Gibil
Gibil, also known under the Akkadian name Girra, was a Mesopotamian god associated with fire, both in its positive and negative aspects. He also played a role in ritual purification. Textual sources indicate his symbol was a torch, though no representations of him have been identified in Mesopotamian art. Multiple genealogies could be assigned to him. The god list An = Anum indicates his spouse was Ninirigal. He was also frequently associated with deities such as Shamash, Nuska and Kusu. He is first attested in Early Dynastic texts from Shuruppak, such as offering lists. He was also a member of the pantheon of Eridu. In the Kassite period he was worshiped in Nippur. Later attestations are available from Assyria and from Uruk. He also appears in a number of literary texts.
Names
Gibil is considered the conventional reading of a theonym written in cuneiform as dNE.GI, though Jeremiah Peterson notes that it has yet to be fully verified by primary sources. Ryan D. Winters also stresses lack of direct evidence for the reading Gibil, despite its conventional status in Assyriological literature. and Jan Lisman similarly conclude that despite being commonly used in scholarship, the reading Gibil, in contrast with Girra, is not securely supported by primary sources. Peterson suggests that it is not impossible that dNE.GI was instead read as dgiraxgi, which would presumably reflect derivation from the Akkadian word girru, "fire". The Akkadian form Girra was derived directly from the term girru. These terms are ultimately derived from the root *ḥrr, "to burn" or "to scorch", similarly as another theonym, Erra. Jeremy Black and Anthony Green treat names Gibil and Girra as referring to the same deity. Johanna Tudeau argues that they were initially separate, but came to be fully merged with each other either in the Old Babylonian period or shortly after it, with later sources such as Assyrian copies of the Weidner god list indicating they were used interchangeably to refer to one figure. describes Gibil and Girra as already analogous to each other in the context of the text corpus from Lagash from the Early Dynastic period. Instances of dGIBIL6 being used as a logogram meant to be read as Girra are known from astronomical texts. A further attested writing of the theonym Gibil is dGIŠ.BAR. Selz argues that originally it referred to a distinct god, Gišbar or Gišbarra, attested in theophoric names such as Ur-Gišbar-izipae from the Ur III period and later conflated with Gibil.In Emesal texts, Gibil was referred to with the variant name Mubarra. Additional names or epithets attributed to him include Nunbaranna, known from the god list An = Anum, its Old Babylonian forerunner and a number of incantations from the same period; Nunbarḫada, and Nunbarḫuš. Piotr Michalowski notes that the last of these names also appears as a synonym of the term ziqtu, "torch", in lexical lists from the first millennium BCE.
The name Gibil was also used as a designation for a star in the Old Babylonian period, though its identification remains uncertain and is complicated by late astronomical text treating it as synonymous with the planet Mars.
Character
Gibil was the god of fire. He could represent this element in its positive aspect, for example in association with furnaces and kilns, and in this context could be treated as a tutelary deity of metallurgists. However, he also represented fire as a cause of destruction. A namburbi, a type of ritual text focused on warding off the negative consequences of specific omens, documents that it was believed that situations in which houses were set on fire by a lightning strike were considered a display of Gibil's wrath. He could be also blamed for the burning of fields. As indicated by the incantation series Maqlû and Šurpu, a further function of the fire god was warding off malevolent magic and unlucky events foretold by nightmares. He additionally played a role in ritual purification. It has been argued that this was his main function in the sphere of cult.While textual sources indicate that Gibil's symbol was a torch, no iconographic representations of him have been identified.
Associations with other deities
Family and court
Piotr Michalowski argues that the beliefs about the origin of Gibil reflected his proposed association with the city of Eridu, as he could be considered "the son of the Abzu". According to another tradition his father was Enlil, as documented in an Old Babylonian Akkadian source and possibly in a Sumerian literary text from the same period. Maqlû instead calls him a "scion" of Anu. The same series of incantations also refers to him as offspring of Shalash, though a copy where Shala occurs instead in the same passage has been discovered too. References to Nuska as his father are known as well.The god list An = Anum indicates that the goddess Ninirigal could be considered the spouse of Gibil. It is not certain if they were already regarded as a couple in earlier periods. The same text states that his divine attendant was Nablum, "flame", who might have been linked to him due to being a divine representation of the effects of his activity, similarly to how the weather god Ishkur's sukkal was Nimgir, "lightning". Furthermore, it assigns him two counselors, the divine representations of a torch and a censer.
Other associations
As already attested in an Ur III text from Nippur, Gibil was connected with the sun god Shamash, who according to Piotr Michalowski was the deity he was most commonly linked to in Mesopotamian tradition. Jeremiah Peterson proposes that the connection between the two was related to the belief documented in Maqlû, according to which in some rituals, possibly these which took place during the month Abu, the fire god was believed to take the place of the sun god at night. He was commonly described as his "friend" or "companion".Gibil was also closely associated with Nuska. They are attested together in Old Babylonian seal inscriptions from Sippar. He also appears after Nuska and his wife Sadarnunna in the Weidner god list, and he is explicitly linked to the former of these two deities in a boundary stone inscription from the reign of Nazi-Maruttash. Andrew R. George notes that he could effectively function as an "agent" of Nuska. However, the two could be identified with each other as well, which led to the development of a tradition in which Nuska, normally associated with Enlil, was instead portrayed as a son or attendant of Anu.
In late commentaries on religious texts, Gibil was often paired with Kusu, a purification deity associated with censers. Both of them could be grouped into a triad with Ningirima, a deity who also belonged to the sphere of ritual purification.
Worship
Gibil is relatively sparsely attested in Mesopotamian texts, though he nonetheless is known from sources from various time periods and locations. Most of the evidence postdates the third millennium BCE.The oldest references to Gibil occur in texts from Early Dynastic Shuruppak, where he might have been a relatively important deity, as in offering lists he occurs alongside the major members of the local pantheon. Additionally, the forty-third of the Zame Hymns is dedicated to him. This text has been discovered in Abu Salabikh. Piotr Michalowski argues that his cult center in this composition is Eridu. An association between him and this city is also accepted by Julia Krul. However, Manfred Krebernik and Jan Lisman instead translate the line describing Gibil's cult center as "NE.GI, pure place of the prince". They consider it implausible that Eridu is meant instead. They point out that NE.GI is likely to be a logographic spelling of the name of an unknown city due to the widespread phenomenon of the same logograms designating both a deity and the corresponding cult center, attested as well for example for Sud and Shuruppak or Enlil and Nippur. Jeremiah Peterson additionally suggests that like his spouse Ninirigal, he might have been associated with Uruk and Kullaba.
In sources from Lagash from the Early Dynastic period, Gibil is only attested in a single theophoric name, Ur-Gibil. In Adab, he occurs in a single Old Akkadian offering list and in a number of theophoric names, such as Geme-Gibil and Ur-Gibil.
Only a single house of worship associated with Gibil is known. Under the name Girra, he was worshiped in the Emelamḫuš, the temple of Nuska in Nippur, as attested in the Canonical Temple List, dated to the Kassite period. Two theophoric names invoking him appear in texts from this city from the same period. He also appears in Assyrian tākultu texts as a member of a group of deities associated with Shamash.
Late attestations of the fire god are known from Seleucid texts from Uruk, though he was not yet worshiped there in the Neo-Babylonian period. Most likely similarly as in the case of Kusu and Kusibanda, his introduction to the local pantheon reflected his role in craftsmanship and his importance in the eyes of āšipu and kalû clergy. Despite being actively worshiped, he is absent from legal texts, and no theophoric names invoking him are attested.