Wer (god)

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Wer (Wēr), also known as Mer, Ber and Iluwer was a storm god worshiped in parts of Mesopotamia and ancient Syria.

Name[]

Two forms of the name, Wēr and Mēr, were originally in use.[1] A third version, Bēr, started to be commonly used in the Middle Assyrian period.[1] Additionally, god lists attest the form Iluwēr, "the god Wēr."[2]

While multiple Sumerian etymologies have been proposed for the name (including derivation from the terms IM-mer, "north wind;" me-er-me-er, "storm;" and emesal me-er, "wind"), none have been proven conclusively to be correct.[2] Whether a connection existed between this divine name and place names such as Mari and Warum remains uncertain too.[3]

Whether dME-RU, possibly to be read as Meru, attested in sources from the Early Dynastic period (including the Abu Salabikh god list)[4] is the same deity as Wer is uncertain.[3]

Character[]

Wer was a weather god.[1] His symbol was a lance.[5]

While god lists equate Wer with Ishkur/Adad, his own name was never represented by the ideogram dIŠKUR,[6] unlike these of other storm gods, such as Hurrian Teshub,[7] Hattian Taru, Hittite Tarhunna, or Luwian Tarhunz.[8]

Some assyriologists, including Dietz-Otto Edzard[9] and Andrew R. George, assume that Wer was the same deity as Itur-Mēr,[10] the city god of Mari,[11] but this view is regarded as unsubstantiated by Daniel Schwemer[12] and Ichiro Nakata, who point out that the latter’s name is an ordinary theophoric name ("Mēr has turned [to me]"[2]) and that for this reason he is more likely to be a deified hero venerated as part of an ancestor cult tied to a specific location.[13] Known texts additionally do not indicate that he was a weather deity like Wer.[14] Other deities who are most likely deified heroes or kings in origin are attested from Mari, for example Ikrub-El.[15]

Worship[]

Stele of Zakkur, with an inscription mentioning Iluwer

Worship of Wer is chiefly attested from the middle Euphrates area, northern Babylonia (though only before the Middle Babylonian period), especially in the Diyala area, and Assyria.[6] While confirmed attestations go back to the time of the Akkadian Empire, only from the Old Babylonian period onward the god is known from sources other than theophoric personal names.[2] One document from this period attests that not only Wer himself, but also a deification of his emblem, dŠu-ku-ru-um ("lance"), was an object of worship.[5]

In the first millennium BCE Iluwēr, most likely the same deity, was worshiped by Arameans in Tell Afis in Syria,[2] as attested on the Stele of Zakkur.[16] A possible seventh century BCE attestation of an Aramic theophoric name invoking him under the name Ber, dnbr, possibly Dannu-Ber, "Ber is strong," is known from a papyrus found in Saqqara in Egypt.[17]

Mythology[]

The wife of Wer was the goddess Wertum (or Mertum).[2]

In a section of an Old Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh preserved on the so-called Yale tablet, corresponding to tablet III of the standard version, Enkidu mentions that the cedar mountain to which Gilgamesh wants to venture is under the control of the god Wer,[18] described as "mighty" and "never sleeping," and as the one who appointed the monster Humbaba as its guardian.[19] Adad is also associated with Wer in the same passage.[20]

In other sources Humbaba’s master is Enlil.[21] Even on the Yale tablet, it is mentioned that he bestowed seven terrors upon him.[22] Andrew R. George assumes that while the mountain belongs to Wer, and he appointed Humbaba as its guardian and his second in command, the decision still had to be approved by Enlil.[23]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Schwemer 2008, p. 27.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Schwemer 2008, p. 28.
  3. ^ a b Schwemer 2015, p. 90.
  4. ^ Krebernik 1997, p. 73.
  5. ^ a b Krebernik 2013, p. 269.
  6. ^ a b Schwemer 2008, pp. 27–28.
  7. ^ Schwemer 2008, p. 3.
  8. ^ Schwemer 2008, p. 18.
  9. ^ Nakata 1975, p. 18.
  10. ^ George 2003, p. 193.
  11. ^ Nakata 2011, p. 129.
  12. ^ Schwemer 2008, pp. 28–29.
  13. ^ Nakata 1975, pp. 18–20.
  14. ^ Schwemer 2001, pp. 203–204.
  15. ^ Nakata 1975, pp. 19–20.
  16. ^ Schwemer 2001, p. 208.
  17. ^ Schwemer 2001, p. 201.
  18. ^ George 2003, pp. 192–193.
  19. ^ George 2003, p. 199.
  20. ^ Schwemer 2007, p. 151.
  21. ^ George 2003, p. 144.
  22. ^ George 2003, p. 201.
  23. ^ George 2003, p. 210.

Bibliography[]

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