Nungal ( dNun-gal, "great princess"), also known as Manungal and possibly Bēlet-balāṭi, was the Mesopotamian goddess of prisons, sometimes also associated with the underworld. She was worshiped especially in the Ur III period in cities such as Nippur, Lagash and Ur.
Her husband was Birtum, and she was regarded as a courtier and daughter in law Enlil. Texts also associate her with deities such as Ereshkigal, Nintinugga and Ninkasi.
Much of the available information about her role in Mesopotamian beliefs comes from a Sumerian hymn which was a part of the scribal curriculum in the Old Babylonian period.
Name
Nungal's name means "Great Princess" in Sumerian. A plural form of the name attested in some documents can be regarded as analogous to one of the collective terms for Mesopotamian deities, Igigi.
An alternate form of the name, Manungal, was possibly a contraction of the phrase ama Nungal, "mother Nungal." It is first attested in documents from the Ur III period, while in later times it commonly appears in place of the base form in texts written in Akkadian or in the Emesal dialect of Sumerian. A number of variant spellings of the name are attested in sources from Ugarit, for example dNun-gal-la, dMa-ga-la, dMa-nun-gal-la or dMa-nun-gal-an-na.
In the hymn Nungal in the Ekur, and in a fragment of an otherwise unknown composition, Ninegal functions as an epithet of Nungal. This name is otherwise attested either as an epithet of various goddesses, especially Inanna, or as an independent minor deity, associated with royal palaces.
It is possible that Bēlet-balāṭi, "mistress of life," a goddess known from sources from the first millennium BCE, was a late form of Manungal.
Character
Jeremiah Peterson describes punishment and detention as the primary domain of Nungal. Her character is described in the hymn Nungal in the Ekur, known from a large number of Old Babylonian copies thanks to its role in the scribal school curriculum. Miguel Civil proposed that it was originally composed by a scribe accused of a crime which would warrant a severe penalty. It describes the fate of those who find themselves under the auspice of Nungal. According to this composition, the prison maintained by this goddess separates the guilty from the innocent, but also gives the former a chance to be redeemed, which is metaphorically compared to refining silver and to being born. The text likely reflected views about the idealized purpose and results of imprisonment, a punishment well attested in Mesopotamian records. The use of temporary imprisonment as part of the judicial process meant to help with determining if a person is guilty is also attested in the Code of Ur-Nammu.
Despite being the goddess of prisons, Nungal was regarded as a compassionate deity. Imprisonment was presumably viewed as compassionate compared to the death penalty, and it is likely that the goddess was regarded as capable of reducing the most severe punishments. She was also portrayed in various less fearsome roles, for example as a goddess of justice or as one associated with medicine and perhaps birth.
Nungal was also an underworld goddess, as evidenced by her association with Ereshkigal and by the epithet Ninkurra, "lady of the underworld," applied to her in incantations.
Worship
Wilfred G. Lambert proposed that originally Manungal and her spouse Birtum were worshiped in a presently unknown city which declined in the third millennium BCE, leading to the transfer of its tutelary deities to Nippur. An analogous process likely occurred also when it comes to other deities, such as Nisaba, whose cult was transferred from Eresh, which disappears from records after the Ur III period, to Nippur.
While Nungal is already attested in the Early Dynastic god list from Fara, worship of her is best attested in the Ur III period, when she was worshiped in Lagash, Nippur, Umma, Susa, Ur and possibly Uruk. In Nippur she was worshiped as one of the deities belonging to the court and family of Enlil, while in Ur she received offerings as one of the members of the circle of Gula instead. A single attestation of Nungal receiving offerings in an Inanna temple, alongside Anu, Ninshubur, Nanaya, Geshtinanna and Dumuzi is known too. There are also records of offerings being made to her alongside Inanna, Ninegal and Annunitum.
According to Miguel Civil, it is unlikely that the Ekur mentioned in the Hymn to Nungal was one and the same as the temple of Enlil in Nippur, contrary to early assumptions in scholarship. Other locations proposed for it include the Egalmah temple in Ur, or the city of Lagash.