134 herbert niehr
which is perceived as recumbent in the orient, and the horns of a bull
are viewed as one and the same, and thus blend into each other in ico-
nography.
alongside the moon-god is his wife, the goddess nikkal, who bore the
title of “Mother of the gods.” sin and nikkal as the divine parents were the
overlords of the harran pantheon. their children were the sun-god Šamaš
and the goddess ištar, the star of Venus. the god of light or fire, nusku,
served as vizier and was considered their son. on the stelae of nabonidus
the connection between Šamaš and nusku is even closer. they speak of
“Šamaš, whose name is nusku.”31
in 1999, an approximately three-meter-tall statue of the weather-god
was found in til Barsib/Masuwari (tell aḥmar)32 in the former kingdom
of Bit adini.33 the weather-god is standing on a young bull and is car-
rying a battle axe in his right hand and a thunderbolt in his left. he is
wearing a horned headdress with the lock of hair typical for a hero and
his face is bearded. the god is dressed in a kilt and pointed shoes. above
him is a winged solar disk or a lunar symbol. the stele itself is dated to
around 900 B.c. an inscription in hieroglyphic luwian (tell ahMar 6)
is inscribed on three sides of the stele. the inscription highlights the
special relationship between the weather-god and the king and, in this
respect, is comparable to the aramaic royal inscriptions of hamath (Kai
202) and Dan (Kai 310).34
in this inscription the weather-god is invoked as “Weather-god of the
army” or “heavenly Weather-god.” this suggests relationships to both the
warlike weather-god of aleppo and the god Baʿalšamayin, although both
connections require further clarification.
in addition to this newly found stele more stelae were found in til Bar-
sib that either match the iconography of the new stele or differ from it in
several details.
corresponding in every detail is stele B from til Barsib, also housed in
aleppo (pl. x).35 it is debatable whether the weather-god brandishes an
31 cf. schaudig 2001: 499.
32 on til Barsib (tell aḥmar), cf. the details in niehr 2010a: 235f, additionally Bunnens- the luwian inscriptions of til Barsib can be found in hawkins 2000: 224–245 and
in Bunnens – hawkins – leirens 2006: 11–31.
33 on the kingdom of Bit adini, cf. the details in Dion 1997: 86–98; lipiński 2000a:
163–193; niehr 2010a: 234–242.
34 see sections 3.1 and 4.1.
35 cf. Bunnens – hawkins – leirens 2006: 111, 156 fig. 56.