Ninshubur

A very very interesting Old Babylonian  cylinder seal, circa 1700-1600BC. 

The official description:

"A supplicant (the one who prays to god), wearing long robe, stands before a deity. The deity is standing with one foot resting on a lying animal (?), holding a staff with elaborate top part, which is  positioned directly under a crescent and circle with an inscribed cross"...

There are three lines of cuneiform text reading: "Nin-Subur (Ninshubur), wise in all things, have mercy on me"... 

That's very interesting. Ninshubur was the sukkal (vizier) of the goddess Inanna/Ishtar...You know, Inanna/Ishtar (the warrior goddess) who likes posing standing on a lion...Like on this Akkadian seal, dated 2350–2150 BC...Ninshubur is the girl on the left admiring the goddess...

Why is Inanna/Ishtar standing on a lion?...Is that important? Well very much so...You know how Inanna/Ishtar was "the morning star"? Everyone thinks that's Venus, as Venus does rise with the sun every morning...

Now standing on a lion, standing between lions, being driven by lion pulled chariots, being depicted as half lion...All mean in Leo, at the beginning of the main mating season of the Eurasian lions...

Guess who rises with the sun, pretending to be "the morning star" in Leo? Sirius...A very special star indeed...True lady of heaven...

BTW, Inanna/Ishtar was not just depicted standing on a lion...She was the lion. A chlorite bowl from the temple of Inanna at Nippur depicts a large feline battling a giant snake and a cuneiform inscription on the bowl reads "Inanna and the Serpent", indicating that the cat is supposed to represent the goddess. 

If anyone has a pic of this vessel, please post the link in the comments...

So the lion on the Ishtar gate is probably Ishtar herself...

O by the way, the snake is the symbol of sun's heat. Which grows during summer, reaches its peak in Leo, and diminishes during autumn, symbolised by lion...So lion killing snake means cooling...

It turns out, that, according to references found in various texts, Ninshubur could also have been sukkal (vizier) or wife of Nergal, the god of death...

Now guess who is the god, depicted on the original seal, standing on the right facing Ninshubur, holding a two headed lion scepter and a scimitar, standing under the sun disc? No other than Nergal...See? Same guy...

Nergal was actually commonly depicted as a human headed lion...

Why?

Cause he was "the personification of the Destructive, Burning sun". And in Mesopotamia, the sun is hottest and most destructive in Leo...

I talked about Nergal and his linke to Leo in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...

So it seems that this is one of the texts in which Ninshubur is explicitly named as the sukkal (vizier) or wife of Nergal. An intermediary to whom the mortals prayed, hoping that she would put in a god word for them to Nergal...

Oh, did you notice how both of Ninshubur's bosses, Ishtar and Nergal, are in a war business, her being the goddess of war and him being the god of war...And did you notice how they both have offices in Leo...Same building? Convenient...

Oh and you know how the note on the original seal says "The sun god and the worshiper"? Guess who else is standing "between the lions"? The Old Utu/Shamash, the Old Sun of Leo...The destructive sun that dries the rivers and canals... 

I talked about this in my posts "Canals" and "Shamash young and old"...