Ninimma was a Mesopotamian goddess best known as a courtier of Enlil.
21 Facts About Ninimma
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Ninimma is well attested as a deity associated with scribal arts, and is variously described as a divine scholar, scribe or librarian by modern Assyriologists.
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Ninimma could serve as an assistant of the birth goddess Ninmah, and a hymn describes her partaking in cutting of umbilical cords and determination of fates.
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Ninimma is sparsely attested in literary texts, with only two hymns dedicated to her presently known.
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Ninimma appears in the myth Enki and Ninmah and in a variant of Enki and Ninhursag.
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One possible example is a god list where Ninimma is described as "Ea of the Scribes," nin.
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In Seleucid Uruk, Ninimma instead came to be viewed as one of the seven children of Enmesharra.
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Joan Goodnick Westenholz in an earlier publication pointed out that Ninimma could be linked to Ninnibru, the title of Ninurta's wife, though she assumed this association reflected her role as Ninurta's sister, rather than spouse.
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Ninimma was regarded as one of the members of the court of Enlil, specifically as a scribe in his service.
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Ninimma is already attested as a member of his circle in the Old Babylonian An = Anum forerunner.
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Outside An = Anum, Ninimma appears in association with the moon god only in a single Neo-Assyrian fragmentary god list where her entry follows his.
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Ninimma could be associated with Nisaba and possibly acquired some of her characteristics as a result.
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Various ritual texts indicate Ninimma was associated with Shuzianna, who appears alongside her in the myth Enki and Ninmah among the eponymous goddess' helpers aiding her in creation of mankind.
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Ninimma additionally appears alongside these five deities and Ninmada in sections dedicated to Enlil's courtiers in An = Anum and the Canonical Temple List.
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The name of Irda, a minor goddess from the pantheon of Nippur who was associated with the underworld, appears as a title of Ninimma in the Old Babylonian forerunner of An = Anum, but according to Karen Focke they are not associated with each other in any other texts, which likely indicates this is an ancient scribal error.
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Wilfred G Lambert instead considered it possible that Nammu and Ninimma were etymologically related, rather than merely confused with each other, and suggests that Ninimma was at some point in time functionally analogous to Nammu, and like her was regarded as a primordial creator deity.
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The oldest attestation of Ninimma is an entry in the Early Dynastic Fara god list.
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Ninimma was chiefly associated with the city of Nippur, where she was already worshiped prior to the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the third millennium BCE.
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Ninimma is well attested in offering lists from this city and Puzrish-Dagan from the Ur III period.
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Ninimma was one of the deities who took part in a procession during a festival connected to this location known from sources from the Achaemenid period.
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Ninimma appears in the myth Enki and Ninmah, where she is one of the seven goddesses who help with the creation of mankind.