Editing Nintinugga (section)

==Character==
Nintinugga's name is conventionally translated from [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] as "Mistress who revives the dead".{{sfn|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=67}} However, Barbara Böck notes this interpretation might only reflect an "ancient scholarly [[etymology]]."{{sfn|Böck|2015|p=329}} It is possible it initially had a different meaning, with one proposal being "lady of the lofty wine," and only from the reign of [[Urukagina|Uruinimgina]] onward it started to be written with the [[cuneiform]] sign ''ug<sub>5</sub>'', "to die."{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=146}} An [[epithet]] sometimes applied to her was "the lady of life and death," ''nin til<sub>3</sub>-la ug<sub>5</sub>-ga'', attested both in royal inscriptions and in various god lists.{{sfn|Peterson|2009|p=237}} 

Descriptions of Nintinugga's activity in Mesopotamian texts present her as physician, with her responsibilities including applying bandages, cleaning wounds and according to Böck specifically dealing with the [[musculoskeletal system]].{{sfn|Böck|2015|p=329}} The evidence for an association between her and healing first appears in sources from the [[Ur III period]], and she is well attested as a medicine goddess in the [[Old Babylonian period]].{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=147}} Attestations of physicians serving as her cultic officials are considered to be early evidence of her healing role.{{sfn|Böck|2015|p=329}} In texts where she and other healing deities are invoked together she might represent a specific form of healing rather than medicine as a whole.{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=150}} She was additionally associated with incantations.{{sfn|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=67}} In a type of ritual, ''atua'', she is connected with cleansing rather than healing, and Irene Sibbing-Plantholt proposes this might have been an aspect of her original character.{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=148}} However, she also considers it a possibility that she developed as an extension of a healing aspect of [[Enlil]].{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=159}}

Possibly due to the meaning of her name, Nintinugga was connected to the [[Ancient Mesopotamian underworld|underworld]].{{sfn|Böck|2015|p=329}} Jeremiah Peterson notes it is likely that it was believed that she provided the dead with clean water, and that she was connected to [[Funerary cult|funerary]] [[libation]]s.{{sfn|Peterson|2009|p=237}} She was also invoked against the demon [[Asag]],{{sfn|Böck|2015|p=329}} as relayed in the texts ''Letter-Prayer of Inanaka'' and ''A Dog for Nintinugga''.{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=149}}

Dogs are well attested as an attribute of most, though not all, Mesopotamian healing goddesses.{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=158}} The connection might have been based on the observation of healing properties of dog [[saliva]],{{sfn|Böck|2015|p=330}} or on the perception of the animals as [[Liminality|liminal]] and capable of interacting both with the realms of the living and the dead, similar as the goddesses associated with them.{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=158}} Nintinugga was believed to possess dogs of her own,{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=150}} and a text from the Ur III period relays that a throne decorated with two of these animals was prepared for her in [[Ur]].{{sfn|Sibbing-Plantholt|2022|p=147}} A ''[[Mîs-pî]]'' ritual from [[Nineveh]] mentions reeds and [[Cornel tree|cornel]] wood among cult objects associated with her.{{sfn|Asher-Greve|Westenholz|2013|p=118}}