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NINIB

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 706 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NINIB , the ideographic designation of a See also:

solar deity of Babylonia. The phonetic designation is uncertain—perhaps Annshit. The cult of Ninib can be traced back to the See also:oldest See also:period of Babylonian See also:history. In the See also:inscriptions found at Shirgulla (or Shirpurla, also known as See also:Lagash), he appears as Nin-girsu, that is, " the See also:lord of Girsu," which appears to have been a See also:quarter of Shirgulla. He is closely associated with See also:Bel (q.v.), or En-lil of See also:Nippur, as whose son he is commonly designated. The See also:combination points to the amalgamation of the See also:district in which Ninib was worshipped with the one in which Bel was the See also:chief deity. This district may have been Shirgulla and surrounding places, which, as we know, See also:fell at one See also:time under the See also:control of the rulers of Nippur. Ninib appears in a See also:double capacity in the epithets bestowed on him, and in the See also:hymns and incantations addressed to him. On the one See also:hand he is the healing See also:god who releases from sickness and the See also:ban of the demons in See also:general, and on the other he is the god of See also:war and of the See also:chase, armed with terrible weapons. It is not easy to reconcile these two phases, except on the See also:assumption rr that he has absorbed in his See also:person various See also:minor solar deities, representing different phases of the See also:sun, just as subsequently See also:Shamash absorbed the attributes of practically all the minor sun-deities. In the systematized See also:pantheon, Ninib survives the tendency towards centralizing all sun cults in Shamash by being made the See also:symbol of a certain phase of the sun. Whether this phase is that of the See also:morning sun or of the springtime with which beneficent qualities are associated, or that of the noonday sun or of the summer See also:solstice, bringing suffering and destruction in its See also:wake, is still a See also:matter of dispute, with the See also:evidence on the whole in favour of the former proposition.

At the same time, the possibility of a confusion between Ninib and See also:

Nergal (q.v.) must be admitted, and perhaps we are to see the See also:solution of the problem in the recognition of two diverse See also:schools of theological See also:speculation, the one assigning to Ninib the role of the See also:spring-See also:tide solar deity, the other identifying him with the sun of the summer solstice. In the astral-theological See also:system Ninib becomes the See also:planet See also:Saturn. The See also:swine seems 'to have been the See also:animal sacred to him, or to have been one of the symbols under which he is represented. The See also:consort of Ninib was See also:Gula (q.v.). (M.

End of Article: NINIB

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