Nintinugga

Nintinugga (also transcribed Nintinuga) was a Mesopotamian goddess associated with medicine and cleansing. She belonged to the local pantheon of Nippur. While she has been compared to other similar goddesses, such as Ninisina and Gula, and in a number of ancient texts they appear to be syncretised with each other or are treated as interchangeable, she was nonetheless a distinct deity in her own right. She was associated with Enlil and Ninlil, and was worshiped in their temples, though houses of worship dedicated only to her are also attested. Nintinugga's name is conventionally translated from Sumerian as "Mistress who revives the dead." However, Barbara Böck notes this interpretation might only reflect an "ancient scholarly etymology." It is possible it initially had a different meaning, with one proposal being "lady of the lofty wine," and only from the reign of Uruinimgina onward it started to be written with the cuneiform sign ug5, "to die." An epithet sometimes applied to her was "the lady of life and death," nin til3-la ug5-ga, attested both in royal inscriptions and in various god lists. Descriptions of Nintinugga's activity in Mesopotamian texts present her as physician, with her responsibilities including applying bandages, cleaning wounds and according to Barbara Böck specifically dealing with the musculoskeletal system. The evidence for an association between her and healing first appears in sources from the Ur III period, and she is well attested as a medicine goddess in the Old Babylonian period. Attestations of physicians serving as her cultic officials are considered to be early evidence of her healing role. In texts where she and other healing deities are invoked together she might represent a specific form of healing rather than medicine as a whole. She was additionally associated with incantations. In a type of ritual, atua, she is connected with cleansing rather than healing, and Irene Sibbing-Plantholt proposes this might have been an aspect of her original character.