Barama (goddess)

Barama (Eblaite: ^dba-ra-ma^[1]) was a goddess worshiped in the Syrian city of Ebla in the third millennium BCE as the wife of its tutelary god, Kura. She is not attested from any sources postdating the destruction of the city.

Barama was the wife of Kura, the tutelary god of Ebla.^[1] She is relatively infrequently attested in Eblaite texts.^[2] Only five mentions come from offering lists, and about twenty from other administrative documents.^[3] However, it can be assumed that she nonetheless headed the pantheon alongside her husband.^[4] The status of these two deities was reflected in their connection to the royal couple of the city.^[5]

Alfonso Archi proposes that her name should be understood as "full of color," and that it is derived from the Semitic root *brm.^[6] A possible cognate word, barāmu, "to be multicolored," is known from Akkadian texts.^[7] Walther Sallaberger notes that it has been proposed that the name referred to her colorful clothes.^[8] Archi also considers it possible that her name belonged to a linguistic substrate, like these of other deities worshiped in Ebla, such as Kura, Hadabal, Išḫara, Adamma or Aštabi.^[9] He also notes it is unusual for Barama's name to lack the feminine suffix -at, if it had its origin in a Semitic language.^[7]

Similar to Kura, but unlike Hadabal, Barama is very rarely attested outside the city itself.^[10] She disappeared from history after the destruction of Ebla.^[11]

Barama does not appear in any known theophoric names.^[9] The name-giving customs at Ebla are assumed to largely reflect an older tradition that the pantheon of the city, and the most common theophoric elements are not personified deities, but the words damu and lim, representing the deified concepts of, respectively, kinship ties and clan organization.^[9]

A priestess, pa₄-šeš(-mí), was jointly responsible for the cult of Barama and Kura.^[12] The holder of this office attested in documents bore the name Enna-Utu.^[12] Furthermore, functionaries belonging to the cult of Barama are alluded to in the text ARET 7.13, dealing with purchases of clothing for individuals involved in the worship of both her and Adamma.^[13]

It is possible that two damâtum (a type of betyl-like boundary stone to which religious importance was assigned in Ebla), were dedicated jointly to Kura and Barama.^[14]

Following the royal wedding of a new Eblaite king, a four day pilgrimage involving both Barama and Kura had to be undertaken.^[15] During preparations for it, the queen had to make an offering to a number of deities, including Barama, in the temple of Kura.^[16] The target of the journey was the nearby village Binaš (less commonly read as Nenaš), which was the location of a royal mausoleum.^[17] The statue of Barama traveled in its own cart, similar to that of Kura.^[18] During a ritual which took place in é ma-dim, "house of the dead" (the mausoleum in mention) both of the deities were believed to undergo ritual renewal.^[19] The process is described in a ritual text:

When the sun (god) rises, the invocation priests invoke and the lamentation priests intone the laments of when the birth goddess Nintu was angered. And those that it illuminates ask to be illuminated. And the birth goddess Nintu illuminates the new Kura, the new Barama, the new king, and the new queen.^[19]

According to Alfonso Archi, Nintu/^dTU should not be understood as the Mesopotamian goddess in this context, but rather as a stand in for an unknown Eblaite goddess of similar character.^[6] He points out that similar use of this logogram is known from Mari.^[6] Other renewal rites seemingly did not involve goddesses, as none are attested for Išḫara, Ishtar or the spouses of Hadda (Halabatu) and Resheph (Adamma).^[20]

The ceremony was a royal ascension ritual, though despite direct statements confirming this in Eblaite texts, it appears that both Ishar-Damu and Irkab-Damu had already been rulers for multiple years when they undertook it during their respective reigns.^[18] It has been proposed that the royal couple was understood as the earthly manifestation of Kura and Barama in its context.^[21]

• Archi, Alfonso (2015). Ebla and Its Archives. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9781614517887. ISBN 978-1-61451-716-0.
• Archi, Alfonso (2019). "Šamagan and the Mules of Ebla. Syrian Gods in Sumerian Disguise". Between Syria and the Highlands: studies in honor of Giorgio Buccellati & Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati. Rome: Arbor Sapientiae editore. ISBN 978-88-31341-01-1. OCLC 1137837171.
• Pinnock, Francis (2019). "A Game of Goddesses (and Thrones?). Some Reflection about a Cylinder Seal Impression from the Royal Palace G of Ebla (ca. 2300 BC).". Between Syria and the Highlands: studies in honor of Giorgio Buccellati & Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati. Rome: Arbor Sapientiae editore. ISBN 978-88-31341-01-1. OCLC 1137837171.
• Ristvet, Lauren (2011). "Travel and the Making of North Mesopotamian Polities". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 361. University of Chicago Press: 1–31. doi:10.5615/bullamerschoorie.361.0001. ISSN 0003-097X.
• Sallaberger, Walther (2018). "Kura, Youthful Ruler and Martial City-God of Ebla". In Matthiae, Paolo; Pinnock, Frances; D’Andrea, Marta (eds.). Ebla and Beyond. Harrassowitz. doi:10.2307/j.ctvcm4f5r. ISBN 978-3-447-19744-1.