Tadmuštum

Tadmuštum or Dadamušda was a Mesopotamian goddess associated with the underworld. She was regarded as the daughter of Nergal, and in known texts often appears in association with his main cult center, Kutha. Attested spellings of Tadmuštum's name in cuneiform include dTá-ad-muš-tum (in an offering list from the Ur III period), dTá-ad-mu-uš-tum (in the god list An = Anum), dTá-da-muš-da (in a late list of dyads of goddesses), dTa-ad-muš-tum (in the text Silbenvokabular A), and according to Manfred Krebernik possibly dTaš-mu-uš-tum (in the Nippur god list). However, according to Jeremiah Peterson the last writing, which he renders as dUR-mu-uš-(t)um, stands for the deity dUR-ma-šum (or dUR-maš), the sukkal of Gula known from the Weidner god list and An = Anum. He notes only in a single exemplar the name ends in the Akkadian feminine suffix, -tum. It is presumed that it the theonym Tadmuštum originates in a Semitic language, though its precise etymology is uncertain, with possible cognates including Akkadian dāmasu ("to humble") and dāmašu (interrogative form of "cover up"), as well as Geʽez damasu ("to abolish," "to destroy" or "to hide"). According to the god list An = Anum (tablet VI, line 15), Tadmuštum was the daughter of Nergal, the god of the underworld. Another deity of similar character, Šubula, was regarded as her husband according to the same source. Like both of these deities, she was also associated with the underworld herself. Manfred Krebernik proposes an etymological connection existed between the names of Tadmuštum and the Ugaritic goddess Dadmiš, who occurs in offering lists from this city alongside Resheph. The oldest available attestations of Tadmuštum come from the Ur III period. She was already regarded as one of the deities of Kutha in this period. In one of the published offering lists, she appears alongside deities such as Laṣ and Šubula. The so-called Silbenvokabular A explains the signs [AŠ].NI-[AŠ].UR first as the primordial par Enki-Ninki, and then as Zarriqum (an underworld god from the circle of Nergal, possibly deification of an official bearing the same name) and Tadmuštum.