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'Kubaba' (in the Weidner "Chronicle"), also known as 'Kug-Baba' or 'Kubau', is the only queen on the Sumerian king list. "The house of Kubaba" is mentioned "in the reign of Puzur-Nirah, king of Akshak" (line 38) in the Weidner "Chronicle", a propagandistic letter attempting to predate the shrine of Marduk to an early period: "Kubaba gave bread to the fisherman and gave water, she made him offer the fish to Esagila" (line 43). Her reign as the only "king" of the 3rd Dynasty of Kish was one of peace and prosperity. Her reign is contemporary with the "Early Dynastic III" period of Sumer. Her reign is listed to have lasted for 100 years. If she is a historical ruler, she probably lived in the 23rd to 25th century BC.
Shrines in her honour spread throughout Mesopotamia.^[1][2] In the Hurrian area she may be identified with ''Kebat'', or ''Hepat'', one title of the Hurrian Mother Goddess Hannahannah (from Hurrian ''hannah'', "mother"). Abdi-Kheba (= the servant of Kheba), was the palace mayor, ruling Jerusalem at the time of the Amarna letters (1350 BC).
Kubaba became the tutelary goddess who protected the ancient Syrian city of Carchemish on the upper Euphrates, in the late Hurrian – Early Hittite period. Relief carvings, now at the Museum of Anatolian Antiquities, Ankara, show her seated, wearing a cylindrical headdress like the ''polos'' and holding a circular mirror in one hand and the poppy capsule or pomegranate in the other. She plays a role in Luwian texts, and a minor role in Hittite texts, mainly in Hurrian religious rituals. According to Mark Munn (Munn 2004), her cult later spread and her name was adapted for the main goddess of the Hittite successor-kingdoms in Anatolia, which later developed into the Phrygian ''matar'' (mother) or ''matar kubileya''^[3] whose image with inscriptions appear in rock-cut sculptures.^[4] The Phrygian goddess otherwise bears little resemblance to Kubaba, who was a sovereign deity at Sardis, known to Greeks as 'Kybebe'.^[5]

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Notes

References

Notes

1. The Weidner "Chronicle" mentioning Kubaba from Grayson, A.K. (1975) "Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles"
2. Munn, Mark (2004). "Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context": Emory University cross-cultural conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Central Anatolia" (Abstracts)
3. Munn, 2004
4. C.H.E.Haspels, ''The Highlands of Phrygia'' 1971, I 293 no 13, noted in Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'', 1985, III.3.5 notes 17 and 18.
5. Herodotus 5.102.1, noted by Munn 2004

References

★ "The Weidner 'Chronicle' mentioning Kubaba". From Grayson, A. K. (1975). ''Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles''.

★ Munn, Mark (2004). "Kybele as Kubaba in a Lydo-Phrygian Context": Emory University cross-cultural conference "Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbors in Central Anatolia" (Abstracts)