Ur-Nungal of Uruk

Gilda said:

Ur-Nungal of Uruk was the heir of Gilgamesh, a shadowy figure from the Sumerian king list who also appears as maintaining the temple of Enlil at Nippur in the Tummal Inscription.
There's something strange about this name: Nungal is also the name of a goddess. Is this just a coincidence (nun-gal could also mean something like "great offspring"), or does the grammar in our sources leave it open for Ur-Nungal to have been a woman?

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Although women in ancient Sumer could reach high rank, Priestess for example,I don`t think they could actually rule and Ur Nungal as heir to Gilgamesh became King and was the father of Udel-Kalama who followed him as King.I admit Sumer is not my area of expertise and my source is Wiki

I dont really know but I wouldnt rule out the possibility.
At other times, in other places, a woman was crowned queen, unsubordinate to any man, when that was unthinkable. So why not?

The Third Dynasty of Kish consisted of a female "king" name Kug-Bau. I believe she's the only known female ruler from Sumer.

Ur-Nungal is also frequently rendered as Ur-Lugal. Since we know what lugal is derived from (Man, Big) it is reasonable to assume I am in fact of the masculine persuasion.

What does the 'ur' part of the name mean? It appears in a number of Sumerian king names - Ur-Zababa, Ur-Ningin, Ur-gigr, Ur-Utu, Ur-Namma, Ur-Ninurtu, Ur-dukuga.

Could the 'Nungal' part be there to honour the goddess, rather than denoting the gender of the person with that name (perhaps something like Hera-cles meaning 'glory of Hera' rather than indicating the person was female due to the element 'Hera'?)

Gilda said:

Thanks, Ur-Lugal! I had not realized that your name was rendered two different ways.



Well let's break these guys down. There was...

Ur-Zababa of Kish
Ur-Ningin of Uruk, his son Ur-Gigir, and Ur-Utu, who was smitten by the Gutian hordes
Ur-Nammu of Ur
Ur-Ninurta (son of the storm god) and Ur-dukuga of Isin

So that's two names I can't make out, one king named Ur-*wheel, and the rest are named after a god(dess). The element "Ur" could mean either a city or "wolf, hound".



That seems likely.

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The sugestion from Moros seems likely , otherwise you have the same
problem with Ninurta , as Nin means .... , Urta poss earth and then earth
goddess ??

Ur-Dukuga - Endukugga/Nindukugga shorn of the gender indication, perhaps?

There is Ninsun mother of Gilgamesh perhaps?

Waddell thinks ur-nungal manes sea-lord.

the mentioned Ninurta/Enurta may be Nimrod (Biblical) and Numitorem (Uralic).

Waddell disputed that Ku-bau and Bau/Bahu/Baba were female. He thought Bahu/Bakus was Bacchus.

Hammurabi may be "Semiramis", but if so it seems he was a king (lugal) and that the "she/queen" was just corrupt legend from his toga on stele etc.

Waddell thought Urnungal of Uruk 1 was Urnina/Urnanshe of Lagash 1. But it doesn't look very likely correct.

I had a theory that Chedorlaomer is connected with either Urnina/Urnanshe/Uruash-Khad of Lagash 1, or Lakh-Madgal-gut, or with "Udel-kalama" of Uruk 1. Amraphel may be Amadgal/Akurgal of Lagash 1.

Berosus 1st dynasty seems to match this Uruk 1 dynasty (though 'Sharrukin' on allempires gave me some info on revent scholars correspondences with Kish 1 dyn).

Uru in Sumerian means "man, hero", like Indoeuropean Vira/Vir/Eros/Wer(e).


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Our Berosus 1st dyn compared with Uruk 1:

Berosus 1 - Uruk 1:
1 Evechous/[Seuechoros] ~ 1 Saggi-AggusheIr*/Mec-ki-aj-gacer
1 Evechous/[Seuechoros] ~ 2 In-menGan*/Enme(r)kar/Mu-uku*
[3 Porus ~ 4 Dumu-ziPur/Dumu-ginPuru*/Dumuzid?]
2 Chomasbolus = 5 Gilgamesh/IzzaxGamesh*/Izdubar?
3 Porus/Kourous ~ 6 UruashNungal*/Ur-Nungal/Ur-lugal
4 Nechobes ~ 7 MukhUnu_ma*/Udul-kalama
5 Atbus/Abius/Nabius ~ 8 Ba-ussa/Bi-ussa*/La- ba'cum/Labasher
6 Oniballus ~ 9 Ennunad*/En-nun-tarah-ana/En-nun-dar-anna
7 Zinzirus/Findious ~ 10 Dix-xiDi*/Mec-he/Meshede
[2nd (Mede) dynasty ~ 11 Me-de*/Melem-ana/Til-kug??]


versus

Orthodox scholars' suggested Berosus dyn 1 = Kish 1:

Berosus dyn 1 - Kish 1:
1 Euekhois - en-gish-u[r] - 1 Gush-ur
2 Khomasbelops - 2 Kullasina-bel
5 Abios - 11 Aba/Atabba [~ Adapa]

How do we know lu in lu-gal meant "man" and not just "person"?