Girsu in the context of "Vegetation deity"

Dhi Qar Governorate (Arabic: محافظة ذي قار, romanized: Muḥāfaẓat Ḏī Qār, Arabic: [muħaːfaðˤat ðiː qaːr]) is a governorate in southern Iraq, in the Arabian Peninsula. The provincial capital is Nasiriyah. Prior to 1976 the governorate was known as Muntafiq Governorate. Thi Qar was the heartland of the ancient Iraqi civilization of Sumer, and includes the ruins of Ur, Eridu, Lagash, Larsa, Girsu, Umma, and Bad-tibira. The southern area of the governorate is covered by Mesopotamian Marshes.

The Stele of the Vultures is a monument from the Early Dynastic IIIb period (2600–2350 BC) in Mesopotamia celebrating a victory of the city-state of Lagash over its neighbour Umma. It shows various battle and religious scenes and is named after the vultures that can be seen in one of these scenes. The stele was originally carved out of a single slab of limestone, but only seven fragments are known to have survived up to the present day. The fragments were found at Tello (ancient Girsu) in southern Iraq in the 1880s and are now on display in the Louvre. The stele was erected as a monument to the victory of king Eannatum of Lagash over Ush, king of Umma. It is the earliest known war monument.

Ninshubur (𒀭𒎏𒋚,; Ninšubur, "Lady of Subartu" or "Lady of servants"), also spelled Ninšubura, was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the sukkal (divine attendant) of the goddess Inanna. While it is agreed that in this context Ninshubur was regarded as female, in other cases the deity was considered male, possibly due to syncretism with other divine messengers, such as Ilabrat. No certain information about her genealogy is present in any known sources, and she was typically regarded as unmarried. As a sukkal, she functioned both as a messenger deity and as an intercessor between other members of the pantheon and human petitioners.

Due to the belief that she could intercede with higher ranking deities, Ninshubur was popular in everyday religion, and many theophoric names invoking her and other references to personal worship are known. Her original cult center was Akkil, but in the Early Dynastic Period she was already worshiped in nearby Uruk. She was also introduced to the pantheon of the state of Lagash, where her cult center was Girsu. Multiple kings of this area regarded her as their personal deity. In the Ur III period she was also introduced to Ur. Further cities where Ninshubur was worshiped include Adab, Nippur, Malgium, and more.

The Early Dynastic Period (abbreviated ED Period or ED) is an archaeological culture in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) that is generally dated to c. 2900 – c. 2350 BC and was preceded by the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods. It saw the development of writing and the formation of the first cities and states. The ED itself was characterized by the existence of multiple city-states: small states with a relatively simple structure that developed and solidified over time. This development ultimately led, directly after this period, to broad Mesopotamian unification under the rule of Sargon, the first monarch of the Akkadian Empire. Despite their political fragmentation, the ED city-states shared a relatively homogeneous material culture. Sumerian cities such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Umma, and Nippur located in Lower Mesopotamia were very powerful and influential. To the north and west stretched states centered on cities such as Kish, Mari, Nagar, and Ebla.

The study of Central and Lower Mesopotamia has long been given priority over neighboring regions. Archaeological sites in Central and Lower Mesopotamia—notably Girsu but also Eshnunna, Khafajah, Ur, and many others—have been excavated since the 19th century. These excavations have yielded cuneiform texts and many other important artifacts. As a result, this area was better known than neighboring regions, but the excavation and publication of the archives of Ebla have changed this perspective by shedding more light on surrounding areas, such as Upper Mesopotamia, western Syria, and southwestern Iran. These new findings revealed that Lower Mesopotamia shared many socio-cultural developments with neighboring areas and that the entirety of the ancient Near East participated in an exchange network in which material goods and ideas were being circulated.

Ninurta (Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒅁: NIN.URTA, possible meaning "Lord [of] Barley"), also known as Ninĝirsu (Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒄈𒋢: NIN.ĜIR₂.SU, meaning "Lord [of] Girsu"), is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who cures humans of sicknesses and releases them from the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes. He was regarded as the son of the chief god Enlil and his main cult center in Sumer was the Eshumesha temple in Nippur. Ninĝirsu was honored by King Gudea of Lagash (ruled 2144–2124 BC), who rebuilt Ninĝirsu's temple in Lagash. Later, Ninurta became beloved by the Assyrians as a formidable warrior. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) built a massive temple for him at Kalhu, which became his most important cult center from then on.

