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Bizilla (also spelled Bizila) was a Mesopotamian goddess closely associated with Nanaya and like her sometimes listed alongside courtiers of Inanna. However, she is also attested in connection with Ninlil, and it is assumed that she was viewed as the sukkal (attendant deity) of this goddess in Ḫursaĝkalama near Kish.
It has been proposed that similar to Nanaya, who was closely associated with her, Bizilla was regarded as a goddess of love. An Emesal vocabulary composed between 1400 and 900 BCE lists Nanaya's Sumerian equivalent as dNIN.TAG.TAG, Ninzilzil. According to Paul-Alain Beaulieu, the name most likely should be read as Ninzizli, as one document from the Eanna archive adds a gloss to it indicating such a pronunciation: dNIN.TAG.TAGli. Joan Goodnick Westenholz on the basis of the association between Nanaya and both Nanaya and Ninzizil proposed that dNIN.TAG.TAG and dNE.NUN.LAL, and possibly also a number of similarly spelled names, such as dNE.NUN, dNIN.TAG and dNUN.NUN represent two Sumerian goddesses who eventually coalesced and came to be associated with Nanaya. dTAG.NUN has also been interpreted as an alternate writing of the name of the weaver goddess Uttu, though Westenholz did not accept this interpretation.
Bizilla most likely was regarded as the sukkal (attendant deity) of Enlil's wife Ninlil in Ḫursaĝkalama, her cult center located near Kish. In a star list, Bizilla corresponds to the "star of abundance," mulḫé-gál-a-a, which in turn is labeled as the sukkal of Ninlil in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN. In the same source, Bizilla is mentioned alongside Nanaya and her star Corona Borealis, in this text listed among the "palace ladies" of Enlil.
It is assumed that Bizilla in some sources occurs among deities from the court of the prison goddess Nungal, though Jeremiah Peterson considers it possible that there might have been two deities with similar names, one associated with Nungal and the other with Nanaya. He proposes the former was named dNE -zi-il-la. In the two texts in which she appears, the Hymn to Nungal and a fragment describing the journey of this goddess to the underworld in the company of Nintinugga, she is mentioned in connection with Nungal's bed, and in the former she is addressed as the "head barber" ( kindagal).
An explanatory temple list known from Neo-Babylonian Sippar, arranged according to a geographic principle, states that a temple of Bizilla existed in Ḫursaĝkalama. A sanctuary of Bizilla, E-duršuanna (possibly "house, bond of lofty strength"), is also known from a single Neo-Babylonian document, though the restoration of the name is not fully certain, and no location is given. Andrew R. George tentatively proposes identifying it with the nameless temple located in Ḫursaĝkalama, as no other names of houses of worship dedicated to Bizilla are known. A festival held in Babylon in honor of Gula involved Bizila, as well as Ninlil (who alongside her presumed sukkal acted as a divine representative of Kish), Belet Eanna (Inanna of Uruk), Belet Ninua ("Lady of Nineveh") and the deity dKAŠ.TIN.NAM, possibly to be identified as a late form of the beer goddess Ninkasi.
According to the Assyrian Tākultu ritual text, Bizilla, as well as Nanaya and Kanisurra, were worshiped in Bīt-Bēlti.
An Akkadian incantation known from a copy from Ugarit invokes Bizila alongside Gula and refers to her as "lady of relief," be-let tap-ši-iḫ-ti.
dTAG.NUN, according to Joan Goodnick Westenholz possibly connected with Bizilla, had a temple in Umma in the Early Dynastic period, built by king Il. Ninzizli, also linked with Bizilla and Nanaya by Westenholz, is attested in the name of a gate of the temple precinct of Eanna in a document from Neo-Babylonian Uruk.
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