Also known as: Nidaba, Nanibgal.

Hailed as: “Lady Whose Body is the Flecked Barley”, “The Lady -- in the place where she approaches there is writing”, “The Lady with Cunning Intelligence”, “Faithful Woman Exceeding in Wisdom”

Pray to her for: Scholarly pursuits, academic success and success in work which requires high intellectual activity.

Invoke her with: Write  your prayer on a small piece of parchment like paper and roll it up. Light a yellow candle and hold the roll over the flame. Write ‘Praise be to Nisaba’ at the end and then burn the little paper roll in the fire.

(Hand crafted by Deepta. Inspired by the legend of Nisaba and the Tablet of Destiny)

Nisaba was originally an agricultural deity, associated with grain. As the cultivation, storage and distribution of grain became more organized and important, she also became associated with the keeping of records of the harvest. With the rise of trade and long distance movement, the need for communication arose and the first writing in the form of cuneiform script took shape. There was a need for more elaborate lists of both items and transactions and writing became very important. It was from that evolution, from agriculture to trade that Nisaba became associated with writing and the keeping of records. Scribal schools, called “Tablet House” sprang up and scribal school tablets often end with the phrase, 'Praise be to Nisaba!'

Nisaba was thus associated with literacy and writing instruments as well as numeracy and equipment. She bestowed literate and numerate wisdom on the king. She was invoked in blessings, supplications, even curses, and was one of the most important deities in the Sumerian pantheon. Nisaba was the scribe of the gods and a keeper of both mortal and divine records. She was also associated with architecture and the building and measurement of temples and monuments. She was especially associated with Mathematics and Astronomy.

Her temples have been found in complexes where, other gods have also had their own shrines set up. Her temple at Eresh was known the “House of Lapis Lazuli”, and records show that it remained a center of worship for over 1,000 years.

The Tablet of Destiny

Nisaba was believed to know the secrets of calculation and together with Suen (the Moon god) , she would ‘count the days’. Her temple in Eres was called ‘The House of Stars’. She had many tablets, associated with writing and wisdom and secret knowledge, and one of these was a lapis lazuli tablet, called ‘the tablet with the stars of the pure heaven’. She would place this on her knees and consult it. Infact, it is this very description which is mentioned in one of the cylinders of Gudea of Lagash, where is inscribed a dream, in which he received instructions to build a temple to the god Ningirsu.

These markings on Nisaba’s tablet were supposed to be both--prophetic and of instruction, and it was believed that she was the one who could interpret them and reveal them to her chosen ones. Scholars have taken this finding to be an indication that the Sumerians had developed a star chart much before the advent of the Astrolabes.

 

Hymns to Nisaba

From Enki and the World Order

My illustrious sister, Holy Nisaba, is to get the measuring-reed. 

The lapis-lazuli measuring tape is to hang over her arm. 

She is to proclaim all the great powers. She is to demarcate boundaries and mark borders.

She is to be the scribe of the Land. 

The planning of the gods' meals is to be in her hands.

 

Hymn to Nisaba – Old Babylonian version

Lady coloured like the stars of heaven, holding a lapis-lazuli tablet! Nisaba, great wild cow born by Urac, wild sheep nourished on good milk among holy alkaline plants, opening the mouth for seven ... reeds! Perfectly endowed with fifty great divine powers, my lady, most powerful in E-kur!

Dragon emerging in glory at the festival, Aruru (mother goddess) of the Land ... from the clay, calming, lavishing fine oil on the foreign lands, engendered in wisdom by the Great Mountain! Good woman, chief scribe of An, record-keeper of Enlil, wise sage of the gods!

In order to make barley and flax grow in the furrows, so that excellent corn can be admired; to provide for the seven great throne-daises by making flax shoot forth and making barley shoot forth at the harvest, the {great festival of Enlil -- in her great princely role She has cleansed her body and has draped the holy priestly garment on her torso.

In order to establish bread offerings where none existed, and to pour forth great libations of alcohol, so as to appease the god of grandeur, Enlil, and to appease merciful Kusu and Ezina, she will appoint a great en priest, and will appoint a festival; she will appoint a great en priest of the Land.

He (Enki) approaches the maiden Nisaba in prayer. He has organised pure food-offerings; he has opened up Nisaba's house of learning, and has placed the lapis-lazuli tablet on her knees, for her to consult the holy tablet of the heavenly stars. In Aratta he has placed E-zagin at her disposal. You have built up Erec in abundance, founded from little ... bricks, you who are granted the most complex wisdom!

