Ninkisunu

Ninkisunu (NIN.KIS.UNU “Lord of the city”) is an early rendering of the Semitic Nērḡál, Nirgal, or Nirgali. He is a Sumerian solar deity, son of Enlil and Ninlil. His main seat of worship was at Gudua, present-day mound of Tell Ibrahim.

Iconography
Traditionally, Ninkisunu (Nergal) pairs with his consort Laz. Standard iconography pictures him as a lion, and boundary-stone monuments symbolise him with a scimitar or ceremonial mace often being topped by a (double) lion's head. (Wiggermann 1998-2001e: 223-4). He was depicted as a solar deity, often representing the sun of noontime, but also called "the king of sunset". Portrayals in hymns and myths also depict him as a god of war and pestilence linked to the summer solstice that brings destruction—the high summer being the dead season in the Mesopotamian annual cycle.

Syncretisms
Much of the syncretism of Ninkisunu occurred at a shared main cult centre, in the city of Kutha (Lambert 1973: 356). The earliest incarnation of the name Nergal is in the Early Dynastic Period, syncretised with Meslamtaea [Meslam(-temple)]. Nergal controls the ilū sebettu, the "Seven Gods" who are particularly prominent in the myth of Erra as agents of death and destruction (Foster 2005: 880-911). From the Old Babylonian Period onwards, Nergal was then syncretised with Erra, a Semitic death god (Wiggermann 1998-2001d: 217).

Influence

 * Ninkisunu was worshipped by the Ammorites as Girunugal (Ammorite: 𒀭𒄊𒀕𒃲, dGÌR-UNU-GAL ) and as throughout Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia). His cult was reinvisioned as god of the underworld city,  known as Irkalla (Babylonian), who comes to marry Ereshkigal.


 * Nergal is mentioned in the as the deity of Cuth (Kutha): "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal" (2 Kings 17:30). According to the Talmudists, his emblem was a cockerel, and Nergal came to be referred as a "dunghill cock".


 * In Assyro-Babylonian ecclesiastical art the great lion-headed colossi, serving as guardians to the temples and palaces, seem to symbolise Nergal. In the Neo-Assyrian period, he is attested as a significant figure in official Assyrian cult (Van der Toorn et al. 1999: 622).


 * In the late Babylonian astral-theological system, Nergal is related to the planet Mars as a fiery god of destruction and war; and was equated by the ancient Greeks to the war-god Ares.


 * Later Christian writers associated Nergal (Ninkisunu) with Satan, based on being a god of fire, the desert, and King of the Underworld.


 * portrays Nergal (Ninkisunu) as an antagonist in his novel, The Lost Book of Enki, who “unleashed the nuclear weapons together with Ninurta.”