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Sonia Delaunay, Hommage à Tristan Tzara, 1956 (executed in 1967), Kunsthalle Emden. Photo from September 2023.

Aya and Shala: divine wives

F. A. M. Wiggermann’s drawing of a cylinder seal depicting Shala A topic often afforded little space in popular reference works about Mesopotamian mythology are the spouses of major deities. While it’s true that many of them are rather colorless compared both to their husbands and to “independent” female deities (such as Inanna, Ninkarrak or Ishara), blanket statements about this entire category are an oversimplification, and in particular assigning the antiquated and nebulous labels of “mother goddess” or “fertility goddess” to the likes of Aya is beyond baffling. In the following article I’ll try to fill this gap in general awareness of mesopotamian mythology by providing information about two particularly notable members of this category - Aya and Shala, including the reasons behind their popularity, the meaning of their names, and more. Two factors were responsible for these choices: first of all, they were genuinely the most popular and major among the various nebulous divine spouses; secondly, they have well defined iconography, something I can’t say about many of their peers.

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