Samnuha

Samnuha or Samanuha was the tutelary deity of Shadikanni (Šadikanni; modern Tell 'Ağağa) in the lower Habur area.¹ It is generally accepted that he had Hurrian origin.² It is assumed that Šamanminuḫi, a god known from a treaty of Shattiwaza, is the same deity.²³ In this document, he occurs before "Teshub, lord of Washukanni," and after KASKAL.KUR.(RA).⁴

Bel-Eresh, a ruler of Shadikanni who was a contemporary of Ashur-resh-ishi I,⁵ renovated the temple of Samanuha and a deity identified by Stephanie Dalley as Kubaba, the Hurrian goddess of Carchemish,⁶ but whose name was actually spelled ^dGu-ba-ba.² Whether Gubaba, known also from the Assyrian Tākultu ritual, and Kubaba were the same deity is uncertain, and there are also proposals that this name refers to a masculine deity similar to either Nergal or Amurru.⁷

Many attestations of Samanuha come from neo-Assyrian sources.² He appears in an inscription of Ashurnasirpal II, where he is acknowledged as the personal god of the provincial governor Mushezib-Ninurta,⁸ the son of a ruler of Shadikanni who bore the theophoric name Samanuha-shar-ilani.² He continued to be worshiped in Shadikanni at least until the ninth century BCE.⁹ He is also attested as one of the Hurrian deities from Taite (originally a major Mitanni city⁴) in Tākultu, alongside Kumarbi and Nabarbi.¹⁰

Personal names attest that Samanuha continued to be worshiped at least until the Achaemenid period.²