Gula

deity Mesopotamian religion single tradition · 10

Gula is a medicine goddess associated with Bau. In the Gula Hymn of Bulluṭsa-rabi, composed at some point between 1400 and 700 BCE, Bau is listed as one of the names of Gula. The section dedicated to Bau highlights her role as a life-giving deity.

↻ synthesized from 10 sources

When

First attested
3000 BCE
Attested period
-3000 – 2020
Historical notes
Mentioned in texts from between 1400 and 700 BCE.

Relationships

syncretized with
Bau, Ninisina, Belet-Seri, NIN-ĝa'uga
consort of
Pabilsag, Ninurta, Abu
served by
dUR-ma-šum
equivalent to
Meme

Expand to full subgraph →

Sources

Source passages

“Elsewhere in the Middle Babylonian period and beyond, Bau retained a degree of popularity, and next to Ishtar and Gula she was the most commonly invoked goddess in theophoric names. In Babylon, "Bau of Kish" was celebrated during certain festivals in the temple of Gula.”

#10929 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“Gula, later a distinct goddess, was possibly initially an epithet of Ninisina, as references to Ninisina-gula ("Ninisina, the great") occur in Neo-Sumerian (Ur III) sources and in a hymn from the reign of Ishbi-Erra. Gula's name could be used as a translation of Ninisina's in Akkadian versions of Sumerian compositions”

#11314 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“Under the name Ninurta, his wife is usually the goddess Gula, but, as Ninĝirsu, his wife is the goddess Bau. Gula was the goddess of healing and medicine and she was sometimes alternately said to be the wife of the god Pabilsaĝ or the minor vegetation god Abu.”

#12103 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“According to Nathan Wasserman, the name Allatum also designates Ereshkigal in an incantation dedicated to the medicine goddess Gula. It credits the latter with helping a child patient whose skull sutures were loosened by Allatum and had to be sealed again.”

#36751 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“At an undetermined point in the second millennium BCE, Belet-Seri developed an association with the goddess Gula and by extension with medicine.”

#36874 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001