Šimige

Šimige was the Hurrian sun god. Known sources do not associate him with any specific location, but he is attested in documents from various settlements inhabited by the Hurrians, from Kizzuwatnean cities in modern Turkey, through Ugarit, Alalakh and Mari in Syria, to Nuzi, in antiquity a part of the kingdom of Arrapha in northeastern Iraq. His character was to a large degree based on his Mesopotamian counterpart Shamash, though they were not identical. Šimige was in turn an influence on the Hittite Sun god of Heaven and Luwian Tiwaz. In Hurrian myths, Šimige is portrayed as one of the allies of Teshub. He plays an active role in the Song of Ullikummi, where he is the first to spot the eponymous monster, and as a result brings the news about his existence to the weather god. Šimige was a sun god. He was believed to travel through the sky in a chariot drawn by four horses, accompanied by his servants. He was also associated with oracles. It is agreed that Šimige's name means "sun" in Hurrian, but more detailed etymological and morphological analysis is not possible yet. The orthography of the name varies between sources. Examples of its cuneiform writings include ši-mi-i-ge in the so-called "Mitanni letter," ši-mi-ge-e in incantations from Mari, and ši-mi-ga or ši-mi-ka in theophoric names from various sites, from Alalakh in the west to Arrapha in the east. Gernot Wilhelm suggests that forms ending in -e might be western, while these ending with an -a - eastern. In the Ugaritic alphabetic script the name was rendered as ṯmg. As early as in the inscription of early Hurrian king Atalshen, Šimige's name could also be represented by the Sumerian logogram dUTU. In some cases, for example in texts from Hattusa, it is difficult to tell which solar deity is meant due to this writing being used to represent multiple names. Similarly, it is not certain which solar deity or deities are represented by the logogram dUTU in documents from Emar, with Hurrian, Mesopotamian, Hittite and local ones all being considered plausible options by Gary Beckman.