointed out only the logographic Sumerian writing of the name was used to refer to a celestial body, indicating that the star's name was Tir-anna, not Manzat.[17]

According to Jeremy Black and Anthony Green this star was represented as a horse head surrounded by a so-called "gate" on kudurru.[18] However, Ursula Seid's more detailed study of kudurru iconography doesn't associate the horse head symbol with Manzat.[19] Tallay Ornan only identifies the horse head as a Kassite symbol.[20] Maurits van Loon did propose that "gate" symbols represent the rainbow, but he explicitly stated that his theory is not linked to Manzat, and he didn't discuss the kudurru horse head.[21]

See also[]

Footnotes[]

  1. ^ W. G. Lambert, Manziʾat/Mazziʾat/Mazzât/Mazzêt [in] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol 7, 1987, p. 344-345
  2. ^ Sh. Zaia, Commentary on Weidner's God List (CCP 6.7.B), Cuneiform Commentaries Project (E. Frahm, E. Jiménez, M. Frazer, and K. Wagensonner), 2013–2021; accessed June 5, 2021, at https://ccp.yale.edu/P285539. DOI: 10079/s1rn92h
  3. ^ a b c W. G. Lambert, Manziʾat/Mazziʾat/Mazzât/Mazzêt [in] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol 7, 1987, p. 344
  4. ^ J. M. Asher-Greve, J. G. Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources, 2013, p. 117
  5. ^ a b c d e W. G. Lambert, Manziʾat/Mazziʾat/Mazzât/Mazzêt [in] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol 7, 1987, p. 345
  6. ^ D. T. Potts, Elamite Temple Building [in] M. J. Boda, J. Novotny (eds), From the Foundations to the Crenellations. Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, 2010, p. 63
  7. ^ F. Malbran-Labat, Elamite royal inscriptions [in] J. Álvarez-Mon, G. P. Basello, Y. Wicks (eds), The Elamite World, 2018, p. 468
  8. ^ D. T. Potts, Appendix 2: Catalogue of Elamite Sources [in] M. J. Boda, J. Novotny (eds), From the Foundations to the Crenellations. Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, 2010, p. 487
  9. ^ J. M. Asher-Greve, J. G. Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources, 2013, p. 110-111
  10. ^ D. T. Potts, Appendix 2: Catalogue of Elamite Sources [in] M. J. Boda, J. Novotny (eds), From the Foundations to the Crenellations. Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, 2010, p. 499-501
  11. ^ D. T. Potts, Appendix 2: Catalogue of Elamite Sources [in] M. J. Boda, J. Novotny (eds), From the Foundations to the Crenellations. Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, 2010, p. 492
  12. ^ D. T. Potts, Elamite Temple Building [in] M. J. Boda, J. Novotny (eds), From the Foundations to the Crenellations. Essays on Temple Building in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible, 2010, p. 58
  13. ^ C. Woods, The Sun-God Tablet of Nabu-apla-iddina Revisited, Journal of Cuneiform Studies Vol. 56, 2004, p. 68
  14. ^ F. Wiggermann, Transtigridian Snake Gods [in:] I. L. Finkel, M. J. Geller (eds.), Sumerian Gods and their Representations, 1997, p. 44
  15. ^ M. Krebernik, Sonnengott A. I. In Mesopotamien. Philologisch · Sun god A. I. In Mesopotamia. Philological [in:] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol 12, 2011, p. 602
  16. ^ W. M. F. Henkelman, Šimut [in:] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol. 12, 2011, p. 511
  17. ^ W. G. Lambert, Manziʾat/Mazziʾat/Mazzât/Mazzêt [in] Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie vol 7, 1987, p. 346
  18. ^ J. Black, A. Green, Rainbow [in] Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (2nd ed.), 2004, p. 153
  19. ^ U. Seidl, XXIX. Pferdekopf [in] Die babylonischen Kudurru-Reliefs: Symbole mesopotamischer Gottheiten, 1989, p. 145
  20. ^ T. Ornan, The triumph of the symbol: Pictorial representation of deities inMesopotamia and the biblical image ban, 2004, p. 51
  21. ^ M. van Loon, The Rainbow in Ancient West Asian Iconography [in] D. J. W. Meijer (ed), Natural phenomena: their meaning, depiction, and description in the ancient Near East, 1992, p. 152: "A problem that cannot be dealt with here is the existence of the goddess Manzat"
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