Ninlil
Ninlil was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of Enlil. She shared many of his functions, especially the responsibility for declaring destinies, and like him was regarded as a senior deity and head of the pantheon. She is also well attested as the mother of his children, such as the underworld god Nergal, the moon god Nanna or the warrior god Ninurta. She was chiefly worshiped in Nippur and nearby Tummal alongside Enlil, and multiple temples and shrines dedicated to her are attested in textual sources from these cities. In the first millennium BCE she was also introduced to Ḫursaĝkalamma near Kish, where she was worshiped alongside the goddess Bizilla, who was likely her sukkal.
At an early date Ninlil was identified with the goddess Sud from Shuruppak, like her associated with Enlil, and eventually fully absorbed her. In the myth Enlil and Sud, Ninlil is the name Sud received after marrying Enlil. Nisaba, the goddess of writing, and her husband Haya are described as her parents. While Ninlil's mother bears a different name, Nunbaršegunu, in the myth Enlil and Ninlil, the god list An = Anum states that it was an alternate name of Nisaba. Syncretism with Sud also resulted in Ninlil acquiring some of her unique characteristics, such as an association with healing goddesses and with Sudaĝ, a name of the wife of the sun god Shamash. References to these connections can be found in various Mesopotamian texts, such as a hymn referring to Ninlil as a healing goddess or a myth apparently confusing her with Sudaĝ in the role of mother of Ishum.
In Syrian cities such as Mari, Emar and Ugarit, Ninlil was closely associated with the local goddess Shalash, the spouse of Dagan, a god regarded as analogous to Enlil. This equivalence is also attested in Hurrian religion, in which Shalash was the spouse of Kumarbi, another god regarded as similar to Enlil. However, Ninlil is also attested as a distinct deity in Hurrian texts, and could serve as a divine witness of treaties in this context.
In the Neo-Assyrian Empire Ninlil was reinterpreted as the spouse of the supreme Assyrian god Ashur, and in this role developed into Mullissu, who in turn could be identified with various deities from the pantheon of Assyria, such as Šerua or local forms of Ishtar from cities such as Nineveh.
Name
Through most of the third millennium BCE, Ninlil's name was written with the Sumerian cuneiform sign LÍL, while Enlil's with identically pronounced É. From the Ur III period onward LÍL started to be used in both cases. The causes of these phenomena remain unknown. The pronunciation Ninlil is confirmed by a phonetic gloss rendering the name syllabically as ni-in-lil. The meaning of the second element of the name is not certain, though a late explanatory text translates the name Ninlil as GAŠAN za-qí-qí, "lady of the breeze", which matches a common theory according to which Enlil's name should be understood as "lord wind".A variant Akkadian form of the name was Mullilu, in Neo-Assyrian sources spelled as Mullissu, in Aramaic texts as mlš, and in Mandaic as mwlyt. This form of the name was also known to Greek authors such as Herodotus and Ctesias. It is possible that it originally developed as a feminine equivalent of Enlil's dialectical Emesal name Mullil. The names Mullil and Mullissu could also be connected with the Akkadian word elēlu, and therefore it is possible they were understood as "he who makes clean" and "she who makes clean", respectively.
According to the god list An = Anum, an alternate name of Ninlil was Sud, written dSU.KUR.RU. It originally referred to the tutelary deity of Shuruppak, who was syncretised with Ninlil. Jeremiah Peterson proposes that the Sumerian writing of Sud's name was misunderstood as an Akkadian noun based on a single copy of the Nippur god list in which a deity named dsu-kur-ru-um occurs. A different interpretation has been suggested by, who argues this entry has no relation to Sud and represents a deified cult emblem, specifically a lance. The deified lance is elsewhere attested in association with the god Wer.
Character
As the wife of Enlil, Ninlil was believed to be responsible for similar spheres of life, and stood on the top of the pantheon alongside him. Like him, she was believed to be in charge of the determination of fates, and in a few inscriptions even takes precedence over him in this role. A late hymn states that she was the ruler of both earth and heaven, and that Enlil made no decision without her. Kings from the Third Dynasty of Ur considered both of them to be the source of earthly royal authority. In literary texts, she could be described as responsible for appointing other deities to their positions alongside her husband. For example, a hymn credits the couple with bestowing Inanna's position upon her. Another states that Nergal was entrusted with the underworld by them both. In yet another composition, they are also credited with giving Ninisina "broad wisdom created by an august hand". Nuska was also believed to owe his position to a decree of both Enlil and Ninlil. It has been suggested that an entire standardized series of hymns describing how various deities were appointed to their positions this way existed.Due to Enlil's position as the father of gods, Ninlil could be analogously viewed as the mother of gods. In the Temple Hymns she is one of the four goddesses described as ama, "mother", the other three being Nintur, Ninisina and Bau. It is possible that Ninlil could also be referred to with the epithet tamkartum, a rare feminine form of the word tamkarum, "merchant". Enlil could be described as a divine merchant, which according to Jeremiah Peterson might mean that dta-am-kart-tum attested in a fragment of a non-standard Old Babylonian god list from Nippur is a name of Ninlil referring to a similar role.
Like many other deities, she could be compared to a cow, though this does not indicate an association with cattle or theriomorphic character in art. It is possible that she is depicted as a seated enthroned goddess on at least one cylinder seal from the Ur III period. Another might depict her as a tall goddess wearing the horned headdress of divinity leading a supplicant, followed by a shorter goddess, possibly representing Nintinugga, whose devotee the owner of the seal was according to accompanying inscription.
