Nabu

Nabû ( Akkadian Na -bi -um, Aramaic Nebu = nbw, Nebui = nbwy ) is derived from the Semitic root nb ' ( Nebo ) and is a Babylonian- Assyrian deity. His name means announcer, appointee.

Nabu was the god of writing and wisdom. In the Babylonian tradition, he was also known as " night sun of the underworld 'and' institution of the Crown" in Borsippa. As a God of power he gave the scepter to the Kings. He was the son of Marduk and the Šarpanitu. In the 1st millennium BC, his wife was called in Assyria and Babylonia Tašmetu Nanaja, sometimes Nisaba. Nabu attribute was the stylus.

Cult

His first and long time the only place of worship was the Babylonian city of Borsippa. There stood his sanctuary Ezida and he built in honor ziggurat. He replaced Borsippa in the former city god Tutu, who had risen in Nabu father Marduk. In Assyria Nimrud and Nineveh were his cult centers. Among the Neo-Babylonian rulers Nabu Marduk took over from as cosmic and sometimes even as a supreme deity. In Babylon the coronation in Nabutempel Nabû ša Hare took place, therefore the name of the e - nig.gidrukalam.ma - sum.ma (E - ningidru - kalamma - summtah, house, giving the country the scepter ) wore wore. The temple was rebuilt by Assurhaddon as a founding cylinder occupied.

Syria

Nabu was in the spelling of Nebo to the oriental deities of Palmyra. On some tesserae which were used in the Syrian oasis town in the Greco -Roman period, are Nebo and the supreme sky-god Bel, the Syrian equivalent of Marduk, mapped together. The connection between the two deities is in Palmyra because of the proximity of the two temples probably another. The Nebo temple in Palmyra was 1963/64, excavated. The inscriptions found there dating 99-258 / 259 AD, but contain little information about the Godhead. A statuette from Dura Europos shows Nebo with a lyre or writing board and with a Stilus in hand. With a lyre in his left hand and a plectrum in his right hand, as it is shown on a relief from Dura Europos, which bears the name of Nabu, he is like at the Greek Apollo.

Onomastics

As theophorous word component Nabu occurs in personal names. That's the name Barnabu " son of Nabu " and Nabugaddi " Nabu is my happiness." The wide distribution of the Nabu cult also be seen in the use of God's name for geographical names. Kafr Nabu was a Roman- early Byzantine city at the height of Jabal Siman in the north of the northern Syrian limestone massif. Already in the 13th century Arab geographer Yaqut mentions of a ruined temple at the ancient abandoned place and referred to the entire mountain with his old name as Jebel Nabu.

Bible

Nabu found under the name of Nebo in Isaiah 46.1 and Jeremiah 48:1 mention in the Old Testament of the Bible.