Ašnan and Ezina Meaning: The Mesopotamian Grain Goddess

Ašnan, also known as Ezina, was the Mesopotamian goddess of grain: not a goddess who looked after the harvest so much as grain itself, personified. The two names were equated by ancient scribes, and she appears in Sumerian literature as one of the gifts that made settled human life possible.

Two names, one goddess

Sumerian lexical lists, as recorded in the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ORACC), equate the divine names Ašnan and Ezina. The same word ezina also means simply "grain, cereals" in Sumerian, and Oxford's Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature calls the goddess Ezina or Ezina-Kusu, "the grain goddess".

Grain and Sheep

Her best-known appearance is in a Sumerian poem Oxford's corpus titles The Debate between Sheep and Grain, called Lahar and Ashnan in older scholarship after its two protagonists. The poem imagines a time before grain and sheep existed, when people went naked and ate grass. The gods create Sheep and Grain and send them down to humankind; the two then argue, at length and with some wit, about which of them is more useful. The debate ends with the gods declaring Grain the greater of the two.

Why grain mattered

Cereal farming underpinned Mesopotamian cities: food, wages, taxes and temple economies all ran on barley. A goddess who was grain therefore stood for something materially essential rather than an abstract idea.

Was Ašnan a fertility goddess?

"Fertility" is a modern summary of her role in the agricultural cycle. The evidence identifies her specifically as grain, which is more precise and more interesting. For a goddess linked with grain through the sky, see Šala, wife of the storm god Adad.

Ašnan in jewellery

An Ašnan or Ezina design references grain, the harvest and the Mesopotamian world of the gods. See the AURYN Ašnan / Ezina charm, or read our guide to Mesopotamian gods and symbols.