Talk:Kittum

Consort

I know, I know, I'm sticking my oar in the water on god stuff I don't understand but I read, in Frayne "seal of Ikun-pi-Sin dedicated to the god Isar-kidissu, probable spouse of Inanna Kittum, is found on two tablets excavated at Ishchali. Isar-kldissu, apparently some form of the god Nergal, appears to have been an important deity at Ishchali. Leemans has discussed a possible connection of this god with the cult of Estar (see Ishtar of Lagaba and Her Dress pp. 24-26). The evidence of Greengus OBTI 77 lines 12-13 suggests that Isar-kidissu was the consort of the goddess Inanna Kittum (see OBTI pp. 6-7). For the deity Isar-Kldissu see W.G. Lambert, RLA 5 p. 173". Sorry, facts just stick to my fingers. :-) Ploversegg (talk) 00:46, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Kittum and Kitītum are not the same deity and I.-k. has nothing to do with Kittum (who afaik is not attested in Tell Ishchali). I covered this already in the latter's article (I.-k. is also mentioned in Nergal's article iirc), the evidence from OBTI 77 is quite literally just that he appears once next to her in parallel with Shamash and Aya who were a couple. The most recent treatment of this matter I found is in the article, Olga Drewnowska points out that it's not even a consistent pairing (OBTI 18 has him alongside Shamash, Sin and Amurru, without any trace of Kitītum; Shamash appears in a greeting formula from a letter with Ishtar who demonstrably was not his spouse so it's not like every pair of deities was invoked together because they were a couple...). Seems like a serious case of overestimating a single attestation which contains no theological information. There was a temple of I.-k. in Tell Ishchali but I found no evidence it was a part of the Kitītum complex in any publications (it is commonly proposed the small cellas there might have housed other deities, but only Ninshubur is actually attested; and Kitītum's clergy is only attested in association with Sin out of the other deities worshiped in Tell Ishchali, not with I-k.). Also, the RlA entry by Lambert doesn't mention the pairing either. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 07:49, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Anyway, it saved me from making an ill-advised edit to the Tell Ischali article. :-) Ploversegg (talk) 01:18, 4 November 2024 (UTC)