Erra

In the surviving literary tradition Erra appears as a powerful divine actor whose waking precipitates a period of devastation. The poem ascribed in its colophon to the transcriber Kabti-ilani-Marduk presents the text as revealed in a visionary dream; in the narrative the Sibitti (the Seven) urge Erra to lead the destruction of humankind, and his advisor Išum attempts to mollify him. The epic frames episodes of war, invasion and plague as the result of Erra's stirred restlessness and the actions of divinely appointed instruments, and at times the god's agency supersedes the authority of other major deities (the poem even reports that Marduk relinquishes his throne to Erra for a time).

Surviving literary sources emphasize Erra's actions, entourage and function rather than providing a sustained physical portrait. The epic consistently presents him accompanied by the Seven (Sibitti/Sebetti)—described as 'sons of heaven and earth' and 'champions without peer'—and by the advisor Išum. Modern scholarly descriptions sometimes characterize the Seven as personified weapons; beyond this, the provided materials do not record a detailed anthropomorphic or iconographic description of Erra in the extant texts summarized here.

Erra's primary function is to incite and execute widescale violence and pestilence: in the epic his rousing initiates campaigns that bring invasion, plague and the overturning of social order in cities such as Babylon, Sippar and Uruk. The Seven act as assigned instruments of destruction, urging Erra to lead, and Išum functions as an interlocutor who tries (and in the narrative initially fails) to calm him. The poem describes righteous and unrighteous alike being struck down and reports Erra withdrawing to his seat in Emeslam after devastation. Literary and ritual practice treated portions of the Erra text as a source of power—inscribed on amulets and used in exorcistic contexts—indicating the poem's dual role as description of destructive agency and as a means to propitiate or guard against it. At some point in the tradition Erra was assimilated to Nergal, linking him to underworld/war/plague functions.