Nergal

Nergal symbol, Old-Babylonian fired clay plaque from Nippur, Southern Mesopotamian, Iraq

Fragments of a vessel dedicated to the temple of Nergal in Nineveh, showing Shalmaneser III kneeling before Nergal, currently held in the British Museum in London

Nergal seems to be, in part, a solar deity, sometimes identified with Shamash, but only representative of a certain phase of the sun. Portrayed in hymns and myths as a god of war and pestilence, Nergal seems to represent the sun of noontime and of the summer solstice that brings destruction, high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle. He has also been called "the king of sunset".[7] Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld.[8] In the mythology, this occurred when Enlil and Ninlil gave him the underworld.[7]

Nergal was also the deity who presides over the netherworld, and who stands at the head of the special pantheon assigned to the government of the dead (supposed to be gathered in a large cave known as Aralu or Irkalla). In this capacity, he has associated with him a goddess Allatu or Ereshkigal, though at one time Allatu may have functioned as the sole mistress of Aralu, ruling in her own person. In some texts, the god Ninazu is the son of Nergal and Allatu/Ereshkigal.

Ordinarily, Nergal pairs with his consort Laz. Standard iconography pictured Nergal as a lion, and boundary-stone monuments symbolise him with a mace surmounted by the head of a lion.

Nergal's fiery aspect appears in names or epithets such as Lugalgira, Lugal-banda (Nergal as the fighting-cock),[9] Sharrapu ("the burner", a reference to his manner of dealing with outdated teachings),[10] Erra, Gibil (though this name more properly belongs to Nusku), and Sibitti or Seven.[11] A certain confusion exists in cuneiform literature between Ninurta (slayer of Asag and wielder of Sharur, an enchanted mace) and Nergal. Nergal has epithets such as the "raging king", the "furious one", and the like. A play upon his name—separated into three elements as Ne-uru-gal (light of the great Ûru;[12] lord of the great dwelling)—expresses his position at the head of the nether-world pantheon.

In the late Babylonian astral-theological system, Nergal is related to the planet Mars. As a fiery god of destruction and war, Nergal doubtless seemed an appropriate choice for the red planet, and he was equated by the Greeks to the war-god Ares (Latin Mars)—hence the current name of the planet. In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art, the great lion-headed colossi serving as guardians to the temples and palaces seem to symbolise Nergal, just as the bull-headed colossi probably typify Ninurta.

Nergal's chief temple at Cuthah bore the name Meslam, from which the god receives the designation of Meslamtaeda or Meslamtaea, "the one that rises up from Meslam". The name Meslamtaeda/Meslamtaea indeed is found as early as the list of gods from Fara while the name Nergal only begins to appear in the Akkadian period. Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites, Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, (Apal being the construct state of Aplu) meaning "the son of Enlil". As god of the plague, he was invoked during the "plague years" during the reign of the Hittite king Suppiluliuma, when this disease spread from Egypt.

The worship of Nergal does not appear to have spread as widely as that of Ninurta, but in the late Babylonian and early Persian period, syncretism seems to have fused the two divinities, which were invoked together as if they were identical. Hymns and votive and other inscriptions of Babylonian and Assyrian rulers frequently invoke him, but we do not learn of many temples to him outside of Cuthah. The Assyrian king Sennacherib speaks of one at Tarbisu to the north of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, but significantly, although Nebuchadnezzar II (606–586 BC), the great temple-builder of the neo-Babylonian monarchy, alludes to his operations at Meslam in Cuthah, he makes no mention of a sanctuary to Nergal in Babylon. Local associations with his original seat—Kutha—and the conception formed of him as a god of the dead acted in making him feared rather than actively worshipped.

Foundation tablet. Dedication to God Nergal by Hurrian king Atalshen, king of Urkish and Nawar, Habur Bassin, circa 2000 BC. Louvre Museum AO 5678.
"Of Nergal the lord of Hawalum, Atal-shen, the caring shepherd, the king of Urkesh and Nawar, the son of Sadar-mat the king, is the builder of the temple of Nergal, the one who overcomes opposition. Let Shamash and Ishtar destroy the seeds of whoever removes this tablet. Shaum-shen is the craftsman."[14]

The main cult centre of Nergal was Kutha, and also enjoyed patronage over Mashkan-shapir. Cults are also attested for Dilbat, Isin, Larsa, Nippur, Ur and Uruk.[15]

Earliest evidence on Nergal is as the god Meslamtaea in Kutha, in god-lists from Fara and Abu Salabikh. The name Nergal first appears in the Ur III period (22nd to 21st century BC). In the second millennium, Nergal comes to co-rule the underworld with Ereškigal. In the Neo-Assyrian period, he is attested as a significant figure in official Assyrian religious veneration.[15]

Because he was a god of fire, the desert, and the Underworld and also a god from ancient paganism, later Christian writers sometimes identified Nergal as a demon and even identified him with Satan.

According to Collin de Plancy and Johann Weyer, not writing before the 16th century, Nergal was depicted by witches or magi as the chief of Hell's "secret police", and worked as "an honorary spy in the service of Beelzebub".

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nergal". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

• Media related to Nergal at Wikimedia Commons
• ETCSL "A hymn to Nergal" and "A tigi to Nergal": Unicode and ASCII
• Ereskigal.net – "Ereshkigal and Nergal": Assyrian version and Amarna version
• Gateway to Babylon: Nergal and Ereshkigal