References to Narundi postdating the last attestations of her in Elamite sources come from
Mesopotamia. She is present in an
Old Babylonian god list from
Nippur. She also appears in a single feminine theophoric name, Narudi-gamilat, identified in a document from this city dealing with servile weavers and dated to the reign of
Rim-Sin I of
Larsa. Frans Wiggermann asserts that she could be equated with
Ishtar or
Nanaya in their respective war-related roles. She was commonly could viewed as a sister of the
Sebitti. Alternative she could be referred to as the sister of a group equated with them, in the god list
An = Anum referred to as the "Divine Seven of Elam," possibly a "speculative and secondary" invention meant to reconcile the cultural difference between Narundi and Sebitti. According to Javier Álvarez-Mon, out of the seven members of the latter group, Šipali[x], Ibnahāš[x], Ibnasasa, Dahšišrīš, Rūšpānašpiš,
Nahūndi and Igištu, only the last two appear in any other sources. Narundi's association with the Sebitti themselves is first attested in
Middle Assyrian sources. She was worshiped alongside them in
Assur. Wiggermann suggests that a statue of a naked woman from the reign of
Ashur-bel-kala according to an accompanying inscription made "for titillation" and placed under the protection of the Sebitti might be a representation of Narundi or an analogous deity. Gina V. Konstantopoulos considers this implausible, as while she was the only female deity associated with this group, the inscriptions associates them with the west, rather than with Elam. In a
tākultu ritual from the reign of
Sennacherib, she is invoked in a purification ritual. According to Beate Pongratz-Leisten, it is impossible to evaluate if the Assyrian attestations of Narundi are an indication of a surviving continuous cult or if they simply constitute literary references to older rituals. According to Mesopotamian sources Narundi's attribute was a
timbūtu, an unidentified musical instrument, tentatively identified as a
harp. In the so-called
Bird Call Text, she is associated with two unidentified birds:
katīmatu, whose cry is interpreted as "brother, brother," and
siḫ-KUR, whose cry is "Alas, alas!" (
u8-u-a u8-u-a). The
katīmatu is otherwise sparsely attested, though it is known that its name is derived from the Akkadian verb
katāmu, "to cover" or "to veil." The
siḫ-KUR is presently impossible to identify.
Wilfred G. Lambert noted that the text appears to only reflect the theological views typical for the first millennium BCE, and considered it impossible to evaluate if it dealt with preexisting connections between deities and birds, or if it invented them based on theological interpretation of the calls of the animals.
Textual sources Narundi is mentioned in an apotropaic ritual meant to guarantee the protection of a home. It prescribes the preparation of figures representing her, the Sebitti (labeled as sons of
Enmesharra), the twin gods
Lugalirra and Meslamtaea, and the lion-like creature
Ugallu. Her statuette had to be made of
tamarisk wood and decorated with red and yellow pigment to represent a robe with a sash and headwear. Since no individual role is assigned to her, it is possible her presence relies on her connection to the Sebitti. While examples of statues presumed to originate in similar rituals are known from excavations, they cannot be identified with certainty as representations of specific deities. In a
Bīt mēseri ritual a reference to "the seven kings [Sebitti], and an eighth sister, Narunde" occurs. In
Šurpu, she appears both alongside the Sebitti and other astral deities. Her name is rendered as
dNa-ru-da in this source. Narundi also appears in a number of birth incantations alongside
Nahhunte. One example is
The Cow of Sin, a text in which they both aid the eponymous god. An ancient commentary on this text identifies Narundi and Nahhunte as respectively solar and lunar deities, but according to
Matthew W. Stolper this is most likely a mistake, as Nahhunte was a solar god. ==References==