Ninsikila

Initially Ninsikila was considered a god and Lisin a goddess.^[2] However, in texts postdating the Old Babylonian period, and less commonly also in Old Babylonian ones,^[4] their genders could be switched,^[5] and for example in the Middle Babylonian god list An = Anum the former is female and the latter male.^[2] According to Joan Goodnick Westenholz, it is possible that the fact that in Old Babylonian god lists Ninsikila follows Lisin might have influenced the reinterpretation of their identities.^[2] An example of such a text is the Weidner god list, in which Lisin precedes Ninsikila.^[6] According to Piotr Michalowski the same order is attested in all the other known sources which list both of them in sequence.^[7] A second factor might have been the existence of a homophonous, though not identical, goddess Ninsikila,^[2] who was originally known as Meskilak and originated in Dilmun.^[8] While the name Ninsikila can be found in the myth Enki and Ninhursag, it refers to the Dilmunite goddess in this context.^[9]

The change in Ninsikila's gender has been compared to the case of Uṣur-amāssu,^[2] who appears as a male deity in An = Anum, but later came to be viewed as female.^[10]

Thorkild Jacobsen assumed that Ninsikila was worshiped alongside Lisin in Adab.^[11] However, he is not listed among the deities attested in texts from this city from the third millennium BCE in a more recent survey of the local pantheon compiled by Marcos Such-Gutiérrez.^[12]

A diorite bowl from Larsa has been dedicated by a certain Ṣālilum for the life of king Rim-Sîn I jointly to Ninsikila and Lisin, according to Douglas Frayne with the former to be interpreted as a goddess and the latter as a god.^[13] However, according to Gabriella Spada it is also possible that the opposite interpretation is true.^[14]

Ninsikila appears in a magical text from Meturan which also mentions Lisin,^[15] but the passage is considered difficult to explain and might contain references to unknown mythical situations.^[16]