Namtar

Namtar is fate in its bluntest sense: the word means the decree, the thing that has been cut, and the god is the officer who serves it. He is Ereshkigal's minister, the one sent to carry out what she has decided, and incantations against sickness name him as the power that looses the sixty diseases on a body. In Nergal and Ereshkigal he goes up to heaven on her behalf and is the occasion of the whole quarrel. He is not a tempter or an adversary; he is administration, which in Mesopotamian terms is worse.

Domains

• death
• disease

Relations

• subordinate to: EreshkigalEreshkigal's sukkal; in Inanna's Descent he is sent to fetch what she demands, and in Nergal and Ereshkigal he carries her messages up to heaven.Reference treatment of Namtar as the minister of Ereshkigal. (secondary)

Sources

• Namtar is the minister of Ereshkigal and the Mesopotamian personification of the decreed death, credited with loosing sixty diseases upon the body.: Reference treatment of Namtar/Namtaru as underworld demon and minister of Ereshkigal. (secondary)