Deity · Mesopotamian · c. 2100 BCE
Ninurta
Also called Ningirsu
The god sent against what the other gods will not face — the Asag, and the Anzu bird that stole the Tablet of Destinies — and the one who reorganises the world afterwards.
Well sourced
Ninurta is the enforcer of an order he did not make, and both of the corpus's texts about him run the same way: something takes what it should not have, the assembly is unequal to it, and Ninurta is sent.
What distinguishes him is the second half of Lugal-e. Having destroyed the Asag he does not simply return in triumph; he goes through the stones that fought on either side and assigns each its fate — this one to be ground underfoot, that one to be cut into precious things — which turns a combat myth into an account of why the world is arranged as it is. The pattern of a young champion putting down an older chaos and then administering the result is one this corpus meets repeatedly, and Ninurta is its earliest well-attested instance.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Lugal-e (Ninurta and the Asag) · c. 2100 BCE
- Rank
- Champion of the Gods
- Pantheon
- Mesopotamian
- Era
- c. 2100 BCE
- Traditions
- Mesopotamian
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Ninurta, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial3
martial
- Grants Victory in WarLugal-e (Ninurta and the Asag)
- Binds SpiritsThe Myth of Anzu
- Executes JudgmentLugal-e (Ninurta and the Asag)
The fates assigned to the stones after the battle.
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Ninurta, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 900 years
Where the texts differ
- Rank: given as Lord who is the storm; Champion of the gods
Destroys the Asag and its army of stones, then pronounces the destiny of each kind of stone according to which side it took, and reorders the waters afterwards.
Sent against Anzu after the first gods approached refuse, and recovers the Tablet of Destinies by shooting the bird down.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Ninurta?
What rank is Ninurta?
How else is Ninurta spelled?
What is Ninurta said to do?
How old is Ninurta?
Nearest in the corpus
If Ninurta is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Ereshkigal
Queen of the Great Below · Mesopotamian
Sovereign of the underworld who strips Ishtar of a garment at each of the seven gates and hangs her on a hook.
Ishtar
Queen of Heaven · Mesopotamian
Goddess of love, war and the planet Venus, whose descent into the underworld is among the oldest recorded narratives.
Marduk
King of the Gods · Mesopotamian
Splits Tiamat and builds the world from her body, and is voted fifty names and supreme authority for doing it.
Nergal
God of the Underworld · Mesopotamian
God of plague, war and the underworld, consort of Ereshkigal — and one of the few Mesopotamian gods the Bible names directly.
Anzu
Storm Bird · Mesopotamian
The lion-headed eagle who steals the Tablet of Destinies and is shot down for it — a rebellion against divine order predating any biblical account by a millennium.
Enki
Lord of the Sweet Waters · Mesopotamian
God of the abzu and of cunning, who repeatedly saves humanity by finding the loophole in another god's decree.
The books behind Ninurta
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Lugal-e (Ninurta and the Asag)
Anonymous; Sumerian composition · c. 2100 BCE · Sumerian
Read Lugal-e (Ninurta and the Asag) in full ↗The Myth of Anzu
Anonymous Akkadian · c. 1500-1000 BCE · Akkadian
Read The Myth of Anzu in full ↗Cover: Public domain · editor Austen Henry Layard , drawing by L. Gruner · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.