#gula

Colored some(many) novel illustrations bc why not!

pt.2 bc I did, indeed, do many

Gula: The Sumerian Goddess of Doctors and the Healing Arts

Gula (also known as Ninkarrak) is the Sumerian goddess of healing and patroness of doctors, healing arts, and medical practices. She is first attested to in the Ur III period (circa 2112 to circa 2004 BCE), where she is referenced as a great goddess of health and well-being. She was among the most popular deities of ancient Mesopotamia.

Her name (Gula) means "Great" and is usually interpreted to mean "great in healing," while Ninkarrak means "Lady of Kar," interpreted as "Lady of the Wall," as in a protective barrier, though it has also been taken to mean "Lady of Karrak," a city associated with that of Isin.

In Sumeria, she was referred to as "great physician of the black-headed ones" (the Sumerians). She is commonly referred to in Mesopotamian medical texts and incantations as belet balati, "Lady of Health," and as Azugallatu, "Great Healer." Her main cult center was at Isin, though her worship would spread across Sumer in the south, upwards to Akkad, and eventually throughout the entire region of Mesopotamia. Her iconography depicts her always with a dog, sometimes seated, and surrounded by stars. She is associated with the underworld and transformation.

Originally, Gula was a Sumerian deity known as Bau (or Baba), goddess of dogs. People noticed that when dogs licked their sores, they seemed to heal faster, and so dogs became associated with healing, and Bau transformed into a healing deity. When her worship spread from the city of Lagash to Isin, she became known as Ninisina ("Lady of Isin"). Her other names included Nintinugga and Nimdindug, which related to her healing talents, or still others, which simply elevated her to patroness of a city.

Scholar Jeremy Black notes that many of her names were "originally the names of other goddesses " whom she assimilated (101). When she was venerated in Nippur, she was known as Ninnibru, "Queen of Nippur," and associated with the hero-god Ninurta. She became known as Gula, the great healer, during the latter part of the Old Babylonian period (circa 1894-1595 BCE) and is best known by this name in the present day.

Mythological Origin & Family

She was the daughter of the great god Anu, created with his other children at the beginning of time, and her husbands/consorts are variously given as Ninurta, the healer god, the divine judge Pabilsag, or the agricultural god Abu. Scholar Stephen Bertman writes:

Because at least two of these divinities were connected with agriculture, her marriage to them may symbolically reflect the medicinal use of plants.

(119)

Her sons were Damu and Ninazu, and her daughter Gunurra, all healing deities.

Damu was a Sumerian god of healing who combined the magical and 'scientific' approaches to disease. He was associated with the dying and reviving god figure Tammuz (also known as Dumuzi), central to the tales involving Inanna and rebirth, hence he is also associated with transformation and transition. He is frequently mentioned with Gula in incantations for healing (especially concerning children's illnesses and childbirth). Although Gula was considered the supreme healer, Damu seems to have sometimes been regarded as the intermediary through which her power reached doctors.

Ninazu, who was associated with serpents (symbols of transformation), the underworld (transition), and healing (transformation), carried a staff intertwined with serpents. This symbol was adopted by the Egyptians for Heka, their god of magic and medicine, and then by the Greeks as the caduceus, the staff carried by Hermes Trismegistus, their god of magic, healing, and writing (associated with the Egyptian god Thoth). Today, of course, the caduceus is seen in doctor's offices and medical practices around the world as the symbol of Hippocrates, the father of medicine.

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