In the Abzu, the great crown of Eridug, where sanctuaries are apportioned, where elevated ... are apportioned -- when Enki, the great princely farmer of the awe-inspiring temple, the carpenter of Eridug, the master of purification rites, the lord of the great en priest's precinct, occupies E-engura, and when he builds up the Abzu of Eridug; when he takes counsel in Hal-an-kug, when he splits with an axe the house of boxwood; when the sage's hair is allowed to hang loose, when he opens the house of learning, when he stands in the street of the door of learning; when he finishes the great dining hall of cedar, when he grasps the date-palm mace, when he strikes the priestly garment with that mace, then he utters seven ... to Nisaba, the supreme nursemaid:

"O Nisaba, good woman, fair woman, woman born in the mountains! Nisaba, may you be the butter in the cattle-pen, may you be the cream in the sheepfold, may you be keeper of the seal in the treasury, may you be a good steward in the palace, may you be a heaper up of grain among the grain piles and in the grain stores!"

Because the Prince (Enki) cherished Nisaba, O Father Enki, it is sweet to praise you!

References

1.     Mercer, Samuel A.B. "The Malediction in Cuneiform Inscriptions." Journal of the American Oriental Society 34 (1915)

2.     Dhwty. “Nammu: A Forgotten Tale of the Sumerian Mother of Gods.”. Ancient Origins: Reconstructing the story of Humanity’s Past, 

3.     Hallo, William W. The Book of the People. Providence RI 02912: Brown Judaic Studies, Brown University. 2020.

4.      Black, Jeremy. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. 2014

6.     Price, Ira M. “The Oath in Court Procedures in Early Babylonia and the Old Testament”. Journal of the American Oriental Society 49(1929)

7.     Bock, Barbara. The Healing Goddess Gula: Towards an Understanding of Healing Babylonian Medicine. 2014

8.     Alvarez-Mon, Javier. The Art of Elam:  Routledge

9.     Wiseman, D.J. “The Goddess Lama at Ur”. Iraq 22(1-2), ‘Ur in Retrospect: In memory of Sir C. Leonard Woolley’ pp 166-171. 1960

10.   De Shong Meador, Betty. “Enheduanna: The First Known Author”.  American Translators Association Publication. June 27,2017. 

11.   Ornan, Talley. “The triumph of the symbol: Pictorial representation of deities in Mesopotamia and the biblical image ban”.  University of Zurich, 2005.

12.   Koch, Heidemarie. “Theology and Worship in Achaemenid Iran”. Religion and Science, 1995

13.   Ford, Michael. Maskim Hul: Babylonian Magick. 2010.

14.   Jordan, Michael. Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses. New York: 1993,2004

15.   Folz, Richard. Iran in World History. United States of America, 2016

16.   Mark, Joshua. “The Myth of Etana”. Ancient History Encyclopedia. 

17.   Abusch, Tzvi and Karel Van der Toorn. Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical and Interpretative Perspectives. 

18.   Hurwitz, Siegmund, Lilith, the first Eve: Historical and Psychological Aspects of the Dark Feminine. 

19.   Koch-Westenholz, Ulla. Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Division. University of Copenhagen 

20.   Sjoberg, Ake W. “Hymn to Inanna and Her Self Praise”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Volume 40 Number 2. 

21.   Guterbock, Hans Gustav. “An Addition to the Prayer of Muršili to the Sungoddess and Its Implications”. Anatolian Studies, Volume 30, 1980. 

22.   Sassmannshausen, Leonard ed. He has Opened Nisaba’s House of Learning: 

23.   Norrie, Philip. History of Disease in Ancient Times: More Lethal Than War, 2018.

24.   Mullo-Weir, C.J. Rev. “Four Hymns to Gula”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Part 1 – January, 1929

25.   Blasweiler, Joost. “The Kalehisar Mountain and the deities of Arinna, the city of the Sun Goddess” Academia.Edu, 

26.   Scurlock, JoAnn, and Burton R. Andersen. Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine: Ancient Sources, Translations, and Modern Medical Analyses. University of Illinois

27.   Langdon, Stephen Herbert. Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms. United States of America: Library of Alexandria, 1919

28.   Gabolde, Marc Dr. “The End of the Amarna Period”, BBC History, February 17, 2011, 

29.   Houwink, H.J. Ph. “Hittite Royal Prayers”, Brill Online Publication, Volume 16, Issue 1, 1st January, 1969

30.   “Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses”, Oracc and UK Higher Education Academy, 

31.   Dassow, Eva Von, Dr. “Contagion and Recovery in the Ancient Hittite Empire”, 

32.   Mark, Joshua J. “Ancient History Encyclopedia”, Ancient History Encyclopedia.