Ninurta

Ninurta was missing, which for the Mesopotamian pantheon is a serious hole: he is Enlil's son, the champion the gods send when something has to be killed, and the power behind the spring floods. Lugal-e — 'Ninurta's Exploits' — has him make war on Asag, a demon of the mountain whose name means disorder, destroying cities and crushing skulls; and then, in the part that matters to a farming civilisation, reorganising the mountain's stones so that the Tigris flows again. He also hunts Anzu after the thunderbird steals the Tablet of Destinies. This registry already held two Assyrian kings named after him; now it holds him.

Parentage

• Enlil

Domains

• war
• agriculture

Powers

• to set the Tigris flowing again after the mountain has blocked it

Relations

• spouse: Gula
• equated with: Ningirsu
• enemy: Asag
• enemy: Anzu

Sources

• Lugal-e (Ninurta's Exploits).
• Reference treatment of Ninurta, of Lugal-e and of the Anzu myth.