The title Bel is derived from the East Semitic form BÊL, meaning 'lord' or 'master'. It is cognate with the Northwest Semitic Baal, indicating a shared meaning and linguistic relationship.
As a title applied to various gods, the abilities of Bel are not explicitly defined. The gods associated with this title likely have different powers and roles within Mesopotamian mythology.
Adapa
Adapa is a mythic figure from ancient Mesopotamian (Sumerian and Akkadian) literature: a mortal fisherman and temple sage of Ea at Eridu endowed with exceptional wisdom. He appears in a fragmentary tale in which he breaks the wings of the south wind and is summoned to the divine court; his name was later invoked in exorcistic and ritual contexts as an authoritative identity.
Akhkhazu
Akhkhazu (also Ahhazu; Sumerian Dimme-kur) is an Akkadian-era Mesopotamian malignant spirit described as a demon of jaundice who 'seizes' victims, brings fever and plagues, and is cited in later summaries as one member of a triad with Labasu and Labartu. Later popular summaries also describe her as preying on nursing infants while mothers slept.
Alû (Alu)
A named lemma attested in modern reference lists as 'ALU / Alu', but for which the supplied research corpus contains no substantive primary- or secondary-source information about nature, appearance, powers, or rituals in Mesopotamian tradition.
Amurru (Martu)
Amurru, Sumerian Martu, is a Mesopotamian deity who functions as the divine personification of the Amorites. Originating in Mesopotamian textual practice, he is associated with the steppe and mountains, depicted with a crooked staff, portrayed in hymnography as warlike and lightning-armed, and from the Old Babylonian period acquires a prominent exorcistic cultic role.
Anshar
Anshar is a Mesopotamian primordial deity whose name (Cuneiform AN.ŠÁR) literally means "whole sky" or "the whole heaven." He functions as an abstract ancestral figure in theogonic genealogies (not actively worshiped as a regular cult deity) and appears in literary contexts—most notably the Enūma Eliš—and in god lists where he legitimizes later supreme gods.
Anu
Anu (Sumerian An; Akkadian Anu/Anum) is the divine personification of the sky in ancient Mesopotamian religion, traditionally ranked at the top of god‑lists as the source of heavenly authority (anûtu/anuti) and the fount of legitimate rule for gods and kings. Though supreme in genealogies and astronomical schema, many periods portray him as a relatively passive or figurehead deity whose active cultic role is limited until a late Seleucid reinvention in Uruk.
Anunnaki
A variable collective of major deities in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian religious literature, described as offspring or descendants linked to the sky god An (Anu) and an earth/mother figure (Ki/Ninhursag). Texts portray them as participants in the divine assembly, decreers of human fate, and in some traditions a group of seven underworld judges; their number, membership, and functions vary across sources.
Anzû (Imdugud)
Anzû, also called dZû or Imdugud, is a large storm-associated bird-figure in Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian myth. Portrayed as a hybrid (commonly a massive bird with a lion's head or as a half-human storm-bird), Anzû is credited in mythic narratives with seizing the Tablet of Destinies and thereby challenging the authority of chief gods such as Enlil.
Apkallu (Abgal)
Apkallu (Akkadian; Sumerian: Abgal) are polyvalent Mesopotamian wisdom figures attested as mythic/semi-divine sages (notably a group of seven), as professional human experts (ummânu), and as apotropaic images used in household and cultic ritual. They are closely associated with the god Ea (Nudimmud) as transmitters of secret knowledge and are represented in diverse iconography including fish-man and bird-headed types.
Asakku
A class of Sumerian disease-demons born from the union of heaven and earth, who lodged themselves in people's bodies and caused wasting fevers and convulsions.
Asarluhi
Asarluhi (also Asalluhi, Asarluhe, Asaralimnuna, Asaralim, Asalim, Asarnuna) is a Mesopotamian deity primarily associated with incantations and exorcism who commonly operates alongside his father Enki. He is likely identical with an earlier deity attested from the third millennium BCE called Asar (Asaruludu in some modern datasets).
Atra-Hasis
Atra-Hasis is the eponymous human protagonist of an 18th-century BCE Akkadian epic. Presented as a priest whose name is glossed 'exceedingly wise', he functions as the human interlocutor in narratives of the Mesopotamian creation of mankind and the divinely-sent deluge, and is also listed in the Sumerian King List as a ruler of Shuruppak.
Community Record
- [1]Wikipediawiki