Nanaya in Syria and Mesopotamia (1)

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In the Hellenistic period Nanaya or Nanâ was frequently assimilated with Artemis. A Roman temple for Artemis-Nanâ was built in the middle of the city of Dura Europos, and a dedicatory inscription identified Nanȃ as the chief goddess of that city. In this temple were erected the images of Aphrodite (winged victory), and Tyche or Fortuna which shows that Nanâ combined her characteristics with all those Graeco-Roman divinities. An inscription accompanying the image of Artemis in Greek dress on a tessera from Palmyra identifies her as Nanaya (NNY) (Azarpay 1976: 537). Her cult is also known from Aššur and Hatra. Nanai or Nanaya had the epithet “the great goddess of the entire earth” according to the Syriac Martyr Legend of Mār Muˁain of the 4th century (Hoffmann 1880: 29). Nanaya was worshipped in Beth Garme in the fourth and fifth centuries because of the king Shapur’s resettlement of ninety families from Maysan at a village near Kirkuk, who brought the cult of Nanai along with them (Morony 1984: 386). She was also important at the court of Shapur II, and venerated in Beth ˁArbhaye (Hoffmann 1880: 49, 131). In the fifth century, she was worshipped with libations and sacrifices as Bēdukht at the town of Dumma below Kalwadha and in nearby Radhan. The Iranian goddess Anāhīt, who was identified with Nanaya, may have been worshipped as Mammai in the Diyala region in the fifth century. The end of Nanaya’s cult can be approximately dated to the seventh century CE.

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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