Asag
Mesopotamian · deity · mythic · deity
Asag is disease given a mountain to live on. Lugal-e makes him the offspring of An and Ki — the mother Ki has no record in this registry and is therefore stated rather than linked — and has him mate with the mountain to produce a host of stones that acknowledge him as king. He kills people with headaches and fevers, and the fish boil in the rivers where he is. Ninurta kills him with Sharur, the mace that talks, and the poem then spends its length on the aftermath: the stones are judged one by one, some cursed and some blessed into useful minerals, and the waters that Asag had disordered are sent back down the Tigris. It is a myth about sickness and irrigation told as a war story.
Parentage
Domains
- disease
Powers
- to make the fish boil alive in the water by his presence
Relations
- enemy: Ninurta
Sources
- Lugal-e (Ninurta's Exploits).
- Reference treatment of Asag as the offspring of An and Ki, his stone army, his sickness-dealing and his defeat by Ninurta.