Gunura

Gunura was a Mesopotamian goddess, best known as a daughter and member of the entourage of the medicine goddess Ninisina. She was also associated with other similar goddesses, Gula and Nintinugga. Her original cult center is unknown, though she was worshiped in Isin, Nippur, Ur, Babylon and Assur. She is attested in a number of laments, in which she mourns the death of her brother Damu, and in a narrative about a journey of her mother Ninisina to Nippur. The etymology of Gunura's name is unknown, and early attempts at explaining it relied on the incorrect reading dGu-šir5-ra rather than dGu-nu-ra. She was considered to be a daughter of the medicine goddess Ninisina and her husband Pabilsag, and sister of Damu and Šumaḫ. Alternatively, she could be associated with other similar goddesses, such as Gula or Nintinugga. Three texts from Nippur from the Ur III period attest an association between her and latter deity. She also appears alongside her in an Old Babylonian incantation against the evil eye. Furthermore, a liturgical text from the same period lists her after both Ninisina and Nintinugga, and before Kusu. In the so-called Great Star List, she is one of the "seven Gulas", next to Bau, Ninšudda, Dukurgal, Ama-arḫuš, Ninasag and Nin-umma-siga. However, as pointed out by Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Gunura does not appear in connection with another closely related goddess, Ninkarrak, in any known sources, with the exception of a single bilingual text. It is a variant of Ninisina's Journey to Nippur in which Ninkarrak appears in the Akkadian version as a translation of the eponymous goddess. In the past, it has been argued that Gunura's individual character cannot be established, as in known texts she always appears alongside other members of her family. According to Irene Sibbing-Plantholt today it is assumed that she was a deity associated with healing. She suggests Gunura might have originally arisen as an independent healing deity, and was only incorporated into the circles of medicine goddesses for that reason.