Siris

Siris or Siraš was a Mesopotamian goddess associated with beer. She was also worshiped in Ebla, where her name was spelled as Zilaš. Cognates of her name are also present as terms referring to alcoholic beverages or deities associated with them in languages such as Ugaritic and Hebrew. She was closely associated with another goddess of similar character, Ninkasi, though the nature of the connection between them varies between sources. She is attested in a variety of texts, including god lists, offering lists and a variant of the Ballad of Early Rulers. Name and character Siris' name was commonly written in cuneiform logographically as dŠIM, dŠIM✕A, or dŠIM✕NINDA, though syllabic phonetic spellings are known too. A theonym attested in the texts from Ebla, Zilaš (dZi-la-šu), is presumed to be another writing of the name too. Other related theonyms include trṯ, attested in the Ugaritic texts, and Tiršu, known from a theophoric name of a ruler of Hazor mentioned in the Amarna letters, Abdi-Tirši ("servant of Tiršu"). Cognates are also present in Phoenician (trš) and Hebrew (tîrôš) as ordinary nouns referring to wine or grape must. Most likely all of these words were derived from a common Semitic root possibly referring to fermentation, reconstructed as *ṮRŠ by John F. Healey. In Mesopotamia Siris was associated with beer. As summarized by Manfred Krebernik, she was connected with production, consumption and the effects it had on humans, but not necessarily with innkeepers responsible for its sale. Her name functioned as a metonym for the beverage itself in Akkadian texts. When used in this context, it was written syllabically and without the so-called "divine determinative" (dingir), a sign used to indicate a word is a theonym in cuneiform. The Eblaite sources associate her with wine and honey. In Mesopotamian texts association between Siris and wine is not directly attested, though Krebernik notes it is not implausible that she was connected with more than one alcoholic beverage in this area. Associations with other deities Siris and Ninkasi, another goddess associated with beer, are juxtaposed in various texts, for example in god lists. They could be regarded as sisters as attested in a version of the Weidner god list with explanatory notes from Assur. However, in other sources they could be treated as equivalents, for example in the god list An = Anum and Neo-Assyrian versions of Lugalbanda myths. Richard L.