Antu

Antu's name is an Akkadian feminine derivative of the theonym Anu and in many sources functions as the feminine counterpart or spouse of the sky god Anu. She appears in texts from the third millennium BCE (e.g., possible Early Dynastic reference at Abu Salabikh, Old Babylonian letters, the Anubanini inscription) but is relatively rare in earlier cultic records. In the Achaemenid and especially the Seleucid period her status was elevated in Uruk where she and Anu were promoted as tutelary deities. In later theological and god-list exegesis she is sometimes equated with earth-deities (ki/erṣetum, Urash) or identified with primordial figures (e.g., Kishar/Anshar) and even linked to underworld matters in select ritual texts.

Surviving sources preserved in the provided material do not give a consistent iconographic or anthropomorphic description of Antu. The textual tradition emphasizes her names, epithets, and theological roles rather than a fixed visual representation; no sustained physical depiction is attested in the cited excerpts.

Primary roles attested in the sources include serving as the feminine counterpart and spouse of Anu, occasional equation with earth (allowing a sky/earth pairing), and—in later Seleucid theological speculation—identification with primordial or underworld aspects. Certain demonological lists and expository texts attribute maternal relations to Antu (for example some texts explicitly call Lamashtu a daughter of Antu and Anu), and she is invoked in ritual and incantatory contexts (incantations against illness and demons, and in the Maqlû anti-witchcraft series alongside Anu and Belet-Seri). Late Uruk astronomical texts identify Anu and Antu with a pair of circumpolar stars referred to as “Great Anu and Antu of Heaven.”