at Uruk, and Ashurbanabal's restoration of Nana's
statue (_c._ 635 B.C.) which had been captured by the Elamites 1635
years before Ashurbanabal's reign, is largely due to the effected
identity with the goddess who, for the Assyrians, was regarded chiefly
as the goddess of war and strife. In worshipping the southern Ishtars,
the Assyrian kings felt themselves to be showing their allegiance to the
same deity to whom, next to Ashur, most of their supplications were
addressed, and of whom as warriors they stood in dread.

Nina.

A goddess who, while sharing the fate of her sister goddesses in being
overshadowed by Ishtar, yet merits a special treatment, is one whose
name is plausibly conjectured to be read Nina. The compound ideogram
expressing the deity signifies 'house of the fish.' The word 'house' in
Semitic parlance is figuratively extended to convey the idea of
'possessing or harboring.' Applied to a settlement, the ideogram would
be the equivalent of our 'Fishtown.' It is with this same ideogram that
the famous capitol of Assyria, Nineveh, is written in the cuneiform
texts, and since the phonetic reading for the city, Ni-na-a, also
occurs, it is only legitimate to conclude that the latter is the correct
reading for the deity as well. As a matter of course, if the goddess
bears a name identical with that of a city, it cannot be the Assyrian
city which is meant in the old Babylonian inscriptions, but some other
place bearing the same name. Such a place actually occurs in the
inscriptions of Gudea. It is, in fact, one of the three towns that
combined with Shirpurla to create the great capitol bearing the latter
name; and Jensen[71] has called attention to a passage in one of Gudea's
inscriptions in which the goddess is brought into direct association
with the town, so that it would appear that Nina is the patron of Nina,
in the same way that Nin-girsu is the protector of Girsu. In keeping
with this we find the mention of the goddess limited to the rulers of
Lagash. Several of them--En-anna-tuma, Entemena, and Gudea--declare
themselves to have been chosen by her. She is said to regard Gudea with
special favor. She determines destinies. Another king, Ur-Nina, embodies
the name of the goddess in his own, and devotes himself to the
enlargement of her temple. From the manner in which she is associated
with Nin-girsu, aiding the latter in guarding his temple E-ninnu, and
uniting with the god in granting the sceptre to Gud