In the epic poem Lugal-e, Ninurta slays the demon Asag using his talking mace Sharur and uses stones to build the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to make them useful for irrigation. In a poem sometimes referred to as the "Sumerian Georgica", Ninurta provides agricultural advice to farmers. In an Akkadian myth, he was the champion of the gods against the Anzû bird after it stole the Tablet of Destinies from his father Enlil and, in a myth that is alluded to in many works but never fully preserved, he killed a group of warriors known as the "Slain Heroes". His major symbols were a perched bird and a plow.

Lagash (/ˈleɪ.ɡæʃ/; cuneiform: 𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠 LAGAŠ; Sumerian: Lagaš) was an ancient city-state located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about 22 kilometres (14 mi) east of the modern town of Al-Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash (modern Al-Hiba in Dhi Qar Governorate) was one of the oldest cities of the Ancient Near East, and the Lagash state incorporated the cities of Lagash, Girsu, Nina. Girsu (modern Telloh), about 25 km (16 mi) northwest of Lagash, was the religious center of the Lagash state, with its main temple, the E-ninnu, dedicated to the god Ningirsu. The ancient site of Nina (Tell Zurghul), around 10 km (6.2 mi) away, marks the southern limit of the state.

Bad-tibira (also Patibira) (Sumerian: 𒂦𒁾𒉄𒆠, bad₃-tibira) was an ancient Sumerian city dating back to theEarly Dynastic period, which appears among antediluvian cities in the Sumerian King List. In the earliest days of Akkadian language studies its name was mistakenly read as Dûr-gurgurri. Its location is believed to be at modern Tell al-Madineh (also Tell Madineh and Tell al-Mada’in), between Ash Shatrah and Tell as-Senkereh (ancient Larsa) and 25 km southwest of ancient Girsu in southern Iraq. This proposal is based on unprovenanced illegally excavated inscriptions which were said to have come from a mound called Medain 29 km northwest of Girsu, following a report of a vendor of one of the inscriptions, but excavations there had proved fruitless.

There is known to be a temple of the deity Kittum at Bad-tibira. Isar, a god of Mari is also said to have been worshiped there. It has been suggested that Ninsheshegarra, an aspect of the goddess Geshtinanna who is sister of Dumuzid, was worshiped in the temple Esheshegarra at Bad-tibira.

Bau (cuneiform: 𒀭𒁀𒌑 Ba-U₂; also romanized as Baba or Babu) is a Mesopotamian goddess. The reading of her name is a subject of debate among researchers, though Bau is considered the conventional spelling today. While initially regarded simply as a life-giving deity, in some cases associated with the creation of mankind, over the course of the third and second millennia BCE she also acquired the role of a healing goddess. She could be described as a divine midwife. In art she could be depicted in the company of waterfowl, scorpions, and dogs.

In sources from Lagash and Girsu, Bau's husband was the god Ningirsu. Among their children were deities such as Igalim, Shulshaga and Ḫegir. While they could still be regarded as a couple in later sources, from the Old Babylonian period onwards Bau was also viewed as the wife of Zababa, the tutelary god of Kish. Another deity associated with her was her attendant goddess Lammašaga. Most likely for political reasons, Bau also came to be associated, and partially syncretised, with the medicine goddess Ninisina. In the late second millennium BCE she also came to be associated with Gula, and could be equated with her, though texts where they are two separate goddesses are known too. In one case, Bau is described as the deity who bestowed Gula's position upon her.

A vegetation deity is a nature deity whose disappearance and reappearance, or life, death and rebirth, embodies the growth cycle of plants. In nature worship, the deity can be a god or goddess with the ability to regenerate itself. A vegetation deity is often a fertility deity. The deity typically undergoes dismemberment (see sparagmos), scattering, and reintegration, as narrated in a myth or reenacted by a religious ritual. The cyclical pattern is given theological significance on themes such as immortality, resurrection, and reincarnation. Vegetation myths have structural resemblances to certain creation myths in which parts of a primordial being's body generate aspects of the cosmos, such as the Norse myth of Ymir.

In mythography of the 19th and early 20th century, as for example in The Golden Bough of J.G. Frazer, the figure is related to the "corn spirit", "corn" in this sense meaning grain in general. That triviality is giving the concept its tendency to turn into a meaningless generality, as Walter Friedrich Otto remarked of trying to use a "name as futile and yet pretentious as 'Vegetation deity'".