Nergal

Nergal is a deity who was worshipped throughout ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia) with the main seat of his worship at Cuthah represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal had a multitude of functions in the religion of ancient Mesopotamia and its neighbors. God lists attest that he had one of the highest numbers of epithets out of all documented deities, with the An-Anum list alone providing around a hundred. He was especially closely related to war, disease, and the underworld, and according to Frans Wiggermann can be understood as "god of inflicted death." However, Nergal's warlike nature also made him a god defending the realm, whose presence was regarded as necessary for peace - in this role he was known under the title Lugal-Silimma ("The lord of peace"). He was invoked in apotropaic rituals as well, as his fearsome reputation was believed to keep houses safe from evil. Over time Nergal developed from a war god to a god of the underworld. Rule over the underworld was initially described as bestowed upon him by his parents, with his function being to decide fates of the dead the same way as Enlil did for the living. As a god of the afterlife, Nergal was associated with sunset in poetry (Mesopotamians believed the sun to travel through the land of the dead at night), and with judgment (one texts links him in that capacity with the judge god Ishtaran).

Character

God

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Darkness is characterized by the absence of visible light. The emotional response of humans to darkness has led to many culturally different metaphorical usages. For example, in Christianity the first narrative of creation begins with darkness. Darkness is said to have existed before the world, then light was introduced. Death is perceived as the ultimate form of darkness, there has not been a single culture in the history of humankind that has not spent a significant amount of time thinking about death and darkness. It should be no surprise, therefore, that we attribute the mysterious processes of death and darkness to supernatural forces. Consequently, we have envisioned beings that usher souls from the mortal coil into the afterlife. These perceptions of darkness and death are largely associated with evil. However, this has not always been the case. In the past, darkness and death were seen as a part of natural order, something that had existed since the beginning of time.