Talk:Shara (god)

Tell Agrab
I reread the excavation report while I was freshening the article and I don't immediately see the temple not being Shara thing, though deities are not my area. I think the "vase" mentioned in the article is the "stone bowl" the excavators mention, though I could be wrong. There are actually two mentions of Shara, both on page 297 of the report. I also didn't see any mention of a "Iluma'tim" in any of the reports. I did look at the M&M book and there was a lot of hand waving. This is not a serious post, more a matter of making a philosophical point. :-)Ploversegg (talk) 00:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC) Ploversegg (talk) 00:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)


 * While I think there are fair criticisms to be made regarding M&M - Durand made a plenty in a review of their book despite broadly agreeing with a number of their proposals if my memory serves me well - I think the point regarding Shara is sound, and so far I found no attempt to disprove it, and as far as I am concerned age of the sources matters. Worth noting that Shara's Reallexikon entry doesn't mention Tell Agrab anymore, last I've seen it mentioned as his cult center was in a book aimed at general audiences from the early 1990s (Black & Green's, iirc). There is virtually no trace of active worship of him that far north (or, indeed, anywhere north of Umma), while Ishara was pretty widespread in the area, and she comes prepackaged with highly variable ortography of the name as a bonus. Unless a source newer than M&M has solid evidence against Ishara and in favor of Shara seems sound to stick to the new reading. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Reasonable. I guess what got me was the impressive scale and nature of the temple, especially for its time, and the finds therein seemed out of scale for a "local god" I'd never heard of. By now I've encountered all the big and middling gods and a number of the nobodies, not this one. Maybe they just Really liked their nothing god. :-) Ploversegg (talk) 14:25, 9 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I think it's quite possible that the name is an epithet of an actual major deity, since there's a plenty of epithets with "matim", "dadmu" and the like especially in western sources (Mari, Emar, etc). Plenty of deities probably could be a "god od the land". Anyway, I looked into it more because of your comment and it seems our sole attestation of Ilu-matim/Iluma'tim so far is a single royal inscription of some ruler with an incomprehensible name from Tell Agrab so I will say I think skepticism is necessary when it comes to assigning anything to him and that the relevant sentence should be reworded for neutrality's sake. I do not think this goes against the implausibility of Shara being worshiped in Tell Agrab though, I will stress once again that this is a god who was rare virtually anywhere outside Umma and its immediate surroundings and who effectively was endered defunct by its decline, and Umma is not exactly known for controlling any territory in the Diyala area.
 * I do not know if you can read Polish but regarding the size of the structure, D. Ławecka, who did partake in a number of excavations in northern parts of Iraq I believe, in her monograph Północna Babilonia w okresie wczesnodynastycznym ("Northern Babylonia in the Early Dynastic period") on p. 135 notes that it should be called into question if we are really dealing with a temple or if the central and northern parts of the excavated section were only a cultic part of a palace or another "secular" building, per analogy with Mari. Granted, she does admit this is a controversial proposal. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 09:48, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Cannot read Polish but looking at this further I found suggestions in two papers in that part of the temple was an apartment complex and that some of the "finds" were heirlooms. I slightly softened things in the Tell Agrab article to take the middle ground. Weird that no-one has been back to the site. Maybe it was looted out. I do see that a number of gods were worshiped at the nearby Eshnunna during that period (though I haven't gotten up the list to freshening that article yet.Ploversegg (talk) 13:34, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Gišša
I would say that the current thinking is that Gišša is actually Umm al-Aqarib. See the Umma article. Or see "Almamori, Haider Oraibi. “THE EARLY DYNASTIC MONUMENTAL BUILDINGS AT UMM AL-AQARIB.” Iraq, vol. 76, 2014, pp. 149–87". Minor thing but I was poking the Umma article so ... Ploversegg (talk) 00:23, 4 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I do think it would be a good idea to at least have more coverage of this matter both here and in the other main article where it's applicable, ie. Ninura. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 22:25, 4 December 2023 (UTC)