Kubaba

Kubaba (in the Esagila "Chronicle"; [ [http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc19/weidner.html The Weidner Chronicle (ABC 19) or Esagila Chronicle] .] Sumerian: Kug-Bau) is the only queen on the Sumerian king list. She was monarch in the 3rd Dynasty of Kish, reigned in the "Early Dynastic III" period (ca. 2500-2330 BC) of Sumerian history and is listed to have reigned for 100 years. Before overthrowing the rule of En-Shakansha-Ana of the 2nd Uruk Dynasty and becoming monarch, the king list says she was a tavern-keeper.

"The house of Kubaba" is mentioned "in the reign of Puzur-Nirah, king of Akshak" (line 38) in the Weidner "Chronicle", a propagandistic letter attempting to predate the shrine of Marduk to an early period: "Kubaba gave bread to the fisherman and gave water, she made him offer the fish to Esagila" (line 43). Her reign was one of peace and prosperity.

Shrines in her honour spread throughout Mesopotamia. [The Weidner "Chronicle" mentioning Kubaba from Grayson, A.K. (1975) "Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles"] [Munn, Mark (2004). "Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context": Emory University cross-cultural conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Central Anatolia" (Abstracts)] In the Hurrian area she may be identified with "Kebat", or "Hepat", one title of the Hurrian Mother Goddess Hannahannah (from Hurrian "hannah", "mother"). Abdi-Kheba (= the servant of Kheba), was the palace mayor, ruling Jerusalem at the time of the Amarna letters (1350 BC).

Kubaba became the tutelary goddess who protected the ancient Syrian city of Carchemish on the upper Euphrates, in the late Hurrian – Early Hittite period. Relief carvings, now at the Museum of Anatolian Antiquities, Ankara, show her seated, wearing a cylindrical headdress like the "polos" and holding a circular mirror in one hand and the poppy capsule or pomegranate in the other. She plays a role in Luwian texts, and a minor role in Hittite texts, mainly in Hurrian religious rituals. According to Mark Munn (Munn 2004), her cult later spread and her name was adapted for the main goddess of the Hittite successor-kingdoms in Anatolia, which later developed into the Phrygian "matar" (mother) or "matar kubileya" [Munn, 2004] whose image with inscriptions appear in rock-cut sculptures. [C.H.E.Haspels, "The Highlands of Phrygia" 1971, I 293 no 13, noted in Walter Burkert, "Greek Religion", 1985, III.3.5 notes 17 and 18.] The Phrygian goddess otherwise bears little resemblance to Kubaba, who was a sovereign deity at Sardis, known to Greeks as Kybebe. [Herodotus 5.102.1, noted by Munn 2004]

Notes

References

* [http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc19/weidner.html "The Weidner 'Chronicle' mentioning Kubaba"] . From Grayson, A. K. (1975). "Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles".
*Munn, Mark (2004). [http://www.mesas.emory.edu/anatconf/abstracts.htm "Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context"] : Emory University cross-cultural conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Central Anatolia" (Abstracts)
*Laroche Emmanuel, "Kubaba déesse anatolienne, et le problème des origines de Cybèle", Eléments orientaux dans la religion grecque ancienne, Paris 1960, p. 113-128.