Ninpumuna

Ninpumuna's name can be translated from Sumerian as "mistress of the salt spring."[1][2] The term pu₃-mun, "salt spring," is first attested in a document from the Early Dynastic period.[3] The theonym is rendered as ^dNin-TÚL-mun-na in the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie,[1] but more recent publications by Dina Katz (2007),[4] Annabelle Staiger (2010)[2] and Jose Hernández (2013) consistently use the reading "Ninpumuna."[5] Mark E. Cohen already referred to her as "Ninpumunna" in a monograph published in 1993.[6]

It is presumed that Ninpumuna was associated with the underworld.[6][1] Possibly the type of springs she was associated with was perceived as a symbol of death.[1] However, Steiger notes that future studies of her character will need to take into account that salt also had positive associations in Mesopotamian culture,[7] chiefly as a valuable ware or as an agent of ritual purification.[8]

The only known texts which mention Ninpumuna come from Ur and Puzrish-Dagan.[3] All have been dated to roughly the same forty years old section of the Ur III period, and most were specifically written during the reigns of kings Amar-Sin and Ibbi-Sin.[9]

In a text from the latter of these two sites, a priestess of Meslamtaea is stated to be responsible for offering sheep to Ninpumuna.[10] However, she also had her own clergy, as evidenced by the fact that a "saĝĝa of Ninpumuna" appears in a document from the same location dealing with deliveries for Usaga, a possible member of the royal family, and to an Amorite named Naplānum.[5] The term saĝĝa can be translated as "temple administrator."[11] One ceremony involving Ninpumuna took place in a temple of Ninsun, and apparently was overseen by the reigning king at the time, Shu-Sin.[12] She also appears in the fourth ritual[4] from a series pertaining to funerary rites of the same monarch which has been discovered in Puzrish-Dagan.[13] According to this text, she received an offering of sacrificial animals alongside deities such as Ninshubur, Bau, Belet-Šuḫnir, Haya, various manifestations of Inanna, Shamash, Meslamtaea, Geshtinanna, Allatum, Gilgamesh, the underworld gatekeeper Bitu, the deified king Amar-Sin, and others.[4] The order in which they are arranged might be random.[14]

In Ur Nipumuna appears in two offering lists, in both of which she receives offerings alongside Ninazu, and in one also and Ningirida, Ningishzida, Ninazimua, Alla and a deity whose name is not fully preserved.[6] Similar associations between her and underworld deities are commonly attested in other available sources.[1] She is also attested in association with Alammuš and Ninurima.[15] Based on her connection to Ningishzida, Annabelle Steiger suggests that she might have been worshiped in his cult center, Gishbanda.[12]