A blog full of Mesopotamian Polytheism, anthropology nerdery, and writer moods. Devotee of Nisaba. Currently obsessed with: the Summa Perfectionis.
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On Nisaba: Epithets
On Nisaba: Epithets
This is just a quick way to dust my brain of ideas before bed, but also a thing I've been interested in. I should be a good scribe and list sources, do some superscript numbers, and all that jazz. I am a sleepy scribe who needs to earn money in the morning, so I'm taking shortcuts like a college student.
Historical terms used for Nisaba:
Mother of the Burning
Priestess of the Country
Purity-Adorned
Noble Lady whose body is the flecked barley
Splendid Radiance
Righteous Wild Cow
Exceedingly Wise
Foremost of the Land
Righteous woman
Woman who swells with joy
Lady who radiates
Exalted Scribe of An
Land-Registrar of Enlil
Beautiful Woman
Lady Colored Like The Stars
Dragon Emerging in Glory at the Festival
Lady Of Broad Wisdom
Lady of the Protective Spirits
Lady of the House of Wisdom
She whose Heart knows Counting
Throne-Bearer of Ninlil
These are not all limited to her, but they have been used to reference her. Her "spheres" if you want to be picky about it are barley, astronomy, mathematics, the act of writing, and literature among other things. There are nuances to her, as with most people.
UPG epithets:
Goddess of Information Technology
Great Librarian
Keeper of the Book of Names
She Who Holds the Book of Life
Lady with hair like mulberry silk
Lady of the Gold Standard
She who is the beauty of the reed wedge pressed into clay
She who dwells in the college coffee shops
Dragon of the book-hoard
Lady of the printing press
She who speaks multitudinous tongues
She who dwells in binary code
Also as a side note, please appreciate the pun in my offering apples and blackberries. In my experience she has a preference for vanilla, too. Check out the chemical breakdown of books as they age and you'll find some vanillin, which is involved in that sacrosanct "book smell". Also almonds, which I'll be trying soon.
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More Posts from Mastabas-and-mushussu
Two Babylonian Lullabies (BM 122691 and OECT 11 002)
This first lullaby is a loose translation, in order to fit a modern musical meter. It can be sung to “Nettleton” (Come Thou Fount) or Joyful, Joyful (Ode to Joy) — I recommend singing lines 1-8, then repeating 1-6 and finishing with 9-10. A closer translation of the same text is at the end, followed by a different, longer incantation to help a crying baby sleep.
Little one, who dwelled in darkness, now you’ve come and seen the sun. Why the crying? Why the worries? What has made your peace undone?
You have roused the household spirits; you have scared the guardian-gods. “Who has roused me? Who has scared me?” “Little baby woke you up!”
May you settle into slumber, sweet as plum-wine, deep as love.
Keep reading
The Epic of Gilgamesh: D&D style
Inanna rolling a Nat 20 to summon the Bull of Heaven. Gilgamesh failing a Perception check when he goes to take a bath and having a snake steal the herb of immortality. Please, tabletop nerds and mythology bookworms, make this a thing?
Altar for when your style is cramped, featuring: One Kleenex A cigarette lighter A cup of cheap but delicious sangria Two icons made from salt dough for Nuska (left) and Nisaba (right), respectively A candle with a stick of incense in it In the background is also a naked Dr. Pepper bottle full of ritually purified water. Which basically amounts to me praying to Enki for him to purify it. I’m not going to make a habit of altar posts, but considering my upcoming video and the number of people nervous about not having elaborate altars, I figured it was appropriate. This was set up on a bedside table, the only place I could. You can easily substitute water for sangria, because what is more sacred than water? I usually pair it with water crackers and an apple, but. Style is very cramped right now.
Love being brutally called out by the British Library
If I might cut in to this waltz:
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The main reason my altar(s) are so pared down is because, if you haven't glanced over my blog, I'm car-homeless. I would like my devotional spaces, if and when I choose to share them, to be an example of what you can do even when you have nothing. They are not to be used to disparage other people's religious choices.
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I am not practically an ascetic by choice, though there is nothing wrong with choosing that path. I reiterate: I'm homeless. Before that, I was rather literally in the closet, and I used a set of shoe cubbies as my altar.
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My dream endgoal is actually a cedar shed behind my eventual house. Stone flooring, bead curtains, statuary, peacock feathers, flowers. Copper offering vessels, ridiculously expensive cuneiform tablets from Etsy, lamassu statues from a museum gift shop in Berlin, star maps and barley sheaves and lanterns. Everything with a meaning, a purpose. A certain amount of personal pride, sure. But I want that space FOR MY GODS.
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Because I'm a visual person, an artist, and when I'm in love with someone or something I kiss their ring while throwing the contents of my wallet in their general direction. Also, I write a lot of sappy poetry. Hence my blog.
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Live and let live. Be in good health, and don't cause yourself such undue stress at the sight of a post on the internet that you proceed to stalk the person like some sort of offended ekimmu. At the very least, there are better things to obsess over, like the influence of the printing press on the Protestant Reformation, or whether all that we see or seem is aught but a dream within a dream.
you say for the shrines don’t focus on elaborate displays? everything is secondary? listen to your own advice then
Hello again hate anon. I’m assuming this is in reference to my comments on @mastabas-and-mushussu altar?
Let’s use your BS hatred to teach others for a moment:
🔹An altar/ shrine can be as little as one wants or as large as one wants.
🔹An altar/shrine can have the bare necessities or have many additional objects and tools. Or only representations as a space to be a focal point for the Gods.
🔹An altar/shrine can be in a plain clean spot or it can be decked out with decorations.
🔹An altar/shrine can be a practical simple space for the person’s religion or it can be a piece of art.
🔹Altars / Shrines will also take different forms based on different traditions. Not everyone is the same.
🔹Someone else’s altars or shrines are no one else’s business. No one, I repeat no one, has the right to look at someone elses altar/shrine and say “thats wrong.” Or as you said in the last ask “gaudy” and “not focused on the gods”
🔹Any altar/shrine made with sincerity and love towards the Gods is acceptable and beautiful.
Mine are a personal piece of art, are very decorated, and usually have more than the minimum necessities on it. However, this isn’t always the case.
My altars can be elaborate:
Or only have the bare requirements of offering vessels and basic ‘tools’:
Or are tiny and plain without all the tools but are simply a shrine space I make for the Gods:
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Here are excerpts from a post I wrote about altars awhile back:
“ […] My altar and my idols are my everything inreligion. Prayers, offerings, any rituals, all come as a package deal to maintain my altar which is my relationship to the Gods. The importance to me is simply not fully describable, kind of like sometimes people can’t fully describe other spiritual experiences.”
and
“Some say that the gods can be anywhere they want to be, at any time, which I agree with. But animating an Idol makes the God tangible & visible, in my mundane, physical space. No astral, or dreams, or meditation; they are there [on the altar] and I am charged with taking care of this gift they have blessed me with.”
My altars are for the Gods. The piece of artwork, as I describe it, is specifically for the Gods. In all ways, it is offered to them and meant for them. If I want to craft one that is super simple or extra elaborate is none of your business. Altars are one of the fundamental necessary aspects of my religion. They are the core representation of my relationship with the Gods— just as the idols were to the ancient Sumerians. You know absolutely nothing anon, take a hike.
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Previous hate BS: https://michi-izkur-ereshkigal.tumblr.com/post/179488659203/your-altars-are-too-gaudy-and-not-focused-on-gods
Also, I have a side blog where I keep my altar related posts only, because they are important to me. My Altar Timeline