Pankus

Ukkin

Ukkin

Sumerian word for Divine council

Ukkin (UKKIN) is the Sumerian word or symbol for assembly, temple council or Divine council, written ideographically with the cuneiform sign đ’Œș (Borger 2003 nr. 73, encoded by Unicode at code point U+1233A).[3][4]

The name "Akka" appears in the Stele of Ushumgal, as Ak gal-ukkin, "Ak gal-ukkin (Great Assembly) official". It has been suggested this could refer to Aga of Kish himself.[1][2]

In Akkadian it is transliterated as Puឫru or Puឫrum and was used in the context of "public assembly", of both Gods and people with the ultimate meaning of a "totality" of living things. A council of the gods specifically is referred to in Akkadian as Puឫru Ilani or Puឫur Ilani.[5][6] The word was later adopted into Aramaic.[6] In Hittite language it is transliterated as Pankuƥ or Tuyila.[7] In the Hellenistic era the word Kiniƥtu was used and it found an equivalent in the word Qāhāl in other ancient languages.[5][6]

H. Zimmern noted that the Babylonian New Year feast was also called puhru and connected this with the modern day Jewish holiday of Purim.[8]

References

  1. [1]
    Frayne, Douglas. The Struggle for Hegemony in "Early Dynastic II" Sumer. pp. 65–66.
  2. [2]
    "CDLI-Found Texts". cdli.ucla.edu.
  3. [3]
    Jeremy A. Black (2000). A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 278–. ISBN 978-3-447-04264-2. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
  4. [4]
    William Foxwell Albright (1968). Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths. Eisenbrauns. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-0-931464-01-0. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
  5. [5]
    T. Boiy (2004). Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon. Peeters Publishers. pp. 202–. ISBN 978-90-429-1449-0. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
  6. [6]
    Helmer Ringgren (1 January 2003). Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 548–. ISBN 978-0-8028-2336-6. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
  7. [7]
    J. G. McConville; Karl Möller (15 November 2007). Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 99–. ISBN 978-0-567-02642-2. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
  8. [8]
    Lewis Bayles Paton (6 December 2000). Esther. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 91–. ISBN 978-0-567-05009-0. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Pankus, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.