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Concept
Shara (god)
Summary
Shara (Sumerian: 𒀭𒁈, dšara2) was a Mesopotamian god associated with the city of Umma and other nearby settlements. He was chiefly regarded as the tutelary deity of this area, responsible for agriculture, animal husbandry and irrigation, but he could also be characterized as a divine warrior. In the third millennium BCE his wife was Ninura, associated with the same area, but later, in the Old Babylonian period, her cult faded into obscurity and Shara was instead associated with Usaḫara or Kumulmul. An association between him and Inanna is well attested. In Umma, he was regarded as the son of Inanna of Zabalam and an unknown father, while in the myth Inanna's Descent to the Underworld he is one of the servants mourning her temporary death. He also appears in the myth of Anzû, in which he is one of the three gods who refuse to fight the eponymous monster.
While the original etymology of Shara's name is unknown, according to Fabienne Huber Vuillet, in Akkadian it was reinterpreted as a derivative of the word šārum, "wind."
Shara was the god of the city of Umma, corresponding to the modern Tell Jokha in Iraq. Documents from this city also record the existence of multiple secondary local manifestations of him. It is assumed he was the main god in the pantheon of the area under the influence of his cult center, and his position in the Early Dynastic god list from Shuruppak (Tell Fara) might reflect his status as a major deity. His primary function was that of a tutelary deity of the area believed to belong to him. As such, he was responsible for agriculture, animal husbandry and maintaining the irrigation network. This role was exemplified by his epithet gugal-An-negara, "canal inspector appointed by An." A plow dedicated to him (gišapin-dŠará-da-sù-a, possibly to be understood as "the plow named 'Marching with Shara'") is attested in documents from Umma. He could also be described as a warrior deity, in which case his attribute was a barbed arrow.
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