Berezite Pantheon

Overview of Berezite polytheism

Berezebel's initial religious milieu was a fairly typical polytheistic religion closely tied with being Berezite.  Worshipping foreign gods did not even really enter the realm of possibility in most people's thinking; the gods may have some equivalence or overlap with the gods of other nations, but one worshipped the sun-god by his Berezite name, not as Helios, Apollo or Utu.

There were many gods in the Berezite pantheon, but ten gods in particular were perceived as of particular importance:

The ten original gods:

Nur-Utar

Nur-Utar was the chief of the gods.  A solar deity as well as the ruling deity, Nur-Utar was associated with light, kingship, order and the sky.  Justice was considered to be in his sphere of influence, and he was considered the most powerful of the celestial gods.  After his mythic slaying of the solar dragon Nurzu, the winged and horned serpent became one of his primary symbols.  In addition a "sun disk" or "solar wheel" drawn as a dot within a circle was used to represent him.

Ziurushan

Ziurushan was the spouse of Nur-Utar and Queen of the Gods, worshipped as Queen of the Green Earth as her husband was King of the Heavens.  She functioned as an agriculture goddess, and was venerated as "the Planter" and "Ruler of the Harvest".  She was seen as having great power in both heaven and earth due to her twin roles as earth-mother and divine queen.  Sickles, sheaves of grain and the cow all served as her symbols.  She was typically depicted holding two sceptres or rods topped with ears of wheat or barley.

Nershag

Nershag was the god of war, symbolised and sometimes embodied as a lion.  Equally often he was depicted in human form, though occasionally with a lion's head or standing upon a lion.  Typically in Berezite iconography Nershag holds a spear rather than the kitbash sickle-sword of traditional Berezite bronze weaponry.

Banat

Banat was sometimes considered the Berezite counterpart of Venus or Aphrodite. Goddess of love and of fertility in all its forms, she was usually depicted nude. Early Berezite hymnology refers to her as "seven-breasted Banat", though most surviving statuary depicts her with only two. The number seven was associated in Berezite lore with fullness or completion; thus the descriptions may simply mean "full-breasted" or "source of maternal nourishment". As goddess of fertility in all its forms, she was worshipped as "She Who Makes Grain Grow"; she is often shown holding a rod entwined with green barley in one hand and a fruit in the other. A stalk of green barley was one of her most common symbols. The swan was sacred to her.​

Lugaral

Lugaral was the god of the sea, symbolised by an octopus, or occasionally, a fish.  Presumably Lugaral's divine lineage descended from the Mesopotamian Ea, as evidenced by his fish form.  The transmutation of fish into octopus in Lugaral's symbology may reflect Berezebel's Mediterranean location.

Inurtana

Inurtana was anuther powerful celestial deity in her aspect as goddess of the moon. In addition, she was worshipped as goddess of the hunt and of maidens, paralleling the Greek Artemis. After the development of Berezite syllabary during the reign of Inur-Shurrupad of the Shurrupadan dynasty of which Inur-Shurrupad was patroness, Inurtana became known as goddess of writing, an attribute she shared with the fire goddess Anar-Zibat. Inurtana's symbol was a crescent moon; the owl and the deer were sacred to her.

Shashud

Shashud was one of the most powerful terrestrial gods.  Worshipped as Lord of Animals, Shashud was both protector of herds and flocks and god of the hunt, an aspect which had considerable overlap with Inurtana's sphere of operation. All animals were his, but the bull was considered of particular significance in his symbology; his other symbol was an ox-goad.

Galos

God of Wine and Good Fortune, Galos was one of the most popular gods in the mid-to-late antiquity period. He was patron of the entire wine-making process from growing of grapes to drinking of the cup; accordingly he is usually depicted holding a cluster of grapes. In his aspect as god of fortune, he was the deity called upon by those gambling and playing dice, and via this connection with dice, divination devices were considered his special province. This last aspect led to the rise of a Galosian mystery cult in late antiquity, paralleling that of the Greek Dionysus. Clusters of grapes and the dice cup served as his symbols.

Enetar

Berezebel was unusual in that its deity of death and the underworld was a goddess rather than a god.  Enetar was conceived of as being Queen of Death and Shadows, ruler of the dark underworld of the dead and associated with night, calamity and chaos.  Her sacred bird was the vulture; the aconite plant was her symbol.

Anar-Zibat

Anar-Zibat was the last of the ten original major gods.  Goddess of fire, she was the patroness of the sacred fire that burned atop the pyramidal temples of Berezebel and goddess of the cooking and heating fires of Berezite homes.  She was thus akin to the Greek Hestia; goddess both of domestic arts and civic virtues.  In this last guise she later became goddess of writing.

Later additions to the pantheon:

Gisham

The god Gisham was known as the Divine Charioteer. Partaking of some of the attributes of Hermes or Mercury, he was conceived of as a combination of divine messenger and warrior god. His cult arose after the discovery of the wheel, and he was initially viewed as an adjunct to the solar deity Nur-Utar, driving the solar chariot across the sky. Later he took on the attributes of divine warrior and messenger. His symbol was an eight-spoked wheel; the falcon, swiftest of birds, was sacred to him.

Ipashtu

Ipashtu was a Berezitised borrowing of the Greek Hephaestos, as evidenced by his similar name. Like his Greek counterpart, he was god of metalworking, mining and the crafts associated with those spheres. His symbol was a hammer.

Primordial Beings

Nurzu

Nurzu was a solar dragon defeated by Nur-Utar in one of the earliest mythological tales of the gods. The dragon was something of a counterpart of the Roman Saturn or the Greek Chronos, but in draconic form. Nurzu was considered to be both good, in his capacity as a solar creature, and evil, in his draconic aspect as the foe of Nur-Utar.

Tammud

Tammud was a primordial being; a version of Tiamat associated with primeval waters and the powers of chaos. Slain by the earliest gods, particularly Belu, the world was, according to mythology, formed from her body.

Belu

Father of the Berezite pantheon and lord of primordial good, Belu was the slayer of Tammud and creator of the world. Much of his creative aspect was later attributed to Nur-Utar; the tale of Utar and Nurzu appears to be a retelling of the earlier Belu-Tammud myth; itself a recasting of the Babylonian Marduk-Tiamat tale. He was a shadowy, unknown figure in Berezite mythology, appearing in almost no tales and worshipped in no major shrines.