Deity

Sausga

Hurrian Deities

The Hurrian goddess of love, war and healing, better known by her Akkadian and Hittite name Shaushka, and identified across the region with Ishtar of Nineveh, whose great temple was a Hurrian cult centre before it became Assyrian. She appears androgynous in some iconography and is regularly served by two named handmaidens, Ninatta and Kulitta, musicians who accompany her wherever she goes. Her best known appearance is in the Kumarbi Cycle's "Song of Ullikummi", where she goes down to the sea and tries to seduce the stone giant Ullikummi with music and her own beauty in order to save Teshub, only to learn that the creature, grown from stone, is deaf and blind and cannot be moved by any of it, a failure that forces the other gods toward a different plan entirely.

Facts

Function

Domain / Function

Love and desire 1

Attributions

Mythic Association

The "Song of Ullikummi", part of the Hurrian Kumarbi Cycle: Sausga's failed attempt to seduce the deaf, blind stone monster Ullikummi in order to protect Teshub, a scene that turns on her usual power over gods and mortals alike proving useless against a being carved from stone rather than born. 1

Identity

Gender

Female 1

Origins

Origin of the Name

Shaushka's name is built on a Hurrian root and is usually translated "the great one" or "the magnificent," most likely beginning as a title of high rank before becoming her proper name. 1

Cult

Attributes and Iconography

Frequently shown winged and armed, sometimes with androgynous features, attended by her two handmaidens Ninatta and Kulitta, who carry musical instruments associated with her cult. 1

Belief

Theology

Polytheistic: many gods 1

The Hurrian goddess of love, war and healing of the Kumarbi Cycle, matching the reading already carried by Kumarbi for the same pantheon.

Attestation

Veneration Today

Historically attested; no continuous cult 1

Historicity

Historically attested 1

Correspondences & Relations

Pantheons

Hittite

Connections

Associated With

Akkadian

This source names Akkadian directly: "war and healing, better known by her Akkadian and Hittite name Shaushka, and identified across the region with Ishtar of Nineveh, whose great temple was a Hurrian cult centre before it became..."