Nicole Maria Brisch - Women and Religion in the Ancient Near East and Asia

To the memory of our mothers

This book and all its contributions originated in the discovery in 2015 that Chuo University in Tokyo and the University of Copenhagen are partner universities. As we discovered this connection, an idea began to take shape that we wanted to use a small subject like Assyriology to create a platform for knowledge exchange between Japan and Denmark, two countries that are commonly counted among the periphery of academia in general and Assyriology in particular, even though both countries have long traditions in the study of the ancient Near East.

It so happened that we were both researching the roles of women in ancient Mesopotamia, and so we decided to hold two workshops on the topic of women and their interaction with the sphere of the religious in ancient Mesopotamia, a topic that, to our mind, had not received enough attention (see below).

The first workshop took place in 2015 and was funded by the Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI), a cross-faculty initiative at the University of Copenhagen that seeks to facilitate exchange in research and teaching and has the goal to grasp the dynamics of Asia for which it is necessary to both understand and learn from Asia. The second workshop took place in 2017 and was funded by Faculty of Letters and Institute of Cultural Science at Chuo University and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). While intellectual traditions and societal dynamics are very different in Japan and Denmark, the study of the ancient Near East, including ancient Egypt, in both countries can offer a platform for an exchange of knowledge of a third cultural area that is geographically, culturally, and chronologically remote from both of these countries.

The two workshops as well as this volume would not have been possible without the help of the abovementioned sponsors and the speakers and contributors. We would like to sincerely thank them. We are also very grateful to the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies of the University of Copenhagen and the Department of Western History at Chuo University for their logistical support. This publication would not have been possible without the generous support from the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin / Institute for Advanced Study, which hosted Fumi Karahashi in February 2020 as a guest of Nicole Brisch. This made it possible for us to get started with our editorial duties. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Gonzalo Rubio and the staff at DeGruyter for having accepted our book for publication. And finally, we are very grateful to Simone Willemoes Skjold Srensen for having helped with the book in the final stages of preparing the manuscripts for publication. This book would not have been possible without the brilliant support we received from everyone mentioned here and we are extremely grateful.

Please note: unless stated otherwise, abbreviations follow the Assyrian Dictionary of the University of Chicago (CAD) or the list of abbreviations on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initative (CDLI) (https://cdli.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/abbreviations).

• Divine Names
• Adad
• AmaNIN-Getinana. Getinanna
• An
• Anat
• Annuntum. Itar
• Anu. An
• Anuna
• Aphrodite
• Artemis
• Aruru
• Asallui
• Ashtart-Aphrodite
• Aur
• Aurtum
• Atart. Itar
• Athena
• Athirat/Asherah
• Atra-ass
  • Baal
  • Baalat Gubal
  • Baal Hammon
  • Baba
  • Bastet
  • Belet-ekallim
  • Blet-ri Getinanna
  • Bilulu
  • Dagan
  • Damu
  • Dido
  • Dilimbabbar
  • Dumuzi
  • Ea Enki
  • El/Ilu
  • Elissa
  • Emar
  • Enki
  • Enlil
  • Erekigal
  • Eshmoun
  • Euploia. Aphrodite
  • Gatumdug
  • Getinana. Getinanna
  • Getinanna
  • Gugalana
  • Gula
  • Hathor
  • Hephaistos
  • Hera
  • Horus
  • almauitt

• • Illuyanka
  • Inana. Inanna
  • Inanna
  • Ikur. Adad
  • Iara
  • Itar
  • Isis
  • Itara. Itar

• • Kothar
  • Kronos
  • Kusu
  • Kythereia. Aphrodite.

• • Lamatu
  • Limenia. Aphrodite
  • Lugalaba
  • Lugalmudakush

• • Maitreya
  • Marduk
  • Martu
  • Melqart. Baal
  • Mezzulla
  • Mullil. Enlil.
  • Mullissu. Ninlil.

• • Nab
  • Nanaya
  • Nanna
  • Nane
  • Nergal
  • Ningal
  • Ningirima
  • Ningirsu
  • Ningizida
  • Ninursag
  • Nininsina
  • Ninlil
  • Ninmah
  • Ninsikila
  • Ninsun
  • Ninubur
  • Nintinuga
  • Nintud/r. Ninmah.
  • Ninurta
  • Nisaba
  • Numuda
  • Nunbaregunu. Nisaba
  • Nuska
  • Nusku Nuska.

• • Osiris

• • Pazuzu
  • Pontia. Aphrodite

• • Re

• • Sakhmet
  • Sekhmet. Sakhmet
  • Selqet
  • Sn/Suen. Nanna
  • Sud. Ninlil
  • Sutti