Gula (goddess)

Gula
Divine physician
A healing goddess with a dog on a kudurru
Major cult center	Umma, later Nippur
Symbol	dog, scalpel
Personal information
Spouse	Ninurta; Mandanu; Abu
Children	Damu and Gunura
Equivalents
Isin equivalent	Ninisina
Sippar and Terqa equivalent	Ninkarrak
Nippur equivalent	Nintinugga
Luwian equivalent	Kamrušepa

Gula (Sumerian: "the great"^[1]) was a Mesopotamian goddess of medicine, portrayed as a divine physician and midwife. Over the course of the second and first millennia BCE, she became one of the main deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon, and eventually started to be viewed as the second highest ranked goddess after Ishtar. She was associated with dogs, and could be depicted alongside these animals, for example on kudurru (inscribed boundary stones), and receive figurines representing them as votive offerings.

While Gula was initially regarded as unmarried, in the Kassite period she came to be associated with Ninurta. In Babylon his role could also be fulfilled by Mandanu, while the god list An = Anum links Gula with Pabilsag and Abu. The circle of deities closely associated with her also included Damu and Gunura, who eventually started to be regarded as her children, as well as her sukkal (divine attendant) Urmašum, who might have been imagined as a dog-like being. Through various syncretic processes she could be equated with other goddesses of similar character, including Ninisina, Ninkarrak, Nintinugga, Bau and Meme, though all of them were originally separate, and with the exception of the last of them did not entirely cease to be worshiped separately, even though their individual cults did decline. A well known composition dedicated to describing Gula's syncretic associations is the Gula Hymn of Bulluṭsa-rabi, which seemingly was copied by Mesopotamian practitioners of medicine during their formal training.

It is conventionally assumed that Gula originated in Umma, where she is well attested in the Ur III period, though possible older references are present in texts from Adab. In the following centuries, her cult spread to other cities, including Nippur, which eventually came to be regarded as her primary cult center, as well as Uruk, Babylon, Ur and Lagash. After the conquests of Hammurabi, she was also introduced to Larsa, Sippar and Isin. In the Kassite period she started to be worshiped in the newly established royal city of Dur-Kurigalzu. In Assyria Gula only appears for the first time in the Middle Babylonian period. She had temples in Assur, Kalhu, Tabetu and Mardaman. Attestations from outside Mesopotamia, for example from Emar and Ugarit, are largely limited to scholarly texts.