In Mesopotamian astronomy, Ninlil was associated with two constellations, the mulmar-gíd-da corresponding to Ursa Major and the mulÙZ, corresponding to Lyra, as attested in the compendium MUL.APIN and other sources.
It has been argued that through the history of ancient Mesopotamian religion, the domain of Ninlil continued to expand, sometimes at the expense of other goddesses.
Ninlil and Sud
It is agreed that Ninlil fully absorbed the goddess Sud, like her viewed as the spouse of Enlil. Her association with this god goes back to the Early Dynastic period. A mythological explanation made Ninlil a name Sud received after getting married. The syncretism between them is attested in the god list An = Anum, but in the older Weidner god list Sud appears not with Enlil and Ninlil, but rather among the medicine goddesses, next to Gula.The process of conflation meant that some associations originally exclusive to Sud could be transferred to Ninlil as well. For example, the Hymn to Gula composed by Bulluṭsa-rabi attests that she could be viewed as a goddess of healing, which has been identified as a possible result of Sud's association with Gula. Sud could also be associated with Sudaĝ, one of the names of the wife of sun god Shamash.
Hurrian reception
Ninlil was also incorporated into Hurrian religion, where she and Enlil were regarded as two of the so-called "primeval gods", a group of deities belonging to the former divine generations who resided in the underworld. Other senior Mesopotamian deities like Anu and Alalu could be listed among them too. They could be invoked as divine witnesses of treaties.Assyrian reception
From the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I onward, Ninlil started to be viewed as the wife of the Assyrian head god, Ashur. The equivalence between Ninlil understood as spouse of Enlil and Mullissu understood as spouse of Ashur is well attested in Neo-Assyrian sources.It has been argued that Mullissu's newfound position might have resulted in conflation with Šerua, as in scholarship it is often assumed that this goddess was the original wife of Ashur. It has also been proposed that while originally regarded as his wife, she later came to be replaced by Mullissu, and was demoted to the position of a daughter or sister. A different theory, based on Aramaic inscriptions from the Parthian period, makes Šerua's initial position that of a daughter of Ashur, who later came to be viewed as his second wife alongside Mullissu. Mullissu also came to be conflated with Ishtar of Nineveh, who was also recast as Ashur's consort in the Neo-Assyrian period. It has been argued that especially in texts from the reign of Ashurbanipal, the names are synonymous. Similar process is also attested for Ishtar of Arbela and Ishtar of Assur. At the same time Ishtar without any epithets indicating association with a specific location could appear in Assyrian texts separately from the goddesses of Nineveh and Arbela identified with Mullissu, indicating that they coexisted as separate members of the pantheon.
Associations with other deities
Family
Ninlil's husband was Enlil. As early as in the Early Dynastic Period, they are attested as a couple in sources from Abu Salabikh and Ur. The relationship between them is further affirmed by most of the later major god lists: the Weidner god list, the Nippur god list, the Isin god list, the Mari god list, Old Babylonian An = Anum forerunner and An = Anum itself. As Ninlil's husband, Enlil could be called "the allure of her heart". It has been pointed out that in some cases, they functioned as unity in religious texts. A certain Enlilalša, a governor of Nippur, acted as a priest of both Enlil and Ninlil, though the terms used to refer to these functions are not identical.The myth Enlil and Sud indicates that Ninlil was regarded as the daughter of Nisaba, the goddess of writing, and her husband Haya. In Enlil and Ninlil her mother is instead a goddess named Nunbaršegunu, who according to the god list An = Anum was identified with Nisaba. Eresh, the cult center of Nisaba, could be called the "beloved city of Ninlil", as attested in the composition Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana. However, it is not known if a temple dedicated to her actually existed there.
As the wife of Enlil, Ninlil could be regarded as the mother of Ninurta, as attested for example in Ninurta's Return to Nippur, though other goddesses, such as Nintur, Ninhursag or Dingirmah are attested in this role too. She was also practically without exception regarded as the mother of Nergal. As the mother of those two gods, she could be referred to with the epithet Kutušar. It is attested in association with the city of Tummal. It also occurs in an inscription of Shamshi-Adad V, in which Kutušar is called "the lady equal to Anu and Dagan", with Dagan most likely serving as a name of Enlil due to the long-standing association between those two gods. Ninlil was also the mother of the moon god Nanna. By extension, Inanna and Utu could be viewed as her grandchildren.
While a number of sources attest that Ninlil could be regarded as the mother of Ninazu, according to Frans Wiggermann this tradition might only be a result of the growing influence of Nergal on this god's character, which was also responsible for his role as a divine warrior. He points out that in other sources Ninazu was the son of Ereshkigal and a nameless male deity, presumably to be identified with Gugalanna, which reflected his own character as a god of the underworld. Ninazu is nonetheless one of the children born in the myth Enlil and Ninlil, where his brothers are Nanna, Meslamtaea and Enbilulu. The last of these deities was responsible for irrigation, and in another tradition was a son of Ea, rather than Enlil and Ninlil.
Ninlil could also be identified with Nintur, who was regarded as the mother of another of Enlil's sons, Pabilsaĝ. In a hymn, she is credited with bestowing various titles and abilities on Ninisina, who is well attested as Pabilsag's